The hundreds of thousands of people who gathered to express their views were exercising a democratic right. But I couldn’t help being disturbed by some of the demonstrators’ comments and statements. “We don’t want a covered woman in Atatürk’s presidential palace,” said one protester quoted by The Associated Press. “We want civilized, modern people there.” Is the headscarf really a unique symbol of backwardness and are all women who do not wear it “modern and civilized”? I also wondered if the extensive use of the Turkish flag, in a protest that was clearly directed at the ruling party, suggested that in the demonstrators’ view the people who voted for the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and gave it a majority in Parliament are not proper Turks? Do they come from outer space?
Turks themselves have to answer these questions. Personally I believe the most important divide in Turkey today is not the one between secularists and believers: it is between those who defend individual rights and a democratic system that gives citizens broad latitude to express diverse views, and between partisans of a more authoritarian, centralized system that lacks trust in its citizens and imposes a narrow ideology. My observation is that in Turkey today democrats -- and indeed authoritarians -- are to be found on both sides of the secular/religious fault line.
What sadly emerged on Friday, as the presidential election began in Parliament, was the political parties’ inadequate degree of maturity. For someone like me who loves Turkey and wants to see it develop to its full political, social and economic potential, it was painful to see opposition parties deliberately relinquishing their democratic power to vote and, instead, handing the right of decision to the Constitutional Court.
The ruling party could no doubt have handled the pre-election period better. Had Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan not kept the country waiting for months while he decided whether or not to stand for the presidency, tension might not have risen so high. But the opposition parties also have a responsibility to present their own candidate, even if the parliament’s arithmetic left them in the minority.
As far back as 1994, when Erdoğan was first elected mayor of İstanbul and a segment of Turkish society began worrying about the threat of “fundamentalism,” I remember writing that perhaps Erdoğan’s success might prompt opposition parties to devise more effective methods to win over voters. But more than a decade later it seems that the “secular” opposition has yet to develop an alternative vision and a positive strategy that does not rely solely on warning that secularism is at threat.
If so many Turkish citizens felt the need to take to the streets to get their views heard, it is partly because many of them are struggling to find political parties capable of channeling their opinions. An efficient opposition, which offers alternative views and solutions, is a fundamental element of any healthy democracy. In the past five years the opposition has proven very weak. Elections will take place sooner rather than later, but will the various political parties rise to the test and offer a clear vision of the future they envision for the country?
