Time for Erdogan to clear the air

At 11th hour, Turkey’s ‘reformist’ PM risks EU entry talks date in bid to woo party’s grassroots

By Burak Bekdil - Kathimerini English Edition

This column has invariably argued that Recep Tayyip Erdogan was a reformist, but an overrated one. He has reformed some of Turkey’s laws, not necessarily because he genuinely believed in reforms, but because he wanted to win a date from the European Union, a date which would minimize the military’s powers and earn him a second and perhaps a third term in power in a country where three in every four support the idea of membership in the EU. Inevitably, the time has come for Mr Erdogan’s alter ego to speak on his behalf.

After doing exactly what the EU has told him to do for nearly two years, Mr Erdogan suddenly noticed that the EU had no right to meddle in Turkey’s domestic affairs. Now, in his own words: “Turkey has done all it needed to do to meet the political criteria for starting European Union entry talks. Let nobody try to pressure Turkey by using the EU (as an excuse). This is Turkey and we make our own decisions. Nobody should try to impose conditions on us concerning the EU. The EU is not indispensable for us. It is not a must for Turkey.” But why the unusually blunt language, and only two weeks before the European Commission releases its most critical report on Turkish membership?

Mr Erdogan, apparently under pressure from his party’s Islamist flank, wants to outlaw adultery despite increasingly loud warnings from the EU that if he went ahead with the plan Turkey would not be given a date to start membership talks. Mr Erdogan is dangerously zigzagging between his broader goals and his own roots. Guenter Verheugen, enlargement commissioner, had to remind Mr Erdogan of the bitter truth: that Turkey wants to join the EU, not vice versa.

In addition to the problem of ideology, there is also a problem of timing. The EU expects Turkey to legislate a wide range of penal code reforms before the Commission announces its report, but the reforms have been stalled because of the dispute over whether to ban adultery. The Commission has called on Ankara to explain whether it plans to push the bill through Parliament before the crucial EU decision in a fortnight. But it appears unlikely that the legislation can be completed by October 6, when the Commission releases its report. The Turkish Parliament resumed its annual recess on Saturday and is not scheduled to convene again until October 1. To make matters worse, the assembly will have to vote on a new chairman and appoint internal bodies before reconsidering the bill, which would thus not come before the general assembly until the second half of October at the earliest. But why is Mr Erdogan giving powerful ammunition to the anti-Turkish lobby in the EU and possibly shooting himself in both feet?

Mr Erdogan hopes, first and foremost, to reward the “greener” of his party members and grassroots supporters. He has failed to please them in matters like removing the headscarf ban — a dispute seen by many as the symbol of the clash between political Islam and secularism and one of Mr Erdogan’s pre-election pledges. Larger groups of Islamists tend to protest that Mr Erdogan, once their much-praised “Imam of Istanbul,” has failed to keep his “greener” promises.

At a time like this, Mr Erdogan thought he found a gold mine. For the first time he could have delivered to his greener supporters without raising his generals’ eyebrows, for the military has remained completely indifferent to the adultery dispute; banning adultery is certainly not one of the army’s red lines on secularism. Understandably, Mr Erdogan wanted to score in the absence of suspicious looks from the barracks.

There is something deeply wrong in the thinking of the “reformist” and his men. They claim that they are the “real secularists.” But it is an open secret that they want to outlaw adultery because it is a sin under the Koran (as in other holy books). This is dangerous thinking. With a clear majority in Parliament, Mr Erdogan’s men may one day wake up with the idea of criminalizing alcohol or pork, for both are banned under the Koran.

Also, Mr Erdogan thinks that EU understanding on criminalizing adultery would show that the bloc was taking Muslim values into account. This mind-set is not healthy. Confident that a date was in sight, Mr Erdogan wanted to test the waters to see what Muslim values he could impose on the non-Muslim club during accession talks. The answer to his curiosity lies in Mr Verheugen’s clear-cut reply to his bravado — that the EU was not a sine qua non for Turkey. A smart man, Mr Erdogan should be able to get the message. But he has made things more difficult for himself.

When he bluntly played down the EU criticism on the adultery dispute and delivered stronger messages to his “greener” grassroots, Mr Erdogan tied himself to his promise to outlaw adultery. If, under EU pressure, he steps back, he will once again ridicule himself in the eyes of the Islamists whom he cannot give up.

The solution is simple. Mr Erdogan must decide on his true identity at once. He must either completely break with the Islamist past and walk toward the center, or give up his reformist, pro-EU rhetoric. He cannot continue to be both. Besides, Mr Erdogan should be able to understand that he cannot change the rules and values of the club he hopes to join one day.