May
11, 2007
Turkey: In the Cleft of a Cultural
Conflict
Turkey is once again in a turmoil
with a million people filling the streets of Istanbul
and Ankara protesting against the ruling party’s
nomination of the present Foreign Minister, Abdullah
Gul, to be the next President after the end before
long of the current President’s term. In the
first round of voting in the parliament on April
27, Gul, known for his Islamist tilt, came close
to winning the required two-third majority.
The secularist opposition parties called the result
invalid because there was no quorum in the 550-member
chamber on the day the vote was taken. Opposition
had boycotted the election. The Constitutional Court
too has ruled the result of the first round of voting
as invalid for the same reason.
Prime Minister Tayyib Erdogan has asked the parliament
to call an early general election and has also proposed
legislation for direct election of the President
by the people. The turmoil has wobbled the country’s
stock market and tumbled its currency exchange value.
Evidently the current tug-of-war is between the
ultra-modern sectors pulling it towards the West,
Europe in particular, and the conservative Islamists
who underline the country’s glorious past
and the need for retaining the nation’s Islamic
complexion.
Women, the custodians of a society’s cultural
traditions as well as the trendsetters for the future,
portray this conflict through the way they dress.
In the urban centers, one finds most women in tight,
form-fitting, figure-revealing, dresses. But, even
in these centers, one finds a sprinkling of women
who cover their heads and shoulders with scarves
(hijab) and don up-to-the ankle loose attires.
Over forty years back when I lived in Turkey on
an assignment, I had not seen so many women in the
conservative ‘hijab’. The current phase
is perhaps a silent protest, an expression of distaste,
against the immodesty in recent times of the ultra-modern
breed.
This split between the conservatives and the liberals
is nothing new in modern democratic societies. Most
of them are divided on those very lines. But, in
the case of Turkey, the rift is more fundamental
and is so embedded in the country’s geography
and history that it clogs the operation of Hegelian
dialectics of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis.
The society has, nevertheless, succeeded remarkably
in retaining its equilibrium and the tempo of progress.
Geographically, Turkey straddles both Asia and Europe.
The Turks of even the Ottoman period had always
their sights towards Europe and their Western border
extended up to Vienna in the sixteenth century during
the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent. Modern day
Turkey has only three per cent of its territory
in Europe. Yet, geography has placed it crucially
as the bridge between the East and West. Geography
has also put it next door to Iran that went through
an Islamic revolution in 1979. Then, it is in the
vicinity of the Central Asian Islamic republics
which gained their independence not long ago from
Russian domination. These erstwhile Turkish territories,
where Turkish or its dialects are still spoken,
have become partners of Turkey in ECO – the
Economic Cooperation Organization, which was founded
some years back by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey to
replace RCD.
The central Asian republics are highly rich in oil,
gas and mineral resources. The pipeline from Azerbaijan
to a Mediterranean port in Southern Turkey will
be a great boon to the Turkish economy. Turkey already
has over 400 agreements with these Central Asian
republics. Turkish private firms have invested over
$6.5 billion in the region. Geographic proximity
coupled with common religion and language give Turkish
firms an advantage over their competitors from other
parts of the world. Geography is thus exercising
a strong pull towards the country’s Asian
neighbors – all of them Muslim.
As for history, the Turks can undoubtedly be proud
of it. The Ottoman Empire (1299-1923) held sway
over the present-day Turkey and vast areas in Asia,
Africa and Europe, for 624 years. At its apex during
the rule of Suleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566)
its borders extended from the Crimea in the North
to Yemen and Sudan in the South, and from Iran and
the Caspian Sea in the East to Vienna in the Northwest
and Spain in the Southwest.
The Turkish conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul)
in 1453 triggered the Renaissance in Europe culminating
in Reformation, and an era of logic, science and
technology leading to the Industrial Revolution.
The fall of Muslim Spain in 1492 spurred territorial
discoveries including that of Americas. It also
led to the discovery of the sea route, via the Cape
of Good Hope, to India and the Far East. That route
stifled the flow of goods, and therefore of revenue,
through the Turkish dominated Suez.
The masterly monuments left behind by the Turks
in Anatolia, South Asia, North Africa and in Spain
pay abiding tributes to their building genius. A
student of history cannot help marvel, likewise,
at the institutions set up by the Turks for the
maintenance of law and order in such a vast empire,
for the collection of revenues, administration of
justice and for the defense of the country. The
Ottomans created the first standing army in Europe,
the janissaries, in the middle of 14th
century. Their system for the inheritance of the
crown, though apparently cruel, saved the nation
from vast death and destruction in battles among
the claimants. The institution of the Slave Dynasty
in India that enabled slave after slave to become
the king, in preference to inheritance by birth,
has perhaps no parallel in history in merit prevailing
over pedigree.
The pull of such a rich and exemplary history is
bound to be felt by the present-day Turks. But,
history has its murky side too. The first major
blow to the empire came with the Turkish defeat
in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 in which the Christian
forces were led by Don Juan of Austria. The Turkish
emperor at that time was Selim ‘the sot’.
He used to be drunk all the time so much so that
he drowned drunk in his own bathtub. In nominating
him as heir apparent under the pressure of his wife,
mother of that nincompoop, Sultan Suleyman had deviated
from the tradition of nominating the most competent
of the Sultan’s sons. The European powers,
particularly Russia, kept nibbling at Turkish territories
throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
while the Sultans continued partying in their Istanbul
palaces.
Muslim intellectual stagnation began in the 18th
century largely because of the obscurantism of the
mullahs who opposed every new idea even if it had
little to do with religion. Europe, on the other
hand, was undergoing an intellectual revolution.
The concept of nation-state and the process of decision-making
through debate and discussion had replaced monarchies.
Successive Sultans, seeing the writing on the wall,
tried to introduce reforms in their system, but
the orthodox and reactionary elements sabotaged
all such moves. They opposed the codification of
laws, use of printing presses, study of natural
sciences and even the construction of an observatory.
The downward slide continued till the Sultan was
made to sign the humiliating Treaty of Sevres in
May 1920 after the WWI defeat. That was unacceptable
to the Turkish troops who kept fighting the European
powers as they could easily foresee the intentions
of the Europeans to divide among themselves all
Turkish territories and put an end to the Turkish
state. It was at this point that the Indian Muslims
launched the Khilafat movement to pressure the British
to abandon their nefarious design. It did have its
effect.
More important were the legendary victories against
all odds of the Turkish forces led by Mustafa Kemal.
He was the only Muslim hero of that time who refused
to accept the dominance of the West. The ensuing
Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 acknowledged Turkey as
a fully sovereign, independent state in the territory
that constitutes till now as modern Turkey.
Ataturk abolished Khilafat, got rid of the mullahs
being fed up of their obduracy, the Sufi orders,
Islamic courts, religious schools, fez (symbolic
headgear of Muslims), women’s veil, polygamy,
and the treatment of women as inferiors. He had
a Western-style constitution and secular law codes
adopted. By 1928, Islam was no longer the state
religion. Turkey has continued since then as a secular
state. The people, 99% Muslim, are deeply religious.
Mosques overflow with worshippers particularly during
Friday congregations.
No doubt, Ataturk and his followers tried to affect
a complete break with the Ottoman past and to bring
Turkey within the cultural orbit of Europe. Eighty-four
years have passed since the advent of Kemalist Turkey.
The Republic is a member of NATO, has been accepted
into the European Customs Union and is a candidate
for the membership of the European Union. Cultural
assimilation into the European way of life appears,
nevertheless, to be far from possible.
To begin with the Turks abhor any foreign domination.
As already mentioned, only three per cent of their
territory is in Europe. Those days are gone when
Turkish territory extended up to the border of Vienna
and the Mediterranean was a Turkish lake. Historically,
they have had an adversary relationship with Europe
for centuries. Turkey’s rise or fall has been
in an inverse proportion to that of Europe. Both
sides are now fortunately committed to a policy
of cooperation rather than that of confrontation.
Nevertheless, the current divergent internal pressures
on Turkey are likely to keep it, at least in the
foreseeable future, in the cleft of a cultural conflict.
(The writer may be reached by e-mail at: arifhussaini@hotmail.com
or by phone at 714-921-9634)
