Is the Justice and Development Party (AKP) turning Turkey into an Islamic state?

Transcription

1 Is the Justice and Development Party (AKP) turning Turkey into an Islamic state? (Robertson, 2007)

2 ABSTRACT An examination of the interplay between Islam and the ostensibly secular Turkish state, focusing on the Justice and Development Party s (AKP) rise to power and wider discourse regarding the supposed incompatibility between Islam and democracy. Fears from both within and outside of Turkey that the AKP are political Islamists hoping to impose an Islamic state are critically examined through three key themes: (i) the development of secularism in Turkish politics, (ii) the AKP s record in government so far, and (iii) the discourse surrounding Islam, which posits it as a threat to liberal democratic governance. Such fears appear to have little foundation in the Turkish case, with the AKP record in government suggesting a populist, social conservative, market-oriented party platform. Claims of the AKP Islamic tendencies are reconsidered in light of the specifics of the Turkish state and its practice of assertive secularism. Additionally, the essentialist and monolithic understandings of Islam and Muslim populations are addressed, highlighting the Islamaphobia inherent in discourse that singles out Islam as incompatible with democracy. Far from attempting to impose an Islamic state, the AKP are found to be pioneering Muslim Democracy, which appears not just to be providing an example of the workable relationship between Islam and democracy, but also showing how such a combination is in fact helping quell more extreme religious factions and address the illiberal assertive secularism that severely curtains certain religious freedoms within Turkey. 1

3 On the back of three decisive electoral victories 1, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), is proving a force to be reckoned with in modern Turkish politics. This success has received mixed reaction from both within and outside of Turkey with many worrying that the traditionally secular state could be moving towards an Islamic state 2. A variety of perceived Islamic influences on the party are the primary causes for concern its roots in the banned Islamic parties Welfare and Virtue, the party s many Islamic-leaning supporters, and the current Turkish Prime Minister and party leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who served jail time for reading religious poetry at a political rally. However, if the AKP wished to impose an Islamic state, then surely, after two [now three] general elections and seven years in power (Hale, 2010: 133), such a state would be in full-swing. Despite the Islamic-lite record of the AKP government so far, there is always the fear that they are merely bidding their time and engaging in takiyye hiding the true ideas of an Islamic party to escape constitutional prosecution (Dagi, 2008: 26). Particularly if we consider current attempts at major constitutional reforms by Erdogan, this suspicion becomes more convincing; such changes would diminish the powers of the judiciary and military (Bishara, 2011), thus removing the threat of constitutional prosecution or military coup against any attempts to impose an Islamic state. When considering whether the AKP is in fact attempting to turn Turkey into an Islamic state there are three main questions to ask: (i) how secular is the Turkish state, (ii) how Islamic are the AKP governmental intentions, and (iii) what are the implications of Turkey becoming an Islamic state? *** %, %, % (Álvarez-Rivera, 2011) 2 A state that is based on Islamic law (Shari a) (Göl, 2009: 795) 2

4 I. ASSERTIVE OR PASSIVE SECULARISM Turkey is considered not really a secular state (LeVine, 2011), with commentators such as Ufuk Ulutas (2010) highlighting the contradictions in Turkey s professed secularism. In particular, Ulutas cites the state s de facto sponsorship of Sunni-Islam as the country s official religion through the regulatory powers of the Diyanet 3. In light of this, claims that the AKP is turning the Turkish state Islamic must be re-considered on the basis of how secular the state actually is rather than fearful assumptions of what the true intentions are of the party. The Diyanet was established in order to help gain legitimacy among the religious people (Ulutas, 2010: 398) by creating a Turkish-Islamic synthesis ; a state-standardised version of Sunni-Islam. This was an attempt to keep religion out of the hands of political Islamists who might challenge the power of the secular elites. William Hale explains this inherent inconsistency between Turkey s secular rhetoric and religious practice by stating that, Kemalism did not seek to destroy religion, but to control it (Hale, 2010: 131). With this in mind, the Turkish model of secularism does not appear to fit into definitions of secularism - Ahmet Kuru (2007) explains that in a secular state: (i) the judiciary must be independent from religion, and (ii) no official religion or atheism should be established by the state (Kuru, 2007: 569). This seems to invalidate Turkey s claim of secularism, due to its de facto support for Sunni-Islam, however, Kuru maintains that Turkey is in fact secular, but merely practising an assertive form of secularism. 3 The Directorate of Religious Affairs a governmental body, part of the Prime Minister s Office, responsible for managing mosques, religious education, publishing new Koran, and all other Islam-related activities (Ulutas, 2010: 389) 3

5 Assertive secularism means that, the state excludes religion from the public sphere and plays an assertive role as the agent of a social engineering project that confines religion to the private domain (Kuru, 2007: 571). This assertive secularism has come under sustained attack from political Islamists over the course of Turkey s history, but all have ended in intervention either by the military or the Constitutional Court. However, the AKP, who wish to pursue a passive secularism, allow[ing] for the public visibility of religion (ibid), have been making serious headway and this could see the liberalisation of the state s position on Islam. This attempt to pacify Turkish secularism is not a move towards an Islamic state; in fact, it ironically seems to be moving Turkey in a more liberal direction, better reflecting Turkish society and public opinion, and allowing greater religious freedom to publically practise Islam (Nasr, 2005). *** II. POLITICAL ISLAMIST IS ONLY A NAME THAT WESTERNERS AND SECULARS GIVE US (PAMUK, 2002: 58) Whilst Turkish secularists and many Western commentators might have initially worried about the Islamic origins of the AKP, these fears have not yet come to fruition and most likely never will. As Dagi explicitly states, looking at the AKP s platform, its public discourse, its social base, and above all its record in government, one does not see an Islamist faction, but rather a globalist, marketoriented, pro-western, and populist political party (Dagi, 2008: 30). 4

6 The AKP tries to distance itself from political Islam, including the former Welfare and Virtue Parties it emerged from, by calling itself the AK Party. This evokes images of a clean slate (Mecham, 2004: 349) drawing upon, the Turkish word ak, which signifies both white and clean (ibid). Beyond this linguistic nudge, when describing its ideological platform, the party uses the term conservative democracy (Nasr, 2005: 23), to both avoid prosecution and continue to make a conscientious break with its political Islamist origins. This demonstrates the democratic moderation process undergone by many political Islamists in Turkey, which is only strengthened by public endorsement at the polls as shown by the three successive majority AKP governments. Whether widespread public support for the AKP is due to its more moderate Islam-leaning slant, or the resulting focus on specific policy and economic reform, is unclear. Regardless, the lack of real choice in Turkish party politics in the late 1990s and early 2000s provided a strong incentive to vote for change (Mecham, 2004: 340). The Turkish public chose the moderate AKP over Felicity, a clear Islamist alternative (Nasr, 2005: 14), who received no parliamentary seats. Many voters seemed to be basing their voting decisions on bread-andbutter issues (Haynes, 2010: 317) which represents progress in a multi-party democracy that has been interrupted and constrained by the threat of military intervention too often in the relatively short history of the modern Turkish state. If there is anything to worry about regarding the AKP s political or ideological platform it is not its links to Islam but those with the Anatolian Tigers (Nasr, 2005: 24) - a strong devout bourgeoisie with vested interests in liberalism and democracy (Gumuscu, 2010: 836) who support the AKP s pro-capitalist, globalist approach to business. As with any democratic society, the power of the financial or business elite can prove corrupting and 5

7 undemocratic if they are too influential in political circles, and so the Anatolian Tigers support for the AKP may need to be carefully monitored. Additionally, the economic programme they support has overall improved the country s economic position, but it is unclear whether these economic developments affect the daily lives of poorer Turks, particularly certain minority groups, such as the Kurds. As Orhan Pamuk 4 highlights in his novel Snow and in subsequent radio interviews, the big questions in Turkish politics between the secular elite and Islamic politicians ultimately mean very little to groups like the Kurds and the poor (Pamuk, 2002; Inskeep, 2004; Seyhan, 2011). Indeed, minority issues appear to have been used as mere political footballs by the AKP; for example, the issue of Kurdish rights and disarming the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was broached by the AKP s Democratic initiative (Kalin, 2011), however, this was quickly dropped when it did not poll well before the recent elections. This demonstrates the gap between rhetoric and reality (LeVine, 2011) and the distance between ordinary Turks daily lives and the ideological questions of the political elite, whether they be religious or economic. The traditional rhetoric used by the AKP to appeal to these minority groups and poorer Turks is indicative of their position as a conservative, centre-right party seeking to appease the 99% of the Turkish population with a Muslim background (Haynes, 2010: 312). Whilst this rhetoric is seen as Islam in disguise, much of the AKP s conservatism can be seen as cultural as opposed to religious (Haynes, 2010: 322), and it is important to make this distinction between conservative and Islamist. In short, a lot of the national-level criticism of the AKP can be attributed [to] secularists seeking to discredit the party for electoral 4 Nobel-Prize winning Turkey author and socio-literary commentator 6

8 purposes (Haynes, 2010: 316), rather than an actual attempt at Islamification of the Turkish state the AKP is moderating and compromising in order to gain votes, and thus adapting in order to survive in a multi-party democracy. *** III. MUSLIM DEMOCRACY, CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY, AND THE FEAR OF THE MUSLIM OTHER Whilst the AKP has enacted policies that could be regarded as Islam-leaning (Haynes, 2010: 316), this is radically different from establishing an Islamic state. Indeed, the moderation of the AKP s Islam-leaning has become an oft-cited example of how other majority-muslim countries could practice democracy, providing a positive example of the compatibility of Islam and democracy (Haynes, 2010: 312). This compatibility is described by Vali Nasr (2005) as Muslim Democracy the integration of Muslim religious values into political platforms designed to win regular democratic elections (Nasr, 2005: 14). Thus far it has proved successful for the AKP at the ballot box, creating a stable nexus (Nasr, 2005: 15) from which to consolidate Turkish democracy and attempt to move beyond the plague of military coups and political party bans. If any concerns remain over their commitment to liberal democratic principles, it is more so in the area of freedom of speech and expression, whereby crackdowns on journalists critiquing the AKP are becoming more frequent. And so, whilst it must be admitted that the AKP are still establishing what their ideology is, as of yet they have concentrated on liberal democratic, rather than explicitly religious, reform. 7

9 Despite this relatively moderate record, the critical rhetoric remains focused on the AKP s Islamic roots, with commentators appearing determined to justify suspicions of Islam in politics being dangerous. These suspicions are, however, based on reductionist tendencies based on immutable essences and conventional stereotypes (Gerges, 1991: 217), which reduces Turkish-Muslim voters and politicians to their religion, evoking a deterministic if not wholly essentialist understanding of voting behaviour and party political ideology. As Said s Orientalist critique highlights, the Muslim Other is being represented rather than being able to represent themselves (Said, 1985: 97), in this case the AKP. Andrea Smith (2006) continues the Orientalist critique by highlighting the acceptability of Christian Right politics in the USA in contrast with the heightened suspicion surrounding Islam-influenced politics in the so-called Muslim countries. And Said goes on to echo this differentiation between Islam and other religions: Islam is not a culture, but a nuisance (Said, 1985: 98). It appears that the AKP is being painted as a nuisance that is getting in the way of Turkey s secular route to a Western-esque liberal democracy. Haynes (2010) emphasises that limiting Turkish citizens freedoms is wrong, whether it be by religious or secular elites, yet, these limits only appear to worry commentators outside of Turkey when Muslim politicians are involved. The EU and other Western commentators must accept that Turkey is a Muslim country, and that this is positively influencing Turkish politics in the form of the AKP s Muslim Democracy, which appears to be the harbinger, not the follower, of more liberal Islamic thought and practice (Nasr, 2005: 26). This moderating Islamic influence will continue to diminish the influence of political Islamists and ensure further democratic and liberal reform in Turkey. Regardless of the AKP s original intentions, the realities of multi-party politics and the ever threatening secular establishment have seriously moderated any Islamic urges. 8

10 *** After considering the AKP on the merits of its record in government and the complex Turkish political situation, it appears that despite its political Islamist roots and its evocation of traditional values, the AKP is not trying to establish an Islamic state. Instead, they are following a long line of assertive secularist Turkish governments, using the state and party politics as an effective bulwark against radical and violent Islamism (Nasr, 2005: 26). Whilst the AKP is attempting to pacify this assertive secularism, inevitably allowing Islam to be more visible, this is in the name of liberal democratic reform not in order to build an Islamic state. In short, the AKP is a populist party which appears to reflect the political and religious persuasions of the majority of Turkish voters. And so in the same way as many Western liberal democracies are overtly Christian, the AKP is finally allowing Islam to colour Turkish public life within the bounds of its democracy. *** 9

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