Turkey: Ataturk’s unlikely heirs

The inheritors of Kemal Ataturk’s secular republic appear not to be Istanbul’s urban elite or Turkey’s overbearing army, but rather the Islamist AKP.

On Wednesday Turkey’s constitutional court, the highest in the land, ruled by a razor thin majority of six to five that the party of government, Justice and Development (the AKP) was not sufficiently in breach of the secularist values of the nation to warrant dissolution. Neither were 82 different party MPs, including the Prime Minister Reccip Tayip Erdogan and the President Abdullah Güll pursuing an overly Islamist agenda enough to require them to be banned from politics. Rather the party received a punitive fine, withdrawing half of its state funding to illustrate that it was not entirely absolved.

This was a case, brought earlier this year by the court’s chief prosecutor, that sent shockwaves through the country and had the sentence gone the way of the prosecutor, Mr. Abdurrahman, the national and international repercussions would have been grave. The suit in essence accused the government of being too Islamic and thereby not serving the interests of the state. The merits for such a case are however few and far between.

Much of the case focused attention on Prime Minister Erdogan’s Islamic past. Mr. Erdogan was originally trained as a cleric. Furthermore Mr. Abdurrahman has made use of Mr. Erdogan’s past inexperience as a young and green MP for AKP’s predecessor, Welfare. Mr. Erdogan made the mistake of reading an Islamic poem in public. Also Mr. Erdogan made an unfortunate statement suggesting that democracy was simply “a train” from which you disembarked “once you have reached your destination”. However, the prosecutor’s main argument, arguably the policy which precipitated the suit, was the AKP’s overturning of the ban on the wearing of headscarves in universities. This vote has divided public opinion in Turkey and has become the divisive issue of the day. Muslim women feel they are unprotected under the law as it unfairly discriminates against their custom, whilst secularists argue it is an infringement of the country’s secular legacy and hence must not be allowed.

International spectators have widely agreed however that this does not constitute overt Islam nor is an agenda visible to turn the country into an Islamic republic. The justices of the Court agreed. Still this was a surprise decision. The court has not previously shied from banning political predecessors to the AKP such as former parties Welfare and Virtue as well as 9 other political parties in the past. However the unique nature of this case and indeed arguably the most significant reason for the outcome of the case is that the 11 justices could foresee the national crisis that could have tolled the death knell for real democracy in Turkey and the last best chance for a modern Muslim democracy. The difference between banning the AKP to previous zealous dissolutions that the court enacted in the protection of secularism is the over whelming mandate that it received from the people last summer. Expelling the people’s undisputed choice from politics would have shown that democracy in Turkey was fragile, transient and fallacious.

Rather the AKP has been allowed to endure, albeit with a warning. This decision reflects to a large extent the record of the party’s governance in proving its secular credentials. Whilst it controversially attempted to overturn a law banning headscarves in universities, hence by extension supporting political Islam, this has been the extent of their religious transgressions. The AKP has during its time in government worked to improve the lot of ordinary Anatolians and to increase the prosperity of their developing nation. Indeed Turkey’s interest in becoming a safe, stable and secure democracy is best served in allowing the AKP to continue as it has.

The AKP has presided over by far the most impressive economic record of any government in Turkey’s history. It has achieved what every secular government before it has failed to do, facilitate Turkey’s path to European integration through beginning accession talks. This had been the quarry of secular governments before it, but always pitifully unachievable due to the lack of economic advancement and convergence with Europe over human rights. Before the AKP, foreign direct investment was minimal. Today it flows in freely and abundantly.

Success with Europe is unquestionably the AKP’s greatest achievement in government. The records of previous governments pale in comparison. So does the current opposition, which is in a shambles and no fit state to present a credible alternative to the public or to lead. The simple fact is that whilst the ‘support’ for Islam from the AKP may run counter to Ataturk’s wishes, the AKP has done more to develop Turkey as a country than any other government in Turkey’s past. Ataturk’s dream of a robust democracy is unquestionably safer in the hands of the AKP rather than the army, facilitators of past coups, or the secularist elite, who are afraid of their own countrymen.