It describes if not explains the two separate discourses -- the one meant for domestic consumption and the one designed to be heard abroad. Of course Turkish society is not unique in maintaining two separate codes. The English equivalent would be the stern injunction against washing your dirty laundry with the neighbors looking on. However, the demarcation between what is admissible in private and what you can say before strangers even finds its way into the country's penal code. The infamous Article 301, which makes it an offense to denigrate Turkishness, increases the possible sentence by a third if Turkish citizens do their denigrating abroad.I sometimes think the “broken-arm-in-sleeve syndrome” must complicate the life of the Turkish Foreign Ministry. A diplomat is nothing if not someone prepared to lie for their country, but this presupposes that the poor ambassador knows where the truth lies. “Do you think that this government is serious about negotiating its way into Europe?” I recently asked one of the top civil servants involved in those talks, and there was a distinct hesitation before the reply, “I don't really know.” Are negotiations with Brussels stalled because Ankara fears rejection, or does Ankara court rejection by stalling negotiations? It's not entirely surprising that Hans-Gert Pöttering, president of the European Parliament, told Der Spiegel last week that Turkey should be content with a privileged partnership and announced to Elefterotipia that he doubted whether Turkey had the staying power to remain a full candidate.
On the other hand, Mr. Pöttering himself stands accused of playing to the gallery of German domestic opinion, trying to cash in on enlargement fatigue and anti-immigrant sentiment at a time when Europe is suffering from the economic recession.
The trouble with a globalized world is that it becomes harder and harder to draw the line between what is fit domestic opinion and what is deemed suitable for consumption abroad. It's not just capital which flows freely across borders but people and ideas. Politicians who try to keep their audiences separate simply end up looking foolish. We have seen a variety of recent instances where the government has tied itself up in knots by giving different signals to foreign and domestic audiences.
The most obvious of these has been the confusion over the public tender to press on with the much postponed move to clear the southeastern border with Syria of land mines. Here, the government's commitment to getting the taxpayer the best deal by being open to market forces has been compromised by the antipathy it has itself helped to fan to foreign and in particular Israeli contractors. The result has been that it pleases neither audience and projects an image of a government that vacillates over a simple piece of legislation. However, the malaise is not confined to that issue alone.
The Treasury signals to the international financial community that it recognizes the need to deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). At the same time it gives a wink to the electorate that such a deal is unnecessary and hints that the economists are exaggerating the economic downturn and the trouble of turning over Turkish debt. The result is that some analysts are now predicting that the government may have painted itself into a corner for which the only escape would be an early 2010 general election. The logic is that it cannot afford to postpone an agreement with the IMF yet cannot go to the polls in 2011 shackled by the public sector cuts which an IMF stand-by deal would entail.
The government needs to reverse it strategy. Instead of choosing the most popular policy to appease public sentiment, it needs to win the respect of the electorate by demonstrating its priorities are sound. This means telling the same story and standing up to its critics both at home and abroad.
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