Women protest in Istanbul against attacks on Kurds. Avni Kantan/Demotix. All rights reserved.
The news coming out of
Turkey at present is hardly cause for optimism. The political arena is
paralysed with the failure of coalition talks in the wake of the
inconclusive election of 7 June. Society is increasingly polarised and
incidents of vigilante violence appear to be escalating. The military conflict against the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), in abeyance for several years, has reignited,
and there is confusion over Turkey’s role in the international fight
against ISIS. This spiral of unfortunate circumstances has prompted some to
query whether Turkey is heading towards civil war.
In times of trouble, Turkey
has a tendency to circle the wagons. An old adage runs that a Turk has no
friends other than his fellow Turks: Türk’ün Türk’ten başka dostu
yoktur. Prominent columnist Mustafa Akyol recalls the education system in earlier decades
teaching students that Turkey is surrounded by seas on three sides and by
enemies on four.
Such attitudes were
prevalent during the 1990s, when nationalist rhetoric peaked. The 1990s were
marked by the intensity of the conflict between Turkish security agencies and
the PKK and by episodes of sectarian violence. In recent years, however, a
“resolution process”, shepherded by the AKP government and involving
painstaking negotiations with Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the
PKK, had seen a ceasefire put in place and had made fitful progress towards
addressing Kurdish grievances. The government’s abandonment of a military
approach and encouragement of dialogue between opposing parties had resulted in
a degree of normality returning to the Kurdish-majority regions of southeastern
Turkey.
The resolution process and
any progress towards normality appear all but lost now. Hostilities between the
Turkish military and the PKK have resumed, with a vengeance. Debate rages about
who cast the first stone. What is clear is that Turkey began a massive air
campaign against PKK positions in northern Iraq in
the last week of July just as it was set to begin military operations against
ISIS. In the weeks since, clashes between security forces, the PKK and other
militants (and sometimes Kurdish civilians) have flared in Istanbul and across the
southeast and, in a throwback to the 1990s, the military has imposed curfews
and “security zones” in several
Kurdish-majority provinces. In this fraught atmosphere, Abdullah Öcalan, who
might act as an intermediary between the PKK and the government, has been sidelined.
Thus Turkey has fallen back
into old, inward-looking habits, reverting to a military posture rather than
seeking dialogue with all parties in a troubled strategic environment.
Illustrative of Turkey’s unilateral approach was the fact that, after lengthy
negotiations with the US about Ankara’s participation in airstrikes against
ISIS targets, Turkey gave Washington only ten minutes notice that they would
also be hitting the PKK. US officials were said to have been “outraged”. America, like Turkey, the EU and
Australia, classify the PKK as a terrorist organisation, but the hugely
important role the PKK has played in pushing back ISIS in both Syria and Iraq
has prompted a reappraisal of this classification. Some now even argue that in
courting Turkey, rather than the PKK, the US has chosen the wrong ally in the fight against ISIS.
The collapse of coalition
talks in Ankara and Turkey’s lack of consultation with the US about attacking
the PKK are in many ways a reflection of the Turkish political arena, a
realm where there is a great deal of talk, but precious little dialogue. Anyone
who follows Turkish politics in situ would be familiar with TV broadcasts of
politicians talking at great length. TV coverage for politicians generally
equates to opportunities for soliloquys, expounding in detail without ever
being challenged or held to account.
This was particularly the
case during the run up to the general elections on 7 June, when the norm was
lengthy broadcasts of senior political figures making uninterrupted addresses
(with state-run media notably skewing coverage to favour the government). The country also rang
with the babble of pre-election rallies. All of the four major parties held
rallies in major cities and provincial capitals, featuring all manner of
campaign razzamatazz from singing and dancing to balloons and banners and in
some instances air force flyovers. But at no point were there any debates
between candidates or parties, thus campaign promises—and accusations—went
untested. Selahattin Demirtaş, leader of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic
Party (HDP), in fact challenged the Turkish president, Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan, to a live debate as he had in the presidential campaign of 2014. In both
instances Erdoğan demurred.
That politicians and their
utterances largely go unchallenged is an element of what anthropologist Jenny
White terms the “big man” syndrome in the Turkish
political arena. Said “big men” are deferred to and held aloft. This in turn
leads to polarisation in the electorate as politicians create patronage
networks as a means to retain power; they shut down debate, labelling any
dissenting views or criticism as “treachery”. This is as much a feature of the
“new Turkey” that Erdoğan has been hailing since being elected president last
year as it was in the pre-AKP era.
It wasn’t always this way.
In the early years of its incumbency the AKP challenged rigidly observed norms
such as the role of Islam in the public sphere and narrow Kemalist definitions
of national identity. The impacts of these changes in society were entirely
positive. In the diplomatic arena, too, the AKP recalibrated Turkey’s
diplomatic posture, engaging fruitfully with neighbouring states such as Syria
and Iran as well as the Balkan states, from which it had previously turned
away. This approach, labelled “zero problems with neighbours”, attracted
applause and ridicule in equal measure and was spectacularly derailed by the
fall out of the Arab Spring, but there is no denying that it re-established
Turkey as an integral regional player and facilitator.
The AKP government also
reached out to the Kurdish regime in northern Iraq, winning a new ally. Ankara had previously viewed the
emergence of a Kurdish entity within Iraq as being against Turkey’s interests,
reasoning that a freestanding Kurdish regime would incite Kurds living within
Turkey. But, interacting proactively with the Kurdish regime, the government
created a mutually beneficial relationship and put paid to a commonly held
misperception that Turkish and Kurdish interests are incompatible. Thus Turkey’s
stocks were raised considerably in the early years of AKP rule precisely
because of its positive diplomatic outreach and the government’s adoption of
conciliatory positions on important domestic issues, among them the Kurdish
question. In short, the AKP encouraged debate, discussion and engagement that
had been overlooked or discouraged under the old order. Turkey was the better
for these dialectical initiatives.
In the current milieu,
however, Turkey has abandoned the open and engaging approach of the AKP’s early
years. It is assuming an insular, defensive posture. Pro-government pundits
have fallen back on tired conspiracy theories, claiming that those who
fear the new, stronger Turkey have sown the seeds of treachery to bring it down
and claiming that Turkey must act unilaterally to protect its own interests.
The very fact that the US
has worked so hard to get Turkey to join the battle against ISIS brings the lie
to such theories and indicates that Washington recognises Turkey’s strategic
value. But more importantly, in such a fraught domestic and diplomatic
environment, Ankara needs to engage its constituents—whether they be Turkish,
Kurdish or otherwise—and its neighbours. Turkey can only negotiate its way out
of the crises that beset it, because time has consistently proven that the
alternative—adopting a military approach—bears no fruit.