Viewed together with the debate unleashed in the past couple of years by the Ergenekon inquiry and more recently by the infamous document outlining plans to undermine the ruling party unearthed by the Taraf newspaper, this development suggests that Turkey has now begun in earnest the task of redefining relations between the army and the civilian authorities. We can expect tense moments in the months ahead, but some fundamental questions are at last being asked. This evolution, crucial if Turkey is to get closer to the EU, is part of a general democratization process. Bringing its army and its gendarmerie under the control of the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of the Interior, respectively, are among others challenging tasks Turkey still faces on the way to the EU.
Tipping the balance in favor of civilian courts and removing the quasi-immunity that military personnel have enjoyed in military courts in the past -- as evidenced by the military tribunal's decision to release the perpetrators of the Şemdinli bombing, who had been condemned to 39 years of imprisonment by a criminal court -- is, however, only a first step. Changing the mentality and the understanding of what constitutes national security throughout society will prove more difficult.
YouTube and hundreds of other Web sites were banned by civilian judges. A civilian tribunal is currently trying the people accused of murdering Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, and as my colleague Yavuz Baydar pointed out in these pages recently, the case appears to be going nowhere. The streak of authoritarianism that runs through Turkish society may be largely inspired by a military perception of threats, but this vision is also partly shared by the civilian authorities, by civil society and accepted by many citizens.
Some clues as to why this top-down approach still commands so much support can be found in the just-released second edition of the “Almanac Turkey 2006-2008: Security Sector and Democratic Oversight,” prepared by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) and covering the years from 2006 to the present.
This comprehensive document shines a light into the structure and the operating mechanisms of the various organizations that make up Turkey's extensive and opaque security system, which despite legal amendments, remains largely unmonitored. As the report points out, the massive security budget, which should be scrutinized by Parliament, is usually rubberstamped in record time.
The section on the role of the media, civil society organizations and the education system is particularly enlightening. The mainstream media outlets, it suggests, generally adhere to traditional views on security, as do many civic associations. Others simply lack expertise and resources to keep an eye on the security sector.
The education system, Ayşe Gül Altınay argues in her essay, is the major conveyor of the army-nation myth to the public at large. Textbooks, she explains, exalt and legitimize war and violence as well as an “understanding of militarized citizenship.”
Making the transition to a more democratic approach to security that does not view military responses as the only option will require a sustained effort and a lot of self-examination on the part of political leaders across the spectrum. Judging by how long the prime minister has resisted meeting with representatives of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), which is a legitimate, elected party, embracing a new, more democratic vision to solve entrenched problems like the Kurdish question, does not come easy.
