What does Erdogan really want?

Turkish PM zigzagging on major policy issues as he appears to play idealism off pragmatism

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan waves to the crowd at the launch of the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix last Sunday during a break from the difficult task of balancing his ideals with realpolitik.

By Burak Bekdil - Kathimerini English Edition

This is the way it is in Turkey. Turgut Ozal’s Motherland Party was an infant political creature when it came to power in 1983. Nineteen years later, so was Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK).

But what does Erdogan’s baby really want? Certainly it’s not the Shariah rule in the second most modern Islamic country in the world (after Bosnia-Herzegovina). It’s not decay of Sunni Muslim values, either. As AK prepares to celebrate its fourth birthday, billboards featuring a smiling Erdogan boast the highest growth rate and the lowest inflation rate in that many years and nearly $2 billion (1.63 billion euros) in loans to shop-owners. Perfectly confident in power, what could Erdogan’s next game plan be?

It’s too early to tell if Erdogan will go for the more comfortable option (the presidency in 2007) or the more ambitious one (challenging a second term as premier). It appears that he has yet to decide himself. Whatever his choice, it will reflect his conviction that it would suit his broader goals best.

Erdogan has ambitious but realistic ideological goals. Although his pragmatism seems to come before whatever these goals may be, the appearance only tells half of the truth. It is true, because Erdogan has a personal obsession with power. Hence, his pragmatism. At the same time, Erdogan is fully convinced that his grip on power can be justified by noble reasons — that he must remain in charge because he is a humble soldier who must hold on to power to advance in his “holy cause.”

His endless zig-zagging on significant domestic and foreign policy issues can be best explained by his endless neurotic journeys between his two selves: the selfish and the humble. Besides, there is more than enough evidence to suggest that behavioral patterns like double-talk, cheating for the holy cause, and just plain cheating are only too natural for the ideologues who had spearheaded the holy cause before Erdogan tempered his Islamist rhetoric. Blame it on the ideological culture!

So, both those who argue that Erdogan’s raison d’etre is his hidden (Islamist) agenda only, and those who argue that he has no hidden agenda are wrong. Erdogan is not the man who plays the tolerant but devout Muslim who respects “the other” and, therefore, has no plans to defeat “the other.” Neither is he the man whose sole objective is to defeat “the other” patiently. He is both.

Erdogan has a dream, like every other ideologue who dreams of a world consisting of people who think as they do. Although many Turks may not share Erdogan’s ideology in present-day Turkey, this country is an exceptionally fertile ground to best serve for the charismatic leader’s end purposes.

Erdogan’s dream comes into the picture at this point. Erdogan wants to change Turkey’s “demography” in the long-term, and, naturally, in favor of his ideology. If, for him, the percentage of “we” and the “other” is, say, 40-60 today, there are good reasons to observe the ratio at, say 70-30 in the next decade. This is not to say 70 percent of the Turkish electorate will vote for AK in 10 years. In 10 years, 70 percent of Turks will — socially, culturally and economically — look like the ones who today frighten the EU at the prospect of a Turkish membership in the bloc. There will be much less of the “other” and much more of the “us” (well, certainly, Erdogan’s “other” and his “us”).

Any curious reader can have a glance at Turkey’s social statistics, including the voting patterns, birth rates and religious intensity of the country’s socioeconomic groups, the attendance at local mosques, the number of Koran students and courses over the last 20 years, the depth of religious class’s political motivation, the spread of “green [Islamic] money,” and the change in the country’s economic and financial map over the last two decades. It is also worth noting the lucky beneficiaries of religious capitalism and — why not? — the emerging religious elite as a new class.

Erdogan’s young party is no doubt a fine machine. Luckily, it also works in an almost perfect setting. Turkey, ceteris paribus, offers Erdogan the best opportunity for his dream to come true.