"Authoritarianism No More!" Professor Kumru Toktamis on the events in Turkey
Critical Analysis 9:16 AM
Authoritarianism No More!
kumru toktamis
It has never been hard for those in
power to find jargon to belittle and discredit their opposition. But
the subversive creativity of the opposition in co-opting such
expressions has often bolstered the legitimacy of their claims.
When Turkish Prime Minister R. T.
Erdogan called the demonstrators at Taksim Square in Istanbul
capulcus (bandits, looters) in early June, he awarded them
with what has become a historical and global badge of honor, complete
with a new Wikipedia “chapulling.” The appropriation of a
formerly pejorative term exemplifies the anti-authoritarian core of
the ongoing uprising and turmoil in Turkey.
Subtle or overt forms of
authoritarianism have always been a defining characteristic of the
post-Ottoman polity in the territories of the Eastern Mediterranean –
particularly in the Republic of Turkey, founded by a bureaucratic
-military elite amidst opportunities created by the intra-allied
conflicts and fatigue of the Great War. This modernizing elite and
their populist anti-colonial narrative provided the legitimizing
framework for the Turkish state for throughout the 20th
century. The country survived the Cold War era under a formal
parliamentarism with military tutelage, where authoritarian ideals of
heavy handed etatisme, model citizenship, suppression of
ethnic and religious minorities and homogenization of the population
in pursuit of a 19th century notion of modernity tainted
the all political parties and foreseeable oppositions alike.
The conflict over rising Islamism in
the political landscape of Turkey has always been a negotiation about
the urban texture of the country. The nationalist, laicist, modernist
founding elites have continually expressed their discomfort with the
visibility of traditionally clad Muslim individuals and families,
especially women in headscarves in urban public spaces such as
schools, hospitals and courtrooms. The bastion of Turkish laicism --
unlike secularism -- demanded that such expressions be backward,
folksy and untypical of the modernizing ideals of the Republic. As
the visibility of islamists increased in the cities -- not only as
shantytown dwellers or students, but in professional positions and
eventually as urban nouveau riche -- the Islamists and their
political party the AKP were associated with provincial
fundamentalism. However, AKP leader R.T. Erdogan was neither: born
and raised in Istanbul, he came from among those in the city’s
neighborhoods who were not welcome in public spaces and professional
life. He shared the street smarts, cunning and ambition of denizens
of Istanbul, yet belonged to the social segment that was not
recognized and acknowledged. But that was last century.
R. T. Erdogan and his AKP came to the
fore on a wave of freedoms and rights against the authoritarian
culture, policies and politics. Challenging the etatiste
laicism (which unlike secularism involved the active use of
governmental power to suppress and homogenize religious leadership)
that curbed freedoms of expression of the political right and left,
but most importantly the crucial role of the military as the guardian
of the Republic, the AKP managed to gain the support of the rural and
urban poor, as well as the approval of liberals and liberal
socialists. Moreover, the AKP’s economic agenda connected with
emerging globalization through privatization and commercialization of
government control, thus enabling the AKP to be recognized as a
reliable partner of global and regional financial interests.
As a party with clear religious roots
that survived several attempts to outlaw it – unlike its
predecessors of similar ilk – the AKP pragmatically emerged as the
leading party with unprecedented popular support, gaining nearly 50%
of the vote in three consecutive elections (34% in 2002, 47% in 2007
and 50% in 2011), emerging as a model party of moderate Islam and
pro-capitalism. While it owed most of its electoral success to social
policies such as healthcare and housing, the almost irrational
insistence of the small yet influential laicist elites who
insistently cried that their country was being taken over by radical,
Islamic fundamentalism and called the military to take charge did not
help the opposition to develop a viable agenda to overcome the
cultural, political and economic problems that accompanied the AKP’s
emergence to power.
While the AKP may have reached its
liberal pinnacle as the trailblazer of expanding political freedoms
with the election of Abdullah Gul as the head of the Republic in
2007, its love affair with capitalist enterprise continued
relentlessly, mostly along the paths of cronyism.
As liberal trailblazers, the AKP has
been more successful in modernizing and revising Turkish legal codes
to harmonize public administration and human rights with European
Union Codes than any of the earlier modernizing elites. As a
historical irony, while advancing the westernization/modernization
agenda of the founders of the Republic, the AKP dismantled the power
bases of the same elites by removing military representatives from
civilian institutions such as the Council of Higher Education and the
High Council of Radio and Television.
As “Islamic Calvinists,”1
the AKP pursued the Republic’s third wave of “constructing the
domestic bourgeoisie” – the first being a state-engineered
market economy during the Great Depression and the second the
elimination and replacement of wealth accumulation by the non-Muslim
minorities in the 1950s. This third wave of capitalist expansion
mostly followed the blueprints of the post-1980 military coup by
drawing provincial resources toward the center via financial programs
and policies. This made clear that a cultural-Islamist agenda was not
a priority for the AKP. The party and its supporters were more
interested in maximizing profit by expanding the scope of domestic
consumerism and regional financial markets.
The consolidation of the AKP’s power
inadvertently created its own cultural, political and economic
inconsistencies and contradictions. The expansion of the free-market
economy and increase in the per-capita income from $2,800 to $10,000
within a decade brought with it unparalleled economic inequalities.
The rise of conservative capitalists with ostentatious wealth and
display of consumerism in urban areas proved to be highly irritating
for both economic and cultural reasons. While traditional urban
elites already feared displacement from their positions of prestige
and power, the urban working poor felt betrayed, having followed the
AKP’s political agenda with common-sense piety and faith based on a
sense of justice.
Politically, the hopes of expanded
freedoms and liberties were dashed as the trials of wanna-be-
leaders of military coups, such as Ergenekon, soon turned into
political circuses aimed at intimidating all forms of opposition. By
2011, Turkey became the leading country in the world for jailing
journalists, alongside Iran and China. AKP-style pragmatism was also
revealed to be crucial in instrumentalizing Kurdish aspirations, as
the peace process with the Kurdish rebels became a political trump
card to hijack Kurdish support for R.T. Erdogan’s ambition to
propel himself into the Presidency and expand the powers of what has
heretofore been a largely symbolic office as Head of the Republic.
Culturally, neither the AKP nor its
leader were the kind of Islamists the irrational laicists portrayed
them to be. Rather than pursuing an agenda of islamization, they have
mainly been interested in replacing the traditional urban elite and
displacing their prestige and power into the hands of a newly
emerging “conservative bourgeoisie.” They represented an emerging
capitalist class that wanted to be able to be as visible and as
consumerist as the older elites. However, this did not prevent the
party from making gestures toward their more pious electoral base,
such as legislating limitations on abortion (not required by any
religious strictures whatsoever) and on alcohol (in a country where
alcoholism is not a social problem). Such attempts are championed by
only small religious constituencies and have angered many.
The AKP had already become an extension
and promoter of the previously prevailing authoritarianism in Turkey
(sans military support) by the time its leader decided to micromanage
the commercialization of a public park in the old city of Istanbul.
… AND RESISTANBUL at the GEZI PARK
The AKP’s brand of culture wars, as
represented in superficial and virtual branding of Islam; rapidly
illiberalizing democracy, evident in the ways it treats its
opposition; and crony capitalism that aims to enrich its supporters
while promising a trickle-down expansion of welfare to the popular
segments of the society all seem to have reached an impasse: the AKP
is now the voice of authoritarianism in Turkey.
Authoritarianism is a legacy of the
old-world, pre-19th century empires that persists in the
modern politics of their successors. The AKP’s dilemma is that as
it was expanding boundaries of freedoms and liberties for its own
followers it inadvertently called forth its future opposition. As
with any other pragmatic political agenda, while it was benefiting
from the ineptitude of the traditional power centers, it still lacked
“technocratic depth”2
and had to rely mostly on the charisma of its leadership and its
immediate interest-based policies.
The opposition at Taksim Square/Gezi
Parki started as a reaction to a highly controversial and technically
under-baked project for the privatization of a historic public space
on a commercially vibrant square. The initial participants in the
movement revealed it to be a typical urban social movement for
individual rights and freedoms defending public space, with no
particular political affiliation. Thanks to the police brutality and
the PM’s blatant brazenness, the mobilization soon snowballed into
massive opposition to the regime and whatever it is representing to
citizens from different walks of Turkish society and culture.
Environmentalists asking for more green, LGBT groups for more
recognition and rights are now side by side with Muslim activists who
has long supported a non-authoritarian, non-military political and
legal system. Representatives of traditional nationalist elites who
want to defend the pillars of secularism in the country are
accompanied by maybe the largest and most staunch supporters of the
uprising, the unruly soccer fans whose eventual mobilization seemed
to be crucial for the early withdrawal of the police forces from the
square. There are posters reminding the public that the square was
once an Armenian cemetery, alluding to all projects of re-imaging a
legendary past. Socialists, Marxists, members of trade unions, women,
children, upper-middle class families all have managed to find a
place and a voice in the growing opposition which defies all
previously existing political alliances and agendas. Thanks to PM
R.T. Erdogan’s idea of progress via micro-managing, Taksim is now
the site of a historic stand-off between his regime and a loose
coalition of social, political and cultural opposition.
Tahrir Square in Cairo had a very clear
agenda of over throwing a dictator. Zuccotti Park in NYC was a
poignant warning to financial capitalism. The multi-vocality of these
mobilizations was their strength and pitfall, all at the same time;
they all resonated with larger segments of their respective societies
and manage to draw them into action. They proved that ambiguity of
goals can be a productive tool for collective activism; larger
segments of the society can attribute their own understanding of
protest and join in. Just as in Tahrir and Zuccotti, at Taksim the
protest itself has become the message, and those in power respond to
that message, most of the time creating more room for further action.
Such a dialogical relationship between the protests and the
governments and security forces helps them to expand, as they further
identify their raison d’etre and clarify their priorities.
At the same time, the very
multi-vocality of this process – wherein each new social segment,
organized group or interested participant walks in with their own
framing of interests and goals – at times challenges other
activists’ positions and claims. At this point, the brazenness of
the Turkish PM gives the activist a unifying rallying point, but
there is no clarity as to what extent his government should be
targeted. There seem to be several conflicting responses coming the
from diverse groups that make up the movement; while some are
resorting to humor and parody, others seem to be calling up the
spirit of the founder of the country, Ataturk, another figure of
yester-centuries authoritarianism. Some participants are persistent
in focusing on longstanding issues of capitalist exploitation and the
perils of globalization, while others are focusing on the dangers of
police brutality and human rights violations.
Thirty-five years ago, during the
nascent days of the feminist movement in Turkey, when a beloved
friend and a Muslim activist woman had asked me “in a country that
is 99% Muslim, how do you expect feminism to take hold?” My
response was, “In a country where most of the Muslims who end their
day of religious fasting with a shot of raki [a traditional alcoholic
beverage with anisette], how do you expect an islamist regime?”In
Turkey, as elsewhere, traditions have always been reproduced and
reinvented in a dialogical manner. The Islamist AKP rebranded the
spirit of capitalism and globalization; by micro-managing morality it
has opened new venues for atheist and agnostics to speak their minds;
and with increased visibility of the noveau riche in urban areas it
has distressed its own pious electoral base. Istanbul is a
historically resilient geography where the city has witnessed how
those once considered to be looters by the residents of its palaces,
eventually became its new masters.
Occupy Gezi, is not just a great idea
or an experience. Whatever its outcome might be, it signals the end
of authoritarianism as the glue binding the culture and society.
There may even be a short reversal of fortunes for the activists, and
the AKP may resort to more repressive, top-down policies. But, after
Taksim, authoritarianism shall no longer be the defining
characteristic of Turkish politics and culture. Chapulcu, as
the anti-authority figure, will remain as the promoter of democracy.
6/9/13
Brooklyn-NYC
1
Omer Taspinar,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2012/04/24-turkey-new-model-taspinar
2
As observed in Der Spiegel by US ambassador Eric Edelman in
2004.
www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-tribune-of-anatolia-america-s-dark-view-of-turkish-premier-erdogan-a-732084.html
Professor Kumru Toktamis is Adjunct Professor of Social Science and Cultural Studies at Pratt Institute.
