Brookings: Experts - Ömer Taşpınar

Unrest in Turkey: Assessing the Causes and Impact of the Protests

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 16:00:00 -0400

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June 6, 2013
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036

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Last week police in Istanbul raided the encampment of a group of activists opposed to the destruction of a well-liked public park and the construction a new shopping mall in its place. The police’s harsh assault on the demonstrators with tear gas and water cannons backfired, however, and ignited a rapidly-escalating, nationwide protest with calls for the resignation of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The unprecedented expansion of the demonstrations and riots suggests that the outburst of anger and opposition is fueled by more than a simple determination to save a green space in central Istanbul. For many Turks, the unrest appears to be a reaction to the perceived autocratic leanings of the prime minister and resistance to the direction of Turkish democracy, freedom of expression, and the role of religion in society.

On June 6, the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) and the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings hosted a discussion to assess the underlying causes of the recent protests and their likely impact on Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy. Panelists included Brookings TUSIAD Senior Fellow Kemal Kirişci, Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Ömer Taşpınar, Henri Barkey of Lehigh University, and Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations. Senior Fellow Tamara Cofman Wittes, director of the Saban Center, moderated the discussion.

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Turkey's Kurdish Question: A New Hope?

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:00:00 -0400

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March 20, 2013
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Turkey's approach to dealing with its Kurdish minority—the Kurdish question—at home and in the region is once again at a critical juncture. From the prospects for a new constitution to Ankara's Syria dilemma, virtually all the pressing issues facing Turkey have a Kurdish dimension. After the failure of the “Oslo process,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has initiated another round of negotiations, this time called the “Imralı process” and directly involving the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan. The process has been challenging, but extremely cautious expectations and hopes are growing that the rejuvenated process will not succumb to the fate of the previous efforts at solving the Kurdish problem in Turkey.

Given past failures at dialogue and at finding a mutually-acceptable, peaceful, and democratic solution to the problem, how might the “Imralı process” prove different? What do the Kurds of Turkey want? Is the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) ready to meet Kurdish demands? What is Erdoğan’s objective? What are the regional implications? At a time when Syria is in turmoil and Iraqi is facing increasing domestic instability, is a major breakthrough possible?

On March 20, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings (CUSE) hosted a discussion to explore these and other important questions related to Turkey’s Kurdish minority. Featured speakers included Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Ömer Taşpınar, author and journalist Aliza Marcus, and Gönül Tol of the Middle East Institute. Brookings TUSIAD Senior Fellow Kemal Kirişci provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion. The event is part of the TUSIAD U.S.-Turkey Forum at Brookings.

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The Next Phase of the U.S.-Turkey Strategic Partnership

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 14:30:00 -0500

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December 4, 2012
2:30 PM - 4:00 PM EST

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

For decades the United States and Turkey have benefited from a dynamic, multifaceted relationship. President Barack Obama highlighted the importance of this partnership when he traveled to Turkey on his first trip overseas in 2009. Since then, however, the Middle East has undergone a profound transformation, Turkish-Israeli relations have deteriorated, Europe has stagnated under a financial crisis, and the situations in Syria and Iran have become increasingly volatile. Each of these developments has posed challenges for the relationship and raised questions about whether U.S. and Turkish strategic priorities may be diverging.

On December 4, the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at Brookings hosted a discussion exploring U.S.-Turkish relations during President Obama’s second term. Panelists included: Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Ömer Taşpınar; Kemal Kirişci of Boğaziçi University; and Soli Özel of Kadir Has University. Brookings Managing Director William Antholis and Ümit Boyner, chair of the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSİAD), provided introductory remarks. CUSE Director and Senior Fellow Fiona Hill moderated the discussion.

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The Arab Spring and the Kurdish Awakening

Ömer Taşpınar — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0400

“The real fear is not that Syria is dividing. It's that the Kurds are uniting,” Aliza Marcus -- the author of the best book published so far on the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), “Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence” -- argues in a recent article about Kurds in the Middle East. There are approximately 35 million Kurds in the Middle East. Although exact numbers are often disputed it is widely accepted that at least half of the total Kurdish population -- about 15 to 20 million -- live in Turkey. The Palestinians may be the most often proclaimed “nation without a state.” The Kurds, on the other hand, who outnumber the Palestinians by a factor of five, are the most populous such nation in the Middle East.

The concept of a nation-state is of course a Western invention, with relatively recent roots in the 18th and 19th centuries. France, with its famous revolution in 1789, is often considered the textbook example of this European trajectory for nation-state formation. If France is par-excellence the most illustrative European example of a strong nation-state, there is little doubt that the France of the Muslim world is Turkey. The Kemalist revolution modeled itself after the French Republic's anti-clerical laicism and assimilative nationalism. Although France is today far more advanced than Turkey in terms of its democratic evolution, an aversion to religiosity, minority rights, multiculturalism and federalism became common characteristics of both France and Turkey.

The Kurdish challenge to the Kemalist project traumatized Turkey from the early days and continues to do so today. From the Sheik Said uprising in 1925 to the PKK's current struggle for self-rule, the Kurdish question remains the Achilles heel of the Turkish nation-state. Assimilation was probably an easier proposition in the 19th and early 20th century. It became increasingly difficult to assimilate a minority with growing ethnic and political consciousness in the last few decades.

Today, Turks are facing an increasingly nationalist Kurdish generation with growing expectations and aspirations. And Turks know the power of nationalism. They lost their empire because of nationalist minorities determined to establish their own nation-states. Ethnic demands for self-determination, supported by President Woodrow Wilson in the United States, became the nightmare of the crumbling imperial center. It is therefore not surprising that today Ankara is equally alarmed about prospects of Kurdish nationalism and a greater Kurdistan emerging in the region. It is very likely that in the wake of the dissolution of the Assad regime a semi-autonomous Kurdish regional government will be formed in northern Syria. With the presence of the Kurdish regional government in Iraq, a newly formed Kurdish region in Syria, and Iran's own Kurdish region, soon Turkey will see nothing but Kurdish entities at its southern borders.

As Aliza Marcus argues in the foreign policy journal The National Interest: “Ankara, for one, has long worried that what happens to Kurdish minorities in Iraq, Syria or Iran would strengthen Turkish Kurdish separatists or legitimize international calls for Turkey to grant Kurds national rights. Turkey is right to be concerned. After Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003, the creation of a Kurdish federation in northern Iraq reinvigorated nationalist demands by Turkish Kurds, who demanded no less for themselves. (These demands were one reason why in 2005 the PKK abandoned the cease-fire it had called after PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was captured and imprisoned by Turkey in 1999.) If Syrian Kurds win autonomy, Turkey's reasons for denying its Kurdish minority the same will sound specious. After all, it's hard to keep claiming that Kurds don't know what they want -- or don't really want what they say -- if almost one-half of the region's Kurds govern themselves.”

It is time for Turkey to realize that the Arab Spring at its core is a movement for democratic self determination. Such sweeping change in the region was bound to have a major impact on Kurdish demands for self-determination. The emergence of an independent greater Kurdistan is the dream of millions of nationalist Kurds. The only hope for stemming this growing tide in Turkey is to co-opt the Kurds in the framework of federalism and autonomy. This may be a bridge too far for a country that constantly fears dismemberment due to its vivid memories of Ottoman disintegration. Turkey has already given up strict assimilation. But it has yet to adopt genuine multiculturalism. Nothing less than serious steps towards democratization, multiculturalism and federalism will co-opt the Kurdish tide.

Authors

Ömer Taşpınar

Publication: Today's Zaman

Image Source: © Murad Sezer / Reuters

Turkey's Strategic Vision and Syria

Ömer Taşpınar — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in Summer 2012 issue of The Washington Quarterly.

INTRODUCTION

For most of the 20th century, Turkey chose not to get involved in Middle Eastern affairs. During the past decade, however, in a remarkable departure from this Kemalist tradition (based on the ideology of the republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk), Ankara has become a very active and important player in the region. Under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government since 2002, Turkey has established closer ties with Syria, Iran, and Iraq, assumed a leadership position in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), attended Arab League conferences, and contributed to UN forces in Lebanon. It has also mediated in the Syrian—Israeli conflict as well as the nuclear standoff with Iran. Ankara’s diplomatic engagements with Iran and Hamas have led to differences with the United States and Israel, leaving many wondering if Turkey has been turning away from its Western orientation or if it was just a long overdue shift east to complete Turkey’s full circle of relations.

Fundamentally, analysts make a major mistake in analyzing Turkish foreign policy when they speak of a ‘‘pro-Western’’ versus ‘‘Islamic’’ divide in Ankara’s strategic choices. This is an understandable fallacy. Turkey’s population is almost fully Muslim, and the AKP, a political party with Islamic roots, has won consecutive election victories. Many policymakers, analysts, and scholars thus equate the notion of Turkish divergence from the West or the fear of ‘‘losing Turkey’’ with the idea of an Islamic revival. Moreover, this is exactly how some members within Turkey’s Kemalist establishment the military, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) founded by Atatuürk, and the judiciary describe some AKP policies in the Middle East. While the growing importance of religion in Turkey should not be dismissed, such an analysis gives superficial credibility to the fallacy of an ‘‘Islamist’’ foreign policy in Turkey.

But how then should Turkey’s current foreign policy be characterized and understood? To answer this question, one has to look first at the three grand strategic visions that have driven Turkish foreign policy: Neo-Ottomanism, Kemalism, and more recently, Turkish Gaullism. The common denominator of these strategic visions is that they transcend the erroneous narrative prevalent in Western media focusing almost exclusively on the dichotomy between Turkey’s Islamic and secular factions. In particular, the way in which Turkey has handled the continuing implications of the 2011 Arab awakening helps to clarify Turkish grand strategy, or its continuing balancing act among these three strategic visions, as Ankara has faced a more challenging strategic environment, most specifically in its estranged relations with Bashar Assad’s Syria.

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Ömer Taşpınar

Publication: The Washington Quarterly

Image Source: Murad Sezer / Reuters

Despite Warm Official Relations, Turks Remain Anti-American

Ömer Taşpınar — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0400

You must be tired of hearing about this: relations between Ankara and Washington in recent years are at their warmest — in a sort of golden age. It is a “model partnership” or a “strategic alliance” based on mutual interests and values. At a time when Israeli-Turkish relations are at a low, relations with the US remain fabulous despite the presence of the notorious Israeli lobby which is supposedly controlling them.

Why? It depends on who you ask. Some say that it is because of the genuine dialogue between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister RecepTayyip Erdogan. There are some who say, “Obama understands Turkey well because he has his own problems with Israel.” However, there are also some who think that boiling down the state of relations to the personal traits of the two leaders is an oversimplification.

According to the realist perspective on international relations, “Countries don’t have friends, they have interests.” Obama and Erdogan had serious disagreements over Iran only two years ago. Why were they unable to understand each other then? There are two basic reasons why relations improved in 2010. First, Turkey reacted positively to the proposal to install a NATO radar base on its territory. Second, Turkey’s political, strategic and potential military importance has been increasing since the beginning of the Arab uprisings and Syrian crisis. Common interests between two countries are just as important explanatory factors as good relations between the two leaders.

But a paradox remains: despite the smooth US-Turkey relations there is incessant anti-Americanism in Turkey. Indeed, the anti-Americanism that peaked during the Bush Administration continues under Obama.

Sure, everyone wants to send their children to the US for their education and applications for green cards and visas are ever increasing. Nevertheless, serious suspicions and fears of US conspiracies in its regional foreign policies are very much present. Even Obama’s positive image does not help. Thanks to Obama, anti-Americanism seems to have lost its intensity all over the world ... except in Turkey.

Why? It is because anti-Americanism in Turkey is hardwired. We believe that Turkey’s main identity problems have their roots in the US. For example, take our most serious identity problem: the Kurdish issue. No matter who you talk to in Turkey, you can immediately see that, in the eyes of the Turkish public, the US wants a Kurdish state. There is a common perception that Washington supports the PKK and US imperialism seeks to cut Turkey into pieces. This is why, no matter what the US does, it will not be able to get the Turkish public to approve of it.

We have other identity problems too, such as the debate between secularism and Islam. There is a significant segment of the population who believes that it was the US which introduced the concept of “moderate Islam” and created the AKP.

Read the original article in Turkish at sabah.com.tr »

Authors

Ömer Taşpınar

Publication: Al-Monitor

Image Source: Osman Orsal / Reuters

Islamist Politics in Turkey: The New Model?

Ömer Taşpınar — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's Note: The following is a chapter written by Ömer Taşpınar from the book, The Islamists Are Coming: Who They Really Are, co-published by the Wilson Center and the U.S. Institute of Peace.

In the twenty-first century, Turkey is arguably the most dynamic experiment with political Islam among the fifty-seven nations of the Muslim world. It also offers seminal lessons for the Arab world, despite the tense history (especially during the Ottoman Empire) and many differences.

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) went through five incarnations before it found a balance that voters would embrace but the military would also accept, albeit reluctantly. Its evolution reflects how democratic traditions and institutions can both interact with and moderate political Islam, at least in one geostrategic country. In Turkey, a tradition of free and fair elections and capitalism has encouraged Islamic parties to play by the rules. Turkey’s radical secularism, enforced by the military, has also tamed the strident religious dogma that once landed Islamic politicians in trouble—and even in prison.

The AKP is a political party with clear Islamic roots. It pragmatically moved to the center-right over a decade, mainly to escape the fate of its defunct predecessors. The party’s success, however, has had little to do with ideological factors. Turkish voters have been primarily concerned with bread-and-butter issues. In June 2011, they once again voted for political stability and rewarded Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for the country’s growing prosperity and better social services, particularly in health care and housing.

The victory for the AKP was historic. It was only the second time since the beginning of Turkey’s multiparty democracy in 1946 that a political party had won three consecutive elections. And it was the first time that a party actually increased its percentage of the vote at each succeeding election. The AKP received 34.28 percent of the vote in 2002. It won 46.58 percent in 2007. And it scored 49.90 percent in 2011.

It was a striking reversal. All previous Islamist parties in Turkey had been shut down by either military intervention or rulings by the constitutional court: The National Order Party, founded in 1970, was banned by the Constitutional Court in 1971. The National Salvation Party, founded in 1972, was outlawed after the 1980 military coup. The Welfare Party, founded in 1983, was banned by the Constitutional Court in 1998. The Virtue Party, founded in 1997, was banned in 2001.

Turkey is notable because its Islamist parties have reemerged, more moderate and pragmatic, after each closure. “Autocratic regimes in the Muslim world often ban religious parties, which then go underground and turn violent. Turkey’s Islamists have taken a different path. Despite being repeatedly outlawed and ejected from power, pious politicians have shunned violence, embraced democracy, and moved into the mainstream,” The Economist noted in 2008. “No Islamic party has been as moderate and pro-Western as the AKP, which catapulted into government in 2002 promising to lead Turkey into the European Union.”

Erdoğan, who founded the party, actually rejects defining the AKP in religious terms. “We are not an Islamic party, and we also refuse labels such as Muslim-democrat,” he said in 2005. The AKP leader instead calls the party’s agenda “conservative democracy.”

The AKP’s journey from political Islam to conservative democracy is not just the result of political expediency or respect for the red lines of Turkish secularism. The evolution of Turkey’s capitalism under the leadership of Turgut Özal in the 1980s created an entrepreneurial Muslim bourgeoisie in the conservative heartland of Anatolia. The new Muslim bourgeoisie had a greater stake in politics—and became more engaged.

These “Islamic Calvinists” have been more concerned about maximizing profits, creating access to international currency markets, and ensuring political stability than about introducing Islamic law or creating a theocracy. Turkey now has thousands of such small and medium-sized export-oriented businesses, often referred to as “Anatolian tigers.” Most support the AKP. Beginning in the 1990s, the party’s assumption of political power gradually moderated the radical elements within Turkish political Islam.

The AKP leadership clearly views the party as a model for other Muslim countries. On June 12, 2011, Erdoğan told thousands who had gathered to celebrate the AKP’s landslide victory, “Sarajevo won today as much as Istanbul. Beirut won as much as Izmir. Damascus won as much as Ankara. Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, the West Bank, [and] Jerusalem won as much as Diyarbakir.”

The Beginning

The rise of Islamic politics in Turkey was in large part a reaction to the traumatic birth of a modern state after the Ottoman Empire collapsed following World War I. Since the 1920s, Turkey’s official ideology has been Kemalism, which grew out of the ultrasecular views of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. The Kemalists pursued a top-down project of radical modernization. In an ambitious drive to import European civilization, the republic disposed of the governing caliphate, the Arabic alphabet, Islamic education, and the Sufi brotherhoods that were an important part of both religion and culture.

Kemalist Turkey adopted Western legal codes from Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, together with the Latin alphabet and the Western calendar, Western holidays, and Western dress. The country’s official history and language were reworked. A new education system glorified pre-Islamic Turkic civilizations at the expense of the country’s more recent Ottoman past, and many Arabic and Persian words were purged to create an “authentically” Turkish vocabulary. Even the Arabic azan, the call to prayer, was no longer allowed in its original form and had to be chanted in modern Turkish, to the dismay of pious Muslims.

Yet despite massive reforms, secular Kemalism barely infiltrated Turkish society at large. The rural and pious masses of Anatolia remained largely unaffected by the cultural reengineering in Ankara, in contrast to the military, the bureaucracy, and the urban bourgeoisie, who embraced or adapted to Kemalism’s superficial Westernization. The cultural gap between the Kemalist center and the Anatolian periphery soon became insurmountable. A Kemalist slogan in the 1920s acknowledged that the Turkish government ruled “For the people, despite the people.”

Religious conservatives and ethnic Kurds actively opposed the Kemalist mission to create a Westernized, secular, and homogenous Turkish nation-state. Between 1923 and 1938, the new Kemalist government unleashed its military to suppress a series of Kurdish and Islamist rebellions.

Turkish politics entered a new era after 1946. When the Cold War divided up the world, Turkey’s decision to turn toward the West and join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) fostered a transition to multiparty democracy—and a realignment of political forces between left and right. Kurdish discontent found its place in the socialist left, while political Islam was part of the anticommunist right. Behind the scenes, the military remained a powerful force. It intervened in 1960, 1971, and 1980 to restore a sense of Kemalist order against both leftist and conservative parties.

But in 1991, after the Cold War ended and communism collapsed, Turkey’s identity problems rapidly resurfaced. The right and left were no longer able to absorb the passions of Kurdish and Islamic dissent. Turkey was polarized along two axes: Turkish versus Kurdish identity on the one hand, and Islamic versus secular identity on the other. The result was the “lost decade” of the 1990s—a decade of war with Kurdish separatists, polarization over the role of religious values, economic turmoil, and unstable coalition governments.

Islamist Victories

In 1994, the Welfare Party—the third incarnation of the pro-Islamist Party—shocked the Kemalist establishment by winning local elections nationwide and capturing control of Turkey’s two largest cities, Istanbul and Ankara. The party was headed by Necmettin Erbakan, who had close connections with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. After seven decades, Turkey’s secular tide was ebbing. A year later, the Welfare Party won the largest bloc in parliamentary elections, putting an Islamist-led coalition in charge of the entire country.

The Welfare Party’s victory was short lived. Alarmed that the new government would adopt an overtly Islamic agenda, the military stepped in. Turkey’s generals feared that the government would suppress secular opposition, allow Islamic dress in universities, and abandon Turkey’s Western alliances. In fact, however, the Welfare Party actually adhered to most mainstream Turkish political practices. It did try to plant sympathizers in ministries it controlled, but so had many previous governments. Still, the secular press warned of an imminent Islamist revolution.

On February 28, 1997, the military—with wide backing from civil society and the secular media—forced Erbakan and his party out of power. The bloodless coup had major unintended consequences. It spurred serious soul-searching among Turkey’s Islamists, eventually sparking a generational and ideological rift within the movement.

The Welfare Party’s pragmatic young leaders—notably Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (not to be confused with Erbakan) and Abdullah Gül—recognized the red lines of Turkish secularism. (Erdoğan, then mayor of Istanbul, learned the hard way. In 1999, he spent four months in jail for reciting a poem with Islamic undertones.) After participating in democratic politics for more than three decades, Turkey’s Islamists had already tempered their views to win a wider following at elections. By the late 1990s, political Islam was ready to fully integrate into mainstream politics.

In 2001, Erdoğan created the Justice and Development Party, the fifth and final incarnation of the pro-Islamist party, from the ashes of the dissolved Welfare Party and the Virtue Party. He crafted the term conservative democracy—rather than an Islamic reference—to explain his political agenda. He understood that political liberalization would consolidate the AKP’s power base.

To achieve two crucial objectives, Erdoğan put democratic reforms at the top of his agenda, seeking to comply with European Union (EU) membership guidelines. The move earned him the support of Turkey’s business community, liberal intellectuals, and pragmatic middle class. It also won him political legitimacy in the eyes of the military. After all, European recognition had long been the ultimate prize in Atatürk’s vision of a Westernized Turkey. And by giving priority to social services, the AKP also appealed to the impoverished underclass. Erdoğan’s strategy paid off. In November 2002, the party won the largest bloc of seats in the parliamentary elections.

Reforms

Between 2002 and 2006, the AKP government passed a series of reforms to harmonize Turkey’s judicial system, civil-military relations, and human rights practices with European norms. Through its formidable grassroots network and with governmental institutions now in its hands, the party made health care and housing credits more accessible, distributed food, increased grants for students, improved the infrastructure of poorer urban districts, and made minority rights for Kurds and non-Muslims a priority.

Reforms were not confined to politics. The party also managed to get the Turkish economy back on track after the economic crisis of 2001 by following International Monetary Fund guidelines.

Between 2002 and 2011, the Turkish economy grew by an average rate of 7.5 percent annually. Lower inflation and interest rates led to a major increase in domestic consumption. And the Turkish economy began to attract unprecedented foreign direct investment, thanks to a disciplined privatization program. The average per capita income rose from $2,800 U.S. in 2001 to around $10,000 U.S. in 2011, exceeding annual income in some of the new EU members.

Yet even as the AKP adopted a more liberal order, Kemalist segments of Turkish society grew increasingly suspicious that it had a hidden agenda. They feared that the AKP was exploiting the EU membership process to diminish the military’s political role and, eventually, the Kemalist legacy. They balked, for instance, at AKP measures to increase the ratio of civilians to military officers on the National Security Council, elect a civilian to head the National Security Council, remove military representatives from the boards of the Council of Higher Education and the Radio and Television High Council, and grant broadcasting and cultural rights to Kurds.

On foreign policy, Prime Minister Erdoğan’s willingness to compromise on the question of Cyprus also polarized Turkish politics. The AKP backed a United Nations plan to reunify the island; the military adamantly opposed the plan. The deadlock was an important obstacle to EU membership—and the pro-Islamist party actually appeared more willing to compromise than either the secularists or the military. A subsequent investigation revealed that a military coup over the Cyprus question was barely averted in 2004 because of divisions among the Turkish generals.

Polarization

Turkey’s internal divisions deepened between 2006 and 2008. The AKP had long wanted to lift the ban on Islamic dress—or wearing of headscarves—in universities and end discrimination against graduates of Islamic high schools (such as special criteria for their university entry exams). The AKP had strong popular support for both steps. More than 50 percent of Turkish women covered their heads.

Party leaders preferred to promote reform by building a national consensus rather than by challenging the secularist establishment head-on. But secularists remained wary. They pointed to Erdoğan’s brief attempt to criminalize adultery in 2004, his appointment of religious conservatives to bureaucratic positions, and AKP attempts to discourage the sale of alcohol.

Tensions between the AKP and the military climaxed after Erdoğan announced he would nominate Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül for the presidency. The presidency is a prestigious though ceremonial post—but also the last bastion of secularism in the eyes of the military and the opposition.

On April 27, 2007, the generals staged the country’s first “e-coup.” They posted a warning on the military’s website that “if necessary, the Turkish Armed Forces will not hesitate to make their position and stance abundantly clear as the absolute defenders of secularism.” Given Turkey’s history of military interventions, the note was a thinly veiled threat that a more conventional coup might be in the offing.

In a sign of the AKP’s growing self-confidence, Erdoğan did not back off. He instead decided to defy the generals by calling early elections. The AKP won a landslide victory in mid-2007 with almost 47 percent of the votes—compared with 34 percent in 2002 when it came to power. The election was a public rebuke to the generals.

The AKP crowned its victory when parliament elected Gül to the presidency. But the military shadow still loomed over Turkey. The top brass stayed away from the inauguration. And in 2008, Turkey’s chief prosecutor tried to have the AKP closed on grounds that it pursued an Islamist agenda to subvert the secular republic. The party survived this “constitutional coup” attempt by a whisker. The court voted against closure by just one vote.

Consolidation

Between 2008 and 2011, the AKP consolidated its gains. Despite the political turbulence, Turkey weathered the global financial crisis of 2008 with remarkable success. The economy continued double-digit growth rates in 2009, after a brief recession. By 2012, Turkey’s unemployment rate and budget deficit were at record lows.

In June 2011, the AKP won its third consecutive electoral victory with nearly 50 percent of the vote. The country’s global stature also reached new heights. As uprisings shook the Middle East, reformers in Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia often cited Turkey and the AKP as models.

The AKP also consolidated its supremacy over the military—a first since the creation of the modern state. On July 29, 2011, the military’s chief of staff resigned after a disagreement with Erdoğan about staff promotions. The same day, the heads of the army, navy, and air force requested early retirement. By early 2012, half of all Turkish admirals and one out of ten active-duty generals were in jail for plotting against the government. It was a paradigm shift for a country that had experienced three military coups and constant military meddling for almost a century.

Key Positions
Democracy

The AKP heralds democracy; its more seasoned politicians have participated in free elections for two decades. But Turkey remains polarized, with its opposition parties ever more concerned about creeping authoritarianism and Islamism. Opponents call the government a civilian dictatorship and deplore its use of the judicial system to neuter the military, the opposition media, and rival political parties.

Opposition fears are reflected in the court case against Ergenekon, a shadowy organization with possible ties to the military. The judiciary launched the case in 2007, shortly after AKP’s second electoral victory, claiming that Ergenekon had planned a coup. The prosecutor accused hundreds of military officials, journalists, and political activists of involvement. Leaked documents claimed the Ergenekon network was tied to several bombings and assassinations, which were intended to create chaos and justify a military coup. AKP critics contended that the Erdoğan government used the case to silence its secular opponents. The AKP responded that it did not control the judiciary—which had even tried to ban the party as recently as 2008.

Minorities

The status of Turkey’s Kurdish population has been the AKP’s Achilles’ heel. Kurdish aspirations have been thwarted largely by legal and political obstacles that are the remnants of the 1982 constitution written under military rule. Despite the AKP’s rhetorical commitment to deal with Kurdish expectations, Erdoğan has not spent the political capital needed to expand the limited political space for Turkey’s ethnic groups. He now seems to have resorted to the classic Turkish mantra that there can be no democratization when the country is facing terrorism. As a result, violence has only grown in the Kurdish southeast.

Women’s Rights

The AKP has done nothing formal to alter women’s rights. To the contrary, by pushing for EU membership and harmonizing Turkish laws with European standards, the AKP has eliminated some of the legal obstacles that discriminate against women in the labor market and civil code. But the AKP is also clearly a conservative and patriarchal political party. Erdoğan’s understandings of family values and gender equality are not progressive.

Until recently, the restraints of Turkey’s strong secular constitution impeded observant Muslim women more than secular females. Women who wear hejab, or head covering, were banned from official events and public university classes, for example. Erdoğan sent his two daughters, who cover their hair, to American universities abroad because they could not attend Turkish colleges. In 2011, the AKP changed the legislation dealing with dress codes in public universities and legalized hejab. The restrictive dress code for civil servants, however, remains in place.

The West

AKP leaders claim that membership in the European Union is their strategic priority. Yet the AKP has demonstrated growing self-confidence by expanding Turkey’s reach and diplomatic relations beyond the West. The EU’s reluctance to embrace Turkey formally and the European economic crisis have also led the AKP to look to the Middle East, Africa, Russia, and Central Asia as areas where Turkey can exert soft power—what Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu called Turkey’s “strategic depth.” Analysts dubbed the activist Turkish foreign policy “neo-Ottomanism.”

Yet the AKP had almost no problems in Turkey’s relations with the United States. “Americans used to ask: Who lost Turkey? Now they are busy asking questions about the success of [the] Turkish model,” a senior AKP official quipped. The AKP even decided to host NATO radar installations needed for the new U.S. missile-defense system against Iran.

Israel

For decades, Turkey had the closest relations of any Muslim state to Israel. Under the AKP, Erdoğan even mediated briefly between Israel and Syria during 2007 and 2008. The AKP foreign policy generally sought “zero-problem with neighbors.” But as the AKP deepened Turkey’s ties to Iran and the Hamas government in Gaza—including AKP efforts to facilitate humanitarian aid to Gaza—tensions deepened with Israel. Erdoğan also once called Syrian President Bashar al Assad his “brother,” although after the Syrian uprising began in 2011, Turkey called for Assad to step down. Erdoğan also opened Turkey for Syria’s opposition summits, defecting soldiers, and refugees.

By 2012, Turkey instead seemed to have “zero neighbors without problems,” a senior diplomat said, because of growing problems with neighboring Syria, Iran, and Israel.

The Future

Under the AKP, Turkey is still not a liberal democracy, despite the pattern of multiparty elections. Compared to the lost decade of the 1990s, however, it has become a more multifaceted democracy, with elections, public opinion, opposition parties, parliament, the media, and civil society all exerting more power. For the first time in the republic’s history, Turkey’s performance is also totally in civilian hands. The military, once empowered to check civilian politics, is no longer strong enough either to step in or to threaten to take action. And the party with Islamic roots has undertaken more reforms required for EU entry than any of Turkey’s secular parties.

The AKP government feigned modesty about its standing in the Islamic world. “We are not presenting ourselves as a model,” Erdoğan told an audience of Turkish journalists in 2011. “Maybe we are a source of inspiration or a successful example in some areas.” Yet Turkey’s experience with Islamist politics—no longer simply an experiment—was widely cited both inside and outside the Muslim world.

By 2012, however, the AKP had also exposed serious democratic shortcomings. It increasingly cracked down on its critics, especially those in the media. After a decade in power, Erdoğan had also failed to follow through on promises of a new constitution and reforms that would address pivotal issues facing the country—the Kurdish question, human rights, and freedom of expression. Because of mounting Kurdish terrorism and Erdoğan’s populist instincts, the more power Erdoğan won at the polls, the less interested he appeared in taking those steps.

Authors

Ömer Taşpınar

Publication: The Woodrow Wilson Center

Image Source: © Osman Orsal / Reuters

A Conversation with Turkey’s Kurdish Leadership

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:00:00 -0400

Event Information

April 24, 2012
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036

Turkey's approach to lingering problems in dealing with the Kurdish minority at home and in the region is once again at a critical juncture. From the prospects for a new constitution to Ankara's Syria dilemma, virtually all the pressing issues facing Turkey have a Kurdish dimension. Most recently, Prime Minister Erdogan declared that his government is ready to engage in a political dialogue with the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in the Turkish Parliament. Given past failures at dialogue and at finding a mutually-acceptable, peaceful, and democratic solution to the problem, will this time prove different? What do the Kurds of Turkey and those of neighboring nations want and is the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) ready to meet Kurdish demands?

On April 24, the Center on the United State and Europe at Brookings (CUSE) hosted a discussion exploring these and other important questions related to Turkey’s Kurdish minority, featuring Selahattin Demirtaş, the co-chair of BDP, and Ahmet Turk, an experienced politician currently an independent member of the Turkish Parliament. Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Ömer Taşpınar provided introductory remarks and moderate the discussion.

Audio

A Conversation with Turkey’s Kurdish Leadership

Transcript

Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20120424_turkey_kurdish

Participants

Panelists

Selahattin Demirtaş

Co-Chairman
Peace and Democracy Party (BDP)

Gülten Kişanak

Co-Chair of the Democracy Party (BDP)

Ahmet Türk

Member of Turkish Parliament
Co-chair of the Democratic Society Congress (DTK)

Turkey's Kurdish Predicament

Ömer Taşpınar — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Turkey has made significant progress in a number of crucial areas over the last 10 years.

On the economic front, the country more than doubled its income per capita and tripled the gross domestic product (GDP), reaching the rank of the 16th largest economy in the world since 2002. Today's Turkey, unlike the inflation and financial crisis-prone country of the 1990s, is a proud member of the G-20 and one of the few success stories in terms of weathering the global economic downturn of 2008.

In the last 10 years, Turkey also witnessed a crucial transformation in foreign policy. Partly as a product of its economic success, it is now a much more self-confident, active and ambitious regional superpower. During the Cold War and in the 1990s, Ankara used to punch below its weight in international affairs. Today, the country is playing in a different league, often on equal footing with great powers. Arguably, it attempts to punch above its weight with its multi-vector ambitions in regions ranging from Africa to China.

On the domestic front, changes have been equally momentous. A silent revolution took place in civil-military relations. The days of military coups in Turkey are now over. The system of military tutelage has been replaced by the strong presence of a civilian political party that has an unprecedented level of popularity and legitimacy in the eyes of close to 50 percent of voters. No political party in the modern history of the country has managed to win three elections in a row by increasing its share of the vote each time. In many ways, today's Turkey is a more democratic (but not necessarily a more liberal) place compared to the 1990s. To be sure, there is still significant room for progress in assuring more freedom of speech and improving judicial independence.

Despite this picture of overall success in economic, foreign policy and political terms, there is one area where Turkey has clearly failed to change the paradigm: the Kurdish question. Despite attempts of amnesty and democratic openings, failed dialogues with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and some superficial improvements in cultural rights, Turkey's Kurdish problem is arguably more acute than in the 1990s. The main reason is because Turkey's Kurdish minority has now much higher aspirations than 15 years ago. As we can witness in demands for decentralization and federalism bordering on autonomy, the gap between Kurdish expectations and the realities of the Turkish political system have significantly widened.

To be sure, the PKK insurgency is not as strong as it was in the 1990s. But Kurdish nationalism, as a political force, is alive and well across Turkey. Kurdish ethnic, cultural and political demands are fueled by a young and increasingly resentful generation of Kurds who are frustrated and vocal not only in eastern Anatolia but also in Turkey's large western cities, including İstanbul, Mersin, İzmir and Adana. The formative experience of the young Kurdish generation has been the PKK insurgency that began in the 1980s. Although most Turks and a large part of the international community consider the PKK a terrorist organization, large segments of Turkish Kurds romanticize the PKK and its jailed leader, Abdullah Öcalan. The main Kurdish nationalist party in Turkey is unwilling and unable to distance itself from the PKK, mainly because the Peace and Democracy Party's (BDP) popular base is the same as that of the PKK.

What Turkish nationalists fail to understand is that to millions of Turkish Kurds, the PKK and Öcalan are heroic symbols of rejection of decades of forced assimilation under the Kemalist republic. In other words, if today's Turkey has recognized the existence of Kurds as a distinct ethnic community, millions of Kurds believe this is thanks to the PKK and Öcalan's struggle. At a time when the Turkish national establishment insisted on calling the Kurds “mountain Turks” and crushed their demands for ethnic recognition, the PKK and Öcalan were the ones who paid a heavy price. Yet, the flip side of the argument is that today's PKK harbors unrealistic and maximalist demands. More problematically, despite room for political avenues, the PKK is still determined to use violence to achieve its goals of autonomy or federalism. At the end of the day, violence begets violence. This vicious cycle needs to be broken. Otherwise, Turkey's Kurdish predicament will still be there in the next 10 years.

Authors

Ömer Taşpınar

Publication: Today's Zaman

Image Source: © Umit Bektas / Reuters

Integrating Europe’s Muslims

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:00:00 -0500

Event Information

February 17, 2012
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM EST

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

Over the next 20 years, Europe’s Muslim population is projected to grow from 17 million to nearly 30 million, which would represent 7 to 8 percent of all Europeans. In his new book, The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims (Princeton, 2012), Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Jonathan Laurence argues that rising integration problems and fears about terrorism have led governments to assertively step up efforts to engage their Muslim communities and incorporate them into the institutional, political and cultural fabrics of European democracy. However, these governments still have critical steps to take before integration can be judged a success.

On February 17, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings (CUSE) hosted a discussion to explore the integration of Muslims in Europe and how it is linked to the ongoing struggle for religious and political authority in the Muslim-majority world. Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs Erkki Tuomioja and Professor Peter Mandaville of George Mason University joined Jonathan Laurence in the discussion. Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Omer Taspinar provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion.

After the program, panelists took audience questions.

Audio

Integrating Europe’s Muslims

Transcript

Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20120217_europe_muslims

Participants

Panelists

Peter Mandaville

Associate Professor of Political Science
Founding Director, Center for Global Studies, George Mason University

Erkki Tuomioja

Minister for Foreign Affairs
Republic of Finland

Will Europe Shrink from the Arab Spring?

Jonathan Laurence and Ömer Taşpınar — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:26:00 -0500

Will the Arab Spring finally end the European Union’s lethargic approach to the southern Mediterranean and lead to more serious support for democratization? Don’t hold your breath. There are three key reasons why “business as usual” with only cosmetic changes is likely to remain the norm.

First and foremost is the fact that Europe is in deep economic and financial crisis. With growing discord between France, Britain and Germany, not only the future of the euro but the very foundations of the European Union are at stake. Consumed by its own existential crisis, a serious rethinking of foreign policy is obviously not a top priority for the EU at the moment.

The second reason why we should not expect Europe to seriously change its policy toward the southern Mediterranean is the success of Islamist parties in post-Arab Spring elections. For decades, Europe’s primary concern in the southern Mediterranean has been security and economic development. Anti-terrorism cooperation, border controls against immigration and economic assistance to corrupt but friendly authoritarian regimes were the hallmarks of a series of EU projects, ranging from the Barcelona Process (which became the Union for the Mediterranean in 2008) to the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) and European Neighborhood Policy (ENP). This “security and development first” mindset came at the expense of genuine support for democratization in countries like Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.

The logic behind such European programs -- and similar American policies -- can be best summarized as the fear of the alternative. Autocrats like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak became masters at exploiting such Western fears by presenting radical Islam as the only alternative to their repressive regimes. Now that Islamist parties are coming out ahead in parliamentary elections in Egypt and Tunisia, some serious second thoughts about democracy in the Arab world are likely to emerge.

Finally, the third reason to believe that Europe is unlikely to change its foreign policy toward the southern Mediterranean is Europe’s continuing reluctance to embrace Turkey, whose own success as a prospering secular democracy owes so much to its European vocation. To be sure, the EU cannot offer membership prospects to its southern neighbors in North Africa. But it could rethink its approach to and support for democratization there. Yet, the fact that the EU sidelines even a country like Turkey shows the limits of Europe’s current geostrategic vision toward the Muslim world.

Read the full article on the World Politics Review website »

Authors

Publication: World Politics Review

Syria Under Growing International Pressure

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:00:00 -0500

Event Information

December 13, 2011
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM EST

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036

Turkey, the Arab League, the United Nations and the European Union (EU) have escalated pressure on Damascus in an effort to isolate and punish the Syrian regime for its continuing repression of protesters. With the death toll now exceeding 4,000 civilians, Turkey and the Arab League recently joined the U.S. and the EU in imposing wide-ranging sanctions against Syria—a coordinated, international move considered inconceivable just six months ago.

On December 13, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings and the Middle East Institute hosted a discussion to examine the impact of growing international pressure on the Assad government and analyzed the domestic and regional implications of a weakening Syrian regime and economy. Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Ömer Taşpinar, Murhaf Jouejati of the National Defense University, and Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy joined the discussion. Kate Seelye of the Middle East Institute provided introductory remarks, and Brookings Senior Fellow Michael Doran moderated the discussion.

After the program, the panelists took audience questions.

Audio

Syria Under Growing International Pressure

Transcript

Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20111213_syria

Participants

Moderator

Panelists

Kate Seelye

Vice President
The Middle East Institute

Murhaf Jouejati

Professor of Middle East Studies
National Defense University

Andrew J. Tabler

Next Generation Fellow
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

The Arab Awakening : America and the Transformation of the Middle East

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Brookings Institution Press 2011 381pp.

Video

"The events began in Tunisia in January 2011 . . . shook the political, social, and intellectual foundations of the Middle East. The tremors can still be felt, and no one is quite certain when the aftershocks will end, or when another shock wave of popular unrest might occur. Nevertheless, enough time has passed to try to make sense of what has happened so far and, perhaps, gain an inkling of where the region is headed."—from the Introduction by Kenneth M. Pollack

About the Book | Contents | Author Commentary | Events | About the Authors

About the Book

The Arab Awakening brings the full resources of Brookings to bear on making sense of what may turn out to be the most significant geopolitical movement of this generation. Coauthored by 18 of the leading experts on the Middle East, it is essential reading for anyone looking to understand these developments and their consequences.

Even the most seasoned Middle East observers were taken aback by the events of early 2011. Protests born of oppression and socioeconomic frustration erupted throughout the streets; public unrest provoked violent police backlash; long-established dictatorships fell. How did this all happen? What might the future look like, and what are the likely ramifications for the United States and the rest of the world? In The Arab Awakening, experts from the Brookings Institution tackle such questions to make sense of this tumultuous region that remains at the heart of U.S. national interests.

The Arab Awakening offers broad lessons by analyzing key aspects of the Mideast turmoil, such as public opinion trends within the "Arab Street"; the role of social media and technology; socioeconomic and demographic conditions; the influence of Islamists; and the impact of the new political order on the Arab-Israeli peace process.

The authors also look at the countries themselves, finding commonalties and grouping them according to the political evolutions that have (or have not) occurred in each country. They offer insight into the current situation, and possible trajectory of each group of countries, as well as individual nation studies.

Part I: The Dynamics of the Arab Spring
Part II: Countries in Transition
Part III: The Imperative of Reform
Part IV: States in Crisis
Part V: Other Regional Actors
Part VI: The External Powers

Author Commentary

" Israel Looks at the Arab Awakening with Skepticism" by Daniel Byman, Brookings Up Front blog, February 9, 2012
"International Order in the Arab World " by Bruce Jones, Brookings Up Front blog, February 1, 2012
"Yemen's Transition of Power" by Ibrahim Sharqieh, Brookings Up Front blog, January 9, 2012
"The United States and Iran: The Arab Awakening Changes Everything" by Suzanne Maloney, Brookings Up Front blog, January 4, 2012
"The Palestinians and the Arab Awakening" by Khaled Elgindy, Brookings Up Front blog, December 29, 2011
"United States Policy in Syria: Masterful Inaction" by Michael S. Doran, Brookings Up Front blog, December 13, 2011
"The Long Spring Ahead" by Stephen R. Grand, Brookings Up Front blog, December 8, 2011
"Arab Public Opinion: A Question of What They Want and Say" by Shibley Telhami, Brookings Up Front blog, December 6, 2011
"Can Al Qaeda Capitalize on Unrest in Egypt and Syria? " by Daniel L. Byman, Brookings Up Front blog, December 1, 2011
"The Egyptian Military Faces Its Defining Hour " by Kenneth M. Pollack, Brookings Up Front blog, November 28, 2011
"Saudi Arabia: Its Rulers and its Future in Light of the Arab Awakening " by Bruce Riedel, Brookings Up Front blog, November 23, 2011
"Egypt: The Military, Elections, and the Hope for Reform " by Shadi Hamid, Brookings Up Front blog, November 21, 2011

Events

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Akram Al-Turk

Akram Al-Turk is the publications manager and senior research assistant in the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

Pavel K. Baev

Daniel L. Byman

Michael Doran

Khaled Elgindy

Stephen R. Grand

Shadi Hamid

Bruce Jones

Suzanne Maloney

Jonathan D. Pollack

Kenneth M. Pollack

Kenneth M. Pollack is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he is
director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Previously, he was director for Persian Gulf affairs at the National Security Council and spent seven years in the CIA as a Persian Gulf military analyst. He is the author of A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East (Random House).

Bruce Riedel

Ruth H. Santini

Salman Shaikh

Ibrahim Sharqieh

Ömer Taşpınar

Shibley Telhami

Sarah Yerkes

Sarah Yerkes is a former Research Analyst of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution and currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Government at Georgetown University.

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Assessing the Islamic World, Post-9/11

Michael E. O'Hanlon and Ömer Taşpınar — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:25:00 -0400

The United States has spent much of the month commemorating the horrific 9/11 attacks of a decade ago, and monitoring the progress of the ensuing wars abroad and homeland security efforts at home. This is all appropriate and necessary.

But one question remains to be asked: How well has the broader Islamic world done over the past decade? This is not just an academic or humanitarian question. Countries with large numbers of unemployed, angry, hopeless individuals subject to extremist propaganda are prime breeding grounds for the kinds of movements that gave us al-Qaeda. Countries creating jobs; conveying a sense of purpose, dignity and freedom to most of their citizens; and offering a positive vision for their country's place in the world tend to produce far fewer extremists.

Though the verdict is of course mixed in the 57 countries making up the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, we would offer an encouraging overall assessment. There are huge problems, most notably in Pakistan and Iran, where the witches' brew of nuclear weapons programs, extremist politics, terrorism and economic challenges casts a pall over the future. And high population growth in several key Muslim countries will continue to create "youth bulges" that will make it hard to create enough jobs for current and future generations.

Even though the wars of the past decade have obviously focused on Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya, we do not dwell on these countries here — partly because there is already ample coverage of them, and partly because with the exception of the first they are not really at the heart of the Islamic world or among its major powers.

Alas, America remains unpopular from Turkey to Egypt to Pakistan, even in the Obama era. But in most places, the overall story about how these countries are doing is somewhere between acceptable and good.

Bangladesh. A large country with nearly 10% of the world's approximately 1.5 billion Muslims, Bangladesh used to be a basket case and the butt of jokes. It is still poor, vulnerable to monsoons and somewhat unsettled politically. Even so, it has an early form of democracy and a recent economic growth rate averaging over 5% a year. Transnational extremists are almost absent from its territory. As evidence of some degree of moderation and progressivity, its prime minister is a woman.

Egypt. It is too soon to know where this country's fascinating revolution is headed, and real worries persist. But what a 2011 it has been; the Tahrir Square protests and ouster of former presidentHosni Mubarak have to count as the most inspiring international event of the year.

India. More Muslims live in India than in Bangladesh, so it too is a major center of Islam. Despite ongoing tensions within their society and occasional outbursts of violence by or against this group, Muslims in India have shared their nation's successes over the past decade, as that country finally joins the ranks of the world's fast-growing and forward-looking democracies.

Indonesia. This nation, childhood home of President Obama, has the world's largest Muslim population. And overall, in the past 10 years, Indonesia has moved in the right direction. Its economy has been growing at 6% a year, translating among other things into robust job creation. It remains accepting of diversity within its own population and open to visitors. It is a huge success story that we don't talk about enough.

Nigeria. Half of this country's 155 million people are Muslims. There are religious tensions in this land, and even though oil production has boosted economic growth, it has been a skewed kind of fiscal success with relatively modest benefits to the working classes. Alas, this country will have to be watched carefully and cannot really be placed in the same successful class as the others. But it has had an OK decade.

Saudi Arabia. This complex country remains half-friend and half-problem, a major source of oil with a generally stable government, yet also a nation that has tolerated the extremist Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam that encourages intolerance and violence and helped give rise to al-Qaeda. But the government has dealt with extremists on its territory rather well and made at least modest reforms in how it educates its youth and limits extremist propaganda from the Wahhabis. It has also forged partnerships with American universities to try to diversify its economic strengths.

Turkey. The country's moderately Islamic government — often admired as a model in the Arab world — has been a diplomatic challenge for America and a major challenge of late for Israel. But civilian rule has finally become firmly established in Turkey, the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not violent or extremist, and Turkish educational institutions are thriving. As the only Muslim member of NATO, Turkey provides a check on Iran and a link between the Western world and the Arab Middle East. Economic growth exceeded 6% on average over the past decade.

So of the world's most important countries with Muslim majorities or large Muslim minority populations, to their great credit, more than half have made substantial headway in the past 10 years, by our brief reckoning. This is a provisional judgment, to be sure, with lots of warnings and caveats. But if you are looking for good news, take a look at what most of the world's major Muslim countries have done since 9/11.

Authors

Publication: USA Today

Turkey's Kurdish Achilles' Heel

Ömer Taşpınar — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:16:00 -0400

Western media focus on Turkey has lately been on civil-military tensions and Ankara’s diplomatic pressure on Syria. Yet the country’s most urgent problem remains stubbornly the same one since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923: the Kurdish question. Last month alone, rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) killed a total of forty Turkish soldiers. In retaliation, Turkish F-16 jets have bombed Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq and launched a new military campaign in Turkey’s southeast. All the dynamics for a vicious cycle of PKK attack leading to Turkish retaliation and a low-intensity war seem to be in place. Although both Kurds and Turks know there can be no military solution to this problem, addressing Kurdish discontent with a new and more democratic constitution has become a daunting challenge for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. Prime Minister Erdogan scored yet another landslide electoral victory in June 2011, but he appears reluctant to spend his political capital on this issue. As the classic Turkish mantra goes: “there can be no democratization when the country is facing terrorism.

Making things all the more difficult is the fact that the political aspirations of Turkey’s 15 to 20 million Kurds (around 20 percent of the total population) reached unprecedented levels in the last ten years. The AKP has done more than previous Turkish governments to improve the living standards and cultural rights of Kurds in Turkey. Yet, such reforms also increased Kurdish expectations. To be sure, the PKK insurgency is not as strong as it was in the 1990s when more than twenty thousand lives were lost. But Kurdish nationalism, as a political force, is alive and well across Turkey. Kurdish ethnic, cultural and political demands are fueled by a young and increasingly resentful generation of Kurds who are vocal and frustrated not only in Eastern Anatolia but also in Turkey’s large Western cities including Istanbul, Izmir, Mersin and Adana.

Half of Turkey’s Kurds now live in western Turkey, where they constitute an underclass. They are often blamed by the Turkish majority for supporting the PKK. Under such circumstances, the nightmare scenario is Turkish-Kurdish ethnic violence in western urban centers such as Istanbul, Izmir, Mersin and Adana. It certainly does not help that the Kurdish youth of Turkey feels particularly close to the PKK and its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, who still exerts considerable political influence over the movement. The formative experience of this youth contingent has been the PKK insurgency that began in the early 1980s. Although most Turks consider the PKK a terrorist organization, a significant segment of Turkish Kurds romanticize the movement. It is indeed very telling that Turkey’s main Kurdish political party, the BDP, is unable to distance itself from the PKK.

Read the full article at nationalinterest.org >>

Authors

Ömer Taşpınar

Publication: The National Interest

Turkey's General Dilemma: Democracy and the Reverse Coup

Ömer Taşpınar — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0400

The days of military coups in Turkey are officially over. Half of all Turkish admirals and one out of ten active duty generals are currently in jail for plotting against the government, and on July 29 the military's chief of staff resigned over a disagreement with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan about staff promotions. The same day, the heads of the army, navy, and air force requested early retirement. These developments are a paradigm shift for a country that has experienced constant military meddling and three military coups in the last half century.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of last week's events was that they did not cause any public uproar or panic. Turkey's stock exchange opened to gains last Monday, and the government seems to be going about its business as usual. This is unexpected, as Turkey's armed forces have traditionally been well respected. The military was the first institution of the Ottoman Empire to modernize, adopting Western military strategy, weapons, as well as science and education methods. Almost all modern Turkey's hallowed founding fathers -- the Young Turks and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk -- were military officers determined to westernize and secularize Turkey's government, laws, education system, and even its clothes and alphabet.

Of course, Atatürk's cultural revolution was not universally embraced, especially among the pious rural masses. As a Kemalist slogan from the 1920s put it, the Turkish government ruled "for the people, despite the people." In the 1920s, the military had to suppress more than a dozen Kurdish and religious uprisings. These experiences traumatized the young republic's military leaders and left them suspicious of all things Kurdish and Islamic.

Read the full article at foreignaffairs.com >>

Authors

Ömer Taşpınar

Publication: Foreign Affairs

Massacre in Norway

Ömer Taşpınar — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Anders Breivik is the alleged perpetrator of the July 22 bomb attack in downtown Oslo and a shooting rampage at a nearby summer camp. In an interview on the Diane Rehm Show, Ömer Taşpınar discusses the many questions being asked about the man in custody and the possible links to far right radicalism.

Susan Page, The Diane Rehm Show: So, put this in the context of the political climate in Norway. What's happening there that allowed this guy to develop?

Ömer Taşpınar: Well, I think that's a very important question. It's important to see a phenomenon in Europe. And it's also important not to jump into conclusions that it is this political climate in Norway or in Europe that is fueling such heinous acts. But there is a backlash in Europe and in Norway against multiculturalism. There is a sense that Muslim immigration is on the rise.

In fact, even in mainstream academia in Europe and in the United States, there is this alarmist demographic projections that somehow Europe in a matter of a generation will become so-called Eurabia, that there will be basically a Muslim colonization, something that the perpetrator refers to in his tracts.

So he is obviously someone who is very well-connected to the extreme right-wing cells, extreme right-wing political formations in Norway, in Britain. And he's part of, basically, a phenomenon that we see in Europe that, I think, is important to call as Islamophobic. So that's very interesting in the context of Norway, which is a tiny country of 4.5 million people, which does not have a large Muslim population. But such conspiracy theories about Muslim domination are part of the age we live in, this age of clash of civilizations that Huntington predicted long time ago.

[...]

Page: You talked about the situation in Norway. Compare it to what the situation we find with some of this anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim feeling in larger, more familiar places, perhaps, in Europe, like France and Great Britain.

Taşpınar: Yes. Well, France has the largest Muslim population in Europe. But even there, we're talking about 5, 6 percent population, around 4 to 6 million Muslims. But there is this alarmist sense that Muslim population is on the rise, that Muslim birth rates are much higher than Christian birth rates. And there is this conspiracy theory about an Islamic invasion, which, in a way, finds acceptance by mainstream politicians as well because you have extreme right wing political parties who are actually making significant gains in the ballot box right now in France. One of the most popular politicians is Marine Le Pen, who's the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who's the leader of the Front National, which is the extreme right wing party.

In Britain, you have also the prime minister who declared that multiculturalism does not work. In Germany, you have Angela Merkel, Christian Democrat, who argues that multiculturalism is dead. So there is this belief that Europe has been too tolerant of Muslim culture and that it is time to assert Europe's identity, a kind of more civilized, more secular identity, and that Muslims have to choose, that they have to assimilate to this European civilization, the values of the Enlightenment.

So there is, overall, in my opinion, a climate of fear, a climate where center-right political parties are trying to co-opt the agenda of extreme right wing political parties so that they can gain votes from that sections. And, overall, I think there is a fear that Europe is losing its Christian identity.

And this is a very interesting phenomenon because, although Europe is not a continent which has very high church attendance, for instance -- it's known as a very secular continent -- it is, culturally, still very Christian. And it is not a, historically, place of immigration. Europeans are -- have uneasy feelings with immigrants. The Germans, for instance, have traditionally called the Turks gastarbeiters, guest workers.

I mean, they thought that they were guests who were supposed to leave, like good guests do, when the party was over. And the party was over in the 1970s. The Muslims came to Europe in the 1950s and '60s at a time when Europe needed, desperately, labor. But by the '70s, when economic problems started with unemployment and a lack of development, there was this growing xenophobic, anti-immigration feeling.

And, today, the European economic crisis that we see across Europe, the crisis of the euro, lack of development, but, most importantly, structural unemployment -- youth unemployment is on the rise across the board in Europe -- there is this fear that Muslims are taking the jobs. So it's time for them to go back, to go home. So there is this fear of Islam that, I think, is important to understand.

Listen to the full interview or read the transcript at thedianerehmshow.org »

Authors

Ömer Taşpınar

Publication: The Diane Rehm Show