{"id":1585,"date":"2015-07-28T14:04:21","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T14:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1585"},"modified":"2015-07-28T14:04:21","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T14:04:21","slug":"turkeys-false-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1585","title":{"rendered":"Turkey\u2019s False Spring"},"content":{"rendered":"

By AYKAN ERDEMIR*
\nThe National Interest<\/em><\/p>\n

Despite Erdogan’s recent electoral setback, winter is coming.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s recent June elections have produced a religiously diverse parliament<\/a> that the country has not seen since the 1950s<\/a>. A total of seven non-Muslim deputies<\/a>\u2014three Armenian Apostolic, one Arab Orthodox, one Syriac Christian, and two Yazidis\u2014were elected from the lists of three different parties. It is a mistake, however, to dwell on the success of minority candidates in a country at risk of moving not toward greater tolerance, but to scapegoating and religious and ethnic exclusivism.<\/p>\n

\"2013<\/a>
2013 Taksim Gezi Park protests (15th June) – Wikimedia\/Fleshstorm<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Optimists argue that, after the recent elections which delivered a setback to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s bid to consolidate power, Turkey\u2019s political climate is finally ripe for the pluralism that has long been the goal of a new generation<\/a> that is coming of age. But this is not the arrival of a Turkish political spring. If anything, we may be about to enter a long winter of discontent.<\/p>\n

In theory and in practice, Turkey can and should be a beacon of religious pluralism and a model for peaceful coexistence in a region plagued by religious coercion, mass killing, and ethnic cleansing. The Gezi Park protests<\/a> of June 2013, the first large-scale challenge to Erdo\u011fan\u2019s autocratic rule, produced much celebrated scenes of diversity: women in headscarves rallying alongside LGBT activists, Marxists standing guard<\/a> to protect \u201cAnti-Capitalist Muslims\u201d during their prayers, and atheists and Muslims breaking fast together<\/a> at opentable gatherings.<\/p>\n

Such celebrations of diversity, however, fail to conceal the enormity of sectarianism and polarization in today\u2019s Turkey. Under twelve years of Erdo\u011fan\u2019s Justice and Development Party\u2014 Adalet ve Kalk\u0131nma Partisi (AKP)\u2014rule, the country has been a steady diet of hate, prejudice, and intolerance by top government officials. Turkey\u2019s political culture also enabled perpetrators of hate speech and crimes not only to escape justice<\/a> but to enjoy praise and promotions<\/a>. This toxic climate, as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)\u2019s Global Index of anti-Semitism shows<\/a>, has produced a Turkey that is even more anti-Semitic than Iran. According to the 2015 survey<\/a>, an appalling 71 percent of Turkish citizens harbor anti-Semitic attitudes.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, Turkey\u2019s new parliament, celebrated by many pundits for its minority members, has a fault line that could further escalate Turkey\u2019s sectarian tensions. Two of the four parties represented in the Turkish parliament\u2014the Islamist-rooted AKP and the right-wing nationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP)\u2014are comprised entirely of Sunni Muslim deputies, with the exception of a token Armenian elected on the AKP list.<\/p>\n

Moreover, although Alevis\u2014adherents of an offshoot of Shi\u2019ite Islam who make up 10 to 15 percent of the population\u2014gave the AKP and MHP 7 percent<\/a> of their vote, these parties chose to exclude non-Sunnis entirely from their ranks. If the current coalition talks lead to an AKP-MHP partnership, the governing bloc and its cabinet would exclude participation of religious minorities.<\/p>\n

Were this AKP-MHP coalition to materialize, ethnic diversity would also suffer. The People\u2019s Democratic Party (HDP) and the Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP) combined received 64 percent<\/a> of the Kurdish vote. But the AKP\u2019s coalition with the MHP would leave a significant majority of Kurds out. This could only spell trouble for Turkey\u2019s precarious Kurdish peace process and strained relations with Kurdish entities across the region.<\/p>\n

Such policies of exclusion are President Erdo\u011fan\u2019s preference. After all it was under Erdo\u011fan\u2019s leadership that the AKP turned Alevis and non-Muslim minorities into scapegoats<\/a>. While the AKP group had three Alevi deputies<\/a> in 2007, the number came down to one<\/a> in 2011, and finally to zero in 2015. This was accompanied by the rise in Erdo\u011fan\u2019s hate speech<\/a> targeting Alevis<\/a>, especially following the election of an Alevi<\/a> as the leader of the secular opposition party CHP in May 2010. Erdo\u011fan\u2019s loyal followers in the AKP<\/a> and among civil servants<\/a> did not hesitate to follow suit.<\/p>\n

This toxic political climate has become contagious. There are signs that the MHP might be joining Erdo\u011fan\u2019s politics of sectarian hate<\/a> as part of an attempt to court the AKP for a potential coalition partnership. The MHP deputy whip recently announced<\/a> that his party chose not to vote for the CHP\u2019s candidate for the speaker of the parliament, because it would be perceived as voting for a party \u201cwithout religion and without faith,\u201d a common slur against Alevi and secular individuals in Turkey.<\/p>\n

As the makeup of the next Turkish government hangs in the balance, it is clear that the AKP and the MHP could easily build a monolithic coalition bloc catering to Turkish and Sunni exclusivist sentiments. This partnership would have 57 percent of the popular vote and more than three-fifths of the seats in the parliament necessary to amend the constitution unilaterally to empower Erdo\u011fan with a more muscular presidency. Such an ostensibly solid and stable alliance, however, would come at the expense of Turkey\u2019s already strained democracy and pluralism.<\/p>\n

Turkey survived two rounds of Nationalist Front coalitions<\/a> in 1975 and 1977 which also brought right-wing nationalists and Islamists together. Citizens who endured those years vividly remember the dark days<\/a> of repression and mass murder. The ensuing polarization and escalation of violence left more than 5,000<\/a> people dead on both ends of the political spectrum in less than five years, and paved the way for sectarian clashes and pogroms against Alevis.<\/p>\n

If Turkey chooses the path of ethnic and sectarian polarization once again, it will not take long for the country\u2019s false spring to turn into an intolerant winter.<\/p>\n

*Aykan Erdemir is a former member of the Turkish parliament and a nonresident fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By AYKAN ERDEMIR* The National Interest Despite Erdogan’s recent electoral setback, winter is coming. Turkey\u2019s recent June elections have produced a religiously diverse parliament that [more >>>]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1586,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,6,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-turkey","category-turkey-minority-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1587,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585\/revisions\/1587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}