Election in Turkey: Questions & Perspectives on Results

Congratulations, elections are over! PM Erdogan of Turkey's more than 70 million people has clearly moved many Turks to the polls and received overwhelming approval to continue on the path embarked upon in 2002. Focused on the long term, he understands about building relationships while standing strong for Turkey.

During this new era of politics, the AK Party will capture new roads ahead and move toward 2010 which holds more promise for an emerging young generation. We still have a presidential appointment ahead of us, and our PM knows first-hand how delicate this situation will also become in the near future.

Today, as many journalists and bloggers weighed-in on the election results in Turkey, I could only come up with questions and more questions, all the while wondering why people who've never lived in Turkey believe they have the entire key to our politics, secularism and religion.

So for those of you who also feel a need to share your thoughts or opinions, I invite and welcome your comments here on the elections and all the issues tied to it. For me, I have questions I want answers to and hope your perspectives will help answer my own or at least give me and others food for thought.

I no longer simply see Turkey through a foreign eye, but through those of someone who has lived in Turkey for many years and can interpret what I see and experience in a more balanced way, I hope. Today's newspaper views led me to ask the why, who and when of what's being written about.

So for now, let me give you my questions with the hope you will wax poet in kind.

1. Why has Ataturk's vision been put to the test by these elections?
2. Why do I see in the news that our elections are about East vs. West?
3. Why are Turkey's choices either secularism or Shari'a law?
4. Since when did covered women become the standard bearer for Shari'a law?
5. Why does praying in Turkey at a mosque equate to wanting Shari'a law?
6. Secular Turks: exactly Who are they?

Comments

[Chat]

I’d be interested in an updated GoogleAnalytics chart (may be two with about six weeks coverage), just to see if the effect did wear off after a while and also, did others link to your new name with the same link-text (allinurl:…). I hope you will publish a follow up.

[Joybringer]

Thanks, Haluk and James, I appreciate being able to share your perspectives here. Elections are a slippery slope to analyze and it's true all countries have their polarizing issues. I think while Turkey is debating the religious vs. secular themes, America's debating bringing ethics back into politics. They did exist at one time, didn't they?

[James]

What excellent questions. Do you mind if I give my own - and certainly not definitive - answers?

1. The claim by many people (and, most particularly, the Cumhuriyet newspaper) was that Atatürk's reforms were under threat of being dismantled, and an AK victory would be a clear mandate to do it. This in itself raised other questions for voters - what's more important, our welfare or Atatürk's reforms? What's so important about Atatürk's vision in any case?

I don't think Atatürk was put to the test in this election. That was a scaremongering strand of campaigning by the CHP.

2. Well, Turkey's east is far poorer than Turkey's west, but the divide was not as much of a campaign issue as you might think. The results showed that AK had broad support right across the country, while the opposition CHP and MHP leaders did not even campaign east of Sivas.

3. This is the biggie. I would argue that Turkey's choices aren't so clear cut and polarised, and that there is plenty of middle ground between a country where mosque and state are very clearly divided and a country where the mosque very clearly administers the state. In a country where all imams are on the state's payroll, there *has* to be a middle ground. But I think few Turks actively desire sharia law. The only party that does - Saadet - got a mere two percent of the vote.

4. There's been a growing atmosphere of anger in secular circles against women who wear the headscarf, and not all of it is unjustified. Many women will, for instance, wear sandals or short trousers or tight clothing alongside their headscarf. Secularists argue that this is still a form of "flaunting" themselves, which is what the Koran prohibits in the first place, and therefore the headscarf is worn simply as political statement. Wearing a headscarf categorises you.

5. As above, praying in a mosque categorises you too. You're not just following through with your faith. You're in the anti-secularist camp.

6. This is a tough one. Secularist Turks could be the millions who took to the streets in the spring to campaign against an AK presidency. It could be the army, who have long been guardians of secularism. It could be supporters of the CHP, the party Atatürk founded. Or it could just be anyone who reads a copy of Cumhuriyet. Secularists are people who believe Turkey threw away it's history of sultans and caliphates for a reason, and a return would be a regression to the dark days.

--

Polarisation occurs all around the world, and Turkey is no exception. There is no doubt that there are very strong "pro secular" and "pro religious" camps in Turkey, and it is true that more and more people have been sliding towards one camp or the other, but that does not mean there is an irrepairable gulf in between the two.

A lot of your questions relate to secularist prejudices of the other camp. I have to say that I'm not quite as pessimistic.

[Haluk Direskeneli]

Dear Bea, Our worlds that we live personally are too far/ distant/ away from each other. Our culture is different from yours. Election victory is nothing for the winners. Winners need the other people them that they could not get votes on 22nd July 2007. It is not an easy issue in the short run. It is a very delicate issue for all parties. Loosers will have a few days in desperation for sure but in the long run, things are not so easy. we are not a rich Gulf state with richness underneath. We need to work and create wealth. who will work and create the wealth?? All the best.