Turkey Analyst,
vol. 2 no. 11
5 June 2009

WHAT THE COLUMNISTS SAY


The question of an alleged Israeli involvement in the clearing of Turkish minefields on the Syrian border and the subsequent leasing of the area to an Israeli company have occupied the Turkish political agenda during the fortnight. Prime Minister Erdogan has encountered strong opposition within his own party. Speaking of past, “fascist” practices of mistreating and expelling minorities from Turkey, Erdogan has seemed to confirm suspicions about a pending offer to Israel. The minefield debate is the latest sign that anti-Israeli sentiments loom large in the ranks of the AKP, as well as among the Turkish public in general. It also fits into a larger picture of Turkey as a country increasingly in the grip of religious, ethnic and ideological intolerance of the “other”.

YETKIN: A GRAVELY MISMANAGED CRISIS
Recounting the origin and development of the minefield crisis, Murat Yetkin in Radikal writes that Prime Minister Erdogan has succeeded in gravely mismanaging an issue that under normal circumstances hardly would have deserved more than a passing mention in the media of the country. Nobody knows the origin of the assertion that ignited the crisis, the unsubstantiated rumor that an Israeli company was to be offered the right to exploit the terrain once it was cleared of mines. But the opposition seized on it, and an internal opposition was quickly formed in the AKP parliamentary group. The masses, which have become sensitized after the Prime Minister’s attack on Israel at the Davos summit, were mobilized. According to Israeli sources, no Israeli company is involved in the issue, and anyhow, after the debasing debate in Turkey, in which Israel has been accused of scheming to acquire control over a part of Turkish territory, any future Israeli involvement has become highly improbable.

BILA: ERDOGAN’S STATEMENTS FUELED SUSPICIONS
Fikret Bila in Milliyet observes that the Ministry of Defense has in fact been opposed to the proposal – which a group of AKP deputies have found difficult to stomach as well – that the territory is to be leased to a foreign company for a period of 44 years. It is known that the opposition within the AKP is primarily due to the rumors that the area is to be leased to an Israeli company. The fact that Prime Minister Erdogan, in his defense of the proposal, has accused Turkey of past, fascist practices, of having persecuted and expelled its minorities, is thought-provoking in this regard. Erdogan’s statements have been interpreted as confirming the rumors of a possible Israeli involvement. The opposition parties, on the other hand, have other reasons for going against the proposal. The Nationalist Action party (MHP) does not want any foreign involvement at all, while the Republican people’s party (CHP) objects to the leasing of the area to the private sector, demanding its distribution to peasants.

KORU: DON’T TREAD ON THE MINES
Fehmi Koru in Yeni Safak writes that the discussions about a possible Israeli clearing of the minefields and subsequent leasing of the territory are demeaning for Turkey.  They damage the international image and standing that Turkey has been carefully building up during the last years; such a discussion is not befitting a country that aspires to play a mediating role in its neighborhood and elsewhere. We should be aware that Israel is not happy with the AKP government. Israel sees Turkey as a rival that stands in the way of its own aspirations. There can be no doubt what Israel would rather prefer if asked to choose between the alternatives of being handed South Anatolia free of charge or of Turkey surrendering its global and regional aspirations. Israel is acting cleverly. One has to be blind not to see the implications of the Israeli ambassador’s choice of the South Anatolian city of Sanliurfa as the venue from where to deliver the message that the rumors of an Israeli involvement are unsubstantiated.

DÜNDAR: DISTRUST IS ON THE RISE
Can Dündar in Milliyet writes about a new survey, conducted by Professor Yilmaz Esmer of the Bahçesehir University of Istanbul, which shows that fundamentalism and intolerance of the “other” has a strong hold of Turkey. A majority of the Turks are convinced that the United States and the European Union are scheming to partition the country. A vast majority not only distrusts the outside world, but believe their country to be surrounded by enemies on all sides. Distrust is also widespread internally. A mere five percent of the Turks hold it to be true that people in general are trustworthy; in comparison, sixty eight percent of the Swedes have trust in people. Professor Esmer had conducted a similar survey nearly twenty years ago, which displayed similar attitudes. Nothing has changed to the better since then. In 1990, 55 percent of Turks declared that they did not want to have Jews as neighbors. Today, 64 percent express that view. Why are we so distrustful of each other and of others? We are a society in the grip of paranoid feelings because we have for generations been fed with perceptions of threats. For decades we were taught to be afraid of communism, sharia and separatism. The Soviet Union, Greece, Armenia. The name of the threat has changed, but the dose of our fears and suspicions has never diminished. We have been afraid of and offended by everyone that did not look like, dress like ourselves, be it Europeans, Americans, Jews, missionaries, finally coming to fear each other as well; Turks and Kurds, Alevis and Sunnis and the seculars and the “other”. We are an insecure society badly in need of a therapy.

AKYOL: INTOLERANT KEMALISTS
How do the members of the secular elite, educated at fine colleges and universities, and which overwhelmingly votes for the Republican people’s party (CHP) think about the society in which they live? Taha Akyol in Milliyet finds some disturbing answers in a new survey, conducted by the Open Society foundation in Istanbul. The Kemalists are utterly disdainful of the religious, conservative masses. They view them as “invaders” of Istanbul. They condemn the Kurds as a backward, tribal people, while their own self-image is that of global citizens. Yet the “global citizens” are opposed to the European Union. And they are suspicious of religious minorities; they desisted from participating in the funeral of the murdered Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, explaining that they were suspicious of the motives of the demonstration. They admit having being shocked when they arrive in Europe and for the first time hear of what happened to the Armenians in Turkey. “Why have we not been taught anything about such things?” they ask.

ALTAN: WHY WE ARE A PATHOLOGICAL SOCIETY
We are a pathological society, states Ahmet Altan in Taraf. Words no longer suffice as a cure. The terrible, narcissistic notion that “I am perfect, and I have the right to do whatever I please to others, while others have no right to interfere with my life” has permeated every segment of our society. The nationalists who expel girls in headscarf from the universities don’t realize how much they hurt the feelings of the religiously conservative. The latter don’t understand how much they scare urban people when they ban alcohol in areas that they have “occupied”. Turks don’t appreciate the effect that the death of PKK militants has among Kurds, while the latter are indifferent to the fate of Turkish soldiers that are blown up by mines. Our disease is in fact rooted in the Turkish-Kurdish war. Or, to be more precise, that war has been an expression of our pathological state, which in turn has grown even worse during the course of the war. Our treatment must consequently begin with that conflict.

The Turkey Analyst
The Turkey Analyst is a publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Joint Center, designed to bring authoritative analysis and news on the rapidly developing domestic and foreign policy issues in Turkey. It is published weekly, and includes a topical analysis, as well as translations and summaries of selected Turkish news reports. It is edited and compiled under the supervision of Svante E. Cornell, Halil M. Karaveli, and M. K. Kaya.

The analyses appearing in the Turkey Analyst are often written by the three Editors. The Turkey Analyst occasionally publishes signed guest analyses.

The Joint Center
The Joint Center was created in 2005 through the merger of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and the Silk Road Studies Program, at the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy.

The Turkey Initiative
The Joint Center launched a Turkey Initiative in 2006 in order to improve understand of Turkish domestic and foreign affairs in Europe and the United States.

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