Turkey's war at home

Survival

Volumn 51, Issue 5, 2009, Pages 105-120

  Cook, Steven A ^a  

^a Middle Eastern Studies ^*  (Egypt)

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EID: 77950776488     PISSN: 00396338     EISSN: 14682699     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00396330903309881     Document Type: Article

References (14)

1. The powers of the Turkish president include the capacity to call parliament into session, promulgate laws, resubmit draft legislation to parliament, call new elections, issue decrees with the force of law, appoint rectors of universities, approve the appointment of government ministers, and name members to the State Supervisory Council, Higher Education Board and various parts of the judiciary.
2. In 2004, Sezer vetoed a provision that would have allowed graduates of imam-hatip (preacher) schools to join the Turkish bureaucracy. The following year, he prohibited the Grand National Assembly from reducing fines on unregistered Koran courses. Also, in 2006, Sezer prevented the AKP-dominated parliament from providing funding for promising but needy students to attend private schools because some of these schools 'encouraged ideology at odds with the secular and democratic Republic of Turkey'.
3. For the General Staff's full statement, see http://www.tsk.tr/10_ARSIV/10_1_Basin_Yayin_Faaliyetleri/10_1_Basin_Aciklamalari/2007/BA_08.html.
4. Although 'secular' is the generally accepted way of referring to the Turkish political system, there is no separation of religion and state in Turkey as in the secular systems of the United States or Switzerland, for example. Rather, the Turkish state is deeply involved in religion to ensure that religious ideas do not find expression in the political arena and threaten the trajectory of the republic.
5. The ban on headscarves at publicly funded universities only dates back to the 1980 coup and the junta's establishment of the Higher Education Board, intended to ensure that 'reactionaryism', communism and separatism did not infect Turkey's state-run university system. The ban was not consistently enforced until after the '28th of February Process', the centerpiece of the military's effort to undermine Turkey's first experiment with an Islamist-led government in 1997.
6. Lifting the ban on the headscarf was an AKP project, but this should not diminish the role of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which supported the legislation. The constituencies of the two parties tend to overlap, providing both with incentives to secure core groups of followers.
7. Between March 2003 and October 2004, the AKP-dominated parliament passed nine reform packages intended to improve Turkey's democratic practices and dispose of the latent authoritarianism embedded in Turkey's 1982 constitution and other institutions. The reforms opened the door to Turkey's EU membership negotiations, which began in March 2005.
8. Ergenekon refers to a legendary place in the Altai Mountains of Central Asia, traditionally considered the original homeland of the Turkish people.
9. In Europe, the political class was seemingly dumbfounded that the Turks, let alone a party essentially representing the Islamist movement, could push through the reforms necessary to meet the Copenhagen criteria. The backlash in Europe was relatively quick. Then French President Jacques Chirac introduced an automaticreferendum requirement for countries that exceeded 5% of the EU's total population, though the referendum was dropped in 2008. In May and June of 2005, the French and Dutch publics overwhelmingly repudiated the draft European constitution. Although the text was deeply problematic for a variety of important reasons, the 'No' votes were perceived to be, in part, a proxy for Turkey's eventual addition to the European Union. There was no direct link between Turkey and the constitution, but in the run-up to the referendums opponents sought to use Turkish membership in the EU to heighten anxieties about the document.
10. It is important to note that in 2004 the PKK called off its unilateral five-year ceasefire. Since that time the Turkish armed forces and the PKK have been engaged in a dirty little war against each other.
11. 'AKP ve Gulen'I bitirme plani', Taraf Gazetesi, 12 June 2009, http://www.taraf.com.tr/islemler/yazdir.asp?id=35524.
12. Pew Research Center, 'Confidence in Obama Lifts U.S. Image Around the World', 25-Nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey, 23 July 2009.
13. In a recent survey conducted in Egypt and Jordan by Pechter Middle East polls, Erdogan did not even rank among admired political leaders in Egypt and only 6% of Jordanians said they admired the Turkish prime minister. See http://pechterpolls.com.
14. France has blocked an additional five chapters because they are related to Turkey's full membership in the European Union, a step the French oppose.