THE HOLY COW DEMOCRACY
In 1923 Turkey was very much behind the European powers technically and otherwise. Ataturk thought that the survivability of the new republic depended on developing it to Europe’s level. He instituted a number of reforms that were carried out as a drastic change during his presidency of 15 years. He knew that drastic change cannot be carried out under full democracy, because human nature does not like change. Thus, they were carried out under a one party government, by a revolutionary parliament. In 1950 more parties were permitted. Thus, real democracy took roots in Turkey.
I would like to mention the development of Russia and China as more recent examples. When the USSR lost the Cold War and disintegrated, it was proven that the communist system does not work. Both Russia and China wanted to change to the Capitalist system. Russia under Gorbatchev wanted to introduce both democracy and capitalism at the same time. The change from communism to capitalism constituted very drastic change and under democracy people did not change, it turned into a mess. They have now neither full democracy nor full capitalism.
The Chinese were much smarter. They kept their authoritarian regime and introduced capitalism. They are being very successful. Their economy has tremendous growth, many Chinese became very wealthy. Democracy might come some day to an educated and industrialized China and will be no problem. By then the drastic change would have been completed.
The above three cases prove that democracy, that Westerners almost worship, is not useful during drastic change. In spite of this brief history of democracy, many people in Europe and in this country consider democracy like a holy thing and consider it as a super-criterion, much more important than independence and laicism.
Ataturk wanted Turkey to be as survivable as Europe or the United States. He found that one important problem of the Ottoman Empire was Islam. A modern person could not live by the Sharia, the canonic religious laws, so he abolished the Caliphate, outlawed the Sharia part of the Koran and separated religion from state, the way French do. While in U.S. society, state and religion are co-equal and separated, they both co-exist in the public realm. That is called “secularism.” In the French system no religion is allowed in the public realm. That is called “laicism”. In Turkey religion is a personal thing and the laws ensure full religious freedom under Turkish law. Laicism is written in the Turkish Constitution and is as holy as the republic. It cannot be changed, it cannot be even discussed, because laicism is believed to insure survivability in the modern world. Also it is believed that there can be no democracy without laicism in a Moslem society. The Turkish military is specifically charged by the constitution with preserving the Laic Republic. Militaries in Western countries do not have such duties, because the civilians do not mess their country, do not trample on their constitution, and they don’t live in Moslem societies, so their militaries do not need to interfere.
In Turkey, in 2002 an Islamist party, the AK Party, came to power by promising to abide by the laic constitution. They did some good in the economy, improved the economy, abated the inflation, but they slowly started to nibble on laicism. Although their portion of the vote was about 34 %, they obtained most of the seats in the parliament, because the many laic parties could not pass the 10 % threshold. Now a new president of the Republic must be elected and a staunch Islamist may be elected by the parliament. The present President is a staunch laicist. He vetoed any law that was anti-laic. The new Islamist president would not do that. Thus, the people are opposed to the election of an Islamist President. Lately, the attacks on laicism have increased. When mild warnings did not do the job, the military announced a written warning, that was a typical ultimatum to the ruling AK Party. Of course nothing else will happen, if the government makes the required corrections according to the constitution. The question is: Will they be wise enough to make those corrections?
Immediately the European Union (EU) protested and accused the Turkish military of destroying Turkish democracy. That is typical ignorance of the Turkish system. Any way Turkey has lost its hope to ever becoming a member of the EU and the European protest will probably be ignored. It is absolutely unwise to prevent Turkish military to take action to preserve laicism in Turkey. That is tantamount to making Turkey weaker, less survivable. Would Europe prefer to see Turkey becoming an Islamic republic? Democracy is of course important, but not as important as the Laic Republic. Also, without laicism there can be no democracy. In Turkey Laicism is holier than democracy. Yet, the millions of Turks gathering to protest in Ankara and in Istanbul, did so as perfect democrats. The majority of them were women who did not want to live under Islamic rule. These meetings were followed by other huge meetings in Canakkale, Manisa, Marmaris and Izmir.
On May 1, 2007 The Turkish Constitutional Court annulled the election of a president on the basis of the parliamentary quorum. No presidential election should proceed unless there are 376 parliamentarians in the room. There were not that many during the election, because the main opposition party had boycotted the session. On May 6 Dr. Gul withdrew his candidacy from the presidential election. Now, a general election will be held as soon as possible. On May 10, the Parliament passed a law that will change the way a republic president is elected. This time he will be elected directly by the people, that is, if President Sezer approves it.
I am surprised to see the American press criticizing the Turkish military to warn the Islamist government. The unspoken agenda of that government is to convert Turkey to an Islamic republic. Is that what our press would like to see? The articles published in Washington Post do not only praise the Islamist government, but smear the millions of democratic demonstrators in Ankara, Istanbul, Canakkale, Manisa, Marmaris, and Izmir. One article by Claire Berlinski states that these people are not liberal, not democratic, and not friendly to the West. Let us start with the Islamist government. It is not as angelic as Ms. Berlinski portrays it. In many small towns, it has converted the bus or street car service to seat men and women separately, it is building parks and beaches for women only, it is forbidding the sale of alcoholic drinks in many places and testing how the people react. It has enriched itself by forcefully overtaking successful businesses. It has accepted all the unacceptable conditions demanded by the EU, that wanted to have Turkey reject the conditions. It would have done a lot more damage to the country if it was not for the fear of the military. It accepted President Bush’s idea of becoming a “Mildly Islamic” country in his Greater Middle East Project. It should have known that it swore on its honor to uphold the constitution that defines Turkey as a laic state. As there is no such thing as a mildly pregnant woman, there is no such thing as a mildly Islamic state. Also, a state cannot be Islamic and laic at the same time. President Bush who is himself very religious, loved it. Yes, “It has gone too far”. That the millions of demonstrators are not liberal or democratic is plain hogwash.
Turkey has a liberal economy and one cannot be more democratic than those people who demonstrated absolutely peacefully all over the country. About not being friendly to the West, that is partly true because the West has not been friendly to them. Here I would like to make a distinction. They may be unfriendly to some Western states but they are full of Western ideals. They are Western people. A country that has been treated like a Pariah and humiliated by the EU cannot be expected to love European states. As long as President Bush’s armed forces protect the PKK terrorists in Northern Iraq, and allows them to kill Turkish soldiers, without allowing the Turkish Army to make a hot pursuit into Northern Iraq, as long as flag-draped soldiers’ coffins keep on coming to Turkish villages, no one can expect them to be friendly to us. Ms. Berlinski was smearing salt on an open wound.
Written by : Orhan Tarhan
(Mr. M. Orhan Tarhan was born in Istanbul, Turkey, where he made his high school education in Turkey’s elite boarding school “Galatasaray”. He won a competitive examination that sent him to his chemical engineering education in Germany between 1937 and 1943. All his professional life he worked for steel industries, as operating engineer in a coke plant in Turkey and after 1953 as research engineer in charge of coke plants in the United States. He published several technical articles, 16 U.S. and foreign patents, and a book titled “Catalytic Reactor Design”. At Bethlehem Steel Corporation, where he worked for a quarter of a century, research engineers were trained continuously in technical report writing. After retiring in 1982, he did several years of consulting and he taught one semester of Catalytic Reactor Design at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA. He learned French at 9, German at 16, and English at 24. )
