Turkish Elections Show Shift Towards Islamism, Nationalism

Political Mavens/Jewish World Review ^ | July 30, 2007

[theothercheek]

Last week’s elections in Turkey prompted New York Sun contributing editor Hillel Halkin to recall an article he wrote for the Forward a dozen years ago about evidence he uncovered that Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, was half Jewish (his father being Doenmeh):

Who but a member of a religious minority would want so badly to eliminate religion from the identity of a Muslim majority that, after the genocide of Turkey's Christian Armenians in World War I and the expulsion of nearly all of its Christian Greeks in the early 1920s, was 99% of Turkey's population? …

Halkin was fearful his discovery would cause a popular uprising that would Islamicize the country for good and all:

I could have spared myself the anxiety … As far as I knew, not a single Turk even read what I wrote. And then, a few months ago, I received an e-mail from someone who … had come across my article in the Forward and had decided to do some historical research …

The email concluded with the sentence: "I now know - know (and I haven't a shred of doubt) - that Ataturk's father's family was indeed of Jewish stock."

I haven't a shred of doubt either. I just have, this time, less trepidation, not only because I no longer suffer from delusions of grandeur regarding the possible effects of my columns, but because there's no need to fear toppling the secular establishment of Kemalist Turkey.

It toppled for good in the Turkish elections … when the Islamic Justice and Development Party was returned to power with so overwhelming a victory over its rivals that it seems safe to say that secular Turkey, at least as Ataturk envisioned it, is a thing of the past. …

In Halkin’s view, "[t]he Islamic counterrevolution has won the day in Turkey."

The New York Times also notes ominous gains by the Nationalist Action Party:

The election … gave a substantial victory in Parliament to the governing Muslim pro-Western party, which promised more moderation and prosperity.

But on the margins, more hard-line sentiments surfaced, posing a potential obstacle to this country’s progress.

The Nationalist Action Party, which appeals to voters on the far right, who fiercely defend the integrity of Turkey’s borders, received 14 percent of the vote, enough to enter Parliament after failing in the past election.

The party plays on fears, which reach back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire, that Western powers seek to carve up the country. It gained momentum in recent months when militant Kurdish separatists stepped up killings of Turkish soldiers in the country’s southeast. The recent surge in foreign investment into Turkey’s growing economy is also cause for alarm among its supporters.

"Our country is about to be broken into pieces, and we need to prevent it," said a textile worker, wearing a button-down black shirt in the style of Italian Fascists often worn by hard-line nationalists here. "There are three things — my country, my flag, my prayer. I can’t let anyone touch any of them."

The killings of an Armenian journalist and of three Christian evangelists this year were both nationalist-driven crimes.

But for some unfathomable reason, The Wall Street Journal appears to believe that Turkey can stand to become more Islamic – and even offers Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan advice on how to ease the country’s women back into headscarves:

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) won 46.6% of the vote, up 14 percentage points from the 2002 poll. In its wisdom, however, the electorate also put a check on the majority by denying the AKP a two-thirds majority to change the constitution. …

Turkey's secular traditions are strong and Kemal Atatürk remains a revered founding father. To be able to tinker with that legacy - say, by lifting the ban on the wearing of headscarves in public buildings - the AKP needs to move gingerly and first build legitimacy and support. …

Turkey is undergoing a political transition that has produced strains with its traditional friends in Europe and the U.S. But thanks to the wisdom of Turkish voters, Ankara's politicians have a mandate for compromise and moderate reform.

So the Islamists are back in power with an even larger margin of victory than before, and Nationalists have gained strength as well. As Turkey gingerly backs away from any pretense of secular democracy, the country’s tiny Christian population will be even more imperiled (second item) than they ever were.

[Celerity]

When are we declaring war against this ?

[theothercheek]

Like the Saudis, the Turks are our “allies.”