BY OMER TASPINAR
SABAH- How have two years of dizzying political developments affected our country's image? The best answer is this: People are very confused. But we can talk about two different general points of views. On the one hand are some who see political developments in Turkey as a struggle between Islamism and secularism. This large group, arguing on the basis of faulty logic, comes to such mistaken conclusions as 'Islamism is winning' or 'secularism is resisting.' The other group is made up of Western interpreters who look more closely. They go into Anatolia to take the pulse of the people, instead of just watching the bickering in Ankara and talking to a few analysts who are disconnected from the public. After doing this, they have no trouble seeing that the tension in Turkey isn't between Islamism and secularism, but between the public and the regime.
These observers who see the reality in Turkey have witnessed the inexorable rise of a new social foundation and middle class in the capitalist order. As a result, there is a serious split between those who see things in a narrow framework on the basis of secularism and Islamism and those who see things through the lens of democracy, urbanization, sociology and the rise of Anatolian capital. But do these two different interpretations have anything in common? Unfortunately, yes. I say unfortunately, because they both share concern about a coup. This is the sad side of the issue. During the last two years, Turkey's political image has suffered great damage. Our democratic gains of 2003-2006 have all but vanished, and our European Union membership process has been forsaken.
The situation in Washington shows this. Whenever Turkey is mentioned, the first thing people ask about is the military's stance. Excepting a few experts who aren't taken seriously, nobody is angry with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government. Don't get me wrong. People recognize that the AKP has made certain mistakes and proved unable to manage things since it was reelected last summer. But nobody concludes that the AKP deserves to be closed. Whenever I meet people there, the first question I hear is about the risk of a coup, followed by more bothersome questions unsuited to a democratic regime. When I say there's no risk of a coup, people ask if the military will issue another memorandum (similar to the April 2007 memorandum which delayed Turkey's presidential election several months) or what kind of tensions can be expected. Although Turkey directs its own fate, there is something the American officials who ask these questions don't understand, namely the importance of how they react to developments in Turkey. The US secretary of state hasn't seen the destruction sown by Washington's slowness to react against the April 2007 memorandum or to the closure case against the AKP. When the US says that it doesn't take sides, this is seen by would-be coup plotters as a green light. What's worse, Washington's prestige decreases in the eyes of those who look for a US influence in everything and who are already prone to conspiracy theories.
But there's also the EU, which usually takes a much more democratic stance. Although Turkey's authoritarian etatists see this EU stance as interference in our domestic affairs, in the public's eyes, Europe's stature has grown. The latest polls show domestic public support for Turkey's EU membership has risen from 40% to 60%. Of course the recent political and economic instability played a large role in this increase. So an aimless Turkey fears itself and finds a solution in anchoring itself to Europe. This must what people call communal common sense. Let's see if in the future Washington will be able to better gauge these important social dynamics in Turkey.