The Gülen Invitation
June 19, 2012 § 4 Comments
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made a big splash last week with his very public (albeit veiled) call for Fethullah Gülen to leave his self imposed exile in Pennsylvania and return to Turkey, and Gülen made just as big a splash with his tearful video announcing that he is staying right where he is. The entire incident was very strange, as it comes on the heels of an increasingly confrontational clash between Erdoğan and the AKP on one side and the Gülenists on the other. The Gülen movement was an early and important supporter of the AKP, but tension has been building between the two camps and is finally out in the open in the fight over Turkey’s special authority criminal courts, which have been the vehicle used to prosecute military officers and journalists and which are presumed to be controlled by Gülenists. Erdoğan has been annoyed since a Gülenist prosecutor attempted to question Hakan Fidan, his national intelligence chief, and a couple of weeks ago the prime minister opined that the special authority courts have gone too far and need to be curbed, accusing them of acting as if they are above the state. This criticism was unmistakably aimed at the Gülenists, and it prompted a furious backlash from the movement. Today’s Zaman, which is the English language version of the Gülen movement’s flagship newspaper, ran two articles recently that were extraordinary in their criticism of Erdoğan and the AKP, blasting the party as authoritarian and accusing it of endangering Turkish democracy. From a paper that has spent the five years since its founding boosting Erdoğan and the AKP relentlessly, this is a remarkable turn of events.
Against this backdrop came Erdoğan’s invitation for Gülen himself to come back to Turkey. The timing seems strange, and there are a lot of theories flying around as to why he did it. It might have been to demonstrate that, rifts with the Gülen movement aside, Erdoğan is still on good terms with Gülen himself; or to highlight Erdoğan’s self-confidence; or to begin repairing the divide between the AKP and the Gülenists. I, however, have a different theory. Ever since Fidan was targeted, Erdoğan has been pushing back strongly against what he sees as a movement that has grown too big for its britches. In a major show of power, the government last week abruptly removed the chief prosecutors from the Ergenekon, Sledgehammer, and soccer match-fixing cases – all of which have been driven by Gülenists – and reassigned them to different posts. While the three were all technically promoted, the message sent was crystal clear: the AKP, and not the Gülen movement, controls Turkey, and this includes the police and the judiciary, which are Gülen strongholds. Erdoğan also threatened to eliminate the special authority courts entirely, and has recently been standing up for the military, which is the béte noire of the Gülen movement.
I think that Erdoğan’s invitation for Gülen to return was an effort to put Gülen himself squarely in the prime minister’s crosshairs. It is difficult to target a phantom presence, and Erdoğan’s confidence and position as the colossus of Turkish politics leaves him unable to abide the power, whether real or perceived, of a legendary imam who is basically untouchable at this point. If Gülen returns to Turkey, much of his mystique evaporates, and it lets Erdoğan tackle him on more equal footing. Gülen will be out in the open and viewed as a normal (while still revered) public figure, subject to political caricature and debate. Erdoğan knows that he cannot really tangle with Gülen while he is in seclusion in the Pennsylvania woods since it risks debasing the prime minister’s image and won’t get him anywhere, but a Gülen who is back in Turkey is a different matter. This is why Erdoğan wants him back in Turkey, and why Gülen will never consent to returning. Erdoğan’s invitation was a poison pill, designed to mortally wound Gülen if he accepted it. It was a typically clever political move by Erdoğan, and combined with the other shots he has taken recently at the Gülen movement, it puts them on notice that he is not to be trifled with. It is understandable that the Gülenists have been spinning this as a sign of the deep respect that Erdoğan has for Gülen, and the prime minister is smart not to contest that interpretation of events, but viewed in context with chain of events from the past few months, I think that Erdoğan wants to take the leap from criticizing the Gülenists to challenging their spiritual leader as well. If Gülen ever returns to Turkey, it makes that possibility ever so much easier.
Coup Country
April 16, 2012 § Leave a comment
Following the arrest of the generals involved in the 1997 “post-modern coup” that toppled Necemttin Erbakan’s government and outlawed his Refah Party, Erdoğan yesterday declared the era of military coups over and said that Turkey is no longer a “coup country.” While this appears to be a dangerous prediction given Turkey’s history, the purging of generals and the prosecution of officers as part of the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer investigations, along with the trials for the September 12 and February 28 coup plotters, means that Erdoğan is probably right. The military is no longer in a position to overthrow the government and was badly exposed when it tried unsuccessfully to intimidate the AKP from appointing Abdullah Gül as president, and the various reprisals it has suffered over the past few years are going to have the intended effect of keeping the officers in their barracks.
Few people will argue that this is a bad thing. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, civilian control of the military is a hallmark of democracy and Turkey has finally established true vertical accountability. At the same time, Erdoğan must not use his newfound unfettered power to create a different type of problem for Turkey’s democracy. While military interference in democratic politics is a bad thing, so is using democratic institutions to advance creeping authoritarianism. Worrisome signs abound, including the fact that the investigations into the military have been trumped up and relied on forged documents, and opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has denounced the recent arrest of the February 28 generals as motivated by a desire for revenge. After all, Erdoğan was a Refah member and a disciple of Erbakan, and the harsher restrictions placed on public displays of religion following the coup must have rankled Erdoğan personally. Now that the military is out of the picture as a constraint – and Erdoğan’s declaration of Turkey being coup proof indicates that he himself now feels that his freedom of movement is unrestrained by the army – it is crucial that the temptation of bending the rules to make the AKP a permanent ruling party is avoided. Turkey has made great strides in some areas, such as empowering the ability of Turks to participate in democratic politics with an increased voice on constitutional issues, and now that the structural constraint of military oversight is gone, it will be an encouraging sign for Turkey’s democratic future if the government does not now overreach and crack down further on groups that present challenges to its rule, real or perceived.
The Başbuğ Trial and Government Overreach
March 29, 2012 § Leave a comment
Former Turkish Chief of Staff Ilker Başbuğ’s trial is underway, and he made headlines on Tuesday by walking out of the courtroom after denouncing the entire proceedings as a sham and as a black stain on Turkey’s reputation. It probably did not help matters that the court is actively trying to appeal to the darker side of public sentiment by asking its very first question about a picture of Başbuğ in Israel at the Western Wall, as if this is somehow ipso facto proof of his guilt. Başbuğ is determined not to go down quietly, and his lack of reticence may highlight the fact that the government went too far in charging him and mark the beginning of a shift in the power imbalance that has developed between the civilian government and the army. This piece in Hurriyet is a good rundown of the various absurdities contained in the Başbuğ indictment, from conflicting claims as to the general’s place within Ergenekon to lack of evidence to support the charge of violence to whether the allegations even support the ultimate indictment.
Up until this point, however, such inconveniences have not prevented Turkey’s generals from being convicted and imprisoned. Aside from Başbuğ, prosecutors yesterday asked from 15-20 years for 365 officers who are Sledgehammer suspects, and half of all of Turkey’s admirals and 10% of its active duty generals are already in prison on charges of conspiring to overthrow the AKP government. The government has eviscerated the power and authority of the military and jailed generals almost at will, and there is no question that Erdoğan and other top officials clearly have the upper hand over the military. This is not generally a bad thing, as complete vertical accountability – in which there is no unelected official or group at the top that has the final say in state affairs – is a requirement of true democracy, but the pendulum has shifted so far in the government’s direction that few take the slew of allegations against members from every branch of the Turkish armed forces as legitimate. Indeed, it is almost certain that the Sledgehammer documents were forged but up until this point the government has not faced any real consequences or pubic outcry for its actions against military officers that are clearly trumped up.
With Başbuğ, however, the government went after its biggest target to date and it may have committed a bad misstep. If Başbuğ continues to push back hard against the legitimacy of the charges against him and even the authority of the special court set up to try him (rather than the Supreme State Council), it might be a turning point in the government’s efforts to root out military plots, imagined or otherwise.
