Contemporary Turkey in Conflict: Ethnicity, Islam and Politics

217 Pages·2017·2.293 MB·English

by  Tahir Abbas

ConTemporary
TUrKey
in ConfliCT
eThniCiTy, islam and poliTiCs
Tahir abbas
1111 eup Abbas_PPC.indd 1 05/03/2016 09:49
Contemporary Turkey in
Conflict
Ethnicity, Islam and Politics
Tahir Abbas
For Yalina
Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish
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© Tahir Abbas, 2017
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
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12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry
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and printed and bound in Great Britain by
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ISBN 978 1 4744 1801 0 (epub)
The right of Tahir Abbas to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and
Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498)
Contents
List of Figures and Tables iv
Preface v
Acknowledgements xiii
Chronology xv
1 Setting the Scene 1
2 Historicising Pluralism and Monoculturalism 24
3 Insights on Intolerance towards Minorities 47
4 Perspectives on the ‘Kurdish Issue’ 72
5 The Gezi Park Awakening 96
6 Exploring Trust in Society and Politics 118
7 Conclusions 140
Postscript: ‘A Gift from God’ 158
Appendix: Notes on Methods 163
References 175
Index 193
Figures and Tables
Figure 3.1 Tarlabaşı – young children forced to play in polluted
streets 64
Figure 3.2 Tarlabaşı – dispossessed local residents 65
Figure 4.1 Yüksekova – parents pose in front of a photograph of
their ‘martyred’ son 94
Figure 4.2 Yüksekova – family members in the PKK memorialised 95
Figure 5.1 Gezi Park – a burnt-out police car 105
Figure 5.2 A depiction of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Gezi Park 109
Table 2.1 Changing ethno- national and religio- cultural identity
politics in Turkey 43
Table 3.1 Crosstabulation of tolerance, religiosity and perceived
discrimination 57
Table 3.2 Crosstabulation of language and discrimination 57
Table 3.3 Crosstabulation of language and tolerance 58
Table 4.1 Profile of Yüksekova respondents 74
Table 5.1 Profile of Gezi Park respondents 98
Table 6.1 Pearson correlation between dependent variables 124
Table A.1 Descriptive statistics for a range of dependent and
independent variables 166
Table A.2 Logistic regression (odds ratios) for discrimination and
tolerance in Turkish society 167
Table A.3 Log- linear relationship between language, discrimination,
religiosity and tolerance 169
Table A.4 OLS parameter estimates for political trust in Turkey 173
Preface
Turkey is a nation beset with contradictions. At the turn of the twenty-
first century, in just one decade, it transformed from a country caught
up in a financial crisis into a successful G20 economy. The stance that Turkey
takes in amalgamating Islam, capitalism and democracy remains of significant
interest to Middle East and Western European nations currently undergoing
their own social, political, economic and cultural challenges. Yet, Turkey is
in a precarious regional position compared to its neighbours. In 2015 the
economy of Greece was on the brink of collapse, a situation that risked the
stability of the entire Eurozone. Since 2011 Syria has spiralled into chaos
because of an ‘Arab Spring’ quagmire that resists resolution. A matter made
worse by the emergence of Islamic State, the instability in Syria is not only
threatening the entire region but it also affects Western Europe in relation
to both questions of terrorism and the refugee crisis. In Turkey the ‘Kurdish
issue’ has re-e merged with great vigour. Rising wealth inequalities, regional
disparities, internal intolerance towards minorities and a weakening Turkish
lira remain all-i mportant issues. In early 2016 it seems that the country’s
immediate future is uncertain. Only through implementing sound economic
policy and the delicate balance of interethnic relations and religio- cultural
inclusivity can Turkey now achieve the success that its people rightly deserve.
In 1997 a ‘postmodern’ coup d’état occurred when the Turkish military
issued a memorandum and the Necmettin Erbakan government resigned
without suspension of the constitution. It was alleged Erbakan was institut-
ing Islamism at the time. The coup led to immense political and economic
instability, and eventually brought on the Turkish financial crisis of 2000–1.
In that same year, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his close acolytes formed
the Justice and Development Party (AKP) after the collapse of the Turkish
v
vi | contemporary turkey in conflict
economy. In 2002 the AKP ran for election, winning 34 per cent of the vote
and forming a majority government. The AKP thrived partly because of the
sheer political and economic leadership vacuum that had engulfed the nation
at the time. Since taking power in 2002 the AKP has increased its majority
in each subsequent election, including in November 2015 after that same
year’s June election resulted in a hung parliament. Erdoğan has been at the
helm of the AKP from the outset. He effortlessly won the 2014 presiden-
tial election, when he could no longer remain in office as prime minister
due to constitutional rules. In transforming the institutions of society, com-
bined with a neo- liberal economic individualism that has operated through a
majoritarian nationalist zeal, Erdoğan and the AKP have configured Turkey
into a determined administration after many years in the doldrums. Erdoğan
achieves this partly by maintaining an air of authority comparable to the
Ottomans and perhaps even Atatürk. Yet, at the same time, the AKP has pur-
sued a neo- liberal economic and political agenda that has narrowly defined
‘Turkishness’ (ethnically, religiously and culturally). Before the AKP took
power the secular Kemalist elite maintained firm control over the people of
Turkey. Throughout the generations these elites periodically used excessive
force. By the late 1980s and early 1990s the secularist-K emalists lost their
once established status, increasingly replaced by the Islamists. The third AKP
victory in 2011 cemented the party’s position as the supreme authority over
many institutions of society (that is, military, judiciary, media and educa-
tion), with little or no effective opposition. Immediately after the June 2015
general election confidence dropped and, with the realistic possibility of
coalition government, the party’s future was unclear. A period of instabil-
ity ensued, when Islamic State terrorist attacks targeted indigenous popula-
tions. Following a campaign that concentrated on protecting Turkey ‘from
its enemies’, the AKP achieved an outright win in November 2015. There
has been no period of normalisation and reconciliation since then, lead-
ing to even greater authoritarianism combined with insecurity and growing
political violence. It invariably sustains Erdoğan and the AKP in power, but
presents no clear path forward in relation to government. For Turkey in
the twenty- first century, the story of its development has been all about one
man: Erdoğan. Progress has come to the country, but there are also many
issues. Can Turkey maintain its role on the global stage? How will it balance
preface | vii
the eastern–western, European–Islamic, modern–traditional and inward-
looking–outward- looking issues that it endures? Is it possible to create a
society that fulfils the anticipations of both its Islamic Sufi heritage and the
European ideal?
Since the time of the Ottomans, the centre-p eriphery dynamic has com-
pounded social relations in Turkey. It produces class, race and religious dis-
tinctions associated directly with the means of ownership of production,
distribution and exchange combined with the accumulation of physical,
social and cultural capital in the hands of elite urbanites. Historically these
elites were secular and Kemalist in origin. In the 1990s a shift to conservative
and religious groups (Islamists) followed, dominating not just aspects of the
economy, but also media and politics. As the contest continues for economic,
political and cultural stability, there is one group, the Kurds, representing
approximately one- fifth of the population, who continue to suffer dispro-
portionately. Given the sensitivities around the ‘Kurdish issue’ in Turkey,
they have the most to gain and the most to lose from any peace process, and
from the current opening up of society and Turkey’s emergence from a major
financial crisis. In June 2015 the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) gained
eighty seats in parliament, preventing the AKP from forming a majority
government. Under its leader Selahattin Demirtaş, the HDP ran again in
November when the party was willing to form a coalition government. In
spite of this, the situation changed again in the November 2015 election,
where the HDP forfeited twenty seats. This happened largely due to the
influence of the AKP, which stoked up fears of the enduring conflict between
Turks and Kurds that has plagued the modern nation. This strategy did
most damage to the Kurds, a community already facing the consequences
of historical political and cultural marginalisation. Since the inception of
the Turkish republic, the Kurds have routinely faced isolation. The ongoing
theme has been misrecognition, attributed to their lack of ‘Turkishness’,
as defined by the centre at the expense of the periphery. In the 1930s the
modern republic rendered a significant part of the population illiterate by
changing the character, content and importance of the Turkish language as
a means of recognition by the state literally overnight. As the secular elites
concentrated the wealth, power and authority at the centre, those at the mar-
gins, including other groups such as Alevis, Jewish and Christian minorities,
viii | contemporary turkey in conflict
faced increasing marginalisation. It was in the late 1970s that the Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK) formed – since classified as a terrorist organisation by
the state and the EU. From 1984 there has been violent conflict between the
PKK and the Turkish state, with as many as 50,000 people losing their lives,
mostly Kurdish. In 2012 the PKK and the Turkish government announced a
formal cessation of violence. The Peace and Democratic Party (BDP), formed
in 2008, evolved into the HDP in 2014. In the November 2015 election the
HDP became the third party in Turkish politics, relegating the Nationalist
Movement Party (MHP) to fourth place. A few short years ago it would
have been unimaginable for a Kurdish party to win sixty seats in parliament.
However, there was also an acute sense that Turkey was on the edge of disas-
ter, with ongoing fighting against the PKK in the south- east, the government
bombing Kurdish targets, and with an ever-g reater clampdown on dissenting
voices in the media, including the seizure of İpek Medya Grubu (a large con-
glomerate that includes mining and media) days before the November 2015
election. Erdoğan’s vociferous outcry against ‘Academics for Peace’, intel-
lectuals in Turkey who signed a petition in January 2016 to draw attention
to the implications of the fighting in the south- east, led to the arrest of scores
of university professors, some of whom are currently facing trial for ‘treason’.
While opening up the media through deregulation at one level, the AKP
has also used its powers to shut down dissenting voices. At the same time,
the domestic intelligence and policing services are firmly in the grip of what
has lately become a security state. Using the threat of terrorism won an elec-
tion for the AKP, but if his aspirations are too narrow and inward-l ooking,
Erdoğan runs the risk of ostracisation at home and within the region.
The AKP began a new Kurdish–Turkish peace process in 2012, but by
2015 the party had changed tack. It started to leverage the conflict, alluding
to the idea of ‘saving the nation from its enemies’, as Kemalists had done in
years gone by. In various constituencies, AKP candidates in 2015 actively
sought to problematise the struggle for recognition among Kurds. This
approach also created unease among some Kurds who eventually switched
back to the AKP, distancing themselves from the conflict and its associated
negative politics. The AKP routinely demonised the PKK to draw irreducible
parallels between it and the HDP. To emphasise its point further, the AKP
concentrated on the need to protect Turkey ‘from its enemies’, evoking a
preface | ix
sense of hyper-n ationalism among majority ethnic Turks. The gamble helped
to win back Kurdish votes lost to the HDP in June and nationalist votes
ordinarily cast for the MHP, which has suffered the most in recent elections.
The AKP altered its strategy since the June 2015 election, and kept close
to party lines, winning back some votes gained by the HDP and MHP.
Ultimately, the AKP achieved a decisive victory in November 2015. With
317 seats, Erdoğan’s party formed a majority government with 49.5 per cent
of the vote, fifty- nine more seats than in June, and with an 8.6 per cent
swing. In the June 2015 elections the popularity of the AKP had plunged
from 49 per cent to 41 per cent of the national vote. This was mainly due
to the emergence of the HDP, which took eighty seats. Many of the HDP
voters were previously pro- AKP but Kurds lost confidence in the AKP after
the Kobanî incident of 2014. Turkish forces backed off from saving the town
from Islamic State, three miles south of the Turkish border in Syria. As the
Kurds in Turkey began to show agitation, clashes between Turkish military
forces and the PKK resumed, leading to Turkish planes bombing Hakkâri.
Between the June and November 2015 elections Turkey suffered three sepa-
rate terrorist attacks in quick succession. In each case most of the victims were
Kurdish. The Diyarbakır bombing in early June 2015 killed four people.
The Suruç bombing in July 2015 took thirty- three lives. Then the Ankara
bombing on 10 October, in the nation’s capital city, killed 102 people,
most of them young. The third attack happened just three weeks before the
election in November 2015. Again, several of the victims were Kurdish.
Ironically, two of the attacks struck Kurdish groups who were taking part
in peace rallies aimed at building relations between Kurds and Turks, which
was especially important after the peace process that had spectacularly broken
down the year before. In four further terrorist incidents in three months,
the first in January 2016; a suicide bomber killed thirteen foreign visitors
to Sultanahmet, Istanbul’s tourist heartland. The incident severely affected
tourism, which was precisely the intention. Less than one month later, in
February 2016, a car bomb placed outside military barracks in Ankara killed
twenty- eight people, with scores injured. In early March a second car bomb
in Ankara killed thirty- seven. A radical wing of the PKK, known as the TAK
(Kurdistan Freedom Falcons), claimed responsibility for these early 2016
attacks on Ankara. Less than a week later four people died in a suicide bomb