Tulin DALOGLU

This Isn’t Your Mother’s Turkey

Middle East Times

By TULIN DALOGLU

http://www.metimes.com/Politics/2009/02/06/this_isnt_your_mothers_turkey/8156/

Anger is rarely seen as a virtue of leadership. There are exceptions. When Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan lost his temper and stormed off stage during a discussion on Gaza at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, many Turks thought him to be a hero. The Arab streets followed suit. It was almost as though Erdogan had rehearsed his clash with Israeli President Shimon Peres to gain attention in the Muslim world.

“When it comes to killing, we know how you do it well,” Erdogan told Israeli President Shimon Peres. Erdogan claimed his reaction was over the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
But he seemed to forget everything about the humanitarian cause when he gave a warm welcome to Sudanese Vice President Ali Uthman Mohammed Taha yesterday in Ankara. “It’s obvious that tens of thousands of children who have been killed [in Darfur] does not touch Erdogan’s heart like the Palestinians. But why?” Semih Idiz wrote today at his column at Milliyet, a Turkish daily.
“If Erdogan’s contradictory position over Gaza and Darfur stands for an “Islamist solidarity,” then how will the ones, who deny that there is any shift in Turkish foreign policy, explain this.” The only explanation is that Erdogan is playing a very high-stakes game.
“[The West] should think what they do without Turkey,” he said, upon his return to Istanbul from Davos. To the Turkish diplomats who expressed concern that his behavior in Switzerland could hurt Turkey, he said, “I come from politics, not from diplomacy.”
And he compared his walking out on the panel to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s victory at Dardanelles in 1915, where he became a national hero in the campaign that eventually freed the Turkish homeland from the occupiers.
While many Turks found his behavior appropriate, the opposition parties rallied to his support over the Davos incident, as well. As local elections will be held in March, no one wants to take any risk with the people. Yet the question should remain as to how a panel on Gaza was an attempt to insult Turkish honor.
“[N]obody can even speak to a tribal leader so loudly,” he said. It’s true that Peres was exceptionally passionate in defending Israel’s position, with forceful body language and occasionally a loud voice. However, it’s mindboggling that a person like Erdogan, who is known for speaking loudly and using slang when talking to his people, would say that Peres’ manner offended him.
Erdogan blamed the moderator, David Ignatius of the Washington Post, saying he had not given equal time to the participants. “[I] spoke for 12 minutes … the Israeli president spoke for 25 minutes,” Erdogan said. The Turkish prime minister had been carefully watching the clock – but Peres spoke only for an extra five minutes.
Ignatius could be out of line for holding Erdogan’s shoulder while the Turkish prime minister was so worked up. Yet assuming for the sake of argument that Ignatius was in the wrong, a prime minister should be able to formulate a way to put a moderator in his place without walking out.
At Davos, Erdogan acted the way he always does. His behavior secures votes, fires up his base, and wins him popularity in the Arab Muslim world. He is emotional, but in control. He’s a gifted politician, and focused on his vision for Turkey. “I hate to say it,” Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute, recently wrote. “[B]ut this is not your mother’s Turkey.”
Erdogan has ambitions to be the leader of the Muslim world, extending Turkey’s influence over lands once controlled by the Ottomans. The Davos scene is just a piece of executing that plan. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praised Erdogan; Hamas militants congratulated him; the Arab street is paying attention, but Arab leaders are less vocal.
Even more tellingly, Arabs did not take offense that Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League, did not follow him off the stage. More, the foreign ministers of eight Arab states called on Tuesday for an end to “non-Arab” interference in regional affairs. The statement was certainly targeting Iran, but could Turkey not be included as well?
Also, Turkish President Abdullah Gul’s visit to Saudi Arabia this week comes as interesting timing. While Turkey will be receiving much attention in the region, when push comes to shove, Arabs may not give Turkey much credence. If Turkey loses its good name with its Western alliance, it will also lose its ability to serve as an unbiased interlocutor.
More importantly, Erdogan’s behavior in Davos could hurt Turkey. George Mitchell, U.S. President Barack Obama’s special envoy, was due to visit Turkey on Sunday. But according to U.S. officials, the visit did not take place “due to technical reasons and scheduling conflicts.” Yet, it’s clearly a cancelled visit denying Erdogan an opportunity to act out and put Mitchell in a difficult position. It’s likely that Erdogan is now seen as a high-risk character.
Yet he has asked Obama to redefine terrorism in the Middle East – clearly referring to Hamas and Hezbollah, which the United States considers terrorist organizations. But Erdogan needs to make the case why the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist organization, should continue to be considered one.
If Erdogan accuses Israel of wrongly attacking Hamas, whose military capability is nowhere near that of Israel’s, he must make the case why a NATO force should continue to fight PKK terrorism.
If Erdogan believes Hamas should be regarded as equal to all elected political parties, he must extend a hand to Ahmet Turk, the leader of the Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which has been elected to the Turkish parliament. But Erdogan insists he will have nothing to do with the party until it denounces violence. If Erdogan is sincere about Hamas, he should listen to DTP members’ call for autonomy in Turkey’s east. But he won’t.
And that’s why Erdogan’s actions are so worrisome. Moreso, the Turkish Ministry of Education’s decision to call all primary schools to commemorate the “martyrs of Gaza” was possibly the most tragic mistake.
“I worry that children exposed to hypocrisy will eventually lose respect for civilized society and its norms,” I was told by Judea Pearl, the father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped because he was Jewish. “In the long run, Turkish society will suffer from raising a generation of young Turks in an atmosphere where on the one hand, terrorism is condemned and, on the other hand, terrorism [Hamas in particular] is obviously revered and supported.”
Unlike Ataturk, Erdogan is the face of rising political Islam – one who shocked many at Davos. Under his leadership, Turkey seems to be gradually moving away from the West. Neither side should take the other for granted, any longer. And let’s hope Turkey’s temporary shift away from West does not become a permanent one.

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Tulin Daloglu is chief Washington correspondent of Haberturk, (a Turkish television and a forthcoming daily paper)