July 15, 2011

Turkey: Moving towards a Consensus in Cultural Conflict

 

The third consecutive victory of Prime Minister Rajip Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the general elections on June 12 holds out the possibility of the charismatic leader taking his nation towards a consensus for the resolution of the cultural conflict beleaguering it for decades past.

A foreign visitor to the country notices, directly on arrival, the tug-of-war between the ultramodern sectors pulling it towards the West, Europe in particular, while the conservative religious sectors want to restore the nation’s Islamic complexion.

The secular modernists are largely spread along the coastal areas, while the conservatives inhabit the hinterland of Anatolia. 

When Ataturk took charge of the country, it had almost sunk to the bottom in all aspects of life. The Czar had labeled it ‘the sick man of Europe’.   Ataturk pursued assiduously reform after reform till he restored the self-respect of his people and secured a decent place for them in the comity of nations. His greatest reforms were in the social sector.  He banished Mullaism, all un-Islamic formations, worship of saints and their shrines, and all rituals that had crept into a simple religion. 

I visited for several hours his personal library in Ankara and was impressed by the number of books on Islam that he had studied.  His distaste for the semi-literate Mullah and the retrogressive path his people had been treading, led him to a stance bordering on a renunciation of the religion itself as much as the glorious past of Ottoman rule extending over several centuries.

Turkey has thus remained in the cleft of a cultural conflict for almost eight decades. Erdogan is taking it now towards a synthesis and a national consensus.

Women, the custodians of a society’s cultural traditions as well as the trend-setters 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.

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 the 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 that 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.  Turkey already has hundreds of agreements with these Central Asian republics. Turkish private firms have invested in the region over $6.5 billion. 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 extendied 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 the 14 th 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 18 th 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 subservience 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, obscurantism,  Sufi orders, Islamic courts, religious schools, fez  (symbolic  headgear of Muslims),  women’s veil,  polygamy,  and the treatment of women as inferior. 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, nevertheless. 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-eight years have passed since the advent of Kemalist Turkey. The Republic is a member of N ATO, 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. And, 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.

  As for the resolution of the internal conflict, Erdogan is the first leader after Ataturk, who having won three consecutive victories in national elections, finds himself in a strong position to introduce reforms in the social structure that reflect national aspirations and consensus – an equilibrium between a glorious past and a progressive and prosperous future. Matter of fact, Turkey’s growth rate now, under Erdogan, is next only to that of China.   That augurs well for the intended social reforms.

(Kindly make note of my email address below as my earlier address was hacked and had to be discarded.  Thank you.)