"DEMOCRATIZATION" OR A REJECTION OF KEMALISM?

With the coming to power of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey in 2002, the political community and analytical circles in the country more than once were imbued with the idea that Turkey would never be the same. These sentiments once again swept society on the final day of September this year when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan presented to the public his "democratization package" which provides for the implementation of political and legal reforms. 

An analysis of the points of Erdogan's package of reforms left analysts in no doubt that they would considerably alter the landscape of the state structure of the Turkish Republic, which for 90 years has projected itself as a state unconditionally following the principles and behests of its founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Erdogan set the tone of his speech, which could be regarded as the most comprehensive keynote speech by the leader of the incumbent Turkish government, at its very beginning when he expressed his gratitude to former Turkish prime ministers Adnan Menderes, Turgut Ozal and Necmettin Erbakan. The fact that these different politicians - a democrat, a liberal and an Islamist - were mentioned together was by no means accidental. They all advocated serious reforms in the country (each in his own way, of course, according to his political vision of a future Turkey), but they left power under fateful circumstances. Menderes and Ozal quit the political scene at the price of their own lives: the former was hanged by the military command that overthrew him, and the latter, as has been recently revealed and of which Erdogan himself was convinced, was poisoned. Erbakan was deprived of power more humanely: the military simply overthrew him and forced him into political isolation for over a year.

By paying homage to his predecessors who left power not of their own will and not as the result of an expression of the democratic will of the people, Erdogan has essentially warned the army against committing any acts of violence against the legitimate civil authority. And the further restriction of the influence of the military is just one of the instruments of democratization according to Erdogan.

The abandoning by schoolchildren of the oath that has been enacted since the time of Ataturk, which is provided for in the reform package, promises to become a fundamental and radical measure. It ends with the words "How happy is the one who says 'I am a Turk!'" ("Ne mutlu T?rk?m diyene!") and expresses the self-identification of the nation, which for centuries has called itself Ottoman. Erdogan has also announced that he plans to lift the ban on women wearing the hijab in government buildings. The only exception will be made for judges, prosecutors, the police and the military, which has given cause to accuse the prime minister of manipulation of this issue. Not to mention the fact that the question itself is not that topical bearing in mind that the spouses of leaders of the AKP government have always appeared in public wearing the Muslim scarf and no-one has given a thought to the legality of this government dress-code in the age of a secular state.

Another measure being proposed is one in which opponents have detected a tendency towards a strengthening of the political and party system, which meets the interests, first and foremost, of the AKP government itself. This concerns a reduction in the percentage barrier at parliamentary elections from the present 10 to 5 per cent. By all accounts, Erdogan is counting on the emergence of small pro-government parties which will provide the AKP with support in its duel with the opposition, especially the Kemalist Republican People's Party and the Nationalist Action Party.

In the opinion of Turkish political experts, the introduction of a co-chair system in the parties also has the aim of strengthening the AKP's political influence. Experts believe it is possible that this measure has been envisaged in order to broaden the possibilities of inner-party manoeuvring, specifically by way of the possible co-chairmanship of the incumbent Turkish President Abdullah Gul in the ruling party, and Abdullah Ocalan in the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, who is currently serving life imprisonment. In other words, the leader of the Kurdish terrorists would in fact be released from prison. The "democratization package" also allows political parties to conduct election campaigns not only in Turkish but also in other languages spoken by the country's inhabitants.

The final points in the package are directly linked with planned changes in ethnic policy. These reforms provide for a tightening of the punishment for xenophobia and crimes on grounds of ethnic hatred. Furthermore, residential areas with foreign names will be allowed to keep them and not have to take Turkish names. Teaching in languages other than Turkish will be permitted in private schools. Of great significance is Erdogan's proposal to allow Kurds to use the letters q, x and w, which in the past was subjected to legal persecution.

It is clear that all these measures have been motivated by a need to ease a distinct tension in inter-ethnic relations and especially to settle the so-called Kurdish question. But to what degree will the proposed reforms help to ensure civil unity in Turkey? There is no simple way of judging this, especially bearing in mind that the publication of the "democratization package" has already led, instead of an expected easing of tension in the Kurdish-inhabited areas, to new mass protests.

The demands of the Kurdish political forces were succinctly expressed at one demonstration by a representative of the Peace and Democracy Party, Saban Alkan: "Ocalan's release is a red line for the Kurdish people. A second red line is education in our native language. We don't want to pay to be educated in private schools. While we expected changes in the Turkish Civil Code it was scarcely mentioned in the package. A status of autonomy based on local administrations was one of our basic demands. As far as the names of villages and banned letters are concerned, we resolved these questions a long time ago."

Others to whom Erdogan's initiatives were addressed were also less than enthusiastic about them. The package virtually ignored the Alawites, the second largest religious group in the country who are unhappy about the lack of rights to carry out their religious ceremonies. "It's bad enough that Erdogan does nothing to provide legal status to our mosques, but he didn't even mention this once in his statement," one of the leaders of the Turkish Shi'ite organization, Muharem Erkan said. The Alawites have to content themselves with the fact that Nevsehir University in the province of the same name will be conferred with the name of their revered mediaeval religious figure Haji Bektash Veli. Nor were there any particular whoops of delight from the Assyrian community, although they were promised the return of previously secularized lands to the Syriac Monastery of Mor Gabriel.

Arguably, the only people happy with the package were the gypsies. Although their problems are of a less politicized nature, Erdogan was generous in his attitude to the gypsies, promising that cultural and linguistic establishments would be created for them.

Many people detect a rejection from traditional Turkism in the initiatives of the head of government linked with ethnic policy. To no less an extent the package is also linked with the pre-election plans of Erdogan who is preparing, in addition to everything else, a change in the Constitution and the introduction of a presidential republic. Meanwhile, a large section of the traditional political forces of the Kemalist state believe that the "democratization package" could become the final nail in the coffin of a secular Turkey based on the principles of Ataturk. As a matter of fact, they believe that it is with this (and certainly not inter-ethnic differences) that the biggest danger for the unity of the Turkish people and state is now linked.

And there is one other thing. Concerned external forces are closely following the events in Turkey. One is struck by the fervent support for the "democratization package" by the US ambassador in Turkey, Francis Ricciardone. Such an unabashed attitude by the head of a foreign diplomatic mission to a document regarding the internal life of his country of residence unwittingly reminds one of the role of Euro-Atlantic centres in the current political upheavals in Turkey.