Can democracy be protected by the court-ordered closing of a political party, and possibly even by a coup d'etat? If democracy is simply head-counting, as Hugh Fitzgerald puts it, then no, it cannot. But Turkey faces the possibility that its secular system and relative (and I do mean relative -- relative to Sharia, that is) equality of rights for all its citizens can only be protected by these means. Condoleeza Rice has warned the Turkish military, the historical guarantors of Kemalism, not to act against the government, but she doesn't seem to have taken into account the fact that the government is clearly moving to establish Islamic law in Turkey, and to destroy the elements of Turkish society that make it more of a natural ally of the U.S. than any other Muslim-majority state.
Is she not being short-sighted?
"Domesticating political Islam," by Yusuf Kanli in the Turkish Daily News, July 25:
Letters poured into my mailbox, some protesting what they considered a “shift” in my attitude regarding the closure case against the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP and of “opposing” a possible closure decision, while some hailed me for becoming a “lesser Kemalist” and “more democratic” as I “agreed” with the thesis of the AKP and some of its supporters in the Islamist and allegiant media that indeed closure of parties by the Constitutional Court is very much like a criminal court condemning an individual to the death penalty. Some have gone to the extent of accusing me of “betraying the secular democratic Republic…”Self-catering democrats, self-catering secularists, self-catering supporters of individual rights and liberties may not of course comprehend the need to demand justice for all, equality of all in front of justice, to oppose all anti-democratic moves without discrimination and even to be able to say “if in principle I am against closure of political parties by a military junta or by the Constitutional Court, I am against – in principle – the closure of the AKP as well though like many people I have very strong doubts that the ruling party has an agenda incompatible with the secular democratic Republic.”
But, of course, from a purely legalistic point of view, a possible closure of the AKP by the court has to be respected by everyone irrespective of whether we like it because there is such a penalty in our laws and as long as a law remains in the penal system of a country it must be applied without discrimination.
Corrective penalty:
Some readers, on the other hand, provided food for thought by suggesting that the past practice demonstrated that the clauses giving party closure power to the Constitutional Court were indeed “corrective measures” aimed at “protecting the secular democratic Republic against separatist, Islamist and some totalitarian aspirations.”
Yes, indeed, if the history of political Islam is examined, over the past many decades the “political” element of “political Islam” in Turkey appears to have been “domesticated” with the closure of one of the other four previous parties of the movement. Yes, in each case, some time after the closure decision by the military junta or the Constitutional Court, political Islam re-organized in one or more new parties but the new parties were established with “safeguards” against the reasons cited for the closure of the previous party and thus newer parties, at least in the initial phases, were more in conformity with the secular democratic order of the country than the former ones....
So ultimately, party closure hasn't worked. But what else can be done?
I used to have such a high regard for Dr. Rice. Maybe she should learn Arabic and add that to her repertoire of foreign languages. Then she should go to the MEMRI website and soak in all of the love of the Religion of Peace.
ABS
لن استسلم
In the book, War and Decision by Douglas Feith, C. Rice is portrayed as a "bridge builder" and a mediator, not as an authority figure or a decider.
She is largely responsible for U.S. current dithering going on in her watch; N Korea, middle east, Isreal. She is a disaster for us.
The idea of making the turkish army the guardian of secularism and democracy, was a stroke of genius by Ataturk!
It is something that the EU wants to get rid of as well. They even made it a condition in the negotiations with Turkey to enter the EU.
This, ofcourse, is understandable. The whole notion of a kind of referee who can protect the people from their elected governments if these governments are a danger to secularism and democracy, is very threatening to the political elites in de EU.
But i would love to have such turkish legislation in the netherlands and the other EU member states. It would at least make these elites think twice before they decide to ratify treaties that the people, whom they supposed to be representing, explicitly rejected
I would love to call upon the dutch military to go and arrest Balkenende (the dutch PM) and put him on trial for treason!
Rice is no Kemal, so we have a run-of-the-mill Secretary of State, who has disappointed many previous supporters who thought she was made of sterner and finer stuff than she is, trying to nix what the single greatest Turk in the past century understood to be crucial in moving Turkey forward------marginalizing Islam as much as possible in Turkish life and setting up the military as the guarantee of this, because, after all, you don't negotiate with devout Muslims about Islamic principles, you just sit on them. Condi doesn't get this, as she doesn't get a lot about Islam, hence her inability to see the vital (and unusual) role the Turkish military has played for well over half a century in keeping Turkey sane.
You are right Wellington. I don't think Condi knows how to spell Islam, never mind understand the bloody cult.
As far as I'm concerned Turkey is a lost cause.
In younger years I have travelled that country extensively and always came across attitudes that reflect the same insane anti-Semitism and genocidal Jew-hatred that has become so common when dealing with Muslims around the globe.
No doubt Kemalism was a blessing for Turkey. Properly promoted, it could keep the country further out of trouble. But now it looks indeed as if the poor, fast breeding Anatolians, pious and much more Islamic than 'secular' city folk are now all fired up by the Islamic revolution. That monster wants to eat and must be fed.
Who will stop the Erdogan/Gul team now?
The Islamization is fueled by Sowdi-dollars and Iran. The indoctrination comes from the mosque.
Its a disaster, but with Clinton Bush-Condi-Cheney characters in politics what do you expect?
She's not being short-sighted, but willfully blind. Might as well slap a huge version of the bumper sticker: COEXIST on the front of the Harry S. Truman Building, i.e, the State Dept. We are not citizens of the world, we have differences and pretending otherwise only makes matters worse.
Democracy is no virtue. In EUrabia, and, increasingly, in the US democracy has degenerated into dhimmocracy. And in the Muslim world, democracy translates into disaster. It is long overdue that Cowardeezza learn this from her democracy projects in Iraq and "Palestine", and from the democracy-caused approaching nuclear jihad in Pakistan.
DEMOCRACY + ISLAM = TROUBLE.
When the traditionally Muslim former Soviet republics of Central Asia gained independence from Russia, they looked up to Turkey, their fellow Turkic-speaking nation, as the "Big Brother" and a role model. They have since turned away in disappointment.
Far from putting Islamists in power, as Turkey did, Uzbekistan's tough former Soviet apparatchik Islam Karimov, had decisevely beat repeated Islamic Jihad onslaughts, despite the aid given the jihadists by the US State Dept. sociopaths, the Criminal Imbecile Agency, and the neoliberal-neocon vermin. Angered by the traitorous American back-stubbing, Karimov kicked out the US military out of the strategic Karshi-Khanabad ("K2")air base that was helpful to the US in Afghanistan. The US war effort there is consequently deteriorating now.
And the vast, multiracial, multireligious Kazakhstan fabulously rich in every mineral in existence is thriving under the able leadership of its own apparatchik Nursultan Nazarbayev. Like Karimov, he was also initially friendly to the US, but was revolted by the American perfidity toward both Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and now also keeps the US at an arms-lenghth. Both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have learned the hard way that they absolutely cannot trust the Americans. Both thrive in a warm embrace of Russia and China who proved to be far more trustworthy. Both Karimov and Nazarbayev are wholeheartedly friendly toward Israel, for they understand the difference between a Jewish Zionist in Israel and Jewish - or non-Jewish - neoliberal-neocon in the United States.
A Western democracy inevitably ends up with cowardly and traitorous sociopaths in charge. Israel is an exception because of its glorious Zionist ideology.
The very best government system ever known to man is not democracy, but that of Singapore, the product of the by far the most successful nation-building project in human history, by its genius Founding Father Lee Quan Yew.
Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.
Rice is probably more of a closet Mohammedan than Obama is
Enragedsince1999: Democracy was best summed up by Sir Winston Churchill: the worst system of government with the exception of the all the other forms of government. But for democracy to work optimally it must be infused with a proper moral order and the rule of law (based on a decent legal system). Without an ethical base and a humanitarian legal code democracy becomes sham democracy, which is what you have in, say, the Gaza Strip and Iran. Quite frankly, I don't think you can tell the difference.
Islam has produced neither a humanitarian moral code nor a sensible, non-draconian legal system. Therefore, Islamic countries, precisely to the extent they are Islamic, will produce only bogus experiments in democracy. By the way, if you wish to think Singapore has produced the most successful nation-building project in history, be my guest, but I would vigorously disagree with you. My choice for the greatest nation-building effort in the entire history of man would be the United States of America. Nothing else compares.
Enragedsince1999: Democracy was best summed up by Sir Winston Churchill: the worst system of government with the exception of the all the other forms of government. But for democracy to work optimally it must be infused with a proper moral order and the rule of law (based on a decent legal system). Without an ethical base and a humanitarian legal code democracy becomes sham democracy, which is what you have in, say, the Gaza Strip and Iran. Quite frankly, I don't think you can tell the difference.
Islam has produced neither a humanitarian moral code nor a sensible, non-draconian legal system. Therefore, Islamic countries, precisely to the extent they are Islamic, will produce only bogus experiments in democracy. By the way, if you wish to think Singapore has produced the most successful nation-building project in history, be my guest, but I would vigorously disagree with you. My choice for the greatest nation-building effort in the entire history of man would be the United States of America. Nothing else compares.
You know I think Rice may be naive.
Being from a country that faces the same dillema, I would like to argue that democracy is a system of government, based on reason.
Education is the key component for democracy to be meaningful. Look at Iraq - even though they were allowed to hold a democratic election, the party heads still ran to Ali Sistani for advice.
Yet the most important thing missing from democracy in Islamic countries is the fact that in democracy, if the majority are allowed to rule, the minority still retain their rights.
As for Turkey, the only way for the liberals there to free themselves from the clutches of Islam are to better educate the rest of the population. Otherwise, they're gonna be back to square one.
They could also divide up Turkey and put all the islamists in the east and let only secularists, Christians and Jews remain in the part that's nearer to Europe.
Then get rid of all the mosks.. throw out the KKKorags and burn them!
THAT's how you get rid of islam.
And the backward islamos can have their own islamic state near Iran that's all.
Then build a WALL between the two parts.
Not a small one like Israel but more like the one in China.
Islam can only be contained by rather rigorous measures. I doubt we'd have the stomach to do what would be needed if you wanted to eradicate it.
Containment is the best we can possibly achieve. So long as they don't cause too much pollution to come over to our side I really don't care what they do.
Just do it far away from me.
Now, US policies in the region - including the Balkans - have shown limited understanding of historical and cultural issues. I won't go further into the fallacies, but instead focus on Turkey:
At the moment, Turkey is headed towards a one-party system led by the AKP in consort with the Islamic branch of business, the so-called 'Anatolian Tigers'. This leads to a creeping Islamization of society, where for instance pork butchers and other minority activities (such as Christian activism) are suffucated by the Turkish bureaucracy.
Since AKP does have wide public support and lots of 'friends' to supply it with money and other resources, the situation sets Turkish democracy at peril, even without the Islamic component. Sure, one-party states have great power of determination and can very easily engage in military conflicts, such as bombing Kurds etc. Certainly powerful. But one-party states easily dispose of democracy as well, as all relevant matters are decided by the party leadership.
Another issue not related to the Islamic thing is that we should respect the Constitutional Court of Turkey. In the preconditions for EU membership negotiations, it is clearly stated that the candidate country must have stable institutions guaranteeing democracy. When the EU Commission condemns the case against AKP, it is implicitly stating that the Turkish Constitutional Court is crap - and thus self-destroys its position that Turkey is qualified to negotiate for membership.
Axing the AKP and having several distinct parties rise from the pieces would be a very useful move for political pluralism in Turkey. I wrote about the detail in The Battle for Secularism in Turkey.
We need to respect the Turkish democratic system, which includes a Constitutional Court, and let the case run to its conclusion.
In particular, civil servants in Brussels should NOT make any kind of statement telling a Turkish court what to do and what not to do. Doing so constitutes undue interference with internal matters of another country, even in violation of the classical 'division of power' into law-making, executive and judicical branches - a division that the European Union neither implements nor respects.
Henrik: Thank you for your post above and for the link to your May 4th article of this year here at JW. Fascinating (and disturbing) stuff. When is the Constitutional Court's final ruling about the AKP due? Also, is the Turkish military as secular as ever or has it been diluted with devout Muslims? Is it prepared to act yet again and take over the government or are those days past?
One thing's for certain and that is that true democracy and Islam are incompatible. Any European or American who doesn't see this, and there are far too many who don't, is not doing democracy any favor. Islam will use the democratic process to destroy democracy if it's given free rein to do so. Those who cherish democracy must come to know this, if they don't already. Time's running out.
I don't think there's a date for a ruling yet. Hearings start tomorrow (Monday 28th).
As far as I know, the millitary has indeed been diluted, with AKP supporters discreetly put into key positions, lowering the age of pension etc. The Kemalist elite, who themselves are clearly fascist in orientation, clearly has waning power.
The economical boom permits AKP to get away with their little tricks to limit freedom and pluralism, and we're nearing the end of the road to reverse that. If AKP survives this case, I consider it in effect 'Game over' for Turkish democracy.
The bureaucrats in Brussels, of course, will hold a different opinion.
I hope Turkey implements Sharia law, let them, they are muslims and they do not deserve a better law. Sharia law is exactly what thery deserve and sharia law is what they should get.
Mr. Drewbenstein:
Rice is not worth of any respect. She was supposedly a Soviet "expert" who was supposedly "fluent" in Russian, but she shamed herself and the U.S. on Russian TV. She is the worst Secertary of State in American history. She should stick to finding her a good girl to settle with and enjoy her retirement.