A Long Dull Moment in Turkey?

Some analysts interpreted the decision of the Constitutional Court as heralding a long dull moment for Turkey. A closure case against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) had the potential to create the biggest political crisis in domestic Turkish politics in recent years.

With it came a lot of excitement, all kinds of discussions about the future of Islam and secularism in Turkey, the so-called battle for the soul of Turkey, the struggle between the old guard and the new generation of Turkish leaders, etc. All of this came to an end with the decision not to close the AK Party. Or did it?

For a moment, the Turkish political scene sighed with relief. Closing the AK Party could have led to one of the country’s worst political and economic crises, forcing Turkey into chaos and uncertainty. Turkey’s increasing role in its region could have gone down the drain. Regional and international actors that have much hope in Turkey could have been let down in the most disappointing of ways. But the court acted with a sense of responsibility and decided against closure. One court member is reported to have looked at the social, political and economic consequences of going for closure and decided against it. He said his conscience is clear and that he feels comfortable with his decision.

While this court member’s sentiment is shared by many in Turkey and abroad, the circumstances that led to the closure case and brought Turkey to the brink of a major political crisis remain. The battle over who controls the state (not who defines secularism) will continue. The question of religious liberties, including the headscarf issue, will remain a hot-button issue. It remains to be seen if the AK Party will be able to bring up a new constitution at this point or wait until after the March 2009 local elections. Military-civilian relations will be tested on a number of crucial issues. The fight against Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorism will continue to occupy the agenda of both Ankara and border security while the Kurdish issue waits for concrete steps to be taken.

At a panel discussion on the court decision at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., last week, we addressed these issues. The session was moderated by Mark Parris, a former US ambassador to Turkey and one of the most informed people on Turkey in Washington. The other two speakers included Murat Yetkin of the Radikal newspaper and Çağrı Erhan of the Eurasian Strategic Research Center (ASAM). Despite the summer heat and vacation season, an informed audience filled the room. Both our comments and questions from the floor reflected the general mood in Turkey: Turkey had a narrow escape. Many in Washington were concerned about the closure case not only because of what happens inside Turkey but also what implications it would have had on the region as a whole.

It was interesting to see that many Americans are still struggling to understand how and why this closure case came about. If expanding the sphere of religious freedoms, i.e., lifting the headscarf ban, means violating secularism, then we’re talking about a very different understanding of that term. In world democracies, secularism means the separation of religious institutions and state institutions. Another way of putting this is that secularism prevents the state from legislating based on religious law, making the state equidistant from all religious beliefs. But secularism also entails the idea of protecting religious beliefs and practices.

I don’t know anyone who has a problem with this definition of secularism. The problem is with the ideological and narrow-minded secularism which imposes itself on the people as a complete worldview and ideology by using state mechanisms. Turkish secularists are used to exercising state powers to impose the second kind of secularism — hence the reaction of many ordinary people to this top-down, state-imposed secularism.

Like secularism, many other issues that divide the Turkish nation will continue to be ho