Why the people of Turkey can’t take a liking to their diplomats
by
BEKİR BERAT ÖZİPEK

Personally, my experiences with and knowledge of members of the Turkish Foreign Ministry had not been positive thus far, so I couldn’t help but hope that something may have changed.

However, it only took a brief half hour for our guest to prove that an institution cannot change or transform within a few short years.

The guest did not bother to introduce himself to any of us there, but instead quickly shook hands and sat down in a central position. After casually making himself comfortable and crossing his legs -- no one else was sitting that way -- he started to speak to us in a bossy manner. He was not interested in anyone’s ideas. He proceeded to tell us what we should do against the “Armenian allegations” as if we were public servants and he was our chief. He did not bother to ask us what we thought about these allegations. He talked incessantly.

I thought to myself, “If I were an enemy of this country, I would wish that its foreign ministry consisted entirely of diplomats just like this one.”

As we moved across to the dining area, the friend who had invited me ingeniously maneuvered us toward a different table in an attempt to ward off any “conversation” that was likely to end in unpleasantly. While sitting at a different table, I signed the joint declaration titled, “This pain is ours and this mourning belongs to all of us,” -- which my friend from İstanbul, Hayko Bağdat, had mailed to me -- which would be recited at a press conference during the ceremony to commemorate Armenians who died in 1915.

The political economy of an antipathy

I must note that this tendency to perceive citizens abroad as some kind of diplomatic representatives and to expect them to act as national agents obliged to advocate the “official ideology,” is not so unique to this diplomat. This stems from a tendency not to attach any value to own citizens. It is a structural, chronic and old problem.

Where should I start to talk about it?

There was a complaint that I frequently heard from friends attending the department of international relations during my university years, “Man, the Foreign Ministry won’t hire people like us.”

It was a justified complaint. They were referring to the “Kemalist caste” of the Foreign Ministry, people at the center who would not allow anyone from the periphery to work there irrespective of success or talent. In order to be employed at the ministry, it wasn’t enough to be ideologically harmless, one was also required to be a member of a particular class, and these two would generally complement each other. No matter how talented or competent they were, it was not easy for young people outside of the ruling elite or those without family members inside the Foreign Ministry, to be appointed to positions reserved for the elite.

Even if political parties backed by non-elites assumed power, the Foreign Ministry, along with some other public institutions, continued its stronghold. There was an invisible wall that would prevented the Ministry from being penetrated; thus in this way, the children of outsiders could be warded off from the “caste.”

This screening, which was obviously unfair, would be conducted with reference to ideology as an excusable justification, without emphasis on class or group affiliations. One had to be Kemalist, contemporary/modern, nationalist and secular to work at the Foreign Ministry.

Given the fact that Kemalism was the ideology of the privileged elite, the application of this criterion would ensure that the intended class-based screening could be easily performed. Some young people who were not eager to accept this reality and who did their best to prove their allegiance to the official ideology could never understand why they failed at the interview stage.

It continued this way for many years. The Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) single-party regime had ended, but it was not easy for the elected to penetrate the Foreign Ministry and change its internal functioning, which was also the case for the military too. Until recently, the Foreign Ministry preserved its relatively homogeneous nature.

Over the years, the people of Turkey prayed that they would not have to go to Turkish embassies when they were abroad. This was because their own embassy would subject them with humiliation they did not get even from the countries in which they were guests, immigrants, or dual citizens. They were afraid of these diplomats who would denigrate the public by stressing their own class or group and who would be dressed like the westerners but were actually authoritarian and Kemalist and who would see themselves as public chiefs not public servants.

Some Turkish workers and their families in Europe would often complain that diplomats from Turkey treated them like “insects.” Their diplomats did not approve of the way they dressed or the political party they voted for. Their diplomats would not visit the associations they established or attend the events they organized. These diplomats would decline invitations and sometimes even try to prevent some events from happening. These diplomats preferred only to attend events held by elite Turks and Kemalist organizations because they would not be ashamed of being seen in the same place with them.

Undoubtedly, their feeling toward the public was reciprocated with equal detestation. The people who were victimized and scorned by the public servants of their own countries would call them “mon cher” -- meaning “my dear” in French -- implying that they were alienated from their roots.

Essentially, this problem still exits. It is for the same reason that the tension between the majority of people and diplomats has translated into a tension between “the selected” and “the appointed.” The public expects the administrators they elected into office to find solutions for their problems and they complain about the ill-treatment they endure at their embassies. This was the very background to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s admonishment of diplomats who posed obstacles to women with headscarves at Turkish embassies in Germany. The statement issued by retired diplomats condemning Erdoğan for his use of the word “mon cher” was characterized not only with a high dose of nationalism, but also with dislike.

Nowadays, the process of jettisoning an old paradigm that sits on the bias of being surrounded with internal and external enemies, in compliance with the new foreign policy introduced by Ahmet Davutoğlu, has not been embraced enthusiastically by the old ossified staff. Behind closed doors, they slam the Kurdish initiative, the Armenian initiative and the “compromise-oriented” Cyprus policy. This is because they hate the author of this new concept, which they find to be against the national interest, more than they hate the concept itself.

At this point, the lack of love becomes apparent. The problem is not that newcomers are not sufficiently nationalist or secularist. The real problem is that for the first time, a government coming from the periphery is meddling with the existing caste system.

There is a transformation going on, albeit slowly, at the Turkish Foreign Ministry. The old elites are feeling that the very ground beneath their feet is getting shaky. There is a new type of diplomat who is young, liberal and democratic in the making, and who justifiably doesn’t like to be perceived as “mon cher.” For the first time, Turkish workers in foreign countries are surprised to see Turkish diplomats who come up and chat with them at the market or on the street.

Yet, the old structure is still dominant and continues to reproduce itself. This is the war between the old and the new. The old class seeks to preserve the world as it is with their privileges and ideologies: But the world is changing and the country is changing. It distresses them to see that the “muzhiks” whom they would banish away from the table now live in mansions that had been allocated to them in the past. In short, the reason why they hate the kids from the slums -- who want a share of their cake -- is not that they are liberal, conservative or pious, but because they are themselves.

I can understand them. With grief and anger, they watch the children of the others come and share the positions which would be normally allocated to themselves and their children. Of course, it is not easy for them to accept this. This is because when privileges are long lasting, their beneficiaries come to perceive them as their natural rights. Yet, that is the way justice and democracy operate.

The people of Turkey have a right to love their diplomats.