November 2006
On my first trip to Turkey in July, I spent much of my first day comparing everything I saw to my memories of other countries. Driven on a highway from the airport to a home just outside Istanbul, my excitement bubbled at being someplace new and far away. A city girl myself, there was a comfort that settled in upon seeing familiar city scenes. In fact, many things I encountered the first day felt familiar: The cobblestoned winding streets and stone buildings with shops on the street level could have been those of Italy; the family home I entered with western furniture, mementos from family trips on the shelves, and a TV in the den could have been England; the family I stayed with, dressed in western clothing, serving homemade jam and coca cola at the kitchen table could have been from Switzerland. But as day break lurked on my first morning there, I was awoken by the call to prayer; it was a beautiful sound, a wholly foreign sound -- long and clear, that echoed in the twilight of the empty streets. It was a reminder that I slept and awoke in a world rooted in an unfamiliar culture; a country pervaded with a long rich and fortified Islamic history.
Turkey is literally where the East and West collide. There is a happy coexistence between a Western lifestyle and the devotion to an Eastern religion. I anticipated a potential tumult in reconciling Muslim ties and European ideals, a potential cerebral tug of war, but instead found a delicate balance. The founder and face of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, bestowed Europe as the ideal in a country where the Islamic religion is present in daily life. He mobilized the Turkish people down a road to full integration with Europe. But, Turks have now reached the end of that road at a fork; possibly earlier than they were ready to; where they must decide to either take the leap to the West or veer back to the East. It is a decision with very final implications and one that must be made by Turkey itself. And whether they take that leap or back away, the decision will throw the fine balance that has become the Turkish people’s identity.
In Turkey, the motivation to make the decision comes from within. The decision poses not only questions about sovereignty and economy but about the Turkish people’s unique identity. The final resolution of Turkey’s dance with the European Union will set the course for the country’s future. With Turkey’s recent refusal to open its ports and bases to Greek Cyprus despite the EU’s indication that doing so jeopardized the nation’s application for entry, Turkey is making clear that joining the EU is not a decision to be made exclusively by the European Parliament. The people of Anatolia, as Turks call their country, are weighing the fundamental decision of whether their future is best served by unmitigated dominion or by integration in the name of progress.
Geographically, nearly three quarters of Turkey’s territory is in Asia. Despite its proximity to the decidedly non-European countries of Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Armenia, Turkey is integrally tied to the history and mythology of Europe. As the city of Constantinople, Istanbul served for nearly 1,000 years as the capital of what remained of the Roman Empire. Despite deep western roots, the religious realm of the people is solely eastern, as ninety-nine percent of Turks describe themselves as Muslim. Their identity is oriented strongly by both the historical interplay with Europe and the prevalent religion of Islam. Though religion is considered a personal matter for most of the population, degree of piousness does seem to translate to political view on the critical question of entrance to the EU: thirty five percent of the country both considers itself very religious and is strongly opposed to joining the EU, as membership would finalize and fortify the government as secular.
One can trace a westernization movement to the days of the Ottoman Empire. But it has become most pronounced since Ataturk founded the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Ataturk spent some of his early military years in Germany and took back with him the ideas of communism, nationalism, and westernization. He used six principles - later known as Kemalism - central to Turkey’s present shape, to reform: a Republican government, the removal of a class-based social system, secularization, the modernization of institutions, a peaceful (anti-imperialist) nationalism, and a state regulated economy. Turkey transitioned with surprising alacrity, adopting German script as the written alphabet and tossing out the Muslim calendar for the Christian. Changes took place away from the Ottoman ways in laws and in everyday life: Women were allowed to work and vote, traditional garments from the burqa to the fez were discouraged, and the water pipe “nargila” quickly fell from favor. Ataturk looked to the West as an ideal and the heads of his loyal people followed, adopting his vision as their own. A middle-aged man on the night train from Pummukale back to Istanbul nodded emphatically when asked whether he would like his country to be part of the EU, with an expression that said “of course.” His wife sat next to him, dressed in western clothing, and nodded in agreement as her husband explained that the people his age have held being part of Europe as the ideal for as long as he could remember.
The possibility of joining the list of countries bound for ever greater union with Europe has been on Turkey’s horizon since 1963, before the EU’s first expansion. The Turkish government has taken some crucial steps in the direction of integration with the EU. Turkey signed a customs union in 1995, giving Turkey a degree of economic integration unique among non-members. A poll at that time showed nearly eighty per cent of Turks supporting the agreement. Agriculture, too, has been reformed by the Turkish government to match EU standards. Meat, for example, can now be exported into EU countries. Neslihan Celik, a 29 year-old veterinarian in Istanbul, informed me that in 2007, Turkey will be allowed to export chicks and eggs. “Other sectors are changing their standards as well,” she said. “The trade agreement has been good for the Turkish economy” and the impacts have resonated positively throughout the population.
Aside from Turkey’s refusal to engage the internationally recognized Cyprus - a large obstacle - the Turkish government is increasingly standardizing their practices and reforming to meet with EU entry requirements. These efforts, while concurrently the population is weighing the potential pros and cons of changes to their country affected by EU membership, some very heavy factors.
With respect to commerce, control over international and domestic trade decisions is understandably equated with sovereignty and identity. Turkey is presently a fully self-sufficient country, producing a surplus of goods which they export to different areas of Europe while charging a healthy export tax that provides a good source of income. Under the EU, there would be no pocket-filling export tax and many trade decisions would be made from Brussels. Markets would become filled with European goods as products would be imported from whichever EU country they could be made the cheapest. However, at present, the Turkish markets are being increasingly flooded with an influx of cheap textiles from China which the government has been unable to regulate – a threat to industry and jobs, and arguably a more dangerous loss to Turkish identity. An upside to EU-controlled markets would include much improved border control and regulation.
Turkey is not just at a crossroads; it is the crossroads. Because of historic ties and a Muslim population, Turkey would be strategically important to the EU and the rest of the world as a bridge between the West and Iran and Iraq. With ties to the U.S., the EU, and Israel as well as Iran, Turkey would serve as an important interlocutor in averting the standoff over Iranian nuclear enrichment. Turkey also plays a potentially large role in controlling the burgeoning chaos in Iraq. With a large Kurdish community and economic ties to Iraq, Turkey could be pivotal in helping determine the course for Iraq and understanding the implications of civil war or a partition.
The Turkish military is central to the decision-making process for both Turkey and the EU. In spite of the strain each additional country adds to the EU’s ability to legislate, despite reluctance of many Europeans to accept Turkey as European, few dispute that as a member, Turkey’s geographic location and military strength could be of great strategic benefit to the EU. But to complicate matters, for this very reason the EU wishes to admit Turkey, Turks are disinclined to join.
Surrendering sovereignty over Turkey’s military decisions poses a great barrier in the minds of the Turkish people. Constitutionally, Turkey will not enter into any conflict that does not threaten its borders, which EU membership could require it to do. Additionally, it is crucial to the EU’s democratic requirements for the military to be run by civilians, and for the military to stay out of political affairs. Historically and at present, the military in Turkey plays a large and encompassing role in governing. The military is part of her national identity as the guardians of Kemalism and the Turkish secular political order. It has been Turkey’s most trusted institution, as it has long adeptly reflected public opinion. Ataturk used the military to help create the Turkish Republic while ensuring that once created, the military would retain a prominent role. All men enter into the military when they turn 18 for 15 months, reduced from 18 months two years ago, and any man can be called to fight for his country or to overthrow an antagonistic Turkish government - something they have done four times over the last 40 years due to perceived government Islamist modus operandi. Military leaders meet with the Turkish president once a month to dictate policy. They are in non-defense related government bodies, providing military oversight. Recently, in the guise of meeting European democratic requirements, The Grand National Assembly reformed by decreasing the military’s strength and influence to a degree. Despite the threat of decreasing power and some dragging of feet, the military is in favor of EU membership, in solidarity with Ataturk’s grand vision.
With regard to what is referred to as the “Kurdish problem:” Since before the time of Ataturk, Kurdish people have lived in south eastern Turkey. For decades, Kurdish guerrillas have staged attacks on Turkish soldiers. The Kurdistan Workers Party, “PKK,” has been fighting for an independent Kurdish nation on Turkish territory. Eventually, Ataturk promised the East that they would be given a Kurdistan. The failure to follow through is today blamed on Ataturk’s entrusted successors. Since the start of the war in Iraq, there has been a new influx of Kurdish people, looking to escape and seeking land. Adopting and reckoning with the Kurdish problem has been hard for Europeans to swallow and is a point on which the Turkish people staunchly will not budge. As I watched the news in Istanbul, a young woman, Hande Sumer, talked to me about the killing of soldiers and police in the south east by the PKK on a nearly daily basis. “It is impossible to get land from Turkey” she said proudly; “we will never give them permission.”
Outside the educated elite and the government, the Turkish population is largely concerned about the issue of joining the EU in the practical sense of how it would affect their daily lives and standards of living; they are considering efficacy and progress. Murat Deniz, a tour guide at Gallipoli – the site of legendary WWI battle between the Turkish and Australian armies –says that joining the EU would be beneficial because EU membership means more accountability. The government began improvements on the roads Murat drives daily at the site but the project was done cheaply and was never completed. “There is much infrastructure and projects incomplete [in Turkey] because no one can make them finish,” he said. “There is a lot of government corruption and many times citizens are not held accountable for their actions.” Infrastructure, modernization, and development would be done more efficiently and with more accountability under the EU’s umbrella. When asked, many are annoyed about the haphazard manner of improvements from their well meaning government, and others shrug; as any proud people would when used to their way of life, some hold the attitude “there may be inefficiencies and shortcomings but they are our inefficiencies and our shortcomings.”
For the better part of the last century, the majority of Turks have actively wanted to become part of Europe. One of the most important factors for EU entry to become a reality is strong support from the Turkish population. And now, for the first time in over 50 years, with heavy weights on both sides of the scale, the people have begun to waver. A recent poll shows decline in support for membership from 74 percent in 2003 to 58 percent this year. The middle-aged Turks, having grown up with daily doses of Ataturk doctrine, are as enthusiastic as ever that joining with Europe is the ideal. But the young are not so resolute. There is a small group of well-informed anarchists who have held anti-EU protests in Istanbul. The vocal anarchists are a narrow slice of the population, but their target demographic is enormous, and numbers of those with an open ear to their ideas are growing. Approximately 70 percent of Turks are under age 30, and a growing number of educated youths are taking note of adverse economic and social affects suffered in recently added countries of Eastern Europe when trying to fulfill the criteria for EU membership. They have begun to consider the possibility that a self-sufficient Turkey may be better off independent. In a possibly telling reversion back to Ottoman ways, Turkey’s youth are not only returning to the constitutionally outlawed burqa and head scarves and cultural items such as the nargila, but are also acquiring a state nationalism of the sort that shuns meddling from the outside.
Significantly, a pro-Islamic Prime Minister was elected in 2003. Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the second in a line of pro-Islamic PMs elected since the Republic was formed. One of the most popular politicians in Turkey, Erdogan formed the Justice and Development Party, after his previous party, the Welfare Party, was declared unconstitutional on the grounds of threatening the secular nature of the state. Surprisingly, the Turkish parliament amended the constitution by allowing Mr. Edogan to stand for a parliamentary seat, overlooking his imprisonment for publicly reading an Islamic poem. Prime Minister Erdogan is thus far coexisting well with a skeptical military but his party is placing their own in top jobs and leaning towards a more openly Islamist foreign policy. Although Prime Minister Erdogan has attempted to recast himself as a pro-western conservative, his regime is a strong indication that the devout Muslim Turks are gaining ground after being long overlooked by the state.
Turkey is in a strange, though amicable, isolation at this momentous juncture. There have been no recent alliances with the East as Turkey is viewed by many Muslim countries with more than suspicion: a secular government and a close alliance with the United States have widened the divide. And a strong alignment with the people of Europe has neglected to form because in the eyes of the EU parliament, Turkey on the whole hasn’t reformed fast enough.
For the EU and the West at large, the risk of losing Turkey as a prime example of a liberal, Western-oriented, peaceful and productive Muslim democracy is very great. And yet, too many of EU’s leaders are giving the impression that they are not sure they want Turkey ever to join. What the Turkish population needs is unfaltering encouragement, an exact measurement of terrain left to cover and a guarantee if they arrive. The EU’s ongoing demands but no promises approach is driving a young population with a lot of promise to lose hope and turn their attentions within. “They are just playing with us” Hande had said. It would be risky at best for the EU to close its doors, disappoint generations, and hope for the best; EU leaders must ask themselves if Turkey needs to be secured in this large step forward in order not to take a detrimental step back.
If the Europe boat with its western ideals, filled with so much effort and anticipation, disappears over the horizon, can a secular Turkey continue to modernize and reform independently and indefinitely, or was the promise of incorporation with Europe the driving force in shaping the Turkey we see today? For the durable and gracious Turkish people, the decision on integration is all-encompassing; wanting to preserve their identity, the resolution will all but define it.
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