George must chew some Turkey

Will the chairman of the Justice party, Tayyab Erdogan, meet Erbakan’s fate? After all, his religious and political antecedents are similar to Erbakan’s. ‘Drawing comparisons with Erbakan’s Refah party would be rash and inaccurate,’ says Ahmed Cavusoglu, one of Turkey’s well-known journalists. ‘Erbakan’s first foreign trip after becoming prime minister was to Libya,’ he continues, ‘and his second visit was to Iran — both the regimes were in bad odour those days. Such ill-advised moves hurt Turkish pride as inheritors of the Ottoman Empire and even more

so of Ataturk’s secular heritage. Moreover Erdogan is, unlike Erbakan, staunchly pro-EU. His first trip is to Greece to mend fences with Athens.’

But the important point to remember is that Erbakan’s rise to power was greatly helped by the televised brutalisation of Bosnia spread over four years without a break. If Turkish sensibilities were bruised by the Bosnian conflict, which was one of the factors which helped the avowedly Islamic Refah’s ride to power, is the extraordinary success of Tayyab Erdogan attributable to, say, the media projection in which the war on terror is beginning to acquire anti-Muslim contours, President Bush’s early protestation to the contrary notwithstanding?

However, to describe the success of Erdogan’s success in terms of a civilisational clash would be hasty. The plummeting economy, the manner in which Bulent Ecevit held on to power, the deadlock in the Aegean sea, in Cyprus, the lingering problems in the Balkans — Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia —all added to the national mood which resulted in the wholesale rejection of other established parties.

I have repeatedly argued that it is not the war against terrorism, but the manner in which this war is being projected globally, that encourages Islamic consolidation. Palestinians, Chechens, Uighurs, Filipino Moros are all under pressure from rulers who are in religion and ethnicity different from them.

In a recent paper a Rand specialist on Islamic societies, Graham Fuller, wrote: ‘In all these cases, Islam serves to powerfully bolster national Liberation struggles by adding a ‘‘holy’’ religious element to an emerging ethnic struggle. These causes have attracted a kind of Muslim ‘‘foreign legion’’ of radicalized, volunteer mujahideen, some of whom have joined Al Qaeda’.

Another factor which invites attention is a striking coincidence: two of USA’s staunchest allies traditionally and more so in the context of the war against terror, Pakistan and Turkey, have lurched towards Islamism. How does this impact on the so-called continuing war on terrorism in Afghanistan and on President Bush’s determination to invade Iraq? Will Erdogan make available the bases in Adana for air strikes against Iraq?

Just two weeks before the Turkish election, the security establishment in Ankara was trying to disqualify Erdogan’s party. In fact, Erdogan himself has been barred from contesting the elections. Do these trends indicate that the army is poised to move against the popular verdict once again because in its perception an Islamic party is inherently against Ataturk’s vision?

But the first signs are encouraging. President Ahmed Necdet Sezer, a former Judge, has invited Erdogan to discuss government formation. And, who knows even the Americans, in the midst of Republican celebrations, may begin to see the larger truth: Islamic parties voted to power democratically are not facilitators of terrorism necessarily. In fact totalitarian regimes are.

Quite possibly, Islamists in power may be no different from the Christian Democrats in parts of Europe. This may well be the way societies will have to be reordered in countries like Egypt.

Write to saeednaqvi@expressindia.com