For them, the struggle was between Islam and democracy, secularism and contemporary values. Of course, they concluded, which side the West should support was obvious.Newspaper headlines and TV images about the rallies aroused considerable interest around the world. Hundreds of journalists rushed to Turkey to investigate whether the claims were true. Except for those reporters who had certain engagements or who were working for tabloid papers, those who examined the issue seriously arrived at conclusions that would disappoint the organizers of those rallies. Indeed, The New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, the Financial Times, and other influential papers of the West published a number of news stories and analyses that asserted that the claims were not true. These articles emphasized that contrary to the claims, Turkey had not steered away from democracy or the West during the term of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), but the most serious progress in the European Union membership process had been made during this period.
Even German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, Red Danny, the leader of the European Greens, Joost Lagendijk and Cem Özdemir were featured in newspapers, denying the claims that the AK Party had taken Turkey away from the West. For them, the quarrel in Turkey was not between the devout people and the secularists as the rallies implied, but between democrats and pro-status quo groups. On the one hand were those who sought greater freedom and change, and on the other were those who refused to change and saw freedom as a threat.
Today, it seems that the swift detention of dozens of generals is likely to inflame the old debates. The question is the same: Who are the sides in the struggle in Turkey?
A story that appeared early this week in a respected paper, The Wall Street Journal, deserves attention in this regard because, although it was published in a reputable paper, the categorization employed in the article reminds one of the banalities of tabloid papers. In the analysis written by Marc Champion from İstanbul, the tension that surged in the aftermath of the developments in Erzurum and Erzincan and the Ergenekon file in general are discussed. In the beginning, the article asserts that there is an ongoing power struggle in Turkey, but claims that it is between the religious conservative government and secular establishment.
As we read into the article, the categorization of the sides of this struggle is further generalized and simplified. The following sentence clearly reveals the stance of the author: “More broadly, Turkey’s religious and secularist elites have been engaged in a bloodless, virtual civil war since 2007.” This sentence recently appeared on the first page of one of the Turkish papers in the form “There is a bloodless civil war in Turkey.” When I first saw this title, I thought that there might be a translation error. Frankly, I dismissed it as one of the common errors committed by Turkish papers. But there was no error. The original of the story contained the same phrase. I believe that there are two flaws or deviations in this categorization. First, how can a struggle be described as a civil war when it is like the struggles undertaken by Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece to purge the juntas from the country? Can the juntas be portrayed as one side in a civil war when the existence of juntas is prohibited by the applicable laws?
The second flaw is about categorization. If this struggle is between religious elites and the secular elites, where can Ahmet Altan, who fights against the juntas, be placed? Do formerly Maoist, now liberal figures such as Cengiz Çandar, Hasan Cemal and Şahin Alpay fall into the religious elite category? How can atheist/communist Jewish Roni Margulies, who is opposed to coups, be included among the religious elite?
Is actress Lale Mansur, one of the leading figures in the 70 Million Against Coups Coalition, part of a religious elite? Just Google the name of this actress, and see what you find. There is a long list of those who are considered by the author as religious elites: the Democratic Society Party (DTP), a Kurdish nationalist party, the Revolutionary Socialist Workers’ Party (DSİP), the Proletariat Movement Party (EHP), the Young Civilians, Say No to Racism and Nationalism, the Pro-Freedom Left (ÖSH) and the Greens Party... I wish these people and groups would send corrections to the paper, objecting to this distorted and extremely reductionist categorization. I wish our foreign colleagues would realize the importance of their analyses in making Turkey a true democracy and write their articles with this awareness.
