It's Not a Conspiracy - We just don't like Turkey

‘Turkish shepherd shot dead by Armenian border guards.’ It was a small headline on a 100-word item in our local English language Turkish newspaper. Apparently the shepherd, 35 year-old Mustafa Ülker, had gone looking for a ewe that had wandered across the border in search of a quiet place to give birth. Armenian authorities notified their Turkish counterparts and handed over Mustafa’s body. It took a few days for the news to get out. It’s a long way from the restaurants and bars of Taksim and Cihangir to Turkey’s eastern frontier. Still, the guy was in the wrong, no doubt about that. You can’t just stroll into a foreign country, lost sheep or no lost sheep.

Turkish shepherd shot while invading Armenia

I was interested to see if anyone else had picked up the story, so I googled it. I checked three or four pages and couldn’t find a mention in any international news media – except for the ‘Armenpress’. In that English language site I found a lengthy piece by an Armenian ex-pat living in California, Harut Hassounian.

According to that gentleman’s account, two Turks had crossed from the Turkish side into Armenia and mocked the Russian border guards who ordered them back. The Turks ignored two warning shots fired into the air and one of them allegedly opened fire on the soldiers, whereupon the Russians shot one of the intruders. Hassounian then launched into a tirade about how the ‘fascist’ Turkish government was seeking to exaggerate this incident in order to draw attention away from its serious and well-publicised internal and external difficulties, which he itemised in some detail.

Well, who am I to enter into a debate on the issue? Clearly there are two sides to the story, and we will probably never know the truth. However, I will make an observation or two. First, as far as I know, the Turkish government has not made a big issue of the killing, and Turkish news media have pretty much ignored it. Second, I’m interested to learn that Russian soldiers are patrolling the border between Armenia and Turkey, but I don’t think it absolves Armenia from responsibility for such incidents, merely because they have delegated the duty to a foreign power. Third, it’s hard to imagine a Turkish country bumpkin, or even a couple of them, defying armed border guards who would, we must assume, have been wearing military uniforms. Does this version ring true to you?

I couldn’t help wondering whether ‘the world’ might have taken more notice if the headline had read ‘Armenian shepherd shot dead by Turkish border guards,’ but I’m not going to speculate further on that. The sad thing is, however, that Western media all too often accept and disseminate an anti-Turkish view of events without considering that there might be an alternative position. Let’s be charitable, for the moment, and call it laziness. One of Mr Hassounian’s criticisms was ‘The Turkish Prime Minister’s threatened lawsuit against The (London) Times for publishing a full-page paid letter, signed by dozens of prominent Western intellectuals and artists, which would more widely expose his intimidating tactics.’

Well, at least he acknowledged that the ‘intellectuals and artists’ had paid for the page, or  someone had. I can’t speak about the legal position, but it does suggest questionable editorial judgment for a reputable major newspaper to allow private citizens to buy a page for the purposes of slagging off the leader of another country, especially an important and long-standing loyal ally. Most of the famous signatories seemed to be film stars or directors, which may or may not qualify them to be recognised as ‘intellectuals and artists’ – but even if it does, it’s another jump to give serious credence to their opinions on international affairs.

Much was made, internally and abroad, of the presence of actors and other ‘artists’ among the protesters in Turkey’s recent anti-government street demonstrations. Apart from attracting media attention, I’m not convinced that their participation added anything of substance to the rallies. About as much, probably, as the fans of Istanbul’s three major football clubs who laid aside their differences during the summer break to unite in comradely çapulcu[1] action.

It is interesting, however, that just last week, after a lengthy investigation, police drug squads raided residential premises in several Turkish cities, and took in a number of well-known actors and directors for questioning. Not surprisingly, there have been accusations that the government was seeking revenge against activists, invading the privacy of citizens, and damaging the reputation of those apprehended. The implication seemed to be that the bust was a set-up by police acting on government instructions. I suspect the courts will take some convincing, given that ‘115 cannabis plants were discovered, as well as high amounts of ecstasy, marijuana, amphetamines, cocaine, measurement devices and cash’ in the Cihangir apartment owned by one of the actors.

Whatever the outcome, it gives some indication of the freedoms and rights some ‘intellectuals and artists’ include in their understanding of democracy, and highlights the contrast between their lives and that of the shepherd out east who would have been happy just to take his lost sheep back home without being shot to death.

What worries me is that this tiny minority of privileged people tweet and twitter their narrow picture of what is going on in Turkey, and foreign media swallow it and repeat it as though it is a fair representation of on-the-ground reality. Just this week, a Turkish court finally reached a verdict on the long-running Ergenekon case, handing down lengthy prison sentences to top military brass hats and an odd collection of academics, writers, journalists, lawyers, known gangsters and extreme left wing activists. Justice has taken its course and we can no longer speak of an alleged conspiracy. Mountains of evidence have been presented and sifted; teams of lawyers have tried every trick in their book to discredit the prosecution and the government, and stretch out proceedings with delaying tactics and unsuccessful appeals to the European Commission on Human Rights; mainstream media and the opposition CHP (Republican People’s Party) have done their best to undermine the legal proceedings and sell the line that this too was a government-sponsored attempt to get rid of rivals and exact revenge for previous grudges. Despite all that, the court deemed at last that the majority of the accused were in fact involved in ‘a clandestine and terrorist gang guilty of attempting to overthrow the government,’ and sentences reflected the gravity of the crime.

Once again I went a-googling. I was keen to see how the international press viewed an event which one might think had fairly major significance for the future of democracy in a troubled part of the world. In fact, there was surprisingly little to be found. Even the New York Times, normally a rich source of comment on affairs in Turkey, seemed unsure what to make of the trial and its aftermath. I turned up only one article on its website, relegated to minor importance behind the ‘election’ of a new president in Iran and the discovery of a 15-tonne ‘fatberg’ in the sewers of London.

Apparently it took three writers to pen this particular piece, only one of whom was actually in Turkey, and she in the city of Izmir, a hotbed of anti-government fervour a good 7-hour drive from Istanbul. Most of the article focused on ‘the deep divisions within Turkish society between Islamists and secularists’ and quoted a defence lawyer accusing the government of ‘silencing opposition and intimidating patriotic people with secular principles’. Readers were told that ‘Nearly half of the country did not vote for Prime Minister Erdoğan’ but not what percentage of US voters did not vote for President Obama. The article concludes with a reference to ‘Turkey’s poor record on media freedom’, quoting the French organisation Reporters Without Borders, which ‘ranked Turkey 154th of 179 countries, behind Iraq and Russia, in its 2013 World Press Freedom Index’.

My own country, New Zealand, did marginally better. The TVNZ website I use to keep up with events back home also turned up only one article on the trial, but at least managed to summarise the case and report the outcome with more objectivity and without the outrageous innuendo of the NY Times piece.

Elsewhere, I read that the European Union Commissioner Stefan Füle had expressed concerns about ‘how the trial was conducted’. In particular, he was worried about the rights of defendants, lengthy pre-trial detention, and the nature of the indictments. He seemed unsure about ‘compliance with EU standards’ and pointed out, perhaps unnecessarily, that ‘a fair independent and accountable judicial system is a key pillar of any mature and functioning democracy.’

Well, I won’t say I was shocked, because nothing much can surprise me about how Western media portray Turkey. Disappointment might be a better word to describe my feelings. One of the major sticking points, as far as I am aware, to Turkey’s acceptance into the European Union, for example, has been the country’s record of human rights abuses. Undoubtedly there is some truth in such accusations, but surely it must be obvious that most of the torture and disappearances occurred in the lead up to, or aftermath of military coups that took place on a regular basis from 1960 into the 1990s. That the AK Party government of Tayyip Erdoğan has finally managed to pull the teeth of armed forces commanders who considered themselves constitutionally above the elected politicians should surely be a cause for congratulations by true lovers of democracy everywhere.

The congratulations have been muted, to say the least. The Turkish Prime Minister and other spokesmen have been unequivocal in their condemnation of the military action that deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in July. Their lonely and principled stance has been criticised on two counts. First, we would expect them to oppose what happened in Egypt because they are scared of the same thing happening at home. What? They should hypocritically support an action in Egypt that has been the subject of criminal prosecution in their own country? And at the same time lend moral credibility to those anti-government forces in Turkey who wish to overthrow the elected government? Second, there is the realpolitik argument thrown at them by all the governments (from Saudi Arabia to the USA) that have chosen to ignore what happened in Cairo and recognise the new regime: what’s done is done. Swallow the reality and get on with business as usual.

One might have more sympathy for the realpolitik argument if the United States, for example, didn’t have a history of interfering in the affairs of sovereign states and deposing leaders considered unsympathetic to US interests. Saddam Hussein was president of Iraq but the US wanted him out. Egypt’s Mubarak was a military dictator with a 29-year record of oppressing his people, but he supported the US and Israel. Morsi, on the other hand, was an unknown factor who may have been more responsive to the will of the Egyptian electorate. Maybe we didn’t help to get rid of him, but we’re not sad to see him gone. Turkey should shut up and fall into line with the rest of us. Am I overstating the case?

As for the European Union, the contrast between words and action is perhaps more obvious in that that august body is more prone to occupying the moral high ground than their more pragmatic trans-Atlantic partner. As a Turkish correspondent observed, ‘The problem . . . emanates from the fact that the EU tries hard to position itself as a “normative power” that puts special emphasis on democracy, human rights, and freedom more than any other actor in the world. This discrepancy between principles and actions [in the case of Egypt] is a tragedy deserving of a global audience.’

Another criticism I am reading of the Ergenekon court case in Turkey is the harshness of the sentences handed down. Certainly it has come as a shock to most in this country to see the former supreme head of the Turkish Armed Forces sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Well, maybe there was a plot, say some, but in the end, those guys didn’t actually do anything, did they? To which there is a very clear response. They didn’t achieve their aim because they were found out before they could put it into action. If they had been successful, they would have been the new leaders of Turkey, and God help the elected politicians they had deposed. The crime is the plot, and it is only a crime if you are unsuccessful – otherwise you legitimise your own actions retrospectively, as in Egypt.

As a comparison, I am waiting to see what happens to Private Bradley Manning who was 22 years old when he is alleged to have supplied the Wikileaks website with material seriously embarrassing to the government and military command of the USA[2]. Last I heard, the charges against Manning could have him put away for 90 years – for telling the truth and making available information that many would argue the American public had a right to know. Edward Snowden and Julian Assange (who is not even a US citizen) have been forced to seek asylum in foreign states to escape the long arm of American democracy.

The NY Times article quoted above refers to Turkey’s ranking of 154 out of 179 countries for press freedom according to that Paris-based organisation Reporters Without Borders, I gather, because of the number of ‘journalists’ in custody in this country. I have to tell you I find that ranking beyond laughable, and I’ll tell you why. I read at least one Turkish newspaper every day, and I find no shortage of criticism of the government within their pages. It’s fairly clear that you have to do more than merely express disapproval or contrary opinions to get yourself locked up. At least six of those ‘journalists’ have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment for their involvement in the Ergenekon conspiracy. If the US legal system can put away a young naïve gay computer nerd like Private Manning for 90 years, I can’t imagine what they would do to a gang of 5-star generals, university professors, mafia bosses, lawyers and communists who were caught planning to depose the president by force of arms.

And take a close look at that list of countries prepared by those borderless reporters. Turkey’s ranking of 154 places them behind such paragons of democracy as Iraq, Burma, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Maldive Islands, whose courts can order women flogged for having sex outside of marriage, comes in at 103^rd, while Armenia, whose Russian border guards shoot wandering Turkish shepherds on sight, ranks an impressive 74^th.

I’m not saying that Turkey has surmounted its final hurdle on the path to true democracy – but if RWB had placed them a little closer to the US ranking of 32^nd, it might have been a fairer reflection of comparative press freedom. It’s not easy to define occupations like ‘writer’, ‘journalist’, ‘artist’ and ‘intellectual’. Does writing a blog and possessing a good-sized home library entitle me to claim a place in any of those categories? What about Julian Assange? I would give him a tick for at least three out of four – and I can well understand why he is not keen to be extradited to the USA for questioning. As for the US media, it’s interesting to note how outlets that were originally delighted to publish material from Wikileaks seem now to have forgotten what those leaks were about, and chosen to focus instead on Assange’s alleged sexual peccadilloes. In the United Kingdom, whose media were all too ready to criticise Turkey’s police for using excessive force on demonstrators, sectarian troubles have once again broken out in Northern Ireland, we hear, and police have had recourse to water cannon and plastic bullets.

What’s my point, you may be asking? Merely this. A government’s job is to govern – and a major part of that role is to maintain order and the rule of law. Most of us would probably agree that the job is easier when the general populace is allowed a say in who will govern them. If pressed, we might also express a feeling that freedom from outside interference will also produce better results in the long term. The Republic of Turkey is a youngish democracy that has made, and continues to make, tremendous strides on the road to economic and political freedom for its people. In the interests of natural justice, foreign critics could focus more on the progress that has been made – or failing that, work on removing the beam from their own eyes.

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[1] A Turkish word used by the Prime Minister to disparage the protesters, and picked up on social media to satirise the government’s position.

[2] Youtube - Collateral Murder

Tyranny by the Majority – towards a definition of freedom and democracy

I’ve learnt a new word recently. Well, I learn new Turkish words all the time – that’s no surprise. My latest Turkish word is meyil, which means the degree of slope or fall on a waste pipe necessary for the water to flow out of your bath or shower. As you may guess, we had a plumbing problem in our summer place which seems to have been solved by increasing the meyil. Thank God!

On the other hand, I am generally happy, and occasionally surprised when I learn a new word in my own mother tongue. In this instance, surprise was the dominant feeling. The word was majoritarian and its ideological spin-off, majoritarianism. At this point I have to tell you that the squiggly red line appearing under both words as I typed them told me that my MS Word dictionary didn’t know them either, so at least I was not alone in my ignorance.

Know-it-all Wikipedia, on the other hand, did recognise the words and began its lengthy explanation with a definition: ‘Majoritarianism is a traditional political philosophy or agenda which asserts that a majority (sometimes categorized by religion, language, social class or some other identifying factor) of the population is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in society, and has the right to make decisions that affect the society.’

Merriam-Webster online informed me helpfully that the word majoritarian was first used in 1942 to describe ‘a person who believes in or advocates majoritarianism’ – which it further defined as ‘the philosophy or practice according to which decisions of an organized group should be made by a numerical majority of its members.’ I checked my Apple desktop dictionary, and Oxford Dictionaries online, and found them all pretty much in agreement.

Humpty Dumpty explains democracy
to Lewis Carroll's Alice

As is often the case, I learn a new word, and suddenly I come across it everywhere. In this case, majoritarian turns up in almost every newspaper article I read about the Turkish government’s response to protests that began in the now infamous Gezi Park in Istanbul at the end of May. In fact, certain writers apply it to the government’s attitude and policies in general. The word, needless to say, is used pejoratively, and serves to question the ruling AK Party’s right to act on just about everything.

So why, I asked myself, had I not previously encountered a word that has been used in the English language for more than seventy years, and seems to label a fairly important philosophical or political concept. After some thought I decided that it was because that’s what I’d always thought of as the meaning of democracy. An issue is laid on the table, all sides have the opportunity to put forward their point of view, votes are counted, and action is taken on the basis of the result – ie the majority vote carries the day.

The concept of democracy has evolved over time, beginning in ancient Greece and being refined in the countries of Western Europe and more recently the United States of America. It was considered preferable to systems previously operating, or continuing in less enlightened states, where a hereditary monarch or a powerful despot wielded absolute power over his (usually his) subjects with the assistance and support of a small elite or aristocracy.

Refinements have been periodically necessary for a number of reasons. First, evolving concepts of who should be eligible to vote have led to the abolition of wealth requirements; the inclusion of women and African Americans; and a reduction in the age of majority from 30 to 21 and even 18 in some countries. Second, in some matters, such as changes to a country’s constitution, it may be considered that a simple fifty percent majority is insufficient – and a greater measure of support may be required to justify reform. Third, there is widespread debate over which electoral systems best reflect the desires of the voting public, and the extent to which that public should be allowed to vote on specific issues.

To illustrate the last point, the first-past-the-post electoral system in place in the United Kingdom returns one parliamentary representative from each of the electoral regions into which the country is divided. It also ensures that any votes not cast for the highest polling candidate effectively end up in the trash. Proportional systems, operating in Turkey and other enlightened European countries, attempt to avoid this waste of votes by allocating seats in the legislative assembly to political parties in proportion to their share of the overall total vote.

Further, it is clearly not practicable to seek the opinion of the public on every single issue debated and decided on by a country’s parliament. One of my all-time-favourite films is The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970) where a slick conman (Peter Cook) tricks his way into the boss’s office of a public opinion poll business and thence to the Prime Ministership of Britain, finally getting himself elected as President-for-Life. His technique once in office is to ask the British voter for his or her opinion on every decision that has to be made for the running of the country no matter how minor. What at first seems like a dream exercise in participatory democracy at length turns into an intolerable burden for electors who gratefully vote ‘Yes’ to the final question – ‘Would you like me to get on with running the country and never bother you with another poll ever again?’

Somewhere in between the two extremes, then, must lie an ideal situation where I delegate most decisions for the maintenance of order and good government to a political party winning the majority of votes in national elections held every three, four or whatever years – but still wish to have my opinion heeded on issues dear to my heart, such as the building of nuclear power stations, or a woman’s right to abortion on demand.

I confess to feeling some sympathy for Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan and his AK Party government who, when criticised for some action or other, say, ‘Yes, but we won the last general election (not to mention the previous two). A majority of the citizens of Turkey chose us to be the government and that’s what we’re trying to do.’ Out comes the majoritarian club and they are belaboured for thinking that winning elections gives them the right to do whatever they want. Well, that’s a fair point too, but the question arises, what issues should they seek public opinion on, and when should they just get on with the business of running the country?

To be fair to the anti-majoritarians, Mr Erdoğan does seem to have a tendency to see himself as the Minister or Spokesman on Just-About-Everything, from Foreign Affairs through Urban Redevelopment to Family Planning. He also seems to have lost interest in the worthy goal of reducing the threshold for parliamentary representation from ten to five percent. On the other hand, to be fair to the Prime Minister, the Turkish news media do seem to seek his opinion on just about everything, ignoring the fact that there exists a whole cabinet full of ministers with a host of portfolios. I have noticed this phenomenon in educational institutions in Turkey. Whereas in my own country, a school principal will appoint and delegate middle managers with their own budgets to make decisions for the operation of specific departments, the general rule in Turkish schools is that every decision, no matter how trivial, must be decided by the principal, and all underlings are obliged to seek and wait for that decision. I can’t speak for other sectors of the economy, but the process does not seem to make for optimum results in the field of education.

Be that as it may, a more important question must be, apart from casting my vote in those four-yearly parliamentary elections, how can I have my say on other issues on which I may feel particularly strongly? One way is to join a political party, attend its meetings and try to influence it from within. I may be a member of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) but still I may support the right of Turkish women to work as teachers or state servants while wearing a headscarf, and I may try to persuade my fellows in the party to my point of view.

Another way to influence government policy is to join or establish a special purpose lobby group. Groups exist and exert influence in such matters as education for girls, protection of the environment and violence within families. Of course, if all else fails, there should always be the right of citizens to gather for the purpose of public protest. Even, as Atatürk famously said in his address to the Youth of Turkey, there may be times when the national government is so wrong that citizens have to fight for what is right. Nevertheless, in the last case, you need to be pretty sure you are right, and stoically prepared to accept a certain amount of pepper gas and high-pressure water, because no government is going to roll over without putting up some resistance. If you choose to be a martyr for a cause, that choice has implications for your own health and safety.  

It was touching, the other day, to learn that a group of thirty internationally famous actors and actresses including Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon and Ben Kingsley had paid for a page in the London Times to publish an open letter to PM Erdoğan in support of the Gezi Park protests and against the excess use of force by police. Nice to know that the glitterati have sympathy for the down-trodden masses of nations other than their own – but I was also interested to see, among the thirty names, that of a writer, Claire Berlinski. Ms Berlinski has a record over some years of authoring quite immoderate anti-Turkish and anti-AK Party material for major US newspapers and magazines. Did those Oscar-winning thespians actually visit Turkey to see the situation for themselves, I wonder, or just take that lady’s jaundiced view as gospel truth? 

Which brings me to another important question. Mr Erdoğan has been accused of seeking to polarise the country prior to forthcoming local-body elections. I would argue that Erdoğan’s Justice and Development (AK) Party has been the object of serious opposition from inside and outside the country since the day they became the government – and this opposition has, for the past ten years, been hell-bent on polarizing the country. By the time you read this, a Turkish court will have given its judgment on high-ranking military personnel accused of planning a coup to oust Erdoğan’s government – and I for one am quite ready to believe that there was such a plan, and that certain groups within the country would have been happy to see it come to fruition.

I do not wish to enter the debate of whether mysterious foreign forces are attempting to manipulate Turkey’s internal political situation. It is, however, abundantly clear that there are citizens willing to go far beyond mere expression of dissent, to the extent of working actively to bring down the elected government. A certain retired professor, Zerrin Bayraktar, in an interview with the English daily Today’s Zaman, explained plans to prevent construction of the third Bosporus bridge. The aim, she said, is to ‘weaken the government’ and trigger ‘an economic crisis that could easily stop the government and eventually result in the removal of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party)’.

Adding strength to the argument that the Gezi Park protests were not all about latter day Frisco-esque hippies peacefully hugging trees, certain ultra-nationalist groups have been using social media to invite protesters to the city of Silivri where the above-mentioned trial of military coup planners is reaching its conclusion. Wiser heads have apparently decided that those who opposed the destruction of an inner-city park do not necessarily support anarchic Molotov cocktail-throwers and nationalist extremists, and are withholding support.

Neither do I wish to enter into an analysis here of the current situation in Egypt. There are those on both sides of the issue ready to draw analogies with present-day Turkey. Two things, however, do seem clear. First, senior personnel in the Egyptian armed forces used their position of military power to unseat the elected president, Muhammed Morsi, and are now holding him in custody under threat of ‘trial’ and possible execution. Second, the United States government, through its foreign affairs spokesman John Kerry, has made it clear that it supports the Egyptian military action, and is prepared to interpret it as a ‘restoration of democracy’.

There’s that problematic word again . . . democracy. It does seem to have a certain protean quality allowing it, in the words of Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty, to mean whatever I choose it to mean. On the subject of Egypt, a correspondent in Today’s Zaman, Idris Bal, gave a list of preconditions for democracy to take root: there should be ‘no sectarianism, ethnic nationalism or tribalism’. There should be ‘a successful education system and an educated populace with no dramatic income disparities. Freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, plurality and a pluralist society’ are prerequisites, meaning ‘a free press, diverse media outlets, civil society organizations, think tanks, free universities, criticism and a democratic culture’. An admirable list, and I would love to know which country could tick all the boxes; certainly not my own homeland New Zealand, though we do rank at the higher end of lists measuring governmental transparency and freedom from corruption. I wonder too if George Dubya Bush had those criteria fully in mind when he sent in the marines to bring democracy to the oppressed people of Iraq?

And you have to admit, the United States government does have a tendency to get involved in the internal business of sovereign states when it feels its own interests are at stake. Another correspondent in Today’s Zaman, Joost Lagendijk, has been bemoaning recently ‘Turkey’s urge to bash the West’. The essence of his argument seems to be that Europe is not America, and the European Union is now trying to mediate between the new regime in Egypt and deposed President Morsi. He also points out that the US media are not all one hundred percent behind their government on this one, and have been expressing some dissent with John Kerry’s stated position.

Well, of course we know there are three hundred million Americans, and not all of them are big fans of Barack Obama. Unfortunately, however, in the end it is the government that will decide the nation’s direction (majoritarian though that may be), and if European governments align themselves with the USA (as in the Assange and Snowden cases), and if it is their governments that determine their foreign policy, what should Turkey do? How much do Western interests try to understand Turkey and all the shades of political opinion held by its citizens?

Sadly, the world we live in does not always allow us the luxury of acting purely on the basis of morality. Vested interests inevitably come into play. Like Humpty Dumpty, we are all inclined to twist words to suit our own position. In the end, however, democracy is probably the best solution to the necessary evil of government. Independent states should be left alone to find their own path, and citizens, however educated and enlightened, should accept the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number.