TURKPULSE No:42..........JULY 6th, 2001
POLITICAL PARTIES FACE INTERNAL CHALLENGES
The aftermath of the closedown of the FP and the political future of the Economy Minister Kemal Dervis are two big question marks of Turkey’s domestic politics these days. The forthcoming national convention of ANAP is also equally important with the re-election of Mesut Yilmaz as the Chairman a foregone conclusion. That is unless Washington has an unknown new device up its sleeve for Lutfullah Kayalar (ANAP-Yozgat), Yilmaz’s competitor, to get elected, in addition to the methods used for Tansu Ciller’s election as the chairperson of the DYP in 1993. The first test of this American overt intervention in Turkey’s domestic politics, however, will be over the successor to the defunct FP within the next couple of weeks.
The ill effects to Turkey’s political and economic stability by the Constitutional Court’s closedown of the FP have been, by and large, averted thanks to the high court’s decision to attribute the ban to Merve Kavakci’s headscarf (and not to the party’s being a continuation of the banned Welfare Party). This attribution was also an indirect way of expressing Turkey’s disenchantment of Washington’s interferences in this country’s domestic affairs, as Kavakci with her then hidden American passport, was brought to the Turkish Parliament wearing a headscarf. Even though this decision about Merve Kavakci’s headscarved presence in Parliament totally belonged to the ousted leader Necmettin Erbakan, despite his colleagues’ objections before the April 1999 general elections, it is common knowledge that all the political parties in Turkey engage in underhanded contacts with Washington at critical times like elections. With such bargaining, they try to win over its favour or try to neutralise its disfavour. That is why all the parties contain Washington’s favourites among their candidates in prominent positions. PM Ecevit’s parachuting Kemal Dervis to the top of the Turkish economy is the latest example of this unfortunate fact.
Erdogan steps into politics with an unbelievable claim to boot leaking
After President Demirel’s outspoken accusation of “agent provacateur” for the Merve Kavakci affair, the highest judicial organ of Turkey has also based its ban of the party on the attempts made to upset Turkey’s peace with the headscarf in schools, universities, offices and finally parliament. The FP being the focus of these headscarf disturbances, it was banned at a time when everyone, from the Prime Minister to the man in the street, thought that this ban was unwarranted and useless, if not unjust. But contrary to the indictment of the previous Prosecutor of the Republic, Vural Savas, the Supreme Court did not rule to oust a big number of FP rulers from parliament, but ousted only two FP parliamentarians who had directly been involved in the Merve Kavakci affair. Thus it saved the country from early elections or by-elections at such a critical time of a serious financial crisis.
This verdict by the Supreme Court has inadvertently facilitated the activities for splintering in the FP because this Islamist party guided by its uncontested leader Necmettin Erbakan was very much in Washington’s bad books for decades. It was known that the Americans were preparing an alternative to Erbakan to lead the ultra conservative religious groups and this alternative appeared at the 1994 local elections with the election of Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the Mayor of Istanbul from total obscurity as a politician.
A popular joke of the cold war period goes that some western observers were taken to the museum in Moscow and faced two big photographs hung up on the wall. They asked their Russian escort who they were. He said, “This is Boris Popov, the inventor of electricity, radio, television, aircraft …” And the other? “Oh, that is Ivan Sergeyev. He invented Boris Popov.”
That Washington invented and is now “marketing” Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the new leader of the religious fundamentalists in Turkey is obvious, but what Erdogan will invent to disturb Turkey’s democratic, secular and social State in his new position is anyone’s guess. So far, the headscarf for girls in offices and schools is known. The other is Erdogan’s advice to the people to use the minarets as bayonets, the domes as helmets, the praying faithful as soldiers and mosques as barracks for their potential Islamic uprising in his disturbed mind. The rest of his plans and intentions is still a mystery.
His followers have propagated that he had the support of the military because he had given the commanders an assurance that he would not go against the Constitution’s secularism principle, but the TGS (the Turkish General Staff) has already categorically denied it. Besides, there is nothing new in the fundamentalists’ claim of loyalty to secularism, because they have their own definition of secularism, be they followers of Erbakan or Erdogan. They do not define or regard secularism as non-interference of religion in politics, but as a full freedom of religion. Under this definition, no one should interfere in women’s headscarves in schools or offices- a definition rejected once again by the top judicial organ of Turkey.
Even though Erdogan is still an unknown person to most people, the American Disinformation Mechanism is a perfect device to put him in the spotlight and discover his intentions. It is difficult to imagine reputable newspapers of Britain or the United States such as The Times or the New York Times (and not the tabloid press) giving top priority with banner headlines on the first page that PM Blair or President Bush used to kiss their fathers’ feet to appease them when they were children. The most reputable newspaper of Turkey, Milliyet, did so on Wednesday (4th) about Erdogan. Only a person with a totally disturbed mind like Erdogan and the misguided Disinformation Mechanism unaware of Turkey’s realities can resort to such a humiliating claim, simply they think they can cash in votes that way.
In his ultra luxurious palaces, the Pope’s washing someone’s foot and kissing it may be necessary for him to manifest a bit of modesty, which is a virtue in any religion, but a devout Muslim hardly needs such demonstrations because he already manifests this modesty, indeed submission to God, on every occasion by putting his forehead on the ground before God several times a day during the Namaz. In fact, Islam means submission in Arabic. Kissing the foot is not a sign of modesty or respect, but of subservience in Islam and no father who teaches foot kissing to his son would stand any chance of success in politics in Turkey, any more than his son would. It is a pity that a good newspaper like Milliyet is now becoming a tool of these humiliating and stupid disinformation tactics.
Fabricated opinion polls at the service of disinformation
The reputable Milliyet staged on June 27th, 2001 another masterpiece of disinformation on the same topic. The newspaper’s research company, A&G, carried out a “giant opinion poll” on June 24-25th, 2001 in the ten biggest provinces to announce to the world that “74.4% of the FP followers want Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the leader of the party and only 14.4% favour the Hodja (Erbakan).”
According to the survey carried out on 822 people by 600 questioners, “the leader of the Milli Gorus (National Outlook), Necmettin Erbakan, has been eliminated from this position with his 32 years of standing as the leader.”
It is not important if it is a genuine survey or a total fabrication (most probably the former) this report, as a source of reliable information, is not worth the paper it is written on. Still it provided enough material to several columnists, including several responsible ones, for writing long articles about Erbakan’s and his “traditionalist” followers’ forthcoming downfall and Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s certain victory as the leader of the “moderates”.
The reality, however, is far from this claim and it will be seen before long that the “Erdemliler” (Virtuous) movement led by Erdogan will fade away at the first general elections. The Erbakan group have already carried out surveys among their key supporters both in Turkey and Europe, mostly Germany, and came to the conclusion that there is no serious threat to their new party that will be legalised within a fortnight. Its leader will probably be Recai Kutan as he steered the FP quite well as a moderate leader and was not banned from politics in the Constitutional Court’s final verdict.
At the moment, last minute efforts are exerted to prevent this splintering in the religious party, but it is already too late as the Erdogan faction has gone too far in its preparations to be the successor to the FP probably under Bulent Arinc. Their tactic is to keep Abdullah Gul in the background to win over fresh adherences to the movement. Whether Erdogan himself will be able to lead this movement officially is not certain. Kutan and most people believe that like Erbakan’s, Erdogan’s five-year ban from active politics, is continuing.
No matter who leads Erdogan’s new party, it will have showy demonstrations and an unprecedented publicity campaign in its favour and the opposite will be the case for the “traditionalist”. But when the election time comes, the political activities, run in accordance with Turkey’s usual methods, will carry the day in the end. It will most probably not even be necessary to wait for the elections. The distribution of seats in Parliament among the FP’s 100 seats that are now independent will give the first indication of who will win this competition between Erbakan and Erdogan. If one of the two parties in the offing cannot get more than 20 seats in Parliament it will not be able to form a “parliamentary caucus” and it means that the party is stillborn. That is why the “Erdemliler” are now focusing attention on getting adherences from other parties’ dissidents and independents, in addition to the former FP parliamentarians.
As for Kemal Dervis’s future in politics, it seems that he will not easily leave the country to return to the United States in frustration. He will fight his way in politics, but probably the Americans themselves have not yet decided in what way. According to the Turkish press, American diplomats are touring the country to take the pulse of the people about Dervis’s future in politics before they draw up their future plans about it. uras@ada.net.tr - July 6th, 2001