The Muslim Democracy

By David Kashi

In early April 2009, President Barack Obama made a high-profile visit to Turkey, where he gave an important, if often overlooked, address to the Turkish parliament. Obama moved the assembly with learned references to Turkey’s glorious Ottoman past and praise for Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who, since becoming prime minister in 2003, had overseen an array of constitutional reforms strengthening political parties, banning the death penalty, reinforcing personal freedoms and bringing the country’s coup-prone military to heel. Throughout his speech, Obama alluded both to Turkish democracy and the enduring alliance between Washington and Ankara—a friendship that grew so close Obama eventually named Erdogan a rare foreign leader with whom he had forged “bonds of trust.”

The Bush administration had also hailed Erdogan and his party as a pathbreaking answer to the question very much on Western minds in the post-9/11 era: Is Islam compatible with democracy? But Obama seemed to hold Erdogan in special esteem; he essentially became Washington’s Chief Turkey Desk Officer, in a bromance that has fit with the administration’s strategic plans to make Turkey the centerpiece of its Middle East diplomacy.

Erdogan didn’t make it easy for Obama; Turkey often still acted more like a frenemy than a friend. In May 2010, the country teamed up with Brazil to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran—but without approval from Washington, which scuttled the whole agreement. Weeks later, Turkey voted against a new round of United Nations sanctions against Iran. In between these two events, Israeli naval commandos shot dead nine activists (eight Turks and a Turkish-American) on a ferry bound for the Gaza Strip. Erdogan declared the incident “an act of inhuman state terror” and threatened the Israelis, “Don’t think that we’ll sit by in silence after such events.”

Still, instead of publicly rebuking Ankara, Obama met privately with Erdogan at the Toronto G-20 summit the next month, in a clear-the-air encounter that has taken on almost legendary status as the founding moment of what some Turkish officials have called a “golden age” in U.S.-Turkey relations. After the Arab uprisings in 2011, Turkey came to seem even more like the perfect partner. The Obama team and much of the American foreign policy establishment believed that the Turks, with prestige derived from Erdogan’s tough stand on Israel, fearless investors and soft power, would show the way forward for the Arab world. It was “vital,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, for countries across the region to “learn the lessons that Turkey has learned and is putting into practice every single day.”

How mistaken this reasoning now seems. To begin with, the idea that Turkey had something unique to offer the Middle East was naive, and the narrative meant that Washington was once again cozying up to a heavy-handed Islamist government, forming a partnership that overlooked serious violations of democratic norms. For Erdogan has in fact presided over an illiberal, even authoritarian turn. His ruling Justice and Development Party (known as the AKP) regularly touts tough measures like limiting alcohol sales and lifting the ban on head scarves and veils in civil service jobs. More important, free speech is also now under serious threat: As of last year, there were more journalists in jail in Turkey than in any other country—at least 40. Through intimidation, the purchase of media properties by businessmen close to the AKP and a new law that allows the government to block Internet access easily, Erdogan’s administration presides over a virtual ministry of information, even recently deporting a foreign journalist who criticized the government on Twitter.

The government has also repeatedly pursued punitive measures against business elites who do not share Erdogan’s politics, in addition to limiting citizens’ ability to question or contest politicians. In a thinly veiled effort to silence artists who have become increasingly critical of the AKP, Erdogan in May 2012 threatened to cut off $63 million in funding for the arts, endangering 58 state theaters.

Meanwhile, Turkish anti-terror police have arrested citizens on trumped-up charges of terrorism, allowing some of those targeted to languish in jail during lengthy pre-trial hearings. As of November 2013, there were 11,200 pending complaints against Turkey in the European Court of Human Rights.

But it was last spring’s protests in Istanbul’s Gezi Park and Taksim Square that highlighted just how far backward Turkey has slid. The protests were about not just the government’s redevelopment of a park as a shopping mall but also the ruling party’s arrogance, the crony capitalism that fuels the construction sector and provides patronage for Erdogan, police brutality and the AKP’s efforts to pass laws and push constitutional changes that entrench its power.

The tens of thousands of Turks who poured into the streets in Istanbul—and then Ankara and Izmir—expressed mass frustration with what is essentially a one-party state. In addition to using tear gas, water cannons and metal truncheons, Turkish authorities made large-scale arrests, bullied NGOs and cracked down on social media. In December, the AKP-dominated parliament proposed a measure that would make it illegal—with prison sentences of two to five years—to protest against public services, which broadly defined includes projects like Gezi’s redevelopment or a controversial road construction project in Ankara that requires large-scale deforestation.

Through all this, Washington still appears to be enamored of the “Turkish model.” True, Turkey has been criticized in recent State Department human rights reports, Clinton publicly raised the issue of press freedom and the Obama administration has made statements in support of peaceful protests. But the White House has never made democratic change a priority, let alone a condition for strengthening ties. Although Turkey selected a sanctioned Chinese firm to co-produce an anti-missile system over the objections of NATO and the U.S. Congress, the White House has promised to protect Turkey’s interests in any U.S.-European Union free trade agreement—a policy it has not changed, despite warning that the deal could affect U.S.-Turkish defense cooperation. And Washington continues to regard Turkey as a vital strategic partner in the Middle East, notwithstanding Ankara’s deeply strained relations with Egypt, Iraq, Israel and Saudi Arabia—in other words, every major country in the region.

The most important aspect of Obama’s April 2009 speech in Ankara was not his fulsome praise of Turkey, but his subtle critique of Turkish politics, imploring lawmakers to deepen their commitment to a democratic future. “Democracies,” he exhorted, “cannot be static—

they must move forward.” His address was historic not just because it was the first time he publicly broached the subject of Turkey’s democratic shortcomings—but because it was the last time he seemed to mean it.

Source: politico.com