Lecture: The Democratization process of Turkey.

From Mr. Joost Lagendijk & Mr. Mustafa Akyols perspective.

Mustafa Akyol
(In this lecture Mr. Akyol shares his thoughts about the history of democratization of Turkey) Mr. Mustafa Akyol starts his lecture by stating that in the West there are narratives about Turkey and that today he wants to particularly challenge some of those public personalities who claim that democracy is bad for Muslims. According to Mr. Akyol, these narratives have the thought that Democracy brings wrong people (more Islamic minded people) to power in countries such as Turkey and Tunisia, so actually we should not have democracy but authoritarian secular regimes. Mr. Akyol says that for this reason these people were critical of the Arab spring and also about the Turkish spring. Mr. Akyol disagrees with those people and continues explaining why and brings the following two points above surface and emphasizes them: Firstly, Mr. Akyol states that we should understand that a secular state is a very good idea because it supports the neutrality of all religions (equal distance of the government to all religions). Mr. Akyol states that we should also understand that being secular is not enough by itself and he gives examples of countries such as North Korea, Russia and China, which are secular but not democratic. So a more important question according to Mr. Akyol is that whether the secularism serves democracy & liberalism, which support individual rights and freedoms (the highest values according to Mr. Akyol). According to Mr. Akyol, the people who say that Turkey has been secular since 1920 and that it is perfect and wonderful are missing a critical point. When we look back to the Ottoman Empire, before the secularism, Kurds used to be Kurds and nobody thought they should be Turkified. So the people who criticize the policies against the Kurdish minority should understand that the Kurdish issue perhaps is a result of the states attitude towards the Kurds. Mr. Akyol continues by giving another example: The Armenians faced a tragedy in the year 1915 and we Turks need to understand that better and be more empathetic towards the Armenians about this and we also have to remember how it was before 1915. Armenians had been living next to the Turks for centuries under the Ottoman Empires ruling and had equals civil rights. So basically, when you look at the Ottoman Empire you see that it was a pluralist empire from its beginning: Kurds, Armenians, Greeks and Jews lived in the Ottoman Empire as free and secure people. But in the Ottoman Empire the Muslims were higher than the Christians as it was in the most premodern states of the world that time. So Mr. Akyol continues his lecture by telling the audience that in

the 19th century, by the period of the Tanzimat (re-organization) the Ottomans started to accept European political ideas. The first policy that got accepted was equal citizenship. Thats why in the late Ottoman Empire Christians were able to open schools Mr. Akyol says. Furthermore Mr. Akyol states that the most important critical event regarding democratization is that the Ottoman Empire accepted a parliamentary system in 1876. This involved a constitution that declared all citizens equal. Sultan Abdulhamid unfortunately stopped that process but this was only until 1909. Then the second constitutional period commenced. Mr. Akyol then says that from 1909 until the end of the Ottoman Empire, there had been a multi-party system; there was a democracy with different parties and different ideas. The Ottoman Empire was an Islamic state run by a monarchy, which was slowly but surely implementing democratic ideas. According to Mr. Akyol it is really important to consider this today because nowadays there are many Islamic minded people who think that Islam and democracy are incompatible. But it is not only the radical Islamists who think that way; radical secularists have the same thought. After talking about the Ottoman roots of democracy, Mr. Akyol continues with the transition of the Ottoman Empire to the Republic of Turkey. The Turks thought that a new Republic would solve all the then existing problems but Mr. Akyol thinks that a more important question is whether the country is democratic/liberal or not and not whether it is a monarchy or a republic. So the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the republic is not necessarily a big transformation according to Mr. Akyol. What was a problem in the republican era was that the Turkish republic, which was created in 1923 quickly turned into a one-party system; from 1925 to 1950, Ataturk and his followers closed down all other political parties and established a single-party system. Mr. Akyol says that many good decisions were taken by them, but some wrong decisions as well: for example, the Turkification of the Turkish Kurds. According to Mr. Akyol this wrong decision is one of which we have to recover from now. After making clear that some people are not that happy to call themselves Turk Mr. Akyol says that we should be happy for one thing (he later clarifies this point) and then he switches over to the Arab world and the regimes within. He says that some of the Arab worlds regimes were praised in the West because they were secular, but being secular doesnt guarantee democracy. Mr. Akyol continues by stating that the opposition of those secular countries consisted mostly of Islamic parties, which got oppressed by the secular dictatorships. According to Mr. Akyol this lead to the radicalization of those groups. The best example of this is Iran: in the 1920s the father Shah of Iran banned the headscarf in Iran in order to become a more secular & modern state. Mr. Akyol concludes that this has resulted in Muslims-scholars of Iran condemning the Shah and calling him the enemy of Islam, this again lead the oppressed Islamic groups becoming more radical.

Mr. Akyol then switches back to Turkey and makes clear that Turkey did not get in that state because of their early fair elections in mid 20th century. The Kemalist regime wasnt able to hold for long because of the expectations of society and the early Ottoman Empire experience of democracy. Those events resulted in a first opposition party named the Democratic Party that won three elections in a row from 1950 on. A great difference between the two parties, according to Mr. Akyol, is was that the Kemalist regime focused on cultural modernization and the Democratic Party (and today the AKP as well) focused on economic technical modernization. However in 1960 a coup was staged against the DP to restore Kemalist principles and executed the Democratic prime minister. Mr. Akyol ends his part by stating that it is unfair to look at some problems (the Kurdish problem, for example) and say that those problems exists because of some Islamists came to power and changed the wonderful secular system.

Joost Lagendijk
(In this lecture Mr. Lagendijk shares his thoughts about the recent democratization of Turkey) After Mr. Akyol has spoken, Mr. Lagendijk takes over. Mr. Lagendijk says that hell focus on the AKP period, which started in November 2002 in parallel with the democratization of Turkey. Mr. Lagendijk will talk about the following three issues that were a part of the democratization of Turkey: First point: the position of the military, secondly, the Kurdish problem and thirdly: freedom of speech/media. After the introduction Lagendijk makes the audience aware that today there are still some problems and that it is not as good as some people think. On the other hand he states that we shouldnt believe the people who say that all the existing problems were created by the AKP. First: the military, from Mr. Lagendijks European point of view it has been really hard to imagine the immense influence of the army in Turkey. He gives an example of a film festival held in the 1990s where two Kurdish films were shown. Mr Lagendijk says that the festival was canceled because the military representative in the committee didnt want it to continue with Kurdish films in it. The result was that the Kurdish films were deleted from the program, a result of the influence of the military. Mr. Lagendijk continues by stating that from the European perspective it is difficult to accept a country with such military influence into the European Union. And if we look at the reports of the European Commission we see that the top priority is to diminish the influence of the military. As time passed by this happened and the agenda of the AKP slowly but surely became more parallel with the agenda of the European Union, says Mr. Lagendijk. He states that the exposure of the army in several coup plots helped the process of diminishing the power of the military, such as plans that were published in newspapers and show that the army was planning to get rid of the AKP. According to Mr. Lagendijk this is the greatest achievement of the AKP; bringing back the position of the army to where it should be. The second issue Lagendijk talks about is the Kurdish issue: Much has been done in favor of this issue, he says, such as play music in Kurdish, and have TRT6 Kurdish television. There were high hopes that after these steps were taken the AKP would solve the problem by providing education in the Kurdish peoples mother tongue, which is a complicated issue. However, this did not happen. Another issue to take into consideration is decentralization of the extremely centralized powers of Ankara to the regions, an important step Turkey still has to take according to Mr. Lagendijk. The AKP, however, doesnt actually realize the importance of this issue nowadays, because it might look that they are giving in to the BDP (the party of the Kurdish Nationalists).

According to Mr. Lagendijk there has to be an Amnesty-law to bring back the PKK from the mountains. Many people hoped that all these issues would be solved by the end of 2009 and 2010, but this didnt happen. AKP has taken steps but they didnt finish them. Mr Lagendijk is convinced that if the aforementioned steps will not be taken its really hard to solve the Kurdish issue. Then Mr. Lagendijk continues to the third issue: Freedom of expression, the position of the media. There are many problems when it comes to this issue. One has to do with the ownership of the media; the media in Turkey are all part of bigger industrial compartments, this makes the owners of the media vulnerable to pressure from the government (the owners put pressure on the editors of the newspapers). This is a structural problem of the media in Turkey: vulnerability of the owners to pressure from the government because they are involved in other issues as well. Mr. Lagendijk continues by stating that in Turkey there is a total lack of solidarity among the journalists. For example, he says that he cant imagine that journalists of the Hurriyet newspapers would ever defend the rights of the journalists of the Zaman newspaper. If you dont unite as media the authority is always able to divide you and play you out, which is a problem according to Mr. Lagendijk. Another problem (which is not new) is the Turkish anti-terrorism law that enables prosecutors to make life difficult for journalists. With these kinds of laws you cant have freedom of press, because journalists could speak out their minds and get arrested for it. Prime-minister Erdogan is not very keen on criticism, and he often sues critics. For example, he sued Ahmet Altan (a liberal who once defended the policies of the AKP) because he had made two comments that AKP didnt like. From the western point of view this is regarded as very negative. Mr. Lagendijk continues by saying that in Turkey there are journalists in prison for other reasons than being critical about the government, which is a bad thing of course. In Turkey hundred journalists were put in prison, 64 of which were not arrested because they criticized the government but it was about what they had written. They were arrested because they had violated the anti-terror law; they had written things that the PKK had also written about. This point is important to consider, Lagendijk says. However, it is important to keep in mind that this problem was present even before the AKP was in control. Furthermore, there are also a couple of journalists who have been arrested without anyone knowing the reason behind it. They were left-wing journalists who were critics of Ergenekon. However, despite this they were accused of being part of Ergenekon. Nobody understood this. So a lot of critics of the AKP have been arrested. Mr. Lagendijk concludes by saying that the picture is mixed when it comes to the democratization of Turkey and AKPs role therein. Mr. Lagendijks big fear is that the AKP will start getting doubts about whether they should continue with the reforms after ten years of governing. If you are there for ten

years and the prospect is that you would remain in power for another ten years why would you rock the boat? Why keep on reforming and get rid of the old system. Once you are in a position of power it is convenient for you to stay there. Mr. Lagendijk is afraid that the AKP party will make this mistake. The AKP party has made important steps and according to Mr. Lagendijk the AKP should continue making the steps and finalize the democratization process.

Questions asked by the audience and answered by Mr. Akyol & Lagendijk.
Q1: Often, part of a healthy democracy is thought to be constructive opposition. Currently, the largest opposition party is the CHP, formerly known as and sort of considered to be the rear end of the deep state or inner state or whatever you would like to call it. But recently, a turn has been made by Deniz Baykal to Kemal Kilicdaroglu and the party refers to itself as social democratic. My question is, do you think the CHP is capable or will ever be capable of a constructive opposition or should we look to at least one of the other two parties known? A: Akyol explains how in political machines there is always a reformist wing and a more conservative orthodox wing. He hopes that people from the reformist wing will be more dominant and is supporting the change that Kilicdaroglu is trying to push forward. Akyol says that the problem is that it is uncertain that Kilicdarolgu will be the right person to enforce change. Akyol isnt sure that the CHP will still be a viable contender by 2015, but is hopeful and optimistic about their future. Q2: Is an autonomous Kurdish province possible in Turkey? If not, are there other possibilities that you can recommend? A: The AKP is the party that has made the most reform on the Kurdish issue. PKK claims that it is the embodiment of the Kurdish people. Both parties seem to want freedom for the people, but dont care about the little individuals and think they know best for the people. The rivalry between these two parties seems to hinder the liberation process. Akyol says that a Kurdistan in the southeast is possible, but people have to get over their Kurdistanophobia. Akyol worries that PKK might limit the freedoms of the individual Kurds there if a Kurdistan is realised under PKK rule. Q3: Does the European Union have a long term foreign policy? A: Mr. Lagendijk says that on many issues there is no common position within the EU. In May of 2011, however, after the Arab awakening as Mr. Lagendijk calls it, they came up with a new policy proposal, which included Turkey. In this, Turkey has an advantage over European countries, because many Middle-Eastern countries like Egypt want to be more like Turkey and not like, for example, Finland. Lagendijk is hopeful that because of this, cooperation between Turkey and the EU will become easier and also states that cooperation would be mutually beneficial. Mr. Lagendijk talks of the AKP as acting tough against others while realizing that at the end of the day, a political solution is needed. Q4: In Turkey, as far as we look from the other point of view, we see that the AKP is realizing quite positive progress and they are doing quite good things. But from my point of view a lot should still be done. Anyway, my question is as far as we see from outside of Turkey that the AKP is close to everybody

with the same respect. In the last news we have seen that theres a gap between the AKP and the Glen movement who is focused on serving humanity . What do you think about this issue? A: Akyol says that the Glen movement is one of the most notable Islamic movements in Turkey with hundreds of schools in Turkey and elsewhere. He says that one of the best contributions of the Glen movement has been to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Christian bias. The movement has been supportive of the AKP but they show similarities as well as differences and disagreements. However, these are healthy disagreements and should not cause any severe problems. Akyol gives an example and says that the Zaman newspaper for example has positive articles about the AKP but also criticizes the AKP sometimes. Q5: I think its true that the media cannot always write what they think. I think the media has to change itself, and if they need to change, how can they do that? A: Mister Akyol says that what Turkey needs to do is to further liberalise their laws and legal mindsets, which would allow for the free discussion of issues, such as freedom of interpretation. He says that there has already been some liberalisation in this area in comparison with ten years ago. Akyol gives example about how people would go to jail for saying that there was an Armenian genocide because they would insult Turkishness. Talking about the French accusations surrounding Armenian genocide, Lagendijk says that instead of accusing each other of things, the matter should be taken to the constitutional court where it can be resolved. Q6: What do you think about what is happening in Europe? For example, in France they have forbidden the people to express their opinion about Armenia. Also, big countries like the US seem reluctant to offer assistance after seeing what happened in Iraq as a result of democratization there. A: Mr. Akyol states that in Turkey there isnt enough freedom of press because of the power structures that governments use to put pressure on them. He continues by saying that this is caused by the fact that Turkey is a big state. In a bigger state there is more political power and therefore things like the media are often suppressed more. Akyol then says that there is also a problem with media responsibility. According to him, the mainstream media often tend to demonize certain groups and individuals and should be more responsible. Akyol says that Turkey needs better laws on hate speech in the media and that the media needs to raise its own standards and be more critical of itself. Q7: I have one question about Syria. Last year we discussed in Holland especially whether Turkey is a model of democratization in the Arab world. Im very interested in your views on this matter. Is Turkey a model for democratization in the Arab world and secondly, what do you think will go on in this process in Syria and what will be the prospects for Turkey? A: Mr. Akyol thinks that Turkey is not a model for the Arabs because every country is different. However, he does think that the AKP is a model for the Arab islamists who want to be a part of a democratic system. Mr. Lagendijk still doesnt know what to think about intervention from the outside. He says that some articles mention good justifications for military intervention from the outside, but not everyone seems

to agree on it being necessary. Lagendijk concludes by saying that nobody really seems to know what to do with regard to this. Q8: As you were describing dictatorial states, have you purposefully not mentioned other countries such as the Arab Emirates and other Arabian countries? A: Mr. Akyol says that he does not criticize or love enemies and friends of the United States, but rather wants to see dictators replaced by truly democratic regimes. He continues by saying that democracy is something that should come from society. As an example he says that in Saudi-Arabia there are no riots that demand popular vote because the country has a lot of oil money and is distributing it to its people to keep them happy. He hopes that in time, Saudi-Arabian society will mature and become more critical of the government because this encourages reform. Akyol also says that whenever there is a dictator in power that kills the people, this is an urgent issue and he will support anyone who opposes it. Mr. Akyol then begins to speak about the question of whether there is an inherent clash between Islam and democracy or science. He states that he does not think there is such a thing. He says that some expressions of religion are supportive of science while some expressions are not, so in his own words, it is not a black and white picture. He concludes by saying that if you have an understanding of Islam, you will understand that God has given you reason, and you should use your reason to find the truth and engage with different people and express your own values in the public square. Therefore, according to Akyol, religion can be a contribution to democracy.