Turkey in Full
by ASLI AYDINTASBAS
New York Times (Op-Ed), April 6, 2009
As a Turkish journalist who for years covered the United States, I’ve spent the last few days repeatedly answering the inevitable question from my fellow Turks: “Does Washington see Turkey as a moderate Islamic republic?” That description may sound like a compliment to American ears. But in Turkey, it is an outright insult.
Since 2004, when the “moderate Islamic” formulation was innocently introduced by Colin Powell, the American secretary of State at the time, Turks have believed that Washington values Turkey’s religious identity over its secular democracy—that it would rather Turkey become a conservative American ally in the Muslim world than evolve into a European democracy. “Who describes Belgium or Britain as a moderate Christian country?” people ask here. In a nation where the religion-versus-state debate is the hottest topic, secularists have elevated the “moderate Islam” controversy to an all-encompassing theory. They claim that Washington supports—or, at least, that the George W. Bush administration supported—the Islamic-oriented government of the Justice and Development Party so that it might serve as a compliant model to the rest of the Muslim world. (Paradoxically, Islamic fundamentalists also hate the term “moderate Islam,” assuming that it implies a watered-down version of religion.)
Even if the “moderate Islam” conspiracy theorists were off base, it is true that ever since Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan came to power in 2003, Washington has viewed Turkey as a simplistic duality: pious masses led by the Justice and Development Party against the small secular elite and the military. As Americans banked on the government’s electoral majority, they lost touch with the rest of the population. No doubt President Obama was briefed, just as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was before she came here last month, to never speak of “moderate Islam.” And he hasn’t so far. In fact, he has done the opposite. The new American president—whose dark skin and Muslim middle name of Hussein have made him a folk hero here—went out of his way on Monday to acknowledge Turkey’s plurality in all its colors, and telling Europe that in welcoming Turkey it would gain “by diversity of ethnicity, tradition and faith.” Mr. Obama’s visit to Ankara was a carefully calibrated series of messages and symbolic gestures that spoke to Turkey’s different segments. He met with the government leadership as well as opposition leaders from secular, nationalist and Kurdish parties. He pledged to support “Ataturk’s vision of Turkey as a modern and prosperous democracy," as he wrote in the guestbook at the mausoleum of the founder of secular Turkey.
In our eternal identity crisis, we Turks have lately been thinking only in opposites—that you are either secular or religious, Kurd or Turk, European or Middle Eastern. It took a young foreign leader on his first visit here to remind us that we are all of those things, and much more.
It wasn’t all roses, of course. In his speech to Parliament, President Obama urged Ankara to face up to the mass killings of Armenians in 1915, something most voters here object to. And Mr. Obama’s brief mention in Parliament that Turkey should undertake further democratic reforms seemed insufficient. Since 2007, Prime Minister Erdogan has become more authoritarian, lashing out at his critics, suing journalists and alienating liberal Turks who once supported him. Last Sunday, voters in municipal elections delivered a serious warning: the party’s overall support fell to 39%, from 47% two years ago. The elections revealed a divided map, four different Turkeys: the liberal coastline, the conservative inland, the ultra-nationalist middle and the Kurdish nationalist southeast. The Justice and Development Party will grow when it embraces all Turkey’s colors and shrink as it denies them.
It is wonderful that the president reminded Europeans that Turkey’s place is in Europe. But let’s hope he also reminds Turks that getting there requires more tolerance and reform. This trip will undoubtedly improve America’s popularity in the Muslim world—with Mr. Obama’s scheduled visit to the Blue Mosque here on Tuesday likely resonating far beyond Turkey’s borders. But so far, it has been all about us—our own democracy struggling between Europe and Islam.
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Asli Aydintasbas is a former Ankara bureau chief of the newspaper Sabah.
, you can't ignore historical context.
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