Turkey's Prospects

Author(s): Whit Mason and Andrew Mango

Source: The Wilson Quarterly (1976-) , Winter, 2001, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Winter, 2001), pp.
4-5
Published by: Wilson Quarterly

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 Correspondence
Letters may be mailed to One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.
20004-3027, or sent via facsimile, to (202) 69 J -4036, or e-mail, to wq@wwic.si.edu.
The writers telephone number and postal address should be included. For reasons of space, letters are usually
edited for publication. Some letters are received in response to the editors' requests for comment.

World War II, seemed to confirm the virtues of

Turkey's Prospects
I would like to add a few remarks to the two argu-
ments made in your articles on Turkey ["The
Turkish Dilemma," WQ, Autumn '00] that
may point toward how Turkey's chronic polit-
ical dysfunction may end.
Though Cengiz Çandar obviously doesn't
share the worshipful attitude toward Ataturk of
the Kemalist elite, in saying that Atatùrk
"invented the tools necessary to turn an
empire into a republic" he nevertheless over-
states the founder's contribution. The only
"tools" essential for transforming Turkey are the
minds of Turkey's citizens.
In fact, thoroughgoing as Ataturk s revolution
may appear, it hardly touched the keystone of
Turkey's stultifying political culture: patriar-
chal authority. Mustafa Kemal himself was
dubbed "the Father of Turks." Over three-
jealously guarded sovereignty. Turkey's unique
experience of nationalism set this value on a col-
lision course with the other founding principle
of Kemal ism- the importance of joining the
West. Just as few in Europe and the United
States have pondered the possible unforeseen
implications of the European Union's becom-
ing a Eurasian power, which Martin Walker
notes in his essay, few Turks anticipated that the
sacrifice of sovereignty would be a conse-
quence of joining Europe, and only now are
they beginning to grapple with it.
Joining Europe would have another unin-
tended-but enormously beneficial- conse-
quence: undermining the very patriarchy that
has so infantilized Turkish society. In practice,
the authority of a Turkish father depends as
much on the rigidity of the economy and the
lack of credit as on traditional culture. European-

quarters of a century later, Turks still speak of scale prosperity and finance would erode this
the "Daddy State," and former president authority by giving ambitious young people
Siileyman Demirel, who last summer reluc- the material wherewithal to strike out on their

tantly left office after seven years, was also own.

known as "Dad." As Çandar says, Turkey's current position is

Ataturk seemed to understand that liberat- full of ironies. If Turkey does manage to join the

ing the minds of the Turkish people was the key
to joining the West. Unfortunately, given his mil-
itary background and the need to expel foreign
invaders, Atatùrk adopted an authoritarian
style that inadvertently recreated the very
European Union, it will have realized Ata-
tiirk's dream in spite of the authoritarian gen-
erals and senior bureaucrats who claim, mis-
leadingly, to be his political heirs.
Whit Mason

structure he'd sought to demolish. Fellow, Institute of Current World Affairs

This patriarchal structure has ensured that Istanbul, Turkey
patronage overshadows principle and encour-
aged Turks to ape the forms of the West with- Allow me to congratulate you for publishing two

out understanding, much less internalizing,
their underlying essence. As the writer Çetin
Altan pointed out, the Westernizing reforms that
started with the Ottomans generated in Turks
an appetite for Western goods but not the
capacity to manufacture them.
Turkey's history has created other obstacles
to emulating the West. While the two world wars
discredited nationalism in Europe, Turkey's
experience, particularly its neutrality during
well-argued articles on the domestic situation
and international posture of Turkey. Even if
there are gaps in Martin Walker's knowledge of
history (the Ottoman dynasty, which descend-
ed from a Turcoman warlord, did not trace its
ancestry to the Prophet Muhammad; Cyprus
was conquered by the Ottomans in the 16th, not
the 14th, century; "mountain Turks" was
never the official term for Kurds), the fact
remains that his main argument is well worth

4 Wilson Quarterly

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considering. It is by encouraging the
European Union to accept Turkey as a full
member that the United States may be creat-
ing problems for itself, given that the EU and
the United States often pursue different policies
in the Middle East and the former Soviet
Union. The flaw in Walker's argument is that
ebrate the anniversary of the French Revol-
ution, which, as Çandar rightly says, provided
the inspiration for Atatiirk's reforms. Turkey
will get there too, but it will take time and
patience. In the meantime, order has to be pre-
served. Turkey has a freely elected parliament,
and it is a safe and friendly country, to which for-

the implementation of a common EU foreign
and defense policy and Turke/s full member-
ship in the EU are still distant prospects. Of
course, while the process goes on, all the par-
ties to it will pursue their national interests.
One should concentrate, therefore, on
Turke/s actual approach to current problems
rather than on hypothetical changes that EU
membership may bring to it.
One hesitates to cross swords with Cengiz
Çandar, both because he is a distinguished
analyst of Turkish affairs and because his lib-
eralism is in tune with current orthodoxy. Yet
the fact remains that the reforms being imple-
mented in Turkey today became possible only
after the military "engineered" the fall of the
demagogic government led by the Islamist
politician Necmettin Erbakan in 1997,
just as the late prime minister Turgut
Ôzal was able to open the country to
the global free market only because the
military had taken power in 1980. The
moderate stance of the Islamic Virtue
eign officers like to be posted and which
tourists enjoy visiting. Let us keep it that way,
remembering the awful example of Iran, where
liberal criticism of the Shah opened the way to
government by illiberal mullahs.
Andrew Mango
Author of Ataturk (2000)
London, England
More on Privacy
I read the article "The Genetic Surprise" by
Phillip J. Longman and Shannon Brownlee
with great interest [WQ, Autumn '00]. The
authors do not mention that there is, in fact, a
federal law that prohibits discrimination based
on genetic information in the private insur-

Party today owes much to the banning of

its predecessor, the Welfare Party. The
B The Art of War I

| ^j:
Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ôcalan
would not have called on the militants

of his Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to

end their insurrection and leave the
country had he not been captured,
tried, and sentenced to death. Advocates
of liberal solutions to Turkey's domestic
divisions are thus the beneficiaries of

measures, often harsh, that are taken by

the military in the name of Kemalism, the

legacy of Ataturk. The current efforts at '"***- ^ftfiTzu

ff^vc; vn<:v l-.csus e OiMMr-TABi
democratization are a delicate process sv -Hf i)>\.\M ! x i\v; w/o\ (jar,!.?
b

that could threaten public order in view

of the antipathy and mutual fear "This luminous translation gave me a much
between secularists and Islamists. clearer understanding of Sun Tzu's deeper
On Republic Day, October 29th, an purpose - to make war unnecessary."

Islamist daily came out with the headline - James A. Autry, coauthor of Real Power:
Business Lessons from the Tao Te Ching
"Congratulations on your 77th anniver-
sary." This is not surprising: More than a ÉSHAMBHALA

century had to pass before French Available at your bookstore now

www.shambhala.com
Catholics could bring themselves to cel-

Winter200l 5

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