Abortion And The Americanization of Turkish Politics
May 30, 2012 § 2 Comments
A politician blasting the media for keeping alive a story that he believes should be put to bed, courting controversy in order to change the topic from one that is politically damaging to one that is potentially more favorable, curtailing women’s rights in order to appeal to more socially conservative voters, using abortion as a wedge issue…I’m pretty clearly describing American presidential politics in the 21st century, right? In this instance, the above events are taking place in Turkey and are being orchestrated by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as a way of changing the conversation away from the Uludere airstrike that killed 34 Kurdish civilians and for which the government has not apologized and has been dragging its heels to investigate. In fact, the Uludere airstrike has been such a thorn in Erdoğan’s side that he has decided instead to start a grand national debate on abortion, which he sees as being far less fraught with danger for him politically and which speaks volumes about the government’s resolve to sweep Uludere under the table.
Erodğan’s frustration at the way the Uludere strike has continued to dog him for months was clearly evident last week, when he said that the government has done all that it can do and that steps to compensate victims’ families amount to a de facto apology (incidentally, Erdoğan has not been willing to grant the same leeway to Israel that he is requesting for himself). He also accused the opposition, the PKK, “Jewish lobbies,” and the Turkish media of unnecessarily keeping the story alive and exploiting the issue, while complaining that the civilian deaths have taken the focus off the fact that smuggling is illegitimate activity (the airstrike victims were smuggling gasoline and cigarettes across the border and were mistaken for PKK terrorists). The day after making these comments to reporters, Erdoğan told those gathered at the AKP’s Women’s Congress that abortion was murder, and that those media members who “live and breathe Uludere” should take note that “every abortion is an Uludere.” Predictably, the controversy has moved away from the Uludere strike itself and is now firmly ensconced on the fact that Erdoğan would compare abortion to civilian airstrike casualties, and Erdoğan ensured yesterday that the conversation would stay on abortion by announcing plans to pass legislation limiting abortion and and possibly prohibiting it altogether along with attacking c-section deliveries as part of a foreign plot to weaken Turkey by limiting its population. Needless to say, the media focus on Uludere is over for the moment.
This is all very smart domestic politics for Erdoğan. While abortion is not such a hot button issue in Turkey as it is in the U.S., taking the stance that he has is a win-win for the prime minister. On the one hand, it is not going to cost him any voters or support since nobody has ever voted for Erdoğan under the illusion that he is a social liberal. In fact, this plays well for his core base of supporters who are socially conservative and economically (neo)liberal; the abortion issue is not going to affect Turkish trade in any meaningful way and it reinforces Erdoğan’s commitment to “traditional” values. In addition, the abortion uproar has been a masterful way for Erdoğan to change the conversation and let him get back to controlling Turkey’s political discourse. Erdoğan’s domination of Turkish politics is no accident and people should not underestimate his political instincts. Using controversy to change the subject, demagoguing opponents, and adopting hardline positions on social issues will be familiar to anyone who follows American politics, and Erdoğan is in many ways an American-style politician. While the Uludere controversy is not dead and buried for good, the recent furor has subsided and it appears that Erdoğan has weathered the storm successfully.
In addition, this whole thing suggests a hardening stance on the Kurdish issue just as the constitutional drafting process is getting underway, which is disappointing to say the least. Erdoğan has held fast to his position that he will not issue an apology over Uludere, and he and members of his government continue to make insulting remarks about the victims and imply that they were connected to the PKK. I and others have noted the importance of dealing with the simmering resentments of Turkey’s Kurdish population in the new constitution by allowing them to become full members of the Turkish polity without forcing them to abandon their language or cultural heritage, and the treatment of Uludere does not inspire confidence that this will be the case. If Erdoğan and the AKP join hands with the MHP in an effort to ram through hardline provisions on the Kurds that do not have the consensus of the entire political spectrum, the new Turkish constitution will eventually come to be as much of an obstacle for Turkey’s further political maturation as the current one.
Religious Minorities and the New Turkish Constitution
May 9, 2012 § 3 Comments
PM Erdoğan caused a stir the other day by giving two speeches in which he called for “one state, one flag, one religion,” which is of course a phrase that does not give comfort to Turkey’s different groups of religious minorities. Hüseyn Çelik and Erdoğan himself both chalked it up as a slip of the tongue, and Erdoğan even called the criticism of him following the remark justified and urged people not to read anything into it, but it is curious that he said it on two separate occasions before two separate audiences. The opposition is going to try to leverage Erdoğan’s comments to raise concerns about his intentions, and the optic of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu meeting with the heads of Turkey’s non-Muslim religious communities yesterday is bound to keep the story alive for a little longer.
I think it likely that it was a mistake and that a big deal should not be made of it, but it does raise the question of how the new constitution is going to deal with religious minorities in Turkey. It is one of the thornier issues that faces the commission charged with drafting the document, although it is also ironically in some ways one of the least pressing given Turkey’s enormous Muslim majority. The original Turkish constitution made no mention of religious minorities at all in an effort to create a new Turkish identity that would subsume all else, and while the AKP has fought for Muslim majority rights when it comes to things like headscarves, it has a more mixed record on religious minority property rights. Erdoğan’s blatant attempt to diminish Kılıçdaroğlu during the last election campaign by constantly bringing up his status as an Alevi was also not an encouraging sign.
There are three basic possibilities. The new constitution might skirt the issue of religion entirely, it might specifically guarantee religious minority rights, or it might enshrine Islam as the sole official religion of Turkey. Certainly Erdoğan’s comments increase fears that this last option is being considered, but I think it to be highly unlikely. The second option has its pitfalls as well though since it touches upon the issue of enumerated rights vs. unenumerated rights; in other words, can we assume that if a specific right is left out that it was done so on purpose and therefore is not meant to exist, or do we assume that any list of rights provided for in the constitution is not an exhaustive list? If rights are specifically provided for, does that mean that only those rights exist and no others? U.S. constitutional law has run into this problem since ratification, and it might be even thornier in Turkey given that Turkish official recognition of only three minority religions – Greek Orthodoxy, Armenian Apostolic Christianity, and Judaism – has historically led to real problems for Alevis, Shia, and others. Whatever ends up happening, it bears close watching even though it does not have the potential to lead to a complete breakdown of the constitutional process like the issues of a presidential vs. parliamentary system or Turkish identity.
FT on Erdoğan
March 29, 2012 § Leave a comment
This is a sloppy sort of reporting/editorializing about trends taking place in Turkey during Erdoğan’s third term so far. It captures the general essence of the fact that there are some disturbing actions the government is taking, particularly in the use of the court system to go after potential political foes and critics, but there are some things in here that made me roll my eyes on both sides of the spectrum. First the line, “Along with a gathering air of authoritarianism, many detect the first whiff of hubris.” Really, FT? The “first whiff of hubris” from Uncle Tayyip is just now being detected? Erdoğan has been wildly successful on many fronts, and when all is said and done it’s tough to argue that he has up until now been anything but a net positive for Turkey, but I think the first whiff of hubris has been in the rearview mirror for a decade.
The real problem in this piece though is the impression given that Turkey was a problem-free democracy before the AKP came to power. The authors use the term “managed democracy” to describe decades of Kemalist-military rule, but this is rather generous. Turkey had some characteristics of a democracy and some characteristics of an autocracy, but the main difference between then and now is that the government’s priorities are different. The old establishment was most concerned with maintaing enforced secularism, whereas the new establishment has other things in mind. Turkey was certainly not a perfect constitutional democracy before 2002 – in fact, many of the thornier issues that Turkey is dealing with today are a direct result of the 1982 constitution. The article notes that Erdoğan’s moves to assert control over the military have “removed a check on executive power, however undemocratic,” but that last clause should not be glossed over as an afterthought. There is a tendency among Western observers to equate secularism with democracy, but the presence of the first does not guarantee the presence of the second. It’s difficult to take an argument seriously that asserts Erdoğan is destroying a heretofore democratic Turkey and that there has been a slide toward authoritarianism when you have a sense of where Turkey was before. I agree that Erdoğan and the AKP are in the midst of taking a series of worrying moves, and that Turkey in many ways is indeed becoming less democratic, but let’s not be blind to the fact that in other ways, the AKP has improved the quality of Turkish democracy. Turkey may yet end up more authoritarian than it was five years ago, but that will only return it to the status quo ante that existed before the AKP was even formed.
