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Afghanistan is in turmoil, with tensions rising and people dying every day. Many of them — including women, children and the elderly — have nothing in common with terrorists or militants.
The government is losing control of its territory: of the 34 provinces, the Taliban controls a dozen. The production and export of narcotics is growing. There is a real danger of destabilization extending to neighboring countries, including the republics of Central Asia as well as Pakistan.
What began after Sept. 11, 2001, as a seemingly appropriate military response aimed at rooting out terrorism could end in a major strategic failure.
We need to understand why this is happening and what can still be done to turn around a nearly disastrous situation. The recent conference in London, attended by representatives from many countries and international organizations, is a first step in a new direction.
After diligent preparations, delegates to the London meeting adopted decisions that could help to turn things around — but only if the experience of the past three decades is reassessed and its lessons learned.
In 1979, the Soviet leadership sent troops to Afghanistan, justifying that move not just by the desire to help friendly elements there but also by the need to stabilize a neighboring country. The greatest mistake was failing to understand Afghanistan’s complexity — its patchwork of ethnic groups, clans and tribes, its unique traditions and minimal governance.
The result was the opposite of what we had intended: even greater instability, a war with thousands of victims and dangerous consequences for our own country. On top of it, the West, particularly the United States, kept fueling the fire in the spirit of the Cold War; it remained ready to support just about anyone against the Soviet Union, giving no thought to possible long-term consequences.
As part of perestroika in the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leadership drew conclusions from our troubles in Afghanistan. We made two crucial decisions. First, we set the goal of withdrawing our troops. Second, we intended to work with all parties in the conflict and with the governments involved to achieve national reconciliation in Afghanistan and make it a peaceful and neutral country that threatened no one.
Looking back, I still believe that it was a proper and responsible two-track course. I am sure that if we had fully succeeded, many troubles and disasters could have been avoided. Our new policy was not just a declaration; during my tenure, we worked hard and in good faith to implement it.
To succeed, we needed sincere and responsible cooperation from all sides. The Afghan government was ready to compromise and went more than halfway to achieve reconciliation. In a number of regions, things started to improve.
However, Pakistan, particularly its top brass, and the United States blocked all avenues to progress. They wanted one thing: the withdrawal of Soviet troops, which they thought would leave them in full control. By denying Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah’s government even minimal support, Boris Yeltsin played into their hands when he took office.
During the 1990’s, the world seemed indifferent to Afghanistan. In that decade the country’s government fell into the hands of the Taliban, who turned Afghanistan into a haven for Islamic fundamentalists and an incubator of terrorism.
Sept. 11 was a rude awakening for Western leaders. Even then, however, the West made a decision that was not carefully thought through and therefore proved flawed.
After ousting the Taliban government, the United States thought that the military victory, achieved at little cost, was final and had basically solved the long-term problem.
The initial success was probably one reason why the Americans expected a “cakewalk” in Iraq, taking a fatal step in a militaristic strategy there as well. In the meantime, they built a democratic façade in Afghanistan, to be guarded by the International Security Assistance Force — i.e., NATO troops. Increasingly, NATO sought to assume the role of a global policeman.
The rest is history. The military path in Afghanistan turned out to be less and less sustainable. That was an open secret; even the U.S. ambassador, in recently disclosed cables, said so.
I have been asked several times in recent months what I would recommend to President Obama, who inherited this mess from his predecessor. My answer has been the same each time: a political solution and troop withdrawal. That requires a strategy of national reconciliation.
Now, at long last, a strategy very similar to the one we offered more than two decades ago and that our partners rebuffed was presented at the London meeting: reconciliation, involving all more or less reasonable elements in reconstruction, and emphasizing a political rather than a military solution.
The United Nations envoy to Afghanistan said in a recent interview that what’s needed is demilitarization of the entire strategy in Afghanistan. What a shame this wasn’t said, and done, long before!
The chances of success — success rather than military “victory” — are at best 50-50. There have been some contacts with certain elements within the Taliban. Still more needs to be done to bring Iran into the process; a lot of hard work remains to be done with the Pakistanis.
Russia could become an important part of the Afghan settlement process. The West should appreciate the position Russia’s leaders are taking on Afghanistan. Far from gloating and letting the West bite the bullet while we wash our hands of the whole thing, Russia is ready to cooperate with the West because it understands that it is in its own best interests to counter the threats coming from Afghanistan.
Russia is right in asking why, during the years of U.S. and NATO military presence in Afghanistan, little or nothing has been done to stem the production of narcotics, large amounts of which flow to Russia through its neighbors’ porous borders. Russia is also right to demand access to economic opportunities in Afghanistan, including the reconstruction of dozens of projects built with our help and then destroyed during the 1990s.
Russia is Afghanistan’s neighbor, and its interests must be taken into account. The logic seems self-evident, but sometimes a reminder is in order.
I would like to hope that a new day is dawning for long-suffering Afghanistan, a ray of hope for its millions of people. The opportunity is there, but much is needed to seize it: realism, persistence and, last but not least, honesty in learning from the mistakes made in the past and the ability to act on that knowledge.
Mikhail Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Union.
This question overshadowed the minds, and discussions, at two global meetings of top leaders last week, the Afghanistan conference in London and the World Economic Forum in Davos. On all evidence, it would now be safe to conclude that the big powers have decided in principle on the issue of whether to exit or not. The questions that now remain are, when, and how. Public opinion in Britain and even in the US is tiring of the war. Clearer indication of this came from a statement made by UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband at the London conference that this war had already gone on longer than World War II. So the implication is, it cannot become just a war without end or purpose. So time has come to fix “realistic” targets and objectives or, rather, devise a new definition of victory.
This is what India needs to think and worry about. More importantly, we now have to start thinking about the sequence of events that may unfold as the US-led forces fight, talk, negotiate and bribe their way out of Afghanistan.
The clearest indication that they had thrown in the towel already came in the London conference when an idea so far whispered in off-record briefings was stated publicly: the need to find “good” Taliban to share power with. Even Hamid Karzai was made to endorse it. Nobody was talking of winning that “war” any more, but only of bringing it to a stage where a large “moderate” section of the Taliban can be persuaded to break rank and agree to a power-sharing arrangement. Of course, the funniest moment in that conference was Karzai announcing with a straight face that the Americans will now help him fight corruption in his country.
Theoretically, there are four ways Obama could begin his withdrawal middle of next year, or maybe a little later, but in this presidential term for sure:
* With a clear-cut military victory with the annihilation of the Taliban and the ceding of all Pashtun loyalty to a West-supported government in Kabul. This is a near impossibility given the military realities and tribal divisions. More importantly, this is an outcome that suits Pakistan least of all, and they will ensure it does not come to pass. Also, the modern history of big-power military expeditions tells you that such decisive military-political outcomes are impossible.
* With a total defeat for the US-led forces and a humiliating retreat as in the case of Vietnam. This is an impossibility too. Military realities of Afghanistan are very different from Vietnam where the Soviet-Chinese bloc was actively aiding the Viet Cong and where, even domestically in the US, the justification of terrorist threat was not available. That war was purely ideological. This is also about self-preservation.
* A withdrawal after a division of Afghanistan, much on the pattern of the Koreas, leaving the south-eastern, mostly Pashtun regions under a different, Talibanised local leadership “supervised” by Pakistan, and securing the rest with a friendly regime of the northern tribes. This would have been a possibility if the Americans were sure of the Pakistanis being able to keep this Pashtun government in control. Chances are even the Pakistanis will fear this as a Pashtun government in Kandahar would make their hold on their own Frontier districts untenable.
* The fourth scenario is the Americans being able to declare some kind of a victory and get out, leaving power to a friendly and “protected” government in Kabul much on the pattern of Iraq. This is the most likely and, from the Western powers’ point of view, the most desirable of all prospects. But it can only be achieved in collaboration with Pakistan. The Pakistanis will have to help broker some kind of peace, and a power-sharing arrangement with the Taliban that promises, besides other things, that their territories will no longer be available to Al Qaeda. The signals from policy-makers in both London and Davos last week were clear: a new thrust was now being launched to reach this outcome. This was no longer going to be a military war to the finish.
This is what India has to prepare for, and there is no time to lose. In the course of a war that has gone longer than World War II already, while we have harped non-stop on the dangers next door, we have also become complacent. This is the kind of smug complacence that sets in when, to use an Americanism, you know that there is a fire tender parked permanently next to your door. Translated, it means, yes, there is trouble in the Pak-Afghan region but the Americans and their drones are dealing with it so we can wait and watch. This is going to change soon.
Even the progress to that outcome will challenge us. As Pakistan’s role in such a “settlement” becomes more pronounced, it is bound to pressure its Western allies to lean on India to “resolve” the Kashmir issue as well.
Already, frustrated at their failure to control terrorism, many Western leaders are whispering that Kashmir too is a major cause of pan-Islamic radicalisation. As their own notion of military non-success (if not defeat) in Af-Pak grows, they will be more inclined to join the Pakistanis in pressing for a more “comprehensive” solution for “the most dangerous region in the world”. Except, now they will add India to that region, even if as the country most exposed, and vulnerable to jehadi terror.
The game is now beginning to change and we have no choice but to play to new rules. Soon enough, we and Pakistan may pretty much be on our own. The comfort of an almost permanent Western military presence on Pakistan’s west will eventually go and we will watch very carefully for what replaces it, and if we have any leverage with that successor. Even more challenging is to guess what kind of a regime will be ruling Pakistan by then. It is, therefore, even more imperative that we continue to engage with whoever calls the shots in Pakistan in coming months. We cannot be lazy because, as they often say, objects in this mirror are far closer than you think.
sg@expressindia.com
K Gajendra Singh
FOUNDATION FOR INDO-TURKIC STUDIES
Tel/Fax ; 43034706
Amb (Rtd) K Gajendra Singh
“There was this young man, with 1960s Turkish matinee idol looks, smiling to attract my attention, in that throng of media and TV cameramen around us. Suddenly the penny dropped. Yes, a few weeks earlier while I had a few drinks at my First secretary's flat in Ankara, he sipped lemon water. He was very keen to meet with me. So, I now went over and shook his hands. That was in end 1992.
”And the young man was Abdullah Gul, recently home after a stint ( 7 years) at the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah and put in charge of foreign affairs by Najmettin Erbakan, President of Islamist Welfare party. Most ambassadors in Ankara avoided looking up Erbakan, but I kept my promise. Hence the media attention.
”Our paths crossed more often after he became state minister in Erbakan's coalition government in 1996. Once when I enquired about his party's plans to convert a church in west Turkey into a mosque, he said it was not a priority issue. He shrugged off a statement on Kashmir when with Erbakan he visited Pakistan as sound bites under pressure.”
From Abdullah Gul – Turkey's Next President ! 26 April, 2007
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=
The author was posted as Indian ambassador to Turkey (1992-96 ) and had an earlier stint (1969-73)
This piece was written when foreign minister, Abdullah Gul was declared the candidate of the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP), with Islamic roots, for Presidential elections on 27 April , 2007 .
Gul studied economics in Turkey and UK and was born in a pious Muslim family of Kayseri. AKP's backers are upwardly mobile conservative trading and industrial classes from central Anatolian towns such as Kayseri, Konyaand beyond away from Istanbul and Ankara. The inhabitants of these barren harsh lands have always been conservative .They resisted conversion to Christianity when the religion spread from Palestine to Syria to south east Turkey and to Europe.To avoid conversion they would disappear into labyrinth of caves in Cappadocia , also famous for its moon surface and chimneys . In spite of 80 years of Jacobin style secularism they remain conservative Muslims but are not fanatics.
Their wanting a share in the economic cake clashes with the vested interests of the supporters of the secular establishment which has ruled Turkey almost since the creation of the republic in 1923.
In April ,2007 , AKP had 354 seats in the Parliament and needed a two-thirds majority vote in the House in the first or second rounds (367 of 550) or a simple majority in the third (276) or fourth. If four rounds fail, Parliament is dissolved for fresh elections. This Constitutional change was made after the 1980 military take over since prior to that the Parliament went through dozens of futile ballots to elect a president while left-right violence around the country killed many hundreds.
However , the 2002 November Parliamentary elections had stunned Turkey and the West , even AKP itself which obtained two-thirds majority (365 out of 550). But the first time majority by an Islamic party was achieved with only a third (35 percent) of the total votes cast, 10% being the cut off point. The only other left of the center Republican Peoples party (RPP) with 16% votes won a third of the seats. Over 45% votes were wasted, the outgoing ruling coalition partners winning no seats. High 10% threshold was reportedly agreed upon to keep Kurdish parties out, which polled around 8%.
Gul, moderate and soft spoken, became Prime Minister in November 2002 and his party’s landslide victory allowed the Constitution to be amended for party chief Recep Tayipp Erdogan, who had been barred from elections, to enter Parliament in a bye election. He took over from Gul in March, 2003. Erdogan was tried for utterances like "Minarets are our bayonets, domes are our helmets, mosques are our barracks, believers are our soldiers," convicted and jailed for 4 months .He had also said "Thank God, I am for Shariah," "For us, democracy is a means to an end." (Shades of Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria) and, "One cannot be a secularist and a Muslim at the same time."
To allay Western fears Gul and Erdogan went on a charm offensive to Washington and European capitals saying that AKP was a moderate right of centre party. Its well educated leadership in western attire was a relief compared to Islamic leadership elsewhere. Their apparent fervor to join Europe Union established party's Western credentials.
Later the party would cleverly use EU's Copenhagen entry criteria to emasculate the military dominated policy making National Security Council by reducing it to an advisory body.
It has however become quite clear that Turkey's efforts for full EU membership after 9/11 are unlikely to be consummated but the game of endless negotiations would keep both Europe and AKP engaged. Turkey’s best chance for entering EU was in 1986 , when it declined the offer made along with Greece . Rebuffed by EU’s rabid Christian leadership led by the likes of former Valery Giscard d'Estaing who said that admitting Turkey "would be the end of the European Union" because Turkey has "a different culture, a different approach, a different way of life - it is not a European country", by now Turks , a proud people, are quite reconciled to not joining EU. In 1996Turkey signed a Customs Union Agreement , so the trade with EU is flourishing.
Since 2002 Turkey's secular parties remain disunited and in disarray. Their rule is remembered for pervasive corruption and squabbling..
Before Gul's nomination, there was talk that Erdogan, taciturn, hard and conservative politician would offer himself for the presidency but there were vehement protests by the secular establishment against his occupying the highest post for 7 years, once held by Kemal Ataturk, who fashioned the secular republic in 1923 from the ashes of the Ottoman empire. Hence Gul’s nomination.
There are three centers of power in Turkey; the President, the Prime Minister and Chief of General Staff. With two going over to the Islamists, the secular establishment is really worried. There has been a fascinating struggle between secularists and those trying to inject Islam as a cultural, social or spiritual input in the political and daily life of Turkey which is 99% Muslim.
The Turkish president is no figure head .He has the power to veto legislation , appoint judges , university rectors and other posts. The last secular President Ahmet Sezer, used his powers to check and restrain the AKP government.
Many observers fear that the strict separation of state and religion would be eroded and Islam would creep further into all fields of life since the control of Presidency gives AKP a free hand to implement Islamist policies. The secular establishment and citizens still suspect AKP of harboring a secret Islamic agenda like National Salvation Front in 1992 in Algeria which had almost won but was banned .( US led West said nothing then) .AKP then went in for early elections on July 22nd and won 47% votes but not 2/3rd majority. Gul was renominated for the post. In the first two rounds on August 20th and 24th, Gul came out well ahead of the other two candidates, Sabahattin Cakmakoglu of the Nationalist Action Party and Huseyin Icli from the Democratic Left Party, but failed to gain the required two-thirds majority . He was elected president in the third ballot on August 28th with the support of 339 of the lawmakers in the 550-seat assembly-- well above the 276 votes he needed to get in that round of voting.
In his inauguration speech Gul again sought to dispel secularist opponents' fears that he and the AKP have a secret Islamist agenda.
"The Turkish Republic is a democratic, secular, social state, governed by the rule of law," he said. "I will always be determined and resolved to advocate, without discrimination, each of these principles and to further strengthen them at every opportunity."
Compared to Erdogan , Gul's elevation was palatable to Turkey's secular establishment. Deniz Baykal, leader of opposition RPP (established by Ataturk himself) acquiesced. He said "Gul has a chance to bring peace and stability," and added, "But, if he falls under dominion of a person and acts in AK Party partisanship both Turkey and himself would come to harm." Because of Guls' strong stand against activities of PKK (Turkish Marxist party) guerillas and on north Iraq even the Pashas aka generals also acquiesced. The business community welcomed Gul’s election .Presidential elections;
I remember well April 1973 ,when after many rounds the parliament did not elect a President , a frustrated columnist in Milliyet wrote that he might as well study Byzantine history to comprehend what was going on .
Following the 1971 memorandum by the Turkish military , which had forced prime minister Demirel to resign ,a national Government under the military's shadow was in place to conduct the 1973 Presidential elections .The pugnacious and ambitious Gen Faruk Gurler , a major force behind the memorandum , first made Chief of General Staff (CGS) Gen Tamac hand over a day before the due date and took over as the new CGS . He then resigned and presented himself as the Military's candidate to replace President Cevdet Sunay, also a former CGS.
Demirel and Bulent Ecevit , leaders of the 2 major political formations along with other politicians , in spite of the Military brass occupying the parliament galleries ,gave a stunning display of Byzantine intrigue at its best , with the Parliament going through the motions of voting round after another round .Inconclusively. The politicians tired out the now unsure and somewhat divided Military in a virtuoso performance, which would have made their Byzantine ancestors proud . Finally, a compromise was reached on a retired and innocuous Naval Commander Fahri Koruturk , who was installed the new President. A rejected and dejected Gurler died a few years later, forgotten and unsung.
At the end of bloody 1970s during which intra- religious , intra -ethnic and left right violence left tens of thousands dead in Turkey, leaving its polity scarred and divided , in April 1980 President Koruturk's term ended , but Demirel and Ecevit would not agree on a candidate . For five months hundreds of rounds of voting were conducted in the Parliament , without any result .This was a display of clannish obstinacy and total abdication of political responsibility .
Gen Kenan Evren then took over in September 1980 much to everyone's relief , banned political parties and debarred political leaders. As a measure of abundant caution , the 1983 Constitution prepared under the military regime provided dissolution of the Parliament if it fails to elect a new President after four rounds . Gen. Evren stayed head of state until 1989. In 1992 , on my return to Ankara when I lauded some politicians for their defiance of the military in 1973,they complained that , yes , but the military had handled them roughly by jailing them in 1980.
It is as if the custodians of Ataturk's secular legacy , merit based Armed Forces since the days of Janissaries , modernized by the French and the Germans during late Ottoman era and since 1950s as part of NATO, are trying to guide Turkish society towards modernity and western contemporary values, a polity with tribal overlay over a Byzantine past and nature , from chaos and obduracy to conformity and order. Even by changing the Constitutions , thrice in the last 40 years ; a liberal 1961 Constitution was replaced in 1983 by one restricting freedoms .
The simmering tensions in Turkish polity
Scarf, Turban and the Veil
After Gul’s election the first problem arose with his wife, Hayrunisa, who insisted like other AKP wives to wear a head scarf or turban. Ottoman and Islamic dresses, including head scarves, have been forbidden in public places since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey by Kemal Ataturk in 1923. Ataturk abolished the caliphate, closed religious seminaries, converted the Mosque Aaya Sofya into a museum, banned Islamic dress, including the Turkish fez, veil or hijab, including the head scarf. Many an Islamist women has lost her job or place in university, and some women their seats in parliament, for defying this regulation.
Not only secularists vehemently oppose the idea of this Islamic attire in the presidential palace in Cankaya, it is legally banned in public places. On this point Gul had said, "Everyone should pay respect to this choice. Turkey is a democratic, secular and social law state. In democracy individuals have fundamental rights and freedoms. If you approach the issue from this viewpoint, you'll see that most of the problems faced in Turkey is solved."
How ever tensions had started building up between Turkey's secular elite, and the AKP ever since the latter's electoral triumph in end 2002 and continue to boil up from time to time. To begin with the Pashas were clearly unhappy with the election results. After waiting for some time, they declared, "We will continue to protect the republic against any threat, particularly the fundamentalist and separatist [Kurdish] ones."
In April 2003 president Sezer, and the top military brass led by CGS General Hilmi Ozkok, refused to attend a reception at parliament house hosted by the speaker, Bulent Arinc of the AKP, to mark National Sovereignty and Children's Day, as hostess Munnever Arinc planned to wear a Muslim head scarf. The opposition, left of the center People's Republican Party (RPP), also boycotted the reception. A last-minute announcement that Mrs Arinc would not attend the reception came too late.
In June 2004 a seven-judge panel of the European Court of Human Rights ruled against a petition by a Turkish medical student who was banned in 1998 from wearing a head scarf by Istanbul University. The student had claimed that the ban during classes violated her rights of freedom of thought, conscience and religion under the European Convention on Human Rights. The court found that the rules in medical classes were "necessary", primarily for hygienic reasons, and the students "were required to comply with the rules on dress". It "found no violation" under the convention, adding schools were entitled to set dress codes as long as they were fair. However, in a 46-page report, Human Rights Watch said the ban "inhibits academic freedom", adding the government exercised too much control over schools.( HRW, a western outfit ought to concentrate on violation of human and other rights by USA and UK)
In Turkey women are regularly killed by near relatives in so called honor killings, ie because of illicit relationships or infraction of social codes. The AKP government was thinking of making adultery a crime in law, which raised heckles all around the country and would likely jeopardize the Turkey's entry into the EU, now a charade ,so the plan was shelved.
Although the custom of covering women with head scarves is now generally associated with Islamic societies, the practice predates Islamic culture by many millennia. Veiling and seclusion were marks of prestige and status symbols in the Assyrian, Greco-Roman and Byzantine empires, as well as in Sasanian Iran. The Muslim Umayyads copied it from the Byzantines in Damascus, which they took over lock stock and barrel. According to one tradition, the Prophet Mohammad's wife Aisha did not veil her face. Generally, there was greater freedom for women among nomadic Arabs, Turks and Mongols before Islam.
But in recent history, the veil or hijab has been used to make political statements, in Muslim countries like Algeria,Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey, and where Muslims are in a minority, as in France today. Brothers in Turkey and France shave sisters’ head to coerce into wearing a scarf and organizations and individuals in Saudi Arabia etc send money for those who wear a veil, Chador or scarves .There is many times pure and simple coercion. It is far from voluntary.
On Indian corporate channels debates are conducted on the veil in France by the usual suspects ,the gliterattis, disputatis and mostly ignorantis , aka , socialites ,actors , info-challenged media hacks and lawyer spokesmen of the political parties , who would not even spend five minutes to even google veils on the internet . They only expose their ignorance and misinform people.
See Lifting the veil in France, and Turkey 16 September, 2004
By K Gajendra Singh http://www.atimes.com/atimes/
Battle joined for and against the scarf
AKP leadership , led by Erdogan in spite of strong apposition form the secular elite went ahead and with control of the parliament amended the Constitution and lifted the ban on scarves in February 2008. The AKP government claimed the lifting the ban in the name of human rights and civil liberties.
"Our main aim is to end the discrimination experienced by a section of society just because of their personal beliefs," said AKP parliamentarian Sadullah Ergin .Because of the ban, many covered women go abroad to study. This included the daughters of prime minister Erdogan who went to a US university. To overcome the law many women resort to wearing wigs over their head scarves in public places.
It is true that 60% of Turks would prefer ban on scarf lifted.
But it is a specious argument. France , a fiercely secular state also has ban on veils and other religious symbols .AKP government gives little attention to the discriminations against Alevis , almost 10 % of the population .Believers in a Shia form and more cosmopolitan ; there is no sex segregation in their places of worship , which are different from the Sunni mosques .Use of wine is permitted .Ironically most of the Alevis are from central Asia , who founded the Ottoman empire , but they are now badly treated and massacred from time to time .They vote for left of centre parties and seek protection from the military .
AKP escapes being closed by one vote by Turkey’s Constitutional Court
On July 30, 2008 ,Turkey’s Constitutional Court rejected the chief prosecutor’s demand to close the ruling AKP and ban prime minister Erdogan, president Abdullah Gul and 70 other leading AKP members from political activity for a period of five years. But the Court ruled that the party had become “a focal point for anti-secular activity” and recommended the party be denied half the financial aid it receives from the state. Ten members voted for the charge while only one voted against
Announcing the verdict the Court chairman Hasim Kilic, said 6 members of the court had voted in favor of closing the party, while the remaining four concluded that the party’s “anti-secular activities” did not deserve a ban. At least seven votes are needed to impose a ban. Kilic’s own vote against a ban of the AKP was crucial in the court’s verdict.
Kilic said, “It is not a decision to close down the party, but it is a serious warning,” emphasizing that the AKP should ponder very carefully and draw its own conclusions.
The case to ban the AKP was filed on March 14, by Turkey’s chief prosecutor, Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, who accused the party of “anti-secular activities” and “trying to turn the country into an Islamic state.”
In the tense atmosphere gripping Turkey the first indication of a possible compromise came from Mark Parris, former US ambassador to Ankara, who said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on July 16 that the “odds to find a way out are stronger than a month ago.” Many senior officials of the Bush administration made it clear that Washington was opposed to a ban on the AKP. Leading European Union representatives had also made clear their opposition to a ban, which would constitute a further hurdle to Turkey’s eventual admission into the EU.
More than at home and in the financial market European governments heaved a collective sigh of relief, while commentators were circumspect about the significance of the judgment .But after the tension and unease this was perhaps the least worst decision. Islamist political parties and those on the left have been banned many times in the past.
More than anything else it was the instability created around Turkey following the 2003 illegal invasion which might have weighed heavily in the Court’s deliberations, which made it stop just short of sending the internal political situation in to a vortex of uncertainty and unpredictability .
The court issued a clear warning that the ruling party should refrain from any further measures which encroach on the secular fabric of the Republic and privileges or power of the country’s long-standing secular Kemalist establishment.
But the decision is just another pause before the Islamists and the secularists eye each other for a political re-match .
London’s Economist advised the AKP to make more concessions to the Kemalist old guard and advised : “Mr Erdogan’s government should also turn more of its attention to the economy. The AKP’s record on the economy is strong, but that has been due in part to a benign world economic situation. Times are more difficult now, andTurkey, with a gaping current account deficit and rising inflation, is again looking vulnerable. More liberalization would help keep the economy on an even keel.”
The World Socialist Web Site commented.” Against this background, the rivalry between the feuding factions of the Turkish bourgeoisie could explode into new conflict at any time. President Abdullah Gul is due to appoint three new members of the Constitutional Court in two years time, as well as 21 university rectors. Even the appointment of acknowledged Islamists as new rectors would be sufficient to re-ignite political tensions and precipitate a fresh crisis.”
Commented Yusuf Kanli ,a veteran Turkish journalist “ the AKP now has to demonstrate that it indeed got the message the court issued and start moderating itself by giving up the post July 22 majority obsession, lending an ear to what the opposition says and try to understand sentiments of the secularists. Thus the AKP and the prime minister must try to soothe tensions rather than refusing to acknowledge his and the AKP`s share in the alarming level of polarization Turkey has been surfing in for some time.
“For example, the prime minister must swiftly act now to conform with the local and international court rulings regarding compulsory religious education in Turkish schools, realize the pain of non-Sunnis as well as non-Muslims because of compulsory Muslim Sunni indoctrination at our secondary schools.
“The AKP and Erdogan must understand that the Constitutional Court underlined in all clarity that the arrogant “What if turban is a political symbol” approach undermining secularist concerns and ignoring reform demands in all other areas except enhancing religious freedoms did no good to anyone.”
Power to make Fundamental changes in the Constitution -Turkey and India .
Apart from lifting the ban on the veil and other such measures , AKP’s talk of major amendments in the Constitution was the main reason for the case .Commented political analyst Andrew Arato on the crisis ;” The Constitution of 1982 has unchangeable provisions that the parliament cannot alter even with 100% of the vote having to do with the republican, secular and unitary character of the state. (Articles 1, 2,3 made unchangeable by Art. 4). Moreover the Constitutional Court is given jurisdiction to review amendments (art 148/149). Though this jurisdiction is defined as procedural, logically the Court would be correct to argue that any procedure (i.e. any majority, even 100%) that changes the unchangeable is ultravires.
“Thus if Turkish Constitutional Court judged the amendments in question unconstitutional on the bases of the unchangeable articles it would have still not have gone as far stretching its jurisdiction as the great Indian Supreme Courts did, in defense of the unwritten “basic structure”of the Indian Constitution. Admittedly, the Indian Constitution was democratically made, and there the Court could arguably defend the work of the democratic pouvoir constituant, against mere governmental organs, including the qualified parliamentary majority. In Turkeythe Constitution was an authoritarian product, and it may seem paradoxical to defend its unchangeable provisions against democratically elected parliaments.” ( This is strictly not true .The 1982 Constitution was approved in a referendum )
The Republican state was created by a secular military after a long war of independence under Kemal Ataturk giving the nation its secular Constitution , so the Kemalist establishment is a major stakeholder .It would not allow what could have happened in Algeria ,if the 2nd round of elections with assured victory to Islamic Salvation Front had been completed in Algeria in 1992 .
It must be remembered that in the ‘the Book’ based polity of Islam, the lines between the Mir and the Pir ,the temporal ruler and spiritual ruler still remain blurred ,contested and changing. Look at what has happened in Pakistan , where the military has been Islamised and has killed the plant of democracy .Of course it suits Anglo Americans , but in Turkey the secular establishment of Judiciary, military , academician and others would not like the nation to be taken back to the religious Ottoman era .Ergenekon is a mythical place located in the inaccessible valleys of the Altay mountains in Mongolia from where the Turish people originated .In one version of the myth a proto-historic Turkish tribe was ambushed and decimated with the exception of a single child who was nursed by a female wolf. His offsprings thrive and an iron-smith builds a huge bellow and smelters the mountain thus opening a passage out from the valley. A she-wolf Asena shows them the way out. Fascist and nationalist groups in Turkey call themselves Gray Wolves’
Saudi ‘Green money’ for AKP’s benefitK Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Copy right with the author E-mailkgsingh@yahoo.com
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