Cyprus-Forum.com

[boomerang]

Commander’s biggest mistake on the night of April

Wednesday, January 6, 2010
MEHMET ALİ BİRAND
The period of change in influence and control of the Turkish Armed Forces, or TSK, started with the AKP obtaining the majority of votes during general elections in 2002. It happened. The commander’s fear of an “Islamic and pious” segment laying hands on Turkey seemed to become reality. He would have risked his own life to prevent it. Everything that Atatürk tried to prevent seemed to be becoming reality.

If it were the old days, one would interfere without hesitation but now the world and Turkey have changed.

The commander kept silent. But there was a limit to his silence. He was supposed to protect Atatürk’s principles. Lines were drawn in certain matters. Relations with the administration were to be kept at a certain distance. The commander saw the AKP from the very first day as a threat to the secular system for which efforts were spent to establish over the years and even tightened further after Sept. 12, 1980 coup.

Former Chief of Staff Gen. Kıvrıkoğlu, in view of this threat, fine-tuned all candidates for the position of commanders in chief and appointed those he trusted the most. But he did not or could not block Gen. Hilmi Özkök. The first difference in opinion with the AKP and the commander surfaced during the European Union and the Cyprus issue. The military viewed the Annan Plan and the application to a full membership to the EU as document of disloyalty and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s attitude in the EU and Cyprus issues rang alarm bells.

The commander received his first defeat in this area. Despite Denktaş’s outcry he could not prevent the Annan Plan. If the Greek Cypriots had not rejected it, the military would have done everything possible to prevent the application of this plan.

In the period of 2003-2004 the TSK and the Secular-Nationalists formed a full alliance. Sovereign forces decided that the leadership of this country was fading from their hands and that they needed to form a mutual front to prevent it. If the surfaced diaries are correct then there has been a coup prepared during that period called “Ayışı ve Sarıkız (Moonlight and Blond Girl).” It is believed that former Chief of Staff Hilmi Özkök has prevented an open fight over this.

2007: turning point

Those who analyzed the TSK and civil administration will notice that 2007 was a historical turning point. In 2007, in the real sense of the word, there has been a “Çankaya battle.” Since the Presidential Palace was a symbol of the Secular Republic, the candidacy of Abdullah Gül and his headscarfed wife meant a collapse of the Kemalist system. Republic rallies were arranged. Thousands of people walked to Anıtkabir.

Headed by the Constitutional Court, the judiciary staged a revolt. For the presidential election the condition of an absolute majority in Parliament was created and Gül was clearly hindered. Former Chief of Naval Operations Özden Örnek’s diaries being noticed by the media happened about the same time. Thus, the message went across that the military could press the button if necessary. I don’t know how historians will evaluate this in the future but if we were to take a look at the past and make a preliminary evaluation, we’ll notice that the commander made a very important strategic mistake in 2007. A mistake unseemly for a chief of staff.

A basic factor in the education of a commander is “not to take any step or say a word before calculating which way to go, where to stop, what result to obtain.” The commander’s most important strategic mistake in the Çankaya battle was not considering the above questions and not evaluating of the situation realistically. He must have thought that his headquarters would agree with him when he thought that he’d hit for six in April 2007. He probably did not realize that the Turkish public has changed. He believed or was made to believe that he could still change many things through an announcement made by the TSK.

He concluded that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would be afraid and step back just like Erbakan on Feb. 28, 1997. On April 27 he wrote a message that was characterized by many as an e-memorandum or warning message. It was posted on the Web site of the General Staff without sharing it with his headquarters or consulting anyone else. This message in summary meant: Abdullah Gül should not become president. Voting for the AKP means the end of the secular system. If this happens the TSK will take its guard and intervene if necessary.

We neither know Gen. Büyükanıt’s rationale for writing this message nor the circumstances or pressures exercised upon him. We’ll know when he announces it in the future. The political administration did not spent much time in responding to Gen. Büyükanıt. When for the first time an administration told the military, “Mind your own business,” everything really started to change. And the TSK could not take any action under these circumstances.

What was interesting was that some weeks later (May 7, 2007) the prime minister during and after the meeting, of which the contents were kept a secret, with Gen. Büyükanıt in Dolmabahçe, did not show his hand. It was as if there has been a mutual showdown. For, only two months were left before the elections and he did not want to provoke the TSK. And he was right. Elections even stunned Erdoğan. He increased his votes from 33 percent to 47. Abdullah Gül moved to Çankaya.

The AKP started action in order to liberate the headscarf in universities and lift obstacles in front of the religious vocational high school students. The military did not or could not do anything. And the commander showed that he couldn’t do anything but salute. The “Çankaya battle” was lost.

The period of the armed force’s intervention was over and a new period started in which it is the turn for the civil forces to fine tune. The chief public prosecutor opened a case against the AKP before the Constitutional Court.

i had this discussion with a turkish close friend of mine where i asked him democracy was the name of the game and at at the end it must prevail...

he did agree to an extend with a but...his views are, you cannot compare democrcy with the west where there are checks and balances...

in turkey he said, most people are backwards...he went to say when it comes to islam these people put faith above the law...they believe the ultimate authority rests with the koran and not the rule of law...and this somehow justified the kemalist ideals...

i would like to hear from tcs on this as we hear of new statues and mosques erected...is this a sign of the 2 camps competing?...could there be a future problem between the secularists and the islamists one day fought in cyprus?...or has it already started and we haven't realised it as yet coz it hasn't boiled yet?

Prior to AKP coming to power was there more mosques and statues erected?...or is this a continuation or a current trend?...

PS...i especially would like to hear from insan and iceman...

[Tim Drayton]

The directors of the Religious Foundation in Cyprus have filed a lawsuit against the former directors. It is curious to note that in their petition they refer to the former directors as “select persons from within the Muslim Cyprus Turkish community”. Nobody in mainland Turkey would bat an eyelid at hearing their society described as "Muslim Turkish", but secular Turkish Cypriots, to the extent that I understand them, consider religion to be a matter of personal preference. It seems that the Turkish-Islamic synthesis is gradually making inroads into Cyprus.



http://www.yeniduzen.com/detay.asp?a=15942

[boomerang]

thanks Tim...but as both camps seemed to be making inroads do you think a showdown is brewing?

and how would that affect the future of cyprus when eventually some kind of unification is reached?...

or you think the secullarist forces will have the final say...

personally i think the secularist forces have had the days...

at the back of my mind i am very suspicious of the AKP pushing EU membership for greater religious freedoms...

[Tim Drayton]

thanks Tim...but as both camps seemed to be making inroads do you think a showdown is brewing?

and how would that affect the future of cyprus when eventually some kind of unification is reached?...

or you think the secullarist forces will have the final say...

personally i think the secularist forces have had the days...

at the back of my mind i am very suspicious of the AKP pushing EU membership for greater religious freedoms...

I would have appreciated some Turkish Cypriot input on these points, too, but none was forthcoming. I think, sadly, that many developments, including the anti-secularist current that is gathering strength in Turkey and is also having an impact on north Cyprus, are making the prospects of a just and amicable settlement ever more remote.

[boomerang]

Turkey’s transformation under AKP-I: Rise and demise of moderate Islamism

Sunday, April 4, 2010
Soner Çağaptay
The Anatolian landscape is dotted by a tall slender tree in the aspen family, known to the Turks as kavak, a fragile-looking but sturdy tree. When the harsh Anatolian wind blows across the steppe, kavak can bend at incredible angles, adjusting to the power of the wind, and somehow not break. Turkey is like the Anatolian kavak. The country has come to bend with the powerful political, social and foreign policy choices that its elites have ushered in over the ages, bowing to the power of such winds. Ever since the sultans started to Westernize the Ottoman Empire in the 1770's, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk continued these reforms making Turkey a secular republic in the 1920's, and the various political parties of the Turkish democracy in the 20th century cast their dice with the West, the Turks have adopted a pro-Western stance in foreign policy, embraced secular democracy at home, and marched towards the European Union (EU).

This is changing. The rise of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), a party rooted in Turkey's Islamist opposition, to government in 2002 introduced new social, political, and foreign policy winds across the Turkish society. These forces include solidarity with Islamist and anti-Western countries in foreign policy and orthopraxy in the public space, promoting outward displays of homogenous religious practice and social conservatism, though not necessarily directed by faith. After seven years of AKP rule, the Anatolian Turks are bending over to the power of the AKP, orthopraxy and the Islamist mindset in foreign policy are taking hold. According to a recent poll by TESEV, an Istanbul-based NGO, the number of people identifying themselves as Muslim increased by 10 percent between 2002 and 2007; in addition, almost half of those surveyed describe themselves as Islamist. Moreover, orthopraxy seems to have become internalized: bureaucrats in Ankara now feel compelled to attend prayers lest they be bypassed for promotions. Public display of religious observance, often devoid of faith, has become a necessity for those seeking government appointments or lucrative state contracts. Where is Turkey heading under the AKP, and what are the lessons that can be drawn from the AKP experience?

The AKP has roots in Turkey's Islamist movement, including the Welfare Party, or RP, the mothership of Turkish Islamism. The AKP's founders, including party leader and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, cut their teeth in the RP, an explicitly Islamist party, which featured strong anti-Western, anti-Semitic, anti-democratic, and anti-secular elements. The RP joined a coalition government in 1997 before alienating the secular Turkish military, the courts, and the West, leading to being banned in 1998. Yet the party never truly disappeared. Erdoğan and his comrades drew a lesson from this experience; the Turkish Islamists would be better served to reinvent themselves in order to be successful. In due course, Erdoğan re-created the party with a pro-American, pro-EU, capitalist and reformist image.

When the AKP came to power in 2002, after taking advantage of the implosion of the country's centrist parties in the 2001 economic crisis, it tried to reassure the moderates' concerns it might chip away at the country's secular, democratic and pro-Western values. The AKP renounced its Islamist heritage and began working instead to secure EU membership and to turn Turkey into an even more liberal and pro-Western place. At the time, few thought that the party could transform Turkey for the worse. After all, Turkey had been a multi-party democracy since 1946; it had a vigorous free media, secular courts, a large business class, and a strong army, all deemed to be guardians of Western values. What is more, the United States support for the secular, Western Turkey and the EU process were viewed as the fail-safes of the Turkish liberalization process that would entice the AKP to maintain its pro-West stance and reform path.

The AKP indeed promoted reforms, pro-business and pro-EU policies after coming to power. However, soon the party's transformation appeared to be a cynical one. The AKP began to undermine the liberal values it supposedly stood for. For instance, it began to hire top bureaucrats from an exclusive pool of practicing, religious conservatives. Concurrently, the percentage of women in executive positions in government dropped. In years past, Turkish women served as chief justice, prime minister, and ministers of the Interior and Foreign Affairs. Some 30 percent of Turkey's doctors and 33 percent of its lawyers are women. Yet under the AKP, women are largely excluded from decision-making positions in government: there is not a single woman among the 19 ministerial undersecretaries appointed by the AKP. Moreover, whereas in 1994, the percentage of women in executive positions in government was 15.1 percent, according to IRIS, an Ankara-based women's rights group, today this statistic is at 11.8 percent.

The AKP's lack of commitment to liberal values is a testimony to the party's tactical view of EU membership: the AKP pushes for EU membership when it brings the party’s public approval, but not to make Turkey truly European. The nail in the coffin for the AKP's EU tactical drive came in 2005, when the European Court of Human Rights upheld Turkey's old ban on Islamic headscarves on college campuses. The AKP had hoped Europe might help recalibrate Turkish secularism into a more tolerant form. But this wasn't in the cards. Thus, as soon as actual talks of EU membership began in 2005, the AKP became reluctant to take on tough, potentially unpopular reforms mandated by the EU, making accession seem less and less a likely. Statements such as Erdoğan's calling the West "immoral" in 2008 only eroded popular support for EU membership: by last year, about one-third of the population wanted their country to join the EU, down sharply from more than 80 percent in 2002, when the AKP first came to power.

Efforts by secular Turkish institutions to curb the AKP have backfired. In 2007, the secular opposition and the military, which issued a declaration against the AKP on its Web site in spring that year, attempted to block the AKP from electing its own presidential candidate, Abdullah Gül. The AKP successfully challenged the claim, suggesting that the secular opposition and the military did not want Gül to run because of his personal religious views. The AKP thereby created a secular-vs.-Muslim divide, in lieu of Turkey's traditional Islamist-vs.-secular political divide along whose fault line it had always lost in the past. The party successfully positioned itself on the winning Muslim side of the new fault line. Additionally, when the Turkish Constitutional Court tried to prevent the AKP from appointing Gül as president, the AKP cast itself as the underdog representative of Turkey's poor Muslim masses. The two strategies worked: the AKP won 47 percent of the vote in the July 2007 parliamentary elections, defeating the opposition in a monumental victory and exposing the fact that hell does not freeze over when the Turkish military is ignored

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=turkey8217s-transformation-under-akp-i-the-rise-and-demise-of-moderate-islamism-2010-04-02

how is akp policy affecting the north?

[vaughanwilliams]

"......It is curious to note that in their petition they refer to the former directors as “select persons from within the Muslim Cyprus Turkish community”.... secular Turkish Cypriots, to the extent that I understand them, consider religion to be a matter of personal preference. It seems that the Turkish-Islamic synthesis is gradually making inroads into Cyprus.



http://www.yeniduzen.com/detay.asp?a=15942

Tim,

I think, with respect, that you have misconstrued what was written.
"....It is curious to note that in their petition they refer to the former directors as “select persons from within the Muslim Cyprus Turkish community”."
The directors of the Religious Foundation in Cyprus, whether former or current would most certainly have been select persons from within the Muslim community of the Turkish part of Cyprus. It would, indeed, have been curious if they had come from outside the muslim community given that the Religious Foundation is a muslim body.

[Tim Drayton]

"......It is curious to note that in their petition they refer to the former directors as “select persons from within the Muslim Cyprus Turkish community”.... secular Turkish Cypriots, to the extent that I understand them, consider religion to be a matter of personal preference. It seems that the Turkish-Islamic synthesis is gradually making inroads into Cyprus.



http://www.yeniduzen.com/detay.asp?a=15942

Tim,

I think, with respect, that you have misconstrued what was written.
"....It is curious to note that in their petition they refer to the former directors as “select persons from within the Muslim Cyprus Turkish community”."
The directors of the Religious Foundation in Cyprus, whether former or current would most certainly have been select persons from within the Muslim community of the Turkish part of Cyprus. It would, indeed, have been curious if they had come from outside the muslim community given that the Religious Foundation is a muslim body.

The left-wing Yeni Düzen newspaper certainly felt that this was worth noting, and they are the ones who did the underlining.

[vaughanwilliams]

"......It is curious to note that in their petition they refer to the former directors as “select persons from within the Muslim Cyprus Turkish community”.... secular Turkish Cypriots, to the extent that I understand them, consider religion to be a matter of personal preference. It seems that the Turkish-Islamic synthesis is gradually making inroads into Cyprus.



http://www.yeniduzen.com/detay.asp?a=15942

Tim,

I think, with respect, that you have misconstrued what was written.
"....It is curious to note that in their petition they refer to the former directors as “select persons from within the Muslim Cyprus Turkish community”."
The directors of the Religious Foundation in Cyprus, whether former or current would most certainly have been select persons from within the Muslim community of the Turkish part of Cyprus. It would, indeed, have been curious if they had come from outside the muslim community given that the Religious Foundation is a muslim body.

The left-wing Yeni Düzen newspaper certainly felt that this was worth noting, and they are the ones who did the underlining.

I take your point. However, a Religious Foundation, whatever and wherever it is, is liable to couch its wording in religious terms, as this is the nature of the beast, is it not?