{"id":7711,"date":"2008-11-26T12:21:07","date_gmt":"2008-11-26T09:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=7711"},"modified":"2014-01-01T20:24:47","modified_gmt":"2014-01-01T18:24:47","slug":"turkeys-liberals-speaking-out-as-reform-stalls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2008\/11\/26\/turkeys-liberals-speaking-out-as-reform-stalls\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey\u2019s Liberals Speaking Out as Reform Stalls"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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Memo From Istanbul<\/div>\n
By SABRINA TAVERNISE<\/div>\n
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ISTANBUL \u0097 When Recep Tayyip Erdogan was first elected prime minister of Turkey six years ago, his policy moves were brave and new, and this country\u2019s liberals quickly lent him their support. He started accession talks with the European Union, stopped aggressive rhetoric on age-old disputes like the island of Cyprus, and told Turkey\u2019s oppressed Kurdish minority, in a groundbreaking speech, that it existed.<\/p>\n

And while liberals had grown anxious in recent years, waiting for reforms that kept being deferred, in part because Mr. Erdogan\u2019s party was tied up in legal battles for survival, they supported him, hoping he would return to his agenda.<\/p>\n

Now, that seems to be changing. Liberal columnists and intellectuals have begun criticizing Mr. Erdogan for what they say is a shift away from his reformist ways toward a more nationalist line, closer to Turkey\u2019s powerful military.<\/p>\n

\u201cErdogan changed the whole discourse,\u201d said Hasan Cemal, a columnist for the daily newspaper Milliyet. \u201cThis is the kind of disillusionment we have been having.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most glaring example of the shift, liberals say, is a speech Mr. Erdogan gave this month in the predominantly Kurdish city of Hakkari in the southeast. His language there, liberals said, resembled the tone of Turkey\u2019s nationalists, hard-line patriots whose message to Kurds, nearly a fifth of Turkey\u2019s population, is accept Turkish identity or get out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese were not the words of a reformer,\u201d said Yasemin Congar, deputy editor in chief of Taraf, a liberal newspaper.<\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s dismal relationship with its Kurdish population has been at the heart of politics in this country ever since the state was founded in 1923, and liberals argue that Turkey will be never become a truly free democracy if it is not improved.<\/p>\n

An adviser to Mr. Erdogan said that the contents of the speech were not new, and that the liberals\u2019 frustration came more from their high expectations for a solution to the Kurdish problem than from any change in direction by Mr. Erdogan. The problem has existed for decades, he argued, and untangling it will take time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want the government to create a miracle,\u201d said the adviser, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.<\/p>\n

But liberals use the argument in reverse, saying that the Turkish state has spent years dragging its feet on the issue, which led to a war in the 1980s between a separatist group, the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party, or P.K.K., and the military.<\/p>\n

The violence quieted over the years, but Kurds\u2019 basic demands \u0097 like recognition as an ethnic group \u0097 were never met. Liberals say they threw their support behind Mr. Erdogan because they believed that he would be the one with the courage to change that, but six years into his prime ministership, little has been done.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople expected him to come up with some major political promises,\u201d said Altan Tan, a Kurdish intellectual from Diyarbakir, the largest city in the Kurdish southeast, \u201cbut his strengthened rhetoric was the straw that broke the camel\u2019s back. People are still in shock.\u201d<\/p>\n

The speech was particularly painful for liberals because they compared it to one he gave in August 2005, when he acknowledged that Turkey had a \u201cKurdish problem\u201d and that the state was partly responsible, shattering many taboos.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a different Erdogan from the Erdogan of 2005,\u201d said Yavuz Baydar, a columnist for the daily Today\u2019s Zaman. \u201cThis one issues threats. This one does not sound conciliatory.\u201d<\/p>\n

But his language needs to be seen in the context of what happened on the day he made it, Mr. Erdogan\u2019s adviser argues. Local elections are scheduled for March, and the P.K.K. is applying pressure.<\/p>\n

Mr. Erdogan said in an interview this month that when he reached Hakkari on the day of the speech, \u201cit was absolutely silent,\u201d because P.K.K. supporters warned residents to turn off their car engines. Protesters had broken shop windows and set cars on fire before his arrival to give the appearance of chaos.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no problems with my citizens of Kurdish origin,\u201d Mr. Erdogan said. \u201cThe thing to be questioned is violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Erdogan has promised work and better services in his speeches, Mr. Tan said, but has said nothing about ethnic rights, an approach that has given Kurds the impression that they must give up their cultural demands for economic ones.<\/p>\n

Though the majority of Kurds do not want a separate state, jobs alone will not be enough to make a real change, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cKurds sincerely want to be a part of the country as equal citizens with democratic rights,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Erdogan has not had it easy. For almost two years his Islamic-inspired party, Justice and Development, or AKP, has been tossed from one political crisis to another as Turkey\u2019s entrenched secular establishment has fought it over power.<\/p>\n

After his party narrowly missed being abolished in the summer, many liberals believe that Mr. Erdogan struck a compromise with the military \u0097 a powerful institution that has pressed elected governments from behind the scenes for decades \u0097 making the calculation that to stay in power meant dropping reforms.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe probably thinks, \u2018If they catch me again, they will ban me,\u2019\u00a0\u201d Ms. Congar said. \u201cHe can\u2019t lead with this fear. He has to be brave with reforms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mehmet Altan, a columnist for the daily Star, was more pessimistic about AKP, saying, \u201cNow Ankara\u2019s status quo has it by the neck, and a change is almost impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result, Mr. Baydar argued, is \u201ca new, sort of confused, aimless, AKP.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the bitterest disappointment has been over the accession talks with the European Union, which have drifted. Plans for rewriting the Constitution \u0097 a central requirement\u0097 were shelved this spring after a court struck down Parliament\u2019s repeal of a headscarf ban in universities. Some liberals described Mr. Erdogan\u2019s push to allow the headscarf as an early break, because it left the impression that he was putting religious freedoms over issues more important to liberals, like freedom of expression.<\/p>\n

When asked about plans for the Constitution in an interview in Today\u2019s Zaman, Cemil Cicek, a top AKP official, said, \u201cDesire is one thing and reality is another.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Cemal, of Milliyet, said: \u201cThe important thing is whether Erdogan is still sincere about Turkey\u2019s membership accession to E.U. I started having doubts about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Tan said some still believed that the party would get back on the European Union track, \u201clike a final jump from a dying man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s banking on the fact that there\u2019s no alternative to him right now,\u201d Ms. Congar said. \u201cIf he creates a vacuum, somebody is going to fill it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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