How Turkey Can Become a True Model for the Region

German Version

While currently the topic of Iraq's future seems to be preoccupying everyone, its neighbor to the west has undergone a bloodless upheaval in the recent parliamentary elections. Labeled by many outside Turkey as a "wolf in sheep's clothing" or "moderately fundamentalist," the party of Prime Minister Erdogan has already confused friend and foe alike. Contrary to all predictions, the Sharia is not about to be introduced and, for the first time in the country's history, Christian and Jewish foundations are on equal footing with Sunni-Muslim foundations. But even the military-bureaucratic elite who, with the assistance of a few members of the powerful media, parts of the judiciary and industry, had been actually running the country up to now, is astonished by Prime Minister Erdogan. The west and the hawks around the kemalistic-authoritarian elite in Turkey took puzzled note of the fact that it was Erdogan and the ruling AKP who, for the first time ever on Cypress, called for a negotiated solution with the Greek region and showed some comprehension of the will of the majority in the north of the island. Even the failed attempt to achieve a majority for the stationing of US-troops in Turkey in the Turkish National Assembly (TBMM), points more towards the establishment of a self-assured parliament and of a measure of intra-party democracy impressive for Turkish circumstances. Who would have thought that Turkey's military functionaries, coddled by the west for years for their pro-western inclinations, and their quasi-parliamentary representation, the self-declared Turkish social democrats of Mr. Baykal and his CHP, would refuse to assist their secular "friends" from the USA with the removal of the Baath-regime in Iraq? From the viewpoint of the traditional establishment in Turkey, the secular dictator Saddam Hussein was always the lesser evil as compared to anything that could arise now. The downright delusional fear-inspired fantasy of too much Kurdish independence in northern Iraq and the deep-seated mistrust of the Kurds in Turkey, in particular, are obstacles on the path to a realistic and forward-looking re-orientation of the country between Asia and Europe.

The victory of the AKP in the last parliamentary elections signifies a real chance for Turkey - and for the west. If the Europeans and Americans support the reform process together, the country by the Bosporus could become a successful model for the conciliation of Islam and modernity within a parliamentary democracy. A "secular Democraship," in any case with numerous unsolved domestic problems (from the issue of Cypress, to the Kurd- and human rights problem, all the way to the absurd turban-debate at schools), can hardly be a model for the people of the region who are not exactly spoiled with democracy.

Erdogan has recognized that the European path can also serve his own goals. During the election campaign, for example, he repeatedly referred to the German model of the secular state, where, despite a separation of state and church, religious schools, religious instruction at public schools and, simultaneously, theological freedom from the state exist. Religious freedom in the Federal Republic, especially for Muslims, has been honored by him time and again as a successful example. If the west wants to ease the European path for Turkey, it would finally, and contrary to its earlier lip service, have to actually open the door to membership in the European Union for Turkey. A civilian-run Turkey would also function as a magnet for democracy and social market economy to the unstable region on the eastern border of the country. In the Caucasus, the Arabian Peninsula and among the Asian Turk-republics, Turkey could finally play the role that American geo-strategists have long ascribed to it.

A more energetic approach by the European Union towards the Turkish wish for accession could possibly also help ease the tension in the European-American relationship, something that is urgently needed now. The USA for its part could make stronger use of its influence to give the modernizers around the prime minister more support against the military-bureaucratic elite, up to now the favored group, to give up its obstructionist mindset.

Cem Özdemir is a Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the US. He was the first Member of Parlament in Germany of Turkish origin from 1994 to 2002 and has been a frequent participant in AICGS roundtable discussions on Turkey, the EU and the USA.

This text was translated from the German original by Sarah Fichter (AICGS).

For more information on U.S.-Turkish-German relations, please access the AICGS Conference Series: Challenges to German and American Foreign Policy at: /fileremoved.aspx
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To read further AICGS essays on Turkey and the EU, please go to:
"Turkey, the U.S. and Europe- A Troubled Triangle" by Dr. Ian O. Lesser
"Talking Turkey after Copenhagen" by Dr. Jackson Janes

The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) alone.
They do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies.