Slumbering and Blundering: Turkey and the West
O. Faruk Loğoğlu, Turkey’s former ambassador to the United States, published an absolutely scathing indictment of the West's policy toward the AKP in the Turkish press today:
The subject here is the nearly uniform support and praise the AKP is getting from Europe and the United States after the referendum. Political quarters in the West are buying almost wholesale the AKP sales job that the reform package makes Turkey more democratic. Even President Barack Obama, who is unhappy with Turkey over Iran and Israel, joined EU circles in applauding the AKP. Western capitals actually failing to see the transformation of Turkey under the AKP into a society increasingly governed by the rules and precepts of religion is a proposition difficult to accept. Washington knows that Turkish democracy is slipping and that Turkey’s foreign policy is shifting its focus away from the Euro-Atlantic community. On the other hand, Europe believes that what matters is not what happens in Turkey so long as the government there acts in consonance with European interests. Europeans follow Turkish developments more closely than Americans do, so they know what the score is. The West, therefore, understands where Turkey is headed. What the West does not understand are the consequences and implications of a Turkey driven by a religionist outlook.
The current Western attitude toward Turkey is one of opportunistic and calibrated indifference. The present priority of Western leaders is to maintain sufficiently good relations with the AKP to reap the benefits of Turkey’s cooperation and capabilities. They care for Turkey not for Turkey’s sake, but for their own immediate satisfaction. However, beyond the short run, this shortsighted selfishness is likely to turn out to be a costly blunder on the part of Western powers.
Although I'm not sure, I think it's possible the US may not be slumbering. I reckon the Obama Administration probably knows the score, too. They've got to realize these developments are ominous. They may be thinking that they need to give the AKP a face-saving out. Nothing that bad has happened yet, after all. Perhaps they're thinking, "If we out-and-out declare that they've gone off the deep end, what good will it do? It will only push them into a corner. Then they'll really go off the deep end, and what do we do then?"
And honestly, I don't know the answer to that question. I don't know whether it would make any real difference if the West refused to go along with the pretense that all of these developments are just terrific for Turkish democracy. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't.
Turks tend to believe that foreign powers have a great deal of covert influence over their country. Many fantasize that the American president could make one phone call and change their government (for good or ill), pump up their stock market or collapse it, bring peace to the Middle East or destroy it. But of course that is a fantasy, a juvenile and dangerous one. Like the fantasy that the military will always step in to solve the mess if it gets out of hand, the half-conscious idea that the Americans will step in sooner or later, or could step in, keeps people from taking ultimate responsibility for their own political future.
Turkey's future is, in fact, in the hands of the Turks--whether they realize it or not and whether they like it or not.
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Jun '10
Re: Slumbering and Blundering: Turkey and the West
"...the half-conscious idea that the Americans will step in sooner or later, or could step in, keeps people from taking ultimate responsibility for their own political future."
Is that in a "guardian angel" nice, kind of way or a negative, fatalistic "America rules the world" kind of way? It does strike me from "man on the street" interviews during recent international disasters (tsunami, earthquake, flood) that people all over the world feel as entitled as residents of NOLA's 9th Ward to immediate American response (but with less reason, of course)
May '10
Re: Slumbering and Blundering: Turkey and the West
Claire Berlinski, Ed.:
Turks tend to believe that foreign powers have a great deal of covert influence over their country. ... the half-conscious idea that the Americans will step in sooner or later, or could step in, keeps people from taking ultimate responsibility for their own political future.
These fantasies have another impact, in that every utterance from Washington concerning Turkey has a much larger impact in Turkey than it should. Friendly words from the U.S., likely no more than proper form and diplomacy, can be mis-read as a "signal", to people who believe that the U.S. is secretly pulling the strings. In the same way, a public expression of "concern" can have an oversized impact on Turkish public mood. That will feel like "interference" to a government that, like-it-or-not, is in power right now.
We have a long history of getting these things wrong and making blunders. This seems like a good time to keep the open and public communication mild and vacuous. The private communications are another matter.
Edited on Sep 23, 2010 at 11:50am