A CHALLENGE TO TURKEY'S IDEOLOGUES

Written by Andrew Duff MEP and published in ft.com on Thu 7th Jun 2007

Atilla Yayla is not a terrorist. He is not a Kurd. He is not an Armenian. He is not a Marxist. He is not a conscientious objector. He is not a gay activist. He is not a Christian. He is not a Muslim fundamentalist. He is not famous, like Orhan Pamuk. He is a quietly spoken Turk, a professor of politics at Gazi University in Ankara. He is, in fact, a liberal.

On 2 July Dr Yayla will be on trial in Izmir, facing a maximum of four and a half years in prison, for breaching Article 53 of the Turkish penal code. According to the ultra-Kemalists who have brought the case, his crime was to 'publicly insult the moral legacy' of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. Dr Yayla is supposed to have committed the offence during a seminar given in Izmir last November to a group of 30 or so members of the ruling Law and Justice Party (AKP).

The theme of the seminar was how Kemalism, the official ideology of the Turkish state, had adapted over the years or failed to adapt and how, today, Turkey's bid to join the European Union posed new challenges to the ideologues.

Dr Yayla was not uncritical of the European Union, making the point that it should not be equated with civilisation and that its creed of tolerance is not always observed in practice. But the most controversial part of the speech criticised the cult around the personality of Ataturk. Dr Yayla called for a rational debate. Turkey in the EU would be a liberal democracy where the hero worship would be modified. Turkey outside the EU, with Kemalism unreformed, would be 'like Jordan or Syria'.

In addition to the criminal charge, the professor was suspended from his teaching post. Although now re-instated, the university authorities are under continuing pressure from the military to sack him. Ignoring the fact that the criminal prosecution was under way, General Yasar Büyükanit, Chief of the General Staff, has publicly attacked Dr Yayla, inviting the court to convict. This is the same Büyükanit who, on 27 April, issued the 'e-coup' which warned the government not to nominate Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül as President of the Republic. And this is the very same Büyükanit who is massing Turkish troops on the Iraqi border in apparent preparation for an invasion aimed at smashing the separatist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK).

Students of modern Turkey will not be surprised by the belligerence of General Büyükanit. The Turkish politico-military establishment shows precious few signs of embracing European liberal democracy. Instead, it prefers to cling to the structure and ideology of a Republic crafted on Western lines at the worst possible time in Western history. It was not Ataturk's fault, of course, that he lived through Europe's fascist period, but it is astonishing that many of his followers today can hardly bring themselves to ditch the authoritarian elements that still survive in the Turkish constitution: the tough penal code, the primacy accorded to the armed forces, the intense nationalism, the aggressive laicism, the lack of freedom of expression, the heavy centralisation, the penalising of minorities, the contaminated judiciary, the exaggerated legalism and the personality cult. It does injustice to the memory of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk that his ultra-loyal supporters still regard the role of the Turkish citizen as a servant of the state the antithesis, indeed, of post-War West European democracy.

What is newsworthy, however, is that Turkish liberals are suddenly strong enough to fight back. Prime Minister Erdogan has intensified the battle to get Gül elected to succeed the present Kemalist incumbent of the presidency, Ahmet Nedet Sezer. Hayrunisa Gül, the putative First Lady, is giving interviews to the press about her wearing of the headscarf. 228 academics have petitioned the government in support of Dr Yayla, and human rights lawyers have come to his defence. Turkey's flourishing business community is outspoken against Ankara's failure to press on with radical constitutional reform, as well as being strongly opposed to military interventionism.

In the campaign for the parliamentary elections, due on 22 July, the gloves have come off. The AKP's main rival, the CHP, abhors the headscarf. But its devotion to modern Western clothes is not accompanied by a liking of modern Western values. The AKP seems wholly sincere in its efforts to join the EU, thereby quelling suspicions that it has a secret agenda to introduce Shari' a law. If the opponents of Erdogan and Gül succeed in turning Turkish opinion against the European Union, and if Büyükanit gets to invade Iraq, it will be time to be gloomy about Turkey.

So think of the modest professor of politics, now protected by bodyguards, as he steps into the Izmir dock on 2 July.

Andrew Duff MEP is vice-president of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee.

© Financial Times