Regime Change in Contemporary Turkey: Politics, Rights, Mimesis 9781474416986

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REGIME CHANGE IN CONTEMPORARY TURKEY

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REGIME CHANGE IN CONTEMPORARY TURKEY Politics, Rights, Mimesis Necati Polat

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Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining ­­cutting-­edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: www.edinburghuniversitypress.com © Necati Polat, 2016 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The ­Tun­ – ­­Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/15 Adobe Garamond by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN

978 1 4744 1696 2 (hardback) 978 1 4744 1697 9 (paperback) 978 1 4744 1698 6 (webready PDF) 978 1 4744 1699 3 (epub)

The right of Necati Polat to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). Published with the support of the University of Edinburgh Scholarly Publishing Initiatives Fund.

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CONTENTS

Preface

vii

Introduction1 PART I  CHANGE  1. What Changed?

41

  2. ­­Run-­up to Change

75

 3. Trials

92

  4.  Resistance to Change

115

PART II  AFTER CHANGE  5. Context

141

 6. Gezi Protests

186

 7. Media Engineering

206

 8. Anything Goes?

227

  9.  Peace at Home

253

10.  Everyday Atrocities

290

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vi  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y Conclusion319 Notes

341

Bibliography

408

Index

419

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PREFACE

A

historic regime change took place in Turkey between 2007 and 2011. This book provides an account of the change and the use of power in its immediate aftermath, offering a prismatic survey of virtually all of the major issue areas in the domestic politics, with some emphasis on rights. As such, the book is very much about the political rule under the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi), a s­elf-­defined ‘conservative’ force that emerged out of the local Islamist politics to be in charge from late 2002. The book charts the phenomenal rise of this political party, notably supported by a group of secular intellectuals intent to use it as a vehicle for reform, the turnaround it led by wresting power from the grip of the bureaucracy long at the helm, and the n ­ o-­nonsense majoritarianism the change would subsequently initiate. The discussion attempts to make sense of the shift in the political order by placing it in the larger context of political modernisation in the country from the second half of the nineteenth century, articulating and rehearsing answers in so doing to one apparent conundrum that pervaded the assessments of some of the salient aspects of authority in the wake of the recasting of power. The drive behind the readjustment had looked, for most of the way, a bona fide quest for political normalisation, with the masses to be fully enfranchised via unqualified observance of basic rights for the first time, and through in-depth integration with the wider world, principally Europe. The unhindered mandate of the elected government, achieved by 2011, was vii

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viii  |  reg i me cha ng e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y only the initial goal towards that ­much-­promoted end, dubbed ‘advanced democracy’. How did this pursuit of normalisation along the model of more evolved democracies develop, shortly after an a­ ll-­embracing sway had been secured for the political rule, into what seemed to be simply a new form of authoritarianism? The transformation drew on a broad base, convincing along the way key international policy circles, which would extend considerable support to the repositioning in process, in turn inhibiting much that would otherwise have been in the way domestically. For all the toils and resourcefulness, including some serious guile and chicanery on the part of the government, the reordering would be accomplished first and foremost because the established scheme could no longer be sustained, for a myriad of reasons to do with a diversifying, maturing society and the way the organised polity interacted, or had to interact, with the greater political, economic and social milieu. The modulation into an unrestricted licence for the elected government would thus appear before long to be firmly in place, rather than radically questioned in opposition circles for having ‘enabled’ the subsequent episode that had been little bargained for. The overall recalibration in the system certainly stood out to be comprehensively shaped and consolidated through appropriate power dispensation arrangements, ideally to be reflected in a rewritten constitution, which remained pending, as the ruling party would begin faltering on the possible contours of the switchover. The book is in two parts. The first part describes the change, which effectively ended the l­ong-­standing dichotomy between the ‘state’ and the ‘government’, reclaiming for elected politicians vast areas of policy formerly controlled by the bureaucracy, both military and civilian. This is basically what the book understands by ‘change’. The second and larger part in the book seeks to capture the mood in the following period and the government practice, detailing the main patterns in the exercise of authority after the change: virtual concentration of powers in the government, including the judiciary; a rule by policy rather than law; the euphoric and increasingly daring discourse of some of the Islamist ideologues associated with the government; the attendant panic among the secular urbanites; the allegations of massive corruption and bribery; the state of the media, basic freedoms, minority rights; and the plights of some of the exceptionally marginalised

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pref a ce |  ix sectors in society, primarily women and workers. The book at once links the change in Turkey to the m ­ uch-­highlighted public confrontations in the Middle East and in North Africa with a host of settled regimes at about the same time, registering some of the dynamics at work, such as the barely anticipated strength of the local authoritarianisms and the evident encumbrances on Islamist politics in the region in likely democratic contestation. The argument advanced on change in the book is also one of ostensible ‘continuity’ over a somewhat lasting stretch, despite a series of ‘radical’ breaks from the ­mid-­nineteenth century. In the 1993 film Groundhog Day, an obnoxious man gets caught in a time loop, going through one horrid day again and again. Close observers might notice a roughly similar ‘loop’ in Turkish politics throughout the history of political modernisation in the country, notwithstanding various splits and reshuffles spectacularly dramatic on the surface, particularly tangible with the latest regime change, yet ultimately submitting to a more profound level of recurrence and replication of ‘desire’ in a common pool of amazingly resilient local political culture. In putting forward this contention, I draw on René Girard’s work on mimesis, which allows me to rethink and branch out my own earlier notions in the book International Relations, Meaning, and Mimesis (2012) on the function of ‘iteration’ as pivotal to meaning, which I suggested relying principally on the work of the later Wittgenstein and Derrida. Let me add that the minimal theory ‘talk’ that there is in the book is in a simple language that is careful to avoid jargon, often against a backdrop of colourful political sketches. As the book at once purports to communicate a plain register of major events, bordering on a t­ ask-­conscious study of history in the actual period, the hopefully unobtrusive ‘thematic’ assumptions in the background should not imply diminished use for the work for those with little or no interest in such theoretical flourishes. Of the ten chapters in the book, in addition to an Introduction and a Conclusion, Chapters 1–4 include, in places, material previously published, though substantially reworked. The rest is seeing the light of day for the first time, albeit that I did comment between October 2013 and June 2014 on some of the current issues on the ­short-­lived blog Human Rights Practice in Turkey, taken off the web briefly afterwards, and the book treats some of the ­day-­to-day events roughly along the lines of those former notes. The

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x  |  reg i me chang e i n co n te mp o r a r y tur k e y ­ ublications partly used in Chapters 1–4 are as follows: ‘Identity Politics and p the Domestic Context of Turkey’s European Union Accession’, Government and Opposition (Vol. 41, No. 4, 2006), pp. 512–33; ‘The ­Anti-­Coup Trials in Turkey: What Exactly is Going On?’ Mediterranean Politics (Vol. 16, No. 1, 2011), pp.  211–17; ‘Regime Change in Turkey’, International Politics (Vol. 50, No. 3, 2013), pp. 435–54; ‘Resistance to Regime Change in the Middle East: A Liberation Theology of the ­Neo-­Con Variety?’ Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies (Vol. 16, No. 5, 2014), pp.  634–54. I would like to thank the publishers Cambridge University Press, Taylor and Francis, and Palgrave Macmillan for the material used. I am indebted to a good number of people for conversations around the topics in the book, particularly so to those who commented on specific parts of the work, Costas M. Constantinou, Oliver Richmond, Dietrich Jung, Erik Mohns, Michael Moran and Michael Cox. My heartfelt thanks go also to my students at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara for enabling the airing of some of the ideas set forth in the book and for the inspiring exchanges. I am beholden for insightful comments to two anonymous readers who reviewed the book for Edinburgh University Press (EUP). Nicola Ramsey, head of editorial at EUP, and commissioning editor of the book, was incisive, efficient and accommodating far beyond the usual compass, and I am grateful. Others who diligently contributed to the production of the book at various stages include Ellie Bush, Eddie Clark and Lel Gillingwater. Last but by no means least, Serpil and Cem, people in the closest vicinity, were good, considerate friends, especially during the spell close to a year from July 2014, when I concentrated on the book and grew more insufferable than ever. The book is dedicated to the memory of Necmi Polat (1957–2008), who loved talking Turkish politics.

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INTRODUCTION

O

ne frequently articulated observation by the critics claimed with the regime change that the new and as yet amorphous order, in place roughly from 2011, was shifting in its early phase conspicuously towards reproducing the old one. The critics included some of the former supporters of the government, who had grown increasingly disenchanted and bitter, particularly the small group of liberal intellectuals that had earlier been skilfully c­ o-­opted by the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) into the broad informal coalition against the status quo. The ‘authoritarianism’ characteristic of the republican rule for close to a century had merely changed hands, and returned­ ­­ – ­­possibly with a vengeance. This ‘new’ authoritarianism, palpable from m ­ id-­2013, and playing havoc with some of the most basic rights and the rule of law on a scale arguably hitherto unobserved, with the possible exception of brief periods in the past directly controlled by the military, would soon push the domestic scene into a thick and escalating political mayhem. The phenomenal rise of the AKP, which had called itself ‘conservative democrat’ for about a decade from its inception, had prompted some of the affiliated literati euphorically to ­re-­embrace the ­long-­forgotten tag ‘Islamist’ in an impassioned debate in the ­pro-­government media already in the summer of 2012. This shift in the discourse in circles known to be intimate with the actual power holders, and ubiquitous in no time through rather uninhibited speculations and suggestions of some of the local Islamist 1

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2  |  reg i me chang e i n co n te mp o r a r y tur k e y ideologues, would do little towards soothing the profound insecurity felt all along by the secular urbanites with the AKP gaining mandate from late ­­2002­ – ­­anxieties that were not always well grounded, thinly disguising a hankering for the erstwhile ‘­anti-­majoritarian’ order that had largely disenfranchised the pious and practising Muslims, among other dissident political groups. Having received the support of close to half of the overall electorate by 2011 in a steady increase, the AKP was unequivocally and hugely successful. In the subsequent period this political party would ostensibly choose strategies to hold on to that base at the cost of further alienating the other half. Freshly out of a brief yet triumphant drive against the ­long-­standing bureaucratic sway over politics, the government would proceed to interpret the majority behind it as a blank cheque for a score of new and somewhat intimidating policy initiatives, chiefly in education, designs that had been kept mostly in the dark until the regime change was complete. This resurgent ‘Islamism’ was arguably more a consequence of an increasingly distinct populist authoritarianism though, than a cause of it. The adverse effects of the unsettling denouement would be greatly averted with the help of two main factors. One was an inept mainstream political opposition still partly rooted in the old order, and the other a relative vibrancy in the economy based on massive redevelopment of s­ tate-­owned lands and on privatisation, unhindered, unlike similar efforts under previous administrations since the 1980s, by a shaky political power and a defiant judiciary. The second factor seemed to be particularly important. The verve in the economy would allow lavish public revenues and, more consequential still, soak up the domestic capital and idle labour considerably. Attributed to an ostensibly deft administration, the largely m ­ ake-­belief wealth primarily through intense use of the construction sector would in turn contribute to the domestic political sturdiness for good measure, which would be critical during and after the street protests of 2013, particularly in response to the massive corruption allegations that would follow at the end of the year. In evident desperation, despite the apparent solidity in the economy and a lack of alternatives in politics, the AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (prime minister for over a decade from March 2003, and president from August 2014) would prove proficient in identifying a set of domestic and international scapegoats, rallying behind him the core supporters accordingly in warding

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i ntroducti on | 3 off the charges of dishonest financial dealings, nepotism, mismanagement and the threatening political volatility at home and in the larger region. The ­heavy-­handed government sally to the street unrest, suddenly and extensively highlighted in world media, and the sweeping yet clearly tenuous claims of alleged conspiracy simultaneously articulated by Erdoğan to suppress the dissidence, would quickly alter the h ­ ard-­earned reformist image of the administration in international public opinion. Most observers would read into Erdoğan’s nascent and increasingly unscrupulous rhetoric a frantic effort to abort democratic accountability at any cost, especially after the substantive claims of corruption. There would be little doubt in the period from early 2014 onwards about the specific cast in the use of power. What had started out as a bid for improved democracy had turned into plain authoritarianism. In resorting to this term, I rely implicitly on a wide scholarly consensus on the description of basic authoritarianism, with giveaways in the unfolding ruling style in the early phase after the regime change, which I intend to demonstrate in Part II of this book; namely (1) a curbed accountability for the administration through an effective obstruction of the elementary function of the separation of the state powers, (2) a mass management style premised on fighting vaguely identified enemies, (3) serious restrictions on the legitimate political activities of democratic rivals and of the public, and (4) an indefinite executive power put to use somewhat in defiance of the formal constitutional order.1 With roots in the local Islamist politics, the AKP had introduced itself as a novel instrument for pressing change in the ample space provided in the wake of the economic meltdown of 2001, ascending to power in November 2002. The regime change that would end the ­long-­established distinction of a ‘state’ ruled by the bureaucracy headed by a president and an elected ‘government’ that could only rule within the strict red lines of the bureaucracy would take place between 2007 and 2011, initiated by the election of a politician from the ranks of the ruling AKP for the post of president. The change would be finalised through a heated referendum for a set of constitutional amendments in September 2010, when, (1) the masses content with the economy and growing global integration under the AKP, (2) the pious and practising Muslims, and (3) some liberal public opinion leaders intent using the AKP as a transformative force, would enable an ­all-­time high 58 per cent support for

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4  |  reg i me chang e i n co n te mp o r a r y tur k e y the government for an overhaul of the system of high courts, the sole enduring fortification of the once formidable bureaucracy. Legislative enactments in early 2011 would enable the constitutional amendments at issue to take effect, and in June of the same year the AKP would renew its mandate for the third time by receiving close to 50 per cent of the votes. What Exactly Happened? How do we explain the subsequent authoritarianism, once the regime change was complete? How did a reformist administration, which achieved a wide ­democracy-­aspiring coalition beyond the core supporters it had taken over from the former Islamist politics of its leaders, and which was thus recipient of worldwide adulations for a decade for integrating the society behind wholesome democratic ideals, come to mutate, seemingly almost overnight, into a replica, if not worse, of the rule that it had battled and defeated shortly before? Several interpretations of this bewildering state of affairs, each with obvious merits, seem to be possible. First of all, it may be argued, as the few liberals who went on trusting the administration did in the early phase after the old regime, that it was yet too early for a full depiction of the whole case. We might have to be patient and give time to the colossal change that had taken place only recently to settle before rushing into judgements as to the possible directions of the ‘new’ regime. On that account, the radical transformation in the use of domestic power, accomplished through a set of decisive gestures between 2007 and 2011, was definitely a huge step forward, yet still under the assault of those loyal to the old order. If nothing else, the recasting of power had bridged the ­long-­prevalent gap between the masses with somewhat limited enfranchisement in the administration and the elites driven by an oppressive identity politics introduced with the onset of political modernisation, not only in the republican era, but also arguably since the ­mid-­nineteenth century. Accordingly, the continuing resistance to the change, especially that by the still prodigiously potent elites, forced the agents of change, namely the government, to resort to some ‘exceptional’ tools that were often identified with the old order. Further, this view seemed to assume, the increasing visibility of religious symbols under the new rule, viewed by the critics as signs of an embryonic Islamist regime, was not only to be expected, as the former state–government gap holding masses at bay had been removed,

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i ntroducti on | 5 but was also perhaps conducive to a smoother and healthier transition to democracy. The key part played by the Puritan heritage in the development of democracy in the United States, as evident in abundant religious imagery, including a belief in the sovereignty of God rather than of the nation as articulated in the historical discourse, had been a rather similar case perhaps, and could give further credibility to this argument. As such, the Puritan culture had conceivably facilitated the transition to an improved democracy by enabling the masses to somehow ‘relate’ to politics of the elect. Later, the Puritan religious discourse and the symbols, some still in use as little more than harmless lore, had not necessarily translated into everyday workings of politics, hindering free democratic choices of vast and heterogeneous masses. This was the first of a set of plausible takes on the new authoritarianism in the country. Another possible explanation, though not as compelling as the first perhaps, accounted for and excused the oppressive politics in the immediate aftermath of the regime change through a concern on the part of the administration for the pace and nature of ­decision-­making towards rapid economic growth, with possible democratic hurdles in the way conveniently swept aside. Accordingly, the economic success stories in Asia from the 1960s formed sound evidence of economic thriving via ­business-­like policies adopted under the respective authoritarian rules, chasing away conceivable disarray likely to be caused by a fully democratic governance that could otherwise hamper the state apparatus in being sufficiently agile in adopting measures as demanded. Hence, for instance, the brazen disregard of the public tender principles under the AKP rule, with competition practically eliminated with the handing out of public works to contractors close to the ruling circles. Finally, a reading, which, unlike the first two, was much less patient with the emergent ruling style, construed the episode as a typically populist policy switch. The discourse was hardly peculiar to the locality, observed rather in various settings globally that were otherwise disconnected; as with Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Narendra Modi in India, and Ross Perot and Donald Trump in respective presidential campaigns in the United States, including perhaps the known policy patterns of some of the European ­far-­right political parties. Populism as such was a somewhat w ­ ell-­recognised variety, thoroughly studied in its

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6  |  reg i me chang e i n co n te mp o r a r y tur k e y manifestations in disparate milieus, without necessarily a common thread of ‘substance’ or ideology intrinsically connecting to each other a multitude of instances of authoritarian rule or discourse deemed to be populist. The suggestive symptoms of this rule included a sharp dichotomy of the people and the elites at the discursive level, with the elite often described as a ­self-­serving class at best and otherwise as foreign cronies or accidental lackeys, if not plain traitors and spies. This rhetoric inevitably brought in a radical polarisation in society. Not infrequently, the profound resentment towards the opposition was coupled with an undermining of the separation of powers in the state apparatus, amassing power in the hands of the administration in its ­self-­professed fight against treason and treachery. Last, but by no means least, populism virtually fed on a mass clientelism in the form of financial and material handouts to voters, the source of which was often formed by none other than widespread corruption. The emerging regime in Turkey from 2011 issued most, even perhaps all, of these signs. The frequent references in the ruling party discourse to the early republican administration as the loathed, local Ancien Régime, and to the völkisch ‘aboriginality’ assumed to have consistently been suppressed by that regime, at once arguably connected the new politics to fairly well known ‘nativist’ currents in Europe historically. In what follows, I rehearse by way of an introduction to this book an additional factor that is not necessarily outside these accounts but is complementary in some sense. Unlike the foregoing, I refuse to treat the authoritarianism with the demise of the old regime as an overt policy choice, fully or in its own right, but include an irreducible element that is to some extent in excess of that choice. In so doing I draw on the anthropological insights developed by René Girard in a solitary yet persistent line of work since the early 1970s. The argument, detailed in the sections below, is centred on the seemingly ‘bizarre’ machinations of basic human desire. Briefly put, desire, such as that which drove the ruling AKP up to 2011 to put an end to the status quo, is notably ‘mimetic’, imitative, modelled on the other: that is, desire is to do more with simulation and reproduction of another desire, namely the desire of the other, which the desiring subject looks up to, than a ­self-­contained and autonomous exigency like some biological need. For the fulfilment of desire as such in a specific case, the subject seeks typically to ‘copy’ the desire of the other, the model. In point of fact, this model is

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i ntroducti on | 7 none other than the ‘rival’, held subliminally in esteem, while being detested at the same time, by the desiring subject. Negating it for power, the desiring subject at once goes as far as perversely appropriating the very identity of the rival. The new authoritarianism in Turkey, which seemed to emerge closely to reiterate the old one, I argue, could be understood as a play of desire in this mould. The compulsive move by the government towards mimicking the adversary, the old guard, came from 2011 to effectively terminate the disparity between those who were in truth two authentic rivals. Yet, this was a perilously disruptive course on the whole, for the differentiation at issue, separating and marking apart the desiring subject from the model, was ontologically crucial for the basic stability in the community. The a­ ge-­old routine, Girard explains, when some such ‘disordering’ is the case, is to seek purification through scapegoating, a mechanism he details at great length. Scapegoating tacitly restores the disrupted stability and meaning in the community simply by picking on random victims. Concomitant with the regime change, the new rule would correspondingly ‘lynch’ a number of victims to reconstruct a measure of that same stability. Normally, this arbitrary violence should have produced a new sacred, a new order, banishing, if temporarily, the mimetic ‘violence’ that was menacing to the community, as is the pattern historically. Yet, as Girard insists, unlike archaic societies, this mechanism of order through violence has long been demystified in modern societies. To be sure, the communal disciplining nowadays does follow the same course regardless, seeking order through arbitrary violence, even revenge. Instead of order, however, violence tends now to beget simply more violence, for modern societies have been dispossessed of that happy credulity that was a key component historically. Not surprisingly, therefore, the violence that was attendant with the emerging political order in Turkey would go on simply to contribute new cycles of violence. The administration arguably lynched a mass of dissidents in a set of show trials by using, as rumoured, the Gülenists (see Chapter 5), the ambiguous Islamic cult known to be well connected in the law enforcement system and in the judiciary. Yet, this ‘victimage’ would ultimately serve only to intensify the violence rather than halt it. At war with the government, and purged from the judiciary and the police in no time, the Gülenists would soon come to have a taste of their own medicine. The damning corruption

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8  |  reg i me chang e i n co n te mp o r a r y tur k e y revelations made ostensibly by the cult from December 2013, betraying the highly questionable manner in which Erdoğan allegedly financed politics over an extended period of time, indicated that a new round of lynching might soon make Erdoğan himself ‘the fall guy’, the archetypal victim of the spiralling violence. That which made the victims innocent or random in any of these cases appeared to be the mere fact that the victims were being targeted not necessarily for the offensive or criminal deeds that might be attributable to them, but as part of an instance of primordial violence, which was haphazard, and which primarily sought, before justice, a reconfiguration in the order; that is, a new sacred. Some of those put on trial from mid-2007 were hardly innocent of various underhand dealings against the political rule in its early phase. The corruption charges levelled at the government by none other than prosecutors did on the whole look well documented and convincing. Yet, revealing those secretly amassed irregularities in a war of attrition, under way for some time between the government and the Gülenists, looked barely innocent. The ostensibly Gülenist members of the judiciary and the police were indeed being opportunistic beyond merely performing their duties, staging a ‘coup’ in some sense, as claimed by the government. No party seemed to be blameless. Still, the rulers, as those singled out before, could at once be considered as ‘innocent’ for the random and indiscriminate nature of the response they received respectively from those who held or shared in the power. It was victimage and lynching in each and every case towards reconstituting the sacred. Moreover, this may be part of a trope, as I argue below, linking simply all of the attempts at a new sacred in the history of political modernisation in Turkey, assumed to have been in motion from the early nineteenth century: the new constitutional order of 1876, the bureaucratic order of 1909, the initiation of the republican era in 1923, the liberal ascendancy to power in 1950, and finally, the most durable of all, the bureaucratic trusteeship system established through the military coup of 1960. In all of these cases of regime change, prior to the most recent one led by the AKP, which is the subject matter of this book, it may be possible, I claim, to identify the main gestures of desire, proceeding simply to replicate the rival and lead in no time to violence, scapegoating and more violence.

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i ntroducti on | 9 Identity, Desire, Violence The concept of desire denotes, crudely put, some form of strong emotional attraction to that which is its object. That desire as such is ‘covetous’ in a significant sense is an idea usually attributed to the seminal work of Jacques Lacan. Although Girard claims that Lacan, among the rest, ‘failed to discover’ the mimetic quality of desire,2 this hardly rings true. Pivotal to his overall work, Lacan appears to borrow a mimetic notion of desire, long ­pre-­dating that of Girard, from Alexandre Kojève, whose seminal lectures on Hegel in the 1930s Lacan is known to have attended. In interpreting Hegel on ­self-­consciousness as the defining trait of human person, Kojève is seen to invoke desire as uniquely human in contradistinction to ‘need’ that is both human and animalistic. Desire as an exclusively human attribute, he adds, is ‘the Desire of the other’, which, besides a craving to be ‘recognised’, a yearning for prestige, is a harbouring of wishes towards things and states of affairs that are entirely ‘mediated’ by the other; ‘it is human to desire what others desire, because they desire it.’3 The ­well-­known Lacanian edict would later communicate none other than this basic assumption on desire: ‘Man’s desire is the desire of the Other.’4 As with Kojève, the thought supplies Lacan with a t­wo-­fold (and interwoven) purpose for desire: it is always already towards being desired or accepted by others and, as a corollary to this, it is at once about other desires. ‘The object of man’s desire, and we are not the first to say this,’ Lacan notes in a piece penned in 1951, with Kojève in mind obviously, ‘is essentially an object desired by someone else.’5 Further, in this specific sense intimated by both Kojève and Lacan, the object of desire does not even ‘exist’, as far as the desiring subject is concerned. The object ‘itself’ that is outwardly welded to pure desire is a mere extension of the ultimately arbitrary interest of the other in the object, which is the real magnet for the desiring subject. In other words, desire is hardly pure at all; it is motivated not by some need, immediately connecting it to a thing or a situation, as in the case of animals, but by an ontological drive that renders the object desirable merely for being desirable or desired by others. As is well known, this impulse behind desire mediated through the other is to do for Lacan with the essential ‘void’ that defines human subjectivity. This void is nothingness, empty space, a ­non-­being; and yet it is at once the source of constant and

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10  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y unbounded burning to ‘be’ or to ‘belong’ by acquiring an identity that is safe and comforting for being firmly aligned with the other, easing the dread of the inescapable vacuity within. That it is more the desire of someone else (you desire what the other desires) than an aching linked intrinsically to the object as such, means that, over and above a desiring subject and a desired object; the mechanistics of desire seeking identity always already involve an intermediary, a ‘model’, as Girard puts it. The model not only functions as a template for the subject but also has the clearly ‘dominant role’ in the process, as the subject only hankers after the object knowing that it is dear to some model that is in effect a paragon as well as the ‘rival’.6 Since the subject compulsively imitates the model in being drawn to the object, desire is ‘essentially mimetic’.7 Girard points out this unmistakeably mimetic nature of desire in childhood, which should indeed be obvious to us all. The specific desire burning in a child is invariably connected to the apparent desire of simply another child that is in the peripheral vision of the desiring child in relation to an object desired. ‘Adult desire’, Girard notes, ‘is virtually identical’ with the desire we observe with children. The sole and frustrating difference perhaps is that, unlike children, adults are pathetically s­ elf-­conscious, tending therefore to hide or block this mechanism for the ‘lack of being’ or the hollowness it implies.8 Moreover, again, as with children, desire that is based on fluid and fluctuating imitation is ultimately inexhaustible and full of paradoxes. The discontent that sets in with most of us soon after possessing what we have long desired may mean that in the end desire aims what is impossible; as in the famous Groucho Marx joke: ‘I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.’ This absurdity is not far removed from that of recognition as highlighted by Kojève, more or less in the same context, in reading the Hegelian interaction of the master and the slave: the recognition sought by the master to be a master, which is to be issued only by a slave, inevitably so, becomes worthless instantly, for the recognition at issue is understood as an appreciation extended by a mere dependent consciousness, a slave. It all starts with desire, then, the fundamental motivation behind human action, when the action in question is motivated by more than an automated or physical need, like hunger. In responding to hunger, that which grips you is both fixed and limited. Yet, when you desire, what you can include

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i ntroducti on  | 11 in your desire is not; desire is measureless, insatiable and ­never-­ending. This, according to Girard, is an idiosyncratic trait that bonds us with archaic societies, even perhaps with animals, where, as Nietzsche famously says, we really belong; since desire as the sole distinguishing evidence is captivated by an immaterial object of desire, we are left, as with animals, with need only, which has a fixed object beyond the ‘game’ that defines desire. That is, the difference between humans and animals could be only one of degree rather than ­­category­– befitting ­­ the possibly overrated human s­ ophistication­– and ­­ observed as a marker for grading also among different species of animals; although, I should add, Girard himself would be at least partly uneasy with this Nietzschean conclusion, for Girard goes on to posit religion, an epiphenomenon of desire, as a fundamental gap that sets humans apart from animals. Desire as such is predicated on a primordial form of violent rivalry, for (1) the model not only possesses or desires the object that is desired by the desiring subject, but enthrals also the person of the desiring subject who is consumed by her or his desire. This evidently signals a transgressive sway by the imitated over the imitator. More significant still, because the specific desire only ends or receives fulfilment, even if ephemeral, with the subject copying the identity of the other, in the final analysis, (2) desire is the wish to ‘be’ the other, to steal the identity of the ­model­– a­­ manifest aggression on the part of the imitator; that is, the model will be pleased with being imitated by the subject, but also displeased as the subject wishes simultaneously to be her or him, ending the ranking between the two. By the same token, in mimicking the other, (3) the subject comes effectively to do away with alterity, which is a condition for the self. You are (to be) only through the desire mediated by the other. Yet, when you become literally the other instead, you end up practically devoid of the other, the source of your identity. Ontologically this is an impasse based on (now) s­ elf-­inflicted aggression. Finally, (4) a basic contradiction emerges in this play of desire insofar as the imitation, as dictated by desire at the cost of difference, becomes a threat to the wider community that valorises differentiation for its systems of identity and meaning. ‘Sameness’ will aggressively abort signification. That is why, Girard notes, twins formed a source of ‘terror’ in archaic communities, leading to a ‘crisis’, which would often culminate in the sacrifice of one.9

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12  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y This is an encounter between the subject and the other, with a set of fundamental antagonisms attached to it, taking place in the vastly important domain of meaning, identity and prestige. To repeat, inviting rivalry, desire is perpetual and irremediably conflict inducing. It is to do with the hopeless insecurity formed by the void in the subject’s being, to be filled by the ‘otherly’ desire towards a temporary sense of completeness. Yet, when fulfilled, the imitation threatens the disidentity that is focal to both the self and the larger community. ‘Thus, mimesis coupled with desire’, argues Girard, ‘leads automatically to conflict.’10 The whole process appears to be immensely destructive as well as ineluctable. A formidable instance of violence overall, this in turn brings about an ontological crisis. The community, based on differentiation and disidentity, will not let itself be destroyed by the mimesis that defines desire. To this end, the community defends and saves itself by responding to the violence fermented by desire with more ­violence­– ­­a ‘violent cure’.11 The cure is invariably to be found in a ‘surrogate victim’, who is singled out as the one ‘polluted’, thus putting at risk the whole community. A ritual ‘sacrifice’ then duly immolates the random victim. Collectively sacrificed, the victim serves to prevent the ‘contamination’ of the rest. Arbitrarily defined and picked on, this victim is of course no more than only a ‘scapegoat’. Girard maintains: ‘Any community that has fallen prey to violence or has been stricken by some overwhelming catastrophe hurls itself blindly into the search for a scapegoat.’12 The sacrifice in question is primordial: it is a form of communal violence that is holy, ritualistic and shared. ‘At a single blow, collective violence wipes out all memory of the past’,13 and the community becomes sort of cathartically reborn. Those who relegate the sacrificial event habitually to a distant and now surpassed phase of human history, Girard thus claims, ‘remain the prisoners of the theology they have not fully analysed’.14 Accordingly, properly understood, one of the functions of this ‘theology’ is to ‘mystify’ the event at any cost. The scapegoat mechanism transforms the random victim into a ‘monster’, to which the crisis is imputed. This monster that imperils the very foundation of the community is at once, and paradoxically, a ‘saviour’ in the shape of a sacrifice that lends urgent succour to the community, leading it out of the looming mimetic confusion. The whole process then comes to be obscured through collective, popularly

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i ntroducti on  | 13 upheld narratives or myths, that is, a theology that manufactures paramount credulity. Violence embodied, and cryptically communicated at the discursive level, this theology in turn proceeds to perform duties for the community, warning against, and holding in check, possible transgressions that are set off by the covetousness let loose through the mimetic quality of desire. The narratives that thus mystify and conceal the founding violence, Girard warns, are not at all to be trifled with: this is how the community perennially subdues violence. By the same token, a wayward attempt at ‘demystification’ of the sacrifice, revealing the victim as only random, a scapegoat, would strip the event of its crucial function, leading to incredulity and consequently to surging violence.15 Various forms of sacrifice in history, human or animal, Girard asserts, constitute one single and foundational event. ‘The function of sacrifice is to quell violence within the community and to prevent conflicts from erupting.’16 Again, to reiterate, just as desire is inevitable, so is violence triggered by the mimetic quality of desire. Violence thus unleashed is then controlled by a constitutive violence that takes the form of communal sacrifice through scapegoating. Girard goes further and contends that violence in this specific sense, namely as the founding violence, obscured in a theology, is not something that is to be confined to archaic communities only. This, he argues, is basically how violence is controlled also in modern times. The workings of the sacrificial rite as ideally or typically observed in the past do subsist, he points out, in modern systems of justice for instance, serving much towards the same end.17 In both ­cases­– ­­the archaic and the ­modern­– ­­a machinery of scapegoating turns arbitrary ‘victimage’ into the protection of community, which is based on difference threatened by mimetic desire. Steal, and you are going to be penalised. Is there anything other than the ultimately arbitrary definition in the law that designates you as a thief? None. The law makes you a victim for challenging through covetous desire the fundamental orders of differentiation in the community; in this case, the concept of property. The sacrifice, as you are punished, serves then to unify and reinstitute the community. The paradoxical (monster–saviour) relationship with the surrogate victim helps the community to resolve that which is on the horizon and which promises to be an erratic and pervasive state of conflict. The community, picking on a victim to avert more sinister and omnipresent victimage

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14  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y in its midst that may eventually destroy it, introduces a sacred or sanctioned violence in order to prevent the brewing ‘profane’ violence. Here is the crux of the matter that may put the whole question of mimesis under a new light. This account of communal ­witch-­hunt notably inverts the received wisdom on scapegoating: that which is persecuted and victimised in the community historically is not difference but, on the contrary, possible moves by members of the community towards jeopardising of difference. Accordingly, weakening difference outside the systemic or allowed lines will irretrievably undermine and destroy the specific system of differentiation. ‘Religious, ethnic or national minorities are never actually reproached for their difference,’ Girard thus explains, ‘but for not being as different as expected, and in the end for not differing at all’.18 Marring or reducing the semantic value of difference may amount to a most dangerous revelation, unveiling the constructed or arbitrary nature of distinctions and polarised identities in the community, in turn shaking the faith in the established order of meaning. Therefore the principal abomination in the community is not dissimilitude, but precisely the emergent incongruence and incredulity towards it. ‘In all the vocabulary of tribal or national prejudices’, comments Girard, ‘hatred is expressed, not for difference, but for its absence.’19 To recapitulate, then, desire is structurally mimetic; it is always already the desire of the other. Practically bracketing off the object of desire, which is trivial, desire ultimately instigates a copying and compromising of the identity of the other, and subsequently a subverting of the very self, by playing down difference. This in turn induces conflict, to be overcome by a sacred violence that consists of a round of scapegoating, victimage and sacrifice. Desire as such is at the heart of all violence. Moreover, from the very beginning, all manifestations of human culture are based on this violence that maintains dissimilitude in the community in the face of mimetic desire. A theology that is the main thrust of this culture points to likely, albeit arbitrary, culprits poised to annihilate differentiation. This is how Girard declares violence as constitutive of all culture: ‘I maintain that the original act of violence is the matrix of all ritual and mythological significations.’20 Religion, for one thing, is unequivocally some such epiphenomenon of violence patrolling the sensitive zone between desire and fear, both inflicting and containing violence along the way, although Girard himself would not agree with this radical

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i ntroducti on  | 15 inference, as he seeks somehow to salvage Christianity, which he views as a historically unique instance that not only acknowledges (rather than mystifies) the innocence of the victim but also somehow departs from the settled tradition of sacrifice.21 Yet, against Girard, it is possible to construe also this apparent ‘demystification’ observed with Christianity as simply a fresh template of mystification, which, rather like the modern systems of justice, conceivably shifts sacrifice to a new plane, as opposed to removing it altogether. This does not mean that the pattern of violence and the sacred outlined here is entirely stationary, excluding transformation in time. Girard indicates a crucial discontinuity in this regard between ancient and modern practices of the sacrificial rite. To be sure, the earlier civilisations and the ­present-­day, modern civilisation are very much in continuity on the whole. Both are discernibly based on a violent sacred, that is, an order in the face of the mimetic, subversive workings of desire. The modern state, as per Weber, exists only to control this violence through its ‘benign’ monopoly. The monopoly at once reproduces the a­ ge-­old mechanism of scapegoating, with ultimately ‘arbitrary’ victims subjected to a legitimate and holy violence in the name of unifying and saving the community. At the global level, human rights discourse can be seen simply to mimic the state monopoly on violence by operating through basically the same principles: it seeks to defragment world community via equally ‘arbitrary’ scapegoating, which paradoxically restores the fragmentation or differentiation that is the basis of meaning and identity. All the same, a major discontinuity with the archaic tradition, Girard explains, is the fact that it no longer is possible for all in the community to ‘buy’ the victim as a monster, for the process has been greatly demystified in modern times. As a result, instead of producing a lasting sacred, violence now produces only more violence.22 Girard’s own example is the French Revolution; Robespierre, eventually scapegoated, was a scapegoater himself earlier. This demystification, which has to do with an evolving ontology, rather than Christianity (although, again, Girard would disagree), appears to be a major epistemic break. Avenues of incredulity left irreducibly open, the lynching of the ‘innocent’ no longer brings about a simple purification, restoring stability in the community. The practice of scapegoating, ostensibly unrelenting despite this radical break, leads instead simply to more and more violence.

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16  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y New Sacred The kinship this account reveals with the instances of victimage that accompanied the regime change in Turkey, leading only to growing violence, is striking. The Gülen community, an ally with a formidable presence during the transition, understood to have mercilessly ‘lynched’ the loyalists of the old order on behalf of the emerging regime, would soon face a similar fate. Moreover, Erdoğan would be the victim of an almost identical lynching. The ‘innocence’ of the victims in such lynching is to do, let us recall, not with the absolute irreproachability of those lynched, such as Erdoğan, which was hardly the case, but with the ‘causal’ incongruity or the randomness that defined the victimage. In bringing a number of damning corruption cases against the government, the prosecutors appeared to be after a new sacred, while pretending to have purely legal concerns. Care was taken to conceal the real, foundational violence via the political trials engineered against the leading dissidents, the Gülenist assault on Erdoğan, or the subsequent battering of the Gülenists. The formal charges levelled, such as coup-plotting, espionage and corruption, did perhaps have validity at some level, yet we have every reason to believe that those charges had little to do with the bashings at issue. The actual violence was a purifying, constitutive violence, mystified largely under the incipient sacred of the ‘­anti-­coup’ politics. The mimetic quality of desire in a set of relationships of rivalry had thus already ensured a basic continuity with the old regime. Notably, the overall scapegoating under the new regime would issue signs that the victimage was being conducted, as is the pattern indicated by Girard, not for the ‘difference’ attributed to the victim, but precisely for the lack of it. A vivid example would be the treatment of n ­ on-­Muslims ‘affiliated’ with Turkey and Turkishness historically, considered to be a threat to the communal identity simply for weakening the assumed difference. Erdoğan was known to have used on separate occasions, once in 2011 and later in 2014, the ethnic tags ‘Greek’ and ‘Armenian’ respectively, as offensive words denoting insult and slur, particularly so, because the said ethnicities had been attributed to him personally by the n ­ eo-­nationalist (ulusalcı) adversaries loyal 23 to the old regime. ‘They called me names’, he would complain in the presidential election campaign of 2014. ‘They even called me “Armenian”, do excuse

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i ntroducti on  | 17 the language.’ Clearly, it would hardly have occurred to Erdoğan to refer in the same tone to some radically alien ethnicities, namely those that were not somehow ‘entangled’ with the Turkish identity. On the contrary, sufficiently removed from the local setting, the ‘complete’ others, such as the German or Indian, would perhaps have been exotically and seductively acceptable, even flattering. Yet Greeks and Armenians were simply too close. They were to be held at an arm’s length for constituting a ‘threat’ through an undermining of identity by exposing the constructed or arbitrary nature of differences in identity formation. That is, the claims mixing Turkish identity with those of Armenians and Greeks served to weaken the differences assumed between the Turk and the Armenian, the Turk and the Greek, which was anathema, for the fusion articulated in the allegations, linking Erdoğan to those identities, revealed the haphazard way in which identities were assembled locally. In the assertions that displeased Erdoğan, some ‘valuable’ differences appeared to be somewhat feeble or readily transgressed. Quite paradoxically, bigotry that ­emphasised­– ­­rather than ­obliterated­– ­­differences thus immediately found a fertile ground. In other words, the Greek and the Armenian were easily ‘wasted’ by Erdoğan, not for being different, but for being not different enough; they were in fact confusingly close. Blurring the distinction between the self and the other more formidably than a radical other, the ‘domestic’ other was a threat by shaking the faith in the system of signification at work locally, amounting to perilous mimetic violence, in turn to be countered only by more violence, with the Armenian and the Greek identities readily sacrificed. The scapegoat thus effectively imagined and wasted is both malevolent (‘polluted’, therefore to be sacrificed) and benevolent (‘purifying’ through victimage that restores the order). Remarkably, this paradox may extend also to the conception of God. As Girard observes, ‘gods are as much scapegoats as the others.’24 The Soma mine disaster of May 2014, which killed over 300 miners for callous neglect of basic safety, which I discuss in this book (Chapter 10), would prompt the government to send to the g­ rief-­stricken area a detachment of members of a religious community,25 while banning the locals from having any contact with human rights activists and lawyers. The righteous ­out-­of-towners would call on the miner families door to door, presumably pointing out and alerting to God’s mysterious ways of p ­ unishment

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18  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y and reward, ostensibly in order to calm down the small mining community. God would thereby be affirmed to be as much malevolent, killing mercilessly to teach a lesson, as he was indeed also benevolent. Girard notes: God ‘crushes the faithful in order to bring them back to the straight path; he corrects their weaknesses which prevent him from immediately showing his beneficence. He who loves greatly punishes greatly.’26 Did this mystification work at all in Soma? Apparently not. Erdoğan would receive possibly the worst nightmare of his career when he would later visit Soma, with the locals taunting him on the town’s high street. Unable to control his anger, Erdoğan would improvise a ­tough-­guy act as seen in subsequently released video captures, inviting protesters to ‘come close’ and repeat the jeers to his face. Surrounded by security forces, Erdoğan would then batter with his own hands the first local he could corner in a market, screaming at the man, ‘You, Israeli spawn!’27 The reference was merely to another ethnicity, which, as with the Armenian and the Greek, had been used before to describe Erdoğan himself, and which was thus clearly of a kind that might threaten to muddle up the revered (yet insecure) Turkish identity. It was no surprise, then, that the use of power following the regime change was being increasingly observed to ‘copy’ the old one. The l­ong-­harboured Islamist desire appeared to have been modelled precisely after the desire of its other, the rival, which Islamists were at once supposed to have fought and defeated. The evidence in this regard, fast accumulating from 2011 as the regime change became complete, would be abundant to dispel possible doubts as to what exactly was happening under the new rule. The denouncing of the demands towards a widening of political participation in the society as mere conspiracy, a tool used potently against Kurds and the pious Muslims during the old regime, would resurface and be directed at the young and restless urbanites that memorably attracted the attention of the world public opinion at the Gezi protests of 2013. Again, allegations of treason and plain espionage about dissidence, only to bolster the authoritarian rule in the country, which was a permanent feature of the old regime, would come increasingly to be put to work. In so doing, the new power holders would arguably outdo the old ones in places through a somewhat brazen engagement in identity politics at the cost of identities other than those linked to that of the pious and practising Muslims. A Jacobin social engineering that would be

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i ntroducti on  | 19 growingly exercised, a declared policy from 2011 apparently seeking a metamorphosis of a whole new generation through education, and dictating life styles on the community, was also clearly part of the desire appropriated from the old regime. Added to all this was a continuing centralisation of the higher education system and a partisan judiciary, the ­tell-­tale signs of the old order in marked continuity under the new one. Moreover, the new rulers could be said to have greatly done away with the distinction between the ruling political party and the public authority, with local governmental agencies, the governorships, having gradually been put at the service of the party, exactly as in the practice of the republican rule in its heyday in the 1930s and 1­ 940s­– an ­­ era otherwise fiercely criticised by the new power holders. As is well known, a regular feature of the old regime throughout was coups d’état, disruptions in constitutional order, taking place almost once in every decade. The new regime would not refrain from reproducing this trait either, having effectively put aside the constitutional order from 25 December 2013, in response to the grave corruption reports compiled by the police and the judiciary involving the government. Again, behaving as an ‘executive’ president in blatant disregard of his largely ceremonial role in the established system, Erdoğan would later declare: ‘Accept it or not, Turkey’s administrative system has de facto changed.’28 Finally, an imprint of the first couple of decades after modern Turkey had been set up in 1923, a leadership cult that dictated the virtual infallibility of the leader, in turn steering towards public lynching of the critics, including figures within the ruling circles, even government ministers, would come to be the trademark also of the new regime from 2011. An ironic g­ ive-­away in this regard was Erdoğan starting the election campaign that would ascend him to Atatürk’s throne as the president of the Republic from the Black Sea town of Samsun, where Atatürk had started his legendary campaign of national liberation in 1919 against the invading powers. Meticulously trailing Atatürk from Samsun to Erzurum in the east, Erdoğan would dub his campaign as a war of ‘national liberation’, claiming that the very survival of the nation was at stake under the imminent threat of domestic and international foes out to get the nation. When he was about to be seated in the throne, as he came out of the presidential poll victorious, having received close to 52 per cent of the overall votes, he would be crooned and praised in ways that would

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20  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y greatly reproduce the Kemalist leadership cult. True to the tradition that had formed in the 1930s, the following by a noted literary figure would be published in a ­pro-­government newspaper to greet Erdoğan two days before he would be sworn in (except for the bracketed ones, the dots in the extract do not indicate omissions in the text but are actually part of the original, ostensibly for the maximum ‘hymnal’ effect in the veneration): For eyes that can see, the shimmering lights of the birth of a new Turkey are becoming visible . . . The architect of this new Turkey is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan . . . Under his leadership . . . Under his guidance . . . With contours that are increasingly more distinct, the profile of this true leader is coming into view on the horizon . . . (. . .) The people of Turkey are about to entrust their future to the acumen and sagacity of this leader . . . Or, rather, they did that already . . . They reckon that the leader whom they put to the test several times is once again going to make proud his people and country . . . They stand by him even on those occasions when he gets stood up . . . The new Turkey is taking shape under his leadership . . . As for the leader, he defines himself as a common trooper among his people, and this is precisely why he is being loved . . .29

Replacing Erdoğan’s name with that of Atatürk would give us a sample of the typical acclamations of the latter historically, to say nothing of the alarming notions of national leadership and guidance, with the ‘nation’ understood as an organic being, for a political movement that previously had strong democratic aspirations. Actually, exaltations of leaders in this unusual cast had barely been the case locally since World War II. Often associated with the interwar leaders of the country, principally Atatürk, the original cult and the attendant ­hero-­worship were synchronic to some extent with the treatment of some of the European leaders at the time. This said, it also needs to be remembered that venerations of the type towards rulers by established literary personalities had a firm rooting in old Turkish literary practice, in which praising the qualities of statesmen formed a poetic genre in ­itself­– ­­a tradition which, coupled with the European leadership cult of the time, would be elevated to new heights in the 1930s. Just as with the earlier Atatürk cult, those

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i ntroducti on  | 21 few secular intellectuals that persisted in their support of Erdoğan’s leadership would justify his ‘authoritarian streak’, having readily acknowledged it, by resorting to a claim of a singularly intransigent opposition,30 comparable to the way the early republican rule by Atatürk was habitually justified by the republicans by pointing to the extraordinary circumstances in the years following World War I, both domestically, when the regime newly in place was fighting a fierce domestic opposition, and internationally, with interwar authoritarianisms in the offing in Europe. The new order, greatly mimicking the old one, and introduced through a series of decisive gestures from 2007 to 2011, and to be in full swing from 2012, is the central event in this book. Yet the pattern of violence and the sacred motivated by desire as outlined here could well be argued to suffuse the whole history of a series of decisive ‘breaks’ in political modernisation (muasırlaşma, later çağdaşlaşma) in the country, roughly from the ­mid-­nineteenth century.31 The most salient feature of political modernisation already under way in the first quarter of the nineteenth century was growing centralisation at the cost of the local notables, who had been bestowed upon with ‘feudal’ privileges until then. The centralisation would make great headway with the new administrative measures, remarkably facilitated through the first ever population censuses in the Ottoman community akin to the modern practices, conducted from 1831 and later, more fully, yet still partial, in 1844.32 Predictably risking a redoubling of the traditional absolutism, the centralisation would both produce, and in turn be carried out by, a new class of bureaucrats who would gradually shift the focus of political power from a solitary monarch to the emergent bureaucracy, called the Sublime Port (Bâb-ı Âlî). In close consultation and cooperation with the representatives of the European powers in Istanbul in regulating the state business, the bureaucrats would urge and draft a landmark Imperial Reform Edict in 1839, which would initiate a new era in the history of modernisation in the country known as the Tanzîmât (literally ‘the Regulations’). The edict, declared with unusual splendour, sought ostensibly to ease the new absolutism that came with the greater centralisation through a political commitment to the protection of some of the basic rights and of the rule of law. This commitment would prompt a uniquely busy phase of legal reforms in the country, as reflected in swift codification

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22  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y efforts that blended the traditional sources of the law with new European legal initiatives. An Imperial Reform Edict in 1856, communicating a political will to end the discrimination against ­non-­Muslim subjects conclusively, would be appended within weeks to the Paris Treaty of 1856, which would make Ottoman Turkey the first ever power outside the European core to be admitted to European public law (that is, the future international law) as an equal participant. The era also witnessed the advent of an Ottoman public sphere through print media, comparable to that in Europe at the time, beyond the traditional venues of political exchange such as the coffee houses and the public baths. A new variety of intellectuals who were, again, the product of the era would form a broad reformist coalition as the Young Ottomans, increasingly advocating a concept of limited government (meşrûtiyet) based on arguments that hastily and precariously mixed European ideas of human rights and constitutionalism with the local concepts and principles, such as meşveret (consultation), the Islamic notion that urges dialogue and deliberation in worldly affairs.33 Set up in 1865, the Young Ottomans are known to have been ‘the first political opposition in the modern sense’34 in Ottoman history. The fact that the designation would in time reach beyond Turkey, especially after the organisation’s move to Europe in 1867, evolving into a generic term as ‘Young Turks’ that signified a new and radical opposition of the young more or less in all contexts, should testify to the impact and stamina of the movement. Series of Breaks The first critical break in the history of political modernisation in the country would be initiated with the deposition of Sultan Abdülaziz in 1876 through a bureaucratic coup. Held answerable for standing in the way of urgently needed reforms, the sultan was probably murdered after the dethroning, although the official version would be that he committed suicide. Skipping the brief (about three months) period when Murad V took to the throne, only to be deposed through allegations of mental instability brought about by alcoholism, Abdülhamid II would be invited to the post as the new sultan. This would follow a rather rigorous interview by the reformist bureaucrats, when the future sultan would promise to cooperate with the bureaucracy, chiefly

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i ntroducti on  | 23 by allowing and promulgating the first ever Ottoman Constitution (Kânûn-ı Esâsî) towards a limited government. Relating the heavy toll in the transition, namely the murder or suicide of a sultan, of a chief of staff (serasker) known possibly to have instigated the homicide of the sultan, of a number of ministers (nâzır), and the derangement of yet another sultan, a s­emi-­official historian of republican Turkey would later describe the events as of a kind ‘that might surprise even authors of tragedies’.35 Curiously, this historian would note immediately that the ‘victims’ sacrificed in this transition from an ‘old’ order to a ‘new’ one had been only a ‘natural’ cost, adding that the losses were ‘by no means for nothing’.36 Ironically, the same historian would then proceed to describe the era of Abdülhamid II, which lasted almost t­hirty-­three years from 1876, as one of unbridled oppression barely experienced or seen until then. Having promulgated the Constitution drafted by a progressive group of bureaucrats and intellectuals in the year he came into power, with a newly elected parliament to be inaugurated in the following year, Abdülhamid II would nonetheless act in 1878 to indefinitely suspend the parliament and go on becoming the sultan in the modern history of the country that would succeed equating his name with archetypal political oppression in the eyes of all of the otherwise fiercely conflicting political forces, including some of the leading Islamists. The aversion also by the Islamists contributed further irony, because the foreign policy that defined the era would later be recalled as one of p ­ an-­Islamism open to the newly formed, ­anti-­colonial Islamist ideology. Abdülhamid II centralised all power, formed a daunting intelligence apparatus and introduced a vast system of censorship. ‘Homeland’, ‘freedom’ and ‘limited government’ would be among the terms on a list of expressions strictly prohibited in the print media. He would go as far as banning the very book Üss-i İnkılâb (Grounds for Revolution/Reformation) that he himself had commissioned in the first year of his reign to Ahmet Mithat Efendi, a master literary figure of the time, and which had rejected all political oppression, advocating basic rights and a constitutional rule instead.37 The next break would come in the early twentieth century. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, the Young Ottomans had evolved into a de facto political party under the name of the Committee of Union and Progress (İttihâd ve Terakkî Cemiyyeti, CUP), having secretly organised bureaucrats,

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24  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y intellectuals and some young military officers in a concerted opposition against the political rule. The plan of action by the CUP to start a nationwide rebellion in 1908 would force Abdülhamid II to end the moratorium on the Constitution, suspended thirty years earlier. The proclamation of this ­so-­called Second Constitutional Period (İkinci Meşrûtiyet), after the aborted one in 1876, would create an atmosphere of optimism and political festivity in the country arguably still unparalleled. The CUP, now a legalised political party, would win the elections in the same year, with the sole contending group, the Liberal Party (Ahrâr Fırkası), failing to have elected any of its candidates for the parliament. The regime change thus initiated would be complete with the suppression of a series of events breaking out on 13 April in the following year,38 which the official history would come to describe as a ‘rebellion of the reactionaries’.39 The rebels had allegedly protested against the latest tuning in the political order by shouting on the streets of Istanbul their passionate support for the old sharia regime. The third army positioned in Salonika (Thessaloniki), a CUP stronghold, would depart for Istanbul at once and quash the rebellion within about two weeks after its start. Charged with inciting the rebellion, rather iniquitously s­ o­– ­­and paradoxically in purported breach of none other than the sharia that the rebels had ­championed40­ – ­­Abdülhamid II would be deposed through a bureaucratic coup soon after the suppression of the rebellion. The deposed sultan would be exiled to Salonika and Sultan Mehmed Reşad would be brought to the throne to replace him. Amid allegations, still unsettled by historians, that the ‘rebellion’ had in fact been engineered either by the CUP having been after a pretext, or the opposition,41 a military court would sentence ­forty-­nine people to death, ­thirty-­seven to fortified life imprisonment, and hundreds of others to incarceration and exile.42 More importantly perhaps, the incident would contribute to the vocabulary of the governing order the epithet ‘reactionary’ (mürteci), a formidable curse that would be put to good use for about a century in the political life of the country to stigmatise and disenfranchise opposition. With the exception of a spell (of about six months) from m ­ id-­1912, a CUP oligarchy would dominate politics and drag the country, to all intents and purposes, from one disaster to another. The catastrophes experienced under the CUP rule included World War I and, more appallingly, the systematic annihilation of the large ­Ottoman-­Armenian community during the war for

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i ntroducti on  | 25 both a diabolic concern for security and, at the same time, in a ghastly experiment towards forging a somewhat homogenous nation, ostensibly with the Muslim Ottomans tragically cleansed from the freshly lost Balkan territories in mind. Defining resistance to the heavy oppression under Abdülhamid II as its whole raison d’être, the CUP is generally thought to have incomparably aggravated the already miserable state of basic rights and freedoms as soon as it was in full control from January 1913, so much so that many intellectuals formerly critical of Abdülhamid II for his oppressive policies would appear before long to fondly recall the time of oppression under Abdülhamid II, as with the poet Süleyman Nazif, stating in a poem: ‘Pining now for the days of the former oppression’ (Hasret olduk eski istibdâda biz). The CUP leaders would flee the country in a state of panic following the armistice towards the end of 1918. Tantamount to a total surrender, this deal would bring the war to a close for Ottoman Turkey. A growing national resistance in the form of separate civilian initiatives by locals throughout inner Asia Minor would then be successfully organised from ­mid-­1919 by a defiant Ottoman pasha, Mustafa Kemal, who would later come to be known as Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey. Engaging mainly the Greek occupation forces in the west of the country, this popular movement would sideline the administration in Istanbul by procuring a ­hard-­fought peace deal with the victors of World War I (Britain, France, Italy and Greece) in July 1923, the Lausanne Peace Treaty. The National Assembly created by the resistance movement three years earlier in Ankara as an alternative to the one in Istanbul would soon vote and declare Turkey a ‘republic’. The republican Turkey would have the charismatic leader of the national resistance, Mustafa Kemal, as its first president. Within months, early in the following year, the National Assembly would abolish the institution of caliphate as leadership of Muslims worldwide, a status nominally held since the sixteenth century, and send into exile the members of the imperial Ottoman dynasty. This apparently dramatic break with the Ottoman order would, however, barely hide the more profound continuity between the old and the new. The connection would soon be bitterly grasped by some of the intelligentsia and dignitaries who, having quickly turned dissenters, would be promptly suppressed, despite most of them having been on the forefront of the national

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26  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y resistance movement with Mustafa Kemal Pasha only recently. The dissidents were of the opinion, as succinctly articulated by Erik Zürcher, ‘that calling the state a republic did not in itself bring freedom and that the real difference was between despotism and democracy, whether under a republican or a monarchic system’.43 The increasingly tightened political control, justified through the new sacred of ‘modernisation’ at any cost, would come to pale, to a certain extent, the despotisms and persecutions under either of the previous regimes, the CUP rule or the sultanate of Abdülhamid II before it. The confederation of local organisations that had formed the resistance during the war of national liberation, the Defence of Rights (Müdafaa-i Hukûk) movement, had already merged in 1922 with the ruling Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Fırkası, CHP).44 The party would in turn be melded with the state apparatus, initiating the ­so-­called ‘­single-­party regime’ that would last until 1950. The regime would thwart a notion of democratic competition practically at all levels, notably replacing elections with appointments for the deputies in the legislative organ. Besides rival political parties, particularly a liberal initiative by the once close friends of Mustafa Kemal, the Progressive Republican Party (Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası), long-­ ­ standing ­ non-­ governmental organisations that were not controlled directly by the regime would also be dissolved, such as the nationalist Turkish Hearths (Türk Ocakları) and a dedicated women’s organisation, the Turkish Women’s Union (Türk Kadınlar Birliği). A close watch of the academic world would complement the total print media control under the regime, with the nonconformists fired in the early 1930s from the only academic institution of the time, Istanbul University (Darülfünûn). Finally, dress codes for the general public would be introduced, imposing assumed modern outfits on all, to be backed by callous criminal regulations. Most of this would be facilitated by an emergency rule (Takrîr-i Sükûn) established in the country on the pretext of the Kurdish insurrection in eastern provinces in 1925. Speaking of the Kurds, the new regime would continue the CUP experiment in fashioning a homogenous nation and render invisible minorities such as the Kurds, Assyrians, Jews and Greeks. To be greatly expelled through a population exchange with Greece, most of the latter group was in effect formed by the survivors of the ­little-­known slaughter of tens of thousands during the Turkish War of Independence, especially in the Pontus region

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i ntroducti on  | 27 along the Black Sea coast. A merciless wealth tax (varlık vergisi) imposed on the leftover ­non-­Muslim minorities in the years 1942 and 1943 would effectively contrive towards the ultimate dispossession and literal pauperisation of the ­non-­Muslims. The Independence Tribunals (İstiklâl Mahkemeleri), with their originally wartime jurisdiction extended, and active between 1920 and 1927, would issue thousands of death sentences, mostly on the basis of flimsy charges, and crush all opposition worthy of the name. A researcher who would later desperately seek to defend these notorious judicial bodies set up in various regions would nevertheless be forced to note that the tribunals at issue ‘did not operate in accordance with legal rules but by revolutionary principles’.45 In addition to this simply astonishing toll in finishing off opposition, many intellectuals, some of whom having once been rather close to Mustafa Kemal, would be either officially deported or choose to be ­self-­exiled, such as Mehmed Âkif, a moderate Islamist and the author of the words of the new national hymn, and Hâlide Edib, a famed liberal and early feminist who was cosmopolitan enough to write some of her books directly in E ­ nglish­– ­­presumably considered as ‘too European’ for the new regime. Beyond the innocence or randomness as revealed in the causal incongruity in the punishments accorded, which is how I have defined victimhood for the purpose of the argument here, the victims sacrificed by the regime would also and glaringly reveal the monster–saviour paradox in the rituals of communal violence staged: somehow polluted, the victims would at once serve to purify the now vigorously reshaped society through the immolations that they would enable. In short, setting in motion a territorially smaller and radically reformed Turkey, the modern republic instituted in 1923 would perversely reproduce, if not intensify, the authoritarian frame of mind that it would ironically and passionately historicise with the rise of the new regime. This same paradox would come to be roughly applicable also to the ‘liberal’ reformers who would seize power in 1950 with a switchover to the m ­ ulti-­party ­system­– ­­ostensibly as part of an effort, coupled with a perceived Soviet menace at the onset of the Cold War,46 to integrate the country to the newly victorious ‘democratic world’, as World War II would end the bulk of authoritarianisms. The liberals organised through the Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP), a breakaway from the CHP, would show next to no interest as they came into power,

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28  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y in structurally transforming the system that was clearly open to macabre abuses, designed purely as a tool of ‘benign’ oppression, with indifference to genuine democratic accountability. A cynical majoritarianism would thus shortly set in, and the liberal aspirations articulated earlier would gradually degenerate into a populist autocracy under the banner of the new sacred, ‘the popular will’, a notion claimed to have been overlooked by the foregoing modernisers. Before its first term in a ­decade-­long administration was over, the DP would already legislate and lay claim for the state treasury to the assets of the CHP, the former ruling party from which the DP had just dis­ on-­governmental organisations closely linked to the CHP affiliated.47 The n would also be dissolved, with all of their property confiscated. The oppression would grow rather than slacken in the later phases of the DP rule, leading to increased media censorship, control of universities, restrictions on the freedom of assembly and on the political activities of the opposition. Intolerance to criticism would be combined with practices that had gained the preceding regime under the CHP some notoriety, such as a suspected electoral fraud in 1957 and bigotry towards the n ­ on-­Muslim minorities, notably the ­state-­engineered pogroms in Istanbul in September 1955. The ill-treatment of the opposition would be on a dramatic rise in the last years of the DP rule, parallel to a fast declining economy and an alarming fall in popular support, prompting the government to take steps towards an ultimate liquefaction of the CHP through the work of an investigation committee set up in the parliament for that purpose. Hardly overstating the case, Feroz Ahmad notes on the whole DP era: ‘The positive contribution of the DP to the development of democratic practice in Turkey was virtually nil; however, their negative contribution was considerable.’48 The ­liberal-­turned-populist rule would end in May 1960, with the military, which some would claim to have been egged on by the opposition,49 taking over the administration. The coup would usher in the penultimate break in the history of political modernisation in the country prior to the transformation to be led by the AKP about half a century later, which is what this book is about. A set of show trials conducted by the military would issue a total of fifteen death sentences, eventually only three of which to be executed (the prime minister and two members of the cabinet), and ­thirty-­one life imprisonments, in addition to various other judgements of incarceration. Among the

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i ntroducti on  | 29 victims in the new period would be members of the Greek community, who had been exempted from the forcible population exchange with Greece in early republican Turkey and who had survived the pogroms of 1955. They would be either officially deported or intimidated and driven away from 1964 during the renewed political tension over Cyprus, reducing the number of the Greeks in the country to only a few thousand.50 The forced Islamisation of the remaining Armenians would gain a new momentum.51 Forms of violence in the absence of the elementary rule of law and fair trial would enable, and in turn become mystified through, an awakening of the earlier (and yet ‘incomplete’) sacred of the republican modernisation at any cost. The move would be reflected in the fresh variety of tutelary democracy introduced in the newly drafted Constitution of 1961, with novel measures to foil possible relapses inimical to modernisation. This basic law, often described as libertarian for the rights and freedoms it invoked and protected in the immediate aftermath of the ruthless oppression under the DP rule, would withhold spheres of politics from the elected power, bringing about an almost formal distinction between the ‘state’ and the ‘government’. The new measures initiated would instigate the order that would later come to be called an order of trusteeship or tutelage (vesayet) under the bureaucratic authority, namely a virtually autonomous army to be represented in the executive organ in a newly set up National Security Council, and a fortified system of high courts to keep electoral majorities in check.52 A ­fine-­tuning in 1980 via a singularly brutal military takeover would add to this order a centralised higher education system beyond the reach of elected governments. The military, the high courts and the higher education system, comprising the ruling bureaucracy together, would be long in place and tried out, invariably with success, in keeping a tight rein on politics when the AKP government from November 2002 pitched in a set of confrontational policies (chiefly on Cyprus and the European integration) in 2004. The subsequent change in the whole order, rapidly taking shape from 2007, would be complete by 2011. The discernible signs of a new authoritarianism under the AKP rule would become apparent crudely from early 2012, as detailed in this book.

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30  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y Change and Continuity This account of breaks in the history of political modernisation in the country reveals a succession of attempts at transformation following the monarchical absolutism of the ­mid-­nineteenth century: namely, constitutionalism (1876), ­neo-­constitutionalism (1909), republicanism53 (1923), populism (1950), ­neo-­republicanism (1961) and n ­ eo-­populism (2011). Each of these orders was organised around a sacred, epitomised, respectively, in ‘freedom’ in the second half of the nineteenth century, in the ‘nation/patria’ in the early twentieth century, and finally in ‘modernisation’ and the ‘popular will’ in the republican era. All of these sacreds originated in meticulously concealed ritual sacrifices and lynching in a ceaseless series of scapegoating and victimage that were ultimately traceable to specific instances of mimetic rivalry in each case. The pattern, fuelled by imitative, impersonating desire, and thus responsible for somewhat deviant forms of mirroring and emulation between the rivals, the holders of power and those oppressed, could also be linked to the sinister mimesis which, as the controversial abuser/abused hypothesis holds, seems to define desire in the case of everyday abuse in which the victim, we are told, compulsively imitates the offender. This apparent continuity barely means, incidentally, that there has been no difference, no change, between any two successive phases in the flow, such as the ­single-­party republicanism up to 1950 and the liberal populism that immediately followed, or the pluralist n ­ eo-­republicanism from 1961 and the later ­Islamo-­nationalist or ­Islamo-­nativist (Millî Görüş)54 populism under the AKP. A striking instance, exemplifying change, is the protracted Kurdish issue. In the early 1990s, about a decade before the AKP came into power, it was clearly out of the question for the public authority to acknowledge even the mere presence of the Kurds in Turkey. Memorably, during the Gulf War in 1991, when Iraqi Kurdish refugees amassed on the border, Turkish news outlets were stuck for a term to describe the ethnicity of the refugees, eventually opting for the ­then little-­known Kurdish word for guerrilla, peshmerga. In the grip of a paradigm that ignored Kurds not only in the country but amazingly also abroad, this was an effort on the part of media, under considerable strain, towards being able just to report the plight of over a million civilians, mostly women and children. Yet, within a short time, this threshold would

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i ntroducti on  | 31 be left behind, and some of the h ­ ighest-­ranking officials in the public authority, chiefly the then president Turgut Özal, would concede the ­long-­denied Kurdish identity. The same authority would be observed from 2012 to hold direct talks with the leadership of the armed wing of the Kurdish political movement towards a permanent settlement of the issue. Again, the ban on the hijab in education and in public employment, particularly tightened through a n ­ eo-­republican adjustment in February 1997, would come to be significantly loosened under the subsequent regime. Arguably more important in this regard would be the recasting of c­ entre-­periphery relations as a ­long-­standing paradigm of political cosmology in the country, which I discuss in the next chapter. The liberal intellectuals who passionately supported the AKP government for being the sole available agent of change would be surprised to find out from 2011 that, although the paradigm seemed to have greatly disappeared under the present regime, this huge variation from the old order had little impact on the deeper current of authoritarianism, which was still intact. Here, then, is the rule that governs change under unrelenting and grim recurrence induced by rivalry based on mimetic desire: there will be myriad forms of renewal and restyling under the incoming regime, no doubt; yet the new regime will be ‘offbeat’ only to the extent to which the departures and differences thus introduced will somehow allow us to recognise the old in the new. The ‘old’ in this sense refers to no transcendental signified, no fixed essence, which would be an undeviating and common thread running through the otherwise conflicting uses of political power. It is rather a dynamic and ­non-­essentialising continuity that is perhaps best communicated in Wittgenstein’s useful concept of family resemblance.55 As in a family formed by blood connections, not a single trait in all, but various characteristics that notably differ between the family members will serve as sites of possible triangulation, linking distinct instances to each other, such as the CUP p ­ roto-­nationalism, with lethal use of the myths ‘the nation’ and ‘the patria’, and the ­Islamo-­nationalism of the AKP from 2011, within which those notions remained resilient. The family resemblance at issue takes on board the fact that the later regime hardly repeated or slavishly reproduced the CUP oligarchy, known to have ruthlessly ‘purified’ the emerging nation in the blood of hundreds of thousands of victims. On the contrary, the AKP

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32  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y regime would come closest ever to admitting the systematic slaughter of Armenians under the CUP rule in 1915. A highly relevant question in this context is whether it is at all possible to disrupt the cycle that somehow attached the AKP to the CUP a century earlier, the way, perhaps, as suggested in the hypothesised a­buser-­abused pattern, where a reversal is known to be feasible. More specifically, how do you move from a regime like Nazism in Germany to a subsequent European democracy that seems to be in clear contrast? Where exactly does the ‘vampire theory’ of interminable recurrence come in, when we do observe what seems to be a clean break with the past? Sadly, some such optimistic break may not be a possibility. The transition between the two apparently discontinuous regimes such as Nazism and contemporary European democracy is arguably enabled, once again, by violence and scapegoating; in this case, the violence of World War II and the Cold War. Moreover, the new regime that mystifies itself through a new sacred of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, thereby manufacturing vital credulity towards its violent order much more readily than before, may be argued in effect simply to reproduce the old one at some other level that is not immediately recognisable. This ‘new’ level of violence may involve not only such unmistakeably violent practices as immigration laws and financial and commercial drifts that exact blood and dispossession in more inventive and pragmatic ways than before, but also somewhat eerier practices such as governmentality and biopolitics in the Foucaldian sense, which I invoke in this book in claiming a basic continuity between a markedly authoritarian regime such as that in Syria before the civil war and the ‘humane’ modern democracies. Yet, there can be another answer to this question of breaking free, not of violence obviously, which is perennial, but of at least the specific cycle. A capacity for this kind of break, which was perhaps the case in p ­ ost-­World War II Germany, may perhaps be facilitated by possible epistemic fallouts in the specific context, inhibiting or obstructing imitation. A sharp discontinuity in communal knowledge may disrupt and blunt the attraction towards the desire of the other, prompting the desiring subject to recoil from reiterating the rival. Or it may transform the rival (that is, the model) from the ‘authentic’ one, in this case the Nazis, to some other model that will start mediating the desire anew in the place of the authentic model. In other words, a ‘drastic’

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i ntroducti on  | 33 change may be conceivable if the focus of desire could somehow be diverted from the rival. Intercepting humdrum mimicry by somehow reducing the pull of the ‘original’ model may prevent recurrence, and the desiring subject may instead steer towards mimicking a tenable and fresh rival outside the ­circuit­– a­­ new model. This then would be a dramatic variation in the pattern. That the pattern outlined above is open to such novel mechanisms is evident in the argument, articulated by Girard, that a major discontinuity seems to have occurred between archaic and modern societies in generating credulity towards the order. This is regardless of the fact that the order is always already based on violence. The modern ‘demystification’ of the whole process of order, disabling lasting credulity, has ostensibly followed an epistemic suspension at some point. This interference, Girard claims, has brought about an unending cycle of violence rather than closing it with some finality through a stable new sacred. In the place of abiding order, the founding violence in ritual sacrifice now produces simply more violence. Although striving, as ever, for a mystification that strictly matches the mythic mystification in archaic societies, the new myths of democracy, the rule of law and an irreducible set of rights for all are fluid precisely for this reason, in response to the new and formidable flair for incredulity. Ironically, the ingenious new m ­ ake-­up thus accorded to the sacred in our time, presenting the reigning order as left wide open and capable of constantly revising itself, can be said only to intensify violence in other forms by rendering it smoother and more palatable for masses, rather than excluding or impeding it altogether. A final question pertains to the assumed ‘universality’ of the pattern, on grounds that the human desire on which the pattern is based is universal. How is the pattern described here a ‘general’ one, since we do not appear to observe in, say, Norway or Australia, the political drama that has been unfolding in Turkey? The answer is that we should perhaps be careful not to confuse the pattern with a specific manifestation. Although the pattern could be general, the desire that is at the heart of the specific rivalry and violence is not; it is local. Therefore, the bulk of the stark variations between any two manifestations of the pattern, say, in Norway and in Turkey respectively, are attributable arguably to the variations in desire that is tied firmly to a unique setting. In other words, the pattern may indicate a horizontal continuity regardless of the location, with the desire ensuring the vertical and temporal

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34  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y continuity in one specific location: all is the same, yet each at once remaining unique and different. Still, this explanation may not be sufficient to account for dramatic differentiations out there and seal the issue conclusively. We do know, however, that the pattern is open to revisionist inputs through epistemic dissimilitude, enabling radical changes. It may be the case that some of the striking divergences or fluctuations in the pattern that we observe out there may point in the direction of novel factors arising in different settings, which need to be carefully researched and elaborated on. Synopsis of the Book The book is divided into two parts. Part I provides a description of the process leading to the regime change from late 2002, with the sudden ascendancy of the AKP in domestic politics. Chapter 1 details the ‘institutional’ change that took place between 2007 and 2011, signalling a historic shift in the use of power in the country, long controlled by a staunch and virtually autonomous bureaucracy, both military and civilian, in the face of fragile democratic politics. The discussion focuses on the discourse of Europeanisation, though not in the strict sense used in the context of the European Union, as a unique leverage used by the AKP in bringing about the change. Originally part and parcel of the identity politics of the bureaucracy from the nineteenth century, this ­long-­standing discourse also known as ‘Westernisation’ (Batılılaşma) was deftly appropriated by forces defiant of the bureaucratic rule to reconfigure access to power. Following this basic account of the change, Chapter 2 pulls back the timeline slightly and recounts the fascinating realignment in domestic politics with the rise of the AKP into power. The discussion underlines an ostensible transformation in the largely essentialising forms of identity politics that until then defined much of the political cosmology in the country. The usual cast of identity politics that relied on a rather cynical exploitation of identity demands seemed significantly to recede in the spell between 2002 and 2007 in favour of a set of civic, ­non-­divisive political gestures around the reintroduced identity goal of Europeanisation. This remodelling would expand the electoral compass of the ruling AKP beyond the former identity alignments, ensuring widening reach, and, equally important, prompt ambivalence in the bureaucracy, considerably breaking the resistance in the way of change. Chapter 3 focuses on the extensive legal probes and subse-

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i ntroducti on  | 35 quent trials from 2007 in response to alleged attempts towards a military takeover. Accelerated during the regime change, the investigations and trials would be uniquely instrumental in silencing the opposition, formal or popular, in resistance to the recasting of power. The chapter chronicles the legal cases that would continue in full throttle until late 2013, with a number of surprise twists to follow, ultimately almost fully aborting the whole process. The last chapter in this part, Chapter 4, is about the stamina of resistance to the change, not only in this specific setting but also in the greater region in the immediate vicinity. The argument is that treating, as was habitually done, the draconian and unyielding regimes in the region as deviations, or as vestiges of past and native authoritarianisms, lacked insights into the ostensible strength of the regimes. A characteristically ‘modern’ rationality, the argument suggests, was clearly implicit in the project of forced and ambitious emancipation of the masses that largely defined the despotisms in the region. Motivated by a drive to save the locals ‘from themselves’, such manifestations of authority were de facto supported by forces, both domestic and international, that perceived the regimes as enforcers of modernity in the face of traditional identities and practices. Functioning as a perverse ‘liberation theology’ for promising agency and deliverance from the tutelage of the local, this ideology not only manufactured a crucial element of consent in respective domestic societies but also brought together strands of global ­neo-­conservative thinking, all possibly motivated by a normative commitment to modernity, ultimately in favour of those authoritarianisms. In Part II, the book depicts politics and rights under the AKP rule from 2011, with some remarkable mimetic continuity with the old regime increasingly in place. Chapter 5 covers the overall domestic context and the main contours of the ­Islamo-­nationalist populism now in full swing. The discussion looks into the mood in ­pro-­government circles, with some emphasis on Islamist speculations on d ­ emocracy­– terrifying ­­ to the secular m ­ asses­ – and ­­ the effective rule by policy, rather than law, enabled by the growing cult of Erdoğan. One centrifugal factor detected in portraying the setting is the formal commitment to the human rights protection system in Europe, which, paradoxically, acquired greater intensity during the regime change in a desperate attempt on the part of the government to bypass the former centres of power, namely the bureaucracy. Chapter 6 is about the historic Gezi Park

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36  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y protests in the summer of 2013, which promised a novel fusion of otherwise disparate political forces, comparable perhaps to the broad democratic alliance led by the ­Islamo-­nationalist politics from the late 1990s, enduringly bringing together a colourful variety of political forces, initially in opposition to an urban development plan in Istanbul. The somewhat harsh response by the government to the protests, which would do much to damage the reputation of the administration before international public opinion within only a span of days, is illustrated in this chapter through the plight of three ­protesters­ – ­­a young man battered within an inch of his life by law enforcement officers, a young woman persecuted by the judiciary beyond the limits of credibility, and a child murdered during the protests. The state of the national media, curbed in independence far exceeding the typical manifestations of media capture, to be allegedly r­ e-­engineered and taken over by the government from 2007 through moot uses of public authority and public resources, is narrated in Chapter 7. This chapter also looks into the increasing government control of Internet access. Chapter 8 is on a set of rather dubious practices by the government in securing success at the ballot box, including the way in which it allegedly financed politics, arguably transforming democratic pretensions of the administration into a sham. The chapter includes a section on the role of the military in the new phase, with an assessment of its possibly resilient reflexes. Chapter 9 illustrates the government policies in a host of long outstanding issue areas, mostly predating the AKP rule, such as the tension between piety and secularism, especially in exercises of free speech, the basic Alevi rights, gross impunity of the security forces in the name of tackling the Kurdish insurgence, and the debate on the ghastly fate of the Ottoman Armenians. The chapter also comments on the purported government complicity in the jihadist bloodbath in the greater region following the Arab Spring. Finally, Chapter 10 focuses on some routine malfeasances in society, mostly ignored, if not necessarily exacerbated, by an exceptionally strong administration with an unusually lengthy mandate. The chapter presents a catalogue of some of the most pressing causes for concern in this regard, detailing, where available, the government initiatives and actions in respective areas: femicide, violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex individuals, especially transgender women, the ordeal of sex workers, dying prisoners, the astonishing toll of workplace mortality, and, last but

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i ntroducti on  | 37 by no means least, the defacing of urban space in gargantuan proportions through a construction craze in the wake of the old regime. Endeavouring to make sense of the highly disputed function of urban construction works for the government, the chapter also includes an evaluation of the state of the economy under the AKP rule, which appeared to have failed to modify the economy structurally, relying merely on various palliative and ­crisis-­ridden schemes. The concluding chapter muses generally on the regime change, its potentialities as well as perils, giving thought in the light of the foregoing to a genuine and lasting idea of change against the ostensibly uninterrupted flow of desire.

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1 WHAT CHANGED?

A

resilient feature of Turkish politics, a c­ entre-­periphery divide in the use of power, long predated the republican Turkey.1 Historically, the loyal slaves regularly conscripted by the administration to occupy key positions in the centre of political power, guarding it against thrusts and demands from the periphery, were replaced by the ­latter-­day bureaucrats in the nineteenth century. Yet the bureaucracy greatly continued to function within the tradition, adopting and reiterating the settled reflexes. Just as the erstwhile slaves turned power brokers for the body politic, the bureaucrats newly introduced into the system obsessed over, and zealously guarded, the ‘interests of the state’.2 The key part played by the bureaucracy in the enduring order not only extended into the republican era in the twentieth century, but also came to dominate politics in the new epoch arguably to a greater extent. In the absence of a fully functional democracy, the centre formed by the bureaucracy held sway over the new notables of business, media and arts to a degree that would have made Ottoman sultans green with envy. This unprecedented control was not only the result of ‘clientelism’ in a political economy with the bureaucracy allocating wealth and opportunities. More decisively perhaps, the mastery was enabled by a form of identity politics engineered by the bureaucracy that pitted those who valued a European lifestyle, and who made the bulk of the notables, against pious and practising Muslims, who initially formed the less educated and mostly rural sections in society. In time, by 41

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42  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y systematically privileging the former, the bureaucracy acquired a considerable social base for its operations, which the centre of power in Ottoman Turkey did not have. This crucial difference with the earlier practises of the centre, linking it to a virtually indomitable social force, would often be ignored by the liberal critics of the old order during the regime change between 2007 and 2011. On this view, the bureaucracy was little more than an isolated network perched cynically over democratic politics and motivated solely by ­ self-­ interest. In truth, the social base that aligned with the bureaucracy in favour of a somewhat limited and wary democracy in the country in the course of the transformation was remarkably large,3 regardless of the rising political mood generally that ostracised ­extra-­political interferences in politics. This solid ­democracy-­sceptic base, which continued to exist in the early phase of the new regime, was formed by sections of society with genuine identity concerns in the face of the growing visibility of the pious Muslim identity that had been suppressed for close to a century. The concerns over identity by the ‘anxious’ urbanites, as they would call themselves during the transition, would be either overlooked in ‘­pro-­democracy’ circles in the ongoing debate for regime change or explained away as s­ tatus-­driven interests of the privileged in disguise. In a paradoxical move somewhat befitting the irony that defined the domestic setting, people apprehensive of the continuing ‘democratisation’, reading into it an emergent and authoritarian majoritarianism, would be considered by liberal public opinion leaders as deceived at best or otherwise simply foolish for failing to get it that lifestyles, the main issue of anxiety, would be protected much more sustainably within a ­fully-­fledged democracy. This was precisely the way the p ­ ro-­bureaucracy elite had long found the masses inclined to turn away from the established order as deceived, or foolish, for either failing to value modernity or for failing to see that the full democratisation argument by the occasional ‘­anti-­modern’ forces was nothing other than a sinister instrument in gradually establishing an illiberal, Islamic hegemony. Beyond mere numbers, the support for the old bureaucratic order notably included in its ranks most of those in society who were better educated and better positioned, both socially and economically, a fact that more than made up for the lack in size. Recognising this social base for the old order, and the attendant ‘consent’ it issued (see Chapter 4),

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what cha ng ed ?  | 43 was tremendously significant for a smooth transition, because undermining the bureaucratic control in the country without simultaneously introducing ­confidence-­building measures that would address the concerns of democracy sceptics as bona fide and legitimate could end up leaving society sharply fragmented, tense and eventful on its way to greater d ­ emocratisation­– precisely ­­ what would be looming on the horizon from 2012, when the change would be in full swing: a polarised society in the grip of a ‘cold’ civil war. Under the old regime, society had been tightly controlled, with constant and ubiquitous political oppression. In its wake, the onset of what looked like a form of crude majoritarianism oblivious to more evolved forms of democracy would seriously threaten to bring back the old and familiar oppression in a new guise. Obviously, the critical factor in sustaining the old bureaucratic order, notwithstanding the remarkable social support for it, had been a restricted democracy, with general suffrage being suspended at will either through military takeovers or judicial interventions (as in the practice of dissolving political parties). The turn of events, especially from the second half of 2007, indicated that a mere semblance of democracy along settled lines, allowing bureaucratic adjustments when and where needed, was no longer a viable option for a polity by and large irreversibly integrated with the wider world in myriad forms. The difficulty experienced by the bureaucracy for the first time in resorting to old tools for fi ­ ne-­tuning politics would in turn bolster the confidence of democratic politics in taking bold steps, for the first time in history, to try and reconfigure the bureaucracy. Further, in another key development, more and more among those well educated and Europeanised in lifestyle would come to reject being clients of the bureaucracy by demanding democracy in its unfettered functioning. These ‘defections’ from the ­pro-­bureaucracy camp would soon effectively blur the lines of confrontation and bring about an alliance between those with a European lifestyle and those who were pious Muslims, a formidable dichotomy of the old order. This chapter provides an account of some of these developments, detailing how the traditional role of the bureaucracy came to an end, an eventuality that would signify no less than a historic shift in the domestic configuration of power, even if the shift in sight would not necessarily be one from authoritarianism to democracy. The discussion starts out by indicating the main contours of the ­centre-­periphery exchange under the republican administration

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44  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y and moves on to the European Union (EU) as a decisive factor in transforming the established template. That is not because the EU was the only (or even the most important) factor in the suggested shift, but because the discursive practice around the idea of ‘Europeanisation’ (not necessarily in agreement with the b­ etter-­known uses of this notion) would prove to be an unusual and effective leverage in facilitating the change: emerging locally as a project of none other than the bureaucracy in the nineteenth century, going on to receive substantially more emphasis in the early republican era as part of its ambitious cultural and identity politics, Europeanisation would come to be ‘hijacked’, as it were, by forces defiant of the l­ ong-­enduring bureaucratic rule. Centre and Periphery The domestic political scene under the republican administration was stamped from the outset by a tense interaction of the centre and the periphery. Ruled by a mindset of t­op-­down and h ­ eavy-­handed ‘Westernisation’, the centre was formed by the bureaucracy, both military and civilian. With cultural roots in the elite fads mainly in Istanbul and Salonika (Thessaloniki) from the ­mid-­nineteenth century, the ideology of the centre that came to be known as ‘Kemalism’, after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, not only had (1) a notorious stress on the pastiche of an assumed European way of life, from dress codes to specific social practices, but also adopted (2) a radical differentiation of the public and the private in relation to the social functions of religion based roughly on the French republicanism, and (3) a nationalist scepticism of the wider world that seemed to be rather out of step with its apparent policy of ‘Westernisation’. The bureaucracy in the centre soon became the supreme benefactor of the elite in the media, arts and academia. ­Istanbul-­based big business also acquired the habit of relying on good relations with the bureaucracy for easy profit and for warding off international competition. In opposition to this league, the most conspicuous elements of the periphery consistently denied a share in political power were practising Muslims, in virtually all walks of life, and the Kurds. Devout Muslims were greatly disenfranchised from extensive forms of politics in the early period with bans on, and censorship of, religious references and symbols in public life. Receding over the passage of time, the bans nevertheless persisted. And the Kurds, with a history of ­short-­lived rebellions in resistance to the enforced

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what cha ng ed ?  | 45 Turkification, were until recently distant dwellers of a mainly rural area.4 From the ­mid-­1980s, the Kurds would come to be in the midst of a growing debate chiefly through the security concerns caused by the warfare with the Kurdish guerrilla organisation, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK).5 As in Ottoman Turkey, the polarity between the centre and the periphery characteristically allowed individuals on the periphery to move to the centre. This mobility that would deny the periphery political and intellectual weight in the first few decades of the republican era was enabled by a mostly egalitarian system of education, combined by a tacit renunciation of values and demands associated with the periphery by the upwardly mobile. A specific ambivalence in ­centre-­periphery configuration would appear to be presented by the Alevis, a heterogeneous Muslim sect (see Chapter 9). Forming almost certainly more than 10 per cent of the overall population, perhaps up to 20 per cent (though the exact size would remain unknown), the Alevis were subjected to oppression and brutal treatment bordering on genocide by the bureaucracy in the early republican period, and, more recently, to pogroms, with or without the consent of elements within the bureaucracy. Yet, because the Alevis ostensibly found the majority Sunni Muslims more of a threat, they would in time become steadfast supporters of the centre. In mundane daily interaction with those within liberal–conservative and Islamist political movements, and thus fully aware of the perceptions and prejudices at the grassroots of these groups, the Alevis consistently refused to be aligned with forces outside the bureaucratic centre despite periodic promises of democracy by the rivals, save for a brief spell in the late 1940s when they welcomed the liberal takeover, only to be disappointed subsequently, as the liberals would gravely fail in introducing structurally protective measures for the Alevis while appearing bent on letting loose the a­ ge-­old Sunni bigotry. Enter Europe The renewed relations with the European Union (EU), in particular the decision to start the accession negotiations for an eventual membership from 2004,6 would function to facilitate a reshuffling of the established configuration in the use of power through political reforms gesturing towards a gradual empowerment of the periphery, the devout Muslims and the Kurds.

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46  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y Simultaneously, in a paradoxical development, the intrusion by Europe into the domestic political cosmology from the late 1990s would push the long ‘Westward’ looking elite in the centre into a position that would be marked by a virtual demonisation of ‘the West’, understood as a monolithic entity, a notion ironically in keeping with the Islamist perceptions of Europe and the United States. This mood change on the part of social groups at the centre would seem to follow the early signs of the E ­ U-­induced political reforms in the country in the area of democracy and human rights.7 The notion would take root in the p ­ ro-­bureaucracy camp rather quickly, enabled by a resilient scepticism that drew on a fiercely nationalist and c­ onspiracy-­ridden ‘­anti-­imperialism’ as part and parcel of the republican ideology in an ambivalent ­tie-­in with its emphatic drive for ‘Westernisation’.8 As regards this view, which would become increasingly more pronounced under the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) rule from the late 2002, ‘the West’ simply continued the perennial imperialism that it had always been known for, and that Atatürk had had to fight at the inception of the republican order. Worse still, this imperialism was now under a different guise, namely that of democracy and human rights, showing its stealthily seditious face, with a view to dismembering and ultimately devouring the nation.9 This cynical attitude on human rights and democracy on the part of the forces of the centre was aided by the global trend, highlighted by a sudden growth in Islamist terrorism in the United States and in Europe almost simultaneously, of pairing and contrasting ‘rights’ with ‘security’. ‘Democracy, but at what price?’ was thus a frequently posed rhetorical question domestically, typifying the mindset in the centre, which equated the Kurdish political demands for basic rights with costly separatism in a society where ethnic and territorial partition read into those demands would only add to the misery, rather than present a solution. ‘Do human rights include a freedom to destroy freedom?’ was yet another question in the same mould, convinced that the pious Muslim demands such as the lifting of the ban on the hijab, the Islamic headscarf, at universities (no claim was laid at the time to the wearing of the hijab either in earlier stages of education or in public employment) were a potential threat to the rights and freedoms of others. Overall, the value of democracy was recognised as an asset of the ­long-­exalted European way of life. Yet, reservations soon ensued in the form of suspicions

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what cha ng ed ?  | 47 about the capacity of the little or less educated for ‘ideal’ choices. As a show business celebrity would state in a highly rated television show, triggering a sensational, nationwide debate: ‘It’s just not fair that my vote and that of a shepherd on a mountain skirt should have the same weight.’10 The solution in prolonged use had been to subdue the popular vote via the control exercised by the military, the system of high courts (called ‘high judiciary’ locally, yüksek yargı) and a centralised, disciplinarian structure of higher education, namely the bureaucracy. During the regime change from 2007, this system of reins on politics routinely used by the bureaucracy would come to be termed by the liberal critics an ‘order of tutelage’, as such not dissimilar perhaps to the religious trusteeship system, velayet-e faqih, in neighbouring Iran, which provided ‘doctrinaire’ guidance for politics. Yet, with increasing Europeanisation, reforms introduced into the system would make the bureaucratic control of politics more and more difficult. The frustration at the onset of the institutional change would lead in early 2007 to several ­large-­scale demonstrations, public protests and marches by the apparent supporters of the bureaucracy against the transformation of the system, with participants notably sporting Turkish flags, presenting the whole issue as no less than one of national survival, while chanting against the ‘­pro-­European’ government accused of selling out the country. These public rallies, later to be linked to various conspiracies, including coup plots that would come under close legal scrutiny (see Chapter 3), would be viewed by those in circles close to the government as effective calls on the military to take over the administration. Although this perception was perhaps accurate in relation to some of the strains in those massive gatherings, the p ­ ro-­democracy observers would consistently ignore a genuine concern and watchfulness on the part of most protesters over less than compelling democratic credentials of the government behind the transformation.11 New Consensus The government formed by the AKP, a political party that emerged out of the forces of political Islam in the country,12 hence the strong misgivings of secular urbanites over the change led by it, was able to hold the soaring tension in check through two means, both products of conjuncture. One was increasing stability in the e­ conomy­– ­­a litmus test after the country had

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48  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y practically hit rock bottom in 2001, the year before the AKP took over the mandate and became heir to a radically reorganised financial system, complete with the strict guidance provided by the International Monetary Fund for years to come. Second, and perhaps more important, was a rare atmosphere of relative consensus in society among those outside the clients of the bureaucracy around democratic values, which brought practising Muslims, liberals and even a small group of l­eft-­wing intellectuals together. This alliance against the centre would in turn facilitate a set of legal investigations into alleged military and paramilitary conspiracies purportedly aimed to terrorise masses by creating havoc in the land (see Chapter 3), if not to justify a possible military putsch, to impose a ­security-­centred outlook on policies, as demanded in republican circles. Underway from ­mid-­2007, the legal investigations would lead to the detention of a great number of ­high-­profile figures, including some of the t­op-­ranking members of the military, retired or in office. In the first judgement to be delivered in only one case out of several, in September 2012, when the regime change was complete, hundreds of military officers, both serving and retired, would receive heavy sentences for an ‘incomplete attempt’ at coup. Nothing other than a newly found and sufficiently dedicated social consensus, bridging the established social divides, would make it possible for figures of this prominence to face trial in a country paralysed in the past via a succession of military takeovers. Some among the accused were known by the public for masterminding the massive intimidation and harassment of intellectuals such as the novelist Orhan Pamuk and the ­Turkish-­Armenian journalist Hrant Dink for their ­anti-­establishment views. Pamuk had had to leave the country, having been advised to that effect by the police; and Dink, who had refused to leave, would subsequently be murdered (see Chapter 9). The chilling allegations against the suspects, revealed in the investigations and publicly debated, would deliver a significant blow to the centre, practically numbing the ­pro-­bureaucracy camp for a response. Further, the effective containment of these mostly ‘­anti-­Europe’ figures through the legal investigations would prove conducive to an intellectual environment not constantly t­errorised­– ­­as in the p ­ ast­– ­­by ceaseless roars of inculpation claiming breaches in national security, long instrumental in blocking democratic reform initiatives. The contingency formed by liberal and ­left-­wing intellectuals in support of the ­pro-­European policies

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what cha ng ed ?  | 49 of the government would not only attract to the a­ nti-­bureaucracy coalition the backing of some ­well-­educated and ­better-­off Turks outside the devout Muslim circles, the s­ o-­called ‘white Turks’, but would also serve to translate for the international public opinion the transformation in Turkey, securing for the government invaluable international backing.13 This loose coalition behind the reforms was not always a happy one, with the liberals occasionally registering public criticisms of the ruling AKP for its faltering policies in the ongoing process of democratisation, yet it would continue by default, attracting rising support for the AKP from around 34 per cent in 2002 to close to 50 per cent in 2011. Showdown The crippling blows to the old regime would be delivered in a set of moves in an unusually agitated political atmosphere from early 2007 to early 2011, which would shatter the centre by decisively ending the de facto autonomy of the bureaucracy in the face of democratic politics. Outside observers who monitored the old regime were often habitually locked on the mighty military, which was behind several disruptions in democratic rule in the recent history. Yet, as contended above, the main fault line of the regime long appeared to be between the ‘greater bureaucracy’ and democratic politics, with the military being only one aspect of the colossal machinery that was the bureaucracy. More conspicuous, to be sure, the military was also relatively well integrated with the defence establishments in the rest of the world. The army had been part of NATO since 1952 and participated in international missions, with most of its ­high-­tier officers taking turns to serve outside Turkey in close association with their international counterparts. All this demanded not only a working knowledge of the larger world and of international standards but also a degree of careerism on the part of the officers, which made them politically more flexible. Largely alien to such integration and professional competition in its functioning, the civilian bureaucracy was an altogether different matter. The absorption of some of the European bureaucratic practices under the Council of Europe, in the form of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights for the judiciary, and the Bologna process of integration for higher education, was both relatively new and marred with considerable resistance locally.

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50  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y As a result, the civilian bureaucracy of the old regime consistently remained somewhat parochial in its ‘exceptionalist’ outlook, readily bracketing off known international standards in sectoral performances (in law and in university education, principally) by treating Turkey as an ‘exception’ to be excused on account of its ‘unique’ problems and to be evaluated in its own right, free of the benchmarks valid elsewhere. The preponderance of this state of mind in the civilian bureaucracy was sustained over the years with its carefully crafted autonomy from the machinations of democratic politics. This autonomy was formally enabled, following the coup in 1980, through the sole authority of the president, introduced in the new Constitution, over those branches of the bureaucracy, chiefly through the exclusive powers accorded to the otherwise ceremonial position of the president to enact appointments to the top posts. That the leader of the military junta would have himself made the president in the same Constitution, put to the public vote in 1982, as the country prepared to switch back to democracy, only partly explained this arrangement. More significantly, in a lingering line of practice in the whole republican era, most presidents were elected by the parliament from among those at the highest positions of bureaucracy. The president, in other words, was assumed all along to be a key player in maintaining the ‘balance’ against democratic politics. Therefore, in April 2007, when the ruling AKP sought to elect a politician from its ranks, Abdullah Gül, for president, a storm of protests would immediately ensue and no less than the political rule itself would be catapulted into perilous uncertainty.14 Actual power in the administration being exercised more by the bureaucracy than the government enabled by the popular mandate, the move for the presidential post was rightly perceived as an attempt to turn the tide and acquire ‘genuine’ power, with vital implications for the established order.15 The access to the top bureaucratic position was access to tap into that power. The intention to disrupt the tradition would soon lead to an unequivocal threat by the military on 27 April 2007 to topple the government if the latter were bold enough to go through with the proposed course of action. In an unprecedented act of defiance, the AKP would resist the pressure by resorting to an early general election. In the polls in July 2007, the AKP would in turn be rewarded with a significant increase in its votes, reaching about 47 per cent, and as such more than doubling the share of its closest contender.

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what cha ng ed ?  | 51 Now democratically fortified, the AKP would be able to have its candidate elected president in August of the same year, which would mean, as predicted, the beginning of the end for the established order. The reticence by the military to take further action after its thunderous threat only a few months ago in April would at once bring home for all the bare fact that the era of military interventions had almost certainly come to a close.16 The purportedly ‘­anti-­coup’ legal investigations that started at about the same time with the debate on the president, to continue unrelenting in the following few years, with the accompanying raids and searches on military premises, would before long more than reinforce this perception. New legislation in December 2010 would make military spending partially subject to the review of the High Council of Auditors (Sayıştay),17 although later to be loosened and robbed of the needed transparency through ­by-­laws.18 In protest of the latest developments, especially the continuing detention of h ­ igh-­ranking military staff in the legal investigations, the chief of military staff and three of the four army commanders would request early retirement in July 2011. Failing to stir the public and thus corner the government, as ostensibly counted on by the retiring heads of the military bureaucracy, who would be replaced by the government swiftly, this event would effectively seal the debate on the role of the military in domestic politics. (The only army commander who refused the peer pressure to request retirement in protest would become the new chief of military staff.) A hugely relieved government would promise a set of new measures to be adopted towards greater democratic control of the armed forces, though later not to be kept, including the ending of the hitherto virtually autonomous structure of the military by placing it under the organisation of the Ministry of Defence, long a vacuous office.19 Yet, for all practical purposes, the army appeared to have been forced out of the equation in politics. Transforming the civilian bureaucracy, largely intact until the end of 2010, would be somewhat trickier. Briefly after the election of the new president, resistance to democratic politics would be broken in the body that oversaw the higher education system in the country, the Council of Higher Education (Yükseköğretim Kurulu, YÖK). This central organ in charge of over 100 universities at the time had long securitised research, censured issue areas and disciplined academics. The new appointments by the president to this

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52  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y organ would serve to open up the system to greater political representation, allowing the participation of those other than the traditional clients of the bureaucracy, chiefly pious Muslims, although it would soon be clear that the government had less interest in widened participation in the system than a gradual hegemony, simply reproducing the old one. Instead of ‘normalising’ or, as occasionally promised, revoking altogether this tightly centralised and structurally flawed system altogether, the government would initiate what would soon appear to be a new and ruthless form of partisanship, with new practices of inclusion and exclusion setting i­n­– ­­one of the rapidly proliferating causes for concern about the genuineness of the democratic aspirations of the AKP ahead of 2011, when the regime change would be complete. From November 2015, hitherto unheard of powers would be granted to the YÖK under a new political task accorded to it, namely watching for possible ‘subversive’ activities at private universities and taking those establishments over if required, rendering this old bureaucratic apparatus more formidable than ever in its control of the academia.20 The renewal in the Office of the President in 2007 would not begin to take effect as quickly in the profile of the ­so-­called high judiciary for a number of reasons, such as the fact that some high court members were elected for life or that some high courts and the central body, the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors (Hakimler ve Savcılar Yüksek Kurulu, HSYK), in charge of appointing judges for positions at those courts, were constitutionally part of a ­co-­optive system closed to outside interference. The result was that the judiciary would largely continue for some time to come as a formidable force through its control of parliamentary acts and government decisions, and for its rather dubious practice of fundamental rights and freedoms. Rights Under the Old Regime Particularly salient in the performance of the judiciary in departing from international standards under the old regime appeared to be the last issue area. The critical part that courts ­played­– ­­strange as it may ­sound­– ­­in the suppression of fundamental rights and freedoms, while compulsively privileging concerns for the security of the traditional centre, was long flagrant. The judicial complicity in the brutal treatment of the Kurds, from the wilful destruction of thousands of villages to forced disappearances and

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what cha ng ed ?  | 53 extrajudicial killings, especially in the most vicious phase of the conflict in the 1990s, would be well documented in numerous cases decided by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) against Turkey (see Chapter 9). The judgements at issue would note, with gradually declining surprise, the cynical part played in all that by the system of high courts. There had always been a divide in the judicial order between the ­so-­called ‘chair’ (kürsü) judges of first instance courts and those in the high judiciary. The high court judges appointed to those positions by the president, the constitutionally recognised head of the bureaucracy, interpreted the law with unwavering security reflexes, in defiance of democratic politics when necessary. From the early 1990s, the divide between the first instance and high courts would grow further as the bureaucracy became more and more alarmed by the heightening political confidence of both the pious Muslims and the Kurdish nationalists. The increasing partisanship on the part of the high judiciary would embolden ­like-­minded judges and prosecutors functioning at ordinary courts, while inhibiting the rest. The judgements by the ECtHR indicating glaring irregularities in the local justice system would often prompt indignation and wrath in p ­ ro-­bureaucracy circles, who would condemn the Strasbourg court either for its utter ignorance of the security situation with which, unlike an ordinary European state, Turkey had to grapple, or for being part of the overall conspiracy of ‘the West’ to weaken and destroy the country. Absurdly, the Turkish concerns behind some of the blatant disregards of rights happened to overlap with international security concerns in the immediate aftermath of the Islamist terror events of 11 September 2001, as with a notorious ECtHR ruling that practically ‘endorsed’ the ban on the hijab at universities.21 This de facto ban would soon be ended locally, with the restrictions in public employment to be relaxed and eventually lifted (save for the armed forces and the police) in October 2013.22 Recognising an unusually wide margin of appreciation for the domestic judiciary in the matter, without the European supervision normally expected of it, the ECtHR appeared in 2005 simply to subscribe to the native bureaucratic mantra that, as distinct from the bulk of the European states within the system, modern Turkey had emerged out of a ‘theocratic’ state still fresh in memory, where therefore a relapse threatening the rights and freedoms of others was not entirely inconceivable, which in turn justified

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54  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y the ban on the hijab at universities, or made it understandable, as a legitimate discretionary exercise of the local authorities.23 The irony in this overused alibi and apology would elude most outside observers. Ostensibly bought here by the ECtHR, the local political heritage as an excuse in curbing a basic right was in fact built on an obvious inaccuracy in the overall perception of the former Ottoman state, a m ­ ulti-­ethnic, multifaith edifice. In 2011, republican Turkey ­celebrated­– ­­in newspaper headlines, no ­less­– ­­its first ever ­non-­Muslim civil servant, a Turkish Armenian.24 (For a quick comparison, the late Ottoman administration had abounded in ­non-­Muslim civil servants soon after the inception of modern bureaucracy from the ­mid-­nineteenth century.) A ­non-­Muslim being at long last the recipient of the trust of the bureaucracy in the republican Turkey, in its ninety or so years of history, was in effect a plain indication, among countless other evidence, that intolerance and active discrimination on grounds of faith, projected here on the hijabi women, was a brutal reality of none other than the powerful bureaucracy in the country. High courts under the old regime were known scandalously to refer to n ­ on-­Muslim nationals as ‘aliens’ in various judgements. Accordingly, to be a Turk, one needed to be a Muslim, although a pious and practising Muslim might be equally problematic. In fact, replacing the Ottoman ‘Muslim’ with the deceptively ­secular-­sounding ‘Turk’, the republican administration seemed only to have adopted an earlier, European ­usage­– ­­just as the title ‘Turkey’, borrowed from ­Europeans­– ­­rather than making a radical break for a secular, civic form of identity. Quite apart from the historical European references to the Muslim identity through the use of the term ‘Turk’, the designation ‘Turk’ in this sense was highly familiar locally, having long been in use among Christian subjects under the Ottoman administration.25 In other words, notwithstanding its strong credentials for secularism, from the very onset the republican rule fully inherited the Ottoman millet system, in which ethnicity was inseparable from religion.26 Less than charitable when abstracted from its historical setting prior to the nineteenth century, the republican rule appeared nevertheless informally to continue this system, notably starting with the exchange of populations with Greece between 1924 and 1932, when Christian Turks were forcibly deported (and, in return, mostly Slavic Muslims from the Balkans were invited). It was greatly the same old reflex that denied the

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what cha ng ed ?  | 55 Kurds, who were Muslims, a separate ethnic identity until recently: a Muslim was a Turk by definition. As part of the millet of Islam, the Kurds had in fact been able to preserve in Ottoman times a distinct concept of ethnic and cultural belonging, with no restrictions placed on either the manifestations of this separate identity or the use of the marker ‘Kurdish’. Adopting the old notion of millet for the modern ‘nation’, at the cost of robbing the Kurds of an indigenous presence towards forcibly ‘Turkifying’ them, would prove to be simply catastrophic. The obliteration of the Alevi identity in the republican era may also have been part and parcel of this deep historical current. A syncretic faith, Alevism defied the ­clear-­cut categories of millet, which the republican administration had taken over from Ottoman Turkey. A constitutional amendment in 2004 towards fulfilling the Copenhagen political criteria, as demanded by the EU integration process, had already made Turkey’s international agreements on democracy and human rights an integral part of its domestic law, on par with, even perhaps above, the Constitution, to be taken into account by the judiciary directly (see Chapter 5). Yet this no less than ‘revolutionary’ move, hailed by human rights activists as a breakthrough, would seem to produce little effect in the subsequent practice in constraining the judiciary. The decisive step that would eventually put an end to the judiciary as the sole remaining guardian of the old regime would come in the form of a set of constitutional amendments, supported by 58 per cent of the votes in a heated referendum in September 2010. The amendments would break the system of appointments to high courts, ending the republican hegemony in the judiciary.27 The overhaul would be completed by an act of parliament in February 2011, which would change the composition of high courts, introducing a substantial number of new members.28 All this would take place amidst cries of blatant partisanship against members of the judiciary loyal to the old regime, a claim that had considerably more than just a grain of truth to it.29 Still, a number of critical decisions by high courts in the immediate aftermath of this momentous structural transformation would go on distinguishing the high judiciary as unrelenting in its former, securitising function, indicating both that the top judges loyal to the old order would not take the defeat simply lying down and that, despite the institutional change, the overall establishment was simply being unwavering in its disposition towards rights, especially when those

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56  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y rights did not immediately correspond to the concerns of the ruling AKP. A vivid illustration was the publicly debated case of the student pledge. Judicial Nationalism Schoolchildren made a ‘gift’ of their budding little selves to what seemed to be a menacingly demanding corporate ‘being’ every school day in the morning, before classes, since 1933. This Spartan act of devotion from children came in a pledge that was compulsory in all primary schools, s­ tate-­funded or private, exempting only the n ­ on-­nationals attending local schools, who did not have to swear it. Penned originally by a minister of education of Atatürk in the early republican era, the pledge would come to include in 1972 a direct address to Atatürk himself, whose name literally read ‘the father of Turks’. This pledge extended within the cult of an overbearing yet benevolent father, all too familiar to those who visited Turkey and were practically bewildered by the omnipresence of this cult in the country, articulated: I’m a Turk, upright and ­hard-­working. My rule is to protect my younger, respect my older, and love my homeland and nation more than myself. My goal is to rise and go forward. O great Atatürk! I swear pledge to marching ceaselessly on the road you paved, and towards the target you laid out. May my being be a gift to the [collective] Turkish being. Lucky to be a Turk!

The last sentence, which was a motto introduced by Atatürk in forging the new nation out of the old Ottoman Muslim millet, is more literally translated: ‘How happy is the one who says I’m a Turk.’ If the language of the pledge sounds broken and somewhat bizarre, it should be added that it felt no less forced and unreal in the original. The bellicose injustice of painting the mountains of the country’s ­south-­east, populated mostly by the Kurds, in huge letters of the motto ‘Lucky to be a Turk’­– a­ long enduring practice of the military in active combat with the Kurdish guerrillas in the ­region­– ­­was once pointed out by Abdullah Gül, later to be one of the founders of the AKP, in an interview in 1995.30 This criticism, found to be in evident resentment of the settled order, would later be used against Gül when he was nominated for the office of president. In the sharply rebuking memo of April 2007, discussed above, the military would threaten, referring to this past statement, an imminent takeover if Gül were

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what cha ng ed ?  | 57 to be elected president. As noted, the subsequently thwarted coup, with Gül in the office, would effectively mean the beginning of the end for the old order. The system of high courts would be completely restructured by early 2011, yet the judiciary would go on holding its doctrinaire sway for some of the critical cases still in process. It was against this background that the State Council (Danıştay), the highest administrative court seated in Ankara, would dismiss in October 2010 a long overdue application arranged by a human rights organisation that challenged the compulsory student pledge on grounds of human rights violation.31 The judiciary under the old regime had been equally indifferent to the grievances of the Alevi minority. Just as the compulsory school pledge Kurdish children were compelled to chant every morning, the Alevi children were forced, and would continue to be forced under the new regime (see Chapter 9), to attend religious classes in schools that virtually ignored Alevism. Over the years, the demands for the Alevi children to be able to opt out of religious classes were consistently rejected by the judiciary, culminating in a judgement of the ECtHR in 2007, which found Turkey in blatant disregard of both the freedom of religion and the right to education. Mandatory religious teaching may sound out of place, given the fact that the republican ideology that motivated the bureaucracy was known for its avowed secularism. Religion (or perhaps Islam, rather than religion as such) had for centuries been an instrument of control at the disposal of the public authority in Ottoman Turkey, and had inevitably extended in some measure into the republican era. More specifically, the republican reformism had to ‘securitise’ religion, seeking to supervise and manage the social space occupied by religion through state involvement, with a view to preventing, as it was put officially by Turkey to the European Court in the case cited, possible ‘abuses’ of religion in the hands of private believers.32 Accordingly, Alevism was repressed, as were some of the practices such as the hijab of the devout Sunni Islam, with the aim of sustaining a ‘state religion’ that was in keeping with the republican social engineering. Ahmet Davutoğlu, the prime minister succeeding Erdoğan from August 2014, would repeat almost verbatim this old republican line of defence against a new finding of violation by the ECtHR in 2014 in vindication of a group of Alevi parents.33 Criticising the judgement of the European

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58  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y Court, c­ ompulsory religious teaching was an imperative, Davutoğlu would maintain, to prevent possible abuses of religion by radical ­elements34­ – ­­an uncannily full mimetic sway in the matter on the political rule in the aftermath of the old regime. The judiciary in its ideological role under the old regime would be brought to the attention of international public opinion on the eve of the regime change for its stringent application of a norm in the Penal Code that punished ‘denigrating Turkishness’. (The term ‘Turkishness’, which referred in the local political parlance to an objectified Turkish identity, an ethnic stock, including Turkic peoples outside Turkey, would be replaced in 2008 by the phrase ‘Turkish nation’.)35 In a manifestly bleak setting in which Noam Chomsky’s Turkish publisher had been prosecuted in 2002 for one of his books translated into Turkish (enthusiastic to be of help, Chomsky had come over to take part in the proceedings, only to be refused by the court to be an intervening party),36 this norm in the Penal Code would be used in several high profile cases, with the overall effect of intimidating and harassing intellectuals in the country. One of the most highlighted would be the case of the T ­ urkish-­Armenian journalist Hrant Dink for a newspaper column in 2004, discussed below in detail (see Chapter 9) in pointing out the ironic continuity on yet another key issue in the wake of the regime change. A similar charge was brought against Orhan Pamuk for a statement he had made in an interview in 2005: ‘Thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in Turkey. Almost no one dares speak but me, and the nationalists hate me for that.’37 A criminal complaint was immediately lodged with an Istanbul court against Pamuk for denigrating Turkishness. The local court did not find that the complainants, ­well-­known public figures in ­neo-­nationalist circles, had been inflicted with a legally discernible damage by Pamuk’s statement, hence not qualified to be litigants to file a complaint against him. Yet the Court of Cassation would swiftly overrule the dismissal by the first instance court. Eventually prosecuted, Pamuk would be found guilty as charged in March 2011.38 The complainants would be awarded 6,000 Turkish liras each (about US $4,000 at the time) in damages purportedly caused by Pamuk’s statement. The case set a precedent for thousands (even millions) of other possible litigants against Pamuk, with each conceivably empowered to demand from him the amount ordered by the court in

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what cha ng ed ?  | 59 this case, which might turn the entire thing into a nightmare for the novelist. Although the new claims would have to be dismissed, normally for the lapse of time that legally absolved the defendant, those familiar with the judiciary in an array of political cases knew that, all the same, the outcome would be less than predictable. In another case in March 2011, with the regime change complete, the Constitutional Court would refuse an application that contested, on the basis of the principle of equality protected in the Constitution, the legality of a provision in a statute on family name, dating back to 1934, which prohibited the adoption of names traceable to an ‘alien race or nation’.39 The case originated in Midyat in the ­south-­eastern province of Mardin, where a pocket of fast-diminishing Assyrian community resided (estimated to be around 10,000 people). The claimant, who had sought to have his Assyrian name registered, yet only to be turned down by the local officialdom, had nevertheless persuaded the first instance court to take the matter to the Constitutional Court. Evaluating the argument communicated to it by the local court, the high court would refuse to find the rule in question at odds with the principle of equality, arguing, in a turn of phrase tinted with unwitting black humour: ‘the rule is being applied to all who wish to adopt a name attributable to an alien race or nation, without discrimination. Therefore, it cannot be claimed to run counter to the principle of equality enshrined in the Constitution.’ The logic advanced in the court opinion seemed to be a mere rehash of the ironic justice, famously mocked by Walter Benjamin, for ‘equally’ forbidding both the rich and the poor ‘to spend the night under the bridges’.40 That was the grim backdrop against which the State Council would rule on the compulsory student pledge, finding nothing wrong with the practice.41 In its judgement made public in April 2011, the high court would refer to a provision in the Constitution that stated: ‘All who are affiliated with the Turkish state through nationality are Turks.’ This definition, the court would argue, should be read into the references to the Turkish identity in the student pledge. In other words, the ‘Turk’ and ‘Turkish’ in the pledge referred to a civic form of identity according to the court, rather than an ethnicity; hence, no racism, no discrimination, could be claimed to be at work. The pledge had been designed, the court would note, to inculcate in the new generations the ‘pride’ and ‘joy’ of being part of the Turkish state and society.

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60  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y ‘Turkishness’ in this precise sense, namely as a ­non-­ethnic identity based on the formal nationality, was none other than a tired catchline of republican nationalism, used when challenged by the discourse of human rights. The argument was hardly convincing for those with peripheral identities, particularly when combined with school textbooks and teaching on Turkish identity, with a Central Asian ethnicity at the centre, thrust into the very same schoolchildren. A comparison between this decision by a Turkish high court and a celebrated ruling of the United States (US) Supreme Court in 1943, in which the latter found unacceptable the relatively innocuous US pledge of allegiance for denoting ‘compulsory unification of opinion’,42 should reveal the state of the Turkish judiciary, despite its ­self-­declared and ironic commitment to ‘the most advanced levels of civilisation’, another republican motto. The pledge was obviously a human rights issue, not only for minorities such as the Kurds, but also arguably for all, for subjecting children to a heartless, violent anachronism of the 1930s. More crucially perhaps, the Atatürk reference in its content was hardly pleasing to the AKP elite, who would thus ultimately end the debate on the pledge in October 2013 by simply repealing a minor provision in the regulations that referred to it.43 In place of a largely independent yet barely impartial justice system characteristic of the old order, a new piece of legislation would soon effectively end the independence and impartiality of the judiciary altogether,44 transforming the justice system from February 2014 into a mere office under the political authority. Irony Paradoxically, the move on the part of Turkey to participate in the integration into Europe in 1959 was a strategy inspired by the identity politics of the elite in the centre, manifest largely in an imposed mimicry of an assumed European way of life at the cost of marginalising large masses. As more recent research by Şaban Çalış would demonstrate, Turkey applied to the European Economic Community (EEC) for membership not for economic reasons, as often assumed.45 Indeed, economic analyses of membership conducted domestically did not come before the second half of the 1960s. And when those probes were finally advanced, mainly pursued by the newly set up State Planning Agency (Devlet Planlama Teşkilatı, DPT), they were less than favourable. The DPT, manned mostly by the rising social

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what cha ng ed ?  | 61 groups of socialist economists and conservative engineers newly recruited for the centre (including Turgut Özal, later the prime minister and president, with a radically altered view of Turkey’s European prospects), voiced the opinion that integration with Europe would be economically ruinous for Turkey, as the country could not possibly compete with European production levels and markets. Nor did Turkey apply to the EEC for security reasons. The mainstream literature on the topic often cited the application by Greece, only the preceding month in the same year, as having forced Turkish ­policy-­makers into the move. This view omitted the fact that the relationship at the time between Greece and Turkey was one more of ‘companionship’ within Western alliance, as noted by Çalış, than ‘rivalry’.46 This was the case at least from the perspective of the Turkish p ­ olicy-­makers. Greece’s application clearly did have a catalytic effect though, not because of rivalry, but because the Turkish administration counted on the reflexes of the common security alliance, in the habit of coupling Greece and Turkey together, treating the two e­ qually­– a­­ Cold War pattern from the Truman Doctrine of 1947 onwards. That is, the Turkish ­policy-­makers simply reasoned, as Çalış argues, that Turkey would have a greater chance of being admitted to the emerging European society of states if it jumped on the bandwagon following Greece.47 Turkey’s strong aspirations to be a participant in the integration process in Europe were not prompted, in short, by either economic reasons or by rivalry with Greece. Rather, the application appeared to be in continuity with the sweeping reforms of the late 1920s and 1930s, led by Atatürk, when the republican administration adopted, among other things, a new European alphabet, European calendar, even a compulsory European style of clothing for the people, as part of the cultural revolution that defined the era. Seeking a permanent future in Europe, as projected in 1959, was thus in the fabric of the t­op-­down cultural transformation of the earlier period, to be hailed by the ­latter-­day republicans as the golden age that should set norms for all times. Moreover, this favourable view of Europe went unchallenged for decades to come. It was a little remembered but almost shocking fact from the late 1990s, for instance, that one of the reasons for the military coup in March 1971 was that the country was losing its European perspective.48 The radicalisation of politics from the second half of the 1960s had altered the domestic scene. Smaller political parties that had become significant were

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62  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y clearly ­anti-­Europe. To lure back votes from those, the larger, mainstream political parties had also come to question the terms of integration with Europe. Furthermore, the DPT, with its conservative right and radical left alignment, sceptical of Europe, was bluntly resisting the process of integration. That all this was ruining the country’s projected future in Europe was one of the reasons behind the military takeover. In short, the politics of identity championed in the early republican Turkey clearly favoured a European identity for the new entity, if only a static and superficial one which, as it was assumed, would best be sealed through some nominal integration with Europe. The irony, of course, is that this earlier pastiche of a European identity would come to be a tool in the hands of the critics of republicanism to form the dynamic behind the substantive shift in the configuration of power in the country between 2007 and 2011, widening political participation in favour of the l­ ong-­ignored periphery to a degree not tolerable to those loyal to the old order. Mimesis (the pastiche) had prevailed over identity.49 Foreign Policy The old regime in Turkey would crumble almost simultaneously with the massive resistance to regimes in places in North Africa and the Middle East ruled in the past by Ottoman Turkey, regimes with which the one lapsed in Turkey had in common possibly more than what immediately met the eye. What appeared to be a euphoric turn of tide in the greater region, with ‘revolutions’ from early 2011, would prove to be both a priceless opportunity and a sinister trap for Turkey in its incipient foreign policy. The Arab Spring, as the turn of events was called, seemed to have brought about a political ‘normalisation’ in the region not unlike that in Turkey, with Islamist movements, long repressed and excluded, starting to acquire hitherto unobserved weight in the domestic politics of several countries. Itself linked to Islamist politics, the AKP rule would certainly gravitate towards a deepening of relations in the region, now facing a new layout. A celebratory mood in this regard would be communicated rather spectacularly in an AKP convention in September 2012, which would have among the distinguished guests virtually all of the leaders and representatives of the Arab Spring. Was this a ‘new axis’ in foreign policy, and as such a harbinger of things to come in Turkey’s immediate neighbourhood, as would be widely commented

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what cha ng ed ?  | 63 on in the subsequent phase? The answer rehearsed in this book is an unqualified ‘no’, despite signs that might suggest a wholly different story: namely the lavish fanfare with which the then prime pinister Tayyip Erdoğan greeted the new power brokers in the region, the fact that he undoubtedly relished and cherished his rising personal popularity in the region beyond Turkey, and last but by no means least, his apparent involvement in the domestic politics of several regional ­states­– ­­all that which would shortly transform him into a foe for most regional administrations. Arguably, Erdoğan simply took some ‘publicity risks’ following the Arab revolutions, as part of his overall impartiality for pageantry and ostentation, mostly for the benefit of home audiences though, rather than pursuing some new, independent and radical line of foreign policy. What would be viewed by most as his reckless interferences in domestic affairs of the regional states in the following spell were almost entirely an extension of Turkey’s role as defined strictly by the allies, namely the United States (US) and Europe, carefully disguised by Erdoğan for home audiences as brave new initiatives on his part in fearless defiance of the US and Europe. As detailed in this book, even the particularly perilous entanglement in Syria from 2012, reportedly in support of the jihadist factions there, would be a mere appendage to this policy framework, with some personal flair, to be sure, on Erdoğan’s part. The quagmire in Syria, which would come to be branded domestically as a colossal failure for Turkish foreign policy, would be a consequence more of bad timing, of mixed signals, and of being practically jilted by the greater alliance, than of a newly found assertiveness by the government gravely blind to the thin ice it would have to tread in the region. Yet, the autocracy Erdoğan was increasingly displaying in ruling style would come to be confused by most observers with a more draconian attempt at political transformation at both the domestic and regional levels. That is, the new regime in place from 2011 would be content on the whole with its settled strategic position within the E ­ uro-­Atlantic community, seeking perhaps only to augment that role by getting more and more involved in regional affairs and by thus adding to its significance for the allies. Beyond the s­ cene-­stealing personal bent frequently exerted by Erdoğan, the renewed interest in the greater region, reaching beyond the Middle East to the depths of Africa and Asia, was also partly to do with the economic influence Turkey would start pursuing with the aim of securing a steady

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64  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y growth in its economy. Finally, the unmistakeable signs in the mere oration and display, hinting at a possible ‘shift of axis’ in foreign policy, should also be understood as a purely discursive annex of the regime change, towards a foreign policy at least ‘sounding’ more accountable in democratic terms, while the actual policy remained within the limits of the lasting and cherished ­Euro-­Atlantic alliance. Speaking of democratic accountability, the distinction under the old regime between the ‘state’ and the ‘government’, noted above, was particularly pertinent in foreign policy. The regime assigned the bureaucracy that represented the state with the task of critical decisions and continuity in relations with the outside world, while governments had room for manoeuvre only in the domestic sphere within the framework of parameters, or red lines, established and guarded by the bureaucracy. This would gradually wane from 2003, with the new AKP policy on Cyprus in clear defiance of the bureaucratic authority. The opposition to the Iraqi war in the same year and the discourse, if not the policy, on Israel from early 2009 were generally reflective of this turn. The discursive revision of the old Israel–Turkey partnership, with some rather greedy use perhaps of the allowed limits within the ­Euro-­Atlantic affinity, would particularly be viewed as a factor to lend support to the vista of a more radical shift of focus in foreign policy. In truth, the ‘silent’ partnership with Israel in the usual form it took over decades under the old regime was gravely indifferent to the realities of the region, a fact that could not escape a more democratically accountable Turkey, and was thus politically risky on the home front. The discursive revision of the policy on Israel would also serve, it needs to be added, a personal soft spot by endearing Erdoğan to the masses in the greater region, where a more spectacular political transformation was in process from late 2010. Erdoğan would soon appear to be by far the most popularly admired leader in the Arab world.50 That he would desire this popularity only within acceptable limits, risking in so doing even some dismay of the supporters in the region, would be clear from his overall stance. For instance, he would state to the local media during his tour of Egypt in the aftermath of the revolution: ‘Do not be wary of secularism. I hope there will be a secular state in Egypt.’51 Anxious to conform to the established order, he had been rendered haplessly oblivious to the fact that Egypt had never been secular and that it had been no bone of contention either in the uprising or thereafter. The cardinal link between the new regime

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what cha ng ed ?  | 65 in Turkey and the subsequently mostly aborted initiatives of regime change in the Arab landscape from early 2011 was perhaps, beyond the timing, the simple majoritarianism in ­ascendancy regionally in the face of the ‘modernist’ forms of purportedly benign disenfranchisement of masses (see Chapter 4). Revealingly, the bond Erdoğan seemed to form with the masses in the region took place barely through an alignment with Islamists alone. His popularity in the Arab world, which would abruptly come to an end in the aftermath of the old regime in Turkey, was hardly separable from the ‘soft power’ or cultural influence in the region via the hugely successful Turkish television soap operas that rather aggressively advertised to the Arabs modern secular life in Turkey. A chain of developments in the second half of 2015 would clear away the doubts of a possible shift in foreign policy. The influx of refugees into Europe, fleeing ­war-­torn Syria via Turkey, and the panic this rush would create in Europe, would serve to rekindle relations with the European Union, which would offer an immediate resumption and acceleration of the membership negotiations in return for an effective containment of the refugees, with funds to be channelled from Europe. Almost simultaneously, the Russian military involvement in Syria in support of Damascus would end up driving Turkey more firmly than ever to the ­Euro-­Atlantic allies. The regional isolation Turkey would face would also appear to bring it close to a resuscitation of its relations with Israel, marred by occasional tensions since 2009. Home Front How did Turkey look domestically in the wake of the regime change, complete by 2011? What appeared to be in store politically in the new phase? Now that a limited democracy enabled by the watchful eye of the bureaucracy seemed no longer to be an option, the former clients of the bureaucracy, on guard against political Islam more than ever, would be expected to seek security and tolerance for ­non-­religious lifestyles by turning vaguely ­liberal­– ­­almost a dirty word in the settled republican p ­ arlance­– and ­­ by looking for safeguards in a deepened Europeanisation of the country that they had done much hitherto to sabotage. In so doing, the rational course of action for the former ­pro-­bureaucracy camp would be to actually take in and absorb the liberals, few in numbers yet decisive in shaping public opinion, who had been

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66  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y in support of the AKP until at least late 2010 in a joint drive to save politics from the yoke of the bureaucracy, and who had since grown more and more uneasy with the increasing tendency on the part of the AKP to pursue a simple majoritarian line of politics in its rule indifferent to more evolved forms of democracy. From 2012 the AKP would overtly come to sneer at the logistics it had received in abundance from the liberals up until only shortly before, more and more dismissive of the fact that the push against the old order had derived enormous momentum from that support, especially in winning over international public opinion. Moreover, in a particularly bold move, some of the intellectuals and media figures close to the government would soon enthusiastically ­re-­adopt and proudly proclaim the old tag ‘Islamist’ as an identity marker (see Chapter 5). The republican opposition had argued all along that the AKP rule from late 2002 had been championing democracy and Europeanisation only to disarm the mighty bureaucracy and put to work its dark agenda towards gradually undermining secularism in the country. While it was dubious that the AKP, as opposed to some of the Islamist ideologues loosely associated with it, had problems with secularism as such, beyond the rigid republican practice which sought to disempower and exclude devout Muslims through stringent eradication of signs of Muslim identity from public life, the phase in the immediate aftermath of the old regime would issue strong hints, at least at the discursive level, to vindicate that ­scepticism­– ­­combined with a loss of genuine interest on the part of the government in further democratisation and Europeanisation. With indecision and delay in accommodating some of the most innocuous demands of the Kurds and especially the Alevis, the AKP, which had called itself a conservative party for a decade, would appear from early 2012 as a ‘conservative’ force literally. Before long, the declining interest in continuing with political reforms would be coupled with a growing nonchalance towards violations of some basic rights, such as the freedom of speech and the right to peaceful assembly. Set up only in 2001 and in power for over a decade, having derived most of its energy and support from society for voicing the necessity of change and of integration with the broader world in the face of the old guard, how would the AKP survive as a political force, stalling and settling for the status quo? The AKP would pull through regardless, due mainly to (1) the enduring inability of the opposi-

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what cha ng ed ?  | 67 tion to inspire confidence in the voters, (2) a relative rationalisation of public services by the government, especially health care, significant to the silent masses, and (3) a sustained beat and stability in the economy. Undoubtedly baffling, yet after more than a decade, the opposition still appeared to lag behind the AKP in taking up a genuinely libertarian discourse that had vastly helped the AKP to swell and receive voter confidence, chiefly (but not exclusively) in the matter of a full recognition and some form of autonomy to be accorded to the Kurds. The shift in domestic power at the cost of the bureaucracy seemed to be complete nonetheless, with the regime debate practically over following the first general election in the new, ­post-­republican era in the country. The polls in June 2011 not only gave the ruling party a third consecutive win with a clear increase in its votes but also, and more importantly perhaps, the election environment conspicuously lacked a debate over the regime by the main contenders, signalling a tacit approval by virtually all of the actors in the domestic politics of the reconfiguration of power away from the bureaucracy. Notably, the main opposition, the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), where the voters mourning the old regime were concentrated, encountered the ruling AKP in the process leading to the election by drawing, for the first time, on a discourse of democracy and human rights, although a marked ambivalence within both ranks of this political party and in its election strategy was still the case. A more convincing and lasting policy by the CHP to engage in opposition through democratic means, clearly distancing itself from the old bureaucratic tools, appeared likely to come forth in some fashion all the same, and put greater pressure on the AKP, which had long succeeded in presenting itself to voters as the sole champion of democracy and of the idea of open frontiers with the world. At the government end, the uninterrupted electoral success would prove to be problematic, with the rule relying increasingly on a n ­ o-­nonsense mandate purportedly vouchsafed by the majority. Certainly a defender of democracy and human rights against the old regime, the AKP would grow more and more intolerant of criticism in any form, with Erdoğan being forward enough to openly denounce critics at public rallies and to issue threats. Now that the bureaucracy was no longer a menace, Erdoğan would also start speaking of new policies to ‘reshape’ society culturally, a discourse that would scare

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68  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y witless most secular urbanites. The ­high-­handed rhetoric would lead some of the former supporters, both liberal52 and, interestingly, pious Muslim,53 to dub the new regime as Kemalism (understood as Jacobin reformism) in a new guise, or as ‘religious Kemalism’.54 The disenchantment among some of the former supporters would expand over the treatment of the Kurdish political opposition, despite a rather promising ‘settlement process’ newly under way. The Kurdish political movement would continue, as before, to be harassed through haphazard legal investigations, with some of the locally elected mayors kept in detention for long periods and put on trial for alleged links to the PKK, the Kurdish guerrilla organisation, while, paradoxically, the government itself would be in contact, and reportedly negotiating a deal, with Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the organisation, who had been in captivity in Turkey since 1999. With the direct talks getting nowhere in the first few years, some observers would think that the ­self-­styled peace initiative could mean that the Kurds were being handled by Erdoğan as simply another power tool, just as the liberal intellectuals had been in the past. Claiming that Erdoğan was playing merely for time, those observers would not seem, with hindsight, to be too wide off the target. Still practically running the ruling AKP despite his constitutionally ‘neutral’, n ­ on-­partisan position as president as of August 2014, Erdoğan would come from early 2015, ahead of the general election in June, to court nationalist voters, with the knowledge, apparently, that the opinion polls did not exactly flatter the AKP. Failing to attract the nationalists, the AKP would end up worse off in June by losing considerable numbers of Kurds too; those Kurds, that is, not in agreement with the radical or leftist leanings of the Kurdish political movement, thus having voted regularly for the AKP in the past. Recipient of the Kurdish votes that had left the AKP, the ­Kurdish-­led Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, HDP) would double the votes that the political parties of Kurdish politics had on average received ever before, ultimately denying the AKP a clear majority in the parliament for the first time since 2002. The AKP would regain almost all of its 2011 votes t­ hough­– a­­ bout one vote out of every ­two­– ­­in the following November, as Erdoğan would effectively prevent a coalition government and force snap elections. Within less than five months, the AKP would miraculously swell from just over 40 per cent of the overall votes in June to nearly 50 per cent in November, by

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what cha ng ed ?  | 69 provoking, ostensibly under Erdoğan’s coaching, voter insecurities. A possible coalition government with the CHP had been blocked, despite the extraordinarily accommodating approach of the latter, which would in turn foster a picture of political impermanence and frailty in the absence of a o­ ne-­party majority.55 The ­decades-­long political violence with the PKK, suppressed for years through an indefinite ceasefire brought about by the settlement process, would be unleashed by a sudden and mysterious rise in ­anti-­terror operations of the government. The PKK would readily oblige, resuming the war. An urban youth wing, set up in 2013 and not fully under the PKK control, the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (Yurtsever Devrimci Gençlik Hareketi, Y ­ DG-­H), would start enforcing ‘public order’ in places in the Kurdish ­south-­east and clash with the security forces, seeking to prevent the entry of the latter into neighbourhoods via ditches dug and barricades set up.56 Combined with declarations of de facto ­self-­rule in the municipalities run by the Kurdish political movement,57 whole towns would soon be put by the security forces under indefinite curfews, which would lead, in addition to gross deprivation suffered by the locals, to scores of deaths.58 Within about five months after the June election, 128 civilians would be killed, ‘mostly by the security forces and outside the armed clashes’.59 More than a third of those killed were children. The peace venture ­much-­invested in by the public, as well as the sides in talks, was over. Yet, that was not all. The ferocious terror organisation, called Islamic State (IS), across the border in Syria and Iraq, known to have cells in Turkey, and monitored closely, would create unprecedented havoc, culminating in the Ankara massacre of 10 October ­2015­– ­­the bloodiest terrorist assault in the history of the country.60 The carnage had been enabled by blatant or simply incomprehensible negligence on the part of the security forces. On another front, unlike the mostly steady course it had presented under the majority AKP governments for about thirteen years, the economy would look increasingly fragile.61 Voters would be made to understand things were likely to get worse, with the ‘instability’ to be fuelled by a coalition government that seemed to be on the horizon, which would alarm masses of voters in debt and sharply disquieted over a possible meltdown as in 2001. Finally, the crackdown on the opposition media would be intensified, with two television channels and two dailies seized by the government only days before the polls.62 The result, barely predicted by the pollsters

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70  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y and ­astonishing to all, including the victors, would be the ruling AKP once again with a parliamentary majority to be able to form a ­single-­party government. With an absolute majority, the AKP would nonetheless be ten deputies short of the parliamentary presence it had commanded after the 2011 election, despite having acquired about the same percentage of votes. This was due to the HDP having defeated the formidable electoral threshold in November, as in June earlier, against all the odds. Just as a possible coalition government had been obstructed, the parliament had also been practically chocked after the June election (when the AKP had lost the majority), with the parliament expected to look into allegations of substantial corruption and mismanagement (see Chapter 8) as the opposition had promised before the election. Bracketing off this p ­ ost-­June formation, therefore, the parliament after the November election would be the weakest ever for the ruling AKP, now t­wenty-­four deputies short of its parliamentary presence after the 2007 elections, with the regime change about to be put in motion, and f­orty-­six short of that after the 2002 election, when the AKP had surged to power, having acquired 363 deputies out of a total of 550 in parliament. The government would blame the collapse of the peace process on a ‘newly emboldened’ PKK, which had apparently revised its strategies in the greater region. Accordingly, the PKK had lately assumed a ­pumped-­up role in the power vacuum created by w ­ ar-­torn Syria, now on its way to turn de facto ‘territorial’, as its Syrian wing, the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, PYD) had succeeded in securing a strip of land in northern Syria that extended across almost the entire Turkish border. The growing influence of the PKK in Syria, effectively cutting Turkey off from the Middle East and the Islamist politics rampant in the region via a belt, hindering Turkey’s operations in Syria, may indeed have been a factor behind Erdoğan’s hesitations over the peace process, originally in 2014 perhaps, when the PYD forces fought an epic battle against IS under a glaring global media spotlight. Silent for years to IS encroachments well into its borders, nay, somewhat amenable in providing passage to foreign IS fighters, Turkey would turn immediately uneasy and vocally critical of the situation across the border with the PYD triumphing over IS. Widely debated in domestic politics in the last quarter of 2014, this policy on the part of Turkey would often be pointed out by the Kurdish political movement as proof that the government had long lost

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what cha ng ed ?  | 71 sincerity in the matter of peace with the Kurds. The s­o-­called ‘conservative’ Kurdish voters that had left the AKP for the HDP in June, apparently not to return in November to contribute to the rise of the AKP once again,63 choosing (or perhaps coerced) not to vote, were known to have done so largely in response to Turkey’s policy in northern Syria, which, as they thought, had preferred the ruthless jihadists over the local Kurds under attack and in monumental ­self-­defence. If not back in 2014, the peace process was clearly over only a few months later, from February 2015, ahead of the critical June election, when Erdoğan, playing to the nationalist votes, would publicly reject the idea of a possible ‘settlement’ with the Kurds, declaring: ‘A Kurdish question no longer exists.’64 In the following month, Erdoğan would go on and slam65 a joint media communiqué between the government and the representatives of the Kurdish political movement, with the sides declaring to have reached an agreement on a set of abstract ground principles, suggested by Öcalan, with a ­long-­awaited peace monitoring committee to be formed between the sides, alongside an instruction that Öcalan would issue to the PKK to give up the armed struggle.66 Erdoğan’s interference in the matter would be vocally protested by none other than a spokesperson for the government, a senior figure, who, bewildered and annoyed, would bluntly ask Erdoğan before the cameras not to encroach on the government mandate, stating: ‘There is a government in this country.’67 This major and rather unprecedented wrangle between Erdoğan and the government would soon be resolved though, predictably so, in favour of the former. Aware of the uncontrollably damaging effects of the resumed violence for all in the longer run, especially for the administration, Erdoğan, as well as the government, would be not only apologetic about the termination of the peace process subsequently, after the June election, when the ploy on the nationalist votes would appear to have backfired, but also willing to pick it up from where it had been left ­off­– ­­under a new and more ‘reliable’ roadmap perhaps, as was intimated, which would include ‘new stakeholders’ outside the PKK and the Kurdish political opposition.68 Less realistically perhaps, the government would also insist on the PKK burying arms in advance to have a say at all in a likely future process towards peace. The government would thus strive to put out a somewhat tougher posture in the matter of renewed talks, yet arguably it

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72  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y was the former partners in dialogue that now seemed to have the edge over the government, notwithstanding the stunning comeback of the ruling party at the snap polls in November. Having defeated Islamic State to world acclaim, the Kurdish guerrillas were now cooperating with the United States and Russia on terrain in Syria through the PYD. The Kurdish political movement, which effectively mediated between the government and the guerrillas, was finally over the notorious 10 per cent electoral threshold in June to qualify for the parliament for the first time as a political party, the ­Kurdish-­led HDP, to go on reprising this success in November in the face of a highly unfair p ­ re-­election period; when the HDP buildings had come under arson and lynching attacks by mobs nationwide, p ­ ro-­HDP activists had been massacred and the HDP had had to cancel poll rallies for the safety of the ­supporters­– ­­not to mention the use of public resources by the ruling AKP and the pressure on and relentless intimidation of the opposition media (see Chapter 8). In a feasible future deal, the Kurdish political movement looked likely to be content with an enhancement of ­self-­rule for the Kurdish provinces through a revision in the administrative structure of the country generally, roughly in line with the European Charter of Local S­ elf-­Government, dating from 1985. Turkey had been a party to this treaty since 1993, albeit with some reservations on the scope and authority of local administrations. In the early years of its rule, the AKP did advocate and suggest in the form of a draft bill a structural revision, taking on board most of the benchmarks in the Charter. The bill was soon shelved, however, in the face of resistance by a redoubtable bureaucracy at the time, represented then in the person of the president, a staunch republican, who vetoed the bill. Having rallied behind the bureaucracy at the time, the main opposition CHP would later seem to have revised its policy in the matter, promising the Kurds in the election campaign of 2011 the ‘full’ implementation of the European treaty, free from reservations. Ironically, the government would respond to this gesture in a ‘centralist’ spirit worthy of the old bureaucracy, ostensibly to lure, or not to lose, the nationalist votes immediately before the election. Indeed, the whole process was rather riddled with contradictions that were not always easy to comprehend. Just as the government would effectively continue the policy of the old regime to harass the Kurdish political opposition for alleged links to the PKK, while at once negotiating a ‘settle-

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what cha ng ed ?  | 73 ment’ with the PKK, the government would also appear to take reconciliatory steps more in keeping with the spirit of the settlement process, despite various gesticulations to simultaneously appease and keep close the Turkish nationalists. The excising of the infamous student pledge, noted above, was a case in point, which was hugely significant for the Kurds symbolically; although, it should perhaps be added that the pledge was equally disturbing to the government itself and its core voter base for the kitsch appeal to Atatürk. Yet there were other measures introduced by the government that indicated a bona fide interest in a settlement with the Kurds; for instance, the ­so-­called ‘Greater City Law’, adopted in November 2012, widely construed as a gradual transition to an augmented form of local s­ elf-­rule, as demanded by the Kurdish political movement. Further still, in July 2014, immediately before the presidential poll for which Erdoğan may have counted on the Kurdish votes at a likely second round, new legislation would be e­ nacted69­ – ­­with the tacit approval of the main opposition CHP anxious not to further alienate the democrat and Kurdish v­ oters­– ­­ostensibly towards a further stage of the talks for a permanent peace with the Kurds. Bearing the somewhat ambivalent title of ‘The Law on the Ending of Terrorism and the Strengthening of Social Integrations’, and with no mention of the Kurds whatsoever, this law nevertheless ex post facto ‘legalised’ the dialogue with the PKK and empowered the government for adopting unspecified measures towards the goals articulated in the title, which would be hailed by Öcalan himself as a ‘historic development’.70 The normative work for the regime change was conducted mostly in a piecemeal fashion, with the ruling party as the main agent of change repeatedly promising a whole new Constitution to follow, largely in response to a consensus in society for the need to rewrite the present Constitution. Yet, in addition to other possible hurdles such as the significant differences likely to arise with the opposition in the process of drafting it, the government itself would appear more and more reticent following the regime change to let go of the old Constitution that could be a mighty, centralising instrument of power. The same reserve applied also to a number of key ­anti-­democratic legislations of the old regime, which the government left deliberately intact despite constant warnings of its liberal supporters over the years: namely a set of statutes that regulated elections, political parties, fighting terrorism,

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74  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y military courts, auditing of military spending, higher education, monitoring of radio and television broadcasting, and religious affairs. The question from around 2011 was that, even if the government did intend to write a new Constitution eventually, how would it differ from the old one, especially in terms of the basic principles of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, now that doubts were steadily growing about the good faith of the government? Could the AKP be trusted with the task? On this, the results of 2011 election had brought some relief. Having come out of the election with a straight win, the ruling AKP had nevertheless failed to acquire the number of seats in the parliament required for a unilateral political initiative towards a new Constitution, received by most, including the former liberal supporters of the government, as a m ­ uch-­needed measure to moderate Erdoğan. With the government rather grudging and unenthusiastic in the matter, the formal demand for cooperation in the parliament in adopting a new Constitution would not come to fruition in the parliamentary committee set up for this purpose after the ­election­– ­­created possibly only in order to save appearances. It would soon become clear that the markedly lethargic conduct of the ruling party in drafting a new Constitution had also to do with what looked like a far more ambitious plan, having been half revealed before, and yet never seriously pressed for. The ­long-­abiding debate for a new Constitution would be taken over from 2013 by the bid, now openly and officially advocated, towards a transition from parliamentary to presidential democracy, which would be particularly heightened with Erdoğan becoming Turkey’s first ever popularly elected president in August 2014. The argument for an ‘executive’ presidency would dominate the campaign of the ruling party for the June 2015 election, with Erdoğan himself holding rallies and appealing for support. The failure of the AKP in June to acquire an absolute majority in the parliament, for the first time since 2002, would almost commonly be attributed by observers to Erdoğan’s insistence on a switch to executive presidency. The rhetoric in the short spell leading to the snap polls in the following November would thus conspicuously omit the system change urged by E ­ rdoğan­– only ­­ to return with the poll results that once again gave the ruling party a clear parliamentary majority, if not a majority that could unilaterally bring about an amendment in the Constitution, which the change sought would require.

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2 ­RUN-­UP TO CHANGE

W

hat enabled the regime change? How exactly did the drive for change gather the steam it needed by 2007, when, following roughly the first five years of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in power, the turnabout would finally be put in motion? Of all the factors that should be taken on board in rehearsing a possible answer, the interim shift in the patterns of the long enduring identity politics should perhaps be accorded the greatest weight. The republican Turkey was set up in 1923 as a centralising body politic with a fixed and increasingly assertive identity vision, seeking to create a new, ‘European’ nation out of the bulky and sharply fragmented Ottoman polity. The aim was thus to modernise not only the administration but also society, chiefly through an instrumental concept of reason that was largely indifferent to the diversity that prevailed in the periphery of the political centre. In addition to a major concern about a new civic culture cleansed as much as possible from the local patriarchy, chiefly religion, building a homogeneous nation state out of the leftover Ottoman public also required the suppression of what was ethnically ‘outlying’. The liberal–populist rule for about a decade from 1950, which was loyal on the whole to the earlier vision, would nevertheless be overthrown by the bureaucracy for having ‘betrayed’ the original republican notion of identity in its somewhat loosened approach to domestic diversity. The identity politics safeguarded by the bureaucracy in the run-up to 75

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76  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y the regime change was still largely defined by a steadfast dedication to this original project, which this book has referred to as ‘republicanism’, following the strong emphasis that the term ‘republic’ would start receiving in opposition circles under the AKP rule, and, no less significantly perhaps, in acknowledgement of the apparent affinity of this ideology with the more fully developed discourse of republicanism in France.1 The overall catechism communicated in this creed invoked a sharp distinction of the private and public spheres in society, with the traces of the peripheral identities, religious or ethnic, greatly to be purged from the latter. Left solid among the past communal bonds would solely be a ­non-­pious, almost ‘nominal’ Sunni Muslim identity, and a purportedly ­non-­ethnic nationality. The realm of ethnic and cultural belonging as the site of political confrontation would come to brand the whole domestic political scene as soon as some pluralism was in place, reflected in two principal binaries by the 1990s: the seculars and the reactionaries (mürteci, later gerici) on one side, and an allegedly ­non-­ethnic Turkish patriotism and an ethnic Kurdish separatism, on the other.2 More confusing still would be the fact that the dichotomies at work could be seen to intersect in places in ­day-­to-day politics. Emerging out of the local I­ slamo-­nationalist politics (Millî Görüş)3 to be in power from November 2002, the AKP would deftly distance itself from the settled matrix of identity claims,4 until at least the regime change under its rule by 2011. This fresh political initiative would thereby acquire an extensive reach in its voter base, comparable perhaps to that fleetingly achieved by Turgut Özal in the aftermath of the 1980 military coup. Now calling themselves ‘conservatives’, the former I­ slamo-­nationalists would achieve this dilation in electoral ambit greatly by a shift from the sectarian claims of identity that marred the domestic political landscape, in favour of a genuinely civic ‘European’ identity. The following is about t­ his­– what ­­ looked in h ­ indsight­– ­­equivocation in the posture of the AKP that challenged the routine identity politics, to prompt considerable irresolution and ambivalence in the bureaucracy, leading in the immediate term to provisional, dithering and mostly absurd new alignments in politics beyond the former identity splits.

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­r un-­u p to chan ge  | 77 Contraction in Identity Politics The ­Islamo-­nationalist literati had for some time been in the habit of pointing out some of the glaring inconsistencies in the local practice of democracy when those touched the pious and practising Muslims, yet evincing little genuine interest in democratic values beyond a not altogether convincing formal allegiance to democracy in party politics. Often, plain illustrations would be put forward in public debates to show how the usual grievances encountered by the Muslims at home were practically ­non-­existent in more evolved democracies. Let alone the devout Muslims, even the vocal Islamists hardly experienced in Europe and in North America any of the obstacles that the Muslims typically suffered in the country. Not entirely felicitous with this apparent admiration of ‘the West’, a perception of the Muslims as perennial victims of persecution by the same ‘West’ at once defined ­Islamo-­nationalism. A mentor, Necip Fazıl Kısakürek (1904–83) would famously use in a poem the Turkified version of the word ‘pariah’ to describe the Muslims as outcasts­ – ­parya.5 This profound sense of mistreatment drew on the colonial intrusion historically, combined with the relative disenfranchisement of the Muslims under the republican administration, considered as little more than a mere proxy of the colonial rule. Finally, a p ­ opulist­– ­­rather than simply misconceived or ­defective­– ­­understanding of that which was ‘native’ (millî or yerli) drove the ­Islamo-­nationalists towards an organic notion of society, offering a vague nativist template, which was no less artificial than the early republican conceptualisation of national identity. The ­non-­pious, accordingly, were not strictly part of the indigenous whole, having somehow been alienated from it at least in part, even if they were not outright cronies of a lingering, ­ever-­present and ­all-­powerful colonialism. This conviction readily took root in the fertile ground of the republican oppression, with the Islamic hijab, a strong token, remaining an issue at universities and in public employment even under the AKP rule, embarrassingly enough, until the regime change.6 The ­Islamo-­nationalist feelings of a perpetual ‘martyrdom’ in the republican era gravely left out a couple of critical facts, though: (1) The overplayed sense of persecution consistently ignored the severe acts of inclusion and exclusion by the officialdom that equally suppressed, if not more, various heterogeneous identities outside the devout Muslims, such as the Alevis (see

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78  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y Chapter 9). Under a different light, it might indeed be possible to describe the same republican Turkey as an ‘Islamist’ state on the whole, albeit not up to the strict Islamist standards. As noted in the preceding chapter, the Ottoman millet system that had made religion intrinsic to national identity in the empire persisted in the republican period very much intact. If this linkage with the erstwhile Ottoman wont did not seem to be sufficiently visible under the avowedly ‘secularist’ republican rule, that could be because the continuity at work was simply too close and too deeply ingrained to be felt. ­Non-­Muslims would be robbed of wealth in the early republican era through policies that sought to pauperise and banish them. As late as in the 1970s, some high court judgements would refer to n ­ on-­Muslim Turkish nationals as ‘aliens’ (yabancı). For a vivid illustration from some decades later, even the naturalised football players from Brazil, whose n ­ ewly-­acquired Turkish nationality would remain only on paper, had to adopt Muslim names to be considered fully ‘Turkish’­– i­n effect a ritual conversion to Islam, if only symbolic. On top of all this, the last military junta of 1980–83 had made the strengthening of Islamic education a priority nationwide, with religious classes in the Sunni faith made compulsory in schools for the first time, and with a spread of religious educational ­institutions­– practices ­­ ostensibly in line with the ‘Second Cold War’ of the late 1970s, with the Soviet military in Afghanistan, which had prompted an alarmed ­Euro-­Atlantic community towards new strategies of Soviet containment. The profound sense of persecution on the part of the I­ slamo-­nationalists would nevertheless endure and assert itself even during the strong, unadulterated AKP rule from 2011. (2) Moreover, some of the prejudices and limitations that did exist about an assertive Muslim identity, including the hijab perhaps, might have to be placed in the context of a unique identity play locally, which the ­Islamo-­nationalists failed to consider. The identity claims articulated in the ­Islamo-­nationalist circles had implications not only for the pious and practising Muslims, but also for virtually all in the land, including some of the most diehard secularists. The ­Islamo-­nationalist discourse appeared to be an effective ‘monopolising’ of Muslim identity, in turn debarring, or with insinuations for, others in the larger social milieu, where Islam meant something to almost everyone.7 The ­Islamo-­nationalist labouring in engaging in a separate, ­group-­based ‘Muslim’ identity, not shy of sharply defining it in places, were

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­r un-­u p to chan ge  | 79 thus bound to encounter some popular distrust. Needless to say, a similar play involving Muslim identity was rarely the case in Europe and in North America, hence the relative tolerance in such contexts for particularly bold forms of that ­identity­– ­­a fact little understood in the markedly decontextualised discourse of the local ­Islamo-­nationalist ideologues. (3) Last but by no means least, beyond the question of sheer identity, I­slamo-­nationalist politics in the absence of strong cultural safeguards towards building mutual confidence in society seriously daunted two broad social sections; the heterogeneous Muslim groups, principally the Alevis, and those somewhat indifferent to religion, namely the agnostics, atheists and such. These social groups constantly feared possible oppression by the pious Sunni majority eying political power, quite justifiably so in retrospect, given the increasingly intimidating discourses, if not practices, that would follow in the aftermath of the old regime from 2011. A turning point for ­Islamo-­nationalism, enabling it to move beyond a ­one-­sided take on the recent history and ‘indigenousness’, and beyond selective references to democracy and basic rights, at least at the level of rhetoric, would prove to be the ‘light’ military intervention of February 1997. The ­Islamo-­nationalist Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, RP) led by Necmettin Erbakan would finish the parliamentary elections ahead of the rest in December 1995, with over 21 per cent of the votes.8 A known master of euphemisms and catchwords, as reflected in the ingenious term Millî Görüş,9 Erbakan had put the new party line adil düzen (just order)­– ­again, a thinly disguised reference to Islamic political i­deals­– to ­­ hugely successful use, capturing the attention of masses exasperated in the face of the manifest ineptitude of the mainstream politics in tackling acute social issues. The I­slamo-­nationalist politics had looked promising also through skills and diligence, on display for some time, of its elected politicians running a good number of local administrations. A military ‘­fine-­tuning’ in February 1997 would suddenly end the coalition government headed by the RP, with this political party to be wholly disbanded in January 1998. In April of the same year, the mayor of Istanbul with the RP, Tayyip Erdoğan, would be convicted and put behind bars for having recited at a public rally an old war poem, urging people towards righteous belligerence. Appropriated for the ­present-­day political backdrop, this poem purportedly dating from 1912 was an effective call to arms: ‘Minarets are bayonets, domes are helmets / Mosques are barracks, believers are troops.’10

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80  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y The period following the dissolution of the RP would seem to mark a transition, notably facilitated by a number of liberal intellectuals, both right and left, also shunned, censured and repressed under the February 1997 intervention, who would come in close contact and solidarity with the ­Islamo-­nationalist intellectuals. A discourse for a ­fully-­fledged democracy that would ‘normalise’ the political order for all regardless of the specific leanings would in turn gradually come to subdue from the late 1990s the rather sceptical view of ‘the West’ formerly held by the ­Islamo-­nationalists. On guard to keep the settled identity politics at arm’s length for a wider reach, despite most of its elite long reared in I­ slamo-­nationalist politics, the AKP set up in 2001 would put to work a rather astute scheme. In staging a ­head-­on confrontation with the republican identity politics, having already distanced itself from that of I­ slamo-­nationalism, the AKP would adopt what was simply another identity term that was, again, locally rooted. ‘To undo a nail’, a Turkish proverb instructs, ‘one simply needs another’. That is, one fights fire with fire. The idea of Europeanisation (not necessarily in overlap with the ­better-­known uses of this concept in Europe) that would come to be championed by the AKP was some such fire. A ­so-­called state policy since the nineteenth century, and endorsed virtually by all stakeholders in the domestic political theatre, with the exception of the I­ slamo-­nationalists, this identity goal for society, now shrewdly reasserted, would provide this political party with a tremendously effective edge in the following period against the settled hubs of identity politics. As a result, the old divides lurking in the background would come within a rather short span to be superseded by a new ­dichotomy­– ­­one between the ­pro-­Europeans that sought to integrate with the wider world and the ­Euro-­sceptics that chose to remain hidebound and ­inward-­looking. The new cleavage, in full view by 2004, and highlighted by the key public relations work of the liberal intellectuals supportive of the ruling AKP, would convince the European Union (EU) ­policy-­makers that it would be in the interest of all to strengthen the local p ­ ro-­Europeans by starting accession talks with Turkey. Not surprisingly perhaps, the republican ideologues would feel rather betrayed by Europe ostensibly in petty, strategic calculations, and prepared to leave the local republican project that ‘fully’ embraced the European ideals and the ‘original’ European modernity out in the cold. In a line of argument not

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­r un-­u p to chan ge  | 81 wholly consistent with the cherished European values, and, more strikingly, in mimetic kinship with that of the ­Islamo-­nationalists on ‘the West’, the republican ideologues would find the only rational explanation for the formal offer made to Turkey of a possible future in Europe in the a­ ge-­old colonial intrigue.11 The aim was ultimately to tear apart or weaken Turkey: the EU never seriously considered admitting Turkey, imposing on it a set of political criteria that only served the s­hort-­term European power political interests.12 Or, in a milder variant shared also by some European commentators who seemed to empathise, the local ­Euro-­sceptics would urge the European ­policy-­makers to show greater sensitivity and let Turkey be less democratic in order to control or avoid a fuelling of the threats of ethnic separatism and religious fundamentalism that were symptomatic of the greater region.13 According to this more conciliatory take on Turkey’s European prospects, the EU member states that had acted so decisively in 2000 on the threat formed by the far right Freedom Party to Austrian democracy could try to understand the constraints on Turkey’s democracy brought about by the geography and the unique dynamics. Yet, genuine security concerns as grounds for limiting democracy was a view already fading locally, and was now voiced only by a shrinking faction of ­Euro-­sceptics. Overall, both ­Islamo-­nationalism and the ethnic Kurdish nationalism seemed to be on the wane, a fact that barely served the need for the usual securitising approach in the matter. That Islamism and Kurdish separatism, as major security threats, placed ‘natural’ constraints on the local democracy, simply ‘forcing’ it to act on an impulse for survival, arguably confused the effect with the cause. It would become rather apparent with the early political reforms under the EU accession process that, as long suggested by the liberal critics of the old regime, an advance in the protection of the basic rights, or even the mere prospect of change for the better, could have quite the reverse effect. That is, a more inclusive democracy could prompt a decline in the sectarian identity claims. Already under way before the AKP came into power in November 2002, the reforms speeded up would soon lead, among other things, to some tangible ebb in the popular support for political parties that relied almost solely on forms of ‘identity clientelism’,14 namely the somewhat cynical exploitation of identity demands by political parties. In the nationwide local elections in March 2004, the ­Islamo-­nationalist Party of Bliss (or Felicity Party, Saadet

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82  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y Partisi, SP) representing the settled Islamist outlook in politics for some time, from which the AKP had departed abandoning its identity discourse for a wider slant, would sink to 4 per cent. A coalition of the Social Democratic Popular Party (Sosyaldemokrat Halkçı Parti, SHP) and the Kurdish nationalist Popular Democratic Party (Demokratik Halk Partisi) would lose the Kurdish political movement four of the municipalities which the Party for People’s Democracy (Halkın Demokrasi Partisi), an earlier Kurdish political party, had alone won in the local elections in 1999. The coalition with the SHP, formed in order to put the nationalist Kurdish votes to good use in places not predominantly inhabited by the Kurds, would acquire a mere 5 per cent of the overall votes nationwide. Consistent perhaps with this ostensible slump in support for political parties engaged in identity politics, both the devout Muslims and the ethnic Kurds seemed to have adequate representation within the ruling AKP. Most of those who previously rallied behind the ­Islamo-­nationalist political parties were already within the ranks of the AKP, constituting its kernel. As for the Kurds, according to a survey of the members of parliament in early 2004, close to 15 per cent of AKP deputies had indicated Kurdish as their mother tongue,15 which was about the estimated percentage of the ethnic Kurds in the country. These Kurds, some with eminent positions within the ruling AKP, notably owned up to their Kurdish identity, rather than obscure it, as had long been the case with the Kurds prominent in either the mainstream politics or in the administration, serving as premiers, cabinet ministers and speakers of parliament. Ambivalence in Bureaucracy The start of the accession negotiations with the EU in October 2005 would go some way to aborting the ­Euro-­sceptic claim that denied the European ­policy-­makers a bona fide interest in admitting Turkey.16 The outstanding issue of a full implementation of the reforms newly adopted towards fulfilling the Copenhagen political criteria for membership in the EU, a major source of consternation at the time, would appear about to be remedied, with the bureaucracy expected soon to fall in line. The military takeover of 1960, ostensibly engineered between the armed forces and the civilian bureaucracy of the justice system and the universities, had signalled a historic and enduring bloc. Having ended the liberal–populist rule of a decade, the coup had

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­r un-­u p to chan ge  | 83 in turn practically institutionalised the bureaucratic control of politics. A heated debate in the first quarter of 2004 on a likely settlement of the protracted Cyprus conflict on the basis of a new United Nations (UN) plan, cautiously favoured by the government to clear the way for Turkey’s prospects in Europe, would test that bloc. Did the strict concord between the military and civilian bureaucracy established in 1960 continue? If so, was the military still the mainspring in the informal compact, as suggested over the years by most observers of Turkish politics?17 To the surprise and protestations of the ­Euro-­sceptics, who advocated the preservation of the status quo in Cyprus, not least in order to keep the government in shackles in its efforts to obtain a date for the start of negotiations with the EU, the military would extend to the UN initiative its blessing, through words of no less a figure than the chief of staff himself in a detailed statement, showing careful deliberation.18 Later, the deputy chief of staff would venture further into hitherto uncharted waters, stating: ‘Turkey, as a candidate country [for membership in the EU], needs to sort out its problems in the Aegean with Greece within the existing EU acqui, or accept to submit the problems still unresolved to international settlement mechanisms, including the International Court of Justice.’19 The boldly declared openness of the military to p ­ ath-­breaking revisions in foreign policy would be in stark contrast to the position of the civilian bureaucracy, formed chiefly by the republican elite at high courts and at the higher education system. Disclosing the opinion of the military on Cyprus, the chief of staff would at once reveal his unease at what he would term the ‘provocations’ from circles in society calling on the military to be somewhat bullish and issue warnings, curtailing the government mandate. Such appeals to the military, either directly or indirectly, were long part of the routine republican politics. Some among the elite hardly felt the need to refrain publicly from an openly militaristic discourse, especially those at the higher education system. The then president of Istanbul University, an outspoken E ­ uro-­sceptic who would be one of the prominent suspects in the future political trials discussed below (Chapter 3), would declare for instance that the government in negotiations over Cyprus ‘could not possibly cede an inch of Cyprus territory’, and that Turks should not hesitate to sacrifice a hundred thousand casualties if n ­ ecessary to ‘take, not only [the entire] Cyprus, but also Greece’.20 On

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84  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y 3 March 2004, at a major organisation commemorating the abolition of caliphate in 1924, some of the h ­ ighest-­ranking commanders of the military would get together with university presidents for an unusual display of commitment against the foreign policy manoeuvrings of the government. In a thunderous standing ovation, those present would applaud one academic, a spokesperson of the then cropping up ‘­neo-­nationalism’ (ulusalcılık), who would end his words with a call for an immediate b­ reak-­up of relations with the EU and the United States, suggesting cooperation with Iran, Russia and China instead,21 countries that would presumably make little issue of Turkey’s ­self-­styled democracy in place. The presence of the military in the event did indicate a lingering irresolution within the military itself,22 to be largely, if not entirely, cleared away in the following month through the speech of the chief of staff, noted above, in patent support of the government on Cyprus and on integration with Europe. Scepticism among the elite of the higher education system would prove to be more persistent. According to the results of a survey on the political outlook of the teaching staff at universities, conducted in a year from October 2003, the most trusted institution appeared to be the military, embraced by 45 per cent of the respondents. The confidence in the elected government, by contrast, was less than a tenth of this, at a mere 4 per cent. Furthermore, the academics turned out to be overwhelmingly ­Euro-­sceptical, with only 6 per cent expressing trust in the EU.23 The higher education elite, who had considerable influence in domestic politics from at least the late 1950s, actively supporting and justifying the coup in 1960, as noted above, would have an ­all-­out confrontation with the government in May 2004 in response to an effort by the government to end the discrimination introduced in the aftermath of the February 1997 coup against high schools with additional religious education, originally designed as vocational educational institutions for personnel of mosques (İmam Hatip schools). Academics, led by university presidents, would take to the streets all over the country, and a sudden tension would break out.24 The Office of the Chief of Staff would also join the debate, having possibly been ‘forced’ to, as per the cue above, about three weeks after the endorsement of the government position on Cyprus, issuing a written statement in support of the protesters. Hurriedly passed in the parliament dominated by the ruling AKP, the draft bill would receive the veto of the president,

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­r un-­u p to chan ge  | 85 a former ­high-­court judge, who would send it back to the parliament for a second deliberation. Reading this interception as a warning on the ‘untimely’ nature of the initiative, the government would decide to shelve the bill. The elite on high court benches in the justice system were not nearly as outspoken in the process leading to the regime change as those in higher education, but were known to be behind some formidable resistance by shrinking from a full, unhesitating implementation of the political reforms on basic rights and by turning the economic privatisation steps of the government into a debacle. More daringly, in 2008, with the regime change already under way, the Constitutional Court would fail only by a hair’s breadth to dissolve the ruling AKP for being a ‘centre of activities undermining secularism’. The charge had been levelled at a political party that had close to 47 per cent electoral support behind it at the time. What exactly was motivating this doggedness of the judiciary, risking basic credibility given the flimsy particulars of the case, in the short period immediately before the end of the old regime? A possible answer to this question is rehearsed below (Chapter 4), arguing for the presence of some perversely ‘moral’ drive underlying it a­ ll­– ­­a liberation theology. The results in a public opinion survey on the perceptions of the judiciary on rights shortly after the AKP would come into power were revealing.25 While 73 per cent of the public seemed to be of the opinion that the violations of human rights in the country were widespread, only 48 per cent of the respondents in the judiciary shared this view. Again, 89 per cent in society believed that ideas, not transformed into action, should not be penalised under any circumstances. This figure was down by 16 per cent with those from the judiciary. In keeping with these findings, the judiciary was slow and reluctant, if not in outright refusal, to adapt to the legal overhaul urged by the EU and be guided on the protection of rights by the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. More subtly, the judiciary would appear to resist the change by relentlessly hampering the economic privatisation programme of the government, until at least 2007. The economic restructuring policies in the country, centred on privatisation, went as far back as 1980, to the time when Özal was in the driving seat of the economy, but were long subjected to a series of legal setbacks. Administrative courts would not hesitate in issuing controversial judgements, blatantly inconsistent in reasoning, suspending key state ­sell-­offs

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86  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y on grounds that the tenders concluded were in breach of a vague and politically charged notion of ‘public interest’. A tender blocked by the judiciary in June 2004, a partial sale of the largest single economic enterprise locally,26 would prompt comments linking the disruptive rulings of the judiciary on privatisation to the political divide in the country on Europe. On this view, spurning foreign investment through judgements that undermined the credibility of the government and that caused significant losses of revenue, the judiciary was actively participating in the ongoing tussle between the ­pro-­European and ­Euro-­sceptical camps in politics.27 Odd Bedfellows A more surprising development during this period would be the Islamo-­ nationalists, from among which the ruling AKP had shortly before emerged, dabbling in the E ­ uro-­sceptical discourse alongside the republicans, otherwise the foes. In a rally in Ankara in March 2004 in protest of the UN plan on Cyprus, the ­Islamo-­nationalist SP would join the ranks of the longstanding ­Euro-­sceptics against the government.28 In return, some of the most prominent spokespersons of E ­ uro-­scepticism, otherwise known champions of a strict form of secularism, would voice u ­ nheard-­of support for Erbakan’s 29 brand of politics against the ruling AKP, such as the ­neo-­nationalist academic noted above, receiving a standing ovation, and the chief prosecutor at the Court of Cassation (Yargıtay) who had initiated the closure of two earlier ­Islamo-­nationalist political parties, the RP (closed in 1998) and Virtue Party (Fazilet Partisi, closed in 2001). Himself forced out of the government following the military memo of February 1997, Erbakan would go on a bewildering spree of public agitation and call on the military to exert more pressure on the government run by his former protégés, principally in relation to the Cyprus issue.30 Alongside the republicans and the ­Islamo-­nationalists, Kurdish nationalism would also seem to lend a hand to this laboured coalition. In June 2004, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) would end the ‘unilateral’ ceasefire to which it had adhered after the leader of the organisation, Abdullah Öcalan, had been captured in 1999, serving a prison term since. Reportedly, prior to the resumption of the armed campaign, Öcalan had issued a communication to the guerrillas, stating: ‘Kemalism is under threat.’

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­r un-­u p to chan ge  | 87 The threat, he had claimed, was the Nakşıbendis, an Islamic sect, to whom the government had purportedly handed over political power. ‘We need to counter that threat’, he had declared.31 Why was a Kurdish leader in captivity concerned about the fate of Kemalism, the republican ideology? Öcalan was also known to have bafflingly remarked during the debate on the UN plan for Cyprus, supported by the government: ‘We are losing Cyprus.’32 Absurd as all this may sound, historically the Kurdish political movement came forth out of the republican grassroots. Some of the still active and leading Kurdish politicians had served in prominent positions with the main opposition Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi), with masses in the Kurdish populated ­south-­east voting consistently for this political party, until the watershed formed by the military response to the Kurdish issue during and immediately after the coup in 1980. The remarks by Öcalan, anxious of the rising intrepidity of the government against the old regime, would seem to testify to the amazing resilience of this political streak among the Kurdish nationalist elect. Still, the timing of the renewed violent campaign, only months before the European Council decision on a possible date for the start of accession negotiations with Turkey, might have to be understood more as an indication of the obvious desperation perhaps, to which Kurdish politics had been pushed at the time, rather than a s­ pin-­off of some h ­ ard-­wearing republican trait that survived among the Kurdish elite. In an interview in June 2004, the acting head of the PKK would not mince his words when asked what the renewed violence might mean for EU–Turkey relations, stating: ‘We know we may disrupt Turkey’s EU process.’33 The PKK had fought close to two decades of war with the military. Interestingly, in the declaration to end the ceasefire, the PKK in apparent throes of a desolate realpolitik would attempt to ‘feel’ for the military against the government. Accordingly, the government had ‘provoked’ the PKK to the resumed violence, with a view to debilitating the military through a confrontation with the guerrilla forces.34 It was not clear why the PKK, aware of this dark design on the part of the government, were obliging rather than thwarting it by going into war. EU Reforms The period in Turkey’s relations with Europe between 2000 and 2007 would produce greater and f­ urther-­reaching results domestically than the p ­ receding

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88  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y forty or so years. From February 2002 (that is, before the AKP would ascend to power in November of the same year) to July 2004, the parliament would adopt a total of eight legislative packages, making adjustments to the normative framework on human rights, democracy and the rule of law, as required by the Copenhagen political criteria.35 In addition to a basic s­creening of the existing domestic legislation in these new instruments, the parliament would also adopt a series of ground laws, including a new Civil Code and a new Penal Code, bringing the domestic legal structure more fully into line with Europe in terms of formal institutions and regulations. But there was, of course, the increasingly embarrassing issue of implementation, which the annual progress reports by the European Commission, following the reforms, kept indicating as greatly outstanding. The first three reform bundles had been adopted by a coalition government of the nationalist left and the nationalist right, the Party for Democratic Left (Demokratik Sol Parti) and the Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi), respectively, with the economic liberals, the Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi), as junior partners. The coalition government, which ruled until November 2002, had been formed by a cabinet largely sceptical of the EU political criteria though, and there had been little political will overall to enforce the amendments effectively. With the AKP in power from November 2002 the issue of implementation could no longer be attributed to a lack of resolve. The soaring enthusiasm in the public opinion for the EU, with over 70 per cent support in 2004, behind only Luxembourg in terms of the popularity of the organisation, and equalled only by Ireland and Greece,36 would be one factor to enable the government to get bolder under its European agenda towards breaking the continuing resistance by the bureaucracy. One other factor would be the growing confidence in the government with a newly achieved stability in the economy, to a degree unmatched in recent history, especially after the economic crisis of 2001, which, from the following year, had paved the way for the AKP rule. The comprehensive economic recovery programme initiated by the coalition government before this mandate, and the measures exerted and monitored by the International Monetary Fund between 2001 and 2007, revealingly overlapping with the period of political reforms, greatly contributed to the overall confidence in the government. The symbolism of the policy that boldly redenominated the local currency by

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­r un-­u p to chan ge  | 89 removing six zeros from it in January 2005, long a source of bitter humour, promoted further trust. What appeared to be strong p ­ ro-­European leanings in society were often attributed by the observers to direct economic gains counted on in the aftermath of the 2001 crisis, with the masses aiming either ‘generous’ EU funds to be channelled to the country or unhindered circulation of labour in Europe, feared most by the Europeans. More importantly perhaps, the idea of integration responded to the domestic political need to circumvent the established centres of power by transforming Europe into a formidable external leverage towards sweeping reforms in the country, political and economic. That is, one of the expected benefits, at least as projected by some of the liberal intellectuals in the ­pro-­Europe camp in the process leading to the regime change, was to bypass the settled elite, chiefly the bureaucracy but also the mainstream politics largely in cahoots with the former, now increasingly recognised as incompetent at best or otherwise as cynics with vested interest in the preservation of the status quo. The liberal intellectuals behind the government successfully sold the idea of Europe to the wider public, reckoning, in the first place, on a more predictable economic environment and, secondly, complementary to it, on enduring communal peace to be achieved within a ‘normalised’, unfettered democracy, based on universal principles and free of ­bickering­– ­­both to be ‘quickly’ attained within Europe. The later, ­Islamo-­nationalist phase of the ruling AKP from 2011, with the old regime having vanished, and yet the a­ge-­old oppression being greatly reproduced in new forms, would thus signify the home truth, more for the liberal intellectuals than ordinary voters whose expectations were arguably more modest, that there would be no such quick way. Yet the general buoyancy generated in the ­pro-­Europe camp in this short stretch immediately before the regime change was remarkable. Accordingly, once the local objectives of structural transformation were accomplished, which was what the accession phase was all about, an empowered Turkey could actually surprise the EU halfway through and decide to opt out. On this account, a fully reformed Turkey might reasonably decide to remain outside the EU, choosing to be a more autonomous actor with an energetic and enterprising population in an economically interesting international milieu, rather than submit to what some perceived to be an EU straitjacket in economic terms. This was at least what

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90  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y some ­pro-­European public opinion leaders thought of the future. The overall aim, in short, was to reform the country for all, with Europe providing the requisite formal anchorage. The gist of the political ‘battle’ thus appeared on the eve of the regime change to be centred on the European model of growth, prosperity and peace, if not an actual ‘place’ in Europe. Twilight With the notion of a European model or even a future in Europe more probable than ever, the critics appeared almost overnight to have stopped squabbling among themselves, forming a united front against Europe. The vanguard of the ­Euro-­sceptical camp, leading this fantastic coalition, seemed to be the civilian bureaucracy, which was perversely in charge of implementing political reforms required for the transformation, rather than the army. A full implementation of the reforms would never come under the old regime, and only to be swept aside by the ruling AKP from 2011 ostensibly as devoid of further function, with the old regime having been defeated. Soon it would be clear that a h ­ ard-­core element of the sceptics, resisting change, would not simply lie down and die. Right after the opening of the accession talks with the EU, the country would begin to be stirred by a number of curious and increasingly disturbing incidents, staged, as it would appear, with the aim of discrediting the government and undermining the transformation in the country at length. In November 2005 a bookstore owned by a Kurdish activist would be bombed in Şemdinli, a small town along the border with Iran and Iraq, triggering riots in the region.37 The locals would catch two army members and a PKK informant r­ ed-­handed on the scene. The suspects, subsequently charged, would be found equipped with an area plan showing the target and in possession of various weapons and explosives. In a long indictment that would spark off a debate lasting for months to come, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation would claim that the incident was an act of provocation towards undermining the country’s heightened democratic bid.38 Again, in the following May, in 2006, a newspaper known for its republican outlook would receive three successive bomb attacks against its headquarters in Istanbul,39 allegedly by Islamists who, as it would be suggested, had become exceptionally daring in the new climate created by the government. Within days, a gunman would raid the State Council (Danıştay), the supreme

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­r un-­u p to chan ge  | 91 administrative court seated in Ankara, killing one judge and wounding four others.40 Immediately detained by the police, the gunman would claim to be a solitary actor out to avenge a recent State Council ruling that had restricted the wearing of the hijab for public employees, a decision of which the government had also been critical. The shooting, quickly dubbed the ‘September 11 of the Republic’,41 would initiate possibly the greatest civil unrest in the country in recent memory, leading to strong protests against the government. The protests, which threatened to turn into the physical abuse of members of the cabinet at the funeral of the victim, would be notably egged on by leading figures in both the civilian and military bureaucracy.42 It would unfold briefly, however, that the gunman, who had had ­accomplices­– ­­all s­ mall-­time criminals who had simply been promised money and who would subsequently ­speak­– ­­had not only masterminded the earlier bombings in Istanbul, but was also more a ‘nationalist’ fanatic than an Islamist, with ties to ­anti-­government, a­nti-­Europe paramilitary groups.43 The idea of a possible nationalist motive behind the attack against the supreme administrative court, itself a stronghold of the nationalist, republican tradition, would do nothing less than shock the nation. With the overall frustration caused by this event still intact, an alleged ‘gang’, formed by three members of the armed forces and a civilian, would be unearthed in Ankara in less than a fortnight, in May 2006, through what looked like more and more ‘determined’ security work conducted by the police, with hitherto unobserved diligence.44 The gang, which had purportedly possessed a mass of weapons and ammunition, would be revealed to have planned bomb attacks and assassinations, apparently including one against Erdoğan. Moreover, bombs used in the attacks on the Istanbul newspaper and those ‘found’ with the ‘gang’ would be claimed as ‘embezzled’ from military stocks. The incidents would be attributed to the s­ o-­called ‘deep state’, or the state within the state: a shorthand for the nationalist, paramilitary groups that, motivated ostensibly by an assumed urgency of ‘national survival’, and with illicit connections in the ranks of the civilian and military bureaucracy, violently opposed the transformation in the country. This alleged backlash as Turkey ‘neared’ Europe, which apparently formed only the tip of the iceberg, would lead to huge a­ nti-­coup investigations from m ­ id-­2007, detailed in the next chapter, and serve decisively to clear the way for the coming regime change.

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3 TRIALS

T

he political climate during the regime change from 2007 would be imbued with a frenzied debate in society over a series of legal investigations into the allegations of l­ong-­active military and paramilitary ‘gangs’ in the country. The activities associated with the gangs purportedly indicated a mammoth crime syndicate, dubbed ‘Ergenekon’, after a nationalist legend of the same name. The culprits had aimed, according to the prosecutors, to create ­far-­reaching chaos and uncertainty in the land by ­high-­profile assassinations and general carnage, with the objective of creating fertile ground and justification for a possible military takeover in the face of an increasingly debilitated civilian government. The investigations would begin in June 2007, when a number of hand grenades, TNT blocks and detonators would be found stowed in a shanty town house in an outlying district of Istanbul.1 The hand grenades, identified as from the stocks of the military, would be claimed to be of the same batch as those used in fourteen prior and unsolved incidents. The deepening investigations would transform in time into nine separate cases, either related or complementary in content, and later to be reduced to five, with some combined by courts in the process. These five cases would come to be known as Ergenekon, Poyrazköy, Balyoz (the Sledgehammer), Şile, and OdaTV. The hearings would start in October 2008 following a set of unusually lengthy indictments by the prosecutors, each amounting to thousands of pages. Those key legal texts would be positively stupefying in their endless 92

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tri a ls | 93 details, both relevant and, not infrequently, trivial. Worse still, characteristically perhaps for the local judiciary, the articulations in these main accusatory instruments would be in extremely poor, convoluted wording, defying easy and full comprehension. The result would be a bewildering maze of alleged conspiracies, simultaneously eliciting alarm and incredulity from the public, hence an increasingly widened split in public opinion in the subsequent period over the investigations. Those within the broad ‘democratic’ camp led by the government until 2011 would, on the whole, view the hearings as akin to truth commissions, to throw some ­much-­needed light for a clean slate on state complicity in political assassinations and extrajudicial killings in the recent past of a country where authority had long been shared between fragile civilian governments and a ­high-­powered bureaucracy. The critics, on the other hand, would tend to view the investigations as no more than a mere government conspiracy hatched to suppress the republican and the newly emergent ­neo-­nationalist opposition. In the first verdict delivered in September 2012 in only one of the cases, the Sledgehammer, 300 defendants would be convicted for an ‘attempted coup’. E ­ ighty-­one of them, including some former army commanders, would receive aggravated life sentences, to be commuted by the court to sentences between eighteen and twenty years’ imprisonment for the ‘incomplete’ nature of the attempt. The Court of Cassation (Yargıtay), the high court of appeals in criminal and civil cases, would largely confirm this ruling in October 2013, finalising it. With the rest of the cases still making headway, a fascinating reversal of the entire process would follow thereafter. The government would have in the second half of 2013 a public confrontation with a group of former allies, the Islamic community centred on the teachings of Fethullah Gülen (see Chapter 5), suspected all along by the critics to have masterminded the whole thing through a network of loyal followers within the police forces and in the judiciary. A politician within the close circle of the then prime minister Tayyip Erdoğan, and a deputy prime minister in the government from September 2014, would declare, rather abruptly, that the investigations and the trials had been a mere ‘trap to the army’.2 This ‘revelation’ would come in the immediate aftermath of the reputedly Gülenist w ­ histle-­blowing (see Chapter 8) on the apparently colossal corruption and bribery carried out over an extended period of time around a tight band formed by Erdoğan, his

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94  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y family and associates, with huge amounts of funds claimed to have illicitly changed h ­ ands­– a­­ crippling blow to the government. Notwithstanding the trials still in process, with only two of the cases having a court verdict by then (a second verdict would come in August 2013), virtually all of the prominent detainees, either convicted or still defending, would be released between March and June 2014. The prosecutors behind the cases would not only be debarred from the profession, but would also be accused of ‘organised crime’ and of a ‘coup’ against the government. Indubitable heroes for years in ­pro-­government circles, the prosecutors would thus become ‘scapegoats’ and ‘random’ victims, not because they were ­innocent­– ­­they hardly ­were­– ­­but for the simple fact that the sharp transformation of the heroes into culprits appeared to have little to do with the gross professional irregularities which they had displayed in bringing together the set of cases, ostensibly to clear the way for the government during the regime change. With arrest warrants issued about them in August 2015, some of the leading prosecutors would flee the country.3 The meteoric mood change in the administration over the trials would leave behind an unusual legal imbroglio and no one knew exactly how the judiciary would try to sort it out. Among the released were not only those convicted and awaiting the finalisation of the verdict at the high court but also those in the Sledgehammer case, with technically ‘finalised’ sentences, a fact suggesting that much in the immense undertaking had indeed hinged all along on a ‘political’ will, rather than an independent pursuit of justice. Having previously deferred the various criticisms of obvious flaws and inconsistencies in the cases to the ‘independent’ judiciary, the government had now swiftly enabled what had looked impossible technically, especially in a legal environment where even routine procedures faced considerable hindrances created by the inertia and whims of the judicial authorities. What had happened? How had this rather dramatic turn in events come about, with considerable and lasting damage to the trust in the justice system in the country? From 2007, some ‘normalisation’ along basic democratic principles would gradually set in, establishing somewhat less controversial boundaries in jurisdiction over military and civilian offences, respectively. Under the old regime, military courts had possessed the bold and highly unusual power of trying civilians in some cases as well as members of the military. A piece of

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tri a ls | 95 legislation enacted in June 2009, to be effective from July of the same year, would take away from military courts the authority over some of the offences committed by civilians in peacetime, either alone or in league with military personnel.4 This move would be a genuine breakthrough towards a fairer trial of civilians, such as conscientious objectors, by then rapidly proliferating in society yet not recognised in the legal system, who had invariably found themselves before military courts. The momentous set of trials discussed in this chapter would present a greater challenge though, at least to start with, since the investigations would seek to probe into offences committed, alongside civilians, also by military personnel. Moreover, some of the offensive deeds looked into by civilian courts would appear to have occurred on military premises, as part of routine military practices. According to the prosecutors, not to be disputed subsequently by the courts recipients of the indictments, neither the status of some of the defendants as military personnel nor the military premises, where some of the acts contributing to the criminal charges seemed to have been planned or taken place, was enough to take jurisdiction away from the civilian courts by classifying the offences at issue as ‘military’. Furthermore, the prosecutors argued, the criminal undertakings claimed in indictments ostensibly targeted the legislative and executive organs of the state, which undoubtedly functioned outside the familiar sphere of the military. The Military Court of Cassation had also appeared to be of this opinion in its recent case law, as pointed out by the prosecutors, deciding that over ‘ordinary’ criminal activities of military staff the jurisdiction lay with the civilian courts.5 This fleeting uncertainty in the legal authority of the courts handling the cases was far from being the main bone of contention during the investigations and trials. In the thick of virtually unending public wrangling as the courts began processing the cases would be the s­o-­called ‘special’ nature of the penal tribunals in authority. In a revealing continuity, these courts that functioned in the present cases, effectively towards purging political opposition in any form, would simply look as a new ring in the settled chain of extraordinary judicial bodies set up locally at times of change, such as the notorious Independence Tribunals (İstiklâl Mahkemeleri) of 1920–7, and Yassıada (the tiny island where suspects had been held) Tribunal of 1960–1. Ironically, the ‘purge’ to occur later from 2014 against the Gülenists, who allegedly ran the specially authorised penal courts in the cases detailed here,

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96  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y would invite simply another ring in this perennial chain, to be swiftly introduced by the government, namely specially authorised magistrates’ courts (sulh ceza hakimliği)­– o­ nce again, an interference in the judiciary in conspicuous defiance of the ‘natural judge’ (gesetzlicher Richter) principle, a pinnacle of modern justice systems.6 As part of its overall political commitments to Europe, the government had, in June 2004, scrapped the former State Security Courts, a leftover judicial institution from the time of a military intervention in the early 1970s, to be used after the coup of 1980 to full effect in political cases. In numerous cases brought about by individual applications from Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) had found these courts in violation of the right to a fair trial, lacking sufficient independence and impartiality. The State Security Courts eventually rescinded would acquire practically a new lease of life in the very amendment in the Criminal Code of Procedure that would formally abrogate them.7 Motivated apparently by a desire not to leave a possible ‘gap’ in the wake of the former courts in complying with the ECtHR findings, the new regulation in 2004 would list a number of s­ o-­called ‘prime’ offences and grant the High Council of Judges and Public Prosecutors (Hakimler ve Savcılar Yüksek Kurulu, HSYK) the authority to create at the suggestion of the minister of justice ‘special’ penal courts that would see the cases involving these offences. The new assize courts thus created would have extensive spatial powers that would encroach on, and override in possibly concurrent jurisdiction, the authority of the existing (ordinary) criminal courts organised in terms of main administrative provinces. The offences listed would include, broadly put, crimes against the security of the state, crimes against the constitutional order and crimes of terrorism. The specially authorised courts, which would come to deal with the political investigations and trials in the critical phase of the regime change from 2007, and which would be rumoured, as noted, to be dominated by the Gülenist members of the judiciary, would last until March 2014, to be repealed soon after the Gülenists and the government publicly fell apart.8 The dissolved courts would be replaced from June 2014 by the new entity mentioned above, magistrates’ courts,9 again, equipped with some exceptional authority in vaguely political cases, to be used in the combat of the government, this time against the Gülenists.

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tri a ls | 97 In short, active between 2004 and 2014 and conducting from ­mid-­2007 the set of unusual cases detailed in this chapter, the specially authorised assize courts were largely a legal anomaly, operating at this critical juncture to facilitate the coming regime change. The ‘usual suspects’ that would be rounded up by the prosecutors through a professional zeal rarely seen before, in cooperation with an equally vigilant police force, would include a former chief of staff, former army commanders, the former head of the Higher Education Council (Yükseköğretim Kurulu), and four defendants elected for the parliament while in detention with two separate opposition political parties, not to mention numerous journalists and intellectuals. The courts prosecuting the defendants would function in less than full observance of the basic right to a fair trial on several related fronts: (1) The principle of the presumption of innocence would be effectively ignored. More often than not the authorities would fail due diligence in heeding possible evidence in favour of the suspects and in refusing to inform the detainees promptly and in detail about the criminal charges they would face. (2) Little attention would be paid to the principle of the equality of arms that empowered the defence through unobstructed access to evidence, under equal conditions as the prosecution. Instead, much would remain a mystery for the defence, with the case files kept behind a thick shroud of secrecy, not only in the investigation phase, but also during the trials. (3) The authorities involved in the investigations and trials would consistently leak to the ­pro-­government media, or fall flat protecting, sensitive evidence not yet challenged by the defence, with the effect of having the suspects already and firmly ‘convicted’ in the public opinion. (4) Most of the suspects would be de facto and heavily ‘punished’ along the way, as the prosecution would linger on by unusually lengthy periods of detention in the absence of some of the universally applicable criteria applicable to continuing detention, such as the risk of suspects likely to destroy evidence or abscond. (5) Some of the formal charges against the defendants, and in turn ensuing judgements, would rely either on improperly obtained evidence, such as irregular wiretappings, or on evidence that would spawn strong suspicions of having been somehow tainted and impaired against the defendants, principally some of the digital data that would look tampered with in expert testimonies both in and outside the court. Documents later to be unearthed in the archive of one specially authorised court, the 11th Assize Court in

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98  |  reg i me cha ng e i n c o n te mp o r a r y tur k e y Ankara, would reveal that between 2007 and 2010, a critical phase for the investigations conducted, the police had wiretapped the telephones of virtually all of the key figures in the public life of the country, from politics and the military to the judiciary, media and business circles, through court orders obtained on the basis of alleged criminal suspicions linking these figures to a set of fabricated criminal organisations.10 The almost imminent dissolution of the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in 2008, noted before, which would have put a stop to the regime change, looked also to have been averted by a small margin by the pressure allegedly put on the justices of the Constitutional Court through illegal wiretapping.11 Again, anonymous witnesses in some of the cases would considerably damage the interests of justice by denying the defence an opportunity to call into question, or have the court assess within context, the credibility of the testimonies offered. (6) Last, but by no means least, in levelling the charges, the long and convoluted indictments by the public prosecutors would lack vigour, precision, even an elementary form of legal reasoning in places, irresponsibly wrecking in these immediately publicised texts the private and personal lives of some of the defendants through detailed accounts of intercepted phone conversations, inserted in prosecutorial texts rather casually, with little or no bearing on the case in hand. How was this recklessness possible in a judicial system that was by no means dominated solely by legal professionals close to the government? Indeed, recall that in July 2008, more than one whole year after the start of the investigations, the ruling political party was still battling a case against it before the Constitutional Court. The AKP in power would dodge dissolution only by a narrow ­margin­– ­­by only one vote out of the votes of the eleven justices. Paradoxically, this (1) restless ‘persecution’ of the government by the judiciary would actually help the investigations by the specially authorised courts, allowing most observers to ignore some of the glaring irregularities in the work of the prosecutors. The second important factor implicitly justifying the apparent deviations would be (2) the state of the judiciary, by and large, over decades. The generally negative view of the settled judiciary as less than competent would make it possible to perceive some of the deficiencies in both investigations and trials as simply ‘structural’. Another factor would be (3) the judiciary long conceived by observers as the bastion of the old order. The

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tri a ls | 99 republican members of the judiciary, in fact the only professionally organised group in the sector at the time, would still appear not only in blind loyalty to the old bureaucratic order at the cost of some basic rights and freedoms, but also unusually assertive and vocal in active resistance to the government. Yet another factor would be (4) the rather unfavourable public appraisals of some of the defendants. The suspects might be innocent of the formal charges they would fight before the courts, but some of them were prominent figures known for their aversion to what looked like an emerging democratic culture on the basic rights. Moreover, some of the defendants had been understood as having publicly incited hatred towards minorities, Armenians in particular, and threatened and persecuted some of the p ­ ro-­minority intellectuals. The critics, dominating the mainstream media at the time, were fond of describing the suspects as democratically minded, freedom loving and secularist intellectuals, who had merely been blunt opposition personages in the face of a steadily bolder ‘­Islamo-­fascist’ government. But a close look at the suspects seemed barely to support this vision. Typical of most of the suspects was an author of several bestselling books of p ­ seudo-­research. The prosecutors claimed that for a long time the author had been on the payroll of a ‘gang’ of h ­ igh-­ranking officials within the gendarmerie, as part of the purported psychological warfare by elements within the military against the government. Before he was arrested in 2007, the author had written a trilogy of books, notorious for their rampant a­ nti-­Semitism, a persistent theme in the ­neo-­nationalist circles playing to the dormant prejudices of the masses. One of the trilogy was entitled The Children of Moses (Musa’nın Çocukları), centred on the claim that Erdoğan and his wife were Semitic in origin and thus part of a conspiracy to sell out the country under the guise of Europeanisation or democratisation. Another was entitled The Rose of Moses (Musa’nın Gülü), on the then president Abdullah Gül (‘gül’ literally meaning ‘rose’), asserting that Gül was a ­crypto-­Jew. The third in the trilogy was The Mujaheed of Moses (Musa’nın Mücahidi) and was on the purported secret Jewish identity of the then speaker of the parliament. The judiciary would consistently refuse to ban the books. In detention, the author would publish a new bestseller not much different in content, a fact that would incidentally render somewhat vacuous for observers the claims about the oppression and unlawful intimidation faced by the detainees. The literature produced

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100  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y by the author, while he was purportedly being paid by the gendarmerie, was hardly the stuff of ­freedom-­loving opposition against an ‘­Islamo-­fascist’ government. More telling perhaps was the fact that this hate literature had for years been voraciously consumed, and was still being consumed, by the ­well-­educated, ­better-­off Turks that formed the portion of society intensely opposed to the investigations. Defined by a fervent nationalism and publicly supporting the role of the military in holding sway over civilian politics, this camp was, and would continue to be under the new regime, fiercely critical of the government for ‘surrendering’, allegedly in grave breaches of national security, to Kurds, Armenians, Greeks and (oddly enough for the strong ‘secular’ sensibilities at work) Christian missionaries. The denunciations were simply about, respectively: the mere possibility to grant the Kurds some long overdue basic rights; abandoning the established policy on Cyprus; endeavouring, with the help of some of the liberal intellectuals, to accommodate an alternative vision of the fate of the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 as victims of a genocide; and finally a refusal to disrupt the activities of the proselytising Christian groups in the country. More importantly perhaps, (5) the overall hierarchy within the judiciary could be argued to have misled some of the observers about the nature of the trials. The central body that was in charge of the appointments and promotions within the judiciary, the HSYK, was well recognised as staunchly republican until early 2011, when a constitutional referendum in September 2010 would bring about an overhaul of the judiciary, followed by new members elected for high court benches in the following months. Years later, it would still not be ­clear­– ­­beyond (a) speculations on the Gülenist judges and prosecutors as ‘dissimulators’ skilled enough to have ‘deceived’ the HSYK, or (b) the minister of justice to have conducted with this supreme judicial body a ­behind-­the-doors give and ­take­– as ­­ to how exactly in the period between 2007 and 2011, when most of the work of the specially authorised courts was already done, the government had been able to ‘manipulate’ the HSYK, which made the appointments to those courts, enabling the cases discussed here. As for the period after early 2011, the government would have full control and plain ‘obedience’ of both the HSYK and the courts generally, practically ending the separation between the executive and the judiciary. If one factor for this ‘sudden’ turn of the tide in the wake of the old regime in

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tri a ls | 101 the attitudes of an essentially heterogeneous judiciary would be the formal hierarchy introduced into the justice system, or at least strengthened by the government, another factor would appear to be a soft spot of the judiciary traditionally, namely the ‘magic’ of power, immediately dazzling or otherwise easily intimidating and passivising the staff in the justice system. The government control of the judiciary would last until the spectacular ­break-­up with the Gülenists in the second half of 2013, albeit occasional tension caused by the increasingly daring Gülenists in the judiciary, later to be reinstated in a form arguably more forbidding than before. It was hardly a surprise, therefore, that most observers who valued the right to a fair t­rial­– breached ­­ rather gravely in the process by law enforcement officers, prosecutor, and the courts, all apparently in ­cahoots­– would ­­ choose to excuse or ignore some of the obvious flaws, including the present author.12 Accordingly, the usual inadequacies long in place structurally seemed only more conspicuous to the observers for the high profile of most of the suspects. That is, the judiciary as simply the henchmen of the government appeared overall to be a less than convincing view at the time. If anything, the legal system had been steered for most of the process by a closed, c­ o-­optive system of judiciary manned by justices notably antagonistic to the government, making no secret of their sceptical opinion of the investigations at the specially authorised courts. The centrepiece in the system, the HSYK, had not only possessed the unqualified authority over the appointments to the courts in question, it had also frequently attempted to disrupt the process by replacing or reshuffling members of the courts or the prosecutors in charge. The government’s involvement in the process would often be pointed out by the critics, to be sure, yet mostly in relation to the work of the law enforcement body, which conducted evidence gathering. Still, in this sector of work, law enforcement officers would be known as being formally directed throughout by ‘independent’ prosecutors, who would be present at raids on the homes or offices of the suspects. Further, the suspects would have a right to be accompanied and represented by lawyers at all stages, including during the searches. Evidence would be collected, as was the rule, via a strict procedure of video documentation at the scene. The suspect or the lawyer would then formally corroborate the material officially secured. Finally, the prosecutors would have no power to act ‘at will’ within the system; for the

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102  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y moves leading to searches, raids and custodies they would have to obtain the formal authorisation of ‘independent’ judges through e­ vidence-­based rulings, which would in turn be subject to appeals by those affected. The detentions, enforced and periodically reviewed by courts, could be, and were indeed, ended by individual judges on duty on a rotating basis. All that would appear to point to a highly intricate scheme locally, which would be sensitive, to say the least, to possible extrajudicial interventions. A likely attempt by the government to manipulate or influence the system could hardly go ‘unnoticed’, given the fact in particular that the prosecutors and the judges were constantly under close scrutiny, not only by the mainstream media rather sceptical of the investigations at the time (not fully controlled by the government then), but also by the w ­ ell-­organised ­non-­governmental organisation of judges and public prosecutors in office (Yargıçlar ve Savcılar Birliği, YARSAV) that had been no less than simply hypercritical of the government all along. Having received little cooperation from the military, observers could see that the prosecutors were grappling with a clearly daunting task. They were functioning under great pressure, both that of basic safety while investigating cases on numerous assassinations that included unprecedentedly ­high-­profile suspects, and that of time, personnel and facilities, notoriously inadequate and in short supply within the judicial system. Finally, let us remember (6) the bleak context locally, no less effective in determining the mood and in eliciting much support from the public and from independent observers for the trials, formed, on one side, by a s­ o-­called ‘deep state’, with a long trail of unsolved murders associated with it and, on the other, the ­well-­documented13 groundwork within the military in 2003 and 2004 towards an imminent military takeover, made public from 2007. ‘Deep State’ A concept that emerged in Turkish politics in the macabre setting of the 1990s, the ‘deep state’ had a degree of kinship with what Robert Paxton has analysed as ‘parallel structures’ under fascism, formed by ‘organisations that replicate government agencies’.14 The somewhat more elusive notion of the deep state in intense use locally seemed to be an offshoot of the distinction under the old order between the bureaucracy and politics, the state and the government, assuming a furtive yet somehow ‘officially’ sanctioned authority

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tri a ls | 103 that shared in the state power, yet not necessarily accountable to politics. As such, the concept had a decisive role in the process leading to the regime change in the country by playing to popular imagination in the writings of journalists, who tried desperately to make sense of a series of baffling events of the 1990s. Ironically, after the regime change, Erdoğan would have a mere mimetic extension of this notion with the reputedly Gülenist revelations of extensive corruption from December 2013, referring to these former allies, who themselves had made plenty of use of the notion of the deep state in the fight against the old regime, by directly employing the term used by ­Paxton­ – ­­the parallel structure. The indictments put together by the prosecutors of the specially authorised courts from 2007 claimed two main currents of illegal undertakings purportedly active in defence of the old regime in throes under the AKP rule; one current was the deep state, and the other a set of attempted military takeovers. The deep state referred to forms of violent vigilantism by various paramilitary organisations, with connections in the military, the police, the bureaucracy and the mafia. This obscure drift in the midst of politics was long assumed by most commentators to be a residue of the N ­ ATO-­planned, ­anti-­communist, ­anti-­guerrilla ‘stay behind’ forces secretly set up within the military in 1953, under the name ‘Special Warfare Unit’.15 Analogies were frequently suggested in this context with the Italian Gladio, which had had a lasting, stealthy existence, to be unearthed in domestic public opinion only after the end of the Cold War.16 Although designed primarily for the bipolar global politics of the time, the structure was claimed to have been far from having confined its activities to the mere ‘East–West’ rivalry. The notorious pogroms against n ­ on-­Muslims in Istanbul, as early as 1955, for instance, had been claimed to be a ‘job’ of this military unit, to be casually confirmed in 1991 by a retired general who had headed the unit from the late 1960s.17 The same former military figure would reveal in 2010, in a setting when the publicly debated, chilling accusations directed at some of the military personnel on trial included the plans to bomb some of the historical mosques in Istanbul (later to be understood as fabrications), that the Special Warfare Unit had also set fire to a mosque in Cyprus in the 1960s, during the intercommunal strife between the Turkish and Greek Cypriots, in order to ‘bolster the resistance’ of the Turks.18 Arguably the most confounding among the deeds attributed to the

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104  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Special Warfare Unit had been a massacre in Istanbul in 1977 during the Labour Day celebrations by workers’ unions. In Taksim, ­thirty-­seven people had been gunned down, reportedly by unknown assailants positioned on the roofs of buildings surrounding its famous square.19 In the same month, there would be an assassination attempt against the then prime minister Bülent Ecevit, who, having just found out about the presence of what he called a ‘­counter-­guerrilla’ unit within the military, funded by the E ­ uro-­Atlantic alliance, had started expressing critical views. Personally, Ecevit himself seemed to link the attempt against his life to his questions before the public about the covert unit.20 This would be followed by a series of ­high-­profile assassinations. Among the murdered would be politicians, academics, journalists and, notably, a public prosecutor, Doğan Öz, who had been conducting an investigation into a set of suspected ­counter-­guerrilla operations, as claimed by Ecevit. One of the most highlighted since would be the assassination of a prominent newspaper editor, Abdi İpekçi, in 1979. The gunman, captured and put in a high security military prison, would soon vanish into thin air. Having left the country, he would attempt in 1981 to assassinate the Pope. This period also saw a succession of pogroms against the heterogeneous Muslim sect the Alevis, hundreds of them being killed in the central Anatolian towns of Malatya, Sivas, Maraş and Çorum. All this was often explained as the work of the Special Warfare Unit possibly seeking, through ­large-­scale mayhem, to justify an imminent military takeover, as purportedly demanded by Turkey’s allies with the onset of the s­o-­called Second Cold War in the latter part of the 1970s. The putsch would indeed come, in September 1980, with an ensuing calm for a brief span. ­High-­profile assassinations within the country, with unidentified or mysterious assailants as before, would resume after the military junta ended in 1983, with journalists, academics and businessmen murdered. The then prime minister Turgut Özal would be able to survive an assassination attempt in 1988, with only a slight wound. The work of a parliamentary committee looking into it in the aftermath of the incident would hint, based on various testimonies, that the perpetrator had been recruited, and in turn trained, by some ‘special forces’ formed against the leftist activists in the 1970s.21 In 2010, a retired admiral would describe the forced disappearances and subsequent summary executions of a number of Kurdish public opinion leaders and businessmen in the 1990s as a ‘state policy’.22

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tri a ls | 105 The ­wake-­up call linking the renewed bloodshed in the 1990s to the ­counter-­guerrilla activities of the 1970s would come in the form of a car crash in November 1996 in a locality in western Turkey known as Susurluk.23 A ­top-­speeding Mercedes car that accidentally smashed under a heavy lorry ahead of it had three passengers in it, who formed strikingly odd bedfellows: a ­well-­known ­right-­wing assassin on the run for close to twenty years, a police chief from Istanbul, and a Kurdish tribal politician who was a prominent ­centre-­right, ­anti-­Kurdish-nationalist member of parliament. A stock of assassination weapons and ammunition found in the boot of the car, and a former beauty contestant and model mysteriously accompanying the passengers, completed the picture. The police chief would later be linked to the ostensibly l­eft-­wing killing of the businessman Özdemir Sabancı, for being instrumental in having one of the killers employed as a floor attendant in the building where the assassination took place. The then minister of interior and the commander of the gendarmerie, also implicated in the scandal, would infamously refuse to cooperate in the subsequent investigation. Nothing much would come out of the probe, with the exception of a small number of ­middle-­ranking persons and enforcers in the police indicted and given prison sentences. Yet the Susurluk incident, as this road accident came to be known, would serve to recall in public memory the tradition of clandestine operations associated with the Special Warfare Unit. A good portion of close to 17,000 people disclosed officially24 as having perished in unsolved murders between 1992 and 2008 would be claimed almost routinely to have stemmed from the activities of the deep state. That the state had actually been less than this ‘deep’ would later be suggested by a former ­high-­ranking State Intelligence (Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MİT) officer. In his testimony before an Ankara court in April 2015, this retired MİT chief would state that, in the war against the Kurdish insurgency in the 1990s, lists of abetters allegedly formed by the National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu, MGK), a top body of cabinet ministers and army commanders, would be passed on to MİT operatives, who would in turn execute the killings.25 He would submit to the court some such ‘execution list’.26

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106  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Plans for a Military Takeover? Interestingly perhaps, this first current of illicit activities that formed part of the background in the investigations and trials from ­mid-­2007, namely the deep state, was the less controversial aspect of the recent past assumed in the indictments. There was a near consensus in public opinion on the facts as outlined above. The incomparably more controversial was the second current, which, the prosecutors claimed, involved various plans from within the highest ranks of the military for a coup soon after the AKP had come into power. The prosecutors seemed to be of the opinion that the two currents, paramilitary and military, one little questioned by the public and the other greatly hesitated over, respectively, merged for a common cause from late 2002, with the objective of overthrowing the new government: the country would be catapulted into escalating chaos and deep insecurity through the work of the paramilitary groups, while elements within the military would prepare for a takeover. Much has been said about the part played by the military in the republican era. An apt way of describing this role historically, if not for the later stages, is to appropriate what has been famously pronounced about the Prussian army in the eighteenth century: where some states had an army, the Turkish army had a state. As the virtual ‘founder’ of the state following a war of liberation against the invading European powers in the period immediately following World War I, and the most prominent guardian of its official ideology from then on, the army had a key task in what would be termed by the p ­ ro-­government commentators during the regime change, as noted before, a ‘system of tutelage’. The regime as such had started facing a gradual and almost imperceptible transformation already when the AKP acquired its long mandate from November 2002, roughly for three primary reasons. One was the end of the Cold War. Once a frontier station for ‘globalising forces’, the army had become a disruptive factor in p ­ ost-­Cold War operations in the region, turning into a liability. The second reason was the f­ast-­growing economic capacity of the country, in particular the flourishing businesses outside the traditional centres long shunned by the bureaucracy, seeking greater integration with the outside world for trade opportunities. Finally, Turkey became a candidate for full membership of the European Union in

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tri a ls | 107 1999, with extensive political reforms in the domestic normative structure to follow, which in turn functioned, despite considerable resistance from the bureaucracy, to undermine the established system. One of the more visible signs of the early defiance of this order was the government decision in 2004 to abandon the settled policy of secessionism for the Turkish community in Cyprus. As discussed in the preceding chapter, the government support for the new United Nations plan on the reunification of the island caused a great stir in domestic nationalist circles, with calls openly made on the military to intervene. The public would later find out about the presence of various aborted plans within the military for a takeover precisely at the time of the policy modification on Cyprus, as a news weekly would obtain and publish the secret diaries of the then commander of the navy.27 According to the prosecutors in charge of several investigations from ­mid-­2007, while apparent scheming went on unrelenting within the military, an overall plan for chaos to justify the future takeover was simultaneously put into action. A series of bewildering events, partly noted previously (Chapter 2), would soon follow, lending the assertion much credence in the subsequent prosecutions. A group of military personnel would be apprehended ­red-­handed in November 2005, having thrown a bomb into a bookstore in Şemdinli in the Kurdish populated s­outh-­east. The following year, in February 2006, a Roman Catholic priest (Father Andrea Santoro) would be murdered in the Black Sea coastal town of Trabzon. In May of the same year a gunman would raid the supreme administrative court in Ankara, the State Council (Danıştay), and murder a judge. In 2007, the ­Turkish-­Armenian journalist Dink would be assassinated in Istanbul in January, and a group of Christian missionaries would be horrendously slaughtered in the eastern Anatolian town of Malatya in April (the ‘Zirve’ case, after the missionary publishing house of the same name, where the massacre took place). Meanwhile, as would be suggested in the daily Taraf in successive reports in ­2010­– ­­the ‘enigmatic’ outlet of most of the revelations about the alleged coup plans within the m ­ ilitary­– in ­­ the continuing war against the Kurdish insurgents in the border regions with Iraq, Syria and Iran, elements within the military had been either incredibly incompetent or, as would be implied, ‘in league’ with the rebels, otherwise the nemesis, ostensibly in an odd alliance, or through an overlap of respective interests, against the government.

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108  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Casting immediate aspersions on the reputation of the military, some of the reports would hint that in a set of unusually daring raids by the rebels on army outposts, lives of hundreds of young conscripts might have been ‘sacrificed’ by the military or some elements within on purpose, apparently in order to fuel the a­ nti-­government feelings and raise the nationalist fury in the country. The escalating havoc would be coupled from the first half of 2007 with nationwide demonstrations led by some of the foremost opposition figures, most of whom later to be indicted by prosecutors, in protest at the government, which was claimed to be in a treacherous ‘conspiracy’ with the United States, Israel and the European Union towards undermining national security. The participants at the rallies would notably wave Turkish flags and display banners full of references to the war of liberation close to a century ago at the foundation of modern Turkey. Prosecutions Then, in June 2007, came the discovery of a pack of hand grenades and explosives by the police in an unassuming house in a district of Istanbul, which would ignite a series of legal investigations into the ­much-­talked-about deep state and the alleged coup attempts. The subsequent work by prosecutors would purportedly reveal further designs for creating sweeping turmoil in society, some shocking, such as the plan for blowing up a submarine in a maritime museum in Istanbul at the precise moment when the museum would be visited by schoolchildren. Also captured, ostensibly through informants from within the military, were what the prosecutors would claim to have been action plans for a military takeover, with one apparently having almost been rehearsed. Appended to all this would be the ‘uncovering’ of weapons and ammunition, claimed to have been buried in the ground in various sites by the pandemic ‘gang’, following maps reportedly ‘found’ with the suspects. Some of the sites at issue were strictly military, that is, inaccessible by civilians. Next, in May 2011, some allegedly incriminating evidence would be unearthed under the dazzling media spotlight at the very heart of the military, the Gölcük naval base. ‘Classified’ material, documents and computer disks, all looking like meticulously archived and hidden away under floorboards in one of the buildings, and remarkably corroborating the claims in the indictments, would come to light.

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tri a ls | 109 A specially authorised court (the 13th Assize Court in Istanbul) had already admitted the basic indictment on the first case, nicknamed Ergenekon, out of eventually five separate ones, on 25 July 2008. The case would later expand, not only through additional indictments to be submitted by the prosecutors, with new sets of suspects included, but also by incorporating a number of other cases subsequently initiated, pursued separately to start with, and yet decided at some point by the courts in charge to be merged with the first case, due to the complementary or dependent content in the cases. The trials would take place mostly on the premises of a large prison complex, where the suspects would be detained, in the town of Silivri about forty miles to the west of Istanbul. The first hearing would be held on 20 October 2008. Citing provisions from the ­Anti-­Terrorism Act and the Penal Code,28 the indictments had claimed that the suspects were part of a gargantuan terrorist organisation named ‘Ergenekon’. The organisation had targeted the government, the prosecution argued, via acts of violence directed at third persons and public order generally, with the overall aim of incapacitating the administration, ultimately towards submitting to the military. The principal indictment, listing ­eighty-­six suspects, included the alleged masterminding of the State Council shooting, coupled with the related bomb attacks against the Istanbul headquarters of a national daily, and the Dink, Santoro and Zirve killings, noted above. Correspondingly, the homicide case linked to the State Council, in process in Ankara since 2006, would be combined with this case. A second indictment would be admitted by the same court on 25 March 2009, initiating a separate case with ­fifty-­six suspects originally, who were charged with acts of terrorism and plotting a military takeover. The trials on this case would start on 20 July 2009. In another case, later to be added to this, the indictment would be admitted by the same court on 5 August 2009. The prosecution would charge ­fifty-­two suspects with organised acts of terrorism, notably also including alleged connections of this supposedly ­ultra-­nationalist formation to the Kurdish guerrillas fighting the state. And yet another initially distinct case, in time to be thrown in with the last three cases, would be one originally launched by a specially authorised court in Erzurum in eastern Anatolia. Admitted on 1 March 2010, the indictment would accuse fourteen suspects of w ­ eb-­based psychological warfare against the government, conducted allegedly out of the Office of the Chief of Staff

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110  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y directly, and seeking, among other things, to plant incriminating evidence with some ‘sneakily targeted’ ­pro-­government Islamic communities. Initiated in March 2009 (and including the two later cases from August 2009 and March 2010, respectively), this fast dilating case would later merge with the earlier and the first case from July 2008, also somewhat enlarged with many additional indictments. The court would then form the judgement in the overall case in August 2013, convicting nineteen defendants, including a former chief of staff29 and two former ­top-­ranking generals, to aggravated life imprisonment, that is, a life sentence not responsive to a likely lowering of the time to be served for future good conduct or for other attenuating reasons. Three of the defendants in the case had been elected to parliament while in detention. They would be accorded sentences ranging from twelve and a half to close to t­ hirty-­five years. There would be only t­ wenty-­one full acquittals out of a total of 256 suspects. The dossiers involving a former Istanbul mayor and a former AKP member of parliament who had turned against the government, although once close to ­Erdoğan­– ­­also suspects in the case yet absconders, thus not partaking in the p ­ roceedings­– would ­­ be put aside to be processed independently. By the time the verdict in this first case, Ergenekon, had been reached, the judgement in a subsequently initiated case, the Sledgehammer, had already come out. A specially authorised court (the 10th Assize Court in Istanbul) had admitted the basic indictment on this case on 19 July 2010, and the first hearing had been held on 16 December of the same year. The prosecutors had accused a total of 365 suspects, mostly members of the military, retired or still serving, with an attempt to overthrow the government. Disclosing its verdict on 21 September 2012, the court would sentence three retired generals among the defendants (a former first army commander, former air force commander general, and former navy commander admiral) to aggravated life imprisonment, yet reduce it to twenty years each for the ostensibly ‘incomplete’ nature of the attempt. S­ eventy-­eight of the defendants, no fewer than ten of them being former generals, one elected to parliament while in detention, would receive sentences of life imprisonment, in turn to be commuted to eighteen years each for the same reason. Those fully acquitted by the court would form fewer than a tenth of the suspects. Largely confirming this ruling in October 2013, the Court of Cassation (the 9th Penal Chamber) would

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tri a ls | 111 leave intact the sentences for the most prominent defenders cited above, revising and overruling the verdict only in relation to some of the relatively minor suspects. The review would uphold the judgement of the ­first-­degree court that had acquitted ­thirty-­six defendants, acquit a further group of ­twenty-­five for lack of sufficient evidence, and overrule the judgement for a group of ­sixty-­three, indicating that the alleged offence for the latter group of defendants had remained at the stage of mere ‘consent’ towards committing the offence, thus crucially short of an actual participation in it. In the third case, informally called Poyrazköy, after the location in Istanbul where the prosecutors had allegedly found some munitions in excavations, a specially authorised court (the 12th Assize Court in Istanbul) had admitted the principal indictment on 27 January 2010, charging seventeen suspects. Five of the defendants were naval officers in service, who had allegedly conspired towards political assassinations and general carnage, targeting, in particular, eminent members of various ethnic and religious minorities. The case would come to be combined with a number of other cases found somehow connected, namely the allegedly planned assassination of some admirals within the navy, the ­so-­called ‘cage action plan’ for an alleged mass murder of schoolchildren, among other objectives, and finally a case against the respective board members of two republican and singularly vocal ­non-­governmental organisations, the Association for the Support of Modern Lifestyles (Çağdaş Yaşamı Destekleme Derneği), and the Foundation for Modern Education (Çağdaş Eğitim Vakfı). The trial that would start on the basis of the early or original indictment of 9 April 2010 would still be in process at the time of developments from early 2014 that would practically upend the cases. The fourth and the fifth cases, also in process, were premised, respectively, on the alleged ‘discovery’ of some arms and ammunition that purportedly linked a group of ­ultra-­nationalist vigilantes organised within the deep state to the armed wing of a clandestine communist party (Türkiye İşçi Köylü Kurtuluş Ordusu, TIKKO), and on allegedly a­nti-­government acts of ‘sedition’ organised around a number of ­neo-­nationalist journalists on a web portal. The latter brought together as defendants, alongside ­neo-­nationalists and a State Intelligence (MİT) officer, rather amazingly, ‘­anti-­neo-nationalist’ socialist journalists and a r­ ight-­wing police chief known for his former ‘­anti-­deep-state’ posture. This additional odd group of ­suspects

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112  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y had r­evealingly turned ‘­anti-­Gülenist’ in the spell immediately before they had been charged. The indictment on the first case, dubbed Şile, after the location where the arms and ammunition had purportedly been uncovered, was admitted by a specially authorised court (the 12th Assize Court in Istanbul) in March 2011. Another specially authorised court (the 16th Assize Court in Istanbul) consented to go along with the indictment for the second case, popularly named OdaTV, after the ­neo-­nationalist web portal focal to the charges, in September 2011. The rest of the story on the trials would be a sudden and rapid reversal, as noted above, of the entire mood around the cases, be it finalised or still in process. The government allies that had presumably been behind the workings of the specially authorised courts and the police, the Gülenists would turn out to be in less than full agreement with the government in the matter of a possible peace deal with the Kurdish political movement by engaging in dialogue with the leadership of the guerrilla forces, underway, on and off, possibly since 2010.30 The contention would become public in February 2012, with a prosecutor at a specially authorised court boldly summoning the MİT undersecretary,31 a close Erdoğan confidant with a key role in the dialogue with the Kurdish guerrillas. The spy chief would be invited formally for a deposition in connection to some alleged ‘MİT informants’ in detention as part of a set of a­ nti-­terror operations conducted by the judiciary against the broad Kurdish political platform (Koma Civakên Kurdistan). Blocking this initiative with a swift amendment in the law that would hinder the prosecution of the MİT personnel, the government would consider this attempt in the following period as only an early manifestation in defiance of the ‘elected’ government in policy choices by the ‘new’, Gülenist ­bureaucracy­– ­­even a de facto ‘coup’, set to take its cue from the strictly calculated detention of the MİT undersecretary, as would be claimed in ­pro-­government circles, at the visit requested by the prosecutor for a deposition. The apparent tussle between the two former political allies, the Gülenists who were strong in the bureaucracy and the ­Islamo-­nationalists at the helm of the government, would intensify in the second half of 2013, with a series of moves and c­ ounter-­moves to ensue. Before long, the government firmly in control of the legislative organ would repeal32 the specially authorised courts in charge of the seminal trials described in this chapter. A critical provision

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tri a ls | 113 in the Criminal Code of Procedure that ‘doubled’ the maximum detention period for suspects before the specially authorised courts33 would be revoked in the early March 2014, alongside abolishing the courts in question.34 The practice in ­pre-­conviction detention period would thus revert to the default principle of five years maximum.35 This would in turn lead to the immediate release of suspects in detention in excess of five years, including those on the first case, who had been convicted by the first instance court, yet, awaiting review, the judgement at issue was still not final.36 There was, however, one finalised verdict, namely that in the Sledgehammer case, having been reviewed by the high court already in October 2013. The release of the suspects in this case would be enabled through a different measure. The Constitutional Court acting in its new capacity (from late 2012) as a human rights tribunal would make an assessment of the trial in the Sledgehammer case at the individual application of 230 defendants (‘convicts’ technically). In a judgement announced on 18 June 2014, combining the originally separate applications, the court would find the proceedings in the case in violation of the principle of fair trial, as established under the European regime of human rights (on this, see Chapter 5).37 Having convened as the Plenary Court, as it did for unusual or tricky cases, yet with a strikingly ‘unanimous’ outcome to follow, the court would decide in its ruling for a breach of the right by pointing out the fact, widely and ceaselessly debated in the public opinion, that the authorities had failed to heed the defendants on the digital data and hear witnesses on their behalf under equal conditions for witnesses for the prosecution. Moreover, the court would go ahead and, acting like a review body, formally demand a ‘renewal’ of the trial. The release of the defendants from detention would start the following day.38 Although barely conclusive of a neat termination of the whole process, creating on the contrary an unusual legal quandary yet to be sorted out by the judiciary now significantly purged from the alleged Gülenists, the releases would practically be the end of the political trials that had in effect enabled the regime change. Reorganised through a w ­ ide-­scale restructuring, transfers and appointments, alongside a similar ­weeding-­out in the ranks of the police, the judiciary as an equally political instrument in this new phase could now turn to fresh ‘victims’, the Gülenists, somewhat conveniently blamed by the government for the entire judicial mess since ­mid-­2007.

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114  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Victims? Although, and undoubtedly, the main players behind the appalling miscarriages of justice, the Gülenists (a) were hardly the sole culprits. More importantly perhaps, (b) they had been ‘unmasked’ not for such wrongdoings but for the later corruption allegations against the government. The ‘victimage’ at issue would merely be a function of this telltale randomness, causal oddity, as explained before (see Introduction), rather than denoting some literal ‘innocence’ somehow attributable to the cult. The retrial on the Sledgehammer case would commence on 3 November 2014, with the suspects immediately cleared of the charges by the key witnesses, thus casting light on the road ahead, to be followed by full acquittals of the defendants on 31 March 2015.39 Only days before the start of the retrial in this case, President Erdoğan had made an attempt at a National Security Council (MGK) meeting, reportedly a successful one, to include the Gülenists as a ‘threat’ in the s­o-­called Red Book,40 known popularly as ‘the confidential code above the formal Constitution’­– ­an undemocratic, ­anti-­rule-­of-­law state practice that had been fiercely criticised by none other than Erdoğan himself in fighting the old regime until a short while ago.

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4 RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

T

he motley coalition led by ‘former’ ­Islamo-­nationalists (Millî Görüş) in the wake of the massive economic crisis of February 2001, pushing the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) into power from November 2002, had to grapple with various forms of ‘foul play’ rather viciously introduced by the bureaucracy under the old regime. The bureaucratic resistance would soon be coupled with a newly emergent ‘­neo-­nationalist’ (ulusalcı) politics, the virtual engine behind a series of nationwide ‘patriotic’ demonstrations from April 2007 that would depict the AKP rule as akin to an apocalypse threatening the very survival of the nation.1 The ‘victimage’ staged at the legal probes from ­mid-­2007 by the incipient order, detailed in the preceding chapter, did rely, in other words, on some genuine grievances on the part of the government, quite apart from the plain ‘lynching’ to which the whole process would later be transformed through a deliberately randomised and partisan functioning of the justice system. The liberal intellectuals who constituted a key part of the informal bloc behind the ruling AKP until 2011, successfully marketing, as it would turn out, the project of regime change both domestically and internationally, attributed the ongoing resistance purely to a cynical bureaucracy at an ­all-­out war to defend its long exercised privileges in the face of a full political participation of the masses promised in the change. The considerable support in society for the ­old-­style bureaucratic rule, possibly as broad as about a quarter of the 115

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116  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y total number of voters, was in turn put down either to a republican elitism on the part of sections long ‘spoiled’ under the patronage of the bureaucracy or to evident ignorance in rationally appreciating the benefits of a fully normalised democracy. The later stage of the Arab Spring from 2012 would illustrate this notion as a serious handicap during transition, not only locally, but also in the greater region. Given the choice between an unfettered majoritarianism (what some referred to as ‘illiberal democracy’) on one side and a limited democracy linked to the local modes of dictatorship on the other, a substantial portion of the respective societies could go, as it would be manifest, for the latter for reasons that might be somewhat understandable: though admittedly oppressive on the whole, the authoritarianisms in the region did extend some minimum protection in terms of the most basic rights and freedoms, especially for members of various minority groups, against the homogenising and intimidating majorities. That is, authoritarian regimes in the region, not only those in the Arab landscape, but also the settled republicanism in Turkey subjected to a less spectacular and mixed transformation from 2007, arguably relied, beside plain coercion, on some ‘quilting points’, to appropriate the Lacanian metaphor,2 in acquiring consent in the respective domestic societies. Some such anchoring point, supplying lasting and staunch imprimaturs for the regimes locally, crucial in sustaining this class of authoritarianisms that emerged out of ­anti-­colonial struggles in the region historically, seemed to be linked to a specific understanding of modernity that defined it in a sharp distinction to the native heritage and wont, perceived as premodern, or less than enlightened, which blocked or hindered the agency and enfranchisement promised to individuals within modernity. On this view, either as religion or as perennial patriarchy, the tradition as such forced on people patterns of incapacitating ‘tutelage’ in the celebrated Kantian sense3 in continuing generally to mediate subjectivities in the regional societies. Life forms and practices traceable to some such tutelage, inimical to ‘genuine’ subjectivity or full individual autonomy, were thus naturally suspect and needed to be suppressed until a complete rationalisation of everyday life in keeping with the precepts of a somewhat linear notion of modernity was achieved under the guardianship of the ­heavy-­handed regime. Although the modern complicity in the making of the authoritarianisms

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resi sta nce to cha n ge  | 117 in the region was not entirely unknown in social science literature, with some emphasis on the impact of flurries and swings such as ­top-­down political modernisation, pressures of the world market, and rentier capitalism, the full extent of the modern intrigue in the regimes was often eschewed, especially in public debates. Not infrequently, authoritarianisms at issue seemed rather ironically to be perceived by observers as a defiance of modernity by obdurate local rulers. This chapter argues, with the general objective of an exposition of the logic and dynamics of the resistance to change in the case of Turkey, that a strong commitment to modernity functioned in places in the greater region precisely as the inspiration behind a perverse ‘liberation theology’ that arguably ticked and strengthened the regime at critical moments. This theology, in league with a global n ­ eo-­conservative (­neo-­con) mentality that was recognisably marked by an awkward alloy of r­ight-­wing and ­left-­wing politics, promised emancipation contra the local tradition by incorporating what was perceived as inevitable and essentially ‘benevolent’ coercion. In so doing, this theology secured a decisive element of domestic support, a quilting point, for the regime that was in a continuing ­stand-­off with the tradition. In this setting, the regime not only appeared to draw on a wide social base, as opposed to remaining aloof and purely ­self-­serving, as naively claimed by the liberal critics of the old regime in Turkey, but also had a somewhat ‘moral’ claim bolstered by its alignment with modernity and by the apparent intent of emancipation. The incredulity shared widely in international public opinion over the resistance to change in some of the regional states, with massive carnage in full view, appeared to lead most observers to branding the event as exceptional, given the elementary demands of legitimacy under modern political rationality. What this perception possibly missed, however, was that an exception was exactly what seemed to licence those regimes for the villainous deeds at issue. The supporters of the authoritarian regimes, both domestic and international, treated the region as an exception to the modern rule, where democratic standards associated with modernity were suspended, ‘benevolently’ so, to keep the menacing ‘premodern’ forces in check locally. Astonishing perhaps to distant observers, this outlook ought to be recognised nevertheless as a moral claim in its own right, aided and abetted, as maintained below, by a steadfast theology. More significant still, it might be possible to reverse

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118  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y this hierarchy of the exception and the standard, upheld by both the critics and defenders of the regimes in the region, and view those regimes, not as exceptions, but more accurately as symptoms of the modern rule, which, unlike the democracies of Europe and North America, was undisguised by forms of ‘humane’ coercion. This mostly invisible oppression, intrinsic to the ‘standard’ in evolved democracies, aimed equally boldly to crush and subjugate agency through modes of control that Foucault describes as biopolitics and governmentality. The wayward regimes in the Middle East might then be considered as a paradigm of the modern rule, to be studied in order to understand modern politics generally, rather than aberrant instances, or freak shows, in stubborn defiance of modernity. The discussion below starts out by defining the two concepts that are pivotal to this argument, namely liberation theology and n ­ eo-­conservatism. An inverted notion of liberation theology that linked it to modern rationality outside the familiar uses of the term, yet ironically building on that notion, possibly informed not only the local resistance to regime change in the greater region, but also underwrote a specific form of global interventionist thinking in lending a hand to that resistance. This ideology, dubbed here ­neo-­con, arguably presented an unusual coalescence of (1) conventional power politics and (2) a distinctly normative, even moral, outlook in foreign p ­ olicy­ – ­­two impulses that were otherwise a contradiction in terms. The exploration below introduces the Turkish n ­ eo-­nationalism as a variety of this blend in its response to change both in Turkey and in neighbouring Syria. This discourse, the argument aims to show, was hitched in the process not only to the Russian ­neo-­con mentality, as displayed in Eurasianist thinking, but also to the better known United States (US) ­neo-­con ­outlook­– ­­again, two otherwise antagonistic forces in the region. The chapter then brings closely together the US, Russian and Turkish n ­ eo-­cons, as unlikely partners that effectively signalled an end to the right–left and global–local dichotomies, through premises of modernity and an assumption that treated the region as an exception to the modern rule. Finally, the deliberation probes into the visions of modernity within this liberation theology, and seeks to dismantle the binary opposition of the ‘standard’ and the ‘exception’ intrinsic to the posture by highlighting the possibly critical function of the deemed exception in making sense of the modern rule generally.

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resi sta nce to cha n ge  | 119 First, a few words on the terms, then. As is known, the term liberation theology refers ordinarily to religion, namely the ‘baleful’ tradition in a binary opposition with modernity. Revisited and revised, religion is assumed in the concept paradoxically to lead to emancipation against modern orders of exploitation and oppression by actively seeking and demanding social and economic justice.4 That is significantly at variance with the general Enlightenment concept of religion, which is simply the archetype of forms of tutelage that are in the way of ultimate liberation. Notwithstanding the retrogressive, o­ pium-­like image accorded to it within the mainstream of modernity, religion has, of course, been known to be at the forefront of struggle for social change and justice in localities, inspiring civil rights movements and contributing to secular governance. The vision of religion serving this function is hardly limited to Latin America, where the term liberation theology originates, and where consequently this politically assertive theology is often confined. Famously (or notoriously), Foucault is known to have located at the initial stage of the Iranian revolution of 1979, which was fired by religious passion above all else, a most promising challenge to modern manifestations of power.5 Indeed, an a­ nti-­colonialism clearly inspired by the antecedent literature of ­left-­wing activism, and yet drawing heavily on native religious concepts, gave rise to a series of Islamic liberation theologies earlier on in Iran, from Jalal ­al-e Ahmad, as the pioneer, to Ali Shariati, the most prominent figure. A good account of this immensely influential take on religion is provided in the work by Hamid Dabashi,6 who not only adheres to the native movement personally, but who also openly links it to the better known liberation discourse in Latin America.7 Unlike Iran, most countries in the region do not seem to have offered ideas with a significant synthesis of religion and the political sentiments conventionally attributed to the left. Yet, in places such as Egypt8 and Turkey9 Islamist politics has been noted to function as instrumental towards relative democratisation, targeting along the way social injustices, especially in the absence of substantial s­ecular-­left politics. In what follows, the discussion appropriates the term liberation theology only to invert it. By theology the argument refers, not to religion, certainly not to anything that would be p ­ ost-­Enlightenment, but to the very modern rationality driven by a canon of personal salvation, of autonomy, against

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120  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y possible constraints, local or cultural, including religion. There is, in other words, a degree of irony in the use of the term. The same applies to ‘liberation’. Because the salvation aimed by modern rationality does not seem to be separable from the modes of subjugation it invites in the w ­ ell-­recognised Foucauldian sense, it is basically freedom via technologies of power. In turn, departing from its usual connotations, liberation theology in its modified meaning here crucially bolsters and reproduces, rather than fights, forms of authoritarianism in places such as the Middle East. The objective is to liberate masses by securing subjectivity, namely full individual autonomy; and the road to some such ‘­self-­rule’ appears to be paved, if temporarily, with ‘­well-­disposed’ oppression by the regime, that is, with ­servility­– ­­not unlike the way Foucault attributes subjectivity to subjugation in his critique of the concept of the subject.10 Human person is released into ­subjectivity­– ­­ none other than power. ­­interpellated, as Althusser would put i­t11­– through The subject thus rendered subservient is at once, and paradoxically, ‘liberated’ through the discursive autonomy granted to it. This analogy between modernity and theology, marking the use of the term liberation theology in the argument, is communicated not only in the modern ‘faith’ in subjectivity, unquestioned as befits a religious order, but also perhaps in the concept of ‘liberating power’ that appears to hinge subjectivity on subjugation. The belief in a being that is the Almighty, with the absolute control that the creed implies over the mechanics of life, is what apparently bestows on the believer the moral stamina to be able to reject all other forms of thraldom. Servility to God can therefore be ultimately ‘liberating’. Similarly, unadulterated subjection to political rule, as demanded by the authoritarianisms in the region, can emancipate, enabling subjectivity. Hegel certainly mused about this cast of agency achieved through strict bondage; freedom is possible only under strong political authority that negates all else, blurring the distinction between ‘duty’ and ‘liberation’.12 ­Neo-­conservatism is another term. The argument below claims that a liberation theology along the lines described above was embraced not only locally, namely by the sceptics of the native tradition in some of the regional societies, who were often hand in glove with the ruling and liberating elite, but also motivated the global interventionist thinking that seemed to prefer for the region, conceived as an exception to the modern rule, ‘benign’ moulds

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resi sta nce to cha n ge  | 121 of authoritarianism that would ‘ease’ the transition into modernity. This mindset, the argument maintains, was as much committed to the modern liberation theology as the native elite, perceiving domestic societies in the greater region as mostly captive to the tradition and thus blinded to the true salvation premised on a rigid dichotomy of the modern and the premodern. This ostensibly emancipatory vision, coupled with an aggressive foreign policy towards the region, formed an ambivalence that best defined perhaps the ­neo-­con13 discourse associated exclusively with US policy circles.14 The ­neo-­con frame of mind as such was often reduced by the critics to a mere geopolitical interest in the region fired by a form of ­super-­power nationalism in foreign policy. This vista of ­neo-­con imagination appeared only to alternate with a perception of it as essentially partisanship for Israel, interested in keeping the ­anti-­Israeli sentiments in the Middle East under control via the actual US presence, military or otherwise, in the region. It might be possible, however, to recognise the ideology described here as perhaps more deeply and finely ingrained and global, notably with strains outside the US. In what follows, the discussion envisages this outlook as having presented a unique fusion of the two main perspectives in foreign policy. Considering that the merger in question brought together two poles that were often thought to cancel each other out, the outlook was perceived perforce as incredulous or puzzling. That one of these perspectives was a form of political realism was readily figured and often perhaps mistakenly identified by observers as what the n ­ eo-­con slant was all about. The other perspective, which was perhaps equally significant, was a derivation of liberal idealism that drew, beside Enlightenment values, also on modern instrumental rationality. This was an idealism that aimed for rescue and enfranchisement for regional societies, the ‘noble’ aim behind the instrumental thinking at work, to be enabled via operations of power. Power in its functioning, in turn, could take various shapes, depending on the strain or specific setting of the n ­ eo-­con thinking, such as plain oppression by the local rule or ‘philanthropic’ ­super-­power hegemony that was directly in control of the rule when needed. This was an uneasy amalgam. Hence, the w ­ ell-­known and often bewildering synthesis reflected in the personal politics of many of the notables of this global current, who seemed to have turned ‘conservative’ often following a commitment to l­eft-­wing or liberal politics, best observed with the

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122  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y US ­neo-­con figures. This chapter suggests the term n ­ eo-­con as a reference to the type of thinking in global political cosmology that communicated an incongruous blend of l­eft-­wing politics with r­ight-­wing patriotism and ­anti-­multiculturalism. The liberal idealism that defined the n ­ eo-­con interventionism set it apart from mere power politics within the standard vision of political realisms in foreign policy, attaching a telltale normative dimension to it. It is through this normative outlook that the discussion below attempts to read into the n ­ eo-­con orientation in global politics a ‘liberation’ objective. The interlocking of the two otherwise distant ­notions­– ­­liberation theology and n ­ eo-­­cons­– was ­­ less bizarre perhaps than it appeared, considering two other paradoxical continuities that were implicit in the process. First, both notions seemed to operate on a dichotomy between modernity and tradition, although not necessarily in the same direction. And, second, both were to do with the leftist political imagination, even if one was decidedly modern while the other, namely the idea that theology could be liberating, was conspicuously removed from modernity. As the following section aims to show with Doğu Perinçek, a Turkish n ­ eo-­con in the public eye during the regime change, these were not probably the most striking of the contradictions that went into the making of the n ­ eo-­con liberation theology in resisting transformation in the greater region. Neo-nationalist Reverie Things ‘could not be clearer’ on the Syrian front, according to Perinçek, a former academic and s­ ocialist-­turned-­neo-­nationalist politician, reflecting on the early signs of the AKP government, in the summer of 2011, having to respond to growing international and domestic pressure to revise its policy, lenient at the time, towards the regime in Syria. Perinçek was a key suspect in the set of controversial legal investigations that had been under way since 2007, detailed in the preceding chapter, and would remain in detention until 2014. A tightening squeeze had been put on Syria, Perinçek explained in the regular newspaper column he wrote from prison, by an international coalition that sought to implement a particular design in the Middle East.15 In the coalition against Syria, he claimed, were the US, Israel, the Iraqi Kurdish regional administration and the government of Turkey, with a sinister Islamist movement, the Gülenists, ‘behind’ it. Europe appeared to be out

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resi sta nce to cha n ge  | 123 of the equation for the time being, he noted, for lacking any form of decisiveness in the matter. Israel was arguably the most crucial actor in the coalition, because the whole commotion in the region was centred, since 1991, on an overall policy to create space for Israel towards control of the land ‘promised’ to it – ‘the greater Israel’. The Kurdish administration in northern Iraq had been fostered, he claimed, ultimately to serve as a ‘province’ of this projected entity. Nor was Turkey safe, he argued, from this ambitious dream. The ­neo-­Ottomanist expansionism encouraged by ‘the West’ in Turkish foreign policy was nothing other than the greater Israel ­sugar-­coated for gullible Turks, who seemed to be proud of an assertive Turkey in its relations in the region for the first time for more than a century. And in support of Syria against this eerie international coalition, Perinçek maintained, were Iran, Russia, China, India, ‘oppressed Muslims everywhere’ and ‘­peace-­loving peoples of the world’. The marginal political movement Perinçek led for decades, first as a small and tightly organised group of socialist (Maoist) intellectuals, and more recently, with the AKP rule, as an extreme nationalist group, seemed to have enlarged out of proportion during the regime change, to be one of the centres of resistance to the change that was not entirely dissimilar to that taking place under the banner of the Arab Spring, if more gradual and bloodless. The daily newspaper of the movement, with Perinçek writing the head column, attracted contributions from virtually all of the former ­left-­wing, now nationalist, figures in the country, in addition to some of the retired h ­ igh-­ranking generals of the old order who were being prosecuted at the time alongside Perinçek. In the summer of 2011, the debate on Syria would become the main issue of the paper, with headlines and most of the front page consistently devoted to the topic. ‘­Left-­wing’ activism, with its inherent reliance on values such as liberation, even forced emancipation, combined, as was the case here, with an appeal to dormant nationalist and religious prejudices, could be nothing less than lethal. Moreover, added to the combination was a discourse that did not shy away from apparent contradictions. It exploited the essentially Islamist distrust of Israel in the local context, showing Iran in a somewhat favourable light. Yet it also manipulated the secularist fear of political Islam linked to the AKP government. Furthermore, the discourse invested brazenly in nationalism. Indeed, the s­ elf-­proclaimed ‘leftist’ political movement which

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124  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Perinçek controlled, and which constantly sought attention, was known for its outrageous and increasingly nationalist publicity stunts, including one in Europe in defence of the catastrophic policy towards Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War I, traditionally an exclusive concern of the local ­right-­wing nationalists.16 Yet, at once, the oration was careful to retain a ­left-­wing notion of internationalism and of the camaraderie of the oppressed worldwide. Needless to say, the overall tone was markedly a­nti-­American, embracing a form of Eurasianism or, to be more exact, n ­ eo-­Eurasianism, as part of the Russian nationalist imagination in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.17 What was perhaps not evident in the discourse was the way the larger political movement, namely Turkish ­neo-­nationalism (ulusalcılık), of which Perinçek’s was only a part, had strategically aligned itself with the US ­neo-­con circles associated quite paradoxically with the US interventionism, ostensibly in a joint opposition to the AKP rule. The apparent ‘mismatch’ was revealing. A Eurasianism inspired by, and practically in league with, the ­post-­Cold War Russian geopolitical thinking and, simultaneously, a clear appreciation of the US ­neo-­con approach to the greater region, were precisely among the gestures that formed the policy framework of the Turkish armed forces until 2007, when political reforms and an unprecedented defiance of the old regime by the AKP government would bring about a partial democratic control of the armed forces. The appeal of Eurasianism for the military during that spell might have followed the disappointment with the US and European policy preferences towards Turkey in the aftermath of the Cold War, favouring, or acquiescing to, democratisation in the country at the cost of the fettered democracy of the old regime. Since, according to the military, a controlled form of democracy was but an imperative, given the dark premodern forces and (equally a­ nti-­modern) ethnic sectarianism in wider society, which a fully functional democracy would unleash; the palpable support for democratisation by the US and Europe was at best cynical, if not part and parcel of the a­ ge-­old ‘Western’ geopolitical manoeuvring that aimed to undermine Turkey’s security. As recounted in Chapter 2, in boldly declaring this thinking in March 2004 at the anniversary of the abolishing of caliphate, an event symbolically significant for the regime, the ­highest-­ranking commanders of the armed forces would give a standing ovation to a speaker, another ­socialist-­turned-­neo-­nationalist academic,

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resi sta nce to cha n ge  | 125 who had just called for an immediate ending of strategic relations with the US and the European Union, urging instead strengthened ties with Russia, China and Iran.18 Later, this display would come to be understood as part of a carefully staged design to lead to an imminent military takeover, which would never come, and which would be under legal scrutiny from 2007 as a failed attempt, with many commanders in charge at the time taken in detention subsequently, awaiting trial with Perinçek. Immediately before its downfall from around m ­ id-­2007, when the change in Turkey started to take effect, Eurasianism would peak within the military, as vividly illustrated by a daring and m ­ uch-­debated publication on the official website of the military in February 2007 of the full text of the speech by the Russian President Putin at the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy, a most intense attack on US foreign policy and on NATO.19 Yet, while advocating a b­ reak-­up with the US, the military seemed also to maintain close connections with some leading US n ­ eo-­con figures. In a de facto strategic alliance against the AKP government, the n ­ eo-­cons in touch with the military kept circulating in international forums an increasingly sceptical view of the political transformation locally, implicitly favouring a m ­ ilitary-­style authoritarianism in the interests of both the locals, purportedly in the grip of the dark elements in civil society, and of the US, which would be less likely to receive surprises in its regional operations, as in the abysmal rejection by Turkey of cooperation with the US on the eve of intervention in Iraq in 2003. In July 2007, a Turkish researcher at the Brookings Institute would feel compelled to ask, in a Turkish newspaper, the following questions, increasingly begging, on the affiliation between the US n ­ eo-­cons and the local old guard: Why do the [Turkish] ­neo-­nationalist movement and the circles close to the Turkish armed forces, which view the AKP as an extension of American imperialism, sympathise with the second rate n ­ eo-­cons who represent the most aggressive and the most mindless face of that same imperialism? Why, for instance, a third rate ­neo-­con such as Michael Rubin [of American Enterprise Institute] is adored by the Turkish military . . . receiving such rave appraisals for his speeches at military seminars [in Turkey]? . . . Why is the Hudson Institute, which is, again, only a s­ econd-­rate ­think-­tank, held in such high esteem by the Turkish generals?20

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126  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y The overall answer this observer would provide to his own questions was that the military and the US ­neo-­cons seemed to have a strong common interest, notwithstanding the erupting a­ nti-­Americanism of the military, with both sides tilting towards at best a limited democracy locally. Global Kinships The support for the Syrian regime by the progressive/modern and ­socialist-­turned-­neo-­nationalist circles in Turkey, as displayed in the assessment above by Perinçek, was often explained by observers as less about Syria than Turkey, with the concern over the former constituting only an extension of the local debate on regime change on the home front. Accordingly, Syria came to be threatened with an imminent seizure by native forces stimulated with the Arab Spring from late 2010, the way this had already greatly materialised at home, ending the a­ ge-­old bureaucratic rule in the country. The apparent linkages and continuities between the two societies going through regime change at about the same time were clearly significant in making sense of specific alliances and loyalties. It seemed to be possible, however, to suggest a global normative current at w ­ ork­– beyond ­­ the local affinities and ­dispositions­– ­­that brought together as odd bedfellows the ostensibly adversarial ­neo-­cons of the US, Russia and Turkey. Beyond an overlap in mundane politicking, this absurd coalition was arguably enabled by a wider tide which was motivated by a discernable political morality based on the modern idea of liberation, and which actively suppressed ­day-­to-day political differences between various ­neo-­con groups as required, lumping them together. Central to this normative current, it appeared, was the strong assumption that treated the region as an exception to the modern rule. The exceptional and in turn ­extra-­legal or unprincipled handling (rather than ‘standard’ treatment) that applied to the region was accordingly an imperative dictated by modernity that sought to control the local in favour of the ‘emancipating’ universal ­reason­– or, ­­ as the case might be, with forms of modernity outside the mainstream, as will be addressed shortly below, in favour of some other assumed transcendent truth. This was not, obviously, the only possible explanation as to why authoritarianisms in the region could be, and were actually, privileged, especially in ­super-­power foreign policy. That the US was better off with o­ ld-­style

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resi sta nce to cha n ge  | 127 authoritarian regimes such as that of Saudi Arabia was a truism of the settled US reflexes in the region, although significantly challenged in the ­post-­9/11 security environment. This position against democratic normalisation in the region was often assumed to be part and parcel of conventional power political thinking, motivated solely by national interest, and indifferent to normative ends. Yet, this mentality driven by s­elf-­seeking was known to be receptive simultaneously also to normative or ideological factors, as with the US ­neo-­con policy suggestions in the aftermath of the Cold War, which included, but by no means remained limited to, concerns over the security of Israel. That is, a power political position centred on factual ‘interest’ might not necessarily exclude constructed and vague ‘identity’ inputs, even if the amalgam presented a puzzle for the established thinking on interstate relations premised on a sharp differentiation of interest and identity. The faltering attitudes towards the regime in Syria in US n ­ eo-­con circles from 2011 were perhaps a case in point, illustrating this ambivalence. The initial thinking over Syria, somewhat in support of the opposition, seemed to have been clouded by the ­anti-­Israeli and ­pro-­Iranian discourse of the regime over the years. The ­neo-­con response to the uprising in Egypt, on the other hand, was predictably sceptical throughout, keeping it at arm’s length, despite the pressure of the extraordinarily euphoric international public opinion about the overall uprising. As finally picked up by the n ­ eo-­cons in the later stages 21 of the Syrian uprising, just as in Egypt under the Muslim Brotherhood rule and in ­AKP-­led Turkey, a possible unleashing of the local forces in Syria, kept under control by the authoritarian regime, might form a normative ‘hurdle’ in the region that would be immeasurably greater than the recalcitrance of the present regime, which, quite apart from the faint normative congeniality, lacked wide domestic support and decisiveness, and which therefore failed both to convince and deliver on its occasionally belligerent ­anti-­US rhetoric. The Russian Eurasianism as exhibited primarily in the work of the strategist Aleksandr Dugin appeared to be similarly ambivalent.22 It was an outlook that clearly reached beyond the matrix of national interest as the defining moment of conventional power politics. Behind a geopolitical vision that was often reduced to Russian expansionism by the critics was in fact an ideology, possibly alien to stock power politics, and described by Dugin in terms characteristically n ­ eo-­con, namely as ‘­left-­patriotism’ or as ‘new socialism’.23

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128  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y A strong influence on Dugin might have been Alain de Benoist, the philosopher of the European New Right, who was once a close collaborator. A textbook embodiment of the n ­ eo-­con eclecticism, with radical leftist insights put to the service of flagrant ­right-­wing notions, the policy vision articulated by Benoist was termed ‘­right-­wing Gramscianism’.24 The Guénonian traditionalism, a form of European esoterism that invoked a ­so-­called ‘transcendent unity of religions’, might also have been an influence on Dugin, again, possibly through his association with Benoist. Instructed by figures such as René Guénon, Julius Evola and Frithjof Schuon, among others, this ‘hermetic’ creed assumed a primal and universal truth reflected in residual yet sufficiently authentic form in various traditions across the globe. Sometimes referred to as the philosopher of fascism,25 Evola also translated Guénon, the most significant inspiration and source of the movement, into Italian. Almost all of the central characters associated with traditionalism, including Guénon, were rumoured to have been converts to Islam. The main contours of this thinking centred on a radical distinction between the primordial and the modern (in a unique sense, as explained below), or the sacred and the profane, as reflected in the b­ etter-­known work of Mircea Eliade,26 who was personally in touch with Guénon. In apparent continuity with this strain in European mysticism, often interpreted as a revolt against modernity, Dugin could be seen to register strong unease with the positivistic Enlightenment rationality, what he referred to as ‘the dictatorship of reason’,27 divorced, as he deemed, following traditionalist teachings, from a spiritualism that was not only primordial but also universal, bridging differences. This negation of rationality was often treated by the critics as clear evidence of fascism inherent in this thinking. Dugin himself described his position, blending geopolitics with an ­anti-­Enlightenment occultism, as ‘conservative’ and ‘revolutionary’ at once, communicated in one of his central notions, ‘the conservative revolution’,28 which brought together, in typical ­neo-­con fashion, two otherwise distant notions. What was not typical in this position was the specific perception of modernity. If Dugin was avowedly ­anti-­reason, siding with ‘tradition’ against modernity, this seemed rather to sever his link with the global ­neo-­con mentality, defined here as characteristically modern. Yet, the ‘tradition’ originally championed by Guénon and others was hardly the one addressed here in a purported binary opposition with moder-

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resi sta nce to cha n ge  | 129 nity. The specific tradition that this European mysticism appealed to was a manifestation arguably rather of modernity, one that sought, more accurately put, to tame and incorporate the local in its unbound diversity across cultures, and as such basically in keeping with the general n ­ eo-­con mentality. The search for a ‘tradition’­– t­ he ­tradition­– that ­­ was revealingly global could hardly be understood as a genuine interest in what might be found locally, and outside Europe, such as Islam, to be treated in its own right. Instead, the interest seemed to be in integrating what had perennially been out there, including, besides Islam, say, the native American lores, and Hinduistic insights, into a quintessentially ‘European’ perspective. Traditionalism, in other words, did not seem to be anything other than a form of Orientalism. Not surprisingly, in an insightful study that chronicles this fascinating intellectual movement, Mark Sedgwick observes: ‘Traditionalism set itself against the modern world, but it was born with modernity, in the Renaissance.’29 Marsilio Ficino, to whom Sedgwick traces traditionalism in the context of this note, was practically one of the midwives of modernity. The apparent repudiation of mainstream rationality, commonly associated with this spiritualism, was thus not quite a negation of modernity as such. It was perhaps less than remarkable, in this regard, that the sole important contributor to traditionalism from the native Muslim heritage, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, had evidently preferred the aggressively modernising regime of the shah in Iran to the subsequent Islamist takeover. Abroad during the revolution of 1979 on a mission for the Persian empress as her private secretary, Nasr had apparently taken the advice of the empress and chosen never to return to Iran,30 now under the rule of mullahs, who arguably represented the more authentically traditional pole set against modernity, at least as observed by Foucault at the time.31 Rather, what the Guénonian spiritualism appeared to renounce was modernity as reflected in the positivist epistemology traceable to the mainstream Enlightenment rationality, inimical to ‘values’. In other words, the ostensibly ­anti-­Enlightenment outlook espoused by Dugin, building on Guénon, was not necessarily outside modernity, for modernity was barely exhausted by the prevaling intellectual lineage on ­knowledge­– ­­forms of European romanticism or the ‘­counter-­Enlightenment’ being obvious cases in point. Modernity in this broader sense that included Dugin’s vision was still unmistakeably centred on a binary opposition of tradition and

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130  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y modernity, where the privileged term, modernity, was achieved via subjectivity, the full individual autonomy that was in kinship with subjugation as per Foucault. That is, autonomy as such, pivotal to the Enlightenment and to positivist epistemology, was not necessarily excluded in forms of thinking that were ­anti-­Enlightenment, typified by that of Dugin, and yet modern. Hence, the notion of ‘absolute individual’ (individuo assoluto) passionately promoted by Evola within the Guénonian traditionalism,32 in manifest continuity with the modern Weltanschauung. That the stress on autonomy is a trait of modernity generally, embraced also by forms of thinking outside the mainstream, as is the case with the traditionalists, is starkly evident in relation to a figure such as Bataille, who has been described by Habermas as a ‘conservative’ influence for his role in negative assessments of modernity.33 Yet Bataille is at once modern through and through, invoking ‘autonomy’ possibly with a vengeance, more indomitably perhaps than in mainstream modernity. He not only suggests a formidable notion of autonomy, what he calls ‘sovereignty’,34 but also links it to power, to an ‘aesthetics of violence’, as Richard Wolin puts it.35 Not at all surprisingly, it should perhaps be added, Bataille was also personally consumed, like Dugin and the traditionalists, by forms of religious experience. An inspiration for critics of modernity for following it to its logical c­ onsequences­– ­­rather like de Sade, one of his main inspirations in ­fact­– ­­Bataille was undeniably modern in outlook all the same. Wolin links Bataille to fascism, and Habermas labels him, alongside a host of critics of modernity who have been inspired by his work, including Foucault and Derrida, as conservative, because authoritarianism, fascistic or conservative, is identified in these assessments as excess that is critically outside the mainstream modernity. Yet, as Foucault and Derrida would have hastened to point out, authoritarianism may have more to do with the unrestrained authority that comes with full subjectivity, the true mark of modernity, than the subject d ­ ecentred­– and ­­ exposed as such in its ‘dirty’ alliance with p ­ ower­– ­­as done by the critics of modernity. This is a perception that is in sharp contrast with the view that attributed Dugin’s fascism to his purportedly a­ nti-­Enlightenment disposition. Accordingly, modernity may invite authoritarianism because it is hardly separable from an essentialism, a blueprint (almost the kind assumed by Guénon, namely the primal truth), which ignores irreducible diversity, seeking to unify or homogenise it.

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resi sta nce to cha n ge  | 131 This essentialism naturally assumes absolute subjectivity, cut off and elevated above the world of objects, because only some such autonomy would be capable of responding to the essentialist demand. Integral to this homology that rules the archetypal modern imagination is a neat distinction, since Descartes, between the object and the subject. Modern, Premodern, Post-modern Perinçek in Turkey appeared simply to repeat for the greater region Dugin’s brand of modern revolutionary zeal that located salvation in power. The partnership between the political movement headed by Perinçek and the Russian Eurasianism was of course no secret.36 Perinçek had been involved in the creation of Dugin’s International Eurasianist Movement in 2003, to be subsequently elected to its Supreme Council. This affiliation would prompt Dugin to make a statement on the detention and prosecution in Turkey, in 2008, of the group of politicians, journalists, academics and members of the military that included Perinçek. Admitting that he knew almost all of the suspects personally, Dugin would describe the extensive legal investigations launched with unusual fanfare as an essentially political operation instigated by the US, which he would claim controlled the present Turkish government, against the movement he represented. Somewhat oblivious to the patterns of the global n ­ eo-­con frame of mind already in place, ‘perhaps for the first time in modern history’, Dugin would add, pointing out the confusing medley of the suspects in the investigations, ‘we observe the ­right-­wing and ­left-­wing politics coalesce in Turkey under the banner of ­neo-­Kemalism’.37 The term ‘­neo-­Kemalism’ was clearly in reference to the Turkish ­neo-­nationalism as represented by Perinçek. It should perhaps be stated in further elucidating this political hotchpotch with unlikely kinships that, just as the discourse of Perinçek and the militarist republican elite in Turkey, Dugin’s Eurasianism similarly included, alongside elements of blatant ­anti-­Semitism, links to, and support of, the Israeli far right.38 The strong normative commitment that seemed to ‘unite’ ­right-­wing and l­eft-­wing politics, the military and the s­ elf-­styled socialists, was arguably an ideology that overrode petty, quotidian politics. In other words, Perinçek entered into the debate on the Syrian regime, defending it, for reasons more than as a simple proxy of the war he was fighting on domestic ground.

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132  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Support for the authoritarianisms in the region brought together the ­neo-­cons of the US, Russian and Turkish strands, not only in thinking but also in effective solidarity. This communion rendered the apparent contradictions in this merger, formed by Americanism and a­nti-­Americanism, Islamism and militant secularism, ­Israel-­lobbying and ­anti-­Semitism, nationalism and transnationalism, as mere tactical extensions of one and the same ­neo-­con policy motivated by a narrative that exceeded the discourse of conventional power politics. It was of course possible, as often done, to dismiss this narrative as a mere discursive tool, a front, of what was strictly only national interest, free of a genuinely normative dimension. Yet, it was highly dubious that the assertive and adventurous foreign policy of the ­neo-­con type could be explained by national interest alone, as was cogently argued in relation to the ­neo-­con-inspired US policies in the Middle East.39 What is more, reducing the ­neo-­con position to national interest alone was to deny the figures of this mentality, in the US and elsewhere, the minimum ethical and intellectual integrity, which was not only elementary for the potential impact they aimed to produce, but which was also a sine qua non for sustainable personal commitment by these figures, almost all formerly linked to ­left-­wing or (­US-­style) liberal activism. This global discourse with normative commitments beyond national interest appeared significantly to bond with specific local narratives in support of the authoritarian regimes in places such as the former Turkey and Syria, which critically sustained the order by creating out of modernity a moral legitimacy for the rule and by thus being able to mobilise considerable social support. That is, as well as the coercion and intimidation on which it relied, the regime in Syria greatly appealed also to ‘consent’ in maintaining itself, over and above the routine relationships of clientelism in society, by addressing and winning the minds of countless numbers of people, who formed a crucial base for the regime, and who appeared to be in readiness to rally behind it. The liberal critics of the old regime in Turkey, gravely heedless of this element of consent, would typically treat the old guard during the regime change as a cynical crime syndicate with no links to society, which, as argued before (Chapter 1), was considerably less than accurate. This discourse that not only brought together the n ­ eo-­cons of various moulds (US, Russian and Turkish) but also aligned with a critical ele-

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resi sta nce to cha n ge  | 133 ment of local consent in promoting authoritarianisms in the region could be treated as a liberation theology, as already suggested. Based on a specific understanding of modernity, if not modernity as such, this theology sought individual emancipation and enfranchisement in the region in the face of the local tradition through watchful ‘gardening’, to borrow a metaphor used by Bauman,40 poised to weed out what was perceived in this theology as ‘poisonous’, unhealthy or unsightly. With Perinçek, this contrast between the local and the universal, between a baleful ‘medievalism’, as represented by the ruling AKP, and the liberating modernity, which was what ­neo-­nationalism was all about, was unmistakeably clear. ‘The medieval mentality that has been haunting us’, he would state in the days immediately after the third consecutive win by the AKP at the general election of June 2011, ‘will not succeed in throttling the right to freedom of Turkish people; and the Kemalist revolution will be completed’.41 The daily Perinçek edited, and where these words appeared, was aptly named Aydınlık (literally ‘light’ or ‘enlightenment’). That which he declared to be ‘completed’ at any cost, in true revolutionary spirit, was thus none other than the project of modernity, as famously argued by Habermas. The latter would have been likely to extend support to Perinçek’s view of the AKP rule as an onslaught on modernity, enabled by what he has described as ‘an alliance between the advocates of postmodernity and those of premodernity’.42 The ‘alliance’ pointed out by Habermas in a purely philosophical context, responsible, according to him, for a lamentable retreat of modernity, was by no means limited to the mere intellectual domain. In Turkish politics, as the local ­neo-­cons would claim, the alliance with Europe and with the ­post-­Cold War US towards initiating unfettered democracy in the country seemed to have ended the vocation of the military as an enforcer of modernity through a settled system of benign authoritarianism. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that General İlker Başbuğ, a key military figure in Turkey during the regime change, detained and prosecuted subsequently to receive an aggravated life sentence,43 referred to Habermas in a formal speech in September 2007. The general emphatically pointed out the need, urged by the philosopher, to complete the project of modernity in the face of what he described as the ­post-­modern state of chaos, lack of authority and anarchy.44 This statement from a general would prompt a liberal columnist to put the following ironic

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134  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y title to his comment: ‘A Movement that Needs to Be Crushed When and Where Encountered: “Post-modernity”.’45 Perinçek, for one, did not mince his words in explaining the ­self-­appointed calling of the Turkish military in its function of propitious authoritarianism: The Turkish military officer is either a revolutionary or not a military officer at all. The Turkish military officer has come into being in this revolutionary process through the notions of the national land, nation, freedom and modernity. These are the ideological values of the French Revolution.46

The post-modern and premodern forces, the alliance of which Habermas warns us against, would seem to translate for Perinçek, respectively, as the ‘Atlanticist system’ (a term he borrowed from Dugin) that appeared to have abandoned the Turkish military in the ­post-­Cold War era, remaining a silent witness to the growing democratic control of the armed forces in the country, and the pious, religious sensibilities in the making of the AKP elite that were the dark, archaic forces resilient in society, creeping behind shadows and in league with the liberals. The result, accordingly, was a catastrophic disruption in the continuing, unfinished project of modernity locally. Dismayed at once at the overall failure of the military to put up a fight and resist the regime change, Perinçek noted in the same piece: It is a fact that in the Atlantic [sic] process the Turkish military officer has been pushed into an identity crisis. The gist of this identity crisis is the annihilation of the revolutionary character of the Turkish military officer. Patriotism, ­hot-­headed belligerence for the nation, and the love of freedom could only survive through that revolutionary identity. The Atlanticist system has messed up the ideological genes of the Turkish military officer.47

Principally, on this view, the release of the long repressed premodern forces in civil society, as the new regime promised a widening of political participation in the country, enabling politics motivated also by clearly religious sentiments, had effectively ruptured the rationalisation of religion along the theory of secularisation, a major aim of the old regime. The historical transformation in the structure and functioning of religion in Europe from the sixteenth century, a modern rationalisation of this force on the basis of the Protestant model, what Robert Baird has called the ‘Protestant infrastruc-

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resi sta nce to cha n ge  | 135 ture’,48 was often assumed to be locally reflected in the Alevi interpretation of ­Islam­– ­­as an ‘enlightened’ form of the faith practically freed from its demands on everyday life, abolishing daily prayer and ending restrictions on women. Themselves long victims of the republican rule, the Alevis would nevertheless come to be considered in the local narratives of emancipation as the unique social base towards an ultimate overthrow of the yoke of religion in society. The sketchy knowledge of Alawism in Syria, apparently privileged among the ruling elite, naturally linked the project of modernity championed locally by a general (Başbuğ) and a ‘socialist’ leader (Perinçek), among others, to the regime change in Syria. The change forced across the border threatened to undermine what was ostensibly perceived to be an ongoing, ­Alawi-­led rationalisation of everyday life in keeping with the secularisation theory. That is, Alevism/Alawism was possibly assumed, largely heedless of the actual situation in Syria, where Alawis had an entirely different history, to reproduce the ­Protestant-­like transformation of religion towards full modernisation. What was thus being risked in the reduced power for the Alawi minority in a future and politically ‘normalised’ Syria was nothing less than the very project of modernity. State of Exception A liberation theology that offered salvation in modern subjectivity, albeit only through subjugation, might seem to point overall in the direction of the Enlightenment cosmopolitanism in polarity with the apparent ­anti-­cosmopolitanism of the ­neo-­con foreign policy encouraging or favouring varieties of authoritarian discipline in the region. This antinomy was effectively resolved, as maintained above, through an assumption of the state of exception, which integrated the modern cosmopolitanism that essentially drove the n ­eo-­con posture with the a­nti-­cosmopolitanism of the actual ­neo-­con foreign policies in the region. The projected rule in the Middle East was to modernity what the ­US-­run Guantánamo Bay concentration camp was, as often suggested via the specific conceptualisation by Agamben,49 to the US, otherwise understood as an expanse of freedom and the rule of law. It was an area outside the standard jurisdiction, where the authorities had a free hand, unconstrained by routine legal procedures. Yet, it was all for a good cause. Similarly, the unhindered political participation of the masses,

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136  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y normally a dictate of modernity, was suspended in the Middle East as an exception, a process hoped to tame and evolve the regional societies through benevolent authoritarianisms, without necessarily contradicting or abandoning the project of modernity. In reflecting on sociology in the aftermath of the Holocaust, where he discusses the modern proclivity to ‘gardening’, noted above, Bauman highlights the centrality of ‘crisis’ periods to the ordinarily invisible fabric of everyday life.50 The ugliness that surfaces in crises, forcing people to act out of character, Bauman teaches us, is simply inseparable from what we otherwise recognise as the normal character of the same people, mostly kind and compassionate. This observation that unsettles a radical dichotomy of the ugly and the kind in defining human behaviour not only calls into question the routine distinction, or hierarchy, between the standard conduct and the exception as a binary, but also, and more significantly, valorises the exception in making sense of the standard. Similarly, Horkheimer and Adorno are known to have argued that, to understand the Enlightenment, we need to pay attention, before Kant, to de Sade, in whose work, where that which is ugly receives no cosmetic treatment, we are likely to observe the logic inherent in modernity in exceptional simplicity.51 Comparably, to fully grasp the modern political rule we might need to lock on to a regime such as that in Syria, not the democracies of Europe and North America, where the ‘beast’ that is intrinsic to modern rule might not be as visible. Defined as an antithesis of modernity, the Syrian regime, a colossal blunder from 2011 but a typically enlightened authoritarianism for decades under ­al-­Assad the father, might on the contrary be a veritable ‘paradigm’ of modern rule52 that was not as clear perhaps in its ‘standard’ manifestations elsewhere. The coercion that was associated with the regime, raising eyebrows, could be understood as disturbing for simply being out in the open, akin to the discomfort of reading de Sade while fully subscribing to what really underlay in his teachings, namely a project of full rationalisation and emancipation at any cost, key to modern soteriology. Modernity may have ended erstwhile despotisms, as communicated in the notion of a public sphere as an intermediary between the state and the society, and an accompanying concept of the rule of law, but it seems to have introduced a new and possibly more frightful form of authoritarianism

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resi sta nce to cha n ge  | 137 by increasingly relying on disciplining practices that receive guidance from ‘objective’ knowledge, which was alien to earlier despotisms, and which aims to set people free, forcibly if needed, reclaiming the authenticity lost under the tutelage of the tradition. These practices that subjugate, while purportedly liberating, typically generate forms of biopower in settings where power is convincing in its modalities, that is, where power is more as reason and knowledge than a wild beast, enabling smooth governmentality.53 Yet these ‘same’ practices of subjugation should be expected to be mostly indifferent to consent and clearly brutal in contexts, functioning mostly as claw and teeth, where forced enfranchisement against the local tradition, against the assumed premodern dynamics, may be the only option, as was in the Middle East during the regime change in Turkey. Republicanism in Turkey and Ba’athism in the Arab landscape are known to have been projects of modernisation in this mould. Interestingly, the disenchanted liberal critics of the ­post-­republican authoritarianism in Turkey would quickly dub the pious Muslims in power, having ended the militant modernist ideology that was often traced to Kemal Atatürk, as ‘religious Kemalists’, as noted in Chapter 1, for effectively continuing the social engineering introduced into local political culture by the early republican elite. This notion that made somewhat elusive the binary between modernity and tradition resketched in a novel state the traditional forces locally in ascendancy, having somehow relinquished power in favour of a ‘broader’ current of modernity by willingly continuing to be captives to its modes of control. The increasingly authoritarian rule in Turkey from 2011 was assumed, in other words, to be no more than a copycat case of the draconian model of modernisation earlier, now given a new and ironic direction by the rising ­Islamo-­nationalist autocrats, who were no longer of the tradition. In short, whether by rational overlords or by religious tyrants, who would seem to be resourceful enough to emulate the ways of modern political superintendence for their own brand of despotism, modernity appeared to be a key factor. Therefore, defining authoritarian regimes in the greater region as pure cynicism, or as leftovers of past despotisms – with scarce attention paid to the complicity of modern imagination in the sustaining of those regimes through a project of forced and ambitious emancipation, out to save people ‘from themselves’­– ­arguably lacked a ­much-­needed insight into the strength

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138  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y of the regimes, bolstered critically by forces, both domestic and international, that supported these regimes as enforcers of modernity in the face of ‘wayward’ identities and practices. A liberation theology in incessant obsession over restraining forces defiant of modernity was not only a major source of strength for a regime such as that in Syria, legitimising and regenerating it, but also linked the regime to other places such as Turkey, where resistance to change, as typified in the discourse by Perinçek, seemed to draw strength from the same theology. The old regime summoned enormous fortitude and legitimacy precisely through its alignment with modernity, deceptively painted as rule based purely on consent. Unadorned with technologies of power that practically hid the case elsewhere, the authoritarianisms at issue could be claimed, on the contrary, to be more typical manifestations of the modern political rule.

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5 CONTEXT

T

he eventual defeat of the bureaucracy, clear by August 2011, following the early retirement of almost all of the ­top-­ranking commanders of the military in late July in protest at the government, would usher in a new and historic break, to be in full swing within months, from early 2012. To the astonishment of most observers, primarily the domestic liberal intellectuals who supported the transformation for close to a decade and international ­policy-­makers in admiration of the bold steps taken by the government for most of the period, the exercise of power in the new era would proceed to look increasingly like the familiar patterns of political rule just left behind. A noted secular intellectual, and one of the few who would remain loyal to the earlier broad alliance of democrats behind the government, would readily concede this uncanny turn of events in the wake of the old regime, arguing nevertheless that the new order, which he would consider as nothing less than the upshot of a ‘popular rebellion’, was not yet fully in place. Accordingly, the shift still in progress was effectively forcing the administration temporarily to sideline the rule of law. The ‘law’ under the new regime still functioned, he would argue, ‘in favour of the [republican] minority that ruled until recently’, thus remaining ‘open to abuses’ by those who continued to resist the change.1 He would later state, extending almost a carte blanche to the government in disregard of the law and of basic democratic principles locally: ‘An exercise that is democratic by universal standards can produce rather ­anti-­democratic 141

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142  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y results depending on the unique conditions of a country such as Turkey.’2 This frame of mind appeared to be simply another mimetic extension, reproducing the argument put forward by the republican apologists for decades, namely an exceptionalism in outlook, justified by the purportedly extraordinary, if impermanent, circumstances prompted by the change (see Chapter 1). That is, the admittedly fettered democracy at work from the inception of modern Turkey, with the political participation and the basic rights somewhat curbed, was on the whole nothing other than an imperative dictated by the radical transition in the aftermath of the m ­ ulti-­ethnic and ­semi-­Islamic Ottoman polity. The unusual factors under which the regime sought to establish itself naturally urged a vigilante reflex in the face of the unrelenting and sinister resistance to the change. Therefore, in giving passable grounds for the pervasive violations of rights and a rule by policy in the administration, the republican apologists would often presume that the law suspended or periodically tweaked by the bureaucratic rule was ‘open to abuses’­– p ­ recisely as the new and blatantly a­nti-­democratic order would be defended by a ­pro-­government intellectual in 2014. In short, the break newly initiated would before long adopt not only the practices and general outlook of the order seemingly just ‘defeated’, but also, and revealingly, its telltale apology. By 2015, the Rule of Law Index of the World Justice Project would rank Turkey eightieth globally, behind China and Russia.3 The deeper mimetic current, which would normally be expected to compel observers of any persuasion to revisit the very notion of ‘change’, and yet which clearly evaded the p ­ ro-­government posture of a secular and genuinely democrat figure, cited above, would be ignored, more ironically perhaps, also by the critics, particularly the larger group of liberals behind the government until 2011. Those bitterly disenchanted former supporters would mostly go on viewing political rule as akin to the ‘management’ of a company in a fully rationalised business environment, paying scarce attention to the resilient ‘desire’ (see Introduction) that fuelled mass ­politics­– ­­a force arguably linked to the whole fabric locally, created by myriads of mostly elusive factors.4 One of the reasons that seemed to compel this somewhat naive vision of political rule as ­management-­writ-large was the increasingly vocal Islamism of some of the media figures close to the government following the regime change, coupled with the personal style of Tayyip Erdoğan, the prime minister for over a

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context | 143 decade from March 2003, and the president from August 2014. The change, accordingly, had a heavy ‘ideological’ baggage. The ideological objectives thus attributed to the rule by critics would in turn serve to obscure the deeper mimetic plays and entanglements at work, which, as maintained in this book, inevitably and inherently hitched the new power holders to the old ones. The critical role of the mimetic flow that would seem firmly to weld the emergent order to the old one hardly meant that the anxieties of the secular urbanites, fearing mostly for the settled lifestyles with an apparent ideological mutation under way, lacked a substantial basis. Just as the n ­ eo-­republican administration earlier, from 1961, had barely formed an unadulterated continuity with the liberal populism (1950–60) before it in specific policies, the ­post-­republican, ­Islamo-­nationalist populism did not imply a linear flow from, and a simple cohesion with, the preceding order. The strong rule by the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) would impart a keenness for fresh blueprints for society from early 2012 that would rightly be seen by the secular urbanites as alarming. Although a mimetic linkage with the old would still be possibly the most significant trait, the new action plans intimated by the government would go well beyond the locally habitual and petty partisanships and a populist clientelism, and provoke anxieties in wider society. This first chapter in Part II looks into both the ­Islamo-­nationalist discourse in the p ­ ro-­government circles with the regime ­change­– a­­ forceful line of evidence invoked by the critics, which, nevertheless, possibly barked up the wrong tree on the whole in evaluating the emerging o­ rder­– and ­­ Erdoğan’s manner of doing politics, which appeared to be equally alarming, before the discussion moves on, from the next chapter, to a series of revealing sketches on the domestic scene and to the state of basic rights and freedoms under the fledgling order. This chapter also describes a factor rather ill at ease with these developments marking the period, namely a growth in the persisting ambivalence in practice, somewhat in favour of the rule of law, reinvigorating it, through a new function accorded to the domestic Constitutional Court, now acting as a top human rights tribunal. New Life into an Old Debate Arguably the most promising experiment to date of a democracy ruled by pious Muslims would suddenly look crumbling with the ­large-­scale street

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144  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y protests of 2013, starting at Istanbul’s Gezi Park in late May, with extensive coverage to follow in the world media. Something rather momentous would seem to be in the offing. The similarities with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) rule in Egypt, which the administration had closely allied itself with, looked overwhelming. The generally upheld view that the local ‘Islamist’ power had lasted considerably more than the fateful MB rule, enduring about a year until July 2013, could be no more than a mere myth. What exactly were the parallels with the ­short-­lived MB sway in Egypt? The AKP came to power in November 2002, yet for the first five years of its mandate it was kept closely in check by the bureaucracy, civilian and military. The full defeat of the bureaucracy would be achieved not before the second half of 2011, shortly after the general election in June in the same year, with the ruling party receiving close to 50 per cent of the votes. The first big sign of the bold ‘Islamist’ order apparently in prospect would be an almost overnight revision of the country’s compulsory education system in March 2012 via a legislative proposal by the parliamentary group of the ruling AKP, ostensibly without the knowledge even of the minister of education,5 to say nothing of a multitude of stakeholders in the large sector.6 Introducing a new segmentation into the primary education, the alteration in the law would revive the binary system that had been in place until the military ‘adjustment’ of February 1997: high schools and high schools with weighty instructions on basic Islamic teachings (İmam Hatip schools), the latter having been originally designed as vocational schools for mosque staff. The remodelling urged by the military, effective from 1998, had restructured the primary education system to run unbroken for the first eight years, with a view to preventing students from accessing İmam Hatips while very young. Although the major aim of the new legislation was probably no more than to end this policy against the popularity of İmam Hatips, the act would also introduce into education (with the help of one of the opposition parties intent on stealing the scene from the AKP) a series of ‘elective’ courses, in both public and private schools. These new courses would include the Qur’an, the Life of the Prophet Muhammad and Basic Religious Education. The almost overnight makeover would naturally cause much anxiety among the seculars and the heterogeneous Muslim groups, particularly in a system that they knew could easily be manipulated by local education authorities towards rendering those classes virtually ‘com-

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context | 145 pulsory’, rather than elective. The alteration seemed to be particularly brash given that the ­long-­standing demand of the Alevis for their children to be able to opt out of the already existing compulsory religious teaching in education (see Chapter 9 on this) continued to fall on deaf ears, despite a finding by the European Court of Human Rights that the course in question was one practically in ‘Sunni’ indoctrination and as such in violation of a number of basic rights.7 Only a little more than a year later, just a few weeks ahead of the start of the mass unrest in Egypt against the MB rule, the Gezi protests (see Chapter 6) would break out and grow meteorically in size and intensity, with about 2.5 million people, by the official figures, taking to the streets nationwide in ­anti-­government protests, close to 5,000 of whom to be subsequently detained by the security forces.8 Under the old bureaucratic order, an event of this magnitude would simply have been the end of the civilian government, exactly the way the unrest in Egypt at about the same time drew the MB rule to a close. Yet, greatly free of the yoke of the military by then, the ruling AKP would succeeded getting out of it all by only a sizeable ‘dent’ in its image, largely an outcome of its disproportionate response to the protesters, losing much in the h ­ ard-­earned trust of the international public opinion. Quite apart from the excessive use of force exercised apparently in a state of ­panic­– ­­with the stirred Egypt in the peripheral vision of those in ­authority­ – ­­there would also be serious ethical issues sullying the riposte, mixed with fabrications by the government and in p ­ ro-­government circles that would thickly vilify the protesters. This sudden depletion in legitimacy in May–June 2013, not at all bargained for by the government, was several months before the massive corruption and bribery allegations that would erupt in December of the same year, bringing about what would look like a state of total moral bankruptcy and loss of legitimacy on the part of the administration. The then prime minister Erdoğan would react by practically suspending the justice system in the country in early 2014, in turn effectively burying the formal corruption probes already at the stage of formal indictments (see Chapter 8). The short time span in which both the MB and a ‘newly Islamist’ AKP came to lose vital democratic credibility in Egypt and Turkey, respectively, was therefore uncannily similar, averaging about one year. That devoutly religious men with hijabi w ­ ives­– an ­­ ‘issue’ under the recalcitrant old r­ egime­

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146  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y – ­­had been in top positions in the state apparatus for close to a decade in a reforming and increasingly steady political environment meant at once that the secular urbanites behind the protests of 2013 had little problem with the piety of the rulers, or that at least they were through a phase getting gradually used to it, notwithstanding the strong qualms initially. Problems had only started, snowballing thence at a quick pace, with the government dramatically switching its course in 2012, in a rather surprising fashion, since the programme of the ruling party had barely hinted over the years at what was to come. The ­age-­old question as to whether ‘Islam’ was at all compatible with democracy would thus become once again pertinent, perhaps with a vengeance. It would be hardly surprising, for one thing, that the history, social values and the local political culture, with a unique fusion of numerous dynamics, would beget factors that, if not going to be in the way altogether, would require diverse forms of ­fine-­tuning in the structure and institutions of democracy as observed elsewhere, no matter how genuine the initiative was. As a result, the road ahead would be inescapably painful, slow and at times frustrating. Yet the government would run into a quandary from 2012 for reasons possibly beyond all this. The derailment that it would face would have much to do rather with the new ‘ideological’ audacity, if mostly (although not exclusively) on the discursive level, on the part of both Erdoğan and the group of Islamist intellectuals close to the political rule. Needless to say, a resurfacing of the question of Islam and democracy as such was hardly about the faith itself, but about the assumed political dictates attached to Muslim piety in the public sphere. Despite the abundance of claims to the contrary, particularly by the Islamist intelligentsia in the wider region, there had been little consensus historically among Muslims themselves on the political stipulations of Islam. Interpretations that were purportedly based on the formal sources, starting with the Qur’an and the ­early-­period practice (Sunna), were notoriously at variance, as the sources seemed to feed arguments invariably on both sides of almost each and every issue. Often, therefore, the question as to whether ‘Islam’ was compatible with democracy referred barely to Islam, not even to the pious and practising Muslims, but to those Muslims who demanded a constitutive role for the faith in the organisation of everyday political and social life. The question of Islam and democracy, making a dramatic come back in 2013, was thus one

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context | 147 that seemed more along the following lines: was Islamist rule as a somewhat recalcitrant mode of doing politics, with its characteristic ­set-­truths and not shy to resort to varying degrees of coercion or forms of pressure on the public, compatible with the basic demands of democracy? It should perhaps be noted in further elucidating the context that the literati among the core supporters of the ruling AKP, largely those reared in the local ­Islamo-­nationalist (Millî Görüş) politics,9 would start arguing in a series of impassioned debates in newspaper columns from July 2012 for a switch from the tag ‘conservative’, used for the political movement led by the AKP for a decade from 2002, to ‘Islamism’.10 For a distant observer, what was taking place may have thus looked fairly clear: enabled, now that the bureaucracy was completely subdued, encouraged by the results of the latest nationwide polls in the June 2011, and gathering momentum from the early 2012 through new and surprise policies, ‘Islamism’ was now about to receive its due for core supporters, who appeared unable to wait to finally revel in the ­fairy-­tale success of the movement. The euphoric accomplishment of regime change attributed solely to the Islamists would be rather problematic though, as the ruling AKP had owed much of its energy in the spell leading to the change to its early ‘liberal’ and ­pro-­European policies. That the voters still behind this political party in the wake of the change had been supportive of it for its purported ‘Islamism’ was thus rather dubious, regardless of the fact that the government appeared to renege on the earlier liberal pledges. It appeared more like a period of ‘wait and see’ on the part of the masses in the absence of a credible alternative. The promised democracy, free of its republican shackles at long last, looked increasingly like a callous majoritarian rule now, boldly indifferent to basic rights and freedoms, and as such more suffocating for the secular urbanites perhaps than the fettered democracy of the old regime. As for the project of European integration, a significant leverage in pushing for a new order until the last quarter of 2010, it was subject now only to increasing distraction on the part of the government. Notwithstanding the immense differences in the respective societies, the urbanites were being effectively forced in both Egypt and Turkey simultaneously into what was roughly the same choice: namely, between a majoritarian democracy that gravely signalled a state of anything goes and the ­old-­style authoritarianisms that, admittedly

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148  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y brutal, respected at least the lifestyles and some of the most basic rights and freedoms. The new period in Turkey would be declared in early 2013 by the head of the Istanbul section of the ruling AKP rather unflinchingly: In the coming decade, we will not be acting together with those with whom we cooperated in one way or another during the first decade of our rule. In the past decade, we had allies in our work of overall political clearance, and in defining freedom, law and the discourse of justice. Although our allies, the liberal sectors barely grasped what we were about; they somehow became partners in the process. Yet, the future is a period of construction, which is not going to be as they wish. Therefore, those allies are not going to be with us. Those who in the past walked with us in one way or another are this time going to be partners rather with forces against us. Because the Turkey that is going to be built, and the future to be revived, is not going to be a future and period that they may accept. For this reason, the task ahead for us will be far more arduous.11

Could the crossroads at which the Islamists had apparently arrived be described more clearly? This undaunted discourse adopted by the ruling AKP with the regime change, peaking in the days leading to the Gezi protests, would soon subside though. The remission would come about through the impact of, first, the series of corruption allegations against the government from December 2013 and, second, with the growing perception on the domestic scene in the following months of a possible government involvement with the jihadist groups in the Syrian civil war, pushing the government to a defensive posture. The venturesome Islamist discourse in the ruling circles, which would once again lie dormant from 2014, would nonetheless reveal Islamism as an ­ever-­present issue in the background. Islamism as such appeared to be ultimately problematic for the aspiring democratic polity locally, for it was ostensibly fired by a brazen ‘sociopolitics’­– v­aguely after the Foucauldian notion of ­biopolitics­– ­­and a concomitant and restless ‘geopolitics’. Clearly dear to the ruling elite, albeit now slumbering, Islamism as a distinct mindset would seem simply to cease to be what it was if it somehow abandoned this ­two-­fold objective. Biopolitics is a term used by Foucault in a much more refined sense obviously, namely as a sophisticated ‘technology’ of social control

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context | 149 unavoidably extending from power in all settings, that is, not only in those markedly authoritarian, aiming ‘subliminally’ to reforge people in the image of power.12 Here, the term ‘sociopolitics’ refers to nothing nearly as stealthy or concealed. It is rather a crude form of social engineering towards a forcible refashioning of people and their lives. In relatively (or perhaps transitionally) ‘benign’ forms of this sociopolitics, lifestyles deemed ­un-­Islamic would face no more than mere restrictions, rather than being wiped out once and for all, as daringly proposed by an Islamic scholar close to the government during the intense debate in November 2013 on ­mixed-­sex private accommodations of university students, a practice found seriously objectionable by Erdoğan personally, as described below. ‘For the sake of the majority’, this scholar would declare, ‘individuals [students in the present case] should voluntarily waive some of their freedoms.’13 The majority invoked here meant none other than the electoral support enjoyed by the government, assuming, once again, and rather deceptively, that the ruling party attracted masses by being Islamist. Below, the discussion returns to this immensely influential scholar further to exemplify the audaciously harboured sociopolitics in ­pro-­government circles that generated deep secular anxieties locally in the early period of the new regime. Moreover, this somewhat violent social engineering within an Islamist vision would be expected to couple up with a geopolitics that would ostensibly be distinguished by revisionist, transformative concerns of the ruling elite in foreign policy. Oblivious to the hard fact of a clear gap between the distinct Islamist discourse aired, even when articulated by Erdoğan himself, and the unwavering pragmatism of the government in global and regional politics in practice, most observers would invoke this hazy geopolitics in explaining the quagmire in foreign policy from 2012, particularly in the Middle East. Although the w ­ ell-­known geopolitical fascination of Ahmet Davutoğlu (see Conclusion), the foreign minister from May 2009, to go on and become the head of the government from August 2014, was hardly an accident, being linked to his Islamism as a former academic. Yet, arguably, as a member of the cabinet Davutoğlu would come to be gripped less by the geopolitical teachings of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, which he had espoused in his academic writings, than a policy of ‘zero problems with the neighbours’, as he would begin articulating once in office. The swamp in

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150  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y the Middle East, fast escalating from ‘zero problems’ to ‘nothing but problems’, as this policy would often be mocked, was perhaps an outcome more of the mixed signals received in 2012 and 2013 from the E ­ uro-­Atlantic partners on the Syrian civil war, as argued in this book (Chapter 9 and Conclusion), combined, to be sure, with some crucial ineptitude. Added to the Syrian case would be the coup in Egypt in the summer of 2013, which Erdoğan would simply superimpose with the Gezi protests taking place at about the same time. As for the policy towards Israel, risking relations with Israel already from 2009 was possibly the product of a rewarding populism, courting with the strong ­anti-­Semitism on the home front, alloyed, again, with a good measure of clumsiness. That is, even the policy on Israel was hardly shaped by a drive that was fundamentally ideological. Obviously, perceptions in society of an imminent sociopolitics and an adventurous geopolitics would be divisive and conflict inducing, bound to render the masses on the home front tense and agitated. Not surprisingly, the Islamist discourse in full swing from 2012 would have a shelf life of only about one year locally, as in Egypt s­ imultaneously­– ­­two pious ­Muslim-­dominated political contexts that were otherwise poles apart. More bewildering all along was the apparent naivety of the local Islamist intelligentsia clearly oblivious to the inevitably t­ ension-­ridden character of Islamist politics, not only for the secular urbanites, but also for the pious Muslims. The experience in Islamist politics in the greater region had over the years illustrated one simple fact: even if the Islamists in a specific setting were somehow to succeed in getting rid of all opposition in the way of a projected ‘Islamised’ society, deadly conflicts that Islamism inherently induced would be unlikely to come to an end domestically. In the absence of a secular opposition, assuming the regime were to go that far, Islamists could be expected to turn against each other next; as ‘polysemic’ interpretation was likely to remain an irreducible aspect of the faith, especially in its assumed political ­dictates­– ­­a fact that would perforce lead to contending and eventually feuding factions even in a tightly controlled Islamist polity. This would occur quite apart from various other and more mundane factors centred largely on elementary forms of greed and passion for power, fuelling further divisiveness and irreconcilable antagonisms in society. Afghanistan in the throes of an ­intra-­Islamist civil war was a case in point after the former Soviet troops had left the region in 1989 and an

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context | 151 uncompromising Islamist hegemony had been fully established from 1992. The naivety of the Turkish Islamist literati in this regard would be quite astounding. In August 2013, Turkey’s minister of education, a known intellectual and as such far removed from a mindless ideology of jihadism, would seem to have lost his head just enough all the same to hand out to children at a primary school in Ankara copies of a collection of jihadist poetry devoted to and glorifying the armed struggle in Afghanistan against the Soviets in the 1980s.14 The poet behind the collection, a noted one, had turned more and more into a reborn jihadist in his work with the onset of the war in Afghanistan, greatly compromising along the way his widely acknowledged talent. Here is a piece from the book for an idea as to how ‘poetic’ the work was, on top of the shocking fact that a minister of education would distribute copies of a compilation of war poems to schoolchildren, complete with the picture of a child bearing a rifle on the cover: His name is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar He is our leader Speaking always in the name of Allah Fighting for Allah on the frontline Not difficult for him to smash the heads of tyrants As he started doing that while still a child Eats little, sleeps little An organiser, a resolute realist We little mujahedeen love him Like all in the land15

What exactly happened in Afghanistan after the Soviet troops had withdrawn, as celebrated in such poetry? More than twenty years on, Afghanistan was still a battleground of rival Islamist groups. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, to be received by Erdoğan as the mayor of Istanbul in the second half of the 1990s, with a notorious picture of him in the domestic media showing Erdoğan squatted on the floor submitting meekly to a seated Hekmatyar, was the leader of only one of those groups. There were other equally ‘Islamist’ factions led by the likes of Shah Massoud, Mojaddedi and Rabbani, among others, before the Taliban came to power in 1994 and made life hell, in the first place, for the rival Islamist schisms.

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152  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y This was hardly the sole threat to be formed by the possible consequences of Islamist politics, especially in a democracy. The local experiment would soon reveal that Islamists in power might use a ‘parallel’ (a term later to be used by Erdoğan to describe ‘the state within the state’ initiated by the Gülenists) set of criteria for legitimacy in a regime that would have to remain democratic to some extent at the same time. Consequently, there would be at least two effective sources of legitimacy for the acts of the public authority. One would be formed by the fatwas (Islamic opinions) obtained behind closed doors, and the other by the formal legal norms out in the open. As alleged from December 2013, that is what may have happened with Erdoğan for about the last two decades of his life in politics, first running the largest local administration in the country and later the government: Islamists may have been astonishingly daring in venturing into some gargantuan forms of corruption and bribery (see Chapter 8). Not to mention the credible reports that the Gülenists, ostensibly behind the claims, themselves routinely cheated at public office entry examinations over decades. If true, such practices would be plainly illicit by one of the sources, yet acceptable, even perhaps commendable, by the other. A former liberal supporter of the government would point out the magic word ‘cause’ (da‘wah) widely circulated among the core, ­Islamo-­nationalist supporters of the ruling AKP ahead of the critical general election of June 2015, when the electoral interest in extending the mandate of the government appeared to be waning, and when the ­pro-­government intellectuals kept referring to the ‘cause’ to rekindle that interest. ‘What exactly is this cause?’ this commentator asked, adding that it certainly did not seem to be any of the promises made in the formal election manifesto.16 It was undisclosed, yet the core supporters somehow knew what it was, which they used in the p ­ re-­election phase to convince the undecided supporters to ignore various financial irregularities of the government and rally back behind the party. Clearly, whatever it was, the ‘cause’ was a rather powerful tool denied to the rest of the political parties in the competition. Inexorable duplicity leading to abuses of ­authority­– ­­beyond the mere dissimulation in identity terms (taqiyyah), for which the members of the Gülen community in the state apparatus were known ­for­– looked ­­ likely to be part and parcel of Islamist politics in a democracy in virtually countless moulds.

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context | 153 Distant observers would often ask, for instance, whether Erdoğan personally believed in the m ­ ind-­blowing conspiracies that he would claim from ­mid-­2013, depicting practically the whole world as busy weaving plots against his rule. The answer to this question would have to be both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. No, he did not believe in those sinister alliances; those narratives were part of his populist style of doing politics, which he only wanted his voters to credit, no matter how embarrassing it all would be for the government before the international public opinion. The ploy was not problematic for him for precisely the same reason the alleged corruption was ­not­– ­­there was a ‘noble’ or sacred aim that justified it as a tool. And, yes, he did conceivably believe that there were plots against his administration in some sense, for, as an Islamist, he would be convinced at the same time that the powers of the world out there were apocalyptically against everything that he stood for, an assumption that was perhaps an integral part of the Islamist geopolitics generally. A Take on Democracy The fact that, unlike the perceptions of most of the critics, the AKP rule subscribed to a pragmatist populism, rather than Islamism, would hardly stop the Islamist intellectuals close to the government from freely speculating on the future of the regime. As an illustration, the Islamic scholar noted above, a columnist at the same time in a p ­ ro-­government daily, would have a frank discussion in May 2014 on the issue of secularism under the current pious Muslim rule. What this discussion, related below, revealed first and foremost was the apparent poverty of the Islamist thinking locally, compared to Islamist political ideas suggested in other contexts. That was probably because, unlike most Muslim settings, intellectuals in modern and strongly secular Turkey had never felt a drive to negotiate political ideas through dictates of Islam, subsequently leaving religion aside altogether. This had left Islamic political ideas to a small group of Islamist intellectuals who did not perceive the need to address the modern concerns. Hailed as the most prominent Islamist ideologue in Tunisia in the aftermath of the revolution of January 2011, Rachid Ghannouchi was known, for instance, to suggest a secular democracy roughly along the lines of the earlier discourse of the AKP rule. Reminiscent of the sentiments of some of the Turkish Islamists during the oppressive old regime, when the hijabi female students had to leave the country and

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154  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y continue their studies in places in Western Europe and in North America, Ghannouchi famously stated from his exile in Britain that his host country was more ‘Islamic’ than most of those in ­Muslim-­dominated settings.17 A more sophisticated argument came from Abdullahi Ahmed a­n-­Na‘im, an academic in the United States, with roots in Sudan. Accordingly, a person became a Muslim only by conviction and free choice, and this could only take place in a polity where religion was not imposed on the society. Therefore, he concluded, a person could be a ‘Muslim’ only in a secular state. Religious piety demanded this, he insisted, whereas coercive enforcement of religion as seen in places such as Saudi Arabia and Iran produced hypocrisy, which was condemned in the Islamic ethic.18 A number of other Muslim intellectuals such as Abdolkarim Soroush from Iran could readily be added to this lineage of Islamic thinking seeking to confront modernity earnestly and yet realistically.19 The Turkish Islamic scholar discussed here, highly esteemed by Erdoğan personally,20 was clearly not a ring in this chain. To document a typical instance of the rhetoric greatly behind the secularist anxieties in the country from 2012, here are chunks of a piece this scholar wrote on secularism, with the clear aim of guiding the government: Ultimately, Islam is not reconcilable with, or in any way parallel to, secularism and laïcité. Those simply cannot come together. In the place of laïcité or secularism, Islam offers freedom of religion and thought. If the circumstances in which we find ourselves necessitate the use of an instrument on our way to Islam, then we can use that instrument. This [instrument] could be a concept, an institution or a [political] party . . . If that instrument takes us in the direction of our terminus, opening the gates [ahead] one by one, we can use it by necessity. The urgency will justify the instrument.21

As for why these instruments were essentially ‘­un-­Islamic’, although Islamists might have to use them, the piece would go on to add: First of all we need to scrutinise democracy, [political] parties and pluralism in terms of their [historical] sources. Where do they come from? . . . The first thing to do, in other words, is to determine the roots. Doing that, we can then understand whether or not [democracy, political parties and pluralism] are alien to our [Muslim] constitution.

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context | 155 When we look at the issue from the viewpoint of the relationship between the human person and God and [seeing if] the human regulations [in question] are at all to do with religion, we will grasp, as I see it, that the concept of pluralism is not in keeping with our constitution . . . The system of pluralism grants freedoms and rights to [a multitude of] diversities, excluding in so doing an evaluation of various choices on the basis of religion and morality. Islam, on the other hand, bestowing on the human person a freedom of religion and conscience, at once evaluates this freedom negatively when it is used in the direction of infidelity, sin and shame.22

He would repeat these views in his very next column, ostensibly in response to certain sceptical comments by pious Muslims on the earlier piece, arguing that some Muslims displayed an extraordinary effort to prove that Islam and democracy were compatible, motivated, as he would put it, by the otherwise lofty intention of ‘protecting Islam against ill will’.23 He would claim that the Medina Document of the seventh century that was often invoked for this purpose, for having sanctioned peaceful coexistence between the Muslims and infidels, had been in force for only nine months and should therefore be taken only with a pinch of salt. He would continue: [In democracies] the human person is independent of God. This is the basis of democracy, and I am of the opinion that this [notion] is patently incompatible with Islam. If we agree on this [we should also agree that] democracy as a whole (with its theory and practice) cannot be the political system of Muslims. Yet, a democratic mechanism can be used in the light of the principles of Islamic political theory until a better [system] is attained.24

Let us be clear, then: according to this major Islamic scholar in Turkey writing in the aftermath of the regime change, even that which could only be tolerated by the Muslims in power in the ­interim­– ­­that is, before the actualisation of a fully fledged Islamic system (whatever that may be)­– w ­ as not democracy as we know it. Democracy in its ordinary patterns (recognising Turkey’s Alevis as they defined themselves for instance, granting them equal rights, an issue about which this scholar was particularly intransigent) could not be condoned even for this transitional phase on the way to the Islamic state. What could be permitted at all for the Muslims in authority

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156  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y at this temporary stage was democracy guided by ‘the principles of Islamic political theory’. In other words, he assumed three consecutive moments towards an eventual and dramatic reversal of the regime in what appeared to be a wholly dialectical political journey: (1) a democracy in which Muslims somehow succeeded to ascend to power, (2) democracy steered by Muslims through standards borrowed from Islamic political theory, and (3) the Islamic state that was ‘patently’ out of tune with d ­ emocracy­– quite ­­ a leap. If some such clearly articulated road map for the ruling I­ slamo-­nationalists would not justify the anxieties of the secular urbanites in society from 2012, taking desperately to the streets in 2013, one wondered what possibly could? Split in Ruling Circles The new regime would face three decisive events that would threaten virtually to shatter it into pieces after its first year: (1) the Gezi protests of May–June 2013 (see Chapter 6), (2) a set of leaked documents and tapes from December of the same year that would reveal (a) allegedly pervasive corruption (Chapter 8) and (b) the manner in which the government had been controlling the mainstream media (Chapter 7), and finally (3) the ‘extent’ of government involvement in the Syrian civil war (Chapter 9). The latter would become apparent in early 2014, and culminate in the controversy centred on the jihadist siege of the Syrian town of Kobanê along the border in September 2014, depicting the regime practically on the side of the brutal jihadist group known as ‘Islamic State’ (formerly Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/the Levant) against the secular local Kurds. The government would attribute initially only the last two, and later increasingly also the first event, among other things, to the former allies organised around the teachings of Fethullah Gülen, a retired government employee as a prayer leader (imam) and a mosque preacher (vâiz), s­ elf-­exiled in the United States from 1999 in response to the prosecution he faced following the military ‘adjustment’ of the civilian rule in February 1997. The movement led by Gülen called itself Hizmet (literally ‘service’, or ‘duty’, referring vaguely to duty in the service of God), which was mostly how it was known outside Turkey, where the bulk of its mainly educational activities were based. The subsequent a­ll-­ out war between the government (in particular

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context | 157 Erdoğan) and the Gülenists would simply be symptomatic of the sibling rivalry that, as known only too well, could be vicious. Although these two social forces were siblings in some sense, for addressing the same pious sensibilities in their respective ways, they had never actually crossed paths in the recent political history of the country beyond this affinity, nor had they engaged in any sort of dialogue, until the advent of the AKP in late 2002, a political party then newly set up, yet strong enough and promising for the first time to resist the pressure of the bureaucracy under the old regime. Erdoğan, leading the AKP, had been a veteran trooper within the ­Islamo-­nationalism (Millî Görüş) of Necmettin Erbakan (1926–2011), which had emerged in the late 1960s. With a distinct following that had grown fast and become increasingly recognisable from the 1970s, Gülen (born in 1941) had been based in İzmir in western Turkey, of all places (not known for its piety)­– ­that is, not in either Istanbul or Ankara, the more usual abodes for public opinion leaders, which should perhaps give an idea about the leanings of this community more in touch with those outside the established assembly of pious Muslims. Instead of a direct involvement in party politics, Gülen had preferred over the years to exact political concessions for his followers, mostly nothing more than a mere tolerance of the officialdom, by contributing strictly unadvertised support to large mainstream political parties; both ­right-­liberal, as in the case of the Justice Party (Adalet Partisi) of the 1970s, and ­left-­nationalist, as in the brief and localised support extended to the Party for Democratic Left (Demokratik Sol Parti) in the 1990s. Wide open to the modernist political interpretations of Islam from the late nineteenth century, the Erbakanist ­Islamo-­nationalism was all along in intellectual contact with, and informed by, comings and goings in places such as Pakistan (Jamaat-e-Islami), Egypt (the Muslim Brotherhood), even Iran, if for a brief spell during and in the immediate aftermath of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Gülenism, on the other hand, had remained almost entirely aloof from political contacts of the kind. Therefore, the Gülenists were viewed by the I­ slamo-­nationalist literati as somewhat politically immature, if not altogether blind, and, correspondingly, conformist, parochial, even far too ‘nationalistic’ for privileging the local identity and understanding of Islam over Islamic trends worldwide. At its heart, the cleavage between the AKP rule and the Gülen movement was arguably to do with this resilient

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158  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y polarity, which would resurface as Erdoğan, having long disassociated himself from Erbakanism, would quickly ‘­re-­don’ the old Erbakanist frock, a metaphor Erdoğan himself had used earlier, in 2002, in dispelling mass anxieties about his past, admittedly having formed a ‘liberal’ splinter from the main ­Islamo-­nationalist p ­ olitics­– ­­that he had ‘cast off’ that frock. Some significant tension between the allies had become public already in early 2012, as noted before (Chapter 3), apparently over the control of State Intelligence (Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MİT), when a public prosecutor, reputedly Gülenist, had summoned the head of the MİT as part of an ongoing criminal inquiry into the Kurdish political movement then newly in a ­path-­breaking dialogue with the government. In retrospect, this summons would come to be viewed in ­pro-­government circles as an abortive ‘coup’ prior to the ‘coup’ of December 2013, when a series of a­ nti-­corruption probes stealthily conducted by the allegedly Gülenist prosecutors would see the light of day. Before the revelations on the financial irregularities of the government, the Gülenists had already departed from the ruling AKP discourse and refrained during the urban protests of 2013 from a wholesale condemnation of the unrest as an ­Egypt-­like dark experiment of the diehard secularists towards a possible ‘coup’. The open skirmish between Erdoğan and Gülen would start not before the autumn of the same year over a new government plan in preparation towards putting up the shutters on the ­so-­called private tutoring programmes or cram schools (dershane) nationwide. The programmes in question had been rather efficiently utilised by the Gülenist movement over decades, in a country where taking exams at various levels, from primary school to employment, was a national pastime, as a virtual ground for acquiring young and academically promising conscripts. The young recruits would in time be assigned to the extremely devoted work of the movement, comparable perhaps to the educational zeal and ambition of Jesuits and the Alliance Israélite historically, in over 150 countries. In truth, the overall cram schools across the nation, traceable back to the 1970s when the university entrance examinations had invited private courses, far exceeded those run by the movement, estimated to be no more than about 10 per cent of all. Although constituting only a fraction of the work of the movement, the programmes in question ostensibly had the critical function of enabling the movement to recruit young women and men with the potential to become

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context | 159 part of the elite task force, as the executives and key personnel in educational establishments worldwide were formed only by Turkish nationals. Typical perhaps for the ruling style of the government from 2012, to be detailed below, largely heedless of the rule of law and often only a little more decorous in so doing than a bull in a china shop, the government would refuse to relent in the matter and go on with the legislative work towards permanently shutting down the tutoring programmes across the country that employed close to 100,000 people. Let alone the manifest neglect of genuine communication and consultation with the stakeholders in the sector, as demanded by contemporary governance, one wondered as to how exactly, and under what authority, could the state terminate those services in an avowedly liberal democracy, which was not unlike ending otherwise legally impeccable private tutoring services, say, in teaching musical instruments. It looked more than probable that the piece of legislation being drafted by the government to liquidate the tutoring programmes would be found ultimately in violation of a number of fundamental rights and freedoms, even before the European Court of Human Rights that had been increasingly important domestically from the late 1990s, by the Constitutional Court, which had been redesigned to function from September 2012 as almost a section of the European Court. (This high court would prove to be a wholly different influence in the immediate aftermath of the old regime, addressed in the following section.) The practice seemed to be a blatant violation of the basic dictates of liberal democracy, including the right to education and what the European human rights protection system termed the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions, which safeguarded for individuals anything of economic value. So, why was the government doing that? Besides the debilitating haste as a factor, the government may have rather ineptly counted on some chance that the ban on the cram schools might ultimately go through. An additional aim may have calculated that, even if the ban would eventually fail, it would at least take time before the apparent victims could be vindicated, and the mere injury constituted by the lingering uncertainty over the programmes in the interim might still be enough to teach the movement a lesson. Not surprisingly, the law that introduced the ban in March 2014 would be revoked by the Constitutional Court in July 2015 for placing arbitrary limitations on the right to education and on entrepreneurship.25

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160  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Some of the observers would couch the dissension between the two groups, namely the ruling I­ slamo-­nationalists and the Gülenists, in terms of a binary opposition of the purportedly ‘statist’ Islamists on the one hand and the ‘­civil-­society-oriented’ democrats, on the other. Accordingly, a pluralistic notion of political rule, integration with Europe, alongside a full implementation of fundamental rights and freedoms, increasingly campaigned for by the Gülenist media against the government during the widening rift, was possibly reflective of this fundamental binary. There were, to be sure, significant differences between the two social forces in both interests pursued in the long run and in instruments and style. Yet a championing of democracy, of European values, by the Gülenists in this context was barely more meaningful than the way the very same principles had been warmly embraced by the ­Islamo-­nationalist politics from the late 1990s, to be put to work much more convincingly and fruitfully by the AKP from 2002 to 2010. For an idea in this regard, it should be recalled that in February 2008 the hijabi woman intellectuals in solidarity with the sections of society similarly victimised under the old regime had published a striking declaration, announcing to the domestic public opinion that they would not feel ‘genuinely’ liberated with a mere lifting of the ban on the hijab in higher education and in state employment, as the government had been preparing for a move for this purpose, unless people with alternative sexual and gender preferences also felt fully free. Revealingly, this declaration by the Islamist women would be construed by a p ­ ro-­government Islamist intellectual as simply too much for signalling a new trend of ‘Muslims entrusting their Islamic concerns with liberal immorality’.26 The renewed concern about democracy on the part of the Gülenists following the f­alling-­out with the government fitted clearly in this ­well-­established pattern. More importantly, the movement was known to have strived towards procuring strategic posts in the state apparatus, in the armed forces, the judiciary and the law enforcement body, a design that was rather demonstrative of the ambitions that reached far beyond the sphere of civil society. The Gülenist intellectuals would become increasingly fond nevertheless of referring to the government elite and the affiliated literati in the media outlets of the movement as ‘Islamists’ with a fetishism of the state and obsessed with controlling society through the power of the public authority. This

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context | 161 rather thriftless use of the epithet ‘Islamist’ for the government would ingeniously overlook the fact that the term, long forgotten even by the core AKP supporters within the ­Islamo-­nationalist tradition, with the AKP having redefined itself as a liberal conservative force, had been practically reintroduced by a columnist in the flagship daily of the Gülenist media. This intellectual, a leading Islamic scholar at the same time, had argued in a series of pieces in his column in ­mid-­2012, as part of the debate noted above, that a Muslim had to be ‘Islamist’ by definition. In articulating this view, he would claim, in an amazing anachronism, that the term Islamiyyun used by the authoritative scholar Abu a­ l-­Hasan ­al-­Ash‘ari in the tenth century was the same as what was understood by the term ‘Islamists’ presently.27 Still, the strife with the government would somehow enable the movement to have the moral upper hand, as some of its leading figures, starting with Gülen, would be subjected to a virtual lynching in the media controlled by the government. The mimetic continuity at work was startling, for the very Gülenist media had hardly been alien to such foul practices of character assassination and psychological warfare in the process leading to the regime change, treating some of the republican figures then on trial (see Chapter 3) to particularly cruel defamation in countless p ­ seudo-­reports. A case in point was the character assassination of a former professor of medicine at Istanbul University and a philanthropist, who was being prosecuted as the chief defendant in one of the cases. Dying a slow death at the time, and dead in 2009 with the trial still in progress, this figure would receive treatment from the Gülenist media that would be different only by the narrowest of margins from that which the government controlled media would give the Gülenists after the ­falling-­out.28 This republican intellectual was persecuted by the Gülenists not only for being allegedly ­pro-­military and for developing ideas of a violent disruption of the civilian rule, a damning charge in itself, but also for being purportedly in league with the Kurdish guerrilla movement (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK), who fought the m ­ ilitary­– hard ­­ as it was to ­comprehend­– ­­giving scholarships through the ­non-­governmental organisation she led to Kurdish students sympathetic to the PKK. More important still, she was insinuated to be a c­ rypto-­Christian (since her mother, an Englishwoman, had originally been a Christian, later converting to Islam), and as such involved in daring ‘missionary’ activities under the cover of

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162  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y c­ haritable functions. The slur was posed repeatedly and for years in various media outlets of the movement, at a time when missionaries were literally being slaughtered in the country, as noted above. This was not the whole of the mimetic continuity that was the case. In declaring her to be a ‘missionary’ in a country in which even the purportedly secularist republicans had a paranoia about it, a fact that would leave her entirely defenceless, the movement would rely on nothing other than some ­alleged ­reports drawn on her by the MİT and the military.29 Ironically, an important claim by the Gülenists against the government in the subsequent warfare, staking out the moral high ground, would be the fact that the government had apparently dared to have members of the movement profiled (fişleme, official stigmatisation) by the new and now heavily partisan MİT.30 The government, almost fully in control of the justice system from October 2014, would start a merciless judicial campaign against the Gülenists, targeting, besides the media controlled by the movement, businesses allegedly financing or close to it. Gülen himself in the United States would end up facing an aggravated life sentence as the head of a terror organisation that had attempted a forcible takeover of the government.31 The lengthy indictment, more partisan oratory than a legal instrument, would be sheer ‘political fantasy’, as one commentator would put it, mixed with some facts.32 That was precisely what the Gülenist prosecutors had done to the opposition figures from ­mid-­2007, as detailed above (Chapter 3). The two Islamist camps at war immediately after the regime change was a development, obviously, that hardly signified anything unique or peculiar to Turkey. The grim and relentless clash between the former Islamist allies in Afghanistan following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, noted already, was possibly the most illustrative example, which, as reflected above, seemed to have taught little to Turkey’s Islamists. Similarly, in strongly condemning the military coup in Egypt in 2013 against the MB government, the local Islamists would choose to ignore the conflict between the MB and the Salafis there. Arguably ‘more’ Islamist than the modernist MB, the Salafis had nevertheless played a decisive part in the coup by extending support to the military. Nor did the domestic Islamist intellectuals, boldly recirculating the term ‘Islamist’ in 2012, appear to recall the revealing fate of the staunchly Islamist intellectuals such as Soroush in Iran, denied space there soon after the Islamic Revolution. Demanding forth-

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context | 163 with an unchallenged monopoly to truth, the Islamists in power had naturally proceeded in Iran to silence also the Islamist intellectuals that had not long ago and unreservedly supported the revolution. Moreover, this purge had been considered by the regime as more urgent perhaps than that of secular intellectuals, who were somewhat ‘remote’ and thus largely obscure and less relevant. This, in short, seemed to be a pattern that had been virtually unerring at critical stages of Islamist politics globally. Let us remember, indeed, that secularism emerged in Europe historically not as a result of a confrontation between pious people and freethinkers, but because of the deadly contention and feuds between groups of pious people. The wisdom that all this revealed, eschewed by the Islamists, was that, more than the secularists, those who needed secularism most for basic safety and for unchallenged, free communal identity were probably the Islamists themselves. Constitutional Court as Rights Tribunal Was the AKP rule a mere ‘stage’ in a long and secretly harboured Islamist project, as suggested by the Islamic scholar above, or was it plain populism? An altogether different factor in the wake of the regime change would render the whole process all the more unfathomable. Without overstating the case, it would arguably make little sense to try and grasp the politics of the period in the absence of this incongruous factor as a critical part of the context, reflective of its torn nature and vacillating attributes. Fighting the old republican order, the AKP rule had found a natural alliance in the discourse of democracy and human rights. From 2003, the government would rapidly expand the scope of the international human rights law binding on Turkey, which would culminate in 2010 in a new and key function accorded to the Constitutional Court (CC) as a human rights tribunal, to be effective from late 2012, when the regime change was already complete. Through this capacity freshly entrusted with the top court in the country, human rights protection system in Europe would for the first time become a genuinely integral part of the law applicable domestically. Turkey had been a participant in the European human rights protection system under the Council of Europe since 1954. Yet it was only from the late 1980s that this arrangement would be given a chance locally, with the monitoring organs of the system enabled to receive individual applications

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164  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y from Turkey alleging violations of rights. This mechanism would serve from the second half of the 1990s considerably to narrow, if not close, the gap between European and Turkish practices. Seeking to bypass some of the limitations in the exercise of authority imposed by the old bureaucratic order, the AKP rule would go further in this respect and amend the Constitution in May 2004 towards securing a ‘direct’ implementation of this law to override the local legislation in the event of mutual incompatibility. With the human rights law still effectively ignored by the judicial establishment in the following period, despite the momentous revision in the Constitution, the decisive break reversing the settled reflexes would come with the new task accorded to the top court closely to oversee the full implementation of that law. Unlike the judgements of the European Court (ECtHR) in Strasbourg, which the domestic bureaucracy went on brushing aside on the whole, the CC rulings would prove to be genuinely authoritative. Furthermore, the original function of the CC in keeping an eye on the primacy of the Constitution in legislative acts would also come quickly to be instructed by this new mission of the high court firmly integrated with European human rights practices. In turn, the CC would emerge in the immediate phase after the demise of the old regime as the sole actor autonomous enough to put in place some form of restraint in the face of an administration that tended to end the system of checks and balances around the public authority altogether. The legislative organ itself had long been under the implacable sway of the ruling political party through the legislative majority that formed the government. The party structurally denied individual lawmakers a discernible form of autonomy in an a­ ge-­old routine, in which the party oligarchy virtually appointed and thereafter closely controlled the lawmakers. With the ruling party effectively steering the parliament, the result was a de facto unity, rather than separation, of the executive and the legislative powers. In a frantic response to the a­ nti-­government corruption investigations under way within the judiciary from December 2013, the government would attempt, and gradually succeed, to do away with the separation of powers altogether by terminating also the relative autonomy of the justice system. With the corruption probes set in motion, those members of the judiciary and the law enforcement body not absolutely loyal to the government would be quickly scattered across the country, and the newly structured law enforcement body

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context | 165 would be encouraged to refuse to obey court orders. A new piece of legislation in April 2014 would make the judiciary almost entirely dependent on the executive. The CC would eventually repeal some of the particularly inadmissible provisions of this parliamentary act, yet, by then, the government would have already achieved its aim, having manned the administration of justice in critical positions with personnel devoted to the government. For an idea of how the system would operate subsequently, one year later, in April 2015, two judges who allegedly ‘overstepped authority’ in an ­anti-­Gülenist case by attempting to release the suspects, pending trial, would be detained for their rulings within hours, despite the virtual inviolability accorded to the judges within the normative f­ramework­– ­­a first in the history of the domestic judiciary, including the spells of military rule in the past.33 Again, the members of the judiciary involved in the corruption investigations that had erupted in December 2013 would not only come to be debarred from the profession, but also put on trial for the alleged abuse of authority while on duty.34 Going on to intercept also some of the particularly rash measures by the government towards Internet censorship, the CC would appear from early 2014 as the sole independent entity within an extremely enfeebled judiciary brought about by an extraordinary political environment, in which the government openly and frequently defied the rare discordant moves by courts, as described in the following section in this chapter. The rising profile of the CC as practically the only remaining site of refuge for predictability in the exercises of power would in turn inspire some optimism and confidence in wider society, ensuring a measure of much needed stability. Yet it would also attract the wrath of the government. Erdoğan would refer to the CC as ‘unpatriotic’ (gayrımillî) for its judgement in April 2014 on the government ban of access to the m ­ icro-­blogging medium Twitter, finding a violation of free speech. Then the premier, Erdoğan would publicly rebuke this ruling as a blatantly political one, claiming in an ensuing polemical exchange with the chief justice that the latter was ‘obviously’ under blackmail, and hence in active resistance to the ‘popular will’ represented by the government.35 In an unusually daring address at the annual opening ceremony of the CC, the chief justice would respond to these criticisms by referring to them as ‘shallow’, and state to the face of Erdoğan seated on the first row that, unlike

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166  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y some, judges were ‘not of a character possibly to cast off and r­ e-­don frocks, as dictated by power and circumstances’­36­– ­­a reference, as noted above, to Erdoğan’s own elusive posture on democracy and human rights in two successive and yet totally contradictory phases, namely before and after the regime change. In the following period, Erdoğan would go on lambasting the CC, under a new chief justice from February 2015, for bureaucratic ‘meddling’. On a recently announced judgement of the CC, brought about by an individual application, and finding rights violations in the continuing detention of two prominent journalists on trial for treason and espionage, he would state: ‘I neither obey nor respect that ruling.’37 What exactly were these allegedly ‘unpatriotic’ fetters in the way of the ‘popular will’, signalling a novel ‘trusteeship’ order that simply ‘reproduced’ the now rather infamous tutelage under the former bureaucracy, as some within  the administration would start contending? In its new capacity as a human rights tribunal, the CC applied none other than the European human rights law centred on an intergovernmental agreement, the European Convention on Human Rights. The Convention had been adopted in 1950, coming into force from 1953. It had ­forty-­seven states and the European Union (from 2010) as parties.38 Turkey was among the original thirteen states that had signed the Convention on 4 November 1950 in Rome. The actual signature was that of Fuat Köprülü (1890–1966), the great historian, who was the foreign minister of the l­ iberal-­populist Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti) then newly in power. The ratification that made Turkey a ‘party’ would come in 1954. Although formally committed to the system, ostensibly as a marker of the cherished European identity under the continuing influence of the early republican cultural policies, Turkey would nevertheless recognise the authority of the Convention organs to receive and process complaints about its acts from individuals not before the second half of the 1980s, when the country would resume its old ambition towards greater integration with Europe. The first judgement delivered by the ECtHR, with Turkey as the respondent state, would be dated 1995.39 Authorising the Convention organs to receive complaints about the government, Turkey would attach three reservations to this jurisdiction: time (accepting responsibility for events after this date), place (limiting responsibility with the Turkish territory), and substance (excluding matters of military discipline). The last two reservations would subsequently

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context | 167 be found in contravention of the Convention terms and thus not valid. Moreover, the first reservation would be construed inapplicable to continuing violations, although the violation at issue may have occurred before the critical date authorising the Convention organs, for example, property rights in Cyprus. Turkey was also party to a number of protocols appended to the Convention from 1952. Those protocols that did not amend the Convention itself did not have to be ratified by all parties to come into force. When in force, they were effective therefore only for the states parties to them.40 Another key instrument within the system, to which Turkey was a party, was the European Agreement Relating to Persons Participating in Proceedings of the European Court of Human Rights, adopted in March 1996, and in force from January 1999. According to the agreement, persons who took part in the proceedings before the Court had a right to free movement to be able to travel to Strasbourg. Further, such persons enjoyed legal immunity for statements they might make before the ECtHR and, if under detention, privileges of full communication with the Court without interference by the public authority. The latest addition to the domestic extension of this system would be the new function accorded to Turkey’s own CC, effective from September 2012, to act as a watchdog of the ECtHR, in addition to its original task of legislative review. Holding its ground in a highly publicised polemic with the government in early 2014 over the growing nonchalance of the latter towards the rule of law and the basic rights and freedoms, as noted above, would make the CC look in its new capacity as virtually indistinguishable from a strong European or North American court. This would create a big contrast with what most observers would identify as a near state of anything goes in the early phase after the old regime. As a human rights tribunal the CC would be the ultimate authority domestically before an issue could be taken to the ECtHR. As such, the CC functioned very much like a division of the European Court, greatly simulating its ­well-­established modi operandi. Human rights as a significant leverage for the government in the fight against the old order was not the only incentive for the overall deal. The government had been embarrassed over the years by its appalling record of human rights violations decided by the ECtHR. As a monitoring organ, the European Court was created in 1959 in the form of a ­part-­time tribunal in

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168  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y a ­two-­tier system to evaluate cases in the next step after the work of a former Commission of Human Rights. The Court would be transformed in 1998 to its present status as a f­ ull-­time tribunal compulsory for states parties, with Protocol No. 11 to the Convention, a major revision, coming into force. Including the work of the Commission prior to 1959, the Convention organs had received a total of 541,394 applications until 2013.41 Just over 4 per cent of these applications (22,764 cases) would reach the stage of a judgement. Let us recall that Turkey recognised the jurisdiction, or legal authority, of the monitoring organs under the Convention not before 1987, first the Commission (later to be abrogated), then, about two years later in January 1990, the Court. Although a latecomer by far, about 17 per cent out of the total number of cases settled by the Convention organs would involve Turkey as the respondent state (3,846 cases), ranking it first among all f­orty-­seven of the states parties. Turkey would in turn lose close to 90 per cent of those cases, seeking constantly to modify its law to meet the demands, offering retrials, and paying along the way about $87 million in damages only for the period between 2002 and 2012.42 The ‘just satisfaction’ Turkey would be judged to pay in a single (though unusual) case in 2014 would be about $124 million.43 This was an outrageous record by any account. Hence the reason for assigning a new function to the CC as a virtual gatekeeper, encouraged by the Strasbourg authorities long inundated with applications from Turkey. This new function for the Court would be adopted through a nationwide referendum in September 2010, amending the Constitution, towards a complete overhaul of the system of high courts in the country.44 The CC would begin receiving individual applications from 23 September 2012, and deliver its first judgement (one of inadmissibility) on 25 December 2012.45 By March 2016, the CC would receive over 56,000 individual applications, having already processed close to 60 per cent of those, with a sharp increase of about 50 per cent in 2015 in the number of applications handled.46 As some confusion on the novel task of the CC would linger on at this initial phase, only a fraction of the applications would reach the stage of evaluation in terms of merits. Of these, around (again) 90 per cent would eventually be ruled in favour of the applicants. In 2015 alone, judgements of violation vindicating the applicants would number 543. As a human rights tribunal, the CC differed only slightly from the actual

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context | 169 functioning of the ECtHR.47 The exhaustion of prior remedies as a requirement was conditional on whether or not the specific remedy was effective, as was the case with the ECtHR. The landmark Twitter ruling in April 2014 that did not demand the exhaustion of remedies, as cried foul by the government, had found the remedies ineffective, as a first instance court ruling lifting the ban had simply been ignored by the government.48 The law that formally constituted the basis of the evaluation by the CC comprised ‘the rights invoked in the local Constitution so long as those rights were protected also in the Convention and the protocols’, thus leaving aside the social and economic rights invoked in the Constitution alone (Article 148 in the Constitution, additional clause inserted in 2010). In other words, the normative framework of the CC as a human rights court was very much the law on which the assessments by the ECtHR were based. Some relatively minor limitations set this domestic system apart though, such as leaving out of its purview claims concerning the territory of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and the national judgements that were not subject to review under the Constitution. The latter group of acts exempted from the compass were formed by the decisions of the CC itself on those occasions when it acted as a first instance court to try certain high profile suspects, namely as the Supreme Court (Yüce Divan); some of the decisions of the High Military Council (Yüksek Askeri Şûra); and the decisions of the body overseeing the whole justice system, the High Council of Judges and Public Prosecutors (Hakimler ve Savcılar Yüksek Kurulu). Rule by Policy The two significant, yet mutually odd, factors of the context immediately following the regime change were, then, a reintroduced Islamist discourse in the ­pro-­government circles and, paradoxically, improved adherence to the human rights protection system in Europe. The latter seemed to single out the Constitutional Court, now receiving individual applications after the exact working mechanism of the European Court of Human Rights, as a relatively independent island within a generally incapacitated judiciary. The third significant factor that defined the context, to be discussed in the remainder of this chapter, was the ruling mode, dominated ostensibly by the personal style of Erdoğan. A formal marker of this routine would be

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170  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y a new and increasingly notorious legislative technique called ‘mixed bag’ law (torba yasa), namely a parliamentary act conveniently bringing together highly controversial pieces of new legislation with those over which some consensus existed, regardless of the respective subject areas. Through this technique, the administration would succeed in practically smuggling into the normative framework passages of highly contentious legislation enacted overnight by the parliamentary majority behind the government. Submitted to the legislative organ in the form of proposals (rather than draft bills) prepared within the parliamentary group of the ruling party, these omnibus laws would be effectively concealed often also from cabinet ministers. Here is an example.49 Adopted in February 2014, and including moot provisions on tighter control of the Internet, electronic communication, public tenders and new powers granted to the government to be able to defy a court order for two years in restoring the position of an unfairly dismissed public employee, this piece of legislation also included provisions in the following areas: protecting minors from obscene publications (Article 1), bankruptcy (Article 2), tax (Articles 3, 7–8, 32, 56, 82–3), the official Anatolia News Agency (Article 4), the Turkish Institute of Standards (Article 5), family and social policies (Articles 6, 112, 116), official duties and expenditures (Article 9), public employment (Article 10), national education (Article 11), revenues of local administrations (Article 12), social policies (Article 14), the State Institute for the Protection of Orphans (Articles 15–30), road safety (Article 31), incentives for social solidarity (Articles 33–7), health care (Article 38), road construction and maintenance (Article 39), a­nti-­terror measures (Articles 40–1), income benefit (Article 42), the State Accreditation Institute (Article 43), civil law (Article 44), public tenders (Articles 45–55), labour relations (Articles 57–9), road transportation (Articles 60–1), rights of the disabled (Articles 62–75), civil aviation (Article 76), the State Social Security Institution (Articles 77–80, 113), social and general health insurance (Article 81), private educational institutions (Article 84), incentives for research and development (Article 101), response to natural disasters (Articles 107–8), the organisation of the General Directorate of Land Roads (Articles 109–10), f­ollow-­up of incentives provided by the state for business (Article 111), the General Directorate of Media and Information (Article 114), the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Articles 117–21), the

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context | 171 organisation of the Health Ministry (Article 122), and the administrative structure of the parliament (Article 123). Alongside such legislation, the parliamentary majority behind the government would seem constantly to revise and r­ e-­revise the existing laws, apparently in accordance with s­hort-­term needs in the ruling circles. The public tender regulations of the country revised no fewer than 113 times in the legislative organ between the years 2002 and 201350 would bring to mind the massive corruption allegations, which purportedly eliminated competition in lucrative bids, as would be ‘revealed’ from December 2013 (see Chapter 8). If not exactly to the same extent, the incessant rewriting as demanded under fleeting circumstances seemed to be characteristic of legislative efforts in a host of critical issue areas, chiefly the control of the judiciary, to be admitted as awkward ‘­do-­overs’ by none other than the minister of justice himself.51 The ceaseless editing of the law as called for by transient political needs would naturally render the rule as one by policy rather than rules. The indifference to the rule of law in the overall governing style of the administration would be forced by Erdoğan’s personal conduct to its utmost limits. In the face of the dictates of formal law or rare court rulings not quite in keeping with government policy in a specific issue area, he would publicly avow not only his unequivocal disagreement, but also that he did not at all intend to abide by those pronouncements. He would refuse from July 2014, when he was elected president, to sever his relationship with his political party, as demanded in no uncertain terms by the Constitution for the ‘neutral’ head of ­state­– ­­a position that was supposed to be largely symbolic, with no accountability (other than treason), within the system. A clearly partisan president, he would steal the scene from the government at every opportunity, deciding and announcing policies, rebuking the opposition figures in speeches, requesting votes from the public in rallies ahead of elections. In the phase leading up to the June 2015 general election, he would have more than 150 poll rallies nationwide,52 engaging in harsh polemics with the opposition, and referring consistently to the ruling AKP as ‘we’.53 Several applications by the opposition to the Supreme Board of Elections (Yüksek Seçim Kurulu), asking this body that supervised the elections to intervene in the name of poll safety, would come to little fruition.54 The prime example of the haughtily plain ruling style displayed by

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172  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Erdoğan, heedless of the law, was his declaration in November 2013, when he was the prime minister, that he was going to put an end to the o­ ff-­campus ­mixed-­sex accommodations long practised by university ­students­– ­­a surprising new slant by the public authority on the privacy of the home, respected in the local justice system in the modern sense, at least formally, since the second half of the nineteenth century. What was more, the protection of privacy in secular lifestyles was arguably the bone of contention with the regime change, leading to increasingly sharp polarisation in society, and as such at the heart of the ongoing ‘feud’ between the government and the secular urbanites. The ­wide-­scale protests shortly before, in the summer of 2013, were known largely to have been an outlet on the part of the secular masses to vent the growing frustration in this regard (see Chapter 6). A ‘democratising package’ announced to be in preparation in the aftermath of the protests, in September 2013, would include a promise towards greater ‘respect for lifestyles’, among other things, apparently in order to lower the tension.55 Later, this legislative attempt would turn out to be a criminal measure merely against acts ‘obstructing religious lifestyles’, effectively reinforcing, that is, the already meticulously safeguarded ‘religious values’ (see Chapter 9 on this), in a society in which even daring ‘secularist’ newspapers had their own resident theologians, contributing in their daily columns religious relief and enlightenment in the fashion of agony aunts. All doubt about the intention of the government concerning lifestyles, if there was any by now, would be dispelled by Erdoğan’s proclamation in November 2013, ‘confessing’ (since it had just been denied as pure fabrication by people close to him, including the government spokesperson) that, as ‘conservatives’, he and his friends were rather disturbed by the m ­ ixed-­sex private 56 housing of students in various university towns. Accordingly, he stated, the government would authorise local governors in towns, through legislation if ­necessary­– ­­that is, as he would point out, if the governors did not have this authority a­ lready­– ­­to use the local law enforcement and ‘do whatever necessary’ under the circumstances. In contradicting the earlier statements by the party elite, he would at once take pride in his own frankness; ‘unlike other politicians’, as he would put it, characteristically ­self-­­advertising­– ­­just as he was known to refer to himself often in the third person, as ‘Tayyip Erdoğan’, a somewhat conspicuous first in the local political discourse. That the gov-

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context | 173 ernment, meant ostensibly to remain within the European orbit of human rights, could not possibly put in action this manifest assault on privacy was another matter. Particularly alarming for the wider society was the surging audacity of what appeared to be a o­ ne-­man rule getting more heedless by the day, of the rule of law. The state of mind at issue, comparable to that of a ‘benevolent’ monarch perhaps, would be evident in a statement by Erdoğan in Helsinki, where he was on an official visit, only the day after his ‘confession’ on ­mixed-­sex private housing. The question of the impending government interference in the private accommodation of university students would be put to him by a Finnish journalist, surprisingly in Turkish, as a possible threat to lifestyles. After having scolded the journalist (‘Did they put you up to this?’), possibly out of habit, since these admonishments, in much harsher form, were bread and butter of his routine interaction with media representatives in Turkey, Erdoğan would respond: private lives of people in Turkey, lifestyles, are guaranteed ‘under our word of assurance’ (teminat). The ‘our’ here was the royal possessive, referring to Erdoğan alone. He would add immediately, after having invoked this ‘assurance’, that ‘[t]here is legitimate life, and there is illegitimate life’, not even trying to hide that whatever worth it had, his ‘personal’ commitment would only extend to lifestyles that he deemed worth protecting.57 That would not be the first time that a personal guarantee, rather than the usual, legal aegis expected of a modern rule, would be offered to protect freedoms in society by the government head, who, incidentally, referred to cabinet ministers, bureaucrats, security forces, and so on, invariably as ‘his’ people (my minister, my police officers, and so on)­– ­another first in the local political parlance. As an aspect of this highly ‘personalised’ rule obviously, he could often be heard to refer to his ‘word of assurance’, with strong indignation at possible scepticism, as more than sufficient guarantee for freedoms. This ruling style would appear in the subsequent period more and more as government by policy, reflected historically in the term ‘the police state’, as opposed to the rule of law. The term police state (Polizeistaat), reduced to plain authoritarianism following the rise of the Nazis in Germany, and known mostly in this limited sense since, denoted originally what could be described as a generous dose of administrative discretion in the ruling style. That is, the ‘police’ in the term referred originally to policy crucially put before the law, rather than the law enforcement, the police. Although not

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174  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y authoritarianism as such, the police state in a binary opposition with the rule of law was possibly the most salient factor that enabled authoritarianism. The antipodal German term denoting the supremacy of the normative order, bringing about predictability in the workings of the administrative machinery, was Rechtsstaat, ‘the state of law’, which had been translated into Turkish literally (hukuk devleti), to be the standard term in the local legal culture for the rule of law – albeit the latest trend to translate the rule of law into Turkish as ‘legal supremacy’ (hukukun üstünlüğü) to supplant the Recthtsstaat, a practice signalling a gradual drift away from the continental usage in the direction of the ­Anglo-­American tradition. The discretion allowed to the ruler, opening up the system of rights to considerable political risks, not only linked Erdoğan to erstwhile sultans, as would be depicted on the cover of the weekly The Economist in June 2013,58 but would also bring to mind the old bureaucratic order, which Erdoğan was proud to have vanquished. For a comparison with this strain, here is a newspaper headline from June 2009: ‘Speaking of an asymmetric psychological warfare in the media against the Armed Forces [Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri, TSK], Başbuğ states: take your hands off the TSK!’59 The statement, which felt very much like a regular one by Erdoğan himself in the days following the regime change, bursting out against ‘­low-­station’ critics and alleged conspirators, had been made by İlker Başbuğ, the chief of staff (2008–10) at the time, to ward off the claims, of the prosecutors in fact in the series of a­ nti-­coup cases discussed in Chapter 3, that the Turkish armed forces had among its ranks officers who might have plotted for a coup. The TSK would never shelter within its structure personnel who would be capable of entertaining thoughts or of engaging in acts against democracy and the rule of law [hukuk devleti]. It is I who am saying that, the commander of the TSK as the chief of staff, as defined in our Constitution, Article 117.

The words that immediately followed would sound particularly familiar in hindsight: ‘Now, this statement by the chief of staff, who is the commander of the TSK, should certainly be the greatest possible word of assurance’ (teminat). The period of regime change would prove to be full of surprises nevertheless. Not yet indicted personally, or even suspected at the time, when

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context | 175 he made the statement above, Başbuğ would be convicted in August 2013 for ‘setting up and masterminding a terrorist organisation’ and for ‘attempting either to overthrow the government or prevent its functioning, completely or partially’. He would in turn be sentenced to life imprisonment, although more surprises would be in store, as detailed in Chapter 3. Realpolitik Just who was Erdoğan? What exactly was in his making as a seasoned politician? How did he pursue and accumulate power in ­day-­to-day politics, leading the momentous change? Erdoğan arguably introduced into the local statecraft the realpolitik usually associated with foreign policy, where the absence of a central authority, and the attendant issues of security and survival, is assumed to drive states to ‘practical’ policies for the crucial ability to hold out, and as such notoriously unresponsive to ‘ethical’ considerations. The transition period before the regime change did indeed involve elements to bring about some uncertainty in domestic politics, somewhat redolent of that in the states system, with (1) the risk of an imminent military takeover, (2) the constant scrutiny of the judiciary looking dead set on dissolving the ruling party, and (3) various paramilitary activities seeking to foment unrest. Moreover, Erdoğan had walked a tightrope all his life, first as a young member of an effectively disenfranchised pious religious community and, later, from the 1980s, as a rising politician. All through his career he had to negotiate hurdles and menace thrown his way by the ­once-­mighty bureaucracy, both civilian (especially the judiciary) and military, the true actors at the helm in the administration for decades, as he crossed s­ hark-­infested waters in politics to become a ­battle-­scarred politician, blending, perhaps with a vengeance, in a setting where party politics existed only to vindicate the fatal friend–enemy dichotomy, claimed to be intrinsic to politics generally. As Erdoğan approached the final triumph in 2011, eventually to transform the regime, the liberal intellectuals who almost unconditionally supported him for most of the way assumed that the painful experience he had been through, including a prison stretch of over three months in 1999, would make him philosophical, wise and tolerant, rather like Václav Havel perhaps, or Alija ­Izetbegović­– ­­the precise traits that seemed to be needed in a leader during the agonising transmutation towards a fully normalised ­political order. It would

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176  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y soon become manifest to all concerned, however, that the background and skills Erdoğan possessed as a veteran ropewalker had simply metamorphosed him into a savvy operator, divisive and unappeasable. The finesse Erdoğan held as a maestro playmaker would be in full view during the street protests of 2013. He would demonstrably, yet throughout, hoodwink the voter base in mass rallies against the protesters, ostensibly in order to stiffen the core supporters in the face of the unrest, into believing that the protesters had simply been incorrigible villains. One specific claim he would repeatedly make was that the activists had desecrated a nearby mosque by consuming alcohol in it, where, in fact, some of them had simply taken refuge, fleeing extraordinarily callous law enforcement officers. The government would later torment and make life hell for the poor ­grounds-­keeper of the mosque (müezzin), when the latter would not corroborate the story fervently communicated to the nation by Erdoğan.60 Another claim, again launched by Erdoğan personally, was that a group of protesters had harassed, in a busy area of Istanbul near the protest ground, a lone hijabi young woman who had had with her a baby in a pushchair.61 The protesters had not only roughed up the young woman, as the p ­ ro-­government media would soon fill the blanks for a more vivid picture, but they had also urinated on her. An investigation would be formally initiated into the incident, and a woman, the d ­ aughter-­in-law of one of the local elects with the ruling party, would be specified as the victim. Surveillance camera images leaked months afterwards, in February 2014, would reveal the claim to have been a fabrication.62 Yet that would not prevent Erdoğan from the use of the anecdote in extended fits of rage at public rallies.63 Were the protesters a particularly sacrilegious bunch? Suffice to note that, opposing an urban development plan initially (see Chapter 6), the activists had among them also a good number of devout Muslims. During the protests that lasted for weeks, some, including those who identified themselves as atheists, secular socialists or with alternative sexual or gender identities, would form circles by holding hands in a chain, securing the needed space for some of the pious protesters to do their daily prayers. Moreover, as part of the protests coincided with the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, the activists would lay a m ­ ile-­long ­fast-­breaking banquet on the ground in the busiest pedestrian area near the protest site, in a clear departure from the known republican sensibilities in the matter. Called ‘the earth table’

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context | 177 (yeryüzü sofrası), the banquet would be repeated in the following years. Indeed, these very images in the media, illustrating a novel fusion of tolerance and solidarity that was hard to demonise, coupled with ­self-­confident, peaceful humour, were possibly what disturbed the ruling Islamists most. Erdoğan would go further during the protests and seek to pit neighbours against one another in urban areas by publicly inviting followers to file formal complaints about the festive jingling and clanking of kitchenware in the evenings by women and children at windows and balconies in solidarity with the young people out protesting on the streets.64 Mercifully, little attention would be paid to what looked like yet another of the cynical instruments towards sharpening the societal divide, regardless of the possible cost, including an effective civil war, for an ultimate consolidation of the government’s support base. A new claim in February 2015 would pale by comparison the stories made up earlier. Three daily newspapers known to be controlled, even perhaps ‘­ghost-­owned’, by Erdoğan (see Chapter 7), would devote their front pages to an alleged assassination plot against his daughter.65 Some Gülenists and a prominent politician with the main opposition Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) would be reported to have hired to that end an assassin from the United States. The reports would include ‘evidence’ in the form of direct exchanges on Twitter between the ‘culprits’. The ­so-­called documents would be bared on the very day of publication as laughable forgeries, for some of the sections being formed in ­Google-­translated broken English, among other blatant inconsistencies and giveaways.66 Yet Erdoğan would readily draw on those reports.67 The incident would be pushed into oblivion subsequently, despite the efforts of the CHP politician implicated to get to the bottom of the set up,68 and despite the Socialist International, no less, taking an active interest in the whole thing.69 In their statements to the prosecutors, the editors of the dailies that had published the allegations would apparently claim to have received the story from the official news network Anadolu Agency (Anadolu Ajansı), which, in turn, had purportedly relied, as they would maintain, on information provided by State Intelligence (MİT).70 The prosecutors would initiate five separate cases of ‘successive insult and libel via mass media’, having established that the reports were fully concocted.71 Interestingly, the High Council of Judges and Public

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178  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Prosecutors would start a disciplinary investigation into the conduct of the prosecutors,72 amid reports that the prosecutors and a judge who had admitted one of the indictments, enabling trial, had been ­re-­assigned by this top judicial body to new posts.73 The deft performance during the protests of 2013 in producing a quick affront in the larger society to serve his ends would only highlight the menacing streak all along detectable in Erdoğan’s manner of doing politics, as in his cynical use of the discourse of human rights and of European integration in the process leading to the regime change. With the old order defeated by 2011, Erdoğan would quickly lay aside the earlier discourse of rights and waste no time starting to problematise some of the most basic rights and freedoms, including, as noted above, the privacy of the home. As for accession to the European Union, seemingly much coveted by the government until the final domestic triumph, Erdoğan would not only lose genuine interest in the project, but he would also go on effectively to undermine, or at least tease, the prospects of the country both in Europe and in the overall Western alliance. He would ‘flirt’ with Russia’s President Putin, for instance, asking him to admit Turkey to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,74 or approach China to work in partnership towards a projected missile defence system at the cost of l­ong-­standing collective security commitments within the ­Euro-­Atlantic community.75 What seemed like his feeble ‘ideological’ pursuits in the immediate neighbourhood from 2012 were possibly none other than ­Euro-­Atlantic policies for the region gone wrong, or twisted through likely leeways in the arrangements, as argued in this book. Still, in apparent keeping with what was perceived by the critics as a set of daring and revisionist unilateral policies in the region, his venture into developing a joint undertaking with Japan for nuclear energy production76 would prompt comments alleging Erdoğan’s secretly nurtured interest in nuclear weaponry, to be acquired in the long run, purportedly77 towards qualifying for the strong man in the Middle E ­ ast­– what ­­ ostensibly the Islamists in the wider region had long been on the lookout for. Erdoğan’s exploits of manifest realpolitik would be alleged from December 2013 to receive lavish sponsorship from an illicit financial ‘pool’ formed by generous ­pay-­offs from the countless public tenders rigged by the government for over a decade, possibly going as far back as 1994, when Erdoğan

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context | 179 had been elected mayor of Istanbul (see Chapter 8). Claims for such shady dealings followed the sudden fracture, as described above, in the informal alliance with the Gülenists. Having apparently put to work the cadres of this enigmatic movement in the judiciary and in the police against the generals of the armed forces and the republican opposition during the regime change, Erdoğan had little use for these allies from 2011, denying them further concessions. Growing bitter, the Gülenists would choose to fight. Like the Gülenists and the liberal intellectuals before – the two separate clusters of former allies – Erdoğan would turn gradually unresponsive also to the demands of the Kurdish political movement, ‘playing’ them with mere promises that were either vague and vacuous or incomprehensibly delayed. In return for the virtually nominal ‘talks’ with the Kurds, the government would continue to receive (1) some tranquillity on the front of the d ­ ecades-­old violent struggle with the Kurdish guerrillas, a rather profitable deal for the government considering the impact of the truce on the voters, and (2) a counterweight, of sorts, against the main opposition, similarly as l­eft-­leaning as the Kurdish politics, ensuring, for instance, that the Kurdish political movement would remain inert, even actively support the government in places, during the protests of 2013. Holding in abeyance the ­long-­expected breakthrough with the Kurds towards a permanent peace, Erdoğan would start positively undermining it during the siege of Kurdish Kobanê along the border in northern Syria in September 2014, with the government appearing to be disturbed more by the local Kurds than the invading Islamic State (formerly Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/the Levant). The ­anti-­government street protests of Kurds over Kobanê on 6 and 7 October would produce a death toll of dozens.78 Within months, Erdoğan would practically finish with the Kurds, as described in Chapter 1. This ceaseless ‘Machiavellian’ manoeuvring with the domestic political forces would not exclude former enemies either, whom he had vigorously battled not long ago over the regime change. The corruption and bribery probes from December 2013 would seriously threaten an imminent collapse of the constitutional order, as Erdoğan would continue openly to defy the judiciary, blaming it all on a fiendish international design hatched up by the US, Israel and some European powers, which had ‘used’ the Gülenists,79 while at once playing for time to find a way to liquidate the ostensibly Gülenist flock in key positions in the state apparatus. Feeling apparently

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180  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y helpless in the face of the developments, Erdoğan would do the unimaginable and start taking risks with the circles loyal to the old regime.80 In so doing, he would begin attributing the gross flaws in the ‘­king-­making’ investigations and trials from 2007, detailed in Chapter 3, solely to the allegedly Gülenist prosecutors, judges and police chiefs, as part of an overall ‘coup’ by that community that would later also include the allegations of financial irregularities against the government. Having to all intents and purposes handed over precious, uncontested power to Erdoğan by silencing the armed forces and the republican opposition, the Gülenists were now purportedly after him through invented corruption charges and by exposing him to international public opinion as an international criminal in Syria.81 In desperation, Erdoğan would pave the way for retrials of hundreds of former members of the armed forces and prominent republican figures, this time freed from the ‘irregularities’, confessed by none other than the head of the government himself, now viciously locking horns with the ‘plotting’ judiciary. Erdoğan would not only acquire by this move new and strong allies against the Gülenists, at least in the short term, but could also count perhaps on the initiative to help let out some of the steam accumulated within the armed forces, to keep the possibility of anything wayward by the military at ­bay­– as ­­ the legal chaos on the domestic front and the mess in foreign policy were serving with every passing day to justify a bolder military, no matter how docile the military had been in the last few years. The realpolitik at work seemed to have gone further, deep into uncharted waters, to produce Turkey’s own Watergate scandal back in May 2010. The set of secret recordings leaked from early 2014 (see Chapters 7–9) would allege, besides gargantuan corruption, Erdoğan’s personal involvement (ostensibly through the Gülen cult) in a sex tape scandal that had forced the main opposition CHP leader to resign from his post. The CHP leader was ironically the politician who had helped Erdoğan in December 2002 by removing the legal hurdles in his way (his prison term noted above) to become a member of parliament. A tape posted online in the early hours of 26 March 2014, purportedly comprising voice recordings of Erdoğan and his close aides in a secluded office environment, would suggest that he had personally masterminded the sex tape in question, made public on 7 May 2010, originally by an Islamist website staunchly loyal to Erdoğan. The tape had the opposition

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context | 181 leader in an indoor setting in the immediate aftermath of what had ostensibly been an intimate union in an extramarital affair. To react with hellish fury in early 2014 to compromising conversations of himself and his family posted online, Erdoğan would barely refrain from using this sex tape of the opposition leader, stating at a public rally: ‘Some say it’s private . . . Come on! It’s nothing private! It’s as public as can be . . . It’s ­public­– ­­indecency! What you do with your wife is private, not this, not with a mistress!’82 In the same speech, Erdoğan would go on to reprise this against the opposition Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP), also tormented with sex tapes, this time with no holds barred in the leaked images. Now [MHP leader] Mr Bahçeli comes along and says, ‘the AKP rule intrudes into people’s private lives.’ Why? Because tapes of that sort featuring his men have also started to come out, and he’s increasingly troubled. ‘They’re intruding into people’s private lives,’ he says. For God’s sake, what kind of privacy is that?

The sex tapes of some of the leading members of the central governing body of the MHP would be posted online in the period shortly before the 2011 general election,83 when the AKP would stand to benefit immensely from the likelihood of the MHP somehow failing to achieve the 10 per cent electoral threshold (this political party would eventually succeed in getting 13 per cent at the specific polls). Years later, all these tapes would be still accessible on popular video sharing websites. On the recording leaked on 26 March 2014, Erdoğan would allegedly be heard discussing with his aides the way they could exploit the sex tape of the main opposition leader in various media outlets, commenting: ‘This should be made public straight away . . . We need to post also the rest of the tape . . . CHP is done for.’84 As things would play out, the ‘rest’, presumably more explicit, would not have to be posted, because the opposition leader on the tape would resign, not allowing the release of those parts threatened in the first post. The day after, on 27 March, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, successor to the resigned CHP leader, would reveal on a live television show that he had ‘seen’ more than the mere audio conversation on the tape that had been posted ­online­– t­­ hat he had been ‘shown’ the video images of Erdoğan watching, inspecting and commenting on the sex tape, before the tape had been

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182  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y made public.85 Erdoğan would not challenge the claim.86 A fatwa (Islamic legal opinion) contributed by the very scholar whose ideas on democracy and secularism were noted above, endorsing the ‘use’ of sex tapes in politics, simultaneously with several of those tapes depicting the MHP elite posted online, would lend further credence to the view implicating Erdoğan in the whole affair.87 The same Islamic scholar would later be alleged to have also ‘sanctified’ for the government the corruption and bribery claimed by the prosecutors, as detailed in Chapter 8. Leader Cult A jingoistic television advertisement by the ruling AKP, seeking to describe the corruption allegations against the government as a global conspiracy to try and hold back an increasingly more assertive Turkey, and displaying in so doing the national anthem, the flag and the Muslim call to prayer, would be banned in March 2014 by the Supreme Board of Elections (YSK) ahead of the nationwide polls in the same month. Stakes had become incredibly high at what would be the first electoral test, though only for the local administrations, following the outbreak of the corruption scandal, especially as Erdoğan had decided, and declared at mass rallies, that the ballot box should be the ultimate referee as to whether there was anything substantial to the allegations. Clearly disturbed by the advertisement for stealing its traditional ­flag-­waving act, the nationalist MHP would apply to the YSK and have the advertisement banned on the grounds that the pertinent law prohibited the use of national and religious symbols on publicity used for propaganda in election campaigns of political parties.88 When asked about the ban on the day the YSK decision was made public, Erdoğan would answer: ‘Well, we’ll have to ban the ban, then.’89 His response had been little different, about two weeks earlier, to an administrative court decision to stop the construction of a new building complex for the Office of the Prime Minister in a cherished green area in Ankara for violating environmental regulations: ‘Let them take it down if they have what it takes.’90 The construction would go on heedless, just as the advertisement formally banned by the YSK would continue to be screened on television. The construction that would eventually become the presidential palace, with Erdoğan elected president in August 2014, would subsequently turn into headline material for the world’s media for the lavish

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context | 183 expenses that had gone into it.91 Following the reacquired parliamentary majority by the AKP at the snap polls of November 2015, briefly after the ruling party had lost close to a quarter of its former votes earlier in June of the same year (see Chapter 1), the relentless assault on the rule of law would take new forms. According to a news report, President Erdoğan’s office was inundated with informant reports as he had called on people to inform him of ‘culprits’ directly. More chillingly, perhaps, this was in a government mouthpiece, which seemed rather proud to report it.92 How would one explain this nonchalance, new to the domestic political scene, towards basic democratic conventions and the rule of law, not to mention the elementary dictates of courtesy and tact in statesmanship? One reason for this was (1) the apparent state of domestic politics, with Erdoğan fully in control of the ballot box, aided by a feeble political opposition, (2) media censorship through pressure put on the mainstream media bosses (see Chapter 7), and (3) allegedly, huge illicit funds used in financing politics (Chapter 8). Another reason for the hubris Erdoğan would be increasingly known for was the ­near-­sacrosanctity with which he would be treated by the core supporters, 10 to 15 per cent of the overall electorate in the country, namely the ­Islamo-­nationalists that formed possibly no more than about a quarter of the AKP voter base. A column by an Islamist intellectual in a ­pro-­government daily in February 2014, at the height of the devastating corruption allegations, was a striking example as to how Erdoğan was viewed by the literati among the core supporters who, though benefitting from the opportunities offered by the government one way or another, were not necessarily shaped in their loyalty to the man by material gains only. The column opened with an anecdote: A dear friend of mine, who is a political scientist, once mentioned at a conference, addressing young Muslims, that Muslims had somehow lost their aptitude for criticism, especially in relation to the AKP. And he gave an example: There has been no sufficient study about Kanal Istanbul, the ‘zany project’ of Erdoğan’s. What little study that has been done by experts indicates that some such project is hardly viable. Yet, in the face of all this, Erdoğan has been ‘naively’ insisting on it.93

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184  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y The ­so-­called ‘zany project’ (‘zany’, or crazy, for making the impossible come true, a term of compliment) sought to create a second strait connecting the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea, rendering the European part of Istanbul an island. Many were appalled by the project for fear that it might alter the ecological stability in the region with a myriad of mostly unknown variables, and mess up the characteristics of the perennial water bodies in the region, with accompanying and possibly catastrophic effects on the climate, flora and fauna. The tapes leaked from December 2013 would make many think that Erdoğan, sharing information on land development prematurely and unlawfully with acquaintances in the land speculation business, as would be heard on the tapes, had also in mind the earnings that the project would bring to those close to him.94 But that is not the point here. The columnist appeared to have picked the example, which was particularly challenging, on purpose: even on the basis of some such open and shut case, that is, where Erdoğan seemed to be clearly in the wrong, there should be limits to criticising him. Having conceded, after some deliberation, that criticising Erdoğan should indeed be possible, the author explained that, all the same, that criticism could not take just any form. It could only be done, he suggested, as a ‘critique’ in the Kantian sense (Kritik). Critique, in the sense Kant used it, was not mere fault finding, he explained, but an academic assessment. Accordingly, before Erdoğan could be criticised for paying no attention to expert opinions in the matter, ‘one needs, like a true Kantian, to take into account the reasons for Erdoğan’s conduct and the psychological and political dynamics at work.’95 Even then, the author went on to add, let us not forget that the university professors who had once criticised Erdoğan purely on technical points on the cleaning of the waters of the Golden Horn (Haliç) in Istanbul in the 1990s, when Erdoğan had been the mayor, had turned out to be wrong eventually. That was who Erdoğan was. This sombre piece of devotional politology, which in some sense inversed ‘political theology’ (as Schmitt was another name dropped by the columnist in the same piece), sounded in kinship with forms of social criticism that constituted an alternative to the European tradition, as explored by Talal Asad in his seminal work.96 Arguing overall that the Enlightenment tradition in modernity is only one among others, as opposed to being the sole tradition to serve as the standard by which to judge other traditions, Asad points out

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context | 185 a specific practice in religious circles in Saudi Arabia: nasiha. In this setting, he notes, ‘the ‘ulama who criticise their government . . . seek to be authoritative in the concepts of their tradition . . . Thus, what the critics offer is “advice” (nasiha) . . . not “criticism” (naqd), with its adversarial overtones’.97 This seemed to be precisely what the columnist had in mind reflecting on justifiable criticisms of Erdoğan: a discourse that, issuing discrete correctives, avoided at once having the appearance of being insubordinate and disrespectful. This was how you criticised Erdoğan. The columnist referred to Kant only in ‘sexing up’ this notion in an effort to make it palatable for the secular masses. Interestingly, in the same context, where he repudiates the modernist trend in universalising the Enlightenment tradition, Asad also discusses Kant. The ‘critique’ enabled by the Enlightenment is defined by Kant as insubordination in the face of the ‘tutelage’ brought about by traditional forms of thraldom, chiefly religion. For Kant, rational criticism, or critique in this sense, is simply ‘an alternative to religious authority’, as Asad puts it.98 Yet, there seems to be a curious overlap between the columnist above and Kant, in somehow justifying state despotism. As Asad notes, there is an exception for Kant in introducing this newly manifest insubordination that replaces the ­pre-­Enlightenment obedience to religion: ‘the duty to obey political authority’.99 This is how, Asad concludes, a ‘contract’ would indeed be established between ‘free reason’ and ‘state despotism’ in Europe subsequently. In revering Erdoğan to a degree that allowed and justified absolutism on his part, the columnist was being Kantian after all.

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6 GEZI PROTESTS

T

he secular urbanites that formed the driving force of political modernisation in the country from the nineteenth century were largely a product of the bureaucratic patronage. Under the republican administration from 1923, a sharper dichotomy of ‘modernity’ and a benighted, retrograde ‘tradition’ (see Chapter 4) promoted by the bureaucracy would rear a generation of secular nationalists inhabiting the urban space, while dramatically inhibiting the religious political imagination. The bureaucracy would at once equally suppress a puny, yet resilient, leftist streak. At the first genuinely competitive election in 1950 in a newly introduced ­multi-­party system, the ­non-­urban votes would put in power a ­liberal-­populist administration. Vaguely in league with the ruling liberals to start with, the ­left-­leaning urbanites would later go on and, to a great extent, merge with the republicans now in opposition, together forming a resolute bloc of ‘progressives’ against the increasingly distrusted globalising forces embraced by the liberals, as well as against the religious passion partly awakened, which the liberals seemed to tolerate. This de facto alliance of the secular urbanites would by far ­pre-­date two other, yet smaller, groups of c­ ity-­dwellers that would later emerge to embody political ideas that had for some time been in the intellectual milieu, namely a conservative nationalism (milliyetçilik) and ­Islamo-­nationalism (Millî Görüş). With the military coup in 1960 ending the ­liberal-­populist regime, the ­leftists­– ­­by now having been dissolved to a large extent within the republican ­ideology­ 186

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g ezi protests | 187 – ­­would start a lasting courtship with the military à la the Arab Ba’ath. This highly ­self-­styled left politics would in time come to designate the whole bloc of progressives as ‘leftists’, later to be dubbed under the rule of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) from late 2002 as ‘the white Turks’. The defections of a number of public figures from this bloc of secular urbanites to the early AKP then championing democracy and a policy of open frontiers with the broader world would prove to be a crucial factor in gaining this political party systemic recognition and wider reach both domestically and internationally. Yet the secular axis of the urbanites would remain largely intact throughout the regime change between 2007 and 2011. Signs indicating a crack and possible transformation of this league into a new and enterprising, enlarged democratic opposition would come rather unexpectedly in the summer of 2013. Almost a mimetic extension of the earlier democratic tide behind the AKP, the secular urbanites, especially the youth, would signal a sudden realignment in politics outside the usual republican gestures. The affiliation of the former ­Islamo-­nationalists with a number of public opinion leaders from among the secular urbanites had simply been critical in introducing a new discourse that was ‘­forward-­looking’ enough to stand up to the discourse of the republican progressivism centred on a radical distinction between modernity and tradition. A bonding similarly in defiance of that dichotomy, bringing together a vast enough spectrum of political forces, including some of the pious Muslims, would seem to issue from the mass protests in the summer of 2013. A ­sit-­in staged by a small group of locals and environmentalists aimed at protecting a cherished green spot against a development plan in Istanbul’s Taksim, the Gezi Park, would erupt within days into nationwide unrest. The protests would seem to provide an impromptu outlet for the secular urbanites as a whole to vent the brewing frustration in the face of the bold ­Islamo-­nationalist rhetoric (if not the policies) of the government from 2012. Starting on 27 May, the protests would subside from m ­ id-­June. Through a hitherto unseen vista of colourful democratic solidarity, using the sheer power of wit and humour,1 at the early stage in particular, instead of violence and the airing of the ‘leftist’ clichés and the l­ong-­existing republican prejudices, the protests across the nation would bring about a series of significant results: (1) the fact that the activists would practically shake the ­government within days,

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188  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y terrifying the power holders, would generate a measure of m ­ uch-­needed confidence among the secular urbanites, helping them towards recovering some of their poise, (2) this resumed ­self-­reliance of the urbanites at ­grass­roots level in politics would be coupled, almost immediately, with a renewed trust in international public opinion, which would be quick to highlight and extend moral support to the protesters, (3) the turmoil would send a strong message and arguably end a brazenly ­self-­assured ­Islamo-­nationalist discourse on the part of the government, and (4) moreover, the protests would force the government into a sequence of decisive public relations mistakes in an apparent state of panic, which would culminate in an almost overnight loss in the ­hard-­earned international credibility of the ruling AKP. The K ­ urdish-­led Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi) on the up since the presidential elections of August 2014, subsequently to achieve the 10 per cent electoral threshold in both June and November 2015, would be greatly enabled by the new democratic opposition that seemed to emerge at the Gezi protests of 2013. The development plan for the Gezi Park, known to have been cultivated by the Metropolitan Municipality of Istanbul from September 2011, sought to reconstruct in the place of the recreational area the colossal structure of the O ­ ttoman-­era military barracks that had historically occupied the site. The barracks to be rebuilt from the few existing print images would house, according to the disclosed part of the plans, a shopping mall, plus, possibly a museum, to be ambiguously added to the project by the government at a later stage. Such a plan would inevitably be received with a thickened mistrust of the officialdom in a setting where a construction craze under the AKP rule, oblivious to the sentiments of the locals, had done much over the last few years to ruin the priceless texture of the city (see Chapter 10). On 29 May, the day after the ­sit-­in had started on the site, the then prime minister Tayyip Erdoğan would order a brutal eviction of the protesters, referring to the small group of a­ ctivists­– who ­­ had been campaigning for the preservation of the area since December of the year before, starting with a public petition – as ‘a few looters’ (çapulcu).2 To be rather ‘catachrestically’ reappropriated by the protesters, soon to find its way into the English language,3 the word çapulcu used by Erdoğan to describe the protesters communicated an extensive current of mimesis at work. The word had been used for the locals in Dersim

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g ezi protests | 189 in 1937–8 during the assault of the republican regime on the region, where the Alevis, purportedly in rebellion, had been subjected to a near systematic annihilation (see Chapter 9).4 Uncannily, the same appellation had been resorted to by an influential Islamist author to define the progressive, ‘modernising’ soldiers, including the future Kemal Atatürk, who had advanced to Istanbul from Thessaloniki in 1909 to quell, again, a purported rebellion and initiate a regime change, as described above (see Introduction).5 The apparent continuity reflected in the use of the tag çapulcu, regardless of the context, seemed to be symptomatic of a deeper and somewhat steady flow. An added curiosity was the fact that the Ottoman barracks declared to be rebuilt in 2013 had been a fortification of the ‘rebels’ in 1909, which, indeed, might have been the undeclared reason for the development plan pushed by the government.6 The great architect Krikor Balian had built the barracks in 1806. Coming under heavy shelling in 1909 for sheltering the ‘rebels’, the barracks would practically be reduced to ruins and eventually demolished in 1940, from which there were only rare and somewhat indistinct pictures left in the later period. More on this historical connection, the epithet ‘reactionary’ (mürteci) used locally for over a century for politics inspired by religious sensibilities was a neologism of this very strife in 1909. Employed for the first time to refer to those ‘rebels’, who were allegedly unsettled about the political reforms in the country, Erdoğan himself as a politician would later have to try and dodge the imputation conveyed in the tag almost throughout his political career. As the protests would escalate in June 2013 beyond the early expectations, Erdoğan would be forced to raise the stakes and pronounce the demonstrations as an attempt towards a forcible takeover of the ­government­– a­­ conviction to be slavishly consumed and propagated in the p ­ ro-­government media. The mood injected to the core supporters would be reinforced by the unrest and the following coup in Egypt in June and July 2013 against the Muslim Brotherhood rule, friends and regional allies of the government. The state of mind on the part of those in the administration during the protests would be well reflected in Erdoğan’s words closing the very first meeting of the ruling AKP elite on the unfolding protests upon his return from an official trip to North Africa, on 9 June. As reported by a journalist in his close circle, Erdoğan ‘decided to fight’, reciting at the end of the meeting

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190  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y the following verse from the Qur’an in its original Arabic (61:13): ‘Victory is from God and the conquest is imminent. Give good tidings to the believers.’7 The historical context of the verse in question was the eve of the military campaign steered by the Muslim Prophet in 628 against the Meccan infidels, heralding the subsequent conquest of Mecca by the Muslims, which would in turn come to symbolise the final triumph of Islam. The government reaction to the protests in the summer of 2013 was tantamount, in other words, to a proclamation of nothing less than a jihad against the ‘infidels’ out on the streets. This chapter details the subsequent crackdown by the government on the protests through a discussion of, first, the paradox of the concept of ‘unauthorised’ assembly that had been somewhat unique to the local political rule over the years, moving on, next, to a description of the ruthless government response by locking on to the personal experiences of three individuals: a man, a young woman and a child. ‘Unauthorised’ Demonstration Street protests as a collective avenue of democratic action, known technically as the right to peaceful assembly, had always been an issue locally, as mirrored in the impossible notion of ‘unauthorised’ demonstration in the official parlance. An Internet search of the Turkish expression for this notion (izinsiz gösteri) indicated the daily and consistent use of it by law enforcement officers against protesters, from a gathering of only a few for an innocent public announcement on, say, International Women’s Day, to large political rallies. The media images of protesters from Western Europe and North America, occasionally in close proximity to prominent political figures protested against, had thus long puzzled domestic observers. Locally, no matter how peaceful, protesters would be kept at least a mile away from the immediate object of protests, and would be asked to disperse right away regardless of the distance. If not, they would face forcible removal, including being driven away like cattle, lately through the use of generous doses of tear gas and water cannons. Possibly a hangover of the extraordinary spells in the past under the military rule, the notion of unauthorised demonstration was thus a formidable administrative tool, giving practically a free hand to the law enforcement body to employ whatever means necessary in the circumstances towards putting a stop to any such gathering that had no prior blessing of the officialdom.

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g ezi protests | 191 Obviously, the practice was little in keeping with the system of human rights protection in Europe, binding locally. Within the European system, the public authority could not possibly restrict the right to peaceful assembly by making it conditional on prior authorisation.8 Not surprisingly, the Turkish Law on the Right to Assembly and Demonstration paid lip service to this normative stipulation in its very first article, declaring: ‘everyone has a right, without prior authorisation, to assembly, demonstration and marches.’ The statute dated from as far back as 1963. The Constitution, drafted and put into effect during the military junta of 1980 that had claimed ‘too much liberty’ had led the country to a state of violent chaos in the 1970s, nevertheless retained the norm (Article 34); that is, the meaning of the general principle, and the need to uphold and implement it, appeared to have been beyond doubt all along, even under the patently authoritarian administrations, regardless of the actual practice, which was another story altogether. Moreover, as noted in the preceding chapter, from 2004 the Constitution (Article 90) held the international legal obligations on human rights and democracy as ranking higher than domestic law, instructing the state organs to give direct effect to those obligations in places where the domestic and international laws seemed to be ­ill-­matched, with some incompatibility in content between the two. The authorities could of course claim in justifying the practice that what was required from demonstrators beforehand was not really an ‘authorisation’, despite the term in use, but a mere ‘notification’ in the interests of public order and safety, to make sure that the exercise of the right did not unnecessarily inconvenience public life, and that, considering possible ­counter-­demonstrators to be attracted, measures to be adopted in good time for the safety of both the public and the very demonstrators provided legitimate rationale for a prior notification. Yet, in practice, more often than not the local agencies of the government at the receiving end of the requisite ‘notification’ either did not permit at all the exercise of the right on some pretext or tended to decide the venue for the demonstration, as far away from urban centres as possible, which in effect aborted the right. Thus barely in good faith in its use, the advance notification as a condition appeared to be in place simply to hamper and block the right. Notwithstanding the legitimate considerations of public interest, the choice of venue in the exercise of the right was arguably part of the right, as endorsed by a unanimous judgement of

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192  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y the European Court of Human Rights only the year before the Gezi protests in a case that involved the ‘unauthorised’ use of Istanbul’s Taksim square, where the Gezi protests would be initially staged.9 Conversely, the denial of the right to demonstrators, purportedly in the interests of public safety, was known almost invariably to cause much greater risk to the public, with the ensuing violent clashes between the protesters and the police. Indeed, this was precisely how the peaceful assembly at Gezi Park would turn into an unusual political turmoil nationwide, following the callous and disproportionate response to it by the police. For the right to be protected and facilitated by the public authority, rather than hindered, there was only one condition normatively: the assembly in question needed to be peaceful. According to the case law of the European Court, violence that was random, peripheral or ­extraneous­– not ­­ originally intended by the demonstrators and w ­ ilful­– or ­­ the mere possibility that violence might arise during the demonstration, did not necessarily mean that the specific assembly failed this benchmark. The European Court would point out in a case against Turkey, decided by the Court at about the same time as the Gezi protests, that it was rather the local notion of unauthorised assembly that actually failed European standards in the matter. Accordingly, the mere omission on the part of the demonstrators to notify the authorities, or holding the demonstration in a place contested by the public authority, was less than sufficient reason for outlawing the assembly. Once again the Court would adopt its judgement unanimously, vindicating the protesters in the case, who had used on this particular occasion Istanbul’s Beyazıt Square for a demonstration, heedless of the apparent disapproval by the public authority. The Court stated: In this connection, the Court acknowledges that a demonstration in a public place may cause some disruption to ordinary life, including disruption of traffic . . . but reiterates that where demonstrators do not engage in acts of violence it is important for the public authorities to show a certain degree of tolerance towards peaceful gatherings if the freedom of assembly guaranteed by Article 11 of the Convention is not to be deprived of all substance.10

In short, the local practice of the forcible dispersal of protesters in those exercises of the right deemed inattentive to the will or to the recommendations

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g ezi protests | 193 of the public authority, designated as unauthorised, threatened to rob the right of its full meaning: no matter how intransigent the protesters were, the authorities needed to ‘show a degree of tolerance and restraint’, as the Court would put it,11 provided that the assembly was peaceful. In a landmark unanimous ruling in March 2015, Turkey’s own Constitutional Court acting as a human rights tribunal (see Chapter 5) would vindicate the individual applicant through a reasoning roughly in keeping with this.12 Further, as was ruled by the Strasbourg Court in the same case, the usual, ­heavy-­handed intervention by the law enforcement body in preventing some such demonstration often resulted in i­ ll-­treatment under the prohibition of ‘torture and inhuman and degrading treatment’.13 The nature of the government response to the Gezi protests in this regard would be beyond doubt, underscored by the European Commission of the European Union,14 the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture15 and Amnesty International.16 During the protests, thousands of activists would be gravely hurt. The police would kill a number of protesters with firearms and beat some literally to death. Several of the protesters directly hit by gas canisters would suffer severe concussion, and some would sustain irreparable loss of sight. About 5,000 activists that would be detained by the police,17 especially the women among them, would receive in the ordeal seriously inhuman and degrading treatment. A leading local intellectual would describe the Gezi protests, as they would unfold, as a ‘revolt of dignity’.18 This probably was the most apt depiction of what the protests were largely about: in response, not only to the disproportionate use of force against a peaceful s­ it-­in, but also, especially at the later stages of the demonstrations, to the contempt having increasingly been displayed by Erdoğan for the secular urbanites for about a year in the immediately preceding period. What sort of contempt? In reflecting on the new regulations on the sale of alcoholic drinks, for instance, which were not necessarily out of line with those in European democracies, despite the perception of the critics to the contrary, Erdoğan would naturally refute the claims of an extensive ban, yet go on, stating: ‘We have never made alcohol our concern. They drink as ever, till they bust and spew!’19 Later he would refer to alcohol consumers as ‘alcoholics’, and when prompted whether this might be an overstatement, he would insist that those who took alcohol only occasionally would also certainly qualify for the sobriquet.20 Again, referring to the way

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194  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y women dressed, whom he apparently saw at the quay from the windows of his nearby office at the Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, arriving on a frequent steamer from ­Kadıköy­– ­­a stronghold of the secular ­urbanites­– ­­Erdoğan would disclose his unease. ‘What I see’, he would state, ‘is hardly anything that I can reconcile with my values’.21 The line of frequent outbursts in the wake of the regime change, targeting mercilessly the s­ elf-­respect of the secular urbanites, would discernibly drop after the Gezi protests, in both frequency and audacity, yet still continue, as with the policy statement about ­mixed-­sex student flats, which Erdoğan ostensibly found abominable, as noted in the preceding chapter. The government had already amended a building by-law in September 2012, virtually banning the ­so-­called studio flats on the grounds that flats of this type were simply heedless of the ‘values’ of society for encouraging young people to live on their own. The revised regulation demanded therefore that a flat should have at least one separate bedroom. Apparently in a calculated series of steps, the statement on ­mixed-­sex accommodations would come about a year later, in November 2013. Erdoğan would declare that he was not happy with those accommodations, where ‘boys and girls mix’, and that he had therefore instructed local governors to be watchful. ‘Neighbours often get in touch with the authorities, telling on and complaining about the m ­ ixed-­sex flats occupied by students’, he would explain. ‘It’s not clear what exactly goes on in such places, which are totally messed up; could be just anything. Parents [of the students] cry out. Do excuse us, but as conservative democrats we are going to have to take steps.’22 Police Brutality Sparked off by the burning of the tents of the small group of Istanbulites staging a festive s­ it-­in at the Gezi Park during the night of 29 May, to be followed by an increasingly brutal use of force against the protesters, a jovially colourful bunch, all looking ­well-­off and well educated for the observers, the protests would snowball within hours into a nationwide revolt. The international resonance of the events in the coming days would be considerable, with activists from Europe to the Americas, not only supporting, but also taking inspiration from the developments in Turkey as the ­largest-­to-date initiative of global resistance to power, nicknamed ‘occupy’ after the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York from September 2011. During the protests,

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g ezi protests | 195 at least ten protesters would be killed, mostly under direct police assault but also some through fatal complications caused by the excessive use of tear gas. Of those protesters who received blows to the head from gas canisters, more than a dozen would permanently lose their sight. Overall, of about 5,000 people detained, around 5 per cent would serve ­months-­long terms of arrest. More than forty separate cases in the whole country, with scores of protesters put on trial, would reach the stage of an indictment before courts. The town of Kırklareli in eastern Thrace, with thirteen indictments, would break an interesting record. The criminal charges pressed in this town would involve a total of 1,238 people. This meant that one out of every fi ­ fty-­five persons 23 in the town faced trial. In the case involving the Taksim Solidarity Platform, the structure that represented numerous ­non-­governmental organisations in the protests, serving as the public voice of the protesters, all t­wenty-­six of the  defendants would be acquitted of the charges, principally the alleged offence of ‘forming an organisation with the aim to commit a crime’.24 In arguably the most significant case in Istanbul, 244 out of a total of 255 defendants would be found guilty of a range of offences, such as destroying public property, violating the law on public meetings and demonstrations, and resisting officers on duty.25 Four of the defendants in this case would be judged guilty of having ‘fouled’ a mosque, the one in which Erdoğan and the ­pro-­government media had insisted, as noted in the preceding chapter, that the activists had consumed alcohol, for which the court would find no evidence. The prison sentences, ranging between two and a half and fourteen and a half months of imprisonment (ten months for the m ­ osque-­fouling charge), would in turn be suspended, partly due to distraction on the part of the government, by then fighting the Gülenists. In one of the more colourful cases, the prosecution would come to have second thoughts amidst much public ridicule and request the acquittal of ­thirty-­five members of Beşiktaş FC fan group on trial for an ‘attempted coup’, citing lack of sufficient evidence.26 Still, criminal actions would appear to be brought against the activists long after the protests, more than two years after the episode in one specific case in İzmir, with n ­ inety-­four defendants.27 Caught up in the events, Hakan Yaman was one of the victims of police brutality during the protests. Married to his childhood sweetheart from the next street and living in Istanbul’s outlying Sarıgazi district, he was a father of

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196  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y two daughters. He made a modest living by driving a shuttle bus. On 3 June 2013 he returned from work. Noticing that there was a violent confrontation in the neighbourhood between the protesters and the police, he decided he would go home through back streets, avoiding the skirmish. The following large extract is how he recounted the rest of his night to a journalist.28 Walking, I came across a vacant lot adjacent to a building. Just as I was crossing it, an armoured water cannon suddenly emerged at the corner. Before I knew it, I found myself under ­high-­pressure water, striking me first in the face. Next, I was a target of tear gas canisters . . . Hit in the tummy, I fell to the ground. Soon I saw five or six people running towards me. That’s when it all started . . . I’m lying on the ground totally defenceless, and five or six people are putting their boots into me. Without any regard for my face and head. Mere kicks would have been fine, they’re hitting me also with some other hard objects . . . I’m trying to shelter myself behind my arms. No use. As I’d find out later, passed out then, they broke my jaw hammering my face with kicks. They practically pulverised my cheekbones. They dented the walls within the orbits of my eyes. The upper part of my nose got snapped off. A piece of my forehead also apparently came off; as they’d later tell me, they could see the inside . . . After all this beating, they drag me on the ground about fifteen metres. There’s one p ­ lain-­clothes and five riot policemen. I saw all this on a video somebody recorded up from a building and uploaded on YouTube.29 They leave me on the ground. Then one of them drives something into my eye, something pointy. Bursting it, he plucks out my eye. The eye just liquefies. The boy who took the video, and who later became an eyewitness on my behalf, would tell me all those things they did to me . . . They drag me a little more on the ground and throw me into the fire made earlier by the protesters. As soon as I got scorched, I became conscious again. My back was on fire. In time, I would have to receive treatment also for the burns . . . I’m in a terrible state now, literally in the fire, burning. Yet, because I’m not sure whether they are still there or gone, I pretend that I’m dead. Then, after a while, I tried to open my eyes. One of my eyes was gone, and the other one had only a blurred vision. I made out two light beams and thought those were the headlights of the water cannon, which was only a few metres away from me, I could hear

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g ezi protests | 197 it. ‘Don’t care if I burn’, I thought to myself, and waited for another four or five minutes. The pain I was in was drilling my brains, yet I stayed still. Eventually they thought I was dead and the cannon began to withdraw . . . Dragging myself, I got out of the fire. I tried to stand up and walk, yet, as I could not see where I was going, the bystanders had to warn me that I was going in the direction of the cannon. Some people shouted, ‘Not that way, turn around!’ I did so, and as I took one or two steps, two persons grabbed me from the elbows and shoved me into the entrance of a building. They kept me there for quite a long time. Then one of them put me in his car and drove me to hospital. Well, I wish it were as easy as that! We saw that the police had barricaded the hospital, not letting anyone in . . . They don’t want the protesters to receive medical aid . . . I had to go in, otherwise I was going to die. And I lied. I said to the policeman who stopped me, ‘I was involved in a road brawl, four or five people hit me and made off.’ ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘Yes’, I answered, I was sure. He believed me. They put me in an ambulance and forwarded me to the Kartal Research Hospital.

Judicial Paranoia A protester in the Mediterranean coastal town of Antalya, ­twenty-­year-old Ayşe Deniz Karacagil, would be put behind bars on 2 October 2013. The police would detain her at a bus stop in the town centre, where she was waiting for her younger sister to come and join her for the way back home after school. Taken to the ­anti-­terror branch of the police and interrogated, she would come to be known as ‘the young woman with the red scarf’, after a rather mysterious red scarf that popped up in the questions put to her during the interrogation. Ayşe was ostensibly accused by the police, as seen in the official memo kept on the occasion, of wearing a ‘red scarf that symbolise[d] socialism’.30 During the protests, she had purportedly acted together with persons who [were] active in outdoor structures of the terrorist organisation MLKP [Marxist–Leninist Communist Party], which [were] the ESP (The Socialist Party of the Oppressed), the LÖB (The Union of High School Students), the SGDF (The Federation of Socialist Youth Associations), the SGD (The Society for Socialist Youth), and the SKM (The Assembly of Socialist Women).

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198  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y In other words, as reflected in the account in the police memo, she was not claimed to be a member of a ­so-­called terrorist organisation. Nor did she appear to have ‘acted together’ with members of some such organisation, but with persons who were described to have been ‘active in the outdoor structures’ (whatever that meant) of one such entity. If not the figment of an overactive imagination altogether, somewhat reminiscent of a Monty Python routine, the ‘structures’ in question were barely heard of in the country. There was also the issue of the ominous ‘red scarf’ of course, mentioned in the memo not once, but ­twice­– ­­on both occasions as ‘the red scarf that symbolise[d] socialism’. Was socialism an idea, or movement, outlawed locally? It was not. Nor was communism, for that matter. On the contrary, locally there were perfectly lawful, ­long-­established political parties with those words in their titles. Why was this persistent and ostensibly incriminating stress on socialism then? What was more, there was apparently a m ­ ix-­up, of sorts, by the police, for Ayşe never wore, nor even ever owned, a red scarf, although she had participated, just as hundreds of thousands of other young people had done, in the protests, which had started in Antalya on the night of 30 May, as the events at Gezi Park, Istanbul, had ignited a fire across the country. On the day she was detained, Ayşe was formally charged by the prosecution and brought before a judge for (1) being an activist ‘on behalf of a terrorist organisation’, although not a member, and (2) resisting and disrupting law enforcement officers in the performance of their duties. The judge, somehow persuaded by the prosecution, consented to arrest Ayşe. First, she would be placed in the closed Antalya Prison; yet, as her story would appear in national dailies, with some emphasis on the part contributed by the curious red scarf in the charges against her, attracting incredulous comments, she would be ‘punished’, as her mother would put it, by being transferred on the very day her story would see the light of day to a closed prison about ninety miles to the east of the town.31 A court in Antalya would formally review her detention on 1 November for the first t­ ime­– ­­in her absence, with only her lawyer present.32 The court would decide in this hearing to continue the detention without indicating any reason beyond an o­ ver-­used, vacuous cliché in the local legal discourse (‘as deemed necessary’), and, inexplicably, reject the request of the lawyer to grant Ayşe a hearing in person. The court would also refuse to lift the temporary ‘classified’ status of the contents of the case file for

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g ezi protests | 199 the defence to have access to the evidence against her. Frustrated, the lawyer would state to the media after the hearing that he could not possibly try and put together some form of legal counsel for his client unless he had some idea as to what exactly the case was about. The next ‘review’ of the detention, which would take place on 30 November, would be practically a carbon copy of the earlier one, in which the court would decline to release A ­ yşe­– ­­again, without seeing ­her­– ­­and with her lawyer still in the dark regarding the details of the case.33 The prosecutor would appear to have finally managed by that time to draft and submit an indictment to the court. Yet, found flawed, as it seemed, the indictment would be returned by the court. Meanwhile, Ayşe was able to see her family on the premises of the prison, once in the first week of each month, for ­forty-­five minutes. Additionally, she could have ‘restricted’ contact with the family every Monday and talk to them on the phone every Friday. According to her mother, for some reason the authorities were being particularly rough with Ayşe.34 At the previous prison she had been kept in a small holding cell for two persons, isolated from the rest, ‘as if she was some dangerous criminal’, and now, the authorities were intercepting the most innocuous items, such as slippers and a hairbrush that her mother had brought her. The prison in question would be in national news in early November for the complaint filed by Ayşe and a number of other woman inmates with the Ministry of Justice, alleging harassment by male guards, who apparently violated the privacy of women in dormitories and conducted humiliating searches that included checking the underwear of the inmates.35 The hearings, following the new indictment submitted by the public prosecutor, and with 170 suspects charged alongside Ayşe, would take place from 6 February 2014. At the first hearing she would be released, pending trial, having been in detention for over five months. The prosecution would request at the next hearing, held about three weeks later, five years’ imprisonment for Ayşe for unauthorised demonstration and for destruction of property.36 Ayşe would abscond in May 2014 and, though a ‘Turk’ by ethnic origin, join the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK), the Kurdish guerrillas then active in Rojava, northern Syria. The prosecution would submit this to the court as ‘additional evidence’ for the ­criminal charges she faced in the ongoing case.37

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200  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y What exactly was the meaning of all this from a legal viewpoint? The ordeal seemed to involve the violation of a set of basic principles, protected within the European regime of human rights that formed the applicable law locally: (1) right to peaceful assembly, (2) freedom from ­ill-­treatment, (3) right to personal liberty, and (4) right to a fair trial.38 A blatant disregard of the first two was rather evident. As for the third, the length of her p ­ re-­trial detention, hardly reasonable under the circumstances, was a clear breach. Moreover, she was supposed to be empowered under the same principle to be able to request (a) ‘speedy’ reviews of her case while in detention, and (b) do so as often as she liked, asking the court to take into account the varying circumstances with the passage of time and ­re-­evaluate whether there was still need to keep her. That is, although the deprivation of liberty she suffered may have been justified initially, on 2 October 2013, when her detention began, it may have ceased to be so in the subsequent period. Within the system, deprivation of liberty had to rely strictly on one or more of the following factors, which were barely static but which kept changing (the sole exception was the ‘graveness’ of the offence perhaps, an additional factor, which was not the case here, although the nature of the offence could also be subject to change): the continuing investigation, the risk of fleeing, conspiring to subvert justice, destroying evidence, or, as the case might be, repeating the offence. Whether or not any of these factors was still in place in the specific case should have been thoroughly assessed and indicated every time Ayşe requested her release pending trial. Apparently there were only two such assessments in her case, one on 1 November and another on 30 November. Furthermore, it was highly dubious that in reviewing the detention the court took into account any of the pertinent factors above, nor did it appear to have bothered to explain its decision, namely why the court found it necessary to continue with the deprivation of her liberty. Finally, the case seemed to be a violation also of the right to a fair trial, for the court long denied access, either by Ayşe personally or by her lawyer, to the case file, vital towards preparing a sound d ­ efence­– ­­a principle of criminal law technically known as ‘the equality of arms’, namely whatever documents the prosecution could access in the case, the defendant, or her lawyer, should also have had; there had to be an ‘equality’ in this respect. The person who was blatantly denied these basic rights was a young

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g ezi protests | 201 woman who seemed to have led a l­ife­– ­­as testified in countless news reports on ­her­– ­­as far away from one of selfishness and greed as possible, forming as such a huge contrast with the young men who would shortly become the suspects in a set of massive bribery probes, detailed later (Chapter 8). Sons of three cabinet ministers, allegedly in cahoots with their powerful fathers, those young men purportedly received, as documented in a series of formal indictments by the prosecutors, vast amounts of p ­ ay-­offs in return for illicit favours to some business tycoons and for public tender rigging. One of the ministers was the interior minister, who was remembered for his call on parents during the Gezi protests: ‘Do please have your kids under control.’39 The minister’s own ‘kid’ would be taken in custody, having been raided at his home on 17 December 2013, with seven colossal steel safes found in his bedroom, complete, as would be an item particularly highlighted, with a ­cash-­counting machine. Incarcerated for two months and ten days, the son of the interior minister would be released on 28 February 2014 with the rest of the suspects, pending trial, in what looked like the corruption investigations of the century, locally.40 There would subsequently be an effective c­ over-­up of these cases, with the original prosecutors being removed immediately following the first arrests and replaced by those allegedly loyal to the government. With the son still in detention, a taped conversation between him and his father, the minister of interior, would anonymously be posted online.41 Leaked ostensibly from the official file of the prosecution in response to government efforts to suppress the case, the exchange was understood to have taken place early in the morning of 17 December, when the nation woke up to the scandal, with the police already at the home of the minister’s son, conducting a search. Allegedly, the son called his father, as the police went on with the search, and what follows was part of the dialogue between the two. The minister: ‘What have you got at home [that may incriminate you]?’ The son: ‘Nothing, dad.’ ‘What do you mean “nothing”? Cash?’ ‘My own money . . . Just the few cents [kuruş] left over.’ ‘How much?’ . . . ‘About one trillion [$500,000]. That’s all’ ‘OK. Listen . . . Just tell the police you received the money in return for your services as a c­onsultant­– ­­I mean “unofficial” consultant. You know, because of your father’s position, it couldn’t be “official”. Understand?’

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202  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y The cash seized at home was actually more than that. Later, the minister would come up with an entirely different story to explain it, claiming his son had sold real estate that he had owned.42 A new law, hastily introduced by the government, and effective from late in the evening of 27 February,43 would make the judiciary little more than simply a section under the government (later partly to be repealed by the Constitutional Court), ending altogether its independence and impartiality, and, within hours, on 28 February, all of the suspects would be released. The Prime Minister and the Boy At only fifteen, Berkin Elvan died in a hospital on 11 March 2014,44 mobilising millions in mourning throughout the nation. A late victim in the death toll of the Gezi protests, Berkin had been in a coma since 16 June of the preceding year, when he had been hit in the head by a tear gas canister shot by law enforcement officers. The response to the boy’s death would be simply extraordinary, accompanied by discussions at the European Parliament45 and by a ­full-­page advertisement by ‘the Gezi Democracy Movement’ in The New York Times46 on 14 March, partly because the boy was a lasting, physical extension of the politics of bonding and dissent, locally cutting across the usual political divides, which defined the protests on the whole, and to which many from all walks of life and persuasion would remain emotionally attached in the subsequent period. During the long coma the boy would never leave the thoughts of the masses, as reflected in the unbroken flow of messages and reminders about him on social media. On his birthday on 5 January, as the boy turned fifteen, large public gatherings would mark the occasion, and during the last few weeks, with hopes for him starting to fade, ­crowds­– including ­­ a number of ­show-­business ­celebrities­– ­­would keep an ­around-­the-clock vigil outside the hospital in the dead of winter, often, in so doing, having to weather out the police water cannons, spiked with stinging chemicals, and heavy clouds of tear gas that sometimes seeped into the hospital building. His funeral would attract hundreds of thousands of people, who would gather and mourn in solidarity, again, not infrequently under water cannons and tear gas. The former European Union minister, replaced for being implicated in the corruption scandal noted above, would refer to the millions of mourners in a social media message as ‘necrophiles’ (later deleting the message under strong public pres-

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g ezi protests | 203 sure).47 More talked about than this would be Erdoğan’s silence, who would insist on ignoring Berkin on the day of his death and afterwards, even when asked directly about it, let alone expressing the conventional sympathy and condolence for the family.48 Erdoğan would break his silence on 14 March only to have his supporters at a public rally in Gaziantep boo the grieving family.49 He was busy touring the country ahead of the local elections on 30 March, which he claimed would acquit him and his government of the charges of corruption if his party reached the finishing line ahead of the rest. What felt rather spooky about this episode of the prime minister and the boy was the strong sense of déjà vu it spawned, steering back to March 2009, once again only a few weeks before nationwide local elections, on 29 March that year, and with Erdoğan touring the country. On 9 March 2009, Erdoğan arrived in Aydın, in western Turkey, cruising the town on his campaign bus, as was customary with politicians during election times. The bus was passing by the central sports hall at some point, and a t­hirteen-­year-old local boy, Mustafa, was waiting by the building for his friends to join him for a planned game of basketball. Seeing the bus, the pageantry and Erdoğan standing up and waving at the windscreen, Mustafa was seized by a sudden impulse and shouted to the bus: ‘Don’t like you! God damn you!’ Those on board apparently heard this, and the bus pulled over. Guards came off it, grabbed the boy, manhandling him, and made him get on the bus. Once on the bus, the boy found himself f­ace-­to-face with the prime minister of the country. According to the boy, this is what happened subsequently: Prime Minister Erdoğan put his left hand at the nape of my neck and squeezed. The guards were behind me. Somebody was hauling my underpants. There were people around. [Erdoğan] kept squeezing [the back of my neck]. He asked me questions like, ‘Why would you do that? Why did you say that?’ I answered. Then he said [to others], ‘Let him go.’50

Yet, the guards would not let the boy go. Pulling and shoving, a guard put him in a police car and, once in the car, slapped him. Then the boy was driven to the Juvenile Division of the Police. The following is the official memo there, recording the incident before the boy was referred to a public prosecutor the day after:

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204  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y As the person, whose name we have found out to be Mustafa S. Ö., has said twice, addressing Mr Prime Minister, ‘God damn you’, and again [this time] in the presence of Mr Prime Minister, ‘Don’t like you, God damn’, the authorities under the Province Security Directorate have been alerted and the person in question has been apprehended with a request to be officially charged.51

The day after, the prosecutor referred the boy to the Forensic Medicine Department of Adnan Menderes University Medical Faculty in Aydın for an assessment as to whether or not the offender was a person of sound mind in full possession of his faculties. The examination found the boy capable of perceiving the legal meaning and consequences of the offence. Accordingly, he had the ability overall to be at the helm of his conduct. More specifically, the report confirmed that the boy was fully aware that he had ‘insult[ed] a public officer for his official duties’, the criminal offence at issue.52 Next, in August 2009, Aydın Juvenile Court would admit an indictment by the prosecutor, which would charge the boy formally, requesting one year’s imprisonment.53 The text of the indictment would somehow leave out from the description of events the fascinating encounter between the prime minister and the boy on the bus depicted in the memo at the police headquarters as well as in boy’s own deposition. Evaluating the case in early September 2009, the panel of judges at an assize court in Aydın would decide, notwithstanding the assessment in the forensic medicine report earlier, that the boy was too young to comprehend the legal meaning and consequences of his act, or behave himself properly, which, technically, was an allowance made for those between the ages of twelve and fifteen.54 The eventual judgement therefore was that the boy had no criminal responsibility.55 Yet, the prosecutor would seem to differ. He would appeal against the judgement before the Court of Cassation (Yargıtay), the supreme court of both criminal and civil cases seated in Ankara. The review court would overrule the holding of the first instance court in early January 2014 for failing to treat the words ‘Don’t like you! God damn you!’ as a negative prayer (beddua) rather than an insult, as already established, the court would point out, in a decision of one of its criminal chambers in a different case a few months earlier.56 The case would in turn be returned

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g ezi protests | 205 by the high court to the first instance court in Aydın for a retrial. The retrial would start on 11 April 2014. That is, at the time Berkin Elvan died, the other boy, Mustafa, was still a suspect, party to a case as defendant against the prime minister of the country, who was the victim. Victim? How about the allegation that the prime minister himself may have hurt the boy on the bus in Aydın, though omitted in the prosecutor’s indictment in the case against the boy? The boy’s family did file a criminal complaint against Erdoğan for wilful bodily harm. Referred to Aydın State Hospital by the prosecutor, the boy was examined by medical experts and the report issued stated that the boy had at the right side of the nape of his neck six separate grazes, each 5–6cm long. The prosecutor looking into the complaint had statements of two of the guards with the prime minister and of a police officer present. They all denied that there had been physical contact, or indeed any form of encounter, between Erdoğan and the boy. According to the police officer, the boy had shouted the words from the ground near the door of the bus, yet never getting on it. He stated unequivocally: ‘The prime minister had no contact with this person.’ Interestingly, the police memo on the day of the incident, noted above, had a slightly different account as to what had happened. Moreover, the memo had on it the signature of none other than this very police officer, who denied an encounter between the prime minister and the boy. The memo recorded: ‘As the person, whose name we have found out to be Mustafa S. Ö., has said twice, addressing Mr Prime Minister, “God damn you”, and again [this time] in the presence of Mr Prime Minister, “Don’t like you, God damn” . . .’ Mustafa was not lying. Yet the public prosecutor looking into the case either did not notice or simply suppressed this significant discrepancy between the memo and the later statement by the police officer, deciding that the claim of bodily harm by Erdoğan against the boy was not sufficiently substantiated to merit an indictment, and dropped the case.57 It was only the boy’s word against that of the prime minister. Clearly, Berkin was not the first child victim, nor the last. During the legal commotion that would start in August 2014 after Erdoğan was elected president, with numerous criminal cases brought on the basis of the curious charge of ‘insulting the president’, children would also be put behind bars and prosecuted, for casual social media comments or for pulling down an Erdoğan poster.58

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7 MEDIA ENGINEERING

U

nder the old regime, mainstream media appeared to have an informal guild with the bureaucracy, where the power concentrated, away from the elected governments. As the tiny fraction of the national media led by the pious Muslims vaguely critical of the settled order grew in the 1990s, the Office of the Chief of Staff introduced a new policy. The media outlets that did not fully cooperate with the military were formally excluded from the official functions through what would come to be known as a system of ‘accreditation’.1 In the wake of the regime change from 2011, with an increasingly pliant military in the new era, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) government would start exercising genuine power, arguably for the first time for a political party since the ­liberal-­populist Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti) rule for a decade from 1950. In an ostensibly mimetic continuity, the AKP administration now using authentic power would ­re-­initiate the practice of the earlier power holders, the bureaucracy, and implement a de facto policy of media accreditation, possibly with a vengeance: Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan (president from August 2014) would begin effectively to ignore the mainstream media and, in a blatant policy of discrimination, banish and leave out the majority of the national outlets from the official receptions. He would talk only to those journalists whose loyalty he did not doubt. What was an exception under the old regime, from 1997 in particular, attracting frequent criticisms in the 206

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medi a eng i neeri n g  | 207 circles during the period as an assault on media freedom, to be eventually terminated by the Office of the Chief of Staff in 2012,2 would thus virtually become the norm in the early phase following the old regime. The national media that did not associate with the new power holders, or somehow failed to convince to be in full allegiance, could not possibly have reporters in close physical proximity to Erdoğan, and on those rare occasions of impromptu meeting when those reporters would grab a chance encounter, they would risk sharp rebukes for alleged defiance and audacity. This excommunication in practice hardly meant that the media thus shunned would be left entirely on their own. Highly suspected, yet unmistakable from the Gezi protests of 2013 described in the preceding chapter, Erdoğan closely controlled the reporting and the comments in the main­ ush-­up stream media, amazingly to the slightest detail. The growing media h would include in the subsequent period the stifling of possible criticisms also from within the ranks of the ruling AKP. A senior figure and one of the founders of the AKP would reveal that he faced an embargo of the ­pro-­government media, including the state television, which was under his authority as a deputy prime minister and government spokesperson until a short while beforehand.3 The pressure on the media during the Gezi protests would be symbolised by the activists in the image of a penguin, after the fact that one of the big news channels in the country chose to air a penguin documentary uninterrupted, when, only a couple of miles away in Taksim, the BBC and CNN were broadcasting live to the whole world the breakout of the momentous events. The set of tapes anonymously posted online from early 2014 would reveal the full extent of media engineering at work under the AKP rule. Allegedly, in addition to a ‘penguin media’, namely the mainstream media effectively silenced,4 there were also media outlets operated by Erdoğan somewhat directly, to be dubbed ‘the pool media’, after a pool (havuz) claimed in the tapes, purportedly constituted by vast ­pay-­offs from the rigged public tenders over an extended period of time, and used in buying mainstream media organs. The discussion below details some of these developments and provides an overall description of the national media, including Internet access, in the immediate aftermath of the regime change.

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208  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Media Independence The good gentleman receives me once every three weeks at the Dolmabahçe [office], and in each of these meetings he places a folder before me. Inside the folder are comments and news reports printed in [the dailies] Vatan and Milliyet that he finds problematic.

The words belonged to a media big gun, as related in October 2013 by a journalist,5 whom the former had just fired from one of the dailies he owned, and ‘the good gentleman’ (beyefendi) was Erdoğan. One would normally think that this preposterous story of a media boss treated like a rowdy schoolboy by the head of the government must be a figment of imagination on the part of a g­ rudge-­bearing journalist. Yet, close observers did have a ­first-­hand account of the unusual relationship between Erdoğan and the media owner in question, as reflected in an unassuming news item back in March 2013. None other than Erdoğan himself had blurted out to a group of journalists, ironically in seeking to repudiate claims of government control of the media, that when the media boss above had asked him, having just acquired the said dailies in 2011, to recommend an overseer for the new acquisitions, Erdoğan had named a journalist, his former media officer and ­self-­styled biographer.6 In one of the set of taped conversations intercepted and posted anonymously online from early 2014, which would depict a rather heated phone conversation between Erdoğan and this media boss, the latter would literally burst into tears as Erdoğan kept scolding him for a displeasing report.7 The tapes with similar content, and not rejected by the parties involved, including Erdoğan, would disclose once and for all what had long been suspected by the ­critics­– ­­that mainstream media tycoons essentially were, and had long been, captives of the political rule. With huge business investments in various sectors, the media bosses were being held under the thumb. The whip hand over such media was apparently reinforced through inspections into assumed business irregularities of the media owners, and with court rulings that would follow those inspections if the bosses were found still somewhat defiant. Another leaked tape would have Erdoğan on the phone with the minister of justice, seeking to influence the judiciary in a case involving the most powerful media boss in the country.8

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medi a eng i neeri n g | 209 This almost surreal picture of things had obviously much to do with the nature of media ownership in the country. Most of the media enterprises, which virtually formed the whole of the mainstream, belonged to major conglomerates, with the media ventures forming only a small, if critical, part of their overall business dealings. The typical ‘media capture’, which plagued the mainstream media under the old order, no longer appeared to describe what was at work.9 The leaders of those corporations with a hand in the media did not have to be on good terms with the government only because they expected favours, usually in the form of public tenders. It looked rather dubious that they would be allowed to be full participants of the closed circuit of government charity even if they were fully submissive. Still, they had good reasons to fear the formidable wrath of the political rule. The Doğan Group, subject of the conversation above between Erdoğan and the minister of justice, had quickly been brought to its knees during the regime change back in 2009 by a record tax fine of more than $3 billion,10 later to be reduced to a more reasonable sum through a negotiated deal between the parties. This tool was barely used for only media bosses. In the days following the Gezi protests, the Koç Group, responsible for about 10 per cent of the entire economic production in the country, would face overnight an army of tax and fraud inspectors, apparently for opening the doors of its luxury hotel near the protest site in Taksim to the sick and wounded protesters.11 The activists who received this temporary relief, incidentally, would qualify for help even by the standards of the Geneva Conventions for their ­heart-­rending conditions under the excessive use of tear gas by law enforcement officers. The harsh government response to the Gezi protests would also take its toll on professional journalists. Right after the protests, dozens of journalists would be either fired from their newspaper posts or forced to resign, to join the large camp of dissident journalists who had lost their jobs already in the preceding few ­years­– some ­­ highly prominent, and some formerly immensely supportive of the government in its struggle against the old order. One result of the purge of the mainstream media would be that voices critical of the government in the public sphere would now emanate from either the ­neo-­nationalist fringe, increasingly irrelevant for being unable to influence the voters behind the government as well as the policies, or from the Gülenist media that became openly negative from the second half of 2013. The heavy

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210  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y crackdown on the latter, which would follow the corruption ‘revelations’ ostensibly made by these former allies (see Chapters 5 and 8), would lead, besides the imprisonment of some of the leading Gülenist media figures, also to government takeover of whole media outlets.12 Papers and TV stations airing dissenting views only the day before would start, literally overnight, singing the praises of the political rule. One specific government practice in controlling the critical media was a sudden surge in news blackouts that would follow some of the particularly grave or puzzling events, as in the massacre of peace demonstrators in Ankara in October 2015 by suicide bombers known to be associated with the terror organisation Islamic State (formerly Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/ the Levant, IS).13 With an immediate ban on media reports, the government would get a chance in a critical phase leading to the polls within weeks to dilute the criminal responsibility in the carnage by claiming an unlikely alliance of the Kurdish guerrillas (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) and IS as the actual perpetrators, beside the intelligence apparatus (Mukhabarat) of the regime in Syria, another foe.14 The media blackouts, enabled through injunctions on the basis of public order and national security obtained from increasingly malleable courts, reportedly numbered in excess of 150 separate bans between 2010 and 2015.15 This effective censorship included reports on a set of key incidents, some of which are detailed in this book: the Roboskî incident of 2011 (Chapter 9), the Reyhanlı blast near the Syrian border in 2013, the formal corruption charges against a number of cabinet ministers and Erdoğan’s son at the end of the same year (Chapter 8), and in 2014, the Soma mine disaster (Chapter 10), the crisis over the IS capture of the Turkish Consulate personnel in Mosul, the assassination of two police officers in Bingöl during Kobanê protests, and the killing of three soldiers in civilian clothes by masked assassins in Yüksekova. The allegations of weapons and ammunition transfers by the government to the rebels in Syria (Chapter 9) would become public in 2014, yet a ban on the reporting would not be introduced before January 2015, when new pieces of evidence would start appearing in the national media. Added to all this was the generally miserable state of the media, long tightly securitised in the country under routine criminal investigations, which, with a settled history, was not necessarily a product of the ruling AKP.

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medi a eng i neeri n g | 211 Turkey led the world, ahead of Iran and China, in terms of the number of journalists in prison, mostly Kurdish.16 The government would like to imply on those occasions when this fact would be brought up that the journalists jailed had scarcely been targeted for their journalistic activities, a reference to some of the prominent journalists implicated in the a­ nti-­coup cases from 2007 (see Chapter 3). The journalists ensnared in those unusual cases were in fact only a small fraction of the total number of the locked up ­journalists­– ­­quite apart from the fact that, in time, some of those journalists purportedly in league with the coup planners within the military would also come to be seen by most, including some close to the government, as mere victims of political persecution. It would hardly be surprising therefore that, in 2014, the World Press Freedom Index would rate Turkey 154th out of 180 countries ranked,17 and Freedom House would relegate the state of the media in Turkey from ‘partly free’ in 2013 to ‘not free’ in 2014, now ranking 138th globally.18 All this would occur before the government crackdown on the Gülenist media from December 2014, typically with little heed for niceties such as the rule of law. This cowing of the part of the opposition media would attract unusually strongly worded disapprovals from international circles19 and lead to a joint letter to Erdoğan by over fifty editors of world news media, airing strong concerns.20 In the Freedom House report for 2015, Turkey would slump further, rating 144th in global ranking.21 In the spell after the June 2015 general election, when the ruling AKP had lost its clear parliamentary majority for the first time since November 2002, with a sudden drop in spirits in ­pro-­government circles, mobs led by an AKP youth leader and a member of parliament would raid the daily Hürriyet for an allegedly distorted news item about Erdoğan.22 The flagship of the Doğan media, noted earlier, and long the l­argest-­circulation paper in the country, Hürriyet would come under mob assault for a second time in two days.23 About three weeks later, its most popular columnist, having been a target in the ­pro-­government media for some time and publicly threatened during the first raid, would receive a battering in front of his house.24 Only weeks before, a ­pro-­government columnist had put in his column, addressing the assaulted journalist: ‘We could crush you like a fly, if we wanted to. If you are still alive today, that is only because we took pity on you.’25 The ‘we’ here said everything, mimetically drawing on a state (devlet) beyond the ­government, as in

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212  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y the old order. The same ­pro-­government columnist, who often intimated that he was an insider of some closely monitoring, ­record-­keeping and unforgiving ‘state’, would address the Doğan media boss in a live television show immediately after the November snap polls, when the ruling AKP had once again acquired the absolute parliamentary majority, stating: ‘From now on, you too will be ruled by us, Aydın Doğan. We will be the ones deciding your fate.’26 Another daily, Cumhuriyet, which had printed in successive editions the alleged evidence of government involvement with the rebels in Syria, would be cordoned off by the Istanbul police alerted by informants about an imminent physical ­attack27­– ­­subsequently to be blacked out by yet another court ban on the reporting of the incident. An account of media freedom in the country during the period, or lack thereof, could hardly afford ignoring the significant part played by the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (Tasarruf Mevduatı Sigorta Fonu, TMSF) in the overall redesign of the media. The TMSF was the public agency regulating and guaranteeing the trust between deposit owners and banks, introduced following the economic crisis of 2001, before the AKP had come into power. Closely linked to the nature of media ownership in the country, as noted above, the business conglomerates behind the mainstream media outlets owned also ­banks­– ­­almost invariably. The assets of some of these business groups would be commandeered by the TMSF for various irregularities detected in the operations of the banks. From 2007, the media organs of most of the business groups would gradually be transferred in this way to the government, to be run by p ­ ro-­government administrators and editors in the long interim period, before they would eventually be handed over, with cheap and generous loans from state banks, to newly flourishing business groups close to the government.28 In the case of a ‘Gülenist’ business group in October 2015, when the government could not ostensibly uncover irregularities for a takeover, ‘trustees’ close to the government would be appointed to manage the companies of the business group, including its media organs.29 In the days leading to the critical November polls, the two dailies and two television stations of the group would thus instantly transform into staunchly ­pro-­government outlets. The tapes of the intercepted phone conversations posted anonymously online from early 2014 would suggest that the media sequestrated by the

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medi a eng i neeri n g | 213 TMSF did not simply go to businessmen loyal to the government, but that, with those businessmen acting merely as fronts, Erdoğan himself came actually to ‘­ghost-­own’ the media organs at issue, presumably on behalf of a community of core supporters, the ­Islamo-­nationalists. Purportedly, a ‘pool’ of kickbacks, contributed by contractors in return for tenders rigged in their favour, was being used for this purpose.30 Amassed apparently by none other than the prosecutors in the official corruption probes later to be stifled by the government (see Chapter 8), the evidence leaked would be revealed in the parliament by the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. The official documents of the criminal charges processed and submitted to the parliament by the prosecutors, which would soon surface, would largely corroborate the allegations on the tapes. Accordingly, in return for handing over lucrative public tenders, Erdoğan regularly asked the recipient contractors to contribute to the infamous pool as much as up to $100 million per person at one go. The money accumulated, and looked after by Erdoğan and a close circle around him, would in turn be used to g­ host-­buy and run mainstream media outlets. In one specific venture revealed by Kılıçdaroğlu in the parliamentary group of the CHP, eight business people who had ‘donated’ a total of $630 million to the pool had purportedly received from the government public tenders worth $87.832 billion in total.31 The Doğan Group would publicly declare during the wrangle with the p ­ ro-­government media ahead of the November 2015 polls that the formal owners of some of those media outlets were not ‘real’ owners.32 Putting aside the specific financial sources used in the acquisition of media, this model of g­ host-­ownership had probably been introduced into domestic politics, long before Erdoğan, by his mentor, Necmettin Erbakan, who had always been suspected to be the ‘actual’ owner of the newspapers that had championed his cause, as discussed ­below­– ­­a course of action on the part of the veteran ­Islamo-­nationalist politician apparently forced by the ­ever-­present risk of state confiscation under the old regime. In the early years of the new regime from 2011, the national media would thus appear to have been shaped along the following lines: (1) the media allegedly ­ghost-­owned by Erdoğan, (2) the ­pro-­government Islamist media ­pre-­dating the AKP rule, including the Gülenist media that would later split, (3) the mainstream media closely controlled and censored by the g­ overnment

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214  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y (save for brief spells perhaps, namely at the time of the early corruption revelations that promised an imminent end to the political rule,33 and during the interval between the June and November 2015 elections), and finally (4) the mostly ­low-­circulation independent media. One newspaper in the latter group, Cumhuriyet, would invoke the right of the public to know in March 2014 and close for all intents and purposes an era of tight censorship by defying in the headline a ban on the reporting of a t­ op-­security meeting leak, described by the government as ‘treason’ and ‘espionage’.34 The public would thus come to know, to some shock and horror, that the government had seriously considered a false flag operation through the use of State Intelligence (Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MİT) agents as a pretext to go into war with Syria (see Chapter 9). The same paper would gather enough stamina and publish in May 2015 a series of reports on the shipments of arms and ammunition by the government to the warring groups in Syria.35 Threatened by Erdoğan at the time that the paper would ‘pay a high price’ for those reports,36 the editor and one journalist of the daily would be arrested in November 2015 for ‘espionage’ and for ‘membership of an armed organisation’.37 The outrageous charges directed at the editor and staff member of the country’s oldest and possibly most highly respected newspaper for mere news reports would mean, among other things, that those who controlled the justice system in the country had made little progress since the show trials during the regime change, detailed earlier (Chapter 3). What is more, anonymous (and thus hard to trace and hold accountable) ­pro-­government Internet sites would mushroom with the regime change, increasingly notorious for their merciless character assassination of dissident public figures. Those particularly targeted on such websites would be the group of journalists and academics that had backed the government for close to a decade, later gradually drifting away. Rumour would have it that these horrifically libellous publications could not possibly go on unrelenting without some government involvement in the whole enterprise. This would bring to mind the websites that had aimed at the ruling AKP, and run directly out of the Office of the Chief of Staff, under the old o­ rder­– simply ­­ another one of the myriad continuities, if true, between the old and the new casts of power. The former chief of staff, who apparently turned a blind eye to this psychological warfare that had operated from his office, would later face

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medi a eng i neeri n g | 215 a grim trial phase (see Chapter 3). As for how the judiciary handled such slanders in the anonymous ­pro-­government outlets about public figures in the new era, typically, a prosecutor at an Istanbul court would decide in May 2014 to drop the probes initiated through several criminal complaints by a number of journalists against a host of websites. A subsequent appeal made to the court against this decision of n ­ on-­prosecution would be dismissed 38 through a majority vote. Last, but by no means least, known to be ­litigation-­happy, Erdoğan would find objectionable even the way he would be depicted in cartoons in the media, in a political culture that had been little different in the recent past from the known standards in the matter in European democracies.39 Turgut Özal, who, like Erdoğan, had ruled as both prime minister and president (1983–93), was known to have called up cartoonists and exchanged pleasantries with them following the publication of even some rather vicious pieces, often requesting the signed originals from the artists. Intolerant to humour involving himself to a hitherto unobserved degree, Erdoğan would be simply merciless when it came to more sombre criticisms. Particularly noteworthy would be numerous cases of criminal libel he would initiate against the group of liberal intellectuals40 that were ironically still hated in the aftermath of the regime change by the republican opposition for their former support of Erdoğan. At some point during the regime change, those intellectuals would be dragged from courtrooms processing cases launched by Erdoğan to courtrooms, usually down the same hall, handling cases initiated by the Office of the Chief of Staff for alleged assaults on the dignity of the armed forces for, say, seeking to attract public attention to the plight of conscientious objectors not recognised domestically. According to the established case law of the European Court of Human Rights, the limits of acceptable criticism involving politicians were much wider, as often put by the Court in this very stock phrase, than those applicable to ordinary individuals – for obvious reasons. As early as in 2004,41 that is, long before Erdoğan was able fully to control the judiciary, a local court would support Erdoğan against a cartoon showing him as a cat. This early case should give an idea about the extent to which courts would be heedful of the European standards in the matter in the following period, especially with the regime change. Worse, judging from the apparent ­impunity

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216  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y over the ­constant character assassinations of ordinary individuals in the ­pro-­government media, the limits of acceptable criticism for ordinary individuals in the country would seem to be unbelievably wider than those for politicians, especially when those individuals would happen to be the critics of the government. In the bulk of the cases against the journalists, the local courts would punish instances of free speech that would be little more than passionate criticisms of the government policies. For a contrast, in one rather unusual case that would later find its way to Strasbourg, a unanimous judgement of the European Court would vindicate words as harsh as ‘liar’ and ‘psychopath’ used for Erdoğan in a newspaper in 2005 and 2006.42 ‘Milk Port’ The main faction of Islamist politics in the country from the late 1960s, the movement known as Millî Görüş (­Islamo-­nationalism, or ­Islamo-­nativism)­ – ­out of which the AKP would spring in 2­ 001­– long ­­ had the daily Millî Gazete as its media outlet, founded in 1973. Controlled directly by Erbakan, the leader of the movement, the paper had a rather limited circulation, fluctuating over the years between 20,000 and 50,000, when the mainstream dailies had circulations roughly ten times more. The intellectually inclined newspaper of the movement launched in the later part of the 1970s, which would prove to be short lived due to a circulation even poorer than that of the former, was Yeni Devir. This paper had among its contributors virtually all of the established ­Islamo-­nationalist intellectuals in the public sphere under the AKP rule decades later. During the 1990s, when the political party of the movement climbed to reach an ­all-­time-high electoral support of around 20 per cent, the former Yeni Devir would be revived in spirit in a new daily, Yeni Şafak, to be published from 1995. The very first paper not chaperoned by Erbakan or the political party he led,43 Yeni Şafak would become an intellectual stronghold of ­Islamo-­nationalism, resolved to impart a somewhat more sophisticated posture. The refinement aimed would be greatly helped from 1997 by the renewed pressure of the military on politics, when a number of right and left liberal columnists fired from the mainstream media would take refuge in its pages. As the AKP ascended to power in late 2002, Yeni Şafak would become a virtual media outlet of the political party. With the government making headway in subduing the old order, the maverick news-

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medi a eng i neeri n g | 217 paper would function as a breeding ground for journalists to man a rapidly expanding ring of ­pro-­government media. Almost all of the key figures that populated the ­government-­friendly outlets from 2009 thus appeared to have been either tutored at or worked for Yeni Şafak at some point during their careers. The daily Yeni Şafak would move to a brand new plane with the Gezi protests of 2013. As detailed in the preceding chapter, Erdoğan would claim the protests to be an attempt towards a forcible takeover of the government, a mood to be reinforced by the immediately following unrest and coup in Egypt, hence the furious reaction to the Egyptian coup and the strong indignation among the AKP elite and media literati in the following period. With Egypt in sight, the response to the domestic protesters would in turn become a jihad to be fought at any cost, as described before. And because all was fair in love and war, apparently including the holy war, Yeni Şafak would soon position itself at the forefront of the huge assault on the protesters by engaging in a series of fabricated reports in screaming headlines. Particularly malicious in this blanket bombardment of fake reports would be those about a young actor, one of the many celebrity protesters. The international travels of this actor prior to the Gezi events, including one trip to Egypt, would be construed as proof for international conspiracy,44 and the interactive stage play he was directing at the time, in which people were getting organised (with the actors playfully involving also the viewers) against a dictator, would be claimed to be a clear rehearsal of the Gezi ‘insurrection’.45 Moreover, an early social media message this actor had happened to share publicly, inviting a friend to the protests, would be interpreted as the mysterious g­ o-­ahead, the sign, issued by ‘The Number One’, or the mastermind, of what was clearly an international conspiratorial set up.46 Intellectuals had been killed by ­self-­appointed patriots in the recent history of the country for much less encouragement from the media. This time it was a genuine lynch attempt, soon to be followed by Erdoğan himself, who would personally target the actor at public rallies and issue threats.47 The actor would have to pack and leave the country immediately. Meanwhile, Yeni Şafak would fire, or force to resign, several of its columnists, mostly the liberals blended in its pages from 1997, for being discernibly at odds in their comments on the protests with the wildly conspiratorial tone of the paper.

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218  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y The specific event that would make the newspaper a laughing stock would come right after that. As the coup in Egypt had occurred immediately after the Gezi protests, shaking the country, the two had simply been put together, first by Erdoğan and then soon enough, and predictably, by the literati in the p ­ ro-­government media. In keeping with this spirit, a reporter with Yeni Şafak had had an e­ -­mail interview on the situation in Egypt with Noam Chomsky. Incidentally, Chomsky had issued support earlier for the domestic protesters, with a widely circulated picture of him on social media taken before one of the Gezi banners. Yet, curiously, the interview printed in an o­ ver-­the-logo headline in the paper on 27 August 2013 would appear to repeat almost verbatim the conspiratorial theories articulated by Erdoğan to discredit the Gezi protests, namely that the big powers seeking to contain an increasingly assertive Turkey were behind the events. Moreover, Chomsky was lavishly praising Erdoğan in the interview as the one politician who had the vision and courage to stand up against the known international bullies that kept stirring up trouble in places such as Turkey and Egypt. The incredulity that Chomsky could possibly put forth such views would lead a number of readers to contact him and ask about the publication. Chomsky’s answer would be to publish online the script of what he asserted to be the one and the only exchange that had taken place between himself and the paper.48 Interestingly, Chomsky’s version of the interview seemed to be much shorter than that printed in Yeni Şafak and did not include any of the controversial statements described above. On the contrary, Chomsky was being somewhat critical of Erdoğan on both Egypt and Syria, stating that ‘more nuanced approaches’ were needed. This quickly became news in both the domestic and international media, and Yeni Şafak, in defying the ostensibly shaky and unreliable memory of an aging Chomsky, printed, on 31 August, the ‘full’ account of the original exchange between the paper and Chomsky in English. This ‘original’ version included, in addition to the part released by Chomsky himself, also the part disowned by him. There was, however, something rather unorthodox about this latter part of the original. Here is a sentence from this section of the interview as printed in Yeni Şafak in the original English: ‘This is the true spirit of the Arab Spring uprising shows no longer found.’ Words belonged to Chomsky. Here is another: ‘Those who never breaks the brutality of the

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medi a eng i neeri n g | 219 best of those who have been so quiet.’ And yet another: ‘I think the idea of the Turkey instance that west is quite frightened to come to life again.’ These are not, incidentally, utterances picked from the sections of the interview rejected by Chomsky for the linguistic problems they reflected, but random quotes. For those who did not speak Turkish, it could take longer perhaps to work out as to what the issue was, yet it was plain enough instantly with the Turkish speakers. Take the section heading above­– ­‘milk port’. Puzzling in English, but it is a word in Turkish: sütliman (süt+liman = milk+port). Here is the sentence where it occurred in the ‘original’ English text of the interview: ‘Contrary to what happens when everything that milk port, enters the work order, then begins to bustle in the West.’ The word sütliman, a corrupted version of the Greek sotolimáni (literally ‘inner port’), meant ‘calm’. After having explained why ‘the West’, as Erdoğan had repeatedly claimed, would rather demonically prefer a Middle East where there was no rest, no calm, Chomsky allegedly stated, ‘When there is calm, on the other hand, and all is as should be, then the West starts fidgeting about and worrying.’49 This is a translation from the Turkish version printed in the paper earlier, disowned by Chomsky. ­Precisely­– ­­the paper had simply ­Google-­translated into English the part of the interview rejected by Chomsky, claiming in turn that the text produced ex post facto from the Turkish was part of the original exchange. Had the Turkish original in the paper not ‘misspelled’ the word sütliman, breaking it into two words as süt liman, the version translated online would likely have had the English equivalent ‘calm’ for the Turkish word, rather than the baffling ‘milk port’, although the ingenuity of the work conducted would still be blatantly obvious. If that which was being used for the translation was only a crude software, it could end up rendering one’s sentence not necessarily as ‘Did you expect a military coup to occur?’ but possibly as ‘Did you expect to be a military coup?’ This was actually one of the questions put by the paper to Chomsky in asking him to reflect on the coup in Egypt. The fabricated interview, with the ­Google-­translated version in English, would be kept on the website of the paper for days, despite numerous warnings and mocking remarks online by the readers. The episode that would entertain the whole nation for days at a difficult time in the aftermath of the Gezi protests would end with Yeni Şafak issuing an apology at long last, half brusque, half embarrassed, and blaming it all on the reporter. Still, the incident would barely stop

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220  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y this intellectual stronghold of ­Islamo-­nationalism. Yeni Şafak would go on producing full front page ‘revelations’, relying on alleged ‘documents’ that would invariably be proved, often on the very day of publication, as brazen forgeries.50 Internet Freedom The first of a series of a­ nti-­corruption probes conducted rather stealthily by the prosecutors would become public on 17 December 2013 (see Chapter 8). The investigations would appear to be based largely, if not entirely, on the intercepted phone conversations of the suspects. In response, the government would swiftly replace the head of the administrative body, the Telecommunication and Information Technologies Directorate (Teleko­ münikasyon İletişim Başkanlığı, TİB), which regulated Internet and telecommunication services in the country.51 Created in 2005, and a household name from then on, the TİB had been empowered not only to oversee the Internet but also to administer possible recordings and screenings of private phone conversations by the security forces. Somewhat revealingly, the new head of this public office, appointed on 19 December, would be a bureaucrat from the MİT. A few months back in the same year, the government had already recognised the TİB as a strategically decisive actor, as the activists at the Gezi protests, practically ignored in the mainstream media, at least during the initial phase, had been able rather efficiently to use social media in getting organised, prompting the infamous remark by Erdoğan: ‘To me, social media is the worst menace to society.’52 The new appointment enabled by a shift from the intelligence body would simply herald a new era of tighter control of Internet access in the country, which, by the look of it, was already very much in tatters. The Freedom House report on global Internet access for 2013 had already rated Turkey only ‘partly free’, with a total of ­forty-­nine negative points out of 100.53 Turkey had been disclosed in the same year to lead the world for the volume of its annual content removal requests from Google.54 Apparently Turkey had filed 1,673 content removal requests within the year (over three times more than the closest contender on the list) for the purging of more than 12,000 items. In 2014, Twitter would withhold a total of 110 accounts globally, and s­ eventy-­nine of those would be curbed at the request of authorities from Turkey. Of a total of 2,233 individual tweet messages

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medi a eng i neeri n g | 221 supressed by the company in the same year, close to 90 per cent would be held back through official applications from Turkey.55 Still more worrying had been the routine patrolling of the Internet over the years, as managed by the TİB. Access to a total of more than 10,000 websites had been blocked in the year 2013 alone, with overall figures indicating a disturbing rise with every passing year.56 Not surprisingly, the Freedom House report for 2014 would increase the negative points in the assessment of the local practice to ­ fty-­eight in 2015, marking ­fifty-­five.57 The negative points would rise to fi Turkey as the very last country in the global ranking before those deemed ‘not free’.58 Close to 90 per cent of the content blockings made by the TİB appeared to be without a court order, that is, with the sole discretion of the office ­personnel­– a­­ course of action described in the brief notices placed on the blocked websites as an ‘administrative measure’. The government office at issue was allegedly authorised for this practice by a provision in a 2007 statute that regulated the nationwide Internet use and ­Internet-­related offences.59 The statute made a list of the offences in question,60 quoted almost entirely from the Penal Code, which rendered the specific web content illegal, and invited and justified blocking. Accordingly, in the event of an alleged offence, an order to block a website for its content could be issued by (1) a public prosecutor early on in the investigation phase, on condition that the delay could have irreversibly harmful effects under the specific circumstances, (2) a judge, to be contacted by the investigating prosecutor within t­wenty-­four hours following a blocking, or (3) a court. The blocking order thus adopted would then be sent to the TİB for implementation. As such, the arrangement did not present obvious problems. Yet the statute went on to stipulate: in those cases where the content provider or the hosting service provider is abroad . . . the blocking order shall be issued by the Directorate of its own motion. It shall then be notified to the access provider with a request for execution.61

If the website did not originate locally, that is, its fate was then entirely at the mercy of the TİB, up to the whims or personal inclinations, to be more exact, of the personnel in this administrative organ, who could decide to block those websites as they fancied. They only needed to put a few words to this

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222  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y effect in writing and send it to the access provider, and that was it. This was how close to 90 per cent of all blockings were ostensibly made. The practice as such seemed to be dubious, to say the least. It was out of keeping, even at a cursory examination, with a set of basic rights protected within the European regime of human rights, binding locally, namely the freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial and the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions.62 The right to free speech jealously guarded the sending and receiving of ‘information and ideas’, undisturbed by the public authority, and without regard to the origin or whereabouts of the source behind the information and ideas at issue. The right protected did not distinguish between content originating in the country and content provided from abroad. The principles within the purview of the right applied to both types of content. Moreover, the practice violated not only the right to free speech of the content owners but also those of the recipients, namely the web users, the target audience of the information and ideas sent through, who would otherwise have access to that content. Finally, the blockings damaged the economic interests behind the websites that originated abroad, protected under the right to property. There was more. Unlike the domestic websites, which were blocked through a court order, the discretionary action of a government office appeared to be sufficient to ban the content emitting from outside the country. This meant that a range of rights on the part of both content owners and consumers were being restricted by the public authority without granting a ‘hearing’­– ­a patent violation of the right to a fair trial. In a case decided by the European Court of Human Rights against Turkey in 2013, this was clearly pointed out. According to the Court, the administrative body regulating the Internet, namely the TİB, was under obligation to notify and ‘hear’ the content provider before blocking the content in question for being illegal.63 The content provider, whether domestic or not, had to be allowed a chance to contest the finding that the content was illegal, and take part in the ­proceedings­– in ­­ short, receive a fair hearing. Regarding the local practice as outlined above, the Court stated: ‘this is in direct conflict with the actual wording of paragraph 1 of Article 10 of the Convention, according to which the rights set forth in that Article are secured “regardless of frontiers”.’64 The practice did not only breach international law as highlighted by the Court, but also ignored the Turkish Constitution,

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medi a eng i neeri n g | 223 which, as noted before (Chapter 5), privileged international law in the event of a possible conflict with domestic law. This moot practice that seemed to be responsible for the pathetic record of the country on Internet freedom presented further problems. The domestic statute regulating the screening of the web cited ‘obscenity’ (müstehcenlik), an offence under the Penal Code,65 as a ground that justified blocking Internet content. Indeed, a big chunk of those sites operating from abroad, and blocked by the TİB at the stroke of a pen, were ‘porn’ sites. Yet the idea of obscenity that drove the censorship at work seemed to include also lingerie sites.66 The ‘information and ideas’, to be sent and received without government interference, as invoked in the freedom of expression, certainly also included pictures and moving images. In the case cited above, the opinion of the European Court supplied a quick survey of the practice ­Europe-­wide in terms of Internet restrictions, with porn receiving some emphasis. Where porn was concerned, accordingly, the ban that seemed to be put on Internet content in various European settings was almost only in cases of abuse and exploitation of minors. That is, the ordinary porn that might be considered as obscene by some locally was not necessarily unlawful within the European sphere of human rights. Without getting into a debate whether the interpretation of ‘obscenity’ by the TİB was altogether correct, let us simply recall that the local authorities were under obligation to ignore the domestic code in favour of international law in actual cases even when the material in question was treated as obscene in the local law. To be sure, free speech within the European system did cite the protection of morals as a possible ground for restrictions in the exercise of the right, more, recognising a degree of discretion for domestic authorities in the matter; but there were two fundamental conditions for such limiting measures. First, the restriction had to be ‘prescribed by law’, meaning that the limitation introduced could not be vague, without sufficient clarity and precision, and without safeguards against possible arbitrariness, which would otherwise rob the restriction of its required foreseeability or predictability. Second, the restriction had to be ‘necessary in a democratic society’, that is: (1) it had to rely on some urgency locally, on some ‘pressing social need’, as often articulated by the European Court of Human Rights, (2) it had to be ‘proportionate’ so as not to ruin the substance of the right even when some restriction was purportedly necessary,

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224  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y and finally (3) it had to be roughly in line with the evolving values and norms of European democracies, striking a balance between the two opposing values ­protected­– ­­the right and the ‘legitimate aim’ to inhibit it. The Court had frequently stated that, although domestic authorities acting through a legitimate concern such as the protection of morals might have some room for discretion in specific cases, there was still a ‘European supervision’, ensuring some homogeneity r­egion-­wide, no matter how different individual societies in Europe might be in terms of moral values. In light of this, an almost blanket ban on porn, as was the practice locally, hardly seemed to be lawful. As for the ‘native values’, locals were no strangers to porn, which had formed a profitable sector in the country in the 1970s, and which, unlike porn elsewhere, was much more integrated into mainstream art by the presence in those movies of talented stage and screen thespians. One memorable banner at one of the widely participated protest rallies in Istanbul in May 2011 against the ban on porn read: ‘Hands off my porn!’67 The moral values at work, in other words, by no means consisted only of those linked to pious religious sensibilities. What is more, if need for some such ‘moral’ protection in relation to web content was to be acknowledged at all, there were filters available, introduced by the TİB, and only one click away from the web users. The TİB had announced plans in February 2011 to introduce a mandatory Internet filtering system in the country tailored to keep ‘harmful’ content away from all web users, once and for all. Yet the plans would be dropped subsequently in the face of strong protests from the public.68 An optional filtering system would be adopted instead, to be effective from November 2011. This system would enable two main filters, one called ‘child profile’ that would provide access only to sites on a list of allowed sites, shut to all else, and another called ‘family profile’, functioning on the basis of a list of barred, rather than allowed, sites. Social Media The sketch above is an account of the overall Internet restrictions in the country until roughly 2014. Following the corruption and bribery ‘revelations’ from just before the start of that year, often in the form of tapes leaked from the files of the prosecution and posted online anonymously, in turn shared and debated in social media, the practice would take a turn for the worse.

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medi a eng i neeri n g | 225 The government would resort in what looked like a state of utter despair to a set of revisions to alter in key provisions the already highly problematic law, as argued above.69 The amendments towards a tighter control of Internet and electronic communication in the absence of a court order, legislated despite clear warnings by European institutions and ­policy-­makers in the process, would come into force in February 2­ 014­– later, ­­ in September of the same year, to be partly annulled by the Constitutional Court. With domestic public opinion highly concerned, waiting to see how the new regulations would be applied, just before midnight on 20 March 2014, the TİB would apply a blanket ban on the ­micro-­blogging site Twitter, only hours after Erdoğan had threatened at a public rally that the government would ‘wipe ­Twitter-­Schmitter off the face of the earth’, paying little attention, as he would declare proudly, to possible negative reactions in the international community. This, he would add, would be a ‘show of strength’ for the new Turkey.70 On the official blocking notice at the gateway to the site, the TİB would refer to a number of local court judgements that had recently ruled specific content shared by individual accounts to be in violation of personal rights and privacy, giving the impression that the ban thereby implemented relied actually on court orders. This was less than accurate; there was no court ruling for an indiscriminate ban. Moreover, in justifying the ban the TİB would also cite a request to this effect from the Office of the Chief Public Prosecutor in Istanbul, which the latter would deny only the day after.71 The ban would have little effect in practice, with local web users simply utilising ­back-­door methods to evade the blocking. The ­anti-­government ‘revelations’ in the form of leaked tapes would thus continue to be circulated on the site, with links to popular video sharing outlets that would host the recordings of phone conversations ostensibly intercepted by the police. The most popular of those outlets, YouTube, would also receive a blanket ban72 exactly one week after the ban on Twitter, on 27 March, and would remain ­ rst-­instance court to stay the banned until 3 June,73 despite a ruling by a fi administrative ban. The access would be grudgingly restored days after a judgement of violation issued by the Constitutional Court, acting as a human rights tribunal.74 The court would consider the specific interference by the public authority in the exercise of free speech as short of being ‘necessary in a democratic society’. Further, the judgement would find the practice

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226  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y long in use, blocking access to websites by mere administrative measures, in violation of the requirement that possible limitations on the exercise of the right should be ‘established by law’, to make them precise and foreseeable. By then, an earlier judgement by the court had already found the ban on Twitter similarly in breach of the right in question.75 Erdoğan had harshly criticised this ruling for being oblivious to ‘patriotic’ interests,76 adding that he did not ‘respect’ it.77 Some of the more civil comments in ­pro-­government circles would point out that the court had been ‘hasty’, acting on the matter before a full exhaustion of earlier remedies. This would force the court to adopt its subsequent judgement on YouTube by its Plenary Court (an exceptional procedure), rather than a chamber. The reasoning by the court in not waiting for the exhaustion of remedies in its ruling on the Twitter ban had simply been that long used by the European Court of Human Rights itself in assessing the effectiveness of the domestic remedies available. The fact that the government had ignored the stay of execution regarding the ban ruled by a ­first-­instance court,78 ostensibly in order to hinder uncontrolled public communication only days before and during the nationwide elections of 30 March, meant, according to the Constitutional Court, that the assumed remedies were only in theory, with little effect in practice.

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8 ANYTHING GOES?

I

ntransigent to the end, the popular republican opposition in the media and everyday life kept questioning before and during the regime change the democratic credentials, nay, the sheer legitimacy, of the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), given the allegedly concealed ‘sinister designs’ of this political party that had emerged out of ­Islamo-­nationalism (Millî Görüş). In so doing, the republicans were often teased for the purported anachronism of those ‘prejudices’ by the group of liberal intellectuals who supported the transformation. Accordingly, the republicans had never really ceased hankering after a ‘golden age’ that had lasted just over two decades from 1923 when modern Turkey had been set up, effectively until the advent of the ­liberal-­populist era in the country in 1950, considered by the core republicans as a ‘­counter-­revolution’ towards aborting and undermining the earlier advances. In the wake of the regime change from 2011, the bitter confrontation between these two groups of ‘white Turks’­– ­the diehard republicans on one side and the formerly ­pro-­government liberals on the o­ ther­– ­­would prove to be somewhat ­double-­edged. The joke would now appear to have been very much on the ­over-­optimistic liberals, increasingly embarrassed with the suddenly ‘Islamistic’, gauche and clumsy policies of the government. Feeling a betrayal of sorts, most liberal intellectuals would soon become almost more raging than the ­long-­time critics in opposing the AKP rule. More ironically perhaps, the republican ‘wish’ for a return to the 227

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228  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y earlier era, as mockingly claimed by the former p ­ ro-­government intellectuals, would seem to have come true in some measure: the promised order under a growing I­ slamo-­nationalist populist sway, to be dubbed ‘the new Turkey’ by the ­government-­sponsored media literati, would appear to be turning more and more into the old Turkey of the ­single-­party rule that had branded the early republican regime. Only, it was dubious that the oppressive political atmosphere that had marked the early republican era had in fact been this stifling. That the feel in sections of society was now getting palpably heavier compared to the historical period in question was probably to do with three novel factors. (1) Mass media and telecommunication technologies arguably gave the new power holders an unprecedented and increasingly daunting edge. (a) Tayyip Erdoğan, the prime minister, later to become the president, was not only on television and thus in living rooms practically every day, and at all times, but he was on all of the mainstream television outlets, as well as the ­pro-­government ones, at the same time, being broadcast live from wherever he was for the day, as viewers would surf through channels busting a gut to find something else, ultimately to no avail, save for those few marginal and rather irrelevant outlets. That was for a good reason. A television station not joining the national live stream could almost instantly be understood as none other than wilful opposition to the government, which was rather petrifying to the media bosses, as discussed in the preceding chapter. (b) The invasion of privacy, of private communication in particular, enabled by the latest interception and ­distant-­tracing systems meant nearly total lack of conceivable space for breathing for the wider society. The issue of political surveillance that would come to the fore with the set of the ­king-­making investigations and trials from 2007 (see Chapter 3) would be a concern, though exaggerated in places, and dominate the first few years in the aftermath of the old regime. (2) What is more, the political opposition now was far feebler than that during the early republican regime, which had had genuine pluck, even if mostly amorphous. The testing of the strength of the regime in the ­single-­party era through some ­short-­lived and partly experimental new political parties had often revealed a dormant political opposition that had survived and remained terrifyingly strong and threatening to the regime. (a) The main opposition formed by the republicans against the AKP government, on the other hand, was yet to

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a nythi ng g oes?  | 229 learn the basics of d ­ ay-­to-day party politics to be able to steal votes from the ruling party, a skill they had had little need to achieve previously, having felt secure enough under the wings of the ­bureaucracy­– ­­military, judicial and academic. (b) More significantly perhaps, the republican voter ­base­– ­­before the republican ­politicians­– ­­seemed hardly more democratic in popular sensibilities than the ­Islamo-­nationalists, in a context where the masses appeared to have acquired a form of l­evel-­headedness that ushered them away from the former republican sectarianism based on identity politics. Not only throughout the long and glorious past of this political force that had practically set up modern Turkey, but also now, the popular republican opposition seemed to continue to be afflicted with the malaises of the early republican regime, such as some rather inane prejudices about international policy circles as restless conspirators targeting Turkey, deadly discrimination against the minorities, ­anti-­Semitism, nationalism, even a p ­ aranoia­– ­­hard to believe as it w ­ as­– ­­about Christian proselytisers newly active in the country, despite the ­well-­advertised aspirations of this political force towards a strong cast of secularism. Much of this bigotry would be aired almost on a daily basis on the front pages of the daily Sözcü, the ­highest-­circulation mouthpiece. The clear obsolescence of the voter base seemed greatly to incapacitate the main opposition. (3) Finally, the overwhelming support behind the government, enabled, as it seemed, chiefly by a democratically shallow and inept political opposition, at least until the rise of the K ­ urdish-­led Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, HDP) for a spell starting just before the general election of June 2015, meant an obvious advantage that the erstwhile rulers under the early republican regime did not have. This in turn considerably facilitated a ­self-­righteous, majoritarian oppression that marked the initial phase of the use of power after the old order had been defeated. The first few years of the emerging order from 2011 could thus plausibly be viewed as more severe perhaps than any period before in the recent political history of the country. Further, the ‘democratic’ leverage enjoyed by the government, namely its smug majoritarianism, did not mean that the government would not bother to resort to the techniques of political domination notoriously employed during the authoritarian ­single-­party era of the 1930s and 1940s. Using some of those old instruments of hegemony and subjugation against the opposition would render even worse the already s­ uffocating

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230  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y political atmosphere. This climate, highly frustrating for the formal opposition, would be in full view ahead of the local and presidential polls in 2014, with two parliamentary polls shortly to follow in 2015. For an idea of this climate of repression and of exploitation of authority, the purportedly autonomous and neutral body of judges supervising elections nationwide and at various levels, the Supreme Board of Elections (Yüksek Seçim Kurulu, YSK), would decide in November 2013, upon a question put to it by the ruling AKP, that the cabinet members running for mayoralty in local elections in March 2014 would not have to resign from their posts as ministers.1 That is, in those towns where the AKP had nominated serving ministers, the competitors could include, locking horns with the rest, a candidate who had at his or her disposal all that this position of the highest possible legal authority in the system ­offered­– ­­especially critical in a political culture where government ministers had more pomp than royalties elsewhere. The formal reasoning behind the decision of the YSK was that if [the minsters nominated for mayoralties] would have to withdraw from their posts before the [local] elections, that would be like suspending, for as long as four months [during the election campaign], the right to administer on the part of the political party that [had] . . . obtained the [parliamentary] majority . . . [This state of affairs could not] possibly be reconciled with . . . the democratic functioning of the state.

It was only out of respect for the principles of democracy, in other words, that the YSK licensed a competition for the same post in the coming local elections between ordinary candidates in a municipality, who were private persons, and a cabinet minister who would lack practically no material means, nor enthusiastic personnel, in the election campaign and, more importantly perhaps, during the subsequent arrangements towards processing the poll results. This nonchalance towards grave breaches of fairness in the elections would hit new lows in the phase leading to the general election of June 2015, when ‘the state’, the public a­ uthority­– ­­not the ruling A ­ KP­– ­­would appear to be the one to vie with the rest of the political parties at the polls. The government on one side, and the supposedly ­non-­partisan President Erdoğan asking for votes for the ruling party on the other, would use public funds, lavish public resources, the state television network (Türkiye Radyo Televizyon

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a nythi ng g oes?  | 231 Kurumu, TRT), the official news agency (Anadolu Ajansı), even mosques and the military, in the election campaign. Governors in provinces and districts, and state employees under direct written orders from such superiors, would also be mobilised to ensure success for the ruling political party.2 The indifference to all this by the highest election authority would be only one, among quite a few, of the parallels with the old, s­ingle-­party era political domination, which basically equated the ruling party with the state. The clear hegemony of the ruling AKP during the spells leading to the polls would be manifest not only in the exercises of the supposedly neutral state institutions, but also in the performance of key civilian or private bodies. Typical in this regard was the apparent resistance that the main opposition, the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), would experience in December 2013, when this political party would contact the commercial firm in charge of outdoor billboards nationwide for an election poster. Only mildly critical of the government on the new budget, being debated in the parliament at the time, this innocuous poster pointed out the effective evasion of the state auditing body (Sayıştay) in relation to certain questionable and ostensibly embarrassing expenditure, with the government practically putting a lid on some of the losses incurred by public offices, as indicated in some of the relevant, yet suppressed, auditing reports. The poster read: ‘If people are accountable, paying taxes, so should be the government!’3 The billboard firm, part of a conglomerate careful not to be on the wrong side of the political rule, would refuse to put up the posters. Intercepted phone conversations between Ankara’s mayor and an Erdoğan aide, to be posted online anonymously in February 2104, and not disowned subsequently by the parties involved, would reveal that the posters had been rejected by the billboard company not only unlawfully, but also through a direct intervention of the government.4 Predictably enough, nothing would come out of either the criminal complaint filed by the opposition party against this intervention or the application to the YSK demanding appropriate measures. Some of the blatant irregularities, alongside the questionable nature of the campaign finances of the ruling party, would find their way into the report of the observation mission on behalf of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), in the country for the presidential election campaign of July–August 2014.5 According to the report, the

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232  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y ‘misuse of administrative resources and a lack of clear distinction between state and party activities’ during the electoral process were ‘at odds’ with the established democratic principles.6 The prevalence of this unusual practice would be reiterated in the OSCE observation mission report for the general election of June 2015.7 The latter election would have to be ‘repeated’ in the following November, with the AKP having lost the parliamentary majority and a possible coalition government having been prevented by President Erdoğan. The election environment this time around, about five months later, would come to include added peculiarities, as previously noted (Chapter 1)­– ­new even for Turkey. The polls would be ‘tarnished by violence’, as the preliminary report by the OSCE mission monitoring the election would put it. ‘During the campaign, offices of the HDP were targeted, a high number of HDP members were taken into custody, HDP affiliated mayors were suspended, and its campaign leaflets were confiscated.’8 Denied media coverage, the HDP would also cancel its rallies due to the lack of safety after the Ankara massacre of 10 October, with more than 100 dead, only about three weeks before the election. Talking to the national media just before the polls, the OSCE delegation would express ‘concern’ also about the apparent oppression of free speech and the intensified harassment ­ re-­election period of newspapers and television stations.9 Once again, the p would be marred with the use of public resources on the part of the ruling AKP. By the figures of the official radio and television watchdog (Radyo ve Televizyon Üst Kurulu), of ­thirty-­seven of the politicians involved in the contest and entertained by the state television (TRT) during the month before the polls, all ­thirty-­seven had been AKP politicians.10 For the duration, the TRT had had a coverage of about thirty hours for the AKP and ­twenty-­nine hours for Erdoğan, while the air time accorded to the opposition had been as follows: five hours for the main opposition CHP, one hour and ten minutes for the Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi), and only eighteen minutes for the HDP.11 Also in Turkey for the polls, the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly delegation head would make the following observation the day after this critical election that would give the ruling AKP back its clear parliamentary majority, sealing the future of the political mandate in the country until 2019: the ‘campaign was unfair and characterised by too much violence and fear’.12 This was how the heading of

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a nythi ng g oes?  | 233 an ­op-­ed in The New York Times would describe the poll results: ‘Erdoğan’s Violent Victory’.13 This chapter details the use of power in the first few years in the aftermath of the old regime by looking into a host of dubious practices, not only the unfair and undemocratic election strategies that left the opposition practically crippled, but also the state of the basic political rights, the full observance of which could be understood as crucial for the ballot box to make full sense, ensuring the free circulation of ideas and information in the election environment. Further, the chapter looks into the way politics was ostensibly financed by the ruling party all along, notably as alleged by a set of leaked tapes from early 2014. Finally, the discussion profiles the military as an enduring actor, responsible in the recent past of the country for a series of interventions in, and ‘adjustments’ of, the political rule. Ballot Box Democracy To be rather effectively used in silencing the opposition with the demise of the old order from 2011, the physical object of the ballot box would become virtually the sole marker of democracy in the country.14 There should be little dissension of the fact that the ballot box was indeed the most striking measure of a democracy. Yet, simultaneously, this formal tool of popular enfranchisement was known to make scarce sense in the absence of a specific set of rights that complemented it. The term ‘rights’ here refers to those few that were essential for the formation and exercise of choices in a democratic setting, rather than the whole range of rights and freedoms that might be considered as inalienable in more evolved democracies, such as those termed by Arend Lijphart ‘consociational’ and ‘consensus’ democracies.15 That is, the notion of ‘democracy’ employed here in assessing the characteristics of the emerging order in Turkey is rather ­elementary­– ­­roughly the assumption famously reflected in Lincoln’s Gettysburg address as ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’. Robert Dahl has defined the main contours of this concept as a ‘polyarchal’ regime of government, communicating the simple, majoritarian democracy.16 A polyarchal regime as such, Dahl explains, assumes preferences, each with identical weight, made by identical members of society, usually the voters, who have identical access to information and ideas about the formally identical choices. The choice that

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234  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y attracts more preferences wins. The fundamental entitlements of (1) free and democratic elections, (2) free speech and (3) free assembly and association arguably see to the strictly identical chance accorded to those in contest.17 The ‘illiberal democracy’ occasionally suggested in relation to some nominally competitive political systems that are clearly heedless of these basic rights appears therefore to be little more than an oxymoron. The first of these rights, free and democratic elections,18 extended protection not only against electoral disenfranchisement and possible voting irregularities, typically covered in the principle, but drew also on the other two, namely the freedom of expression and the freedom of assembly and association. Yet, even in its restrictive sense, the right to free and democratic elections seemed to be rather crippled locally by at least three grave issues: (a) the 10 per cent national threshold for political parties vying in parliamentary elections,19 (b) the apparent discrimination in financial assistance provided by the state for political parties,20 and (c) some of the rather arbitrary constraints placed on independent candidates in the process leading to the polls.21 All three of the curtailments were greatly a consequence of the ­long-­settled bureaucratic policy towards disenfranchisement of the Kurdish nationalist voters, which the AKP would continue. As for free speech, recall the problems of media independence locally, or lack thereof, as described in the preceding chapter. Journalists were fired, intimidated and imprisoned. A somewhat bizarre, and unprecedented, media engineering by the government reallocated the ownership of media outlets, silencing dissidence. A casual Internet censorship, without a court order, appeared to be the case. Arguably worse than these instances of plain interdiction were forms of eerie authoritarian surveillance. For an idea, the government reportedly had an ‘army’ of paid social media watchers patrolling live comments.22 Even slightly offending remarks about the government or about the patriotic and religious ‘values’ championed by the rulers could spell trouble. On top of all this, known for his rage, Erdoğan would often personally denounce some of his publicly recognised ‘offenders’, including media bosses,23 in spectacular mass rallies complete with ­shroud-­donned supporters ready to die for the cause.24 Those who would still find the valour to engage in exercises of free speech and criticise the government would be terrorised by slayer media and assassin web sites created with the regime change, enjoying

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a nythi ng g oes?  | 235 virtual impunity. The question therefore was: to what extent would it be possible for elections to be free and democratic in a setting where this was more or less the state of the freedom of expression? What about the freedom of assembly and association? Some of the more flagrant violations of the right to peaceful assembly, particularly conspicuous with the Gezi protests of May–June 2013, were charted in Chapter 6. The arguably plausible ‘notification’ of a planned demonstration to the public authority for the purpose of possible measures to be adopted towards public safety and prevention of disorder was in practice (long ­pre-­dating the AKP rule, truth be told) an effective demand for permission or authorisation. Further, the choice of venue for assembly as part of the right was almost invariably denied to the protesters, who, resisting, no matter how peacefully, faced in each and every case ­ill-­treatment. The freedom of association would be either hampered altogether, as would often be the case with the Kurdish political opposition, Alevis, and the collective entities based on ­non-­conventional sexual and gender identities, or, in places where the right would appear to be respected, such independent ­non-­governmental organisations would not infrequently be subjected to harassment via unwarranted, malicious inspections of alleged financial irregularities, as with the secularist charity25 that was pivotal to one of the political cases during the regime change (see Chapter 3) and a host of Gülenist organisations from early 2014. Liberal democracy, resting on the majority rule, simultaneously assumed an intermediary, a public sphere, enabled precisely by these rights for that unadorned majoritarianism to make sense. Clearly, in the absence of a fully functional plane of mediation in society to facilitate public criticisms, discussions and exchange towards empowering possible alternatives to the political rule, the love of the ballot box alone would be little more than mere demagoguery. Jürgen Habermas, who has theorised the life and times of the concept of the public sphere (Öffentlichkeit), argues that from the nineteenth century this sphere gradually became trivial, though paradoxically widening in its remit. That is because, he points out, the main constituents of the public sphere, chiefly the media, were successfully turned into vehicles of trade, with public opinion itself increasingly made a commodity subject. Presently, therefore, he claims rather hyperbolically, the public sphere ‘is a mere scrap of liberal ideology that a social democracy could discard without

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236  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y harm’.26 In the immediate aftermath of the regime change in Turkey, it was this ‘scrap’ that seemed to have practically vanished, leaving in tatters even the ‘formal’ democracy that was locally aspired to. Corruption Allegations The nation woke up on 17 December 2013 to the news of a police r­ ound-­up of suspects in what turned out to be a mammoth corruption probe. Some of the suspects, who could not be taken in custody, were unusually high profile, with no fewer than four cabinet ministers, including the minister of the interior, being implicated. One of them would phone in on a live television news bulletin in the following days to announce his resignation, not only from the post, but also from the parliament. In so doing, he would openly accuse Erdoğan for the irregularities claimed in the criminal charges (a statement to be mysteriously retracted by this former minister about a month later): ‘I have been pressured to take the blame, but I did everything under his knowledge and orders. I’m resigning, and I think so should he.’27 This thunderous opening of one of the most frenzied episodes in the domestic politics, astonishing even by the local standards, would come to be known as only the first wave of a series of corruption and bribery investigations into more than a ­decade-­long rule of the AKP government. The second wave would be initiated on 25 December, with suspects that would include, besides Erdoğan’s own son,28 such illustrious persons as the son of the enigmatic Saudi businessman Yasin ­al-­Qadi, once suspected to be an ­al-­Qaeda benefactor, and the nephew of one of the most iconic of the Islamist ideologues, Sayyid Qutb.29 Yet, something quite extraordinary would happen within hours, as this second wave got under way. Acting quickly, the government would uproot and scatter around across the country thousands of police officers suspected to be disloyal, change the law that guaranteed the secrecy of ­pre-­trial investigations under the sole authority of the prosecutors, and take steps to make the judiciary dependent, as much as possible, on the government. As a result, soon on the same day, the law enforcement body, now controlled almost fully by the government through loyal police chiefs, would refuse to comply with court decisions to bring in more suspects.30 The prosecutor in charge of the second wave would hand out a written statement, of a kind hitherto unheard of, to the media positioned outside the courthouse in Istanbul, putting on

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a nythi ng g oes?  | 237 record for the benefit of the public the apparent defiance of court orders by the police.31 Next, hundreds of public prosecutors and judges not trusted by the government would be transferred from their posts, with those directly involved in the investigations to be eventually debarred from the profession and put on trial for ‘abuse of authority’ on duty.32 Finally, prompt injunctions would be obtained from courts, now friendly, to censor the media on the unfolding details of the blocked investigations.33 Not wholly inaccurately, Erdoğan would define the corruption investigations, furtively conducted and orchestrated, as an attempted coup by the Gülenists within the police and the judiciary.34 The Gülenists, as he would communicate to the nation, were acting as stooges of global centres of power, which essentially sought to contain the new, economically powerful and politically assertive Turkey that was on the rise. He would call on the supporters to tighten the ranks in response and rally behind the government for a tough ‘liberation struggle’ that would be no less life preserving than the one that had been fought by the nation after World War I. A purported coup, and the need for a unified and ­no-­nonsense national campaign to engage it at any cost, would in turn enable the government to practically set aside the whole legal order. Yet, what would happen next would be the real Pandora’s box. As the investigations would be suppressed, the ‘evidence’ formed mostly by intercepted phone conversations would be leaked and posted anonymously online in instalments. Pointing to more and more alleged irregularities, the tapes would give the urban popular opposition, if not the whole public, an idea about the enormity of the purported financial irregularities. A set of the leaked tapes not directly related to those claims would at once reveal the confounding dimensions of the pressure on the mainstream media under the AKP rule. Not ­denied­– ­­unlike the purported evidence on ­corruption­– ­­by any of the parties involved,35 the tapes would depict the systematic censorship of the media to suppress opposition, often executed by none other than Erdoğan himself personally on the phone, as partly recounted in the preceding chapter. In one single incident, a seasoned editor in the mainstream media had been forced to doctor public opinion poll results ahead of elections, in order to manipulate ‘the popular will’ otherwise much treasured by the government.36 The response to the leaks, through incessant legislative rewriting, would be a tighter grip on the web, the main tool of the dissemination of the

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238  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y allegations, and an increase of the legal privileges of the State Intelligence (Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı) operatives, granting them virtual unaccountability before the law. Counteracting this, the revelations and the following government dread would enable the mainstream media to become daring enough to crush, if temporarily, the fear barrier that had rendered the news outlets singularly docile for years.37 The critics would start likening the administration, in desperate and largely impromptu efforts to limit the damage, to a heavy truck with failed breaks, going recklessly downhill. This, arguably, was somewhat too straight a reading of the state of affairs in the immediate aftermath of the corruption revelations. The scandal could plausibly be construed, on the contrary, as a blessing in disguise at a particularly tricky juncture, benefitting on the whole possibly all of the principal forces in domestic politics, also including, quite ironically, the government. With the timeline pulled a few months back within the year, the exploding revelations conceivably eased the enormous since the Gezi protests along much more ­ olitics­– accumulating ­­ pressure in p perilous fault lines than those that could possibly be cracked by the corruption a­ llegations­– ­­by letting some of the steam out. Just as an early and relatively less damaging cardiac arrest, to use another metaphor, the scandal would sort of slow down an administration that was already very much on a downhill course and without brakes. Once the regime change was complete, from 2011, the government would begin conveying a series of alarming messages understood by large sections in society as none other than part of a bid radically to transform the established secular system. The confusion would rapidly increase with some of the government policies following the Gezi protests of May–June 2013, as Erdoğan personally would tactically embrace a more aggressive posture and bolder new initiatives to contain dissent, at least for a while. Recall that one such policy announced in the days before the corruption revelations was as daring as the questioning of the privacy of the home. As related before (Chapter 5), Erdoğan would declare his sudden displeasure at ­off-­campus m ­ ixed-­sex private homes of students in university towns by disclosing a plan to authorise local governors, to be alerted by informants, to have the police raid those accommodations. This, obviously, was barely tenable in a legal system that was technically blind to the gender of the tenants in private homes. Yet it would cause justifiable alarm, combined

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a nythi ng g oes?  | 239 with the fact that a number of public opinion leaders in the ­pro-­government circles had for some time been egging on Erdoğan as the long lost caliph, the leader of all Muslims, for some even ‘the shadow of God on earth’.38 Some public figures had boldly declared their unquestioning Islamic obedience (bay‘ah) to Erdoğan, calling on others to do the same.39 In this highly unnerving and agitated setting, the breakout of the corruption scandal would shortly start functioning as a virtual brake, inhibiting what looked like an increasingly loose cannon of a policy leadership that raised serious questions of survival among the secular masses. The scandal would bring a measure of much needed control on the deliberate agitation by Erdoğan, stalling ­him­– ­­a new policy course to be betrayed in his subsequent claims of an international conspiracy behind the corruption allegations, ostensibly in order to try and save face before the core supporters, while at once putting on the brakes. Fearing the worst, soon the government would promise a fresh s­o-­called ‘democratising’ package,40 though with nothing much to come of it eventually, and would feel the need to renew the commitment to the practically abandoned project of integration with Europe, with Erdoğan meekly visiting Brussels for the first time after four long years.41 With the corruption allegations erupting, all of the actors and stakeholders in domestic politics, including the ruling ­Islamo-­nationalists, had possibly avoided a catastrophe that would have potentially dwarfed in its effects the last actual military takeover of the administration in 1980. One of the two major actors that could readily spawn t­ his­– now ­­ ­averted­ – ­­drastic end to the AKP rule was the new opposition that had emerged rather spontaneously at the Gezi protests (see Chapter 6), embracing and unifying dissent across the political spectrum. This strong fusion that was discernibly novel had appeared rapidly to reconcile with the wider world, advocating ­integration­– a­­ clear departure from the established republican opposition that was still hesitant on what lay open beyond the country, denying international public opinion and policy circles bona fide intentions. In the short stretch before the corruption scandal, the resistance inspired by the Gezi protests appeared to have the potential to grow into unmanageable proportions. With the scandal flaring up in December 2013, the scene would change dramatically: now that the government had turned almost into an object of pity and a laughing stock, this unusual and highly effective ­opposition that

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240  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y had sent Erdoğan on a panic trip earlier in the summer of the same year could calm down. The young urbanites increasingly stirred and ready to take to the streets in new rounds of protests would thus look practically spared of the that would possibly be graver than likely violence that would e­ nsue­– violence ­­ that they had experienced before, in May–June 2013, at the hands of the law enforcement body. Again, had it not been for the corruption scandal, the old republican mindset resilient within the m ­ ilitary­– t­­ he second major actor that could readimaginably resurface, assuming duty; especially ily end the AKP r­ ule­– could ­­ in a context traumatised with escalating protests and attendant upheaval, to be followed, no less significantly, by a possible economic disaster, with the market suddenly to be hit by the political turmoil. The corruption allegations that emerged in December 2013 would seem also to ease this tension. Moreover, as the scandal broke out, the government, seeking apparently to secure the backing of the old guard towards survival, would start feigning innocence and blame the Gülenists for the miscarriages of justice in the set of political investigations and trials from 2007, with numerous members of the military, serving or retired, having been incriminated (see Chapter 3). Arguably, the republican elements within the military would relax considerably in the subsequent spell, just seeing how unsettled the government was with the erupting allegations, to leave it to stew in its own juices. The Gülenists would also plausibly benefit from the scandal. The split with the government was already life threatening for this group prior to the scandal (see Chapter 5). Fast ostracised, they could now seize a chance for fresh space towards some form of moral claim, at a time when the morality of this Islamic cult was strongly questioned. The increasingly blundering policies of the government, which only served to isolate it v­ is-­à-vis international public opinion and ­policy-­makers, had little power to completely destroy the Gülenists. The latter were greatly amorphous, everywhere and nowhere, while the government, by contrast, was a wide open and sensitive target. More importantly perhaps, what followed in the aftermath of the corruption allegations could give some perspective to this complacent little community with a chilling streak of secrecy, surveillance and intrigue, ostensibly in the grip of some prodigious lust for power, and steer them away from the state apparatus. The community could now return to its settled activities in civil

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a nythi ng g oes?  | 241 society, principally education, to which they had owed their energy and influence in the first place. It would look more and more dubious in the ensuing phase, however, that, bent on a compulsive, all-or-nothing confrontation with the government, the Gülenists had at all taken stock. How about the Kurdish political movement, another critical actor? Increasingly looking in the period immediately before the corruption scandal as only played and exploited by the government, the Kurdish nationalists also stood to benefit from it all. Able, almost within a matter of hours, to pull the necessary strings, amending legislation and scattering around thousands of the members of the judiciary and the police, just to suppress the corruption allegations, the government had consistently pleaded powerless (making an excuse of the judiciary), to take steps and end the persistent Kurdish plights, such as the unwell and dying prisoners awaiting release (see Chapter 10), and elected politicians long in captivity for alleged links to the armed wing of the Kurdish political movement, namely the PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê). Kurdish politicians had supported the government, at the cost of alienating the Turkish left wing and democrat sympathisers, during both the Gezi protests and, later, the corruption scandal. This backing had been simply vital for the government. Seeing how crucial this ­taken-­for-granted alliance with the Kurdish political movement was under the circumstances, it was possible that the government would now be more anxious not to lose it and start responding to the Kurdish demands more seriously. Yet, to be consumed with frustration over the enhanced Kurdish role along the border in Syria from 2014, the government would fail to appreciate the Kurdish nationalists as allies in the following period, and alienate the Kurds. The increasingly conspicuous insouciance on the part of the government in the matter of a lasting peace and its ‘­anti-­Kurdish’ policies in Syria would attract to Kurdish politics some of the pious Kurds from the AKP. A clear ­anti-­government position would in turn unite Kurdish politics with the democratic opposition that had emerged at the Gezi protests, enabling the K ­ urdish-­led HDP to achieve the 10 per cent electoral threshold for the first time in June 2015, a success this political party would repeat at the snap polls of November in the same year. Conceivably, the ruling ­Islamo-­nationalists also appeared to benefit from the corruption scandal. The government would come to gain some perspective for survival in the face of (1) the embryonic yet potentially devastating

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242  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Gezi opposition, (2) the increasingly restless military and, no less significant, (3) the global actors that, with Erdoğan behaving as only a little subtler than a bull in a china shop, could have either supported, or turned a blind eye to, a possible military takeover, which, once again, was fast turning into an option, as addressed in the closing section in this chapter. With the corruption scandal detonating in December 2013, they would all largely stop fretting and leave the I­ slamo-­nationalists to decay in their own time. This would arguably render the ruling elite much less injured than they would otherwise have been. Finally, the future of the country would seem to reap benefits from the alleged corruption and bribery revelations. Islamist duplicity and menace in the use of power was already evident. Yet, later to be strongly reinforced with the until then barely seen jihadist carnage in the greater region, the scandal would considerably accelerate this perception, denying Islamism a future in the country. Hamid Dabashi has famously argued that the Iranian Revolution of 1979, a triumph of Islamism ostensibly, inspiring various Islamisms in the greater region, including that in Turkey, paradoxically marked the end of Islamism, a historical force that had been around since the nineteenth century.42 Itself proving to be a formidable and growing problem, rather than a solution to the existing issues, the regime in Iran was able to go on subsequently only as a sort of rentier instrument and a clientelist apparatus supported by brute force, rather than through compelling ideas like those of Ali Shariati, who had won the hearts and minds of even secular Iranians in the 1970s.43 The same seemed to be very much the case in Turkey. As represented by the ruling AKP from early 2011, Islamism was holding up only through the huge network of patronage it had created, and through a feeble formal opposition, rather than enduring ideas. More importantly perhaps, the Islamists had dramatically lost the main asset that they had acquired locally in the last couple of decades, namely an exchange and informal alliance with the secular intellectuals, which had granted the Islamists both some democratic moral authority and a measure of political and intellectual credibility. Financing Politics In one of the set of wiretapped conversations allegedly between Erdoğan and his son on 17 December 2013, when the graft probes started, and the

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a nythi ng g oes?  | 243 day after, Erdoğan would be heard to give instructions to his son to ‘lose’ the cash stashed away in his home and in the homes of a number of other family members. The weightiest ‘revelations’ in the corruption scandal, conversations posted online on 24 February 2014, would soon be replayed by the main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to the deputies in his CHP parliamentary group.44 On a later tape of an alleged recording depicting, again, Erdoğan and the son on the phone, leaked on 26 February, the person claimed to be Erdoğan would sound only a little different from the archetypal mobster after protection money. He would purportedly instruct his son not to take the money offered by one businessman because the sum offered (about $10 million) was less than what had been originally promised. ‘Don’t worry’, the alleged voice of Erdoğan would add, ‘they will fall into our lap.’ Possibly a first, the contents of this second tape would make it into a news report by Reuters.45 According to some independent analysts, the recordings did not appear to have been tampered with.46 Hard as it was to believe, there had been a time in the country when business leaders could utter in public offhand remarks about Erdoğan. On a TV show in August 2001, before the AKP came into power in November of the following year, one of the t­ op-­ranking business leaders in the country would state that politics was a matter of finances first and foremost, referring, rather casually in this context, to the then newly founded AKP. ‘They say’, he would articulate, ‘that Tayyip Bey has a lot of money; apparently his people have been able to put together as much as one billion ­dollars­– ­­who knows how.’47 The allegations of colossal corruption and bribery from December 2013 would seem to offer some pointers in that regard. The alleged evidence, collected by the original prosecutors to be taken off the cases briefly afterwards, and formed mostly by wiretapped phone calls legally sanctioned, indicated two major sources of revenue for the ruling I­ slamo-­nationalists: (1) bid rigging, and (2) money laundering. The latter would receive a lot of emphasis in the media for the sheer vastness of the lumps of money that purportedly changed hands over a rather short time. According to the prosecutors, the government used a state bank and a shady businessman with Iranian and Azeri origins for a g­ as-­for-gold scheme, bypassing the then in force economic sanctions against Iran.48 The transaction lasted over a period of time, from which some cabinet members and the executive of a state lender were claimed

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244  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y to have benefited immensely. Arguably more important, however, would be the first source, namely the alleged practice of public tenders rigging. Some of the observers, chiefly the few liberal intellectuals that remained loyal to the former broad coalition against the old order, going on to support Erdoğan through thick and thin also after 2011, would dismiss the corruption claims for being far from purely ‘legal’, motivated instead, as they would maintain, by an ­anti-­democratic drive from within the bureaucracy against the elected government, seeking an imminent overthrow. They would argue that, although the government may have messed things up in the last few years, with some substance to the allegations, the fact remained that the government was a democratic force that could always be voted out of the administration, whereas the Gülenists in the bureaucracy, ostensibly behind the corruption probes in the judiciary, were scarcely accountable in the same way. This argument would often liken the Gülenists in the state apparatus to the republican bureaucracy of the old order. Yet these liberal apologists of the government that appeared to treat the ballot box as an ultimate security valve looked rather oblivious to the state of the basic rights in the country to secure free and democratic elections, detailed earlier in this chapter. Just how free and reliable could the elections be in some such setting? Could the opposition possibly compete with, and people readily vote down, the political rule? Under the circumstances, on the contrary, assuming a democratic authority based on elections, when elections were barely democratic and free, could well be viewed just as sinister a threat to democracy, if not more, as those ‘unaccountable’ yet wayward elements within the bureaucracy. As the unfolding events would show, those unruly strands of the bureaucracy could indeed be purged by the government rather easily and within only days, in clear testimony to the menacing authority of the political rule in a system that cared little about the rule of law. More significant still, this ‘argument from democracy’ on the part of government apologists would conspicuously evade the issue of the finance of politics that broke out with the alleged corruption revelations. In addition to consistent violations of rights that had for some time hindered free and democratic elections, this issue made the democratic credentials of the government doubly problematic. If true, it seemed to be rather unrealistic for the democratic opposition to have the chance to topple at the ballot box

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a nythi ng g oes?  | 245 a political rule that had access to vast financial resources formed by routine financial irregularities, ostensibly the source of the handouts to the voters in election times as well as that of a relentless ­pro-­government media on the offensive. The alleged finance of politics by the ruling ­Islamo-­nationalists appeared effectively to render the ballot box only a sham of an authentic and fair venue of competition between political parties. That is, the allegations from December 2013 were possibly a delayed response to the question asked by the business tycoon above back in 2001, namely the enigma around the finance of the ruling party from its inception, which went possibly as far back as 1994, when Erdoğan had been elected the mayor of Istanbul. The dubious practice under the AKP rule in public tenders, if not its extent, was long known, addressed and hinted at in the public opinion, if nothing else, from the sheer number of times the law on public tenders and procurement had been amended by the ruling party, as noted before (see Chapter 5). The wiretapped conversations apparently from the files of the prosecution, to be posted online anonymously from early 2014, would only reveal the extent of the practice. The leaked tapes would indicate that the kickbacks purportedly acquired from the contractors had been a routine deal for years, and that the major state lenders had been supplying the government contractors with cheap and generous credits so that they could promptly contribute to the infamous ‘pool’ (see Chapter 7) when requested by the government, and without delay. According to some observers, an integral part of this practice in the allocation of public tenders was an Islamic legal opinion, a fatwa, issued by an Islamic legal scholar known to be close to Erdoğan,49 whose ideas on democracy ruled by Muslims were recounted earlier in some detail (Chapter 5). The fatwa reportedly enabled some ­non-­governmental entities close to the government, chiefly one charity organisation led by Erdoğan’s son, as claimed by Kılıçdaroğlu, to receive contributions from public contractors. Several impassioned responses to the assertion by this Islamic scholar would, if somewhat indirectly, simply affirm it. He would avow that he had indeed been asked to give an opinion in the matter, and yet what he had provided in response was nothing more than the following: if the contractors after public tenders, ‘encouraged and directed to do good’ by the government, would not normally have made the contribution in question, and would be doing it only

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246  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y because they were demanded to, or because they thought that they would no longer get public tenders unless they did it, then the contractors could not ‘spiritually benefit’ from the good deed of donation; notably, however, this would not be a problem, he would add, for those n ­ on-­governmental entities alleged in the revelations to have received the donation, because they would have no knowledge that the donation had been made under pressure.50 What exactly did this Islamic legal opinion really say, even in its presumably cleansed version communicated by its very author, with some emphasis on the public good? Quite apart from the tricky issue of defining ‘pressure’ here (since there would be no ­arm-­twisting to speak of, as the benefactor/contractor, in effect making profit rather than losing money, would be only too happy to make the contribution); interestingly, the fatwa tended to whitewash the contributions extended even under pressure. Another Islamic scholar, with a long past in local ­Islamo-­nationalist politics and once rather close to Erdoğan, although later departing, would join the debate and note: The ‘pool system’ that has come out and become publicly known lately is the means in Turkey behind both the financing of politics and the support of specific communities [cemaat] and groups close to the ruling power for about twenty years now.51

The statement was deliberately vague, attributing the practice to Turkish politics generally, as opposed to a specific tradition in it, yet clear enough for those who could read between the lines: (1) the term cemaat used in the statement referred to Islamic communities, thus plainly assuming ­Islamo-­nationalist politics as the specific strand, which formed the context of the ­so-­called pool system, and (2) the time period of the last twenty years specified in the statement took its start from a milestone development in ­Islamo-­nationalist politics in 1994, when Erdoğan became the mayor of Istanbul. This statement by a leading Islamic scholar would raise next to no question of authenticity when it came out, as its owner was known to have been a formal aide to Erdoğan when the latter was the mayor. Not surprisingly, therefore, this specific description of the pool system would subsequently be pointed out as ‘first hand information rather than an assumption’.52 That is, the system of kickbacks pivotal to the corruption claims

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a nythi ng g oes?  | 247 would appear to have allegedly been ‘invented’ by Erdoğan in 1994, and his soaring rise in politics since, often noted as an outstanding achievement, was to do not only with his political genius and persuasive oratory. The purported practice was an appalling compromise of clean politics by introducing into it blatantly ­anti-­competitive exercises, let alone the host of legal and moral issues that the whole thing entailed. Military The reckless I­ slamo-­nationalist sectarianism that came rather quickly to define the political power once the regime change was complete from 2011, and the following restlessness in wider society, would inevitably prompt the question of whether or not the military would resort to old tools of ‘adjustment’ in civilian politics, coupled especially with an economic downslide that seemed increasingly to be threatening. Bluntly put, was a military coup out of the question? The answer to this query would probably have been negative on the part of most observers until the second half of 2013: a military takeover no longer looked to be an option. This was the overall vista, not only because the country was now, compared especially to the period of the last ‘outright’ coup in 1980, considerably more integrated with the wider world in untold ­forms­– ­­a possible disruption in civilian politics thus likely to lead to truly catastrophic consequences, turning some such attempt into nothing but a suicide mission by the m ­ ilitary­– ­­but also because the democratic alliance spearheaded by the ruling AKP until late 2010 overthrew the old bureaucratic order by notably befriending, and relying on, the globalising forces that prevailed in international policy circles. The fierce political opposition against the AKP, especially the ­neo-­nationalist (ulusalcı) fringe, had become ­anti-­Europe, ­anti-­US, ­anti-­NATO, and ­anti-­Semitic during the regime change not without a reason. The reforms achieved domestically, successfully translated into a trendy global discourse for the world public opinion by the liberal intellectuals almost unconditionally supportive of the government, could hardly have come about without the strong and crucial international backing at various levels. The most significant deterrent taking a somewhat daring military off the cards as an option, in other words, was neither the new political climate brought about by the political trials in the country from m ­ id-­2007 (see Chapter 3), nor the largely symbolic a­ mendment in the Law of Active Duty (İç Hizmet Yasası) of

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248  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y the Turkish Armed Forces, which the military had formally used in the past to justify disruptions in civilian politics.53 The latter, which took place not before July 2013, was little more than a token ‘democratising’ act in the immediate aftermath of the Gezi protests, in response to the growing disenchantment of the liberal public opinion leaders, who had originally made the democratic control of the armed forces a priority in extending intellectual patronage to the government. The amendment formally ended the purported justification for coups in the law regulating the internal service of the military, which had made it part of the overall duty of the armed forces ‘to protect and watch over the land’. The rewriting removed the notorious phrase and limited the duty of the armed forces with ‘the threats and risks from out of the country’. Yet, it was clear already in 2007 that neither the extensive trials against the members of the armed forces nor the later revision in the law of the military was the real deterrent against a possible and sudden military takeover. On 27 April of that year, with the old order fully in place, a coup had seemed rather imminent, following a clear threat issued on the official website of the Office of the Chief of Staff.54 An amendment in the normative framework in order to block a possible adventure by the military was not something even contemplated by the government at the time. Nor were there formal criminal charges against its members to intimidate the military. Still, the coup boldly threatened would never come, despite the clear defiance of that military memo by the g­ overnment­– urged, ­­ once again, by its liberal supporters at the cost of considerable personal risk not to bow down under pressure, and braced instantly in this act of defiance with a multitude of global forces extending encouragement.55 What had happened since? How did a military coup once again become an option from the second half of 2013? Primarily, what happened in the interim was the increasing contempt rather blatantly displayed by the government from early 2011, largely through statements by Erdoğan, for the lifestyles and preferences of the secular, urban masses. The shift in discourse had followed the ultimate blow to the old regime through a heated referendum in September 2010. Seeking to ­re-­regulate the system of high courts, advocated and aided by the liberal supporters as a step forward in the process of democratisation, the referendum had became a momentous victory for the government.56 The endorsement by sections in the secular intelligentsia of

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a nythi ng g oes?  | 249 the government initiative had helped to defeat the sole remaining bastion of the old regime (see Chapter 1). The liberal promotion of the constitutional amendments put to the vote, memorably as reflected in the slogan during the referendum campaign ‘Not enough, but yes (Yetmez ama evet)’, would be interpreted by the popular republican opposition as the naive liberal complicity (if not a case of plain s­ell-­out for material gains) in the forthcoming despotism. The amendments were arguably a step forward though, regardless of how the government would use this historic step subsequently, freeing politics once and for all from the yoke of the bureaucracy. A necessary course of action towards the long awaited ‘normalisation’ of politics, the move would enable genuine political struggle for the first time in the recent history of the country, to be uninterrupted by a vicious, partisan bureaucracy that implicitly relied on a radical distinction between the ‘state’, in charge of lasting policy lines, and the ‘government’ greatly emaciated in relation to the main policy areas. ‘Genuine political struggle’ seemed indeed to be a key notion towards justifying the shift advocated by the liberals; with hindsight, a good part of the reason for the subsequent excesses of the political rule once the regime change was complete would be the almost total lack of dexterity and finesse for ordinary democratic contest on the part of the main opposition. Having felt no need to acquire those skills in the past, as noted before, the republican opposition would simply be unable to steal votes from the ruling party in the immediate phase following the old order. This formed a big contrast with the ­Islamo-­nationalist and Kurdish strands in domestic politics, respectively, which, long shunned by the bureaucracy, had had to resort for decades to painstaking grassroots politics to survive. The main opposition had yet to adjust to genuine political competition. Even after the second half of 2013, with an authoritarian regime in full swing, the ruling ­Islamo-­nationalists would still ‘sound’ somewhat more progressive and democratic in places than the republican opposition, in relation to such issues as Kurdish rights and free speech on assessments of the political history, as in the case of the systematic annihilation of Ottoman Armenians during World War I. In other words, the republican opposition appeared to be rather rough and unrefined compared to the ruling AKP, despite the growing authoritarianism of the latter, and it had yet to adapt itself to mundane democratic politicking.

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250  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y This applied not only to the main republican opposition, the CHP, but also to the ­self-­styled ‘socialists’. The socialists went on to generally understand political struggle as little more than a form of psychological relief for the benefit of those who were already in the same camp. These apparently much ‘needed’ gestures towards mere ‘reassurance’ of the ­like-­minded used an old, bitter and inflexible discourse in d ­ ay-­to-day politics, as opposed to seeking realistically to defeat the ­Islamo-­nationalists at the ballot box through labour intensive grassroots work and patience. The unusual wit and skill displayed by the Gezi activists (see Chapter 6), presenting a convincing blend of wide solidarity, fury and humour in response to the contempt increasingly displayed by the government towards secular lifestyles, was yet to be adopted by the settled opposition. A new and promising way of doing politics, the protests would also rekindle the old ties of the urban masses with Europe and North America, still held at an arm’s length by the old guard republicans and socialists as sinister meddlers. Genuine political struggle to replace the former bureaucratic system of balances against the excesses of the political rule was possibly emerging. The lasting effect of the Gezi protests, later only to be reinforced by the crippling corruption allegations on one side and the debilitating incompetence in regional foreign policy on the other, would be the growing s­ elf-­confidence among the secular urbanites in politics. The restlessness behind the protests would calm down from December 2013 in testament arguably only to this ­self-­confidence, with the dissidents starting to perceive the government, especially after the corruption and bribery claims against it and its sudden isolation in the international community, as much less of a threat for lifestyles in the long run. It should perhaps be added that the overall picture of this ­self-­assurance included, besides formal politics, the grave likelihood that millions could once again and readily take to the streets, as in Egypt in June and July 2013, and refuse to go back home if the government went on behaving in reckless disregard of the secular urbanites. The restlessness possibly resurfacing in some such form, this time plausibly with a vengeance, could indeed render the military much more audacious. The main deterrent that kept away a possible military takeover in April 2007, as related above, would no longer be in the way. Increasingly alone internationally, the government appeared from early 2014 to have little trust of the wider world. It seemed no longer

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a nythi ng g oes?  | 251 inconceivable therefore that that the military acting somewhat daringly could receive a helping hand, or at least a generous ‘understanding’, from various global ­actors­– ­­vital for the success of the act. As for the collective domestic perception against the involvement of the military in politics that had developed rapidly during the regime change, greatly shaped by the liberal intellectuals supportive of the government, this newly found awareness could prove to be s­ hort-­lived for a threefold reason. First, the overuse of the word ‘coup’ by the government from the second half of 2013 in labelling all forms of dissent, including the corruption allegations, came close to emptying the word of its whole content, gradually turning it into an object of ridicule in large sections of society. Second, the collective democratic perception on the role of the military in favour of civilian politics had formed only recently and in a rather brief spell. It could just as quickly fade away. Justifying a military coup could become increasingly easier than defending the mostly vacuous love of the ballot box of a government not only brazenly oblivious to the basic rights and freedoms but also devoid of international credibility. Finally, prosecuted from m ­ id-­2007 for alleged deeds towards a possible takeover of the administration, the members of the military, serving or retired, standing as suspects in a set of widely debated trials, would come to be vindicated by none other than the government itself from early 2014, ostensibly as dictated by its new strategy in the war against the Gülenists. In the following period, the military would clearly regain part of its old, bolder ways, as in its defiance of the government in two key policy areas after the June 2015 election, when, notably, the AKP had lost the parliamentary majority. Reportedly, the military refused to confront the civilians in urban settings during the resurgent Kurdish unrest, now in cities rather than the countryside, and, on the second issue, asked the government to secure some prior international legal legitimacy for a possible military deployment in ­war-­torn Syria.57 The army would only give in after the snap polls in November, with the AKP having reacquired the parliamentary majority, and begin confronting the Kurdish insurgents in town centres. That is, nothing much appeared to be in the way to intimidate or deter the military if and when the conditions would be ‘ripe’ for a more assertive posture; namely, if and when a G ­ ezi-­like chain of protests would break out, soon to be accompanied by an inevitably drastic impact on the economy. The Gülenists strongly suspected to have some presence in

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252  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y the military, left intact unlike those in the judiciary and in the law enforcement system, could be expected to play a part in stepping up, if not wholly bringing about, some such end. The result, if this happened, would be the transformation of a successful democratic ‘shift’ into a downright blunder of tragic proportions, setting the political normalisation in the country back for years to come. The failed coup of 15 July 2016, which took place as this book was about to go to press, would sharply drain the Gülenist cabal within the army. That the cult, with ‘closet’ followers meticulously placed in the ranks of the military over decades, could orchestrate or facilitate a coup, as predicted above, was no surprise. The surprise was a bloody coup ostensibly engineered by a community often promoted for its purportedly peaceful leanings. With some spectacularly miscalculated moves immediately in public view, the putschists seemed to have relied on an originally larger, yet ultimately abortive, alliance within the armed forces, or were simply after chaos (possibly through a crippling civil war), even ‘revenge’ perhaps, rather than a takeover. The devotees had long been targeted via a gradually widening sweep in the state apparatus, with the exception of the military, and in business. The putsch would occur, apparently by impulse, only a day or so prior to a rumoured round-up of the adherents, this time in the military. The attempted coup would find next to no civilian support, not only because it looked doomed from the start, but also because of the little-trusted cult generally suspected to be behind it. All four of the political parties in the parliament would extend prompt and unequivocal support to the government. The social media, usually treated as a ‘menace’ by the government, would help to coordinate the civilian responses against the coup. More decisively, Erdoğan would choose to go beyond his support base and appeal to the general public for resistance. With the putsch under way, he would make his first appearance, using a smartphone application, no less, on a mildly oppositional, mainstream television outlet. Ironically, those affiliated with this media group, regularly bashed by Erdoğan over the years, could not up until then go near him, even for routine professional activities. On the positive side, the attempted coup would issue a reminder far more indelibly than ever before: despite the overall mess the country was in politically, getting out of it with patience and democratically would not only be highly rewarding for society, but would also be the only way forward.

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9 PEACE AT HOME

P

eace at home, peace in the world.’ The republican peace as communicated in this policy motto introduced by Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, meant in effect little more than a mere suppression of issues at home, dragooning ‘peace’ into society in the form of a limited concept of order and calm through the muffling of dissent and division at any cost. Yet it was highly dubious that peace even in this restricted, minimal sense ever became pervasive. Burying sight and perception in the sand, as with the proverbial ostrich, hardly made a host of burning questions disappear, no matter how dogged the administration was, especially in the early period in the 1930s, in its apparent policy of a clean slate that sought to initiate a ‘new’ nation distanced from its variegated past. A competitive ­multi-­party political system launched in the second half of the 1940s, as the country prepared to anchor in Europe towards both political integration (the Council of Europe) and collective defence (NATO) following World War II, would serve to counteract the republican policy of strictly inhibiting religious fervour in politics. Some of the pious and practising Muslims, ignored and subdued for decades yet eager to use likely outlets to survive and surface, would present a unified front in domestic politics from the late ­1960s­– ­­as ­Islamo-­nationalism (Millî Görüş). The movement would be increasingly instructed in the following period by the ­anti-­colonial Islamist ideologies of Asia and the Middle East. Making significant inroads

‘

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254  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y first in local administrations in the 1990s, the ­Islamo-­nationalist politics would dominate the political scene from 2002 by skilfully using the blunders of mainstream political agents in the management of wealth, coupled, no less significantly, with an apparent drive at the grassroots level towards reconciliation within the nation and with the wider world through a promise of improved democracy for all, understood as key to peace and prosperity. The secular urbanites, long the clients of the republican bureaucracy in urging a fettered democracy that ignored the pious Muslims, would find themselves suddenly alienated from the patronage of the state, feeling politically destitute and threatened in the wake of the old regime from 2011. The Alevis, members of a large heterogeneous faith community that had been around for about five centuries, had been ignored by the republican rule to an even greater extent, and more systematically, than the way pious Muslim (Sunni) sensibilities had been snubbed. The official ideology had de facto adopted a P ­ rotestant-­like Sunni identity cleansed of its assertive tones in the public domain, taking no notice of Alevism. Facing exceptionally brutal treatment through a policy of homogenisation that was close to wilful annihilation, especially in the 1930s, when the bureaucracy made an excuse of the alleged feudal recalcitrance in the Alevi stronghold of Dersim (Tunceli) in the east for a comprehensive onslaught, Alevism would subsequently survive in politics only by oscillating between radical ­left-­wing movements and, paradoxically, the bureaucratic ­clientelism­– the ­­ latter choice as part of a reflex of ­self-­preservation in the face of a hostile Sunni majority shunned to an even more considerable extent by the bureaucracy in the later period. The 1990s would witness a public resurfacing of the Alevi identity, empowered through mushrooming civil society organisations that would become more and more vocal against discriminatory excesses of the public authority and against some of the rather lethal Sunni prejudices in society, demanding full recognition. The ethnic group in the country persistently defiant throughout the republican era, to turn into a vague current under l­eft-­wing political activism from the 1960s, Kurds had been forced into effective oblivion in a sweeping new concept of national identity. As noted before (Chapter 1), this concept drew greatly on the old Ottoman millet system, lumping together all ‘Muslim’ ethnicities in a single cast, now ­re-­named ‘Turkish’. A gradual acknowledgement of Kurdish identity would come about, again, in the 1990s

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peace at home  | 255 through two basic factors: the latest Kurdish insurgence from the 1980s that sought concessions through armed struggle, and the sudden rise in the profile of Kurds in the broader region with the Gulf War. Following the heavy toll of casualties in the d ­ ecades-­long warfare with the guerrillas, which would seem to go nowhere, and which would cause growing restlessness in the wider society, especially with the increase in public knowledge of the disturbing details of the response to the insurgency by the armed forces, the government would start talks directly with the leadership of the guerrillas, to be publicly confirmed in late 2012. This ­so-­called ‘settlement process’ (çözüm süreci), stamped with an ambivalence that was glaringly obvious in the naming of it, would secure a relative calm in the mostly ­Kurdish-­populated ­south-­east of the country, preventing appalling despatches of body bags from the region, with an overall positive impact for the government on electoral behaviour. Yet, the lingering indecision on the part of the government in the subsequent period would make a permanent settlement in the matter look as thorny as ever, despite a series of renewed commitments by the parties in dialogue, the latest in February 2015,1 soon to be aborted in the spell leading up to the general election of June in the same year (see Chapter 1). If one reason for the government irresolution in the matter, leading to a virtual standstill, notwithstanding the repeated pledges to the contrary, was formed by the ubiquitous a­ nti-­Kurd sentiments enduring in the opposition generally, another was the ceaseless politicking by the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) not to lose the relatively moderate Turkish nationalist support that could be compromised in a realistically brokered peace deal. Worse, while purportedly in talks, the government would at once look to be actively undermining the whole process by turning a deaf ear to some of the most innocuous expectations of the rule of law by the Kurdish political movement, jailing elected politicians for terrorism on rather flimsy pieces of evidence, and stifling legal probes into the clandestine ­anti-­Kurdish operations of the security forces. The most memorable of these breaches of the basic rule of law, causing considerable outrage, would be the massacre of  thirty-­four civilian Kurds, mostly teenagers, in an air strike in the last days of 2011, which would come to be known as the Roboskî incident. That was not all. With the onset of the civil war in neighbouring Syria, and the government in plain support of some of the rebel factions across

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256  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y the border, the settlement process would hit against the Kurdish concerns over the fate of the small Kurdish presence in northern Syria, now ruled by Kurdish nationalists effectively as part of one single bloc with the Kurdish political movement in Turkey. The siege of Kurdish Kobanê in the second half of 2014 by the savagely jihadist Islamic State (formerly Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/the Levant), purportedly backed or otherwise given a free hand by the Turkish government, would not only practically end the already fragile peace process at home, but also prompt a whole new issue, namely the alleged criminal activities of the government in the greater region, hinted at in international media and domestically, chiefly through the revelations about the range of military aid by Turkey to the rebel groups in Syria. The discussion here suggests that the government position against the Kurds in Syria was motivated possibly more by an ‘Islamist’ anxiety not to lose contact with the Islamists of the Middle East to be interrupted by a secular Kurdish presence in northern Syria than the ­age-­old Turkish nationalism. Finally, the peace at home also included the accommodation of the rising demands towards recognition of the systematic destruction of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey from 1915. A striving for reconciliation with the past in this regard would receive a historic push from 2007. The somewhat labyrinthine and largely suppressed investigation into the assassination of the ­Turkish-­Armenian intellectual Hrant Dink, a figure immensely loved in ­pro-­democracy circles, would usher in an era of heightened awareness in the matter. The campaign for some form of transitional justice towards acknowledging the ghastly extermination of the Armenians would gather further momentum with the centenary of the events of 1915 approaching. This chapter provides an account of these issues at home, looking in separate sections into (1) the zealous protection of the s­o-­called religious values to inhibit and intimidate secular exercises in free speech, (2) the state of the Alevi rights, (3) the baffling mysteries of the Dink assassination, (4) the Roboskî massacre, and finally (5) the question of international crimes purportedly attributable to the government, as claimed in opposition circles immediately with the dawning in public opinion of the scope of the government involvement in the Syrian civil war.

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peace at home  | 257 Protecting Religious Values Islam soaked up doctrines and rites from all the subterranean cults of the Arabian peninsula and bits of nonsense from all kinds of sick reason. Muslim faith was fated to become as sick, base, and vulgar as the sick, base, and vulgar needs it catered to.

It would probably be safe to assume that the author of this passage would ‘make the day’ for the local judiciary in its freshly acquired zeal towards protecting religious values in the early phase after the regime change from 2011, which saw fit a sentence of thirteen months and fifteen days of imprisonment for the words of Sevan Nişanyan, a bold cultural critic, about the Muslim prophet, portraying him as ‘the Arab leader . . . [who] claimed to have established contact with God . . . to obtain political, financial and sexual favours.’2 The passage at the outset belongs to Nietzsche, in a famous treatise drafted in 1888 and published for the first time in 1895. Yet the original words are not about Islam in the European setting, which would be less remarkable, but about Christianity. The original of the passage from his The Anti-Christ is as follows: Christianity soaked up doctrines and rites from all the subterranean cults of the imperium Romanum and bits of nonsense from all kinds of sick reason. Christianity’s faith was fated to become as sick, base, and vulgar as the sick, base, and vulgar needs it catered to.3

As is well known, Nietzsche not only displays an unusually deep contempt in the book for Christianity and all things Christian, but the text is also full of colourful invectives against the faith, aptly described in the subtitle: ‘A Curse on Christianity.’ The book had long been available in Turkish with the title Deccal (ad-Dajjal), the name for the Muslim eschatological figure that was believed to rise and terrorise the earth at the end of time, only to be subdued by the Mahdi/Messiah in league with the returned Jesus. More interestingly, the book was highly regarded by the local Islamist intellectuals,4 for Nietzsche famously privileges Islam and Muslims in the book precisely for reasons Nişanyan found the Muslim Prophet somewhat suspect: the Muslim faith, that of the a­ ge-­old Orientalist phantasies to be more exact, is worldly, affirming, rather than negating life.

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258  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y The ruling about Nişanyan had come immediately after ­ten-­months’ imprisonment accorded by a local court to Fazıl Say, a famous pianist and composer, for social media messages he had shared with his followers a year before.5 The prosecution had claimed that the defendant had ‘publicly insult[ed] religious values adopted by a sector of society’. The phrase came right out of the Penal Code, seeking on the surface to punish a specific variety of hate speech.6 As characteristic of the old, yet still largely intact, republican normative order, Turkey did not have a blasphemy law comparable to those long standing in the majority of the European legal systems. So what exactly was particularly venomous, inciting hatred, in the musician’s social media messages? It all had started with a message on the m ­ icro-­blogging site Twitter in which Say had been jocularly critical of the musical tempo of an evening’s call to prayer (ezan) that had come from a nearby mosque. He had thought that the call had been recited simply too fast (prestissimo con fuoco was the musical term he actually used), thus stating, in a provocative turn of phrase that ostensibly offended some: what was the reciter (müezzin) rushing to really, wrapping it all up so quickly­– ­‘to a lover, a booze (rakı) session?’ References to ‘debauchery’ and the consuming of alcohol in this setting would not go down well with most pious Muslims. So there were angry responses in numerous tweet messages. In answering those, Say went on to explain the musical rules traditionally applicable to the Muslim call to prayer, which, he said, had been his only concern. There were also many support messages. Say shared or ‘retweeted’ one of those, as would scores of others in turn, which communicated a fragment of poetry attributed to the eleventh–­ twelfth-­century Persian poet Omar Khayyam. Alluding to the ­well-­known Qur’anic descriptions of the otherworldly paradise, this piece of poetry went: ‘You say that wine will flow through its rivers, is the high paradise a public house? You say that you will make each believer a gift of two young women [houri], is the high paradise a whorehouse?’ The case against Say would come to be known in domestic public opinion largely as about these lines from Khayyam. Yet there had been another message by Say, which had included the comment: ‘I wonder if you’ve noticed, wherever you see a jerk, trashy, facile person, a thief, clown, all are ­God-­­mongers­– ­­is this a paradox?’ The court relied more on this apparently than the Khayyam poem in its ruling, deciding that the ‘­God-­mongers’ (Allahçı) comment was in violation of the

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peace at home  | 259 stipulation in the Penal Code referred to above. This provision read: ‘The person who publicly insults religious values adopted by a sector of society is punishable with a prison sentence of six months to one year if the [offending] act is the kind that may disrupt public peace.’ It was dubious, to say the least, that the act in question caused a noteworthy disruption in public peace, as pointed out during the trial by Say’s lawyers, let alone the puzzling detail that the defendant, an outspoken public critic of the government, was the only one prosecuted among the countless number of people who had readily shared and endorsed the messages in question. More significant still, the specific comments by the defendant might indeed have been ‘offensive’ in some sense, causing outrage. Yet, as had been repeatedly indicated by the European Court of Human Rights in construing the freedom of expression,7 ideas that might ‘shock and offend’ also received protection under the right as understood within the European regime of human rights, binding locally (see Chapter 5). Ironically, the court that had Say on trial would go on and cite this markedly restrictive interpretation of the possible limitations to the right by the European Court, adding, however, that the protection thus accorded could not possibly extend to what were outright ‘insults’. Unlike Say, a frank republican in political disposition, Nişanyan had been a fierce critic of the old republican order in passionate support of the reigning AKP, until at least 2011, when the old regime vanished. Yet, Nişanyan was also Armenian by ethnic origin. Another Turkish Armenian, Dink, had been killed in 2007 for much less allegedly ‘offensive’ remarks, again, following a court sentence, as detailed below in this chapter. For Nişanyan’s own safety, even if unwittingly so, the judiciary would look rather determined in the following period to try and keep him in jail as long as possible, using rather ingenuously, in addition to the clause above, also a stipulation in the Penal Code that, of all punitive reasons, punished ‘unauthorised construction’. The section had probably never been used before, in a country where even public buildings kept breaching the law by constructing additions to existing structures, or by being in technical disregard of some of the niceties in building regulations. In the specific case, Nişanyan had ­single-­handedly transformed an old Greek village in western Turkey, Şirince, into a pearl of the country’s cherished tourist sector through a meticulous restoration of the old ­buildings­– ­­an undertaking not only commonly praised, but also known to be

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260  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y simply unmatched in its ambition, scope and loyalty to fine details. Nişanyan had also happened to build on his land in the village a ­sixty-­square-metre, one room stone cottage indistinguishable from the rest by style. That was the breach that would be used by the judiciary to make his ordeal worse. The judiciary would continue showering on Nişanyan, now in jail, further criminal charges not distinguishable in essence from those for which he had already been convicted.8 About a year after this case, in May 2014, a court would sentence a Twitter user to fifteen months’ imprisonment for using the nickname ‘Allah’ (God).9 As with the earlier cases, the same provision in the Penal Code would form the basis of the ruling, namely ‘publicly insult[ing] religious values adopted by a sector of society’. Surprisingly for offences within the same punishment range, the court would refuse to show any leniency towards the defendant. On the contrary, the punishment would be increased over its statutory limit of twelve months for the allegedly repeated and remorseless nature of the offence. Further, the court would decide not to let the defendant benefit from the ­so-­called ‘deferment in the enunciation of the ruling’, a formal instrument that practically suspended sentences of up to two years of imprisonment for ­first-­time offenders, in return for a form of ‘controlled liberty’­– ­put to use for Say in the case a year before, although to be rejected ­ orld-­renowned pianist a stretch by him,10 if not for Nişanyan, to save the w in prison while pursuing a busy schedule touring the globe for his frequent and ­high-­profile concerts. On top of all this, the defendant convicted in the latest case for the nickname ‘Allah’, a teacher and a state employee, would lose his job once the verdict was finalised. In another incident involving the Muslim name for deity, the government watchdog that monitored radio and television nationwide (Radyo Televizyon Üst Kurulu) would warn a television channel in February 2015 for dubbing the word ‘God’ in a French show with the neutral ‘Tanrı’ rather than ‘Allah’, stating: ‘close to the whole of Turkish nation is formed by Muslims.’11 Quite apart from the fact that Tanrı was a word used also in traditional Islamic texts, most memorably in the Sufi poetry of Yunus Emre, this public body would seem to be curiously dismissive of the problem of dubbing God with ‘Allah’ in a French setting, which sounded incongruous, even funny. Earlier, in 2012, the same regulatory organ had fined a television outlet for a scene in the cartoon show The Simpsons for

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peace at home  | 261 debating and doubting the existence of God.12 A rather similar effort on the part of the State Scientific and Technological Research Institute (Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu, TÜBİTAK) would be reported in November 2015.13 This academic body that had some of the best minds in the country had recalled from bookstores its own publications deemed not wholly ‘consistent’ with ‘native values’. The books thus censored included children’s books published by TÜBİTAK in the past, found ‘objectionable’ apparently for the ‘cosmopolitanism’ communicated to children in those books, which played down the role of the local religious and cultural sentiments and promoted a humanist universalism.14 Unlike what it stated literally, namely that it punished forms of hate speech targeting any of the various faiths in society, the criminal norm at issue appeared to operate in practice as a plain a­ nti-­blasphemy ­tool­– regardless, ­­ in so doing, of whether or not an ‘insult’ had been intended in the first place, let alone the indifference on the part of the judiciary towards an assessment of possible threat to ‘the public peace’ in the specific case, as formally demanded in the clause. More remarkably perhaps, this tool barely seemed to offer protection to all in society that would be even remotely comparable to the watchful zeal in the cases outlined here, ‘guarding’ Muslims. Nor did it form a constraint against genuine hate speech directed at the pious of other faiths, in a country where flagrant ­anti-­Semitism in particular was on newspaper front pages almost on a daily basis. Far from it, the very officialdom could often be observed to display gross manifestations of a unique phobia related to minority faiths. For an idea, a news report in the media on the same day as that of the court ruling on the nickname ‘Allah’ would reveal that the Internet connection used on computers in the country’s parliament was censoring for the users the website of a Protestant church in Diyarbakır, allegedly for being ‘pornographic’.15 Alevi Rights ‘We are part of the reality in this country. You just can’t ignore us!’ The words were shouted to the buzz of an agitated crowd by more than one speaker in a ­large-­scale public rally organised by Alevi ­non-­governmental bodies in Istanbul in November 2013, with hundreds of thousands of Alevis participating in solidarity, and demanding ‘equal citizenship and freedom of faith’,

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262  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y against, as they put it, continuing ‘denialism’ and ‘assimilation’.16 The plight of the Alevis, a minority of 10 to 20 per cent of the overall population,17 was little noticed in domestic public opinion before the 1990s, when, for the first time, the administration was forced democratically to face a number of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities officially ignored and suppressed in the country for the last seventy or so years. There had been a multitude of factors to bring about this transformation in the case of the Alevis, such as a ­heart-­wrenching pogrom of Alevi intellectuals in Sivas in 1993, the escalating Kurdish insurgence and the rising Islamism, among others. Although the struggle for recognition on the part of the Kurds had by no means been easy, with a dirty war long being fought in the ­Kurdish-­populated regions, the Alevis seemed to experience added handicaps on the way to full recognition. They were not only partly Kurdish, but they also formed a radically heterogeneous Muslim sect, practised until the republican era by people who mostly inhabited outlying and almost inaccessible corners of the land since the late fifteenth century, when Alevism emerged as a sect in Asia Minor, to be identified by the Ottoman administration as a fifth column in a misplaced alliance with the Twelver Imam Shiism of neighbouring Persia, ruled, again, by a Turkic clan, namely the Safavids. Although some trace the origins of Alevism further back, to the teachings of the t­ hirteenth-­century mystic Hacı ­Bektaş-­ı Velî, the local Sunni–Alevi split along an essentially political divide appeared to have occurred roughly in the early sixteenth century. The schism would subsequently transform Ottoman Turkey into a r­e-­emergent Sunni power and Persia into a Shii state. Gone practically underground following a phase of slaughter under the Ottoman rule, the Alevis would become increasingly isolated and cease in turn to have much in common either with the Ja‘fari Islam of Iran or Alawism in Syria. In addition to a rudimentary Islamic doctrine, the prodigiously syncretic Alevi creed would retain some markedly ­pre-­Islamic or pagan elements of faith. Moreover, historically the faith would interact also with the l­ong-­established Christian communities of Asia Minor, native Armenians and Greeks, borrowing from them. The overall result would be a staunchly secularist community, with close to no attention paid to the formal Muslim prayers, supplanted among the followers by ritual services in cemevi (literally ‘the gathering house’), the Alevi temple, where the faithful would pray, sing and dance. Women in the Alevi community had

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peace at home  | 263 none of the restrictions, including the wearing of the hijab and segregation from men, strikingly visible with pious, practising Sunnis. Overall unease in the Alevi community would inevitably rise in the wake of the regime change from 2011, as ­pro-­government circles would come to embrace a blatantly I­ slamo-­nationalist discourse, coupled with the continuing policies of denial towards the Alevis, despite the earlier promises of an improved democracy. The salt rubbed into the Alevi wound immediately before the momentous Gezi protests (see Chapter 6) would be the name given by the government to the third great bridge planned to be constructed over the Bosphorus, once again linking the two continents, Europe and Asia, as a partial response to the more and more nightmarish traffic in Istanbul.18 The name for the new bridge, announced in May 2013, only a day or two before the Gezi protests, was ‘Yavuz Sultan Selim’, after the Ottoman Sultan otherwise known as Selim I, behind the massacre of tens of thousands of Alevis in the early sixteenth century. Selim had probably received the epithet ‘Yavuz’, meaning ‘bad’ or ‘evil’ in old Turkish, a sense of the word now lost, for his apparent cruelty in the matter (hence the traditional rendition of the name into English as Selim ‘the Grim’). The sheer lack of attention to the annoyance vocally expressed by Alevis would be consistent with a public authority in stubborn defiance of basic Alevi rights, refusing to pay heed to the most innocuous demands for recognition and equality. Therefore, it was little coincidence perhaps that all of the young people killed during the Gezi protests would be Alevis. Beyond the signs of an incipient ­Islamo-­nationalist ‘official ideology’ set to replace the erstwhile republicanism, which already enormously alarmed the Alevis, Prime Minister (and later President) Tayyip Erdoğan would barely refrain from fuelling the tension. During his presidential election campaign of August 2014, he would go as far as playing to the dormant prejudices of the Sunni masses at public rallies by calling on the main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and daring him to ‘stop deceiving’ people and disclose his Alevi identity (it would mean little to Erdoğan playing his little game that the politician he addressed had never actually concealed it).19 The Alevi demands towards equal citizenship were simple and could be reduced to two immediate requests from the administration. First, they insisted that the government end the continuing indoctrination of religion,

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264  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y chiefly in the form of compulsory religious classes in schools and a state Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı) that largely ignored Alevism. Second, they pleaded an official status for the Alevi temples, namely cemevis, roughly along that granted to mosques as ‘houses of worship’ (ibadethâne). In judgements in a number of cases brought about by Alevi individual applicants, the European Court of Human Rights had consistently found the government in violation of some of the basic rights and freedoms, in turn pressing for restitution. The violations at issue centred on three distinct practices: (1) compulsory religious teaching, (2) forcing people to disclose their faith, and (3) discriminatory treatment of cemevis.20 The formal rights breached, according to the Court, were the freedom of thought, conscience and religion, the right to education, and the prohibition of discrimination in the implementation of the rights protected within the system.21 These rulings by the European Court, legally binding, would nevertheless greatly fall on deaf ears on the part of the government.22 In defending the local educational policy on the teaching of religion in schools, the government had maintained before the Court that the compulsory classes in question comprised instruction on religions generally as significant cultural elements, and were as such akin to those social science and humanities classes that addressed and taught some of the key cultural institutions and facts. Accordingly, Islam naturally received added weight in the classes for its relative significance in society. In short, the classes hardly sought to indoctrinate pupils into the Sunni faith. Yet this argument hardly explained the fact, as pointed out by the Court, that the ­non-­Muslim pupils were exempted from those classes, while the Alevis were not. The government answered this by claiming that the ­non-­Muslim minorities had separate rights under the Lausanne Peace Treaty of 1923, and that was why they did not have to take those classes. This scarcely appeared to be consistent with the earlier point, failing to account for the curious privilege bestowed on the ­non-­Muslim minorities to be able to opt out of what were only ‘culture’ classes, like sociology and history perhaps, with little bearing on the religious rights of minorities under the cited international agreement. The truth of the matter was that the government was dragging its feet, often at the cost of contradicting itself, in a basic mimetic continuity with a long line of practice in favour of homogeneity, hoping that the Alevis could

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peace at home  | 265 still be assimilated into Sunni Islam, never mind that this drive, supported by mass murders and constant persecution of Alevis until recently, had utterly failed in close to the last 500 years. Erdoğan would personally make clear this striving on the part of the government towards an eventual elimination of the creed. As he would explain, Alevism was ‘acceptable’ for him so long as it remained loyal to Ali, the s­on-­in-law of the Muslim Prophet after whom Alevism had been named historically, stating: ‘I’m Alevi myself, out and out’ (dört dörtlük, four out of four).23 And, conversely, if Alevism were to be more than a mere loyalty to Ali, who had been very much a ‘Sunni’ in practice (although the distinction had not existed at the time), then Erdoğan was not going to allow Alevis, as he implied, to create a new religion out of the house of Islam. Beyond merely implying this position, Erdoğan would later clearly declare on tour requesting votes for the AKP in Germany ahead of June 2015 elections, although supposed to have remained ‘neutral’ as president: ‘If Alevism is the love of Ali, no one is more Alevi than I am, but if Alevism is [assumed to be] a religion, then Tayyip Erdoğan won’t have anything to do ­ on-­recognition, he seemed with it.’24 In this posture of outright denial and n to follow the established line of the local Muslim scholars, unequivocally unyielding in the matter. Chief among these scholars, supplying guidance for the government, was the figure whose ideas on democracy and secularism were recounted before in some detail (see Chapter 5). This scholar, with a column in a ­pro-­government daily, wrote on the Alevi demands periodically over the years, urging the government not to give in. According to him, as he would put it in the assumed air of articulating none other than an infallible dictate of logic, ‘a religion [could not] have two different kinds of houses of worship’ (mabed).25 The ruling AKP thus continued the earlier homogenising policies, now accentuating the religious rather than the national identity, preserving, for instance, a provision in the Statute on Villages that made the mosque part of the very definition of a ‘village’ to qualify for the routine services accorded to this administrative ­unit­– ­­long instrumental in forcing mosques on Alevi villages when the locals had no use for those in practice.26 On a completely different front, its continuing resistance to the Alevi demands would not keep the government from crafty uses of the plight of the Alevis in the guise of offering some ‘recognition’. In November 2011, Erdoğan would ‘apologise’ to the Alevis ‘on behalf of the state’ for the

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266  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y unspeakable cruelty that they had suffered in the 1930s.27 The statement did possibly convince his voter base as a righteous gesture towards some form of transitional justice, yet it was instantly recognisable by others as a thinly veiled act in essence targeting and cornering the main opposition Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi), which had been the sole political force at the time of the Alevi massacres in question, and which nevertheless did not prevent the Alevis from voting for it presently, almost exclusively, for its secularist politics. Subjected to terrible pogroms over decades at the hands of the Sunni majority, including the deliberate burning of a hotel in the heart of the central Anatolian town of Sivas in 1993, with ­thirty-­three Alevi intellectuals in town only for the night for a cultural event burned alive as a crowd stood by watching the entire thing like a bonfire, the Alevis attached little value over the years to such vacuous gestures of the r­ ight-­wing or ­Islamo-­nationalist politicians. In another argument equally sly, the alleged inability of the government to recognise cemevis as places of worship was explained as a dictate of the set of reform laws introduced by Atatürk in 1925 in a bid for a strong version of secularism, which had outlawed the old religious titles and ruled out places of worship other than mosques. The Plenary Civil Session of the Court of Cassation (Yargıtay), the high court of appeals, would rob the government of this argument in March 2015 by a milestone decision that would dismiss those laws as a formal hurdle in the way of recognising the Alevi temples.28 The Plenary Court would go further in August of the same year and define the cemevis as ‘houses of worship’, reminding the local administration in the specific case of its obligation to refrain from discriminatory practices.29 Dink Case ‘The territory of the patria is sacred: its future cannot be left to chance.’ This is what the inscription said behind the young man, just turned seventeen, and freshly in police custody in the Black Sea town of Samsun, apprehended on his way to his native Trabzon from Istanbul, where he had pulled the trigger that had shot dead the T ­ urkish-­Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. The images depicting the initial moments of this custody, later to be leaked to the media, would show a number of the members of the law enforcement body simply in awe of the young man, taking turns to be photographed with him, as he,

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peace at home  | 267 proud and amused, held open a Turkish flag and posed for private camera lenses. Subsequently an investigation would be launched about the security personnel seen in the images on charges of praising and defending a criminal deed. Yet the prosecutor would eventually decide to drop the case against the officers, having reached the conclusion that the offence in question was punishable only when staged in public.30 The assassination would prove to be a landmark event in the recent political history of the country. In his frequent television appearances, Dink had the rare gift of charming all, including some of his adversaries, through his artless warmth and boundless, naive faith in people. An active member of the beleaguered Armenian community, he was critical nonetheless of those Armenians relentlessly campaigning worldwide to increase the diplomatic pressure on the Turkish government towards an official acknowledgement of the systematic annihilation of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War I. According to him, this pressure served to trigger securitising reflexes on the domestic front first and foremost, leading to increased jingoism and alienation internationally, correspondingly with a tightened squeeze on basic rights and freedoms. Instead, he favoured a slow yet organic improvement in popular perceptions domestically through genuine dialogue directly with the people and through future promises entailed in greater integration of the country with the wider world, chiefly through the European Union. He was assassinated on 19 January 2007, right in front of the building in the centre of Istanbul that housed the office of the small Turkish–Armenian weekly he edited, Agos. It would soon turn out that he had possibly been the victim of a huge nationalist conspiracy that included some ­high-­ranking officials at various levels of the administrative machinery, in league with paramilitary elements controlled apparently by a number of military officers, the police and the ­neo-­nationalist (ulusalcı) public opinion leaders. Predictably, the criminal case initiated into the killing would face enormous resistance, lingering on for close to a decade, amidst cries of a ­cover-­up by Dink’s family and a group of friends monitoring the progress, or lack thereof, in the dark judicial jungle. The overall setting for the crime was revealing. A broad coalition behind the government had been defying, for the first time in modern times, the ­long-­established, securitising reflexes of the bureaucracy, seeking in a vigorous bid to mix fully with the outside world in the face of such

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268  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y formidably ­no-­go issue areas controlled by the bureaucracy as the Kurdish question, the Cyprus divide, and a ‘just memory’ on the tragic fate of the Ottoman Armenians, all now being reassessed with fresh insights, enabled by greater rights and freedoms brought about by the intensified relations with the European Union. In addition to stirring trouble for the government through a massive assault on communal peace, possibly towards creating an opening for a likely military takeover, the assassination was also thought to have possibly aimed to expose the country’s reformist rule to the world as a regional risk under which bigots were becoming bolder, coupled in particular with the slaughter of a priest31 and three unsuspecting missionaries,32 taking place almost simultaneously with the Dink murder. Yet, the plans ostensibly to cause confusion and mayhem would seem remarkably to backfire in the immediate aftermath of the assassination. The loose and informal democratic coalition behind the government would become somewhat tighter, being rendered overnight far more committed to the regime change than before. More importantly, as hundreds of thousands of people, Istanbulites, would take to the streets in mourning and solidarity with banners ‘We are all Hrants, we are all Armenians,’ signalling a new type of protest in the land, later to be repeated at the Gezi demonstrations (see Chapter 6), the Dink assassination would actually serve to (1) form a breakthrough in the domestic perceptions of the destruction of the Ottoman Armenians, as had been desired by Dink and, moreover, (2) rather endear the government to the outside w ­ orld­– ­­despite Erdoğan’s initial faltering in the matter, as related below. Prior to the assassination, Dink had been notoriously subjected to an ordeal at the hands of the judiciary, and was still in the full grip of the event when murdered (for the judiciary under the old regime, see Chapter 1). In a column he had written for Agos in early 2004, he had addressed and criticised the ‘obsession’ of Armenians with ‘the Turk’, especially in the diaspora communities, pointing out this consuming preoccupation as unhealthy and poisonous. Instead, he had urged Armenians towards a renewed bonding with Armenia, seeking desperately to survive and prosper. At some point in this piece, Dink had put: ‘the purified blood that will replace the blood poisoned by “the Turk” can be found in the noble vein linking Armenians to Armenia, provided that the former are aware of it.’33 A criminal complaint would be immediately filed against Dink, under Article 301 of the Penal

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peace at home  | 269 Code, a m ­ uch-­debated norm partly to be amended later (see Chapter 1), for ‘denigrating Turkishness’.34 Clearly, the statement by Dink was about Armenians, not Turks. The blood, ‘poisoned’ by a compulsive preoccupation with Turks, was the Armenian blood. The prosecutorial claim during the litigation would be, however, that since the ‘Turk’ was asserted to have poisoned the Armenian blood, it was the Turkish blood that had to be ‘poisonous’ in the first ­place­– ­­not to mention the allusion, ignored in the case yet fully sensed by the critics and possibly instrumental for the overall fury, to a famous statement by Atatürk, addressing Turks: ‘the power you need [to counter likely forms of treachery] is in the noble blood flowing in your veins.’ In April 2004 an indictment was in place and criminal proceedings were instituted against Dink. As the case was being processed, something rather miraculous happened. Through one of the ‘democratising’ legislative packages introduced by the government, as demanded in its relations with the European Union, the Constitution was amended in May 2004 and international agreements in the area of democracy and human rights became an integral part of the domestic law of the land, to be applied by courts directly (see Chapter 5). That was a dramatic shift from a ­so-­called ‘dualist’ approach in domestic law (in which international agreements would only have effect if formally integrated into the domestic legislation) to a ‘monism’, the approach long adopted in democracies in Europe and in North America, which enabled domestic courts to draw directly on international legal commitments captured in mostly treaties. The newly amended Constitution clearly stated that in the event of a possible clash between those international agreements and the domestic law, the former would prevail. This simply meant that the freedom of expression as regulated within the European regime of human rights35 was now the law to be applied, the sole normative instrument, regardless of the content of the domestic law, Article 301 of the Penal Code in the present case. As if this sudden leap forward was not enough, an expert consulted by the first instance court in charge of the Dink trial submitted in his report that the remarks in question formed ‘no insult’ to Turkishness, stating that the discussion was solely about Armenians. Yet, Dink would be found guilty as charged by the court in October 2005, irrespective of either international human rights law in the matter, now with direct effect domestically, or the

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270  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y expert report. Still, there was a review process in line, and all hope for Dink’s eventual vindication did not seem to be lost. The optimism would prove justified, considering that the public prosecutor at the court of appeal, the Court of Cassation (Yargıtay), where the case had ended, would argue in favour of the defendant, articulating in his observations that there was no insult or denigration in the remarks, and that the ‘poison’ at issue was obviously not in relation to the Turkish blood, but was about the ‘perception of the Turkish people’ by Armenians. This, obviously, was an instance of ­big-­heartedness that seldom happened, as the public prosecutor was formally the figure that cast accusations, let alone speaking favourably of the defendant. Nevertheless, incredibly, things would somehow go wrong for Dink once again and the high court would rule in May 2006 to uphold the judgement of the first instance court. It was over. The European Court of Human Rights, looking into it later, with Dink assassinated by then, would describe the ruling of the appellate court as what principally ‘made [Dink] a target for extreme nationalists’.36 A unanimous judgement of the European Court would in turn find the government in violation of both the right to life and the freedom of expression.37 Dink’s lawyer, Fethiye Çetin, would include in her subsequent book on Dink’s ordeal a rather fascinating account of what had actually taken place at the Court of Cassation during the review,38 to be excerpted in an extensive newspaper report with the launching of the book.39 According to the ­eye-­witness testimony of one of the justices present at the review, who would later speak to Çetin, as all t­wenty-­four justices from various criminal sections of the Court of Cassation had gathered for the Dink case, forming the Plenary Session, one specific justice was unusually domineering, stating forthwith to those assembled: ‘We, as the majority, find the judgement of the first instance court right.’ The justice relating this to Çetin would add that he was practically dumbfounded, as this was highly unorthodox, and that the person making this statement could not possibly know the opinion of all of the justices at that stage, before the v­ oting­– ­­unless, of course, there had been a prior meeting that had excluded those who would be likely to dissent. Further, this justice would relate, as the discussion for review started and went on, pressure on those inclined to dissent was palpable, of the kind not hitherto experienced, with six of the justices who ended up voting against

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peace at home  | 271 the majority branded then and there as ‘traitors’ by some among those who formed the majority. A specifically mobbing remark resounding among the staff on the premises of the high court in the days to come was, he would impart: ‘Now we know the number of Armenians among us.’ Çetin actually named in the book the high court justice who appeared to be freakishly pushy during the Dink case. The newspaper that excerpted this account from the book would receive a disclaimer, rather promptly, from the Office of the Chief Ombudsman.40 The s­o-­called Ombudsman Institution was created in the country as, again, a new ‘democratising’ measure in June 2012 and started receiving complaints from 29 March of the following year. The institution was tasked to review administrative acts on behalf of the public in light of ‘a concept of justice based on human rights and . . . principles of fairness’.41 According to the disclaimer sent to the paper, Dink had been found guilty by the Court of Cassation in 2006 not because of some ­extra-­legal bias, as claimed by Çetin, but because the material and psychological elements constitutive of the offence were in place, judging from the evidence in the case file, and because that was how justices ultimately evaluated the whole thing relying on nothing other than their personal convictions.

In charge to review administrative acts following individual complaints in accordance with a notion of justice strongly backed by human rights, the Office of the Chief Ombudsman was, for some reason, defending a lamentable, and by now almost generally condemned ruling of the high court, described by the European Court of Human Rights, as noted above, as that which principally ‘made [Dink] a target’. Let us recall and list all of those pertinent factors that should have normally prevented the outcome, namely the eventual decision of the high court, which led to Dink’s murder: (1) the Dink statement itself, sufficiently clear when understood in its context, (2) the freedom of expression within the European human rights protection system that the domestic courts were under obligation to apply directly, and in the place of the domestic law if necessary, (3) the expert report submitted to the first instance court, stating that there was no insult to Turkisness, and finally (4) the opinion of the prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, arguing that Dink was innocent. On top of all this, as of the time of the disclaimer

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272  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y sent to the paper by the Office of the Chief Ombudsman, (5) there was also a unanimous judgement of the European Court of Human Rights, binding domestically, which had found in the overall result a violation of the freedom of expression, beside a violation of the right to life. Were all these facts together not convincing enough for the chief ombudsman, who stepped in to defend the Court of Cassation judgement of 2006 condemning Dink? More importantly, what was the chief ombudsman doing, having a disclaimer sent by his office to a newspaper for an account of what really had happened at the Court of Cassation seven years before, when a group of high court justices, provoked by a particularly driven one among them, had decided to throw Dink to the lions? The particularly domineering justice described in the account above, bullying the rest in the Plenary Criminal Session of the Court of Cassation, had been named by Çetin, Dink’s lawyer, to be none other than the person who now served as the country’s very first chief ombudsman. He had been ­hand-­picked by the ruling AKP soon after he had retired from his position on the high ­court­– ­­later to be implicated also in the corruption allegations (see Chapter 8) as the special government envoy to a leading and allegedly Gülenist public prosecutor to ask him ‘freeze’ the damning probes.42 Now, rather inexplicably, he was having his new office do his personal work and refute the account in the ­newspaper­– ­­not even bothering, that is, to write to the paper himself, in his private capacity, as the specific event had nothing whatsoever to do with the function of the ombudsman. When he had become the chief ombudsman, the news had naturally caused a stir and some of Dink’s friends had called on him to resign from the post.43 He would defend himself in a newspaper interview, stating that when he voted the way he did on that day in 2006, he had ‘no idea’ that the case was about Hrant Dink (taking refuge in the technicality that Dink’s name on official records was Fırat Dink). It was quickly pointed out to him that the case had been about a piece of writing published by a certain ‘Hrant Dink’, and that this pen name was noted, alongside the official name, practically on every page of the actual case fi ­ le­– assuming, ­­ of course, that all along this high court justice had been so very incredibly removed from his time, from social life and the media, when the Dink case had been one of the most frenziedly debated topics around.44

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peace at home  | 273 Was all that an accident, a bizarre irony, then, that this man had later ended up as the country’s first chief ombudsman? Why had the ruling AKP, leading a phenomenal democratic transformation in the country, at least to start with, directed its deputies in the parliament to go for him? What had gone wrong? Nothing, it would seem. Known to be a pedant, Erdoğan most probably knew what he was doing when he picked the chief ombudsman. The following is the very first statement made by Erdoğan himself on the day Dink was assassinated: ‘We find it significant that this murder has been committed at a time when, in particular, claims about the purported Armenian genocide are being debated in some countries.’45 If this view in the immediate aftermath of the Dink murder is not sufficiently clear as to what it implies, consider this one, articulated by a leading Islamist intellectual within weeks after the murder, starkly explaining what some people, including Erdoğan perhaps, as reflected in the statement just cited, thought of Dink’s death: My impression is that Hrant Dink is also in it. I mean, we all know that Hrant Dink had dropped hints in one of his columns that he was going to be killed. Was this a premonition or information? We have to think about this. Did Hrant Dink sacrifice himself or not? Was this his burden, or task? This is how I tend to evaluate these things . . . If all this was part of a grand plan, it is possible that Hrant Dink had to consent to his death. If Hrant Dink had died of avian flu, would Patriarch Mutafyan [of the ­Turkish-­Armenian community] enunciate a ­ten-­day mourning?46

‘Hints’ by Dink himself that he was going to be killed? After noticing that some of the leaders of the ­neo-­nationalist paramilitary, especially a retired general allegedly responsible for many forced disappearances while serving, were keenly attending his court hearings, steering personally the abuses by the ­neo-­nationalist protesters at Dink in the courtroom and outside, Dink told some of his friends that he was now, for the first time, ‘scared’. He would write in his last Agos column only about a week before his assassination: ‘I find myself frightened, rather like a dove perhaps, but I know that people in the land would never harm a dove.’47 The retired general Dink feared most, and a lawyer, a ­well-­known ­neo-­nationalist figure who had filed the initial criminal complaint about Dink in 2004, would be sentenced in August 2013, subsequently to be aborted, to life imprisonment for offences not related to the Dink case (see

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274  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Chapter 3). The later documents that would be made public in November 2015 would rather frighteningly suggest that, at the time of the assassination, the young assassin was being ‘watched’ by no fewer than six security officers, as revealed in an examination of the phone signals and the ­closed-­circuit camera images in the locality.48 All in all, the available evidence appeared to indicate one cold fact: the murder had been committed ‘on the Orient express’. Roboskî Massacre ‘Armenians have long been trying to prove that they were murdered in this country, and Kurds are trying to prove that they live.’ This became a sort of mantra in Kurdish political circles as the newly initiated peace process from 2012 enabled Kurdish public figures to encounter the masses, addressing the wider public. The confrontation on increasingly frequent public occasions of workshops among intellectuals, and the gradual integration of Kurdish politics with the mainstream in the interim, would also reveal the scope and extent of the official responses to the Kurdish insurgency over decades, largely concealed from the public in the past through an informal alliance between the bureaucracy and the media. Numerous judgements of the European Court of Human Rights, brought about by individual applications, had already highlighted the effective impunity in the country following gross violations of human rights in the hands of the security forces combatting Kurdish guerrillas, especially in the 1990s. The impunity appeared to be the result of roughly two factors. First, long in force, the domestic law jealously guarded state employees, as intended by the early republican rulers, seeking to ‘discipline’ the public with as little personal risk on the part of the state agents as possible. Civil servants could be prosecuted only after a formal clearance issued by the administration, which was not likely to be forthcoming in most cases that involved allegations made by those who appeared to be dissidents or somehow in support of political dissent against the bureaucratic authority. Second, independence and impartiality were notions practically alien to the judiciary, which tended heavily to securitise issues of basic human rights, invariably siding with the administration against dissidents (see Chapter 1). The continuity in the matter from 2011, arguably with a vengeance at times, would thus be less than surprising. The judicial complicity during the civil war against the Kurdish political movement would soar in the 1990s to the extent that, not infrequently,

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peace at home  | 275 the Strasbourg Court would give up one of the fundamental requirements for an individual application to be admitted for an assessment in terms of the rights and freedoms protected within the European regime of human rights, namely ‘the exhaustion of domestic remedies’. Accordingly, before the European Court could do anything at all regarding a specific claim, the individual who alleged to have suffered a violation had to go through available avenues on the domestic plane, consuming all that could be done for possible restitution or a redress. Yet the Court would make it clear in a landmark case, mostly relinquishing this prerequisite thereafter, that the ‘remedies’ offered for possible violations, chiefly the ascending ladder of courts within the legal establishment domestically, criminal and civil, should be, not only available, but also effective.49 That is, the remedies established by law, guarding the rights, had to exist also in practice, not only in theory. Subsequently, in many cases involving Turkey for a long while, more specifically those cases that Turkish courts routinely securitised, principally the ones centred on the Kurdish question, the European Court would display a deep distrust of the whole official and judicial set up in the country. A vivid illustration of the judicial brazenness in covering up for the administration, later to be highly publicised, would surface in a judgement of the European Court in 2013.50 In the 1990s, the Turkish military forced the inhabitants of villages in areas where it actively battled the Kurdish guerrillas to choose sides: the locals would either enlist in the paid state militia, called ‘village guards’­51­ – ­­a ­long-­settled ­counter-­insurgency practice in the local political culture since at least the ‘Hamidiye’ Regiments of the nineteenth ­century­– ­­or they would leave the region altogether, for, otherwise, the reasoning went, the villagers would be likely to extend logistical support to the guerrillas. It was a double bind, to say the least, for the inhabitants of some of the villages, partly depending on the ‘geopolitical’ position of the settlement because, being recruited by the military, the locals would then be fully exposing themselves to the wrath of the guerrillas as ‘collaborators’. Furthermore, deciding to leave, villagers would be offered by the administration no compensation or w ­ ell-­thought-out scheme in the face of the obvious destitution the whole thing would cause for the evacuees. Where would they go, and how? Therefore, the villagers sometimes hesitated. It was no secret that, in many instances where some such dilemma and hesitation was the case

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276  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y on the part of the locals, the military sought a quick and forcible evacuation of the villages in question, leaving no choice for the residents, by destroying people’s possessions, particularly sources of their livelihood, and by setting their homes on fire.52 Yet, it would take by surprise even some of those active within the Kurdish political movement in the region that, in addition to all this, the military had also actually engaged in aerial bombing of villages, killing scores of people, mostly women, the elderly and children. The case decided by the European Court in 2013 disclosed, to the shock and horror of the domestic public opinion, that on the morning of 26 March 1994 the military had in fact bombed by aircraft, and ­machine-­gunned from a helicopter, the mountain villages of Gever (Kuşkonar) and Beysukê (Koçağılı) in Şırnak province, bordering Syria and Iraq. This is how the assault was described in the case file: The bombs dropped from the planes were very large; some villagers described them ‘as big as a table’. Subsequently, m ­ achine-­gun fire was opened from the helicopter. Some of the people were hit directly and some were trapped under the rubble of the houses that were destroyed in the bombing. Those who survived tried to take cover. The men working in the nearby fields ran to the village and tried to rescue people from underneath the rubble.53

Out of the t­ hirty-­eight people killed in the raid, noted the European Court in its judgement, seven had been babies.54 There was no help from the national authorities in the aftermath of the blitz. The men, who had been away in the fields, working, and who had thus largely escaped the assault, put the bodies in plastic bags, and buried most of them together in unmarked mass graves. The survivors then quickly left the area. The two villages, the Court pointed out, were still ghost villages at the time of the judgement, with the former inhabitants keeping away,55 partly for the anguish that the place evoked. A lawyer in Diyarbakır, the de facto Kurdish regional centre, would hear the story years later and, obtaining legal representation from the surviving victims, file a criminal complaint in 1997 with the Office of the Şırnak Public Prosecutor. It would take the prosecutor three years to act, claiming eventually that the bombing was the work of the guerrillas, rather than the state, in turn deferring the case to the Diyarbakır State Security Court. Those courts, part of the judicial system at the time, had authority over organised crimes

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peace at home  | 277 against the state, to be dissolved later, in 2004, via a constitutional amendment for not being sufficiently ‘independent and impartial’, as deemed, again, by the European Court in a good number of cases involving Turkey (see Chapter 3). The file would lie dormant in Diyarbakır for seven years and, as the country would begin going through some transformation politically, enabled mostly by a boost in the relations with the European Union, the Office of the Public Prosecutor would at long last find the case worth looking into. Processing it would mean to deal, typically, with the problem of jurisdiction (legal authority) in an unusual transition period for the judiciary. The case would start toing and froing between military and civilian courts, with the applicable jurisdiction being debated. Meanwhile questions would be officially put by a series of prosecutors to the military about the flights of warplanes in the region on the specified date. In each case, the answer would be that there had been on record no flights whatsoever that matched the time and place. Then something rather extraordinary happened. In 2011, the same question would be put this time to the General Directorate of Civil Aviation in the country. According to the record despatched to the prosecutor by this body in January 2012, warplanes had indeed flown, packed with bombs, in the area that tallied with both the time and the fixed spatial coordinates. The Diyarbakır lawyer had wasted no time, as all this was taking place, and already applied to the European Court of Human Rights, without waiting for the domestic remedies to come to an end. He would supply the European Court with a copy of the flight record from the civil aviation authority that had just surfaced, which corroborated the facts as related by the surviving victims. The Court would subsequently establish the facts and find the Turkish government in violation of both the right to life and the freedom from ­ill-­treatment,56 according the applicants in damages an a­ll-­time-high of close to €2.5 million in total. The lawyer in the case, Tahir Elçi, would be murdered in November 2015, having reportedly been caught in crossfire in a skirmish in the centre of Diyarbakır between the security forces and the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (Yurtsever Devrimci Gençlik Hareketi, ­YDG-­H), active in urban areas in the region with the demise of the peace process in the same year.57 Publicly critical of the confrontational and violent ­YDG-­H activities, Elçi was at once on trial at the time of the murder for having stated on a live television show that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party

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278  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) was no ‘terror’ organisation.58 Rather like Dink in the preceding section, Elçi would be subjected to a popular lynching with the case initiated against him. The 1990s formed a spell that was exceptional in many regards. That did not necessarily mean at the time of the European Court of Human Rights judgement in the case above in 2013, however, that the callous counter-­ ­ insurgency practices that had included bombing innocent and unsuspecting civilians was something of the past in the country. Some political improvement on the Kurdish issue had since been achieved on the whole and, moreover, the administration had started negotiating a lasting peace deal with the leadership of the Kurdish insurgency. The historic talks would be admitted by the government not before late 2012, yet were known to have been under way uninterrupted from at least the year before, 2011. As that very year drew to a close, a band of locals crossing the border from Iraq would come under intense bombardment by the Turkish air forces.59 Out of the ­thirty-­five people in the group, only one person would be left alive. Half of those killed were teenagers, with five of them only thirteen or younger. The incident had occurred on 28 December in the borderland area to the south of Uludere district in the province of Şırnak. The group was formed by inhabitants from two villages in Uludere: Roboskî (Ortasu) and Bêjuh (Gülyazı). The massacre would come to be known as that of Uludere, or, alternatively, of Roboskî, after the fact that most in the group came from that village. Having been suspected by the military as ‘terrorists’ who were about to violate the border, the victims were in truth smugglers. They were bringing in from Iraq diesel fuel and cigarettes loaded on mules, and operating with the tacit permission of the officialdom, who apparently turned a blind eye to the smugglers, as would be subsequently told by the sole survivor of the group to the media. The locals had little choice for the basic family sustenance, a fact seemingly conceded by the regional authorities who had a de facto policy of ‘ignoring’ the smugglers. So, what had happened? Who or what exactly were the losses to be imputed to? The prosecutor in Uludere passed the case on to the Office of the Public Prosecutor in Diyarbakır, where an investigation was initiated into the killings. The work would be dropped in June 2013, that is, after a passage of one and a half years, on the grounds that the court in Diyarbakır had no

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peace at home  | 279 jurisdiction in the matter. The Constitution empowered the military courts for offences committed by military personnel when and if the offence was linked to military service or tasks.60 Correspondingly, the military prosecutor at the Office of the Chief of Staff in Ankara took over the investigation. This office would decide about six months later, in January 2014, not to press any charges against the suspects. According to the decision of n ­ on-­prosecution: ‘Performing their task diligently, the personnel of the Turkish Armed Forces . . . had made an inevitable mistake.’61 The losses, in short, were nobody’s fault. A ‘mistake’ that was at once ‘inevitable’? What exactly did that mean? The details of the incident were revealed, for the first time, in the account provided in the n ­ on-­prosecution decision.62 In a blatant violation of the principle of equality of arms (see Chapter 3), the contents of the case file had been declared classified all along, with the result that the legal representatives of the victims as intervening parties had been kept in the dark. Now that the details had come out, it appeared that in the evening of 28 December 2011, at 17:55 more precisely, the commander of the Border Division of the Gendarmerie and the commander of the Public Security Corps in Van had separately spotted in thermal camera images provided by a drone what they would subsequently consider a ‘terrorist group’ at the border, preparing to infiltrate. They would communicate this intelligence to the Second Army base in Malatya. Without delay, the Second Army would get in touch with the Office of the Land Forces in Ankara and request permission to launch cannon fire. The Land Forces would in turn contact the Office of the Chief of Staff, where officers in its operation unit would scrutinise and deliberate on the images. Those in the unit would decide eventually that an aerial bombardment, rather than cannon fire, would be the right response. This opinion would be conveyed to the chief of staff over the phone and, having sent for maps and relevant information to his residence, he would return, at exactly 20:00, and grant his approval for the strike. The first bomb would be dropped on the smugglers at 21:39. The amazing fact in all this was that those in the process of ­decision-­making prior to the strike had not at all pondered the possibility of locals being ‘out on the smuggle’ (kaçağa çıkmak), as it was put locally, rather like going fishing perhaps in a coastal village, along a route known well to be used for

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280  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y s­muggling. The first set of thermal images had been received at 17:20, and the first bomb would be cast more than four hours after that. Did those making the decision not feel the need in the intervening time to consult the local gendarmerie in Uludere, who apparently knew what was going on, and who could have thus readily alerted those in authority that the group of people suspected was formed only by local smugglers? Besides absolving those involved of any responsibility for what had happened, a draft bill would be introduced into the parliament later in the year, making it impossible for ­high-­ranking army commanders to be prosecuted (for any charges) without first a clearance from the government.63 This apparently was part of the price for the full cooperation of the military under the new order, paid by a government that had boasted until recently for ending the impunity of the military that had been behind several disruptions in the civilian rule in the recent past of the country. Already in 2012, a similar shield had been granted to the personnel of State Intelligence (Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MİT),64 to be ­re-­regulated in April 2014, with extensive new tools to be put at the disposal of the intelligence agents.65 Obviously, the privileges granted secured not only an enlarged form of impunity for the intelligence body but acquired also for the government its absolute loyalty in suppressing dissent, attracting strong criticisms from the opposition that the administration was turning into an ‘intelligence [muhaberat] state’. All this politicking should of course be put in the context of the unrelenting mayhem and disarray in domestic politics (see Chapter 8), forcing the government to secure the loyalty of the key state institutions, particularly the military. A daily in February 2015 would report in a startling headline the testimony of the head of military intelligence with the Second Army at the time of the Roboskî incident.66 According to the report, Ankara had been ‘warned’ about the target before the strike. The deposition of this officer taken by the military prosecutor during the investigation had later been suppressed. In September of the same year, more documents, mostly testimonies directly out of the case file, would surface and reveal that the military generally knew the target consisted only of smugglers, and that warnings had been issued at virtually every level before the action.67 Meanwhile, Kurdish politicians would apply to the International Criminal Court over the massacre, filing a complaint.68 Later, in October 2015, Turkey’s Human Rights Association

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peace at home  | 281 (İnsan Hakları Derneği) would take the same road, alleging the complicity of the Turkish government in the Kobanê massacre of 25 June 2015, when IS militants had, out of nowhere, raided the Kurdish town and slaughtered 251 locals.69 The contended international crimes of the government, mostly in relation to the vicious civil war in Syria, would come increasingly to be debated in the domestic public opinion from early 2014, to which the discussion now turns. International Crimes? ‘It’s not possible for a Muslim to get involved in acts of genocide.’ This is how Erdoğan would react to the outrage in the domestic opposition for his association with Omar a­l-­Bashir, Sudan’s president, dismissing the indictment the latter faced before the International Criminal Court for his allegedly brutal deeds in Darfur.70 Later, during the Syrian civil war from March 2011, in which the Turkish government would somehow become caught up, the brutality displayed by the combatant jihadist groups would make that of ­al-­Bashir, on trial, pale into insignificance. On the home front, from early 2014 Erdoğan would come to be strongly accused of some of the most vicious crimes against humanity on record in the neighbouring states, chiefly for the purported clandestine shipments of arms and ammunitions to the warring groups. Yet, before these claims are addressed below, some perspective is perhaps needed in evaluating Turkey’s embroilment with this civil war, especially in its more appalling phase from April 2013, when the scene would become dominated by the jihadist organisation called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant/Syria, to be renamed in June 2014 as Islamic State (IS), the declared seat of a ‘global’ Islamic caliphate. Let us recall, in the first place, that Turkey’s eventual entanglement in Syria remarkably followed a rather long stretch of hesitation, to last over one year, and subsequently under way only after what looked like a unified response to Syria within the ­Euro-­Atlantic community, with calls on the regime to appease the domestic protesters. Turkey would sever diplomatic relations with Syria not before 30 May 2012, citing, in so doing, the continuing crimes of the Syrian regime against humanity.71 The then foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu (prime minister from August 2014) would state in August 2012, relying on an apparently firm commitment by the allies in Europe and North America at the time towards ending the regime,

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282  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y that the atrocious rule in Syria would end ‘within, not years, but months; even weeks’.72 A particularly daring foreign policy on the part of the government over the Syrian civil war, which would be in total disregard of the ­Euro-­Atlantic partners, should thus perhaps be ruled out. On the contrary, the government became enmeshed in the whole thing arguably in close coordination with certain international policy circles, particularly with the United ­States­– ­­just as Saudi Arabia and Qatar ­did­– ­­extending various forms of support to the rebel groups.73 Yet, in the following period, as questions about the s­ o-­called Arab Spring multiplied in the greater region, the prospect of an ‘Islamist’ takeover in Syria that might be worse than the current rule pushed the allies into a growing atmosphere of doubt. The indecision setting in would gradually abort the until then coordinated policy over the Syrian regime, with Turkey insisting on the removal of Bashar a­ l-­Assad, Syrian President, left out in the cold. Turkey would keep insisting on this, as the earlier phase made it rather difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with the administration in what was an adjacent state, perhaps before likely ‘ideological’ concerns, as was often assumed. Turkey’s proximity to Syria was a disadvantage, obviously, which the allies did not have. Still, the ambivalence within the E ­ uro-­Atlantic community lingered on, as with the ­Turkey-­introduced programme of ‘train and equip’ for some of the rebel groups to which the United States seemed to pay lip service as late as May 2015.74 That was more or less the setting, then, for the government policy over the civil war in Syria. Now back to early 2014, when, following its sudden international isolation for its less than sensible reaction to the Gezi protests at home in the summer of 2013, the government had just been shaken further with the suddenly erupting corruption allegations. The nationwide local elections in the following March would be held under unusual strain for the government. Transformed by the then prime minister Erdoğan (president from August 2014) into a vote of confidence in his government at the election campaign, the stakes at the polls were thus extraordinarily high. Ominously foreshown in various practices of what the critics described as foul play in the days leading to the voting, such as the crackdown on the social media and the mysterious technical failures of alternative election monitoring and broadcasting outlets on the night of the polls, the results would be marred with claims of gross irregularities in processing the votes towards ­large-­scale fraud.75

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peace at home  | 283 Interestingly, the government appeared to fight at the polls on more than just one front. One other priority for the government, as it would turn out, was to secure mayoralties in places critical for the success of the government policy over Syria. One such settlement was Ceylanpınar (Serêkanî), bordering its namesake across the frontier (Ra’s al-‘Ayn in Arabic) in the de facto autonomous Kurdish region of Syria, now called Rojava, where the local Kurdish militia organised around the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, PYD) battled the Islamist rebel groups, distancing itself in so doing from the factions in the civil war supported by Turkey. Strategically key to its policy regarding the war in Syria, the government would be claimed to have made sure that a person that would heed the government would be at the helm of the local administration in this border town. The ruling AKP candidate would ultimately win the mayoralty by only 754 votes out of close to 40,000 votes actually cast.76 This would send the locals out on the streets in a frenzied protest of what the Kurdish opposition would claim to be a flagrant case of electoral fraud.77 Practically straddling the Syrian border, Ceylanpınar appeared to be a particularly significant spot for the government, where, across the border, its namesake (Serêkanî) was known to be a stronghold of the Jabhat ­al-­Nusra (­al-­Nusra), a jihadist group also known as ­al-­Qaeda in Syria. Across Ceylanpınar along the Syria border to the west were Tell Abyad (Girêspî) and Kobanê. The latter would be besieged by IS in the last quarter of 2014, with indifference, even perhaps callous gratification, on the part of the Turkish ­government­– ­­one of the reasons, as noted before, for the slide of a considerable number of Kurdish voters away from the ruling AKP from June 2015. Unlike the less than charitable prediction that had been notoriously imparted by Erdoğan in October, Kobanê would not ‘fall’.78 Next, as with Kobanê, the victorious Kurds would also cleanse Tell Abyad of IS, with the aid of the ­US-­led ­anti-­IS coalition. Characteristically, Erdoğan would find it hard to hide his annoyance and frustration at the overall result.79 The widest circulation ­pro-­government daily, allegedly g­ host-­owned by Erdoğan himself (see Chapter 7), would have the following headline after the Kurdish victory over Tell Abyad: ‘The PYD is more dangerous than IS.’80 Reactions such as this were often construed as an extension of the a­ ge-­old Turkish nationalism that forced the government to side with IS against the Kurds. A more plausible

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284  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y explanation, however, was a fear on the part of the ­Islamo-­nationalist government of being eventually cut off from the greater region through the presence of the left-inclining, secular Kurds in between. Arguably, the government counted on friendlier or similar Islamic regimes in the vicinity as a reinforcement for the change just achieved (and perhaps to be heightened) in Turkey in the longer run. The full extent of the government’s role in the civil war across the border had become known in the domestic public opinion months before, during the days linking 2013 to 2014, when a number of trucks led by MİT agents, and carrying undisclosed cargo into Syria, would be intercepted by Turkish prosecutors. The prosecutors had defied the government, possibly not primarily because of the ‘illicitness’ of the operation in question, as they would subsequently claim, but as part of the spectacular f­alling-­out of the government with the Gülenists (see Chapter 5), the former allies, who appeared to have a strong following in the judiciary.81 The prosecutors and some of the ­high-­ranking military officers of the gendarmerie involved in the interception and inspection of the trucks would subsequently be arrested and put on trial,82 to be followed by a media blackout on the case.83 The government would explain the deliveries in the MİT trucks as basic humanitarian aid to the destitute Turkmen community wedged in the civil war. Yet, both the inconsistencies in the government posture (why hide humanitarian aid?) and a number of allegedly classified documents later to be hacked and leaked to the media would reveal the cargo in the trucks to have been none other than arms and ammunition destined for rebels fighting the Syrian government.84 As part of the subsequent investigation into the obstructing of the trucks as a deliberate attempt to ‘ambush’ and ‘bring down’ the government, an army major among the charged and arrested military officers would note in his testament before the court the alleged utterance by MİT officers during the scuffle: ‘This truck is full of weapons. If disclosed, it will arouse the whole world and the government will fall tomorrow.’85 Later, more of the alleged evidence for the transfer of arms and ammunition to Syria would come out,86 leading to the government takeover of one daily and the imprisonment of the editor and a reporter of another, as noted before (Chapter 7). The latter outlet in particular, the daily Cumhuriyet, would take considerable risk and publish in a series of reports from 29 May 2015 alleged pieces of evidence for the

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peace at home  | 285 heavy weapons shipments, rather than humanitarian aid, to Syria.87 A judicial injunction would withhold the publications, yet Prime Minister Davutoğlu would appear implicitly to verify the evidence just published, stating: ‘as the government, we never left the oppressed alone, and never will.’88 In addition to the arms transfers, the government reportedly relocated jihadist fighters in strategic repositioning by transporting them via coaches along the border on the Turkish territory,89 especially against the Syrian Kurds during the siege of Kobanê,90 and supplied electricity to the then ­IS-­held Tell Abyad in Syria.91 In girdling Kobanê for an extended period, IS appeared to have viewed Turkey as an ‘ally’, with some former IS fighters claiming Turkey cooperated with IS and shared intelligence.92 A journalist touring the area at the time would be petrified to observe ‘sympathy’ for IS among the Turkish officials.93 More on the precise extent of Turkey’s hand in Syria would come out through one of the leaked tapes that plagued the government in early 2014. The tape, anonymously posted online on 27 March, only days before the local ­elections­– subsequently ­­ to be described by the government as ‘edited’, if not wholly ­inauthentic­– ­­would depict conversations at a ­high-­level security meeting at the Foreign Ministry in Ankara.94 On the tape, the then foreign minister Davutoğlu and the MİT undersecretary Hakan Fidan, long considered to be a significant Erdoğan confidant, would be heard to discuss, with the second chief of staff and the Foreign Ministry undersecretary, a direct military intervention in Syria. According to the tape, the MİT had delivered to some rebels in Syria ‘close to 2,000 trailer trucks of material’, as revealed by Fidan in an emphatic response to the second chief of staff, who insisted on the need for arms and ammunition on terrain, ‘especially munitions’, as he would put it. For Davutoğlu, on the other hand, it was more ‘the human element’ that was inadequate and that needed primarily to be sorted out in the continuing operation than the mere weaponry. ‘We said we could send a general there’, the second chief of staff would answer promptly. ‘We even named the general.’ The voices would then proceed to consider using the tiny Turkish exclave in Syria, about 35km from the border, as an excuse for intervention, the Süleyman Şah ­Tomb­– ­­subsequently to be evacuated under the IS threat in February 2015, with the help of the Kurdish fighters in the region.95 Fidan would offer the services of the intelligence body he headed:

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286  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y ‘If we need a pretext, I’ll manufacture a pretext. No problem.’ He could send some men to Syria, he would add, who would launch rockets back on some empty lot on the Turkish side of the border, or he could have the exclave attacked, ‘if this is what we need to go in’. In his speech in the evening of the local elections three days later, marking the triumph on the part of the ruling AKP, Erdoğan would point out the gravity of the ‘espionage’ caused by this leaked tape, and blurt out in emphasising the extent of ‘treachery’ at issue: ‘we are at war with Syria.’96 The statement would only lend further credence to the contents of the leaked tape. It seemed less than likely, nevertheless, that IS had been the ones at the receiving end of the consignments specified in the exchange above; although, as a number of reports based on analysis of the armament captured from IS would reveal, some of those military supplies did indeed reach IS eventually.97 A ­Lebanon-­based ­non-­governmental organisation, International Coali­ tion against Impunity, possibly an informal extension of the Syrian government, had already been reported by then to have applied to the European Court of Human Rights, alleging violation of a number of rights in Turkey’s involvement in Syria.98 In April 2014, the veteran journalist Seymour Hersh would articulate one particularly damning claim, which would receive immense publicity both internationally and in domestic opposition circles, on the exact scale of the part Turkey allegedly played in the Syrian civil war. Accordingly, not the Syrian regime, as was generally assumed, but the Turkish government had been behind the sarin gas release near Damascus on 21 August 2013, which had killed scores of people, mostly women and children.99 This argument made use of the growing impatience of the Turkish government in urging international action against the Syrian regime, which had been stalling through some indecision, construed by Turkey as a betrayal of sorts by the allies. More specifically, the allegation rested on one specific fact that entailed the prosecution in Turkey of one Haytham Qassab, a representative of ­al-­Nusra. Qassab and a number of local associates had been detained in Turkey in May 2013, later to be released, with ostensible signs of a judicial c­ over-­up. The formal indictment before the local court had charged the defendants with scheming to procure chemicals used in sarin gas production.100 The lawyer for one of the suspects on trial, a local figurehead of the ruling AKP, was on record to have pleaded before the court that the case

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peace at home  | 287 was essentially ‘political’ and that a possible sentence would simply look too awkward for the government.101 There would be no plausible explanation as to why the defendants in the case would later be released, pending trial, with Qassab subsequently vanishing into thin air. From a purely legal viewpoint, the case had presented to the authorities virtually all of the pertinent factors that under ordinary circumstances would have worked against the ending of the detention of the suspects: the graveness of the alleged offence, that the suspects might flee, destroy evidence or repeat the offence. A single one of these factors would normally have been enough to keep the suspects in detention. Hersh would argue that Qassab was in fact part of the efforts of a­ l-­Nusra to obtain or produce sarin gas, later to be transported to Syria via Turkey, possibly from the former Soviet leftover stock in Libya.102 Seasoned journalist Robert Fisk, with an intimate knowledge of the region, would concur.103 Later, in October 2015, two main opposition CHP deputies would meet the national media on the premises of the parliament and release a series of documents allegedly proving Turkey’s involvement in the sarin release incident and the subsequent cover up.104 In December, the local court would reach a verdict and sentence Qassab in absentia to twelve years’ imprisonment.105 In another ­al-­Qaeda related case, the suspects in Turkey accused of the kidnapping and beheading of a number of Christian clerics in Syria reportedly received either full impunity or astonishing leniency.106 Suppression of evidence and mysterious disappearance of the suspects on remand would be alleged also in relation to a number of I­ S-­related cases.107 Last but by no means least, the IS suicide bombers of the Ankara massacre in October 2015 would appear soon afterwards to have been closely monitored by the police before the incident. The police had done little to stop the suspects, despite some significant giveaways in the phone conversations intercepted by the police concerning suicide bombings for which they were ostensibly getting ready.108 Yet another leaked tape in the war of attrition between the government and the Gülenists in early 2014 would suggest that the interest of the Turkish government in domestic affairs of other states extended far beyond Syria.109 In a recorded conversation purportedly between an Erdoğan aide and the executive assistant of the Turkish Airlines CEO (a figure within Erdoğan’s close circle), the latter spoke of a mystery cargo, and complained: ‘We are

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288  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y carrying tonnes of materials . . . These now are flying to Nigeria, right? Will they kill Muslims or Christians? Dude, we are accountable before God.’ The aide would assure him that he would talk to Hakan Bey (presumably the MİT undersecretary Fidan) and get back to him. Subsequently, there would be various claims of Turkish arms support for the Islamist rebels in Libya,110 to be addressed in a February 2015 report submitted to the United Nations Security Council.111 If at all true, the weapons to Nigeria spoken of on the tape were thus possibly destined for Libya. With the whole nation practically flabbergasted over the revelations, a group of lawyers and some opposition figures would file formal criminal complaints before domestic courts, drawing on the claims above.112 The alleged hand in Syria presented a number of grave issues under domestic law in the first place. The Penal Code punished genocide and crimes against humanity (Articles 76–8), offences, which, notably, were not ­time-­barred. Moreover, the legislative organ seemed to have been left completely in the dark in relation to what was admittedly a ‘war’, and the MİT had operated in blatant violation of a number of laws. Yet, more than the possible irregularities in that regard, the critics in the domestic public opinion, with no hope on the home front perhaps, would highlight the alleged violations of international criminal law. Accordingly, a number of figures in the administration could soon end up, and should indeed end up, before the International Criminal Court (ICC). In addition to some lobbying by various ­Syria-­affiliated ­non-­governmental organisations as well as the Syrian government itself, opposition groups in Turkey would in turn show some interest in taking the whole issue to the ICC. By then, following the decision of ­non-­prosecution by the military in January 2014 on the Roboskî massacre, as related above, Turkey’s Kurdish political opposition had already made it known that they were renewing the application to the ICC about the incident.113 What could the ICC possibly do, confronted with such applications, alleging international crimes by the Turkish government? The system at work was premised on an exchange of promises between governments, namely a treaty, which had been adopted in Rome in 1998, coming into force in 2002.114 The ICC would have jurisdiction in the matter only if either the state of the alleged perpetrators or the state where the alleged crimes took place would appear to be part of this intergovernmen-

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peace at home  | 289 tal arrangement. None of the states involved in the claims outlined above were. This simply meant that the ICC had no immediate jurisdiction over the acts in question, to be initiated through a simple application to the Court. Therefore, the application by Turkey’s Kurdish political movement over the Roboskî incident would be a mere political act ultimately, aiming to create some publicity, but nothing ‘legal’ was likely to come out of it. There could be a way, however, for figures within the Turkish administration to be accountable before the ­ICC­– ­­exactly in the manner of Omar ­al-­Bashir of Sudan, entertained by Erdoğan in Turkey, and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, from whom Erdoğan had received the ‘Gaddafi Human Rights Award’ in 2010. According to the Rome Statute, the ICC might acquire jurisdiction, even when it had no immediate authority, if the United Nations (UN) Security Council referred a case to it.115 The Security Council decisions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter were binding on member states. The Security Council might adopt some such resolution in which to ask the ICC to look into a specific claim of international criminal responsibility. This was what had happened with both Sudan and Libya, states that were not parties to the Rome Statute.116 Nine votes, out of fifteen, were sufficient for a Security Council resolution, yet those votes had to include the votes of the permanent members.117 The five permanent members would be likely to have overriding ­extra-­legal interests though, given the fine points of global politics as applicable to the region. More importantly perhaps, some of these five states seemed to have been with Turkey in the alleged transfers of armament to the rebel groups in Syria. No matter how ‘promising’ the cases above could look towards qualifying for a Security Council resolution that would grant authority to the ICC, it appeared still highly dubious, therefore, that political figures from Turkey could possibly end up before the ICC.

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10 EVERYDAY ATROCITIES

T

he most h ­ igh-­powered administration by far in several decades, with close to 60 per cent electoral support behind its political reforms by late 2010, as well as key international policy circles during most of its rule, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) nevertheless remained largely inert in the face of a number of burning everyday issues. Unlike the majority of those addressed in the preceding chapter, the issues that ceaselessly tested the pious sensibilities in power were barely of the stock of the ‘hard cases’ formed by resilient fault lines that reigned over domestic politics. The everyday manifestations of the transgressions at issue involved women, the lower grades of labour, alternative gender identities, prison inmates and the ransacked c­ ityscape­– all ­­ almost consistently pushed aside to the margins in the mainstream media, until 2013 at least. The Gezi Park protests (see Chapter 6) in the summer of that year, sparked by an organised resistance to an urban redevelopment plan in the centre of Istanbul, which had been set to destroy a local park by building in its place a shopping mall, would suddenly draw the attention of large sections of society to those issues by highlighting ‘the political’ intrinsic to each and every one of those. The demonstrations would attract keen participants from, among others, local women’s associations and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) bodies. Some of the problems long in oblivion would thus acquire precious visibility and, more importantly, start getting partly integrated into 290

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everyda y atroci tie s  | 291 those areas of interest that constituted the centre of attention in politics. Notably, the ­Kurdish-­led Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi), merging Kurdish politics with the Gezi insights, and on ascendance from 2014 for a spell, would come to include LGBTI politicians within its ranks and make gender equality a major part of its political agenda. According to the global gender equality report of the World Economic Forum in 2015, Turkey ranked 130th out of 145 countries.1 Most of the hitherto ­little-­noticed plights addressed below appeared to be linked to two distinct and formidable undercurrents: (1) the settled patriarchal practices, which, as some of the critics argued, had an increasing toll under the AKP rule, and (2) a crony capitalism newly created around the government that wasted human lives and readily enabled the pillaging of precious urban space. This chapter probes some of the more pressing of the matters that were chiefly, if not exclusively, under these forces, providing a basic account of each. The first section is on the unrelenting misogynistic violence, particularly femicide, as part and parcel of a woman’s life. A brief chronicling of the brutal treatment of trans women, killed in scores, follows it. Forms of vicious conduct involving those with alternative lifestyles and preferences invited immediate action, with some urgency for legislation on hate crimes to start with. The next section is on hate crimes, with an account of some bewildering intrigue in the practice. The chapter then moves on to a description of the trials and tribulations of sex work in the country, riddled with unique and ­culture-­specific paradoxes. The section following that is concerned with severely ailing and terminally ill prisoners, an issue that remarkably cut across the identity and status of figures incarcerated and the types of offence for which they served time. The subsequent section is on the killings in various labour sectors that were on an alarming upsurge, mostly in ­construction­– for ­­ the much highlighted craze around this sector under the AKP ­rule­– ­­though placed more indelibly in public memory for the staggering number of miners killed in a series of ­so-­called accidents that bordered on wilful homicide. Finally, the chapter looks into the brutal defacing of urban space through a ­means-­to-end policy of growth and, with it, the effective excision of social history, conspicuous especially through some of the ­irreversible ravages inflicted on the historical Istanbul.

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292  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Male Violence Violence against women appeared to have reached new heights, possibly with the growing integration of women in the broader economic and social milieu, as demanded by the shifting urban conditions. The d ­ ecades-­long civil war fought mostly in the K ­ urdish-­populated s­ outh-­east was treated as the issue in domestic politics primarily for the ghastly casualties it had produced over the years. Yet, the ­counter-­insurgency war with Kurdish guerrillas looked simply dwarfed by the toll of the mundane male vileness against women. According to a report by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi) at the end of 2014, the official statistics on violence against women indicated an incredible 1,400 per cent rise compared to the figures in the 1990s, the decade before the AKP would rise to power.2 The women killed in 2014, apparently by spouses, former spouses, lovers, former lovers and family members (fathers, brothers), characteristically indignant at what they perceived as unforgivable ‘indiscretions’ of those women, numbered ‘at least’ 281.3 The figure was 274 for 2015.4 The tally in the five years from 1 January 2010 had been 1,134.5 Of those slain in 2014, the husbands were the killers in 46 per cent of the cases, followed by male relatives (19 per cent), lovers (10 per cent), former husbands (6 per cent), former lovers (4 per cent) and refused men (3 per cent), among others (12 per cent).6 In 9 per cent of the overall cases, the women murdered had already been within the knowledge of the authorities as victims of violence, having filed criminal complaints, or even, in some of the cases, purportedly ‘guarded’ by decisions of restraint and protection issued by courts. In 4 per cent, the perpetrators had been on trial for violence prior to the homicide, to be subsequently acquitted or released through official pardon, controlled liberty or special leave from prison.7 Typically in such cases, the European Court of Human Rights had ruled over the years not only a violation of the right to life and grave ­ill-­treatment, but also discrimination against women by the authorities.8 The Ministry of Family and Social Policies would appear in January 2015 to have withheld from the public the results of a survey it had conducted on violence against women in cooperation with a university research centre on population studies, admittedly for fear of questions from the public, which the results clearly raised.9 According to the findings in the survey leaked to the media, 36 per

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everyda y atroci tie s  | 293 cent of married women in the country were victims of male violence, and only 11 per cent of those had ever sought some form of legal protection. In addition to the apparent indolence of authorities in raising awareness and in providing information on the legal remedies available, combined with the failure of the law enforcement body in extending effective protection in cases of criminal complaint, the relative impunity of the perpetrators seemed to be yet another reason for the ongoing carnage. Not infrequently, courts tended to see the offences in question as mere crimes of passion, honour and social code, at any rate to be treated with some leniency. The details provided by a news report for the period between 1 March 2013 and 31 January 2014 indicated that the justice system had decided a total of ­thirty-­one such cases of murder.10 In 45 per cent of these cases, the murderers had benefited from assumed ‘undue provocation’ (haksız tahrik) or ‘good behaviour’ (iyi hâl), in turn receiving considerably reduced sentences. For undue provocation, courts had cited instances such as the scepticism of the husband upon finding out that his wife had been communicating with strangers on the Internet, or a ‘harsh’ statement of the wife directed at the husband, as in ‘Are you really a man?’ or ‘Who do you think you are?’ As for the good behaviour of the offender, earning him further tolerance, courts had pointed out as little as the mere regret for what had been done, or, in some cases, the fact that the culprit had donned a suit turning up at the trial. A platform of ­non-­governmental organisations, including political parties and labour unions, set up in 2010 and called ‘We Will Stop Misogynistic Murders’ (Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız), had since done much to raise awareness of the issue, engaging in public advocacy, organising rallies, formally participating in legal cases as a ­third-­party intervener and last, but by no means least, by legislative lobbying. It was largely through the efforts of this platform that the Law on the Protection of the Family and the Prevention of Violence against Women would be enacted in 2012.11 The statute would be followed in 2013 by a detailed administrative statement of the regulations for its implementation.12 The legislation aimed to secure the full application of a new and major human rights treaty that had been pioneered by none other than Turkey, namely the European Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, adopted in Istanbul in May 2011.13 As a particularly promising new practice to c­omplement the

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294  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y ­ ormative framework, ­so-­called ‘panic buttons’ would be introduced next, to n be handed over through court order to women considered under close risk of male violence.14 Yet, administered from early 2014 in two ‘pilot’ provinces, the experience in the first year would look less than reassuring altogether.15 Near ­cutting-­edge as formal safeguards extended to women against male violence went globally, it remained to be seen, however, as to how these instruments would be translated into action in the long run by both the judiciary and the law enforcement bodies. Judging from the way the courts had long handled the issue of child brides,16 a euphemism in fact for a socially sanctioned form of paedophilia, which effectively ignored the practice, somehow striving for excuses towards full or partial impunity, caution was still needed against undue optimism in the matter. For an idea for the mixed cultural registers locally, ruling out o­ ver-­optimism, here is a passage from a newspaper column by an Islamic scholar and intellectual who, ironically, was among the critics of the new regime from 2011 for its nonchalance towards some of the basic rights and freedoms: God Almighty has wished his names ‘Rage (Jalal) and Sustainer (Qayyum)’ to be manifest in the man, and his names ‘Beauty (Jamal) and Gentle (Rahman)’ in the woman, thus creating the respective nature (fitrah) of each. Policies implemented [in Turkey] in the last ten years have perverted the nature of both sexes; men and women have been intentionally rendered autonomous in mutual relations, turning into rivals, instead of remaining mutually loyal and interdependent, as required for the reproduction of our species. Women have become masculine and men feminine. A ‘third sex’ is gradually being bred. The woman has been assassinated, with the man as the liquidator, the family disbanded, and the society disintegrated.17

This take on women was in a dramatic contrast with the pervading mood among women themselves, as reflected in some of the banners women sported on the very day this piece appeared (8 March), marching in Istanbul and in other major cities to celebrate International Women’s Day.18 One of the banners pointed out a common misconception: ‘I didn’t come from your rib, you came from my vagina!’ Another banner stated: ‘Leave our bodies, lives and decisions to us. You can have your family.’ And yet another cried: ‘We are not leaving nights, streets, public squares!’

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everyda y atroci tie s  | 295 Slaughter of Trans Women It was perhaps ironic that one of the few successful Turkish exports to the wider world was the crime fiction series by Mehmet Murat Somer, set in Istanbul and featuring for the main protagonist a transvestite as the ­larger-than-­life amateur sleuth of the books,19 while, at the same time, Turkey topped all ­forty-­seven Council of Europe states, including Russia and most of the former Soviet constituent parts, in terms of hate crimes against trans people,20 more specifically trans women. Out of fi ­ fty-­three reported cases of trans murder motivated by hate in Europe between January 2008 and December 2011, close to half (­twenty-­three murders) were from Turkey.21 In a global tally of trans murders for the six years from 1 January 2008, Turkey would rank ninth.22 Virtually all of the trans women killed were sex workers, as ordinary employment was firmly shut to them and a roof under which they could take shelter as a personal abode invariably meant a very high rent, if possible at all. Right to life was one of the fundamental rights protected in the European regime of human rights, binding locally.23 In addition to a general commitment to respect life in deeds directly attributable to it, the public authority was also under obligation within the system to adopt all possible measures to prevent the violation of the right by private persons. In the event of a violation, a further obligation was to conduct a proper investigation into the killing or, as the case might be, the threat to life, and in turn identify and punish the culprit or culprits, without delay. The effective or partial impunity of perpetrators, apparently part and parcel of some deeply rooted social prejudices that extended also to those in the judiciary in most trans murders, was simply an additional v­ iolation­– ­­a breach of the prohibition of discrimination in the implementation of the rights protected.24 Speaking of impunity in the matter, this is how the regular report of the European Commission on Turkey described the situation in 2013: Violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) persons continued. Hate attacks and hate speech against homosexuals increased. Twelve LGBTI hate murders were reported in Turkey, and several lynching attempts and incidents of torture, rape, i­ll-­treatment,

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296  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y ­ omestic violence, harassment, and ­cyber-­attacks against LGBTIs. There d was repeated application by the judiciary of the principle of ‘undue provocation’ and reduced sentences due to the ‘good behaviour’ of perpetrators of crimes against LGBTI persons. There were increasing concerns that shortcomings in the investigation and prosecution of crimes against people of a different sexual orientation or gender identity led to impunity for the perpetrators.25

The ­so-­called undue provocation invoked by courts to deliver for the murderer in the specific case as light a sentence as possible assumed, rather unbelievably, that the murderer had been provoked: the killer had acted on an ‘understandable’, if not altogether ‘good’, reason. Again, there was always the ‘good behaviour’ clause for extra mercy for the perpetrator, as noted before. In its regular report for the following year, the European Commission would note: ‘Court sentences for hate crime offenders were often reduced on the basis of “unjust provocation” by the victim and good behaviour. In addition, in numerous cases, crimes against people of a different sexual orientation or gender identity remained unpunished.’26 Hate Crimes Beyond the European regime of human rights, the government was expected to fight hate crimes also under a series of decisions, policies and principles that emanated from its ties with two regional organisations: the European Union (of which the European Commission cited above was an organ) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Turkey aspired to be a member of the former, while already one with the latter. The government had formal duties to fulfil on hate crimes, based on various instruments effective within the OSCE, chiefly an outstanding chore to introduce into the domestic normative framework some m ­ uch-­needed ­anti-­hate crime legislation. That is, rather than treating the prejudices in the community towards trans individuals as natural, having understandably ‘provoked’ the offenders in specific cases, therefore at least partly justifying the grave deed, the public authority was under obligation to make the crimes at issue somehow costlier to the perpetrators for involving hatred towards the very identity of the victim. A hate law as such typically gave domestic authorities special

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everyda y atroci tie s  | 297 impetus, greater power and adequate resources to fight hate crimes, in addition to the greater deterrence brought about by the increased penalty for the offence. Somewhat embarrassed by the fact that Turkey was one of the few states in Europe without some ­anti-­hate legislation, the government would announce a forthcoming a­ nti-­hate crime law in September 2013 as part of a new ‘democratising package’.27 Yet, the draft bill that would later end up in the parliament would be reported to have inexplicably left out those crimes motivated by venomous bias against the sexual preference, ethnic identity or nationality of the victim.28 What exactly was the new law going to protect, then? Religious (read ‘Muslim’) values and lifestyles, it seemed, which were already p ­ rotected­– ­­indeed, more jealously protected perhaps than they actually should be, as described in the preceding chapter. Hate crime as a term had first been used in an intergovernmental setting by the OSCE, at its 2003 Ministerial Council meeting in Maastricht. In the period that ensued, this organisation would bring the member states to undertake a set of commitments towards an efficient control of hate crimes in domestic jurisdiction, from criminal legislation to measures towards encouraging victims to report crimes, from psychological counselling of the victims to the training of public employees interacting with the victims.29 Although Turkey never had legislation on hate crimes, according to the figures in the most recent full report by the OSCE in 2011, the government appeared to have been busy combatting hate crimes, chiefly ‘incitement to hatred’ and ‘discrimination’.30 Turkey, the report indicated, had sentenced 242 such cases in 2009, 297 in 2010 and seventeen in 2011 (628 still being prosecuted for the year). How was it possible for the Turkish courts to have issued so many criminal convictions, punishing hate crimes, in the absence of some comprehensive normative tool? More interestingly, the overall statistics about the incidents of possible hate crime recorded by the police in the OSCE countries, communicated in the same report, revealed that actually Turkey had had no such ‘incidents’. For a comparison, Sweden had 5,493 incidents reported to the police only for the year 2011. This number was 5,139 in Sweden for the year 2010. Yet, out of thousands of police cases in Sweden in 2010, there had been not one single conviction. In other words, minorities in that country seemed to be rather l­itigation-­happy when it came to hate crimes: they would go right to the authorities and initiate procedures even

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298  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y when only slightly bothered, and whatever they would state as a complaint would be taken down and processed. While in Turkey, there had been 297 court sentences in the same year (2010) in baffling contrast to the ‘zero’ incidents reported by private persons within the period. What did this total absence of incidents mean? It possibly meant one of the following: (1) victims of hate crimes in Turkey did not go and report to the police the objectionable treatment they experienced, considering the whole thing as insignificant, or (2) they were not really encouraged to report such crimes, if not somehow frightened to do so altogether, thus choosing eventually not to report, or finally, as the case might be, (3) minorities abused through hate crimes did perhaps go to the authorities, but such complaints simply fell on deaf ears. The complaints were not processed. But, then, what about those 297 sentences delivered by Turkish courts in 2010 alone? All those cases in the OSCE report appeared to have been initiated by public prosecutors in the absence of complaints by private persons. Those, in other words, were not criminal convictions protecting some concrete victims of hate and discrimination, such as a Kurd blatantly disfavoured by a state agency, an insulted Jew, or a harassed gay person. So what were those sentences protecting? All or at least most of them were probably guarding ‘the state’ against political dissenters such as the Kurdish political opposition, or perhaps against someone like Hrant Dink (see Chapter 9), the Turkish-­ ­ Armenian journalist who was assassinated following a criminal ­conviction he had received for ‘insulting’ Turks. Abuse of Sex Workers Sex work as a local labour sector seemed to evade, to some extent, the proclivity of the modern territorial state for ‘policing’ morals. That was chiefly because the normative regulation of sex work (if some regulation was at all in place) had been inherited from the Ottoman era and, latecomers of modernity, Ottomans had maintained a unique lore in sex work formed over centuries, surprising, even perhaps shocking, to outsiders as somehow devoid of the usual inhibitions observed elsewhere. The republican administration went on with the Ottoman system, or lack thereof, rather by default, if somewhat uneasily, choosing to ignore the sector beyond some rudimentary measures on public health.31 Historically, Ottomans did not seriously mind prostitutes,

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everyda y atroci tie s  | 299 with the possible exception of the period under Selim I­II­– revealingly ­­ a ‘Westward’ looking reformer and moderniser who ruled between 1789 and 1807. The sole punitive action resorted to when prostitutes were punished, if at all, appeared to be exile, and that was on the whole only to appease or humour the locals who filed complaints. From the ­mid-­nineteenth century, the administration would take an even bolder course in the matter, legalising and taxing brothels (umumhane, later genelev, literally ‘public house’). Brothels had long been around, with authorities usually turning a blind eye to them, especially in Istanbul’s overwhelmingly ­non-­Muslim Galata district, where such houses entertained clients with ­non-­Muslim women only. With the legalisation, Muslim proprietors also started, around 1860, to run brothels in the predominantly Muslim districts such as Aksaray and Üsküdar. Moreover, judging from the names of the prostitutes, these new brothels had also ‘Muslim’ women serving the clients.32 The local lore in sex work had long before enabled Muslim men and boys to work as prostitutes though, usually in public bathing houses managed by Muslims and catering to distinguished Muslim sodomite and pederast clientele, when such practices within the knowledge of the public authority were inconceivable in most other parts of the world.33 Ottoman administration would issue some standards, as communicated in the Regulations on the Prevention of the Spread of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (Emraz-ı Zühreviyyenin Men-i Sirayeti Nizamnamesi), initiating some state control of the sector, not before 1915. At the time this instrument was adopted, Muslim women had already topped in Istanbul the officially ‘registered’ (vesikalı) women in the sector, ahead of other ethnic groups in Ottoman society.34 A circular order issued by the republican government in 1930, entitled Combatting Prostitution, did aim gradually, yet somewhat ambitiously, to wipe out sex work nationwide by denying licence to new brothels and by disallowing new women to be admitted to those that already existed.35 Yet it would be revoked in 1933, as the authorities soon came to realise the considerable social undercurrent in the matter that could not possibly be reversed overnight, a fact that would discourage the government to insist on the policy, in turn paving the way for a new policy of active indifference. In 1933 the circular would be replaced with the Regulations on Combatting Prostitution and Diseases Infected via Prostitution.36 Driven by a mere concern about public health, particularly with syphilis and ­gonorrhoea

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300  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y in mind, the policy would become one of simply containing sex work. The whole thing was largely in contrast to the prevailing European mindset on sex work at the time, based on less than clear notions of public order and morals that were, some would say, inevitably authoritarian as well as hypocritical. A new set of guidelines (tüzük) issued in 1961, following a major military takeover, typically intent to leave nothing unregulated, and heedless in so doing of the public discontent altogether, nevertheless preserved both the logic and the general outline of the earlier instrument.37 The guidelines would be amended, though left intact overall, once again, and revealingly, only after a military intervention, in 1973. The guidelines that were essentially from 1961 constituted in the early years after the old regime from 2011 the sole authoritative source of norms that was exclusively on sex work. Accordingly, prostitution was not prohibited either for the sex worker or for the client, yet promoting prostitution and coercing a person into it were offences punishable under the Penal Code.38 One major drawback of t­his­– what ­­ looked ­like­– liberal, ­­ ­laid-­back official attitude on sex work compared to most European states was the absence of clear rules. Sex workers were generally in the dark as to what rights they actually possessed and what obligations were applicable in specific circumstances. More gravely, they were subject to frequent and arbitrary detentions and fines (sometimes huge) at the sheer mercy of the law enforcement officers patrolling the specific area, who appeared to use a highly imprecise clause in the Law of Misdemeanours (‘conduct contrary to order’) to torment them.39 In practice, the regular fines appeared to be construed by sex workers as plain extortion or protection money exacted by ‘the state’. A greater concern that would come to the forefront under the AKP rule from late 2002, long before the regime change, was to do with some undeclared, and perhaps unwitting, policy towards driving sex workers out of brothels on to the street and into murky private houses. As often testified by the local human rights organisations, sex workers were much safer in brothels in the face of violence by clients and pimps, as perhaps was the case all around the world. The freshest information on the state of brothels, incredibly from as far back as 2004, listed fi ­ fty-­six brothels throughout the country, which employed about 15,000 women.40 The research estimated this to be just over 10 per cent of the actual number of sex workers at the time. This figure of over

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everyda y atroci tie s  | 301 100,000 women did not include the trans women forced into sex work in the absence of other jobs and, further, those from eastern Europe who flooded into the country in the aftermath of the dissolution of the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. According to the Policy Guidelines of 1961, establishing a brothel and working in one were subject to relatively simple procedures.41 Those who wished to start a brothel petitioned the highest public authority (mülki amir) in the locality, and formally committed themselves to abide, in addition to the guidelines, also by the decisions and measures adopted by the local Committee for Combatting Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Prostitution, a body set up in the guidelines. The entrepreneurs needed to attach to the petition a plan of the premises of the brothel and details of both the service staff and the sex workers employed, with ­passport-­size photographs of all. The state authority, receiving this application, forwarded it to the committee above, which made an ­on-­file and ­on-­site evaluation in light of the guidelines, and if affirmative, communicated its decision to that effect back to the public authority in question. The decision subsequently approved by that authority was then sent to the local police, with a permit eventually issued for the brothel. Women who worked in brothels had to be unmarried, healthy and at least t­wenty-­one years old, with Turkish nationality. As clear as the normative scheme was on brothels, human rights activists reported that, with the AKP in power, few women had actually been allowed to register for labour in brothels.42 Moreover, allegedly the number of brothels had since been falling rapidly through eviction that brothels seemed to face, often as part of the new local administrative craze of aggressive gentrification, while no licence was issued for new ones. Those few women, including some trans women (not mentioned in the guidelines but ostensibly long allowed in practice), who got the much coveted positions in brothels, were said to have been able to do so only by handsomely bribing some middle persons who mediated with the authorities.43 Those active in the area of protecting the rights of sex workers locally were at once quick to dispel the ­age-­old myth of brothels as ghastly places where abuse was part of the routine. The negative image, accordingly, was to do mostly with stories from back in the 1970s. Brothels now, by this account, were greatly free of fatal contagious diseases, and where, on top of this, either various hate crimes or crimes discriminating against women were rare.

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302  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Further, employing workers without proper insurance seemed to be severely penalised by the state. ‘Officials from five different public bodies visit brothels monthly’, one activist stated, ‘and interview sex workers in the absence of the representatives [of brothel proprietors, vekil] and pimps, genuinely interested in so doing in the problems of the workers’.44 This was sharply in variance with the plight of the street workers, who routinely faced myriad forms of violence: from clients, chiefly not to pay or force unwanted forms of sexual union, from pimps who were usually organised in ­Mafioso-­style gangs, from the law enforcement officers through arbitrary fines and detention, and from the community, starting with the immediate neighbours, landlords­– ­who asked for extortionate r­ ents­– and ­­ others, who treated them like lepers. Criminal complaints filed by s­ treet-­walking sex workers were often ignored. The practice appeared to be heedless of several basic rights within the European human rights protection system. First, the prejudicial treatment of brothels as a means of livelihood for sex workers was a clear violation of the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions, and of the prohibition of discrimination in conjunction with it.45 The public authority was under no obligation to allow brothels or legalise sex work, to be sure; but once sex work was a right under the domestic ­law­– ­­which it w ­ as­– ­­the economic value it involved received protection under the right in question, also known as the right to property. Second, the provision in the guidelines that ruled out marriage for sex workers46 was arguably a violation of both the right to marry and the right to privacy.47 Again, in conjunction with these, since those other than sex workers did not face such restrictions, the requirement that sex workers remain single amounted also to a violation of the prohibition of discrimination in the implementation of the rights protected. Third, the practice breached a number of basic rights of those walking the streets and seeking work in public places, once again together with infringements of the prohibition of discrimination. The reluctance of authorities to process criminal complaints by sex workers could be a source of severe mental distress and anguish, as well as physical violence, and as such a violation of both the prohibition of ­ill-­treatment and the right to an effective remedy for redress in violations of rights.48 The occasional deprivation of liberty by the law enforcement officers on the basis of a plainly vague norm (‘conduct contrary to order’) was barely compatible with the protection of personal liberty and security.49 Deprivation of liberty

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everyda y atroci tie s  | 303 was nothing trivial and could only happen in keeping with certain criteria: reasonable doubt and reasonable necessity in relation to an offence committed or to be committed. Moreover, since this piece of domestic law appeared to be implemented by the law enforcement bodies as an administrative measure, it was possible to talk of a violation of the right to a fair trial, which required that assessment of rights and of criminal responsibility be made only by an independent and impartial tribunal.50 Law enforcement officers were also reported to tend to persecute sex workers, who could not be accused of prostitution, for ‘promoting’ prostitution instead, which, unlike prostitution itself, could be a criminal offence. This was an exercise of power that was highly problematic under the rule ‘no punishment without the law’.51 Those sex workers who were effectively left by the public authority to the mercy of criminal gangs, especially in the case of those who were not nationals and brought in often under false pretences, also received some protection via the prohibition of forced labour and slavery.52 Last, but by no means least, the efforts of sex workers to establish a union, known to be under way since 2008,53 but not yet achieved, possibly for being hindered by the officialdom, seemed to form a violation also of the freedom of association.54 An appalling performance all over: in the treatment of sex workers, the government appeared to violate, even at a cursory examination, virtually all of the basic rights and freedoms protected within the European regime of human rights. To be sure, the exercise of some of these rights might be restricted by the public authority, relying on an exhaustive set of legitimate aims provided within the system; here, principally the protection of health and morals as a possible justifiable aim, yet the limitations thus put into operation were expected to be (1) established by law, with sufficient clarity and foreseeability, and (2) necessary in a democratic society, responding to a pressing social need in proportionate weight. Most of the constraints that were at work in the practice of the country on sex work were unlikely to be tolerated through these ­well-­defined benchmarks. Crushed Dignity of Ailing Prisoners Omissions, failure and negligence far worse than the treatment of sex workers moved to the fore in the early phase after the old regime, prompting growing concerns in the domestic public opinion in two further areas: seriously

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304  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y ill and dying prisoners, and a massive number of routine casualties in the labour force. The plight of the incarcerated in poor health visibly alerted the public during the eventually aborted set of investigations and trials from ­mid-­2007, detailed in Chapter 3. One of the suspects fell gravely ill while on remand and subsequently lost his life in July 2008, about a year after he had been detained.55 One other suspect in detention, an academic and former university president, turned out to be afflicted with what appeared to be an advanced stage of cirrhosis, effectively ignored by the authorities.56 The issue became public only through the high profile of some of the suspects in these unusual cases. Yet similar grievances of inmates, especially those convicted for or charged with political offences, attracting limited attention on the whole, had long been known and closely monitored by local human rights groups. Technically it was possible for the president of the Republic to repeal or curtail prison sentences imposed on individuals in cases of chronic illness, disability or old age.57 As it would become apparent, especially during the ordeal of the academic above, the process was rather less than efficient, even when initiated bona fide under the strong pressure of the public.58 Put in the picture at long last, the president would apply, through a formal solicitation of the Ministry of Justice, to the Office of the Public Prosecutor in the specific province, where the debilitated prisoner was held. The Ministry would introduce a procedure and ultimately acquire a full report on the health of the inmate from the Ministry’s own Forensic Medicine Institute, which, as it would seem, could be the tricky part. Not bound by the earlier medical reports on which the president drew, the Institute would assess the health issues of the inmate in question in a long and painful process lasting for months, even years. The release of an ailing inmate, often terminally ill, and not fit for prison environment, was possible also on the sole basis of the Law on the Execution of Penal and Security Measures, without the need for a remission by the president.59 This statute, which enabled the stay of execution of a sentence for sick convicts if the disease formed a definite threat to their lives, nevertheless once again made the Forensic Medicine Institute the key public body in the process. Accordingly, the medical report required for the stay of execution was to be issued either by the Institute itself directly or by a fully equipped hospital, the report obtained in the latter case to be in turn subject to a formal

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everyda y atroci tie s  | 305 approval of the Institute. Based on the report, the decision for the stay was ultimately made by the chief public prosecutor in the locality where the sentence was being executed. Human rights activists long advocated that relaxing what was de facto an exclusive authority wielded by the Forensic Medicine Institute could bring about some ­much-­needed relief. An amendment in the statute in January 2013 sought formally to facilitate the stay of execution of sentences for those seriously ill or injured in cases when, uncared by a family member or someone close, the ailing inmate could not possibly go on living a­ lone­– ­­provided that the inmate did not present any ‘danger to the public’.60 Ironically, this new regulation would later turn out to have only thickened the red tape involved in the whole process.61 Fresh parliamentary initiatives for further amendment of the law, promoted particularly by the Kurdish political movement, would now aim to try and do away with the novel hurdle of an assessment of a possible danger to the public posed by the internee in the event of a release from prison. What were the typical problems of health experienced by inmates in prisons, which were pressing for a right to release? A typical example for a relatively less significant or minor category of issues in this regard, though great in terms of the number of cases, was reflected in a complaint, given voice in the Kurdish media, by an inmate with health problems concerning his kidneys and his stomach. Allegedly, the prison authorities were being somewhat arbitrary in refusing to extend appropriate medical care.62 A category that was much more urgent was illustrated in the tribulation of Hasan Kaçar, a Kurdish activist serving a prison term of ­thirty-­six years. Suffering from an ailment known as ‘ankylosing spondylitis’, Hasan had been rendered practically immobile while in prison: he was incapacitated to a degree that he was said to be able to move only his hands, if at all. He appeared to have, in addition to this, a number of other internal troubles, with blood frequently detected in his urine. The Forensic Medicine Institute had reportedly recommended a stay of execution of his sentence for six months. Yet even this precious, h ­ ard-­earned counsel did not seem to secure his release for some reason, indicating further and somewhat elusive entanglements.63 In another category was the case of a 95 per cent handicapped inmate, serving a stretch of ten months’ imprisonment in November 2013.64 He had ­numerous reports testifying to his condition. Yet he was expected to get one

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306  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y also from the Forensic Medicine Institute, a process that was almost certainly to last for more than the duration of the sentence in this case. An instance much highlighted, yet with little improvement on the whole, exemplified a category altogether d ­ ifferent­– ­­that of Kemal Gömi.65 A l­eft-­wing activist, charged with involvement in an armed assault, which had resulted in the loss of two lives, and yet which he had contested throughout, Kemal had been detained since 1993, serving a life sentence. In over twenty years he was in prison, he survived serious forms of ill-treatment,66 extended periods of hunger strikes, and the infamous prison raids by the administration in December 2000, in which ­thirty-­two inmates were killed, hundreds gravely injured, with effective impunity to follow for those responsible, giving rise in time to a series of European Court of Human Rights judgements against Turkey.67 Kemal was long diagnosed with ‘residual schizophrenia’. Reportedly, he did not even know that he was in prison. Deemed by the Forensic Medicine Institute itself as not fit to survive under prison conditions, Kemal was still being held regardless. The family seemed to have pleaded with the Office of the President to act, only to be advised that they needed to have the attention of the Ministry of Justice instead. And by the Ministry they were being advised, if the media accounts were to be believed, to apply to the Office of the President. Courts, on the other hand, seemed to be inexplicably inert in the matter, dismissing the applications by the family, and putting the ball consistently in the court of the administration. Public campaigns in the form of collecting signatures were introduced to raise awareness of the situation, and the musical band Praksis wrote a lovely piece for Kemal. All this, however, would come to little fruition. The official records of the Ministry of Justice in early 2014 indicated that fourteen people awaiting the completion of respective individual appraisals of possible release on health grounds, initiated by the Ministry, could no longer hold out and had lost their lives.68 According to a statement at about the same time by a consortium of several ­non-­governmental organisations close to the Kurdish political movement, set up in order to monitor and raise public awareness about seriously ill inmates, about 160, out of close to 800 cases nationwide, were in particularly critical conditions, nearly a third of them being cancer patients dying a slow and painful death.69 Several instruments under international human rights law, binding locally, regulated issues of the dignity and healthcare of prisoners.70 The most

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everyda y atroci tie s  | 307 effective among those, the European Convention on Human Rights, stated, repeating (with a slight omission) the decree originally promulgated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: ‘No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.’71 In a number of cases over the years, the European Court of Human Rights had used this succinct statement, prohibiting i­ll-­treatment, to introduce some benchmarks in the matter of healthcare for prisoners. Accordingly, the right at issue did not mean an obligation for states parties to end the deprivation of liberty for a prisoner on health grounds, so long as the public authority was able to provide the medical care required for the illness, approximating to the best that was available.72 An obligation to end or delay the deprivation of liberty might nevertheless emerge in the process depending on the specific health issues and the conditions in prison. In that regard, the European Court made it clear that the conditions under which a prisoner was detained must ‘not subject him to distress or hardship of an intensity exceeding the unavoidable level of suffering inherent in detention’.73 That is, if the ongoing detention caused suffering on the part of the detainee to a degree not anticipated in the penalty as such, there would certainly be possible violations of some of the rights protected within the s­ystem­– ­­the prohibition of ­ill-­treatment principally, but also perhaps the right to life, if the case presented a threat to or an eventual loss of life.74 Conceivably in place might also be ‘discrimination’ in conjunction with these rights.75 Not surprisingly, the Court would rule for ­ill-­treatment by one respondent state for failing to release the applicant, a leukaemia patient, convicted and serving a prison term for armed robbery.76 According to the Court in this case, ‘the applicant’s health was found to be giving more and more cause for concern and . . . increasingly incompatible with detention’.77 His suffering in prison, the Court would point out, ‘undermined his dignity and entailed particularly acute hardship that caused suffering beyond that inevitably associated with a prison sentence and treatment for cancer’. The Court would thus find that ‘the applicant was subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment on account of his continued detention’.78 In a subsequent case, the Court would decide that even a mere delay, for over a year in the specific instance, in releasing the inmate who suffered from an incurable disease was a violation of the same right.79 Arguably, the formal law in Turkey80 was roughly compatible with the normative framework in

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308  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Europe, especially in its recently amended form.81 Yet, the effective implementation of the law appeared to be a different matter altogether. Fatal State of Labour A mine blast in Soma in May 2014, which killed 301 miners, and which the then prime minister (president from August 2014) Tayyip Erdoğan could only account for by citing disasters from Victorian England, showed the fatal state of labour in the country under a blazing spotlight, not only domestically, but also in the world public opinion.82 The wilful neglect of the government that seemed to go beyond mere incompetence, with unspeakable greed lurking in the abyss behind the whole ­thing­– ­­as reflected in the rejection in parliament, only a few weeks before the accident, of a motion tabled by the opposition on the alarming hazards of mining in ­Soma­– ­­would soon fill the national media in grisly details.83 Suffice to note, the mining company had proudly declared to have reduced the cost of the coal per tonne to almost a sixth of the previous cost,84 a fact to be linked by some to the unique style of the ruling AKP doing politics, to have routinely used the mine to supply voters with free coal before elections.85 The disaster would be followed by a heavy government assault on the grieving mining town,86 widely covered in international media, featuring Erdoğan himself87 and one of his close aides88 personally assailing the locals before the cameras. Tear gas and water cannons would callously be used against protesting mourners,89 and, as humanitarian lawyers rushing to the area would be detained and handcuffed,90 a ‘mullah brigade’ would simultaneously be deployed in the town to inculcate submissiveness and obedience in the locals.91 In truth, the Soma mine killings caused domestic and international outrage merely for the number of workers lost in one single incident, surpassing the last great explosion in the Black Sea mining town of Kozlu in 1992, which had killed 263 miners. A 2010 report by a local think tank described Turkey as the deadliest country in the world in terms of mining accidents.92 Using data from 2008, the report disclosed that the fatality per million tonnes of coal mined in Turkey was 7.22. That was a figure five times greater than that in China and 361 times in excess of that in the United States in the same year. Indeed, the fatalities came as no surprise since the data regularly collected by the International Labour Organization (ILO) long betrayed Turkey as one of

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everyda y atroci tie s  | 309 the top ranking countries in the world in terms of fatal occupational injuries, at a rate of 6.2 (per one hundred thousand in labour force) in 2012.93 The total number of fatal accidents at work in all ­twenty-­eight of the European Union countries was 3,932 in 2012.94 The figure seemed to be higher in the United States, where 4,628 people lost their lives in ­work-­related accidents in the same year (including 803 cases of violence and injuries by persons and animals).95 The number of workers killed in ­work-­related accidents in Turkey alone in the year 2014 was 1,570, with those injured numbering ­ on-­governmental organisation had about 214,000.96 A tally kept by a local n 97 the fatality figure for the year at 1,886, and for 2015 at 1,730.98 The official figures revealed that, in 2013, 2.3 per cent of all those employed had experienced accidents at work.99 The computations in labour fatality once again paled by comparison the number of victims in the country’s d ­ ecades-­long civil war in the Kurdish populated ­south-­east, long considered to be the problem in the country. Not surprisingly, a 2014 report on the World’s Worst Countries for Workers would rate Turkey among the worst.100 Slavery was believed to continue in Mauritania, where slaves apparently formed up to a quarter of the population.101 Yet, according to the report, Mauritania was a better place for workers than Turkey, which, out of 139 countries evaluated in terms of respect for labour rights, appeared to be better than only eight. The fatalities seemed to occur in accidents mostly in construction and related sectors. The latest statistics on Turkey processed by the ILO, dating from 2008, indicated that over 34 per cent of the fatal accidents occurred in construction.102 Most of the accidents in this sector were ostensibly to do with unsafe scaffoldings that were barely up to the modern standards. Although the local regulations paid lip service to safety in the work environment, as discussed below, safer scaffoldings were both costly and time consuming, hence apparently considered as dispensable given the factors such as speed and low cost that drove the construction ­business­– ­­the hub of Turkey’s own brand of rentier capitalism under the new regime, the ‘Turkish miracle’. There was virtually no industrial company without extensive investments in the sector, encouraged by the government, and defined repeatedly by Erdoğan as ‘the engine of economy’.103 Registered construction firms were said to number close to 150,000 towards the end of 2013.104 This was about one firm for every 500 persons in the country. The state had its own construction

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310  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y bodies, starting with the massive Housing Administration under the Office of the Prime Minister, which was in turn tightly linked to private companies operating in the sector, inevitably with overlapping interests. The result was a brazen disregard of the ‘niceties’ in the regulations concerning safety. One extension of this obsession with c­ ost-­effectiveness was promoting ­sub-­contracting (taşeronluk) in various sectors. ­Sub-­contractors, sometimes several of them at a number of levels in a descending order, or spreading horizontally to s­ ub-­sectors, did not seem to be as firmly subjected to norms concerning work safety, and as a result responsibility for workplace safety practically dissipated. In turn, legal cases involving work accidents stretched for years and families of the victims were usually quick to reach a settlement with a token amount of informal compensation. With the families choosing not to be an intervening party in criminal cases, ex officio proceedings were eventually either dropped altogether in a dizzying maze of procedures or contractors ended up with a modest fine. An institution introduced originally as a dictate of specialisation in virtually all sectors, enabling the contractor to rely on unique services of firms in s­ub-­sectors, ­sub-­contracting in effect functioned for contractors as an avenue of rentier income and for evading legal responsibility. An expert claimed that in the case of a specific construction tender she had researched, she had been able to dig as far as an eighth ­sub-­contractor.105 The last s­ub-­contractor, she noted, was one single worker who had set up a firm in his home taking on board one other person, a relative. As the profit margin went down in the tender with the advancing layers in a chain of ­sub-­contractors, the one that actually executed the work on terrain needed to be extremely ­cost-­conscious to achieve profit. More harrowing still, a notable source of unshielded labour in work places appeared to be child labour. A 2014 report drawing on official data collected by the Turkish Statistical Institute (Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu) disclosed child labour in the country numbering in excess of one million, with 2,076 children de facto employed in mining.106 Of those killed in ­work-­related accidents in 2014, ­fifty-­four were apparently children under the age of eighteen (the number of those younger than fourteen was nineteen). These figures excluded 299 of the workers killed in the same year whose ages had not been documented in the available sources.107 The Labour Law in the country, dating from 2003,108 distinguished between two categories of child

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everyda y atroci tie s  | 311 labour: (1) those at least fourteen but younger than fifteen, having finished the compulsory primary education, and termed children (çocuk), and (2) those older yet under eighteen, termed youth (genç). Children in the first category qualified for what the law called ‘light work’, provided that the work in question would not hinder either their physical–mental development or, if they were still schoolchildren after the compulsory phase, their continuing education.109 The second category of child labour specifically excluded certain forms of work normally carried out by adults. According to the law, a directive (Yönetmelik) of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security was to supply details of the work, working conditions and the work barred in both categories.110 For some reason, the directive would come to create a s­ub-­section under the second category. This section, introduced in February 2013,111 saw practically no difference between adults and children aged sixteen and older, who were, as the directive put it, ‘graduates of vocational and technical schools and institutions’ under the Law on Vocational Education.112 Enacted in 1986, the Law on Vocational Education revealingly ­pre-­dated all of the subsequent and decisive developments in international human rights law on the rights of the child, with modifications effected in 1997 and 2001 that were merely cosmetic.113 At the heart of one specific public controversy in the immediate aftermath of the Soma mine disaster, following allegations of a young (reportedly fifteen years old) miner among the trapped,114 would thus be this amendment in the directive that kept a group of children ‘free of the limitations’ that would otherwise apply to child labour.115 Incredible as it may sound, this was not the whole story. A fourth (though clandestine) category of child labour was constituted by those younger than fourteen, who were known to be forced to work in agriculture, industry and service sectors to contribute to the family livelihood. The child labour in this category, between the ages of six and fourteen, was estimated in a document of policy and action plan by the government at the end of 2013 to be around 292,000.116 About 20 per cent of those children were noted in the same document to be unable to complete even the ‘compulsory’ phase of education. The grievous state of labour as outlined here did not really have much to do with the formal regulations in force, signalling instead a much more ­formidable problem, namely that of the legal and political culture that inevitably conditioned the implementation and treated laxities in the formal rules

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312  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y correspondingly. The fact that Turkey was not a party to the ILO Convention on Safety and Health in Mines117 was for the critics the major normative crack that made the Soma disaster possible. In truth, the Convention was hardly a magic wand, falling remarkably short, on the contrary, of opening mining industries in states parties to international inspection the way basic rights and freedoms were sometimes scrutinised on site by independent international observers. What is more, out of the top five ­coal-­mining countries in the world, only the United States and South Africa were parties to it. China, for instance, was not a party (alongside India and Australia), yet coal mining appeared to be five times more fatal in Turkey than in China. Moreover, it was hard to see that this Convention covered discernibly more on essential points of labour safety in mining than the ILO Convention on Occupational Safety and Health, to which Turkey happened to be a party.118 It also needs to be pointed out perhaps that the very local Law on Labour Safety,119 legislated in 2012, covered on fundamental points the terms of both ILO treaties above. Accordingly, the employer was under obligation to ensure the health and safety of employees where work was concerned, and this responsibility meant first and foremost the prevention of w ­ ork-­related risks and adoption of ‘all kinds of measures’, including training and information supply. This obligation at once called for adjustments of measures under ‘evolving circumstances’.120 The ‘safe rooms’, which the company that ran the Soma mine had previously stated the mine was equipped with to guarantee the safety of trapped miners for days, yet which turned out not to exist,121 were clearly a requirement under this norm. The same applied to proper scaffoldings needed in the construction sector to lower the rate of fatal incidents. Ironically, the ILO Convention on Safety and Health in Construction, to which Turkey would become a party in February 2015 as a partial response by the government to the claims of neglect in the continuing debate, barely specified the standards of scaffoldings to be used in the sector.122 A more important treaty, to which Turkey was a party, and which the local Law on Labour Safety seemed to incorporate almost fully, was the European Social Charter (Revised).123 The treaty included various rights ensuring just conditions of work, safe labour environment and protection of health.124 This agreement also specified the minimum age for employment (fifteen years, with light work forming an exception) and the work that

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everyda y atroci tie s  | 313 could be done by those younger than eighteen.125 The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, binding on Turkey, also had a norm that prohibited the economic exploitation of children and set a basic framework for suitable work when children could be employed.126 This norm was, again, greatly reproduced in the local directive cited above, with the sole exception perhaps of s­ ixteen-­year-olds ushered in later, as noted. That is, the positive law, both international and domestic, did not necessarily lack the basic instruments required to tackle fatality and carefree exploitation of labour. Yet, once again, the implementation, which seemed to be underpinned by an informal and elusive set of factors, was a different story altogether. Urban Disfigurement The overall perception of a Turkish economic ‘miracle’ during the regime change had a number of factors behind it, but a significant transformation in the basic economic parameters did not seem to be among them. For the person on the street, the most striking development during the period was the reduced and stabilised i­nflation­– from ­­ a consumer price index of 45 per cent in 2002 down to 6.3 per cent in 2009, swelling to an average of 7.8 per cent thereafter, to reach 8.9 per cent in 2014.127 The amelioration that took place within only a few years from 2002 had much to do with the tough recovery programme under Kemal Derviş, the minister of finance and economy for a spell (just over a year) in the wake of the 2001 economic crisis. An expatriate working then for the World Bank, Derviş came to the rescue, invited by the government, initiating quick, sweeping, radical reforms in the country’s dilapidated finance system. This new regulatory design was crucially bolstered by a series of measures on deficit adjustment imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) between 2001 and 2007, with emphasis on new normative frameworks for public procurement, privatisation and social security. Finally, the recovery was considerably facilitated by a global trend in capital flows that promoted growth in the ­so-­called emerging markets. To its credit, the ruling AKP would closely follow the fiscal discipline and austerity newly introduced, at least for the first five years of its mandate from late 2002. During the first twelve years under the AKP, Turkey’s gross domestic product (GDP at market prices) more than tripled, at $798.429 billion in 2014. Yet, measured comparatively, that was below the overall

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314  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y GDP increase in the emerging markets, which had more than quadrupled. The GDP per capita, tripled under the AKP rule by 2008, to be just over $10,000, would come to be at a standstill thereafter. The annual growth in the economy in the last year before the AKP mandate (2002) had been at 6.2 per cent. The whole preceding decade had produced an average growth of about 4 per c­ ent­– ­­a slight drop compared to that during the earlier period under Turgut Özal (1983–9). The growth during the first decade of the AKP administration (2003–12) would average 5 per cent, down to 3 per cent between 2012 and 2014, to fall below 3 per cent in 2014. The figures hardly indicated a ‘miracle’. The growth was achieved, as reflected in the roughly stagnant structure of the economy in the period, without any meaningful alteration in the ­long-­enduring constants of domestic production, such as expansion in the labour force by enabling greater participation of women and improvement in the education system towards a qualitative transformation in the production. As Ali Babacan, Derviş’s able successor in the management of the economy under the AKP rule, would admit in September 2015, now no longer in the cabinet or a deputy, ‘the growth attained was based on money, not on reform.’128 Structurally, the economy had remained pretty much as before. More, the ­so-­called ‘fiscal rule’ thought up by Babacan with a view to maintain the discipline in public spending in the aftermath of the IMF measures would receive a veto from Erdoğan,129 who would later come also to question the autonomy of independent institutions such as the Central Bank (Merkez Bankası, MB) and the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (Bankacılık Düzenleme ve Denetleme Kurumu, BDDK)­130­ – ­­particularly incongruous given the fact that those institutions had just served a key function to ward off the global economic crisis of 2008 by monitoring and reinforcing the banking system. Meanwhile money laundering was possibly a significant ­face-­saving instrument. Reportedly, for the first twelve years under the AKP rule, a total of $36 billion had been transferred to Turkey from unidentified sources, known as ‘net errors and omissions’.131 During the critical phase leading to the general election of June 2015, when an upsurge at the foreign currency rate worried the government, the undocumented foreign currency influx only in February was $4.282 billion.132 The figure for the first seven months in the same year would reach $9 billion.133 That is, the result after the first thirteen years of the exceptionally strong AKP rule was

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everyda y atroci tie s  | 315 a lingering risk of a return to the terrible 1990s that had culminated in the 2001 meltdown. Having been elected president in August 2014, and from then on arguably the most potent head of state in any democracy,134 Erdoğan would still urge a switch to a ‘­Turkish-­style’ executive presidency that would be direct and unhindered, citing in so doing, in addition to some legal hurdles under the present system, the autonomy of the above financial institutions, the MB and the BDDK, of which he would be increasingly critical, rebuking the bureaucrats in authority almost on a daily basis.135 The ostensible ‘boom’, with the attendant economic and social stability in the recent past of the country, which appeared to be what still endeared Erdoğan to most of his voters, despite the allegations of massive corruption (see Chapter 8), was greatly premised therefore on something else: an efficient absorption of excess capital through the enabling of vast investments particularly in the construction sector, which paradoxically contributed little to the overall production in the long run. Construction and related sectors made up close to a quarter of the annual GDP.136 Excess capital is the idle finance that the capital owner would normally wish to transform into products in the form of goods and services in order to make profit. When blocked, rather than used, the capital left redundant should be expected to fuel political volatility. The soaking up of this capital within the market, on the other hand, will not only mean more and more profit made possible for capital owners but also the relative integration of the idle labour attached to the market, thus reduced unemployment, which should in turn fortify the political resilience in the country. As noted before, there appeared to be one construction firm in Turkey for nearly every 500 people, an upsurge enabled mostly by the vast land that the public authority owned, now being privatised. This formed (1) an engagement of capital on a simply monumental scale and (2) heightened employment correspondingly. Thrown into the bargain was (3) a deceptive sense of ­well-­being on the part of the public witnessing spectacular works of construction, especially public works and amenities. Finally, the tremendous construction work led and organised by the State Housing Authority (TOKİ) enabled (4) precious clientelism through cheap, though less than adequate, housing and, perhaps more important still, (5) further political stability, with the masses acquiring those houses on credit pay back and thus acutely wary of ‘adventures’ in politics.

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316  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y All this basically came within reach by a gradual removal of bureaucratic hurdles long in the way of the country’s beleaguered privatisation programme introduced by Özal from 1985. The administration had been able to sell public property worth over $54 billion in the first decade of its rule, although the judiciary, still loyal to the old order at the time, had done its best to hinder the efforts for most of this stretch.137 The privatisation in 2013 alone, with obstacles now fully eliminated, would be worth $12.485 billion.138 One glaring source of revenue, particularly after almost all of the ­state-­owned economic enterprises and assets had been sold would be the real estate in public possession and lands opened to redevelopment by constant ­fine-­tuning of zoning legislations, chiefly in Istanbul, where, in places, the value of the real estate competed with the most expensive in Europe. The fact that the public authority was by far the greatest landowner in the country would in turn bestow on the government practically immeasurable patronage capacities, turning it into a rentier administration, of sorts, with the oil in its ­better-­known model being substituted by valuable land and by permits for redevelopment. The tapes leaked from December 2013 would reveal that Erdoğan was personally interested and in charge of both the sale of land and permits. On one occasion he was heard on tape, not disowned subsequently, sharply to rebuke the head of the TOKİ for selling a valuable plot (kupon arazi) in Istanbul without clearing with him first, telling him forthwith to cancel the sale.139 A group of Gezi activists, mostly academics and journalists, ran a regularly updated website, with help from the public, that documented the crony economic relations in the country around public property, aptly named Networks of Dispossession. This largely ­make-­believe ‘alleviation’ of social ills in the country, bringing about some economic and political sturdiness, was known to be a strategy that was hardly unique to Turkey under the AKP rule. In fact, the description above of the ‘intimate’ link between capitalism and urbanisation is rehashed from the work of David Harvey, whose chief example of social stabilisation through a r­ e-­fashioning of urban ­space­– which ­­ is really a ‘dispossession’, as he puts i­t­– is ­­ the construction work carried out in Paris from 1853 under ­Louis-­Napoléon Bonaparte.140 Interestingly, one Turkish journalist would point out the parallels between the French coup of 1851 by Bonaparte, famous for Marx’s analysis advanced in the following year, and the ‘coup’

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everyda y atroci tie s  | 317 staged by Erdoğan in December 2013, following the corruption and bribery allegations: not because they both took place, curiously enough, in December, but because in both cases a figure already in power had tightened their grip on power by suspending the formal constitutional order.141 According to Harvey, this model of growth through urban replanning in France in the ­mid-­nineteenth century, which, as he notes, is akin in ways to the notorious Keynesian recipe of ­make-­believe for crisis times, would serve in the United States in the immediate aftermath of World War II, possibly on a greater scale, to bring about a much-needed social repose both locally and in terms of global capitalism. The pattern, he concludes, is well observed now virtually all over the globe. The economic policies under the AKP rule were often assumed to be a continuation of the global neoliberal current, yet the AKP elite appeared to succeed blending the t­ell-­tale policies of this largely amorphous force with a native, socially embedded version of the welfare state. The privatisation and the promotion of free markets were coupled, unlike perhaps a textbook instance of n ­ eoliberalism, with increasing state involvement, even perhaps increasing spending, in health and education. This occurred parallel to some rationalisation in the health sector, while the spending in education remained at the superficial (yet effective on an electoral basis) level of subsidising books and equipment. The rectifications were progressively felt by the public in everyday life, not to mention the handouts supplied to voters, allegedly out of systematically accumulated public tender kickbacks (see Chapter 8), ranging from white kitchen goods to coal. Consequently an acute and widespread discontent was avoided, although labour relations in certain sectors were more than strained, as dramatically highlighted in the Soma mining disaster described above. That is, the otherwise ‘sapping’ effects of global institutions such as the IMF, with the coercive financial instruments known to be at their disposal, and generally heedless of local dynamics in dependent markets, were at least partly averted. Finally, the privatisation immensely benefited the ­long-­standing, powerful business families and flourishing new circles of pious Muslim businessmen in the country, with foreign investment barely visible, a fact that in turn played a part in political endurance. As more optimistic commentators such as Daron Acemoğlu suggested, the dust that was in the air, causing much frustration, might settle one day,

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318  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y having been blown up there, perhaps inevitably, by a ­trial-­and-error reconstruction of a politically normalised Turkey, free at long last of the yoke of the bureaucracy under the old order.142 This could mean in the specific context of the public property rush under the AKP rule that the political apparatus should be expected to be free of its present shackles once the intense patronage that public property enabled would eventually subside, withdrawing into its ordinary limits. The fear, however, was that, in addition to the public impoverishment through the ongoing dispossession, the tremendous power that the rentier dealings yielded for the administration could radically and unrecognisably transform the country, not only politically, as feared by the secular urbanites, but also u ­ rban-­wise, bringing about an irreversible urban disfigurement and, with it, dramatic excisions in public memory. That is, if one consequence of the ‘growth’ through construction was a fragile economy, with no lasting improvement in the production, a possibly direr consequence was the thoughtless plundering and pillaging of urban space, especially in Istanbul. Aggressive redevelopment and gentrification (a more recent fad) did not only signify unjust profit for capital holders at the expense of the dispossessed, but also an instrumental or m ­ eans-­to-end rationality that was altogether indifferent to the lives of the masses, precious fragments of nature and urban history. Treasured by most in the country, counting, without doubt, also the ruling ­Islamo-­nationalists, Istanbul appeared to be fast transformed into a s­econd-­rate Dubai, not only in suburban areas, but also at the heart of the historical city, including its famous silhouette, with the formerly prominent historical mosques now dwarfed in the foreground of some gigantic eyesores. New and tasteless structures began brutishly to puncture through some of the settled and serene spots of this great city, amidst ­all-­over defacing and erasing of the spatial memory throughout the country, and in untold forms. The Gezi Park protests of 2013 had been sparked precisely by a just and urgent resistance to some such redevelopment plan in one of the centres of the town. The urban expanse filled with m ­ ulti-­purpose, grotesque mosques, complete with shopping malls built ­underneath­– long ­­ p ­ re-­dating the AKP r­ule­– ­­should provide a clue for the mindset at work, now in hitherto unseen, gargantuan proportions.

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CONCLUSION

T

he observations in the preceding chapters on the use of power from 2011 may be considered as close to damning. This immediate vista should perhaps be put in perspective by revisiting the change in one crucial aspect, which, as argued in this book, promised a fresh opening towards a gradual yet eventually full political normalisation. The momentous transformation led by the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) appeared to end the l­ong-­established dichotomy between the ‘state’ and the ‘government’, characteristic of the domestic politics not only in the republican era but, ignoring rare anomalies, also perhaps throughout the history of political modernisation in the country. The settled binary of a state administered by a vigilante bureaucracy and a systemically debilitated government was ultimately supplanted by a s­ingle­– ­­albeit ­authoritarian­– ­­rule. While the binary order formerly in place inevitably limited political contestation in society, the ending of it, though at the cost of simply extending, even perhaps reinforcing, the draconian state in the immediate aftermath, did by contrast give some ground for expecting a way forward towards an unfettered and lasting form of democracy for the first time. The mayhem subsequent to the change, especially after the Gezi protests of 2013, would lead to most observers reaching a hasty verdict on the emerging order, claiming that the new authoritarianism now in place was possibly a turn for the worse. On this view, the incipient order had wiped out whatever social unity and tolerance, 319

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320  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y as well as an elementary respect for the rule of law, had been taken over from the old regime, thus marking a new low. This somewhat apocalyptic view of the developments from 2011 appeared impervious to what had just been left behind. The oblique nostalgia for the good old days of law and of purported coherence and solidarity at a basic societal level largely bracketed off various micro histories locally, ignoring the ruling patterns for decades in relation to a number of disenfranchised groups, namely the Kurds, Alevis, ­non-­Muslim minorities, people with n ­ on-­conventional sexual and gender identities, communists, and, yes, pious Muslims. The shift from 2011 and the reckless policy moves that followed did entail the likelihood of a futile and lasting oscillation in the immediate ­horizon­– ­­as would be the case in places in the Middle East and North Africa almost simultaneously with the local ­reordering­– ­­between old style ‘dictatorships’ and equally severe (plus, inherently volatile) ‘majoritarianisms’. Faced with some such choice, sections in society, including the s­ elf-­styled liberals, as in Egypt from 2013, understandably favoured despotisms, so long as the despotic regimes guaranteed the most basic rights and freedoms (centred almost exclusively on the protection of the minority lifestyles), over adventurous majoritarianisms that could be exceptionally callous, leaving minorities in the regional states at the sheer mercy of the native patriarchal currents, at least in the dark interim, before the majoritarianisms at issue could evolve. The chances that those so-called ‘illiberal’ democracies might never actually evolve to a sufficiently accommodating extent were considerable.1 Ultimately relying on voter patronage and hence open to modest demands of peace and prosperity, such regimes could still be considered as malleable in some measure, likely to ‘mature’ in some uncertain future towards a ‘liberal’ democracy. Yet, the brutal majoritarian policies before that happened could not, and perhaps should not, be expected to be weathered out at great costs by the somewhat desolate minorities under those rules. In the case of Turkey, a less illiberal future, away from the parochial slant of the administration in the immediate aftermath of the change, did not look either uncertain or far. A persistent majoritarian rule was bound to counteract in the longer run with the growing integration of the country with the wider world, vital for prosperity and thus dear, not only to the people, but also to the elected authority, so long as a sketchy form of democracy remained in

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conclusi on | 321 place. Bonds with international markets seemed barely dispensable for the administration in the absence of significant domestic resources for wealth, and those bonds required political stability. Moreover, Turkey was formally part of Europe. The political and military partnerships with Europe, long in existence through the often underrated Council of Europe (the human rights protection system, in particular) and NATO, respectively, were possibly more critical in this regard than the anchorage in the European Union. Both the administration and the people seemed to need those ties with Europe, which ensured economic credibility and a degree of political legitimacy for those in power, and safeguards and a sense of invulnerability for large sections of society. Following the havoc in the greater region with the Arab Spring, public opinion surveys in 2014 would indicate a spectacular rise domestically in favour of the European institutions.2 In other words, the administration appeared to be clearly limited in autonomy in the matter of overall political order. Reclaiming some genuine autarchy or unruliness in this respect could only be possible by getting rid of the ballot box altogether at some point, and be done away with the electoral pressure. Although a possibility, some such drastic measure hardly seemed to be a way out for the administration. Beyond the rather heavy price that the power holders would have to pay by a sudden drop in wealth if that happened, the majority behind the administration was only a borderline one, with the rest not exactly intent to stand by and watch some such radical transformation. The ruling AKP enjoyed electoral support of around 50 per cent at its height. The core ­Islamo-­nationalist voters, who would presumably rally behind the government in the event of a possible dramatic split with the electoral component, formed certainly no more than about half of this support base. As has been argued in this book, the success of this political party was less to do with its sudden I­ slamo-­nationalist discourse from 2011 than (1) its ­self-­styled liberalism and pragmatic flexibility for close to a decade, to be bolstered by (2) a main opposition that did not inspire confidence in voters, still faltering under the long AKP rule on basic rights and freedoms. That is, at least half of those who licensed the government at the ballot box scarcely thought that they were signing up for a bold departure from democracy, steered by an Islamist baggage that ceaselessly bred issues. Turning away from the electoral political system altogether appeared therefore to be strictly a ­non-­option for the ­Islamo-­nationalist rule, although

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322  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y it would remain a dismal possibility, to be consistently urged, if in limited fashion, in some of the circles close to the government.3 The ballot box could be reduced to a mere sham, to be sure, through such factors as the practically pulverising hegemony of the ruling power on media, politics allegedly financed by corruption and an effective curbing of basic rights complementary to the genuine franchise, as was the case from 2011, as detailed in Part II of this book. Still, this practice seemed to have its limits, likely to cease to function in the absence of some steady production of relative and growing wealth for the masses, which would serve as a restraint in the face of an entirely reckless administration. The sole caveat that could possibly be entered in this regard would be the lingering uncertainty over the fate of President (formerly Prime Minister) Tayyip Erdoğan, and his close circle, cornered through massive corruption and bribery claims from December 2013. Prolonged personal insecurity could force a desperate Erdoğan to be incautious. The allegations in question were not going to go away, and this could make it difficult for Erdoğan to consent to a democratic change in the administration, which would simply mean a series of h ­ igh-­profile legal investigations, with him and those close to him, including some family members, on trial. Not surprisingly, he would effectively block a coalition government after the June 2015 election, when the AKP would lose its ruling majority, urging snap polls in the following November. The bedlam and the heightened violence that would ensue, deeply provoking voter insecurities, with the AKP looking as virtually the sole pier of safety in sight, was part of the price. On the whole, this was perhaps the only drawback of the corruption allegations from late 2013 that had served a positive function, stalling the administration in some rash policies, and directing it to new and secular alliances in search of some legitimacy. To recapitulate, then, the vanishing of the state–government binary did enable a rather heedless and impetuous majoritarianism, yet it did not appear to be irreversible. On the contrary, by terminating the dichotomy, the new order seemed substantially to consolidate the future of democracy in the country, for the following reasons: (1) Two major political forces, the vocal Islamists and the nationalists Kurds, long excluded under the former bureaucratic rule, would be increasingly integrated into the mainstream. (a) Over decades, the Islamists had felt acutely wronged by

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conclusi on | 323 the republican rule, albeit through a largely ­one-­sided perception of the recent history, and had been bitter and consequently exposed to combative Islamist arguments produced in places such as Pakistan and Egypt. The new order would serve conspicuously to deradicalise this Islamist political base. (b) As for the Kurdish nationalists, the dissipated bureaucratic authority would also bring about a greater integration of this group into the mainstream politics. An armed fringe activity formerly, the Kurdish nationalism would go beyond being a rather muted extension of the guerrilla movement, with about 7 per cent of the overall votes, and become within a few years a genuinely nationwide, l­eft-­leaning alternative open to all, strong enough to achieve the 10 per cent electoral threshold at two successive polls in 2015. Practically inconceivable until shortly before, the country would have in January 2014 its first ever political party with the term ‘Kurdistan’ in the title.4 (2) Ironically perhaps, the defeat of the old order would also work for the republican opposition by drawing it into grassroots politics. Passive clients of the bureaucracy under the old regime, in clear preference as such of a fettered and carefully guarded democracy over an unpredictable majoritarian rule, the urban and essentially liberal republican voters with up to 30 per cent weight overall would soon begin to warm up to unfeigned democratic contestation. The settled reflexes of this main opposition in relation to such issues as the growing visibility of the pious Muslims in public life and a separate Kurdish identity would in time undergo considerable transformation. (3) Last, but by no means least, the new order would empower civil society, vital for a consolidated democracy, with advocacy groups no longer ‘­state-­friendly’, as was the case under the old regime. Following the Gezi protests, a landmark event in that regard, the secular urbanites would start a new era of strong ­non-­governmental organisations (NGO) active in a host of issue areas from environmental protection to labour awareness, from women’s rights to election safety. In the latter area, the n ­ on-­partisan organisation called ‘Vote and Beyond’ (Oy ve Ötesi) could mobilise over 60,000 trained volunteers and closely monitor the polls in November 2015.5 Not least among the robust new NGOs were ‘We Will Stop Misogynistic Murders’ (Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız), ‘Worker Health and Labour Safety Assembly’ (İşçi Sağlığı ve İş Güvenliği Meclisi) and ‘Civil Society Support during Enforcement of

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324  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Criminal Judgements’ (Ceza İnfaz Sisteminde Sivil Toplum Derneği), all three cited earlier in this book (Chapter 10). Clearly, the change had begun producing results. Yet here was the tricky part: notwithstanding the scale of change, it was still dubious that a radical disruption in the flow of mimetic desire underlying mass politics was necessarily the case. The somewhat vicious circle mimesis kept spawning in political imagination (see Introduction on this) continued to all intents and purposes. Politics, especially that with some success in practice, was obviously done with a vague populace, hence it was inevitably in excess of solitary, unique visions. Politics was bound correspondingly to remain only at the sophistication level of an indefinable multitude. This, obviously, is a take on actual politics at odds with that which had been advanced by liberal utopians locally in the short period leading to the regime change, which, as argued in this book, largely ignored the mimetic drift key to mass politics. Soaring disappointment that set in from 2011 would turn most liberals into ferocious critics of the government. The rather facile ‘managerial’ approach in redesigning ­politics­– ­­a positivism that is perhaps intrinsic to liberalism as ­such­– ­­was characteristically oblivious to myriad integral factors that played out in actual politics on an axis formed chiefly by the machinations of desire. The democracy championed by the liberals, free of mimetic rivalry, proved to be no ‘module’. A polity was profusely more complex than a mere company, where a change in management and new ideas could bring about a novel and relatively radical administration in practice. Here, some quick hints may be in order to bring into full view this complex yet remarkably continuous phenomenon, virtually uninterrupted both vertically and horizontally. The claim, rather readily conceded by some observers, that the Jacobin modernisation of the republican ideology, or Kemalism, eventually ‘failed’, as testified by the ultimate resilience of the Islamist politics, ignored the fact that much of that which had long been attributed to Kemalism possibly boiled down to a deeper current, from which all of the domestic political forces, including Kemalism, constantly borrowed. Itself an ‘­Islamo-­nationalism’ literally, not least for taking over the Ottoman concept of millet, as claimed in this book, ‘Kemalism’ in this sense was much more ‘native’ perhaps than generally assumed. Hence the term ‘­neo-­Kemalism’ ascribed by some of the liberal critics to the AKP administration from 2011,

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conclusi on | 325 following, paradoxically, an ostensible defeat of the Kemalist worldview. Often understood to be deeply divided through formidable fault lines, those who formed the overall domestic polity had in fact more in common than they ever realised. It was rather instructive in that regard that, otherwise fiercely antagonistic, the main political camps were not infrequently observed to use arguments hunted out of the same common pool of everyday politics. For an idea, the wild a­ nti-­Semitism that defined the secularist/­neo-­nationalist opposition in the spell leading to the regime change, then ‘in power’ in some sense through the critical role of the republican bureaucracy, would simply pass on to the subsequently p ­ ower-­holding ­Islamo-­nationalists, rather than simply disappear. The same would apply to the issue of European integration. The a­ nti-­Europe sentiments of the former clients of the bureaucracy would come increasingly to be voiced from 2011 by those close to the government, including the few liberals who would persevere in their support of the AKP rule. Again, the typical ‘news’ reporting style of the n ­ eo-­nationalist media, with heavy doses of character assassination targeting dissident intellectuals, would be adopted almost wholly by the emergent media directly controlled by the government. The ­Islamo-­nationalists now in charge not only took over and reproduced, but also possibly carried to new heights, the traditional ­state-­worship and raison d’état, formerly bread and butter of nationalism and ­neo-­nationalism. The Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), opposed before, would now be fully embraced. State interference in such matters as donations of sacrificed animal skins by private persons, fiercely criticised before by the ­Islamo-­nationalists, would go on. The politics of fear under the old regime to terrify the masses, with a view to rendering the public as pliant as possible, would continue to be a tool. Needless to add, the I­ slamo-­nationalist public opinion leaders would in time fashion a leader cult very much like the one that had formed around Atatürk during the republican era, possibly with a vengeance. The domestic political forces were still deeply divided on issues, to be sure, often appearing alarmingly contentious. Yet this did not necessarily extend to the overall outlooks. They bickered incessantly, but in a manner not far removed from that of sports hooligans separated merely by colours and paraphernalia. In this ostensible setting of vicious sibling rivalry, those in power and those in the main opposition proved mutually reluctant to grant

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326  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y a ­much-­coveted degree of legitimacy to each other, with a profound layer of distrust between them. The whole scene was reminiscent of two adverse parties, with each in possession of what the other liked, at a virtual ­stand-­off. Confronted for an exchange that was in essence strongly desired by both, they were unable nevertheless to swap what was in their respective custody, each simply incapable of letting go whatever they had in their grip (for example, according legitimacy to the government), unless they were certain that they would get whatever it was the other party held on to (for example, respecting secular lifestyles in policies). Neither party seemed to be sure if they could safely get away, even if they did succeed at the critical trade. The response by each to this thickly reigning uncertainty would be to criminalise each other. Power holders routinely accused the opposition of a ‘coup’ at almost any manifestation of dissent, mimetically reproducing in so doing the former bureaucratic impulses that routinely criminalised Kurds (‘separatism’) and pious Muslims (‘reactionary’ acts undermining secularism, irtica), often on the basis of equally flimsy evidence. In return, the opposition suspected that the power holders had sinister designs, namely a radical transformation of the political order ultimately, which would take place when conditions would be ripe. It was thus a welcome relief perhaps for the popular opposition to find from late 2013 that the ruling ­Islamo-­nationalists were probably more interested in getting rich than a political r­ estyling­– ­­although the latter could not be entirely ruled out, no matter what. A perspective was also needed on the growing visibility of ‘religiosity’ with the regime change, regardless of the discourse of a number of Islamist ideologues in the immediate aftermath, who took a close and radical social transformation for granted, in turn egging on the government for bolder steps, as detailed in this book. In truth, an increasingly assertive pious discourse and a discernible expansion of those with devoutly religious sensibilities in public life, particularly in the bureaucracy and in business circles, hardly signified a linear development of piety in society. Notwithstanding the surge in vocal Islamic arguments, policy guidance and justifications for the government conduct when needed, the religiosity at issue was one that was more and more diluted in effect, and as such ‘secularised’ in untold forms, to a degree that at once alarmed some of the Islamist ideologues.6 The instrumental nature of the Islamic discourse for the government, barely

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conclusi on | 327 touching the reality in society, which signalled growing secularisation, would be particularly tangible from late 2013, when the government spokespeople would move up a gear in using Islamic symbols, simultaneously with the allegedly ­corruption-­ridden rulers coming under heavy assault for the lack of basic ethics. The ravages caused in the greater region at about the same time by the organisation called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/the Levant (later, Islamic State) would drive the local I­slamo-­nationalists further into a corner, coupled particularly with public perceptions of an apparent alliance between those brutal ­neo-­Salafis across the border and the government. As has been argued in this book, this spectacle was mostly a product of various tactless policy articulations on the part of the government, while the actual policies remained strictly within somewhat ad hoc and confused E ­ uro-­Atlantic security arrangements in the region. Indeed, assigning a fully autonomous policy to Turkey in the region, one as daring as a stealthy support of the jihadist savagery in this case, heedless in so doing of its larger security alliance with the United States and Europe, was almost certainly putting the cart before the horse, notwithstanding the wayward and bewildering performance by the government in places. Having constantly to watch its weight on extremely thin ice, principally for its economy highly dependent on international markets, as noted above, Turkey had next to no capacity for genuinely independent action in the matter. A comparison with, say, Iran, could perhaps reveal how naturally incapacitated Turkey was in this specific sense. The mere ‘talk’ of international sanctions, of the variety actually long placed on Iran at the time, would be likely to cripple Turkey within weeks, bringing it to its knees, while that was obviously not the case with Iran, indicative of some ‘capacity’ on the part of the latter. That did not mean, however, that Turkey’s Islamists, solidly behind the government, had no inkling of the strand of thought in a violent outbreak in the greater region. Local Islamists did openly court the incipient ­neo-­Salafi thought, harvesting it in more sophisticated forms in a Rousseauian romanticism from the 1970s that at once, and paradoxically, built on a variety of sources picked up from the ­anti-­Enlightenment, p ­ ost-­positivist philosophies.7 Moreover, the local Islamist thinking already had a vague Occidentalist tradition that viewed ‘civilisation’ as ‘a monster on its last tooth’.8 Albeit

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328  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y this line of thought, long available locally, it would be difficult to suggest a bonding between the local I­slamo-­nationalists and the jihadists across the border, beyond the presence of those in the minority apparently moved by an ‘­all-­out war of the Muslims against global powers’. More importantly, the apparent desperation of the government in helplessly continuing ­its­– what ­­ turned out to ­be­– ­­premature policy of encouraging regime change in Syria involved some inevitable overlap with the jihadist aims, in turn contributing to the perceptions of government solidarity with entities such as Islamic State (IS). The de facto government policy against the Kurds in northern Syria fighting IS did indicate a concern on the part of the government not to be cut off from the region by the secular, l­eft-­leaning Kurds, intercepting the contact between Turkey and the Arab Middle East, yet this did not necessarily mean shared objectives on the part of the government with IS. The popular perceptions linking Turkey to the ruthless jihadism in the region would take root both domestically and in international public opinion greatly because Muslim opinion leaders, quick to act against, say, Israel on grounds of its usual brutishness, would spectacularly fail to do that against the jihadist carnage in neighbouring Syria and Iraq. ­Anti-­Semitism was an additional input, true, and had a key role in the ­anti-­Israeli sentiments. Furthermore, most Islamists possibly located some ­karma-­like ‘justice’ in the jihadist bloodbath. These factors did obviously play a part in the disposition of Muslim leaders in remaining aloof, and should thus not be ruled out. Yet, a more important reason perhaps was the deep insecurity that led the Turkish ­Islamo-­nationalists, just as Islamists elsewhere, to ignore the jihadist disaster, dismissing all that as ‘nothing to do with Islam’. Leaders such as Erdoğan, who regularly instilled in the followers heavily Occidentalist notions of the wider world for petty political gains, helping to shape an imagination riddled with wild conspiratorial assumptions, created among the pious masses considerable insecurity in fact, rather than ­self-­confidence. Seeking to ignore the ­neo-­Salafi brutality that had been endemic in Muslim history throughout, and still reflected in traditional pious teachings, as opposed to being a fringe novelty, had also to do, therefore, with a reflex of this deep insecurity, mixed with ambivalent feelings of both love and hate towards what they referred to as ‘the West’. This was indeed how Turkey’s Islamists had succeeded in taking little notice of the Taliban vileness in Afghanistan in the 1990s and, at

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conclusi on | 329 about the same time, of the local Hizbullah (not related to the ­better-­known Lebanese namesake). Originally an offshoot of the native I­ slamo-­nationalism, the latter had displayed forms of brutality credibly graver than that later to be associated with Islamic State, though on a smaller scale.9 One more factor that appeared to fuel those less than accurate perceptions of Turkish foreign policy in the immediate neighbourhood from 2012 was the presence of Ahmet Davutoğlu in the administration, an ­Islamo-­nationalist ideologue who served as chief adviser (2003–9) and foreign minister (2009–14) under Prime Minister Erdoğan, before becoming the premier himself, as Erdoğan was elected president from August 2014. The quagmire in the regional policy was often attributed to the meandering ‘­pan-­Islamist’ vision in Davutoğlu’s writings as an academic over the years, before he became an AKP bureaucrat.10 Although it was clear that Davutoğlu had displayed in his thinking some rather untamed and uninhibited ideas, even if indirectly, of Islamist influence and domination, there seemed to be little substance in the claim that those ideas somehow drove, or even had a role in, Turkey’s actual foreign policy after he became a practitioner. Starting with his magnum opus entitled Strategic Depth,11 those writings that were treasured by a flock of ­Islamo-­nationalists, who read into them some form of unusual genius for their wordy obscurantism, should in truth be a source of embarrassment for Davutoğlu. This, incidentally, could be the reason why the book was never translated into English, though available in many other languages.12 What Davutoğlu actually meant by ‘depth’ in the book was barely the unbound diversity and elusive structure of myriad factors in international politics, presenting countless grey areas, ties, traces and liminalities. Rather, the factual world he assumed was almost childishly naive, consisting of a handful of essentialised identities, entities and features. The ‘depth’ he aimed, which he rather pretentiously introduced as a ‘geometry of space’ (uzay), rather than of surfaces (düzlem),13 was the forward movement of this simple, shallow and virtually n ­ on-­existent world. In other words, he fancied himself as a chess ­player­– to ­­ use the favourite metaphor of the world of strategists, which he also ­used­– with ­­ fixed pieces, busy calculating the moves ahead. The further he calculated by what looked like the sheer force of his intellectual prowess drawing on ­age-­old geopolitics, the ‘deeper’ he was. His arguments, the material he invoked for those, and the specific steps and ruses he reckoned,

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330  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y strictly belonged to a world of comic book action. It was therefore a mistake perhaps to trace the ideas in that book to the late nineteenth- and early ­twentieth-­century geopolitics, as was often done. Reflecting on the function of spatiality in the relations among states before phenomenology, philosophy of language and p ­ sychoanalysis­– ­­strands of intellectual endeavour that rigorously transformed efforts of analysis in just about any area, and well incorporated in the later ‘critical’ g­ eopolitics14­– ­­figures such as Ratzel, Mahan, Mackinder and even perhaps Haushofer, had been incomparably more sophisticated when they had introduced some of those notions, to be recycled by Davutoğlu about a century later. His book Strategic Depth, in short, was little more than a fantastic treatise of dreamy I­ slamo-­nationalism on global politics, and as such an exercise in a ­well-­rooted local intellectual tradition.15 A product of the I­slamo-­nationalist imagination over spatiality, those ideas indeed had little to do with the actual Turkish foreign policy, despite the perceptions and some circumstantial evidence to the contrary, as noted above. Far from it, Davutoğlu arguably contributed a fresh and exceptionally conciliatory tone in the regional relations with his ‘zero problems with the neighbours’ policy,16 before a host of factors, not least the unanticipated Arab Spring from late 2010, would bring about some overarching confusion, undermining this policy. On the home front, Davutoğlu’s approach would appear to be even less ideologically driven, despite some discursive flourishes of I­slamo-­nationalism in the immediate aftermath of the corruption allegations when he became the premier in August 2014. Unlike Erdoğan, Davutoğlu sought actively to placate sections in the popular opposition in an attempt to ease the agitation that was no longer sustainable. He would do so at the cost of antagonising his predecessor (eventually to cost him his premiership in May 2016), who, incidentally, would make no secret of the fact that he was still in charge, deciding the policies. The two, the prime minister, who was formally in authority, and the president, a ‘symbolic’ head of state constitutionally, yet constantly stealing the political scene, would soon seem to drift apart, with some thinly disguised tension between them, on a number of issues, chiefly the colossal corruption and bribery, the management of the economy and the transition that would be advocated by Erdoğan towards an executive presidency. Davutoğlu attempted to introduce a set of new measures to make financial transactions and rentier relations under the gov-

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conclusi on | 331 ernment more accountable, as well as urging the cabinet members recipient of the official corruption charges to surrender to the law, only to be aborted by Erdoğan.17 Again, Davutoğlu stood behind the independent handling of the economy, or at least took no sides, when Erdoğan ostensibly aimed to discredit the minister responsible for the economy, Ali Babacan, a senior cabinet member respected by all of the otherwise conflicting political forces domestically, and his bureaucrats, often through various underhand tactics.18 Finally, Davutoğlu stood discernibly unresponsive to the debate initiated by Erdoğan on the urgency of a switch to a presidential system.19 Why was Erdoğan being so vehement about a formal shift in the system once he had become president, considering that the system de facto in place was already very much one of executive presidency? He kept referring to anything that seemed to be even slightly in the way, such as the independent institutions of the economy and the Constitutional Court, as continuing the former bureaucratic ‘tutelage’ in new guises. He aimed at a concentration of powers as much as possible, seeking to run the state as ­business­– ­­not quite in the sense of the ‘managerial’ outlook associated above with naive liberalism, but as plain ‘corporatism’. Indeed, he made no secret of his desire in this regard.20 If one aim he thus had in the striving for executive presidency was to formalise and strengthen the present n ­ o-­nonsense majoritarianism, a­ nother­ – ­­and possibly more a­ larming­– ­­was to render the AKP rule permanent in a roughly bipartisan system, not only for ideological but also for personal reasons. He credibly feared eventually to be called to account for his almost daily breaches of the constitutional order. Therefore, beyond some toil towards an ex post facto justification of the actual rule he exercised, he possibly sought to guarantee his impunity, and that of those close to him, by staying in power. Yet this admittedly ‘Turkish style’ presidentialism clearly faced considerable resistance within the AKP itself, let alone the opposition, with little chance to materialise in the foreseeable future. The results of the general election in June 2015, with the AKP losing close to a fifth of its earlier votes, would seem to bury the whole idea, only to resurface following the snap election in the following November, when the ruling AKP once again appeared to have close to 50 per cent electoral support. Carefully refraining from a commitment to executive presidency even after the November poll results, Davutoğlu would at once display a marked

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332  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y contrast with Erdoğan in the ­day-­to-day treatment of issues, apparently in an effort to patch things up with the former liberal and democrat allies, even with the republican popular ­opposition­– ­­somewhat refreshing compared to his predecessor’s fiercely alienating discourse. Having appointed a ­Turkish-­Armenian intellectual as a chief adviser, Davutoğlu’s policy statement on the Armenian issue in February 2015 was a case in point. With Turkey acting as an intervening party in an application to the European Court of Human Rights that alleged a violation of free speech on the fate of the Ottoman Armenians,21 with a ­neo-­nationalist ideologue as the individual applicant, who seemed out simply to aggravate the Armenian concerns, Davutoğlu would explain that the Turkish involvement was purely in the interests of free debate.22 Beyond the question of whether or not there had been an Armenian genocide in late Ottoman Turkey, he would add, ideas on either side of the argument had to be freely articulated both in Turkey and abroad. Venturing further into unexplored waters, he would suggest an open arms policy towards the Armenian diaspora virtually demonised by the local nationalists. ‘The s­o-­called diaspora is “our” diaspora’, he would state, ‘they are “our” people, be it in Greece or in France.’23 Yet, Davutoğlu was also a man not to take risks. Little known in the I­ slamo-­nationalist support base was the fact, for instance, that Davutoğlu had cooperated with the military during the ­so-­called ‘February 28 process’ from 1997 to ­2002­– ­­a military ­fine-­tuning principally against the Islamists. He had received during the period immense respect from military circles for his work in geopolitics, and taught at military academic establishments. He would take no chances in 2001 and decline an invitation to join the AKP at its formation, to be drawn to the AKP only after this political party had won the elections and formed a strong majority government from November 2002. Not surprisingly, therefore, in the spell leading to the election of June 2015, Davutoğlu would revert to a discourse barely different from that of Erdoğan. Accusing the ­Kurdish-­led opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, HDP) of being ‘spokespeople’ of the Armenian diaspora, and as such ready to ‘sell out Turkey’, he would scream at mass rallies: ‘Would anything good come out of those who befriend Armenian diaspora?’24 In sum, neither the geopolitical speculations of Davutoğlu before he was affiliated with the administration, nor his personal touch when he would

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conclusi on | 333 subsequently rise in profile and administer the foreign policy, seemed to have much to do with the morass in regional politics. Yet a vista aligning the Turkish government with the jihadists in the region would stick, peaking during the siege of the Kurdish Kobanê in borderland Syria in the last quarter of 2014, with Erdoğan cynically articulating a total lack of concern for the local Kurds under assault amidst allegations of the active government support of the jihadists. While generally subscribing to this posture that strongly antagonised the Kurds against the government, the republican opposition at once, and paradoxically, suspected an informal alliance towards an imminent transformation of the administrative order between the ruling AKP and Turkey’s Kurdish political movement, the real force behind the autonomous Rojava region in Syria that included Kobanê. In direct formal talks with the government from 2012, and in an implicit alliance with it during the Gezi protests of 2013, a truly critical succour to the government at a time of dire need, the Kurdish leadership represented by Abdullah Öcalan in prison sought a democratic solution to the protracted Kurdish problem, to be tackled in a comprehensive fashion in a rewritten constitution. References to the Kurdish identity, as requested by the maximalist line in the Kurdish political movement, looked unlikely to find room in the promised constitution. Yet most Kurds were likely to be content with a text that would at least refrain from overt references to Turkish nationalism, as was the case in the Constitution in force, drafted in the aftermath of the military takeover of 1980. Moreover, it did not seem to be impossible for the somewhat enhanced local ­self-­rule demanded by the Kurds to find its way in some fashion into the new Constitution in a blanket administrative reform, facilitating at long last an enduring settlement of the Kurdish issue. Some observers would construe the debate on a switch to a ‘presidential’ system ahead of the general election in June 2015, urged by Erdoğan, as instrumental for a changeover towards a ‘federal’ system that would meet the Kurdish demands. Wary of growing authoritarianism on the part of the government, the republican opposition seemed nevertheless to be singularly intransigent at once on a possible ‘cure’ for that very authoritarianism, namely a decentralised administration that could come about through the campaign pursued by the Kurdish nationalists. For his part, in an ­ill-­famed response towards dispelling fears of a possible end to the ‘unitary’ structure of the state under the proposed executive

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334  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y presidency, Erdoğan would cite ‘Hitler’s Germany’ as a good example of a presidential system that belied such anxiety.25 Equally pending for the new order, if not as urgent, was a phase in achieving some form of overall transitional justice that would involve a public confrontation with the past and ongoing infamies and iniquities of modern Turkey. The legacy of systematic human rights abuses in a drive to create a homogenous and secular nation within the span of a century immediately before and during the republican era included harsh policies targeting, besides the Kurds, the Alevis and the ­non-­Muslim minorities, principally the Armenians annihilated during World War I. The official policies against the Alevis in the 1930s had been described as akin to genocide by none other than Erdoğan himself, albeit in a suspect political manoeuvring that had fallen seriously short of convincing the Alevis, coupled with the fact that the government had continued by default the denialist policy in the matter, as detailed in this book, resisting the basic and most unobjectionable Alevi demands. The liberal climate in the short period leading to the regime change had facilitated daring public debates also on the massacre and ethnic cleansing of the Armenians, which significantly disputed the received accounts in the matter. Finally, new ­confidence-­building measures were needed towards reassuring the republican popular opposition with concerns over the future of settled secular lifestyles and secular education. The results of the general election in June 2015 had the ruling AKP with just over 40 per cent of the overall votes, down from close to 50 per cent in 2011. Having easily crossed the electoral threshold by about 13 per cent, the ­Kurdish-­led HDP denied the AKP a clear parliamentary ­majority­ – ­­for the first time since November 2002. With much at stake, not least the dormant corruption allegations, as the parliamentary majority was now formed by the opposition, Erdoğan would force a snap election in the following November. The interim period from June to November would be branded by two main facts: a dithering opposition that inspired little trust, and almost daily carnage. The ‘settlement process’ with the Kurdish guerrillas had collapsed early in the same year, and IS sleeper cells in the country would suddenly become active after June. IS seemed to target the Kurdish political opposition, construed by most observers as an extension of the war between the Kurdish nationalists and IS in northern Syria. Blaming the gov-

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conclusi on | 335 ernment not only for the crumbling peace process but also for the unleashing of IS violence, the Kurdish nationalist youth would start a resistance in urban areas, declaring s­ elf-­rule. In the days leading up to the November election, Davutoğlu would basically threaten the Kurdish voters, warning them against a possible return of the terrible 1990s, known for numerous summary executions and forced disappearances.26 Yet, already the situation seemed positively worse in some respects. The special operation (özel harekât) units of the police, allegedly directly controlled from Ankara, simply terrorised the Kurdish towns put under t­ wenty-­four-hour and indefinite curfews, dragging dead bodies of activists through streets behind armoured security vehicles,27 and megaphoning to the locals ‘You’re Armenians!’28 The police would spray graffiti on walls in towns under curfew, stating that they were there simply for ‘revenge’, and that the locals had to ‘be terrified’.29 One piece of graffiti read: ‘Be proud if you’re a Turk. If not, just obey.’30 This was surprisingly reminiscent, in another mimetic twist, of a notorious statement by a minister of justice in 1930: ‘Those who are not Turks by origin in the Turkish patria have only one right; to be a servant or a slave.’31 What was taking place was literally state terror. The special operation teams even had a gang name for themselves, adopted clearly in the mould of the usual terror organisations in the Middle East. They would leave behind, amidst the graffiti, the signature ‘Esedullah’ (God’s lion).32 Amnesty International would describe this scorched earth policy as ‘collective punishment’.33 At the election in November, the ruling AKP would get back the absolute parliamentary majority, with a voter support close to that it had received in 2011, yet with fewer deputies, as the HDP would once a­ gain­– ­­now rather ­miraculously­– ­­achieve the electoral threshold, acquiring about 11 per cent of the overall votes. The comeback by the ruling party would be likened by Vamık Volkan, the American psychiatrist with Turkish origins, to the rising support for the United States President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the events of 11 September 2001.34 The AKP would secure a mandate until 2019, yet the future of this political party would appear very much to depend on the extent to which it would learn from this episode. The reacquired majority was arguably a piece of rubber Erdoğan had personally pulled after the June election, and, left alone, it could snap back. In June, before all hell would break loose in the stretch leading to the snap polls, the AKP had lost

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336  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y voters from virtually all ages and groups, yet more revealing were the choices of ­first-­time voters, which largely signalled the possible configuration ahead in domestic politics. Two separate polls conducted in the ­pre-­election phase indicated that the voters aged eighteen to t­wenty-­three had severely diminished interest in the AKP.35 In one of the polls, the AKP appeared to be at 29.5 per cent; in another, commissioned by the AKP itself, at 25 per cent. Roughly, the estimations of support for the ruling party among ­first-­time voters amounted to only about half of the votes this party would receive in November. The main opposition Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) was also down, but only slightly, by 1–3 per cent compared to the votes it would have in November. By contrast, both the HDP and the Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi) were on the up. The latter attracted 18–19 per cent of ­first-­time voters. The more phenomenal was the rise of the ­HDP­– ­­the ­Kurdish-­led party increasingly embraced by the young, secular urbanites of the Gezi protests, regardless of the ethnic origin. In one poll, this political party had 18 per cent, in another about 24 per cent, ahead of the CHP, and closely following the AKP. The future heralded in the preferences of the young voters appeared to be poles apart from the ‘new’, ­Islamo-­nationalist Turkey wishfully trumpeted in ­pro-­government circles. It would look more and more dubious in the following period, however, that the HDP, under various constraints with the peace process over, was strong enough to go on and make full use of that new democratic opposition. Could the AKP reverse the ostensible trend of decline? Developments in the days after the November election would seem to offer the ruling party a rather improbable opening in that regard. The civil war in Syria had uprooted over four million people. Turkey would come to host more than half of those refugees, who mostly sought to use Turkey as a ­stepping-­stone to reach Europe. Long protesting this heavy burden, the government would slacken its grip in containing the refugees locally in the summer of 2015. This would put a formidable refugee crisis on the lap of the European p ­ olicy-­makers, who would in turn start courting Turkey, with Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel paying a visit to Erdoğan in October, only days before the critical polls in November, largely construed as a gesture of support for the ruling AKP.36 A special European Union (EU) summit with Turkey in the following month would decide to ‘­re-­energise’ the stalled process of Turkey’s accession

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conclusi on | 337 to the EU.37 In return, Turkey would restrain the refugee flow, with generous financial assistance from Europe. Almost simultaneously, Turkey would be forced to renew its commitment to the ­Euro-­Atlantic security alliance after an unexpected confrontation with Russia in Syria. On 24 November, only five days before the EU summit noted above, Turkey would down a Russian fighter jet for violating its airspace above the border with Syria.38 This drastic action had followed the ­weeks-­long unease articulated by Turkey over the indiscriminate Russian bombing of the rebels in w ­ ar-­torn Syria in a clear effort towards bolstering the regime in Damascus. The incident, which would prompt Turkey to request an emergency meeting with NATO, would haul Russia and Turkey to the brink war. The migrant crisis had pushed Europe towards Turkey, and now the confrontation with Russia would drive Turkey towards the ­Euro-­Atlantic alliance. What had just happened? The Russian military involvement in Syria from late September 2015 at the request of Damascus had changed much for Turkey in terms of its regional policies. Europe and the United States appeared to be willing to give Russia a free hand in Syria in routing, not only IS, the common enemy, but the rebel groups generally (despite some light protest registered in that regard). The exception was the Kurds, with whom the United States cooperated on terrain, and whom Russia valued as allies against the jihadist rebels. The Kurds were thus getting stronger. Iran, another Damascus ally, was part of the negotiations towards a lasting peace in Syria, which could leave the regime largely intact. Things were not developing the way Turkey had long hoped for. Was the downing of the Russian jet a ‘ruse’ on the part of Turkey to intercept all this? Was Turkey planning to force Russia out of Syria through increasing tension between Russia and the ­Euro-­Atlantic security allies? The immediate reason possibly was the ­struggle over the area in Syria to the north of the Mediterranean port town of Latakia, extending eastward until the western bank of the Euphrates along the Turkey–Syria border. Often firmly scolding and threatening, even perhaps striking, the Kurds for a possible attempt to expand to the area,39 Turkey appeared to use this pocket of land de facto controlled by the jihadist groups ­al-­Nusra (­al-­Qaeda) and Ahrar ­al-­Sham to continue to have a hand in Syria. More specifically at stake for Turkey appeared to be the supply lines in the region, which extended from the Turkish border to Aleppo, a rebel

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338  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y s­tronghold. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), newly set up through a United States initiative and dominated by the Kurds, would capture the Menagh (Minaq) airbase to the north of Aleppo in February 2016, advancing from the Kurdish Afrin to the west bank of the Euphrates, to move eastwards effectively to throttle this corridor. Unable to use Syrian airspace for fear of a possible Russian reprisal, Turkey’s response would be to start pounding the SDF forces from the ground with howitzer artillery shells, with a range of 45km, accompanied by some talk of a possible deployment of Turkish troops over the border in Syria.40 Highly alarming to its ­Euro-­Atlantic allies, prompting them to urge Turkey for an immediate cessation of the action, these rather desperate measures that looked more like a bluff at a time when the United States and Russia appeared to be in virtual agreement in Syria would push Turkey close to a direct military confrontation with powers acting together with the Damascus regime on terrain, principally Russia. A suicide bombing in Ankara on 17 February, targeting a convoy of shuttles used by the military and killing t­wenty-­eight people, to be buried in an immediate news blackout and blamed within hours on the Kurds fighting in Syria on the basis of rather implausible evidence, would only add to the volatility of the situation.41 Having alientated the Kurds, Turkey was being practically stifled in Syria. Ending the peace with the Kurdish political movement at home had been catastrophic, not only domestically but also in foreign policy, and a return to it without delay increasingly seemed to be an imperative. The overall result of the downing of the Russian jet was a more immediately sobering failure, though. What exactly had been behind the sharp action that had been far from bringing Turkey nearer to its objectives? Erdoğan himself had stated back in June 2012, when Syria had downed a Turkish jet for violating its border, that a ‘­short-­term border violation [could] never be a pretext for an attack’.42 The Russian jet brought down by Turkey in November 2015 had allegedly violated the Turkish airspace for only seventeen seconds. Was Erdoğan counting on a possible surge in the domestic public opinion for an ­executive-­style presidency, as polls in the immediate aftermath of the incident would indeed reveal to be the case?43 Whatever the reason was, the fracas with Russia would seem to have two primary results for Turkey in the short term. First, it would practically end Turkey’s mission in the greater region, namely (1) crush the Kurds, and (2) put the s­o-­called

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conclusi on | 339 ‘moderate’ rebels at the negotiating table for the future of Syria. Second, and more significantly, it would make Turkey more dependent than ever on the allies in Europe and in North America. Not surprisingly, a rapprochement with Israel would also appear in the offing soon afterwards.44 Given the turn of events, a ­pro-­government commentator would ask whether the shooting down of the Russian jet had been a ‘trap’.45 Trap by whom? By those presumably who wanted to bring the government back firmly on track with its ­long-­time allies and possibly towards a resumption of the once ­much-­coveted integration with Europe.46 Only, the new policy course looked like it could positively benefit, rather than incapacitate, the ruling AKP on the whole, if this political party had not already learned lessons from the polls back in ­June­ – an ­­ unequivocal warning by the voters. A breakthrough with Russia would be in the air in June 2016, as Turkey would ‘apologise’, only days after a deal with Israel to mend relations. How about the main opposition? Was Turkey’s own brand of republicanism dying, with the CHP promising to turn more and more liberal in the coming period? The constraints in judicial practice over challenging the historical sources of the republican ideology, principally the person of Kemal Atatürk, would be greatly relaxed in the early stage after the old regime had been defeated, enabling some public criticisms of the former official ideology. In the face of the increasingly belligerent discourse of the ­Islamo-­nationalist ideologues on the role of the historical Atatürk in time, combined perhaps with the moral perils of Islamism highlighted with the corruption allegations at home and the jihadist mass destruction in the greater region, a Kemalist resurgence of sorts in the future seemed to be a serious prospect. Protected by law for decades, the cult of Atatürk could conceivably enjoy a new appreciation and a new lease of life, possibly more enduring and fortified than before. Yet this incipient Kemalism would likely to be rather Žižekesque,47 as in ‘Leninism’ minus the historical figure of Lenin, as suggested by Žižek; that is, a Kemalism that would use Atatürk without necessarily the historical practice associated with his actual period. In fact, this was precisely what Alevis were known to be long d ­ oing­– hanging ­­ Atatürk posters in cemevis, the Alevi houses of w ­ orship­– ­­often mocked by the critics as an instance of love for the executioner. Yet the display at issue was at once a ‘catachrestic’ reversal of the whole thing, to use the term employed by Spivak in making

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340  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y sense of ­post-­colonial resistance,48 which effectively disrupted the mimetic flow of the sign, reappropriating it.49 The founder of the state was turned in the act into a protective shield against intolerance, particularly that of the state. Some such suspense or discontinuation of the flow through mimetic inversion was not impossible, then. This book has tried to explain the frustrating continuity in Turkish politics, despite the apparent breaks throughout the history of political modernisation domestically, by drawing on Girard’s work on the mimetic nature of desire (see Introduction). Accordingly, as an extension of desire, the frame of mind that ruled the new order inevitably copied the old one, as the desire is but the desire of the other. Yet, the discussion has also assumed the possibility of some ‘genuine’ change through a reassessment and a possible shift in ‘the other’, whom one models oneself after, towards achieving a plausible ‘epistemic’ break. This, apparently, is exasperatingly difficult, yet not impossible. That is, the mimetic nature of desire may not necessarily mean being trapped in a series of reproductive loops, although mass politics seems to be particularly tough to break in this regard through interruptions of the type. An epistemic break in mass politics could perhaps be attempted in the pending phase of transitional justice, noted above, chiefly through a communal search for some rich, differentiated truth on a series of historical cases of scapegoating and victimage, and by gradually ensuring a public authority cleansed from the relations of patronage enabled by a distinct and long tradition of statehood. The people would need to know or discover in the process who exactly they were, not by trying to locate some transcendental essence in the overall communal identity, but by revisiting the past traumas, namely by finding out what they had done and what they were capable ­of­– ­­a sort of communal ‘talking cure’. The Kurdish political movement seemed to be a big help in this respect. So was the growing acknowledgement of the Armenian, Greek, Assyrian massacres and dispossessions in the recent past. Further help, unlikely as it was, had been provided in the conduct of the jihadist groups in the greater region, which could be expected to motivate the local Islamists to come to terms with the meaning of some of the cherished Islamist ideals in a fragmented, yet shared and tightly integrated, modern community.

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NOTES

Introduction   1. These traits of basic authoritarianism come from the seminal piece by Juan J. Linz, ‘An Authoritarian Regime: The Case of Spain’, in E. Allardt and Y. Littunen (eds), Cleavages, Ideologies, and Party Systems: Contributions to Comparative Political Sociology (Helsinki: Transactions of the Westermarck Society, 1964), p. 297.  2. René Girard, Violence and the Sacred, trans. P. Gregory (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), p. 185.  3. Alexandre Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, assembled by R. Queneau, ed. A. Bloom, trans. J. H. Nichols, Jr (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969), p. 6.   4. Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis: Seminars Book XI, ed. J.-A. Miller, trans. A. Sheridan (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1978), p. 235.   5. Jacques Lacan, ‘Some Reflections on the Ego’ [1951], The International Journal of Psychoanalysis (Vol. 34, No. 1, 1953), p. 12.  6. Girard, Violence and the Sacred, note 2, p. 145.   7. Ibid., p. 146.   8. Ibid., p. 146.   9. Ibid., pp. 56–9. 10. Ibid., p. 146. 11. Ibid., p. 80.

341

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342  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y 12. Ibid., p. 79. 13. Ibid., p. 82. 14. Ibid., p. 7. 15. Ibid., p. 24. 16. Ibid., p. 14. 17. Ibid., p. 23. 18. René Girard, The Scapegoat, trans. Y. Freccero (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 22, emphasis added. 19. Ibid., p. 22. 20. Girard, Violence and the Sacred, note 2, p. 113, emphasis in original. 21. Ibid., p. 165. Girard adds, however, that this demystification of the archaic tradition was hardly realistic; by taking away from the community an instrument through which it vented its confusion, Christianity would become powerless in the face of mimetic instability. 22. René Girard, Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoît Chantre, trans. M. Baker (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2009). 23. Özgür Korkmaz, ‘Prime Minister Erdoğan Discriminates, and It Works for Him’, Hürriyet Daily News, 7 August 2014. 24. Girard, The Scapegoat, note 18, p. 84. 25. Pınar Tremblay, ‘AKP Advice to Soma: Don’t Protest, Just Pray’, Al-Monitor online news portal, 19 May 2004. 26. Girard, The Scapegoat, note 18, p. 85. 27. Haymi Behar, ‘How Does It Feel to Be “Israeli Spawn” in Turkey’, Hürriyet Daily News, 19 May 2014. 28. ‘Türkiye’nin Yönetim Sistemi Fiilen Değişmiştir [Turkey’s Administrative System De Facto Changed]’, Hürriyet, 15 August 2015. 29. Rasim Özdenören, ‘Yeni Bir Türkiye Doğuyor [A New Turkey is Emerging]’, Yeni Şafak, 26 August 2014. 30. See this newspaper column by an intellectual who served as chief adviser to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu for a spell from October 2014, Etyen Mahçupyan, ‘Erdoğan’ın Zihniyeti [Erdoğan’s Mentality]’, Akşam, 12 February 2015. 31. On this, the classic work is Niyazi Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (London: C. Hurst & Co, 1998). See also, among others, M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); Erik J. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004); and Feroz Ahmad, The Making of Modern Turkey (London: Routledge, 1993).

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notes | 343 32. See Kemal H. Karpat, Ottoman Population, 1830–1914: Demographic and Social Characteristics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985). 33. The authoritative work on the intellectual world of the Young Ottomans is Şerif Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962). 34. Enver Ziya Karal, Osmanlı Tarihi [Ottoman History], vol. VII (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1956/2003), p.  313. The definitive work of history on the Young Ottomans and the later offshoots is M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, The Young Turks in Opposition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). 35. Karal, Osmanlı Tarihi VII, note 34, p. 367. 36. Ibid., p. 367. 37. Enver Ziya Karal, Osmanlı Tarihi [Ottoman History], vol. VIII (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1962/2000), p. 413. 38. ‘31 March’ in the Rûmî calendar, used roughly from mid-­nineteenth century in Ottoman Turkey. This calendar started with the Hijra (622 ad) and yet used the solar (Julian) rather than the lunar calculation. Hence, the reference generally made to this brief turmoil in 1909 as the ‘31 March Rebellion’. 39. Enver Ziya Karal, Osmanlı Tarihi [Ottoman History], vol. IX (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1999), p. 75. 40. Ibid., pp. 104, 112–14. This was claimed in a legal opinion (fatwa) used for the purpose. 41. Ibid., pp. 114–17. 42. Ibid., p. 120. 43. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, note 31, p. 167. 44. Mete Tunçay, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nde Tek Parti Yönetimi’nin Kurulması, 1923–1931 [The Establishment of the Single-Party Regime in the Republic of Turkey, 1923–1931] (Ankara: Yurt, 1981), pp. 27–60. 45. Ergün Baybars, İstiklâl Mahkemeleri [Independence Tribunals] (Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Education, 1982), p. 413. 46. Feroz Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, 1950–1975 (London: C. Hurst & Co., 1977), pp. 9–10. 47. Ibid., pp. 48–9. 48. Ahmad, Making of Modern Turkey, note 31, p. 110. 49. William Hale, Turkish Politics and the Military (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 111–13. 50. The deportation of those Greeks who formally had Greek nationality, although most never having been to Greece, was decided on 16 March 1964.

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344  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y 51. This was a news report in the daily Hürriyet on 7 April 1964: ‘Eski Bir Ermeni Köyünde Herkes Müslüman Oldu [Old Armenian Village Becomes Muslim with All Its Inhabitants].’ The spiritual leader of the village of Acar in Sason, Batman, was reported to have stated: ‘No longer convinced by the Christian doctrines, we have long been meaning to convert.’ That is, little had changed for the religious minorities since the nineteenth century, when whole Christian villages had converted just to be safe from the wrath of the public authority. 52. Another significant measure towards overseeing democratic politics, a bicameral legislature, created in the Constitution of 1961, would last only until 1982, when a new Constitution, ending it, would be put into force as the country resumed democracy in the aftermath of the military junta of 1980. 53. ‘Republicanism’ seems to be an apt term to identify the break formed with the founding of modern Turkey, not only because the ideology of ‘the Republic’ became prominent in Turkish political culture from the late 1990s, with many describing themselves as republican, but also because the ideology at issue appeared to be related to the French republicanism in its radical approach to the public functions of religion. In this book I use the term to refer to political sensibilities often referred to as Kemalism. 54. ‘­Islamo-­nationalism’ here refers to Islamist politics centred on the old Turkish notion of millet, namely ethnic identity merged with religion. The notion was at the heart of the term Millî Görüş, the local Islamist politics out of which the AKP emerged. The term at once communicated a ‘nativist’ populism, to be sure. Still, the usual translation of Millî Görüş as ‘National View’ arguably fails to do justice to the original. In this book I employ the term I­slamo-­nationalism for Millî Görüş as a ­sub-­category of overall Islamism. 55. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953/1988), paras 65–7. Chapter 1  1. On the ­ centre-­ periphery paradigm, the seminal piece is Şerif Mardin, ‘­Center-­Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?’ Daedalus (Vol. 102, No. 1, 1973), pp. 169–90.   2. Ibid., p. 180.   3. Two public surveys in 2011, when the regime change was complete, would hint at the size of the ­pro-­bureaucracy camp in society. According to a public opinion survey, commissioned by the National Democratic Institute of the United States, 39 per cent of the respondents approved of a military takeover,

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notes | 345 ‘when needed’ (İsmet Berkan, ‘Vatandaşa Göre Demokrasi Eksikli [People Find Democracy Flawed]’, Hürriyet, 20 May 2011). Another survey, conducted by the Turkish Metropoll, put the figure at 34 per cent (Nazlı Ilıcak, ‘Gerekirse Asker Müdahale Etsin [The Military Should Intervene if Needed]’, Sabah, 29 March 2011). Moreover, the fact that some of the respondents at these polls ostensibly voted for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), known to be ­anti-­bureaucracy, ruled out a clear polarisation on this point alone. The main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi), which was traditionally associated with the bureaucratic rule, and yet which came during the regime change greatly to denounce military interventions as part of its newly emerging, democratic policy framework, received about 26 per cent of the overall votes in the general election of 2011.   4. On Kurds as subjects of state policies, see Metin Heper, The State and Kurds in Turkey: The Question of Assimilation (London: Palgrave, 2007).   5. See, on the PKK, Aliza Marcus, Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence (New York: New York University Press, 2007).  6. The landmark decision by the European Union to start negotiations with Turkey came in December 2004. See the Conclusions of the Brussels European Council, 16–17 December 2004, para. 22. Next, in October 2005, the organisation adopted a Negotiating Framework document, outlining the procedure for negotiations. The actual negotiations between the sides, with frequent setbacks to follow, commenced on 12 June 2006.   7. See Eric Faucompret and Jozef Konings, Turkish Accession to the EU: Satisfying the Copenhagen Criteria (London: Routledge, 2008); Ali Resul Usul, Democracy in Turkey: The Impact of EU Political Conditionality (London: Routledge, 2011).   8. For the strain in the mainstream political culture known as ‘the Sevrès syndrome’, see Dietrich Jung, ‘“The Sevrès Syndrome”: Turkish Foreign Policy and Its Historical Legacy’, in B. Møller (ed.), Oil and Water: Co-operative Security in the Persian Gulf (London: I. B. Tauris, 2001), pp. 131–59; Michelangelo Guida, ‘The Sevrès Syndrome and “Komplo” Theories in the Islamist and Secular Press’, Turkish Studies (Vol. 9, No. 1, 2008), pp. 37–52.   9. This variety of nationalism known as ­neo-­nationalism (ulusalcılık) would surface from the late 1990s to become the virtual ideology of the ­pro-­bureaucracy camp. 10. Barış Yıldırım, ‘Dağdaki Çoban ve Platon [Mountain Shepherd and Plato]’, Radikal, 6 May 2008. 11. For a reading of these demonstrations as a new secularist concern that was popular rather than military, see Kabir Tambar, ‘Secular Populism and the

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346  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Semiotics of the Crowd in Turkey’, Public Culture (Vol. 21, No. 3, 2009), pp. 517–37. 12. See Gareth Jenkins, Political Islam in Turkey: Running West, Heading East? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Ümit Cizre, Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey: The Making of the Justice and Development Party (London: Routledge, 2008); M. Hakan Yavuz, Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); William Hale and Ergun Özbudun, Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey: The Case of the AKP (London: Routledge, 2010). 13. On the liberal critics of the old regime, see Halil Karaveli, ‘An Unfulfilled Promise of Enlightenment: Kemalism and its Liberal Critics’, Turkish Studies (Vol. 11, No. 1, 2010), pp. 85–102. 14. For a lucid account of the uproar in the republican circles, see Gerald MacLean, Abdullah Gül and the Making of the New Turkey (London: Oneworld Publications, 2014), Chapter 5, section entitled ‘Spring 2007’. 15. A leaked United States (US) embassy cable among those gushed out by the global ­whistle-­blowers WikiLeaks would vividly describe the systemic disempowerment of democratic politics in Turkey, denying it genuine power. According to a US Embassy cable despatched on 15 November 2002, only days after the AKP came into power, a former member of the National Security Council, the constitutional body formed by a few cabinet members and all of the top commanders of the sections in the armed forces, told the Ambassador Robert Pearson that elected governments were ‘nothing but servants of the deep state’. The ‘deep state’ was explained in the cable as ‘the b­ ehind-­the-curtain power relations between the choice members of the military, judiciary and the bureaucratic elite.’ The cable also mentioned the links of the deep state to the mafia, terrorist groups and the media. The judiciary, the cable went on to state, was a tool of the Kemalist status quo, rather than independent and impartial as would normally be e­ xpected­– ­­to the extent that it was ‘hard to comprehend for Americans’ (Taraf, 21 March 2011). 16. See, for an early assessment of this historic turn for the military, Ersel Aydınlı, ‘A Paradigmatic Shift for the Turkish Generals and an End to the Coup Era in Turkey’, The Middle East Journal (Vol. 63, No. 4, 2009), pp. 581–96. 17. Parliamentary Act No. 6085, 3 December 2010, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 27790, 19 December 2010. 18. See Biriz Berksoy, Türkiye’de Ordu, Polis ve İstihbarat Teşkilatları: Yakın Dönem Gelişmeler ve Reform İhtiyaçları [Military, Police and Intelligence Organisations in Turkey: Latest Developments and Reform Needs] (Istanbul: TESEV, 2013).

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notes | 347 19. On the democratic control of the armed forces in Turkey in the light of these developments, see Şule Toktaş and Ümit Kurt, ‘The Turkish Military’s Autonomy, JDP Rule and the EU Reform Process in the 2000s: an Assessment of the Turkish Version of Democratic Control of Armed Forces’, Turkish Studies (Vol. 11, No. 3, 2010), pp. 387–403. 20. Regulations Amending the Regulations of the [Private] Higher Education Institutions, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette] No. 29537, 19 November 2015. 21. See the judgement of the Grand Chamber in the case Leyla Şahin vs Turkey (2005). There existed no formal law in Turkey for the ban, but the ECtHR treated the pronouncements by university organs and high court decisions upholding the arbitrary ban by universities as that which met the requirement to be ‘established by law’ sought in the restriction of rights by the public authority. 22. See Regulations No. 2413 amending a Council of Ministers Decree from 1925, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette] No. 28789, 8 October 2013. 23. For a full statement of this view on the imminence of a fundamentalist threat in Turkey for its specific history and profile, see Refah Partisi vs Turkey (2001), para. 65. 24. Hürriyet, 3 March 2011. For the grievances of the n ­ on-­Muslims under the old order, especially in terms of employment in civil service, see the testimony of a Turkish Jew, Seyla Benhabib, ‘Turkey’s Constitutional Zigzags’, Dissent (Vol. 56, No. 1, 2009), pp. 26–7. 25. Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire: 1700–1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 175. 26. Turkish scholar Baskın Oran, an expert on the minorities of republican Turkey, was forced to defend himself in a criminal case in 2006 for having authored an ­officially-­commissioned (yet eventually prosecuted) minority rights report in which he had questioned the established reflexes on the Turkish identity towards a solution to Turkey’s Kurdish problem. In the highly publicised hearings, Oran pointed out this continuity with the Ottoman heritage in the prosecutor’s indictment against him. See Baskın Oran, ‘The Minority Report Affair in Turkey’, Regent Journal of International Law (Vol. 5, No. 1, 2007), pp. 1–93. The fact that in several cases the high courts under the old regime displayed the ironic parapraxis of referring to the ­non-­Muslim nationals as ‘aliens’ came to be widely known also through the research and daring assessments of this scholar. 27. See Parliamentary Act No. 5982, 7 May 2010, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 27580, 13 May 2010.

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348  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y 28. Parliamentary Act No. 6110, 9 February 2011, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 27846, 14 February 2011. 29. In the subsequent elections in April and June 2011 within these judicial bodies for key internal posts, most new members appeared to have voted en bloc, greatly disrupting the settled control of these institutions (Milliyet, 30 April 2011 and 2 June 2011; Hürriyet, 8 June 2011). The stunning extent to which a new partisanship had thus been introduced into the judiciary would become clear only later, from 2013. 30. The Guardian, 27 November 1995. Gül would later be forced to retract the statement, yet Jonathan Rugman, who had conducted the interview, would confirm it for the mainstream Turkish media anxious at the time to corner the ruling AKP. See Hürriyet, 2 May 2007. 31. ‘Danıştay: “Öğrenci Andı Irkçı Değil” [State Council: “Student Pledge Not Racist”]’, Milliyet, 2 April 2011. 32. Hasan and Eylem Zengin vs Turkey (2007), para. 40. 33. Mansur Yalçın and Others vs Turkey (2014). 34. Aydın Engin, ‘Demokratik Bir Direniş Yöntemi: Sivil İtaatsizlik [A Democratic Method of Resistance: Civil Disobedience]’, Cumhuriyet, 24 September 2014. 35. The amendment would at once make the criminal investigations based on this norm subject to a prior authorisation of the minister of justice. See Parliamentary Act No. 5759, 30 April 2008, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 26870, 8 May 2008. 36. ‘Tek Celsede Beraat [Acquittal at First Hearing]’, Radikal, 14 February 2002. 37. ‘They Say “Incident”, To Me It’s Genocide’, The Guardian, 27 February 2005. 38. ‘Pamuk to Pay Compensation for Armenian, Kurdish Remarks’, Today’s Zaman, 28 March 2011. 39. Judgement No. 2011/51, 17 March 2011, Anayasa Mahkemesi Kararlar Dergisi [Constitutional Court Journal of Judgements] (Vol. 48, No. 2, 2011), p. 891. 40. Walter Benjamin, ‘Critique of Violence [1921],’ in his Reflections, trans. E. Jephcott (New York: Schocken Books, 1986), p. 296. 41. Judgement No. 2010/5285 by the Eighth Section of the State Council, 18 October 2010, Danıştay Dergisi [The Journal of the State Council], No. 125, p. 270. 42. West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 US 624 (1943). 43. Article 12 of the Ministry of Education Regulations for the Primary Education. For the repeal, see Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 28789, 8 October 2013.

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notes | 349 44. Parliamentary Act No. 6524, 15 February 2014, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette] No. 28926 (mükerrer), 27 February 2014. Some of the provisions of this legislation that restructured the HSYK, the body in charge of the appointments, promotions and internal disciplinary measures in the justice system, would later be quashed by the Constitutional Court. Yet, with the court judgements not being retroactive, by then a new and overtly partisan HSYK would already be in place. 45. Şaban Çalış, Türkiye-Avrupa Birliği İlişkileri [Turkey–EU Relations] (Ankara: Nobel, 2006), pp. 49–191. 46. Ibid., pp. 49–191. 47. Ibid., pp. 49–191. 48. Ibid., pp. 187–89. 49. On this radical dichotomy between identity and mimesis, with the latter term appearing ultimately to be at the heart of the former in each and every case along a deconstructive pattern, see my International Relations, Meaning and Mimesis (London: Routledge, 2012). 50. Shibley Telhami et al., Annual Arab Public Opinion Survey (University of Maryland Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development, 2011). 51. ‘Turkey’s PM Rallies Arab World in Cairo with Call for UN to Recognise Palestine’, The Guardian, 13 September 2011. 52. Ahmet Altan, ‘Kemalist Bir Başbakan [A Kemalist Premier]’, Taraf, 4 February 2012. 53. İhsan Eliaçık, a leader of the pious Muslim group called ‘­ Anti-­ Capitalist Muslims’, commenting on Erdoğan’s declared policy aspiration to ‘cultivate a more religious youth’, Vatan, 4 February 2012. 54. Ahmet Altan, ‘CHP Nasıl Kurtulur [Way Out for CHP]’, Taraf, 3 February 2012. 55. ‘Davutoğlu Genuine but Erdoğan Blocking Coalition Government: CHP’, Hürriyet Daily News, 3 August 2015; Semih İdiz, ‘Will Erdoğan’s Big Gamble Pay off?’ Al-Monitor online news portal, 25 August 2015. 56. Mahmut Bozarslan, ‘Young Guns Rule Their Turf in Turkey’, Al-Monitor, 7 October 2015. 57. ‘“­Self-­Rule” Claim Lands Two Turkish Mayors in Jail’, Anadolu Ajansı, Turkish official news network, 23 August 2015. 58. ‘Turkey Lifts ­Nine-­Day Curfew in Cizre, Revealing Devastation Caused During Massive Military Operation against Suspected Kurdish Rebels’, Daily Mail, 14 September 2015; Mahmut Bozarslan, ‘Ongoing Violence, Curfews Keep

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350  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Doctors from Tending to Sick in Southeast Turkey’, Al-Monitor, 15 September 2015. 59. Report by Turkey’s Human Rights Association (İnsan Hakları Derneği, İHD). The civilians killed in total, with the victims of the Islamic State suicide attacks in Suruç (in July) and Ankara (in October) added, numbered 262. The same report would put the number of the security staff killed in the same period at 150, and the PKK members at 181. See ‘İHD: 7 Haziran’dan Beri 262 Sivil Öldü [İHD: 262 Civilians Killed since June 7]’, Bianet online independent news network, 12 November 2015. 60. ‘Turkey Says Suicide Bombing Kills At Least 30 in Suruc, Near Syria’, The New York Times, 20 July 2015; ‘Explosions During Peace Rally in Ankara, Turkey’s Capital, Kill Scores’, The New York Times, 10 October 2015. 61. Erdal Sağlam, ‘Turkey’s Economic Picture Worsening as Election Approaches’, Hürriyet Daily News, 30 September 2015. 62. ‘Turkish Media Denounce “Biggest Crackdown on Press in Republic’s History”’, The Guardian, 29 October 2015. 63. ‘KONDA Genel Müdürü Ağırdır: Kürtler Seçime Gitmedi ya da Gidemedi [General Director of Pollsters KONDA: Kurds Either Did Not or Could Not Go to Ballot Box]’, T24 online news portal, 5 November 2015. For an assessment of the Kurdish votes at the November 2015 election, see Cengiz Çandar, ‘Kurds in Postelection [sic] Turkey: Silver Lining or Tough Times’, Al-Monitor, 10 November 2015. 64. ‘Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan: Artık Kürt Sorunu Yok [President Erdoğan: Kurdish Question No Longer Exists]’, Hürriyet, 16 March 2015. 65. ‘Erdoğan: Dolmabahçe Toplantısını Doğru Bulmuyorum [Erdoğan: Dolma­ bahçe Meeting was Not Right]’, Cumhuriyet, 22 March 2015. 66. ‘Dolmabahçe’de Tarihi Açıklama [Historic Statement at Dolmabahçe]’, Milliyet, 1 March 2015. 67. ‘Arınç’tan Erdoğan’a Cevap: Bu Ülkede Hükümet Var [Arınç Responds to Erdoğan: There is a Government in This Country]’, BBC Turkish online news portal, 22 March 2015; ‘Bülent Arınç’tan İzleme Heyeti Açıklaması [Statement by Bülent Arınç on Settlement Monitoring Committee]’, Hürriyet, 21 March 2015. 68. ‘Erdoğan: Çözüm Süreci Buzdolabında [Erdoğan: Settlement Process in Refrigerator]’ Sabah, 11 August 2015. 69. ‘Çözüm Süreci Tasarısı Yasalaştı [Draft Bill on Peace Process Enacted]’, Bianet, 11 July 2014.

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notes | 351 70. Fehim Taştekin, ‘AKP Seeks to “Legalize” PKK Peace Talks’, Al-Monitor, 27 June 2014. Chapter 2   1. For the French republicanism, with special reference to the peripheral identities, see Daniel Béland, ‘Identity Politics and French Republicanism’, Society (Vol. 40, No. 5, 2003), pp.  66–71; Edwige Lefebvre, ‘Republicanism and Universalism: Factors of Inclusion or Exclusion in the French Concept of Citizenship’, Citizenship Studies (Vol. 7, No. 1, 2003), pp. 15–36.   2. For assessments of these apparent fault lines just before and during the early AKP rule, see M. Hakan Yavuz, ‘Turkey’s Imagined Enemies: Kurds and Islamists’, The World Today (April 1996), pp. 98–103; Ömer Taşpınar, Kurdish Nationalism and Political Islam in Turkey: Kemalist Identity in Transition (London: Routledge, 2004).  3. Millî Görüş, the strain of politics inaugurated by Necmettin Erbakan from the late 1960s, is often translated into English as ‘National View’, which is barely reflective of the now archaic notion of millet central to it. Erbakan used the qualifier millî almost undoubtedly with this old notion in mind, which was lost to most modern Turkish speakers, surviving only in the historical term Ottoman millet system, namely ethnicity as inseparable from religion. Since Erbakan also aimed at a nativist populism by the term, a more apt translation of Millî Görüş could perhaps be ‘­Islamo-­nativism’. The term used in this book to refer to this local Islamist tradition is ­Islamo-­nationalism.   4. On the ‘conservative democracy’ espoused by the early AKP, see Ahmet İnsel, ‘The AKP and Normalizing Democracy in Turkey’, South Atlantic Quarterly (Vol. 102, Nos 2/3, 2003), pp. 293–308; Metin Heper and Şule Toktaş, ‘Islam, Modernity, and Democracy in Contemporary Turkey: The Case of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’, Muslim World (Vol. 93, No. 2, 2003), pp. 157–85; Gareth Jenkins, ‘Muslim Democrats in Turkey’, Survival (Vol. 46, No. 1, 2004), pp. 45–66.   5. ‘A stranger in your own hearth, a pariah in own patria’ (Öz yurdunda garipsin, öz vatanında parya).  6. For the debate on the hijab and on the local strand of secularism, see Talip Küçükcan, ‘State, Islam, and Religious Liberty in Modern Turkey: Reconfiguration of Religion in the Public Sphere’, Brigham Young University Law Review (No. 2, 2003), pp. 475–506; Ahmet T. Kuru, Secularism and State Policies towards Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

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352  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y   7. On issues of modernity, identity and the local Islam, see Sibel Bozdoğan and Reşat Kasaba (eds), Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997); Michael E. Meeker, A Nation of Empire: The Ottoman Legacy of Turkish Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); Jenny B. White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003); Brian Silverstein, ‘Islam and Modernity in Turkey: Power, Tradition and Historicity in the European Provinces of the Muslim World’, Anthropological Quarterly (Vol. 76, No. 3, 2003), pp.  497–517; M. Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Ibrahim Kaya, Social Theory and Later Modernities: The Turkish Experience (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004); Alev Çınar, Modernity, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey: Bodies, Places, and Time (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005); Soner Çağaptay, Islam, Secularism and Nationalism: Who is a Turk? (London: Routledge, 2006); Berna Turam, Between Islam and the State: The Politics of Engagement (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007).   8. For the Welfare Party, see M. Hakan Yavuz, ‘Political Islam and the Welfare (Refah) Party in Turkey’, Comparative Politics (Vol. 30, No. 1, 1997), pp. 63–82; Ziya Öniş, ‘The Political Economy of Islamic Resurgence in Turkey: The Rise of the Welfare Party in Perspective’, Third World Quarterly (Vol. 18, No. 4, 1997), pp. 743–66; Haldun Gülalp, ‘Political Islam in Turkey: The Rise and Fall of the Welfare Party’, The Muslim World (Vol. 89, No. 1, 1999), pp. 22–41.   9. See note 3 above. 10. Erdoğan attributed the poem to Ziya Gökalp (1876–1924), a seminal political–literary figure from the Kurdish regional centre Diyarbakır, yet the ideologue of Turkish nationalism in the late Ottoman era; used here by an Islamist ­politician­– ­­an illustration, among countless others, of the entangled nature of the local identity claims. On Gökalp, see Uriel Heyd, Foundations of Turkish Nationalism: The Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp (London: Harvill Press, 1950). 11. See, for example, Suat İlhan, Avrupa Birliği’ne Neden Hayır [Why No to the EU], two vols (Istanbul: Ötüken Yayınları, 2000–2002); Erol Manisalı, İçyüzü ve Perde Arkasıyla Avrupa Çıkmazı: Türkiye-Avrupa Birliği İlişkileri [European Impasse, the Inside Story and Behind the Scenes: Turkey and the EU Relations] (Istanbul: Otopsi, 2001). 12. Manisalı, Avrupa Çıkmazı [European Impasse], note 11, p. 172. 13. See, for example, Bruce Kuniholm, ‘Turkey’s Accession to the European Union:

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notes | 353 Differences in European and US Attitudes, and Challenges for Turkey’, Turkish Studies (Vol. 2, No. 1, 2001), pp. 25–53. 14. The term comes from Myriam Charbit, ‘Shas between Identity Construction and Clientelist Dynamics: The Creation of an “Identity Clientelism”’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics (Vol. 9, No. 3, 2003), pp. 102–28. 15. ‘AKP Milletvekilleri Hakkında Bilmek İstediğiniz Herşey [Everything You Wanted to Know about AKP Deputies]’, Hürriyet, 14 November 2004. 16. The decision to open the negotiations was adopted at Brussels European Council, 16–17 December 2004, Conclusions, para. 22. A Negotiating Framework document would be adopted on 3 October 2005, with the actual negotiations to start on 12 June 2006. 17. On the role of the military before the regime change, see William Hale, Turkish Politics and the Military (London: Routledge, 1994); Metin Heper and Aylin Guney, ‘The Military and Democracy in the Third Turkish Republic’, Armed Forces and Society (Vol. 22, No. 4, 1996), pp. 619–42; Tim Jacoby, ‘For the People, of the People and by the Military: The Regime Structure of Modern Turkey’, Political Studies (Vol. 51, No. 4, 2003), pp.  669–85; Ümit Cizre, ‘Problems of Democratic Governance of ­Civil-­Military Relations in Turkey and the European Union Enlargement Zone’, European Journal of Political Research (Vol. 43, No. 1, 2004), pp. 107–25; Frédéric Misrahi, ‘The EU and the Civil Democratic Control of Armed Forces: An Analysis of Recent Developments in Turkey’, Perspectives: Central European Review of International Affairs (Vol. 22, Summer 2004), pp. 22–42; Gareth Jenkins, Context and Circumstance: the Turkish Military and Politics (London: Routledge Adelphi series, 2005). 18. ‘Özkök: Son Söz Halkındır [Chief of Staff Özkök: Last Word is People’s]’, Radikal, 14 April 2004. 19. ‘İtici Güç Laiklik [Secularism is Driving Force]’, Hürriyet, 28 May 2004. 20. ‘Alemdaroğlu: Kıbrıs’ı da Alırız Yunanistan’ı da [Alemdaroğlu: Will Take Not Only Cyprus but Also Greece]’, Hürriyet, 26 March 2004. 21. Murat Yetkin, ‘Ankara’da Bakın Neler Oluyor [See What is Going on in Ankara]’, Radikal, 4 March 2004. 22. An effective split on Cyprus within the t­op-­ranking military was apparently the case. See Murat Yetkin, ‘Denktaş mı Yanlış Yerde? [Is it Denktas Who is in Wrong Place?]’, Radikal, 13 April 2004. 23. ‘Hocalar Askere Güveniyor [Academics Trust Military]’, Radikal, 16 November 2004. 24. Milliyet, 5 May 2004, and subsequent editions.

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354  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y 25. İhsan Dağı and Metin Toprak, ‘Freedom of Expression in Turkey’, paper presented at the Symposium on Freedom of Expression, organised by the Association for Liberal Thinking, Ankara, 8 June 2003. 26. The partial sale (14.76 per cent) of the state enterprise in question, the oil refiner Tüpraş, would be tendered for a second time in September of the following year, yet the sale would once again be blocked by an administrative court in May 2006 for breaching the principles of openness and competition and for not benefiting the ‘public good’. ‘Tüpraş’ın İMKB’deki Satışı İptal [Tüpraş Sale at İMKB Cancelled]’, Hürriyet, 24 May 2006. 27. See Eser Karakaş, ‘Ak Parti’yi Kamu Borcu ile Devirmek İstiyorlar [They Want to Finish Off AKP through Public Debt]’, Zaman, 4 June 2004; Taha Akyol, ‘Özelleştirme ve Kamu Yararı [Privatisation and Public Interest]’, Milliyet, 4 June 2004. 28. ‘Denktaş’a Ankara’da Miting Gibi Karşılama [Denktaş Arrival in Ankara Turns into Rally]’, Hürriyet, 4 March 2004. 29. Millî Gazete, the main ­Islamo-­nationalist daily outlet, 14 March 2004, interviewing Vural Savaş, the former chief prosecutor. See also the report in Millî Gazete, 12 March 2004, on Anıl Çeçen on a TV interview. Çeçen is the academic who called for a severing of relations with Europe and the United States in the gathering commemorating the abolition of caliphate only days earlier in March 2004. See note 21 above. 30. Murat Çelikkan, ‘Erbakan’a Pes! [This by Erbakan Beats All!]’, Radikal, 24 March 2004. 31. Cengiz Çandar, ‘Koma Halindeki PKK ve “Savaş Çağrısı” [Comatose PKK and “Call to War”]’, Dünden Bugüne Tercüman, 4 June 2004. 32. Statement by Abdullah Öcalan to his lawyers on 19 April 2004, reported by the Kurdish news network Rojname. 33. ‘AB Sürecine Engel Olacağımızı Biliyoruz [We Know We May Disrupt EU Process]’, interview with Zübeyir Aydar, Yeni Şafak, 4 June 2004. 34. Quoted by Alev Er, ‘Saflaşmaya Dikkat [Beware of Line of Confrontation]’, 14 June 2004, at gazetem.net, online news analyses by independent journalists. 35. The first three packages had been adopted prior to the AKP mandate, between February and August 2002. See Parliamentary Act No. 4744, 6 February 2002, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 24676, 19 February 2002; Parliamentary Act No. 4748, 26 March 2002, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 24721, 9 April 2002; Parliamentary Act No. 4771, 3 August 2002, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 24841, 9 August 2002. The following packages from January 2003

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notes | 355 were as follows: Parliamentary Act No. 4778, 2 January 2003, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 24990, 11 January 2003; Parliamentary Act No. 4793, 23 January 2003, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 25014, 4 February 2003; Parliamentary Act No. 4928, 15 July 2003, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 25173, 19 July 2003; Parliamentary Act No. 4963, 30 July 2003, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 25192, 7 August 2003; Parliamentary Act No. 5218, 14 July 2004, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 25529, 21 July 2004. 36. Eurobarometer, May 2004. 37. Milliyet, 10–11 November 2005. 38. Milliyet, 7 March 2006. Also alleging in the indictment the possible involvement of the commander of the Land Forces in the activities of the suspects, the prosecutor in charge would subsequently be disbarred by the High Council of Judges and Public Prosecutors (Hakimler ve Savcılar Yüksek Kurulu) for making the allegation without sufficient proof and for overstepping authority, though the indictment on the whole would go through and form the basis of the legal proceedings over the bombing incident. Milliyet, 21 April 2006. 39. Milliyet, 12 May 2006. 40. Milliyet, 18 May 2006. 41. Ertuğrul Özkök, ‘Cumhuriyet’in 11 Eylül’ü [September 11 of Republic]’, Hürriyet, 18 May 2006. 42. Milliyet, 19 May 2006. 43. Radikal, 21, 22 and 23 May 2006. 44. Radikal, 1–2 June 2006. Chapter 3   1. ‘Ümraniye’deki Cephanelik Kimin? [Whose is Arsenal in Ümraniye?]’, Zaman, 13 June 2007.   2. Yalçın Akdoğan, ‘Ellerinde Nur mu Var, Topuz mu? [What Is It They Have in Their Hands, Divine Light or a Pommel?]’, Star, 24 December 2013.   3. ‘Eski Savcılar Zekeriya Öz ve Celal Kara Yurt Dışına Kaçtı [Former Prosecutors Zekeriya Öz and Celal Kara Flee Abroad]’, Anadolu Ajansı, Turkish official news network, 10 August 2015.   4. Parliamentary Act No. 5918, 26 June 2009, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 27283, 9 July 2009.   5. In relation to the alleged violations of the ­Anti-­Terror Law by military personnel, for instance, this military high court had recognised the authority of o­ rdinary penal courts. See the Military Court of Cassation judgement of 24 March 2009,

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356  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Merit No. 2009/663, Judgement No. 2009/654. The prosecutors in the main indictment of the Sledgehammer case made reference to this judgement.   6. By a majority judgement, the Constitutional Court would dismiss an objection by a first instance court claiming the unconstitutionality of these magistrates. See Judgement of 14 January 2015, Merit No. 2014/164, Judgement No. 2015/12, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 29263, 22 May 2015.   7. Parliamentary Act No. 5190, 16 June 2004, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 25508, 30 June 2004.   8. Parliamentary Act No. 6526, 21 February 2014, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 28933 mükerrer, 6 March 2014.   9. Parliamentary Act No. 6545, 18 June 2014, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 29044, 28 June 2014. 10. ‘Hedefteki İsimler [Names Targeted]’, Hürriyet, 31 December 2014. 11. ‘Kapatma Davasında AYM’ye Dinleme [Wiretapping of Constitutional Court during Case to Dissolve AKP]’, Hürriyet, 4 January 2015. 12. In a review piece I penned in 2010, I did point out some of these aberrations, yet I attributed most of them to a perennially and structurally deficient judiciary, hoping, as I put it, that the public attention attracted by the trials, enabling a debate on the overall shortcomings in the system, would serve the additional function of bringing the local judiciary more into line with the European practices. See Necati Polat, ‘The A ­ nti-­Coup Trials in Turkey: What Exactly is Going On?’ Mediterranean Politics (Vol. 16, No. 1, 2011), pp. 211–17. 13. Alper Görmüş, İmaj ve Hakikat: Darbe Günlükleri, Tam Metin [The Image and the Truth: The Coup Diaries, Unexpurgated] (Istanbul: Etkileşim, 2012). 14. Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), p. 85. For a broad treatment of the local notion, see Mehtap Söyler, The Turkish Deep State: State Consolidation, Civil-Military Relations and Democracy (London: Routledge, 1915). 15. Can Dündar, ‘Özel Harpçi’nin Tırmanış Öyküsü [Story of a Special Warfare Man on the Up]’, Milliyet, 8 January 2006. 16. Invited, Italian magistrate Felice Casson would visit Istanbul in April 2008 and ‘share his experience’ in dealing with the Gladio in Italy. ‘Yasalara Uy, Hata Yapma [Remain within Rules, and Make No Mistakes]’, Milliyet, 27 April 2008. 17. Fatih Güllapoğlu, Tanksız Topsuz Harekât [Operation without Tanks or Cannons] (Istanbul: Tekin Yayınları, 1991), quoted in Dündar, ‘Özel Harp’çi [Special Warfare Man]’, note 15. 18. ‘Em. Org. Yirmibeşoğlu’ndan Tarihi İtiraf: Kıbrıs’ta Cami Bile Yaktık [Historic

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notes | 357 Confession by Rtd. General Yirmibeşoğlu: In Cyprus, We Even Set a Mosque on Fire]’, Zaman, 23 September 2010. 19. ‘CHP’den 1 Mayıs 1977 Olayları İçin Araştırma İstemi [Request of Parliamentary Inquiry by CHP for 1 May 1977 Events]’, Hürriyet, 30 April 2009. 20. Dündar, ‘Özel Harp’çi [Special Warfare Man]’, note 15. 21. Ibid., note 15. 22. Atilla Kıyat, cited in Hasan Cemal, ‘Bir Devlet Politikası Olarak “Faili Meçhul Cinayetler” ve Askerde Reform [“Unsolved Murders” as a State Policy and Reform in the Military]’, Milliyet, 18 July 2010. 23. Fikri Sağlar and Emin Özgönül, Kod Adı Susurluk: Derin İlişkiler [Code Name Susurluk: Deep Connections] (Ankara: Arkadaş Yayıncılık, 2007); Can Dündar and Celal Kazdağlı, Ergenekon (Ankara: İmge Yayınları, 1997). 24. Adalet Bakanlığı Adli Sicil [Ministry of Justice Registry Records] online. The actual number was 16,647. 25. ‘Eymür: MGK Karar Veriyordu, MİT Öldürüyordu [Eymür: MGK Would Decide, MİT Would Kill]’, Dicle Haber Ajansı, independent news network, 10 April 2015. The officer in question, Mehmet Eymür, was a former head of the ­counter-­terrorism section under State Intelligence (MİT). 26. ‘Mehmet Eymür’den Mahkemeye 54 Kişilik İnfaz Listesi [Mehmet Eymür Submits Court ­54-­Person Execution List]’, Hürriyet, 11 April 2015. 27. Görmüş, İmaj ve Hakikat [The Image and the Truth], note 13. Alper Görmüş, who would later publish this unexpurgated version of the diaries, was the editor of the weekly in question, Nokta, when excerpts from the diaries came out in the 29 March 2007 issue of the journal. Following a formal criminal complaint by the military, the police would raid the offices of the journal in Istanbul within two weeks, and, one week after that, the prestigious periodical, in publication since 1982, would be forced to dissolve itself. 28. Articles 1, 3 and 4 of the A ­ nti-­Terror Act, and Articles 220, 302, 314 and 316 of the Penal Code. Defining crimes of terror, Article 1 of the former legislation punished ‘organised’ offences against the public authority, the basic rights and freedoms, and the internal and external security of the state. Article 2 also included in the offences of terror acts by those not members of such organisations, yet somehow involved in the offences committed on behalf of those organisation. Article 3 referred to certain provisions of the Penal Code (Articles 302, 307, 309, 310[1], 311, 313–15 and 320) in detailing the nature of the offences under the A ­ nti-­Terror Act. Article 4 linked these offences (and some others punished in the Act on Fire Arms) to the aims established in Article 1.

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358  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Finally, Article 5 increased the punishment for the offences in the legislations cited in the preceding articles by one half. 29. This former chief of staff, İlker Başbuğ, makes a brief appearance in Chapter 4, exemplifying the paradigmatic discourse in the resistance to the change, treated in the discussion as essentially ‘modernist’. The n ­ eo-­nationalist ideologue Doğu Perinçek, among the defendants, and discussed extensively in the same context, received the same sentence. The former president of Istanbul University, mentioned in the preceding chapter for his controversial statement during the Cyprus dispute, was another defendant in the case, receiving a sentence of close to sixteen years’ imprisonment. Most of the commanders at the ­anti-­NATO, ­anti-­Europe gathering for the commemoration of the abolition of caliphate, again, mentioned in the preceding chapter, and among the defendants, would be accorded similarly heavy sentences in the case. 30. See, for an account of the ­so-­called ‘settlement process’ between the government and the Kurdish political movement, Özlem Kayhan Pusane, ‘Turkey’s Kurdish Opening: Achievements and Failed Expectations’, Turkish Studies (Vol. 15, No. 1, 2014), pp. 81–99. 31. Abdülkadir Selvi, ‘Hakan Fidan Güçlenerek Çıktı [MİT Undersecretary Fidan Comes out Only Stronger]’ Yeni Şafak, 10 February 2012. 32. See note 8 above. 33. Criminal Code of Procedure, former Article 252(2). The amendment took place on 21 February 2014, to be effective from the following 6 March. See note 8 above. 34. Criminal Code of Procedure, former Articles 250–2. 35. Ibid., Article 102(2). 36. Hürriyet, 10 March 2014 and subsequent editions. 37. Constitutional Court, Judgement No. 2013/7800, 18 June 2014. 38. Hürriyet, 19 June 2014. 39. ‘236 Acquitted in Balyoz Coup Case’, Hürriyet Daily News, 31 March 2015. 40. ‘Cemaate Karşı “Gülen Çalışma Grubu” [New Security Cabal To Be Formed against Gülen]’ Cumhuriyet, 31 October 2014. Chapter 4   1. ­Neo-­nationalism (ulusalcılık) as a political term was practically unknown prior to the growing resistance to the signs of change under the AKP government in its long mandate from late 2002. The term would come quickly to signify the secular and mostly urban masses that would increasingly view the change as

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notes | 359 a ‘­neo-­imperialist’ game plan, in turn largely demonising Europe and North America that apparently plotted it­– ­‘the West’. Although presenting significant overlaps with the long existing conservative nationalism (milliyetçilik), especially around political parties such as the Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi), n ­ eo-­nationalism would subsequently refer to an altogether distinct frame of mind: (1) staunchly secularist, unlike the conservative nationalism, and (2) nationalist to a degree bordering in places on outright racism.   2. Jacques Lacan, The Psychoses: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book III, 1955–56, ed. ­ Jacques-­ Alain Miller, trans. Russell Grigg (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 267–8.   3. Immanuel Kant, ‘What is Enlightenment?’ in his Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals and What Is Enlightenment? [1783] trans. L. W. Beck (Indianapolis: ­Bobbs-­Merrill, 1959), pp. 85–92.  4. See Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1971); Christopher Rowland (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).   5. Interviews and writings by Michel Foucault on the Iranian revolution, appended to J. Afary and K. B. Anderson, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), pp. 183–277.  6. Hamid Dabashi, Theology of Discontent (New York: New York University Press, 1993); Hamid Dabashi, Islamic Liberation Theology: Resisting the Empire (London: Routledge, 2008).   7. Quite apart from its title, Islamic Liberation Theology, reflective of the bond, this book by Dabashi (ibid.), published in 2008, opens with an epigraph from Gutiérrez.   8. Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).   9. Sena Karasipahi, Muslims in Modern Turkey (London: I. B. Tauris, 2009). Under the AKP rule, especially following the regime change, a movement calling itself ‘­Anti-­Capitalist Muslims’ would increasingly capture the public eye as a pious form of Islam remarkably in opposition to the ruling Islamists. More interestingly perhaps, this political current would be in clear solidarity and in joint action against the government with the secular urbanites. A 2013 book by one of its leaders, İhsan Eliaçık, was entitled Devrimci İslam [Revolutionary Islam], and yet another by the same author, dated 2014, bore the title Demokratik Özgürlükçü İslam [Democratic Libertarian Islam]. Ali Shariati, incidentally, was well read and highly regarded among the Islamists of Turkey. 10. Michel Foucault, ‘The Subject and the Power’, in H. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow

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360  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y (eds), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), pp. 208–26. 11. Louis Althusser, Essays on Ideology (London: Verso, 1984), pp. 44–51. 12. G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], ed. Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), para. 149. 13. The term ‘­neo-­conservative’ seems to have emerged in the context of a split in the left during the 1972 presidential election (see Abrams, Dorrien, and Halper and Clarke in the following note, pp., respectively, 122–4; 7; and 19). Apparently the neologism was suggested by Michael Harrington and the magazine Dissent to define the former socialists (1) who had become ­born-­again patriots, (2) with a dislike of multiculturalism domestically, and (3) in favour of interventionism in foreign policy. Subsequently, the n ­ eo-­con perspective would come to be associated with aggressive US foreign policies towards the Middle East, coupled with a strong aversion to the rising religious political movements in the region. 14. See Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Gary Dorrien, Imperial Designs: Neoconservatism and the New Pax Americana (London: Routledge, 2004); Nathan Abrams, Norman Podhoretz and Commentary Magazine: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons (New York: Continuum, 2010). 15. Doğu Perinçek, ‘Büyük İsrail’in Mücahitleri [Mujaheeds of Greater Israel]’, Aydınlık, 23 June 2011. 16. Perinçek let himself be taken in police custody in Switzerland in 2005, by provocatively challenging the Swiss law that punished the denial of genocide (in this case, that of the Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in 1915). Eventually leading to a conviction for Perinçek in 2007, the stunt would be received as simply ‘heroic’ not only in ­neo-­nationalist but also in mainstream republican circles in Turkey. See Oktay Ekşi, ‘Yol Uzun Kavga Büyük [Road Ahead is Long and Cause Big]’, Hürriyet, 11 March 2007. A seasoned republican journalist, Ekşi, of this piece would later become a member of parliament with the main opposition Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi). Following an individual application by Perinçek, the European Court of Human Rights would rule in the case against Switzerland for a breach of the freedom of expression. See Perinçek vs Switzerland (2013). 17. Marlène Laruelle, Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008); Dmitry Shlapentokh (ed.), Russia between East and West: Scholarly Debates on Eurasianism (Leiden: Brill, 2007). ‘Eurasianism’ was originally a movement that emerged in Russia from the 1920s (see Laruelle,

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notes | 361 ibid., pp. 16–49). ‘­Neo-­Eurasianism’, on the other hand, was a ­post-­Cold War phenomenon. Yet, references to the latter would almost always fail to distinguish between the two, omitting the prefix ‘neo’. 18. On the relations between the Turkish n ­ eo-­nationalists, including the Turkish military, and the Russian Eurasianism, see Laruelle, Russian Eurasianism, note 17, pp. 198–9. 19. ‘Putin’in Münih Konuşması Genelkurmay’ın Sitesinde [Putin’s Munich Speech is on Website of Office of Chief of Staff]’, Hürriyet, 15 February 2007. 20. Ömer Taşpınar, ‘Ulusalcılarla Neokonlar Aynı Cephede [United Front of Turkish ­Neo-­nationalists and US ­Neo-­cons]’, Radikal, 16 July 2007. 21. See, for instance, Daniel Pipes, ‘Stay out of Syria: Intervention is a Trap’, The Washington Times, 20 August 2012. 22. See Laruelle, Russian Eurasianism, note 17, pp.  107–44; and Stephen D. Shenfield, Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2001), pp. 191–9. 23. Laruelle, Russian Eurasianism, note 17, pp. 111, 132. 24. Tamir B ­ ar-­On, ‘Transnationalism and the French Nouvelle Droite’, Patterns of Prejudice (Vol. 45, No. 3, 2011), pp. 199–223. 25. Thomas Sheehan, ‘Myth and Violence: the Fascism of Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist’, Social Research (Vol. 48, No. 1, 1981), pp. 45–73. 26. Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, trans. W. R. Trask (New York: Harper Torch Books, 1961). 27. Shenfield, Russian Fascism, note 22, p. 195, quoting Dugin. 28. Ibid., p. 195; Vadim Rossman, ‘­Anti-­Semitism in Eurasian Historiography’, in Shlapentokh (ed.), Russia between East and West, note 17, pp. 161–2. 29. Mark Sedgwick, Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 15. 30. Ibid., p. 159. 31. See note 5 above. 32. Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, note 29, p. 99. 33. Jürgen Habermas, ‘Modernity: an Unfinished Project’, trans. Nicholas Walker, in M. P. d’Entrèves and S. Benhabib (eds) Habermas and the Unfinished Project of Modernity: Critical Essays on the Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), p. 53. 34. Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share: Volumes II and III, trans. R. Hurley (New York: Zone Books, 1991).

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362  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y 35. Richard Wolin, ‘Left Fascism: Georges Bataille and the German ideology’, Constellations (Vol. 2, No. 3, 1996), pp. 404–5. 36. Laruelle, Russian Eurasianism, note 17, pp. 199–200. 37. ‘Dugin: Ergenekon Siyasi Sipariş [Dugin: Ergenekon Investigations are Politically Motivated]’, Hürriyet, 25 October 2008. 38. Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, note 29, pp. 238–40. 39. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009). 40. Zygmunt Bauman, ‘Sociology after the Holocaust’, The British Journal of Sociology (Vol. 39, No. 4, 1988), p. 485. 41. Doğu Perinçek, ‘İttihatçılara Vura Vura Nereye Geldik [Look Where We have Ended Up through Incessant Bashing of Ittihadists]’, Aydinlik, 30 June 2011, emphasis added. For the ‘Ittihadists’, the members of the Committee of Union and Progress, who ruled Ottoman Turkey during World War I, see the Introduction of this book. 42. Habermas, ‘Modernity: an Unfinished Project’, note 33, p. 54. 43. For this, see Chapter 3. 44. On 24 September 2007, when he made this inauguration speech of the new study term at the Turkish Military Academy, Başbuğ was the commander of the Land Forces. Subsequently he became the chief of the military staff. He would be arrested in January 2012, soon after his retirement. For his 2007 speech with references to Habermas, see Kürşat Bumin, ‘Görüldüğü Yerde Ezilecek Bir Akım: “Postmodernite” [A Movement that Needs to Be Crushed When and Where Encountered: “Post-modernity”]’, Yeni Şafak, 30 September 2007. 45. Ibid. 46. Perinçek, ‘İttihatçılara Vura Vura [Look Where We have Ended Up]’, note 41. 47. Ibid., note 41. 48. Robert J. Baird, ‘Late Secularism’, Social Text (Vol. 18, No. 3, 2000), pp. 123–36. 49. Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). 50. Bauman, ‘Sociology after the Holocaust’, note 40, pp. 474–5. 51. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Continuum, 1994). 52. Cf. Agamben, State of Exception, note 49, Chapter 1. 53. See, for biopower and governmentality, Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–78, trans. G. Burchell (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

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notes | 363 Chapter 5   1. Etyen Mahçupyan, ‘Hukuk ve Toplum [Law and Society]’, Akşam, 4 November 2014.  2. Etyen Mahçupyan, ‘Antidemokratik Adımlarla Demokrasi Olur mu? [Is It Possible to Have Democracy via ­Anti-­democratic Steps?]’, Akşam, 12 May 2015.   3. World Justice Project, Rule of Law Index 2015.   4. The seemingly eerie moment of ‘be careful what you wish for’ would come later, in 2015, with President Tayyip Erdoğan, resolved towards an e­xecutive-­style presidency to be freed from whatever was left of the legal shackles in the way of his o­ ne-­man rule, to declare that he wanted to run the country as ‘a limited liability company’. Yet this was not exactly the naive liberal notion of ‘smooth change’ reflected in a liberal, ‘managerial’ vision of political power blind to local dynamics, communicated above. The question of a national economy to be administered like a ‘company’ was one rather well known in economics, addressed famously by Paul Kruger, ‘A Country is Not a Company’, Harvard Business Review (Vol. 74, No. 1, 1996), pp. 40–51. For Erdoğan’s statement, see ‘Anonim Şirket Gibi Yönetilmeli [Country Must Be Run Like Limited Liability Company]’, Milliyet, 16 March 2015.   5. Taha Akyol, ‘Hangi Demokrasi? [Which Democracy?]’, Hürriyet, 25 October 2014.   6. Parliamentary Act No. 6287, 30 March 2012, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 28261, 11 April 2012.  7. Hasan and Eylem Zengin vs Turkey (2007), paras 58–70. The Court would repeat this finding in a subsequent judgement in 2014, Mansur Yalçın and Others vs Turkey.   8. The figures are those of the Ministry of Interior. See ‘2,5 Milyon İnsan 79 İlde Sokağa İndi [2.5 Million People in 79 Cities Took to Streets]’, Milliyet, 23 June 2013.   9. As noted before, the millet in the Erbakanist Millî Görüş, a political movement that emerged in the late 1960s, referred to religion as well as ethnicity, a use of the term in the earlier Turkish, as in the Ottoman millet system. 10. See, for the initial contributions to the debate by those arguing for the term ‘Islamism’, Ali Bulaç, ‘İslamcılığın Seyri [Course and Progress of Islamism]’, Zaman, 19 July 2012; Ömer Lekesiz, ‘İslamcılığın Helvasını Karmak [Claims for a Burial Ceremony of Islamism]’, Yeni Şafak, 1 August 2012; Yasin Aktay, ‘İslamcılığın ­Elif-­bâsı [ABC of Islamism]’, Yeni Şafak, 4 August 2012. The last

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364  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y contributor would later become a deputy chairperson of the AKP and a member of parliament. 11. ‘Babuşcu’dan İlginç Değerlendirme [Intriguing Analysis by Babuşcu]’, Hürriyet, 1 April 2013. 12. See Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–78, trans. G. Burchell (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). 13. Hayrettin Karaman, ‘Çoğunluğu Kale Almamak [Ignoring the Majority]’, Yeni Şafak, 8 November 2013. 14. ‘Bakan Avcı’nın Öğrencilere Dağıttığı Kitaptan: Çocuklar Savaşa Gelin! [From Book Handed Out to Pupils by Minister Avcı: Kids, Come to the War!]’, T24 online news portal, 17 September 2013. 15. Cahit Zarifoğlu, Ağaç Okul: Çocuklara Afganistan Şiirleri [Wood School: Afghanistan Poems for Children] (Istanbul: Akabe, 1985). 16. Turgay Oğur, ‘Bir Seçmenin “Dava” Merakı [Curiosity of a Voter about “the Cause”]’, Meydan, 3 June 2015. 17. Mukul Devichand, ‘Rashid Ghannouchi on Britain, Islam and Liberal Democracy’, BBC News online, 12 February 2012. See, for a comprehensive treatment of his ideas on Islam and democracy, Azzam S. Tamimi, Rachid Ghannouchi: A Democrat within Islamism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). Yet Ghannouchi was also known, very much like Turkey’s Islamist politicians, for remarks negating secularism and about a particularly demonised notion of the ‘West’, prompting comments on him of ultimately unreliable ­double-­talk. 18. Abdullahi Ahmed ­an-­Na‘im, Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari‘a (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). 19. See Abdolkarim Soroush, Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 20. This scholar reportedly was ‘one of only three men from whom Erdoğan [took] advice’. See Sanem Altan, ‘İslam’a Aykırıdır [Not in Keeping with Islam]’, Vatan, 12 November 2013. 21. Hayrettin Karaman, ‘Demokrasi, Çoğulculuk, Laiklik ve İslam [Democracy, Pluralism, Laïcité and Islam]’, Yeni Şafak, 25 May 2014. 22. Ibid. 23. Hayrettin Karaman, ‘İslam, Demokrasi ve Medine Vesikası [Islam, Democracy, and Medina Document]’, Yeni Şafak, 29 May 2014. 24. Ibid. 25. ‘Anayasa Mahkemesi’nden Flaş “Dershane” Kararı [Momentous Judgement

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notes | 365 by Constitutional Court on “Tutoring Programmes”]’, Hürriyet, 14 July 2015; Mustafa Akyol, ‘Turkey’s Constitutional Court Stands up to Erdoğan’, Al-Monitor online news portal, 22 July 2015. 26. Akif Emre, ‘Başörtüsü Nasıl Savunulmaz? [How Not to Defend Hijab]’, Yeni Şafak, 28 February 2008. 27. Ali Bulaç, ‘İslamcıların Söylemleri [Discourses of Islamism]’, Zaman, 13 August 2012. 28. The opposition figure in question was Türkân Saylan, who was the public face of the charity organisation called the Society in Support of Modern Life (Çağdaş Yaşamı Destekleme Derneği), which sought to promote an alternative vision particularly in education, a secularist one, thus competing, perhaps a little too aggressively in places, with the vision of the Gülenists. One item in the main outlet of the movement, the daily Zaman, 14 April 2009, read: ‘The MİT documents the trap set up by Türkân Saylan for Kurdish youth. Here is the document . . .’ The ‘trap’ alleged was the purported exposure of young Kurds to missionary activities. An earlier item in the same outlet, 10 May 2007, declared: ‘The obscene books distributed by the Society in Support of Modern Life led by Türkân Saylan were impounded by the Ministry of Education.’ The books described as ‘obscene’ were literary works by noted woman authors Tomris Uyar and Şebnem İşigüzel. 29. ‘MİT ve TSK’dan Türkân Saylan Belgesi [Türkân Saylan Documents from MİT and from Turkish Armed Forces]’, Zaman, 14 April 2009. 30. ‘MİT Fişleme Belgeleri Doğru, MİT’ten Sızdırıldı [MİT Profiling Documents Authentic and Leaked from MİT]’, Zaman, 4 December 2013. 31. ‘Aggravated Life Sentence Demanded for Gülen’, Hürriyet Daily News, 1 October 2015. 32. Mustafa Akyol, ‘Facts Mingle with Political Fantasy in Ankara’s Gülenist Indictments’, Al-Monitor, 8 October 2015. 33. ‘Court Arrests Two Judges Who Sought Release of Erdoğan’s Foes’, Hürriyet Daily News, 1 May 2015. 34. ‘Top Judicial Officials of Corruption Probe to Be Tried in Supreme Court’, Hürriyet Daily News, 15 June 2015. 35. Fehim Taştekin, ‘Is Turkey Reverting to a “Muhaberat” State?’, Al-Monitor, 17 April 2014; ‘Kaset Listesine Haşim Kılıç’ı da Aldı [His Blackmail Tape List Now Also Includes Haşim Kılıç]’, Zaman, 27 April 2014. 36. Zeynep Gürcanlı, ‘Haşim Kılıç’ın Konuşmasının Şifreleri [Decoding Address by Haşim Kılıç]’, Hürriyet, 26 April 2014.

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366  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y 37. ‘Karara Uymuyorum, Saygı Duymuyorum [Neither Obey nor Respect Ruling]’, Milliyet, 29 February 2016. For the journalists in question, see the text accompanying notes 34–7 in Chapter 7. 38. Belarus was the only European state not part of the system. 39. Loizidou vs Turkey (1995). 40. The protocols to which Turkey was not a party as yet (for reasons that were altogether not clear) were as follows: Protocol No. 4, adopted in 1963 and in force from 1968 (having ratified this protocol on 23 February 1994, Turkey nevertheless refrained from submitting the completed ratification to the Council of Europe), regulating prohibition of imprisonment for debt, prohibition of the expulsion of nationals and the collective expulsion of n ­ on-­nationals, and the freedom of movement; Protocol No. 7, adopted in 1984 and in force from 1988, on procedural safeguards concerning the expulsion of ­non-­nationals, the right to appeal in criminal cases, compensation for wrongful conviction, the right not to be tried or punished twice, and equality between spouses; Protocol No. 12, adopted in 2000 and in force from 2005, which introduced the general prohibition of discrimination; Protocol No. 15, adopted in 2013, not in force at the time, to be effective only after all of the parties to the Convention ratified it, since this was an agreement that modified the Convention, reducing the time period required for application to the ECtHR after the last domestic remedy from six to four months, among other minor revisions in the Convention system; Protocol No. 16, adopted in 2013, again, not yet effective, to be in force after at least ten parties ratified it, introducing a new function for the ECtHR (advisory opinions). Turkey was not a party to these protocols, yet it had ‘signed’ them (a form of political approval). This meant first and foremost that they did not bind Turkey. Turkey was arguably under a legal obligation, however, not to engage in acts that would defeat the object or purpose of these instruments. Possibly a generally binding customary norm, this rule was codified in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (in force from 1980; Turkey was not a party), Article 18. 41. Council of Europe, ECHR: Overview, 1959–2013, online official statistics. 42. ‘10 Yılda AİHM’ye Türkiye Aleyhinde 50 bin 249 Başvuru Yapıldı [50,249 Applications to ECtHR against Turkey in 10 Years]’ T24, 19 September 2013. 43. Cyprus vs Turkey (2014), with judgement on the merits dating from 2001. 44. Parliamentary Act No. 5982, 7 May 2010, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 27580, 13 May 2010. This law was supplemented in framing the task of the Court by Law No. 6216 on the Constitutional Court, dated 2011, and the new

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notes | 367 Rules of Court, adopted in 2012 and amended in 2014. See Parliamentary Act No. 6216, 30 March 2011, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 27894, 3 April 2011; Rules of the Constitutional Court, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 28351, 12 July 2012; Rules of Court Amending Certain Articles of Rules of the Constitutional Court, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 28932, 5 March 2014. 45. Constitutional Court judgement, individual application no. 2012/22, 25 December 2012; Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 28519, 5 January 2013. 46. For the figures, see ‘AYM Başkanı Zühtü Arslan: AYM’nin Verdiği Kararlar Herkesi ve Her Kurumu Bağlamaktadır [Chief Justice Zühtü Arslan: CC Judgements Bind Everyone and Every Institution]’, T24, 1 March 2016. The caveat by the chief justice put in the title of the news report appeared to be in response to a notorious statement just made by Erdoğan about the CC. See the text accompanying note 37 above. 47. With seventeen justices in its plenary form, the CC as a human rights tribunal had two sections and six committees. Seven members, presided by a deputy chief justice, formed a section. Committees had only two members each. Rapporteurs for clerical help were allotted both to the sections and to the committees. Individual applications by private and legal persons were made to an Office of Individual Applications. The applications were normally handled in a chronological order, yet the urgency that might possibly set apart certain cases could alter that order. The admissibility of a specific application was evaluated by one of the committees through a unanimous decision. The applicants, with a victim status, needed to have exhausted all of the earlier or ordinary domestic remedies and should file the application within thirty days after the last remedy. The time limit for applications to the ECtHR was six months at the time, likely to be reduced to four months though, with Protocol No. 15 in waiting. As different from applications to the ECtHR, applicants were also expected to deposit a fee (around $80). For those who did not have the means to pay the fee, legal aid was possible. The application considered admissible by the committee was sent on to one of the two sections for an evaluation on the merits. The section, which met with at least four members and a deputy chief justice, went through the evidence and, if required, held an oral hearing, eventually deciding the case with an absolute majority. The decision was either a ‘violation’ or ‘no violation’. An interim measure before the judgement on the merits was possible, but only exceptionally. It was also possible, as with the ECtHR, for a section to decide both admissibility and merits. Yet, unlike the ECtHR, the court had

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368  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y no mechanism of friendly settlement (an o­ ut-­of-court agreement between the public authority and the applicant, usually with the applicant receiving a sum of money). Again, as distinct from the ECtHR, the system did not have a review option. The judgement was final. The Plenary Court, convening with at least twelve members and the president or one deputy president, settled only ‘hard cases’ or possible conflicts that might arise between various rulings. The regulations behind the system consistently noted that the CC in this capacity was not an organ of appeal but only a subsidiary remedy. 48. Unanimous judgement by a section of the Constitutional Court, individual application no. 2014/3986, 2 April 2014. 49. Parliamentary Act No. 6518, 6 February 2014, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 28918, 19 February 2014. 50. Official figures disclosed by the minister of finance in response to a parliamentary question by the opposition, cited in Mehmet Y. Yılmaz, ‘İlk Ödül Uslu Gazetecilerin [First Prize Goes to W ­ ell-­Behaved Journalists]’, Hürriyet, 7 October 2014. 51. Taha Akyol, ‘­Yap-­Boz [­Do-­Over]’, Hürriyet, 17 October 2014. 52. Tarhan Erdem, ‘Halkın Gerçeğine Hazırlanma Günleri [Days to Get Prepared for Reality as Presented by People]’, Radikal, 28 May 2015. 53. ‘We do not have an allegedly mufti candidate in Diyarbakır and a gay candidate in Eskişehir.’ This statement by Erdoğan was a reference to the ­Kurdish-­led opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, HDP). ‘Erdoğan: Bir Pop Star Çıkardılar, İyi Saz Çalıyormuş [Erdoğan: They Came Up with a Pop Star who They Say is Good at Saz]’, BBC Türkçe [Turkish] online, 28 May 2015. The ‘pop star’ was the HDP ­Co-­Chair Selahattin Demirtaş. 54. In one specific application to the YSK, two of the justices would append dissenting opinions to the majority ruling of dismissal, arguing that the ­non-­partisan president clearly engaged in propaganda to influence the voting and that ‘rules [were] binding on all under the principle of the rule of law’. See ‘YSK’da İki Cesur Yürek [Two Bravehearts at YSK]’, Cumhuriyet, 15 May 2015. 55. ‘Paketten “Yaşam Tarzı” Çıktı [Package Has “Lifestyles”]’, Radikal, 1 October 2013. 56. ‘Turkish Government to Act on Accommodation Housing Female and Male Students’, Hürriyet Daily News, 5 November 2013. 57. Kadri Gürsel, ‘Erdoğan’s Unwelcome Intervention in College Life’, Al-Monitor, 8 November 2013. 58. The Economist, 8–14 June 2013.

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notes | 369 59. ‘TSK’ya Karşı Psikolojik Harekât Yürütüyorlar [They Are Engaged in Psychological Warfare against Turkish Armed Forces]’, Milliyet, 27 June 2009. 60. Yasemin Çongar, ‘Turkish Muezzin Who Couldn’t Lie is Exiled’, Al-Monitor, 23 September 2013. 61. Pınar Tremblay, ‘Erdoğan’s Biggest Fear: the “Concerned” Islamists’, Al-Monitor, 15 August 2013. 62. ‘İşte Kabataş Görüntüleri [Here are Kabataş Images]’, Milliyet, 14 February 2014. 63. The daily Cumhuriyet would publish in headline, on 8 March 2015, the full report on the incident compiled by the police, based on a careful scrutiny of 2,560 ­hour-­long images from the security cameras in the vicinity and interviews with people around the scene as detected through mobile phone signals. The story could not be corroborated. Yet Erdoğan would go on repeating the claim in the following days. See Berivan Oruçoğlu, ‘Turks, Lies, and Videotape’, Foreign Policy online, 13 March 2015. 64. ‘Gezi’s “Pots and Pans Protest” Inspires Question on Exam’, Hürriyet Daily News, 15 August 2013. 65. ‘7 Haziran Seçimleri Öncesi Kanlı Plan! Sümeyye’yi Vur Emri [Bloody Plot Ahead of 7 June Elections! Contract on Sümeyye’s Life]’, Star, 20 February 2015. The other two dailies that published the allegation in headlines on the same day were Sabah and Akşam. 66. See this account of the ‘documents’ by a journalist who was also implicated in the allegations, Emre Uslu, ‘Technical Details of the Plot’, Today’s Zaman, 22 February 2015. For an earlier attempt at forgery with the aid of Google Translate, this time against Noam Chomsky, see Chapter 7. 67. ‘Sümeyye Erdoğan’a Suikast İddiasıyla İlgili İlk Kez Konuştu [Erdoğan Speaks for the First Time on Allegations of Assassination Plot against Sümeyye Erdoğan]’, Milliyet, 21 February 2015. 68. Ahmet Hakan, ‘Herkes Takma Kafaya Diyor Ama Ben Taktım, Takacağım [They All Say Forget It, Yet I Can’t, and Won’t]’, interview with the politician targeted, Hürriyet, 6 March 2015. 69. Yalçın Doğan, ‘SE’den Erdoğan’a Mektup [Letter to Erdoğan by Socialist International]’, Hürriyet, 15 March 2015. 70. Mehmet Y. Yılmaz, ‘MİT Üretti, AA Haberleştirdi [MİT Concocted Allegations, and AA Served as News]’ Hürriyet, 10 August 2015. 71. ‘Sümeyye Erdoğan’a Suikast Konuşmaları Sahte Çıktı [Exchanges for Sümeyye Erdoğan Assassination Prove Fake]’, Hürriyet, 8 August 2015.

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370  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y 72. ‘“Twitter’dan Sümeyye Erdoğan’a Suikast Planı” İçin Sahte Diyen İki Savcı İçin Dosya Açıldı [Two Prosecutors who Found “Sümeyye Erdoğan Assassination Plot on Twitter” Fake Being Investigated]’, Hürriyet, 18 August 2015. 73. ‘“Sümeyye Erdoğan’a Suikast” Haberlerine Dava Açan Savcıların Yeri Değişti [Prosecutors Who Pressed Charges for Reports on “Assassination Plot against Sümeyye Erdoğan” Transferred]’, Cumhuriyet, 2 September 2015; ‘Suikast Hakimi Konya’ya [Assassination Judge Transferred to Konya]’, Hürriyet, 17 October 2015. 74. ‘Turkish PM Erdoğan to Putin: Take Us to Shanghai’, Hürriyet Daily News, 22 November 2013. 75. ‘US Further Presses Turkey over Chinese Missile Bid’, Hürriyet Daily News, 20 December 2013. The ‘bluff’ in the form of a tentative deal with China would later be called off, to be announced in the days leading to the G20 summit held in Turkey in November 2015. ‘Turkey Abandons Decision to Purchase Chinese Missile Defence System’, Hürriyet Daily News, 15 November 2015. 76. ‘Japan’s Energy Pact with Turkey Raises Nuclear Weapons Concerns’, The Asahi Shimbun online, 7 January 2014. See also Hans Rühle, ‘Is Turkey Secretly Working on Nuclear Weapons?’ The National Interest online, 22 September 2015; Aaron Stein, ‘Is Turkey Going Nuclear?’ The American Interest online, 25 August 2015. 77. Şahin Alpay, ‘Amaç Nükleer Bomba Yapabilmek [Aim is to Gain Ability to Produce Nuclear Bomb]’, Zaman, 14 January 2014. 78. Yusuf Kanlı, ‘Kobane and Turkey are Burning’, Hürriyet Daily News, 8 October 2014. 79. Michael J. Koplow, ‘False Friends: Why the United States is Getting Tough with Turkey’, Foreign Affairs, 20 February 2014. 80. Orhan Kemal Cengiz, ‘Will Turkish Corruption Scandal Lead to Return of Military to Politics?’, Al-Monitor, 12 January 2014. 81. Fehim Taştekin, ‘Turkey Declares Vanishing Truck to Syria “State Secret”’, Al-Monitor, 7 January 2014. See, for details, Chapter 9. 82. ‘Bu Onların “Özeli” Değil [Hardly an Issue of “Privacy”]’, Milliyet, 5 May 2011, report from Erdoğan’s public rally speech in Kastamonu on 4 May 2011. 83. Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, ‘Kaset Dehşeti Altında Seçimler [Polls under Tape Terror]’, Milliyet, 9 May 2011. 84. For a full transcript of this audio recording, with an image of Erdoğan allegedly ‘inspecting’ the sex tape, see ‘Deniz Baykal Kaseti Erdoğan’ın Talimatıyla

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notes | 371 mı Yayınlandı? [Was Deniz Baykal Tape Posted under Instructions from Erdoğan?]’, T24, 26 March 2014. 85. ‘Erdoğan’ı Baykal Kaseti İzlerken Gördüm [I Saw Erdoğan Watch Baykal Tape]’, Cumhuriyet, 28 March 2014. 86. A book by the former head of the Intelligence Division at the country’s General Directorate of Security, published in January 2015, would allege that the sex tapes were recorded and brought to Erdoğan by police officers loyal to the Gülen community, who, the claim would go on, took the caution also to film Erdoğan in the process of receiving and inspecting the tapes. See Sabri Uzun, İn: Baykal Kaseti, Dink Cinayeti ve Diğer Komplolar [The Lair: Baykal Tape, Dink Murder, and Other Conspiracies] (Istanbul: Kırmızı Kedi, 2015), p. 106. 87. Hayrettin Karaman, ‘Günah Kasetleri/Teşhiri [Tapes of Sin and Their Use]’, Yeni Şafak, 12 May 2011. 88. Article 58 of Law No. 298 on the Basic Rules for Elections and Voter Registry, as amended in 2010 (that is, under the AKP rule) by Law No. 5980, Article 7. 89. ‘Ak Parti Reklamına Yayın Yasağı [Ban on Broadcasting of AKP Publicity]’, Radikal, 19 March 2014. 90. ‘Atatürk Orman Çiftliği’ni Mahkeme de Kurtaramadı [Court also Fails to Save Atatürk Forrest Farm]’, Radikal, 5 March 2014. 91. E.g. The New York Times, 31 October 2014. 92. ‘Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan Çağrı Yaptı, İhbar Yağdı [Denunciations Rain Following Call by President Erdoğan]’, A Haber, 28 January 2016. 93. Suheyb Öğüt, ‘Susun! Entelektüellerimiz Konuşuyor [Quiet! Intellectuals among Us Speaking]’, Yeni Şafak, 10 February 2014. 94. See Mehmet Y. Yılmaz, ‘Siyasetin Finansmanı ve Ahlak Meselesi [Financing of Politics and Question of Ethics]’, Hürriyet, 19 January 2014. 95. Öğüt, ‘Susun! [Quiet!]’, note 93. 96. Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), chapter 6. 97. Ibid., p. 212. 98. Ibid., p. 227. 99. Ibid., p. 227. Chapter 6   1. For an idea, one of the slogans used by the protesters went: ‘We are all soldiers of Mustafa Keser’, a subversive play on a ­well-­known republican slogan, replacing

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372  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y the name of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) with that of an apolitical, highly irrelevant traditional singer.   2. ‘Bu Milletin Hizmetkârıyım [I’m Just a Servant to the People]’, Milliyet, 3 June 2013.   3. See Wikipedia entry on ‘chapulling’. (last accessed 13 February 2016).  4. E.g. the headline in the daily Tan, 22 June 1937: ‘Çapulcular Mahkemede Hesap Veriyorlar [Çapulcus Called to Account before Court]’.   5. Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, Son Devrin Din Mazlumları [The Wronged Pious of the Recent Past] (Istanbul: Büyük Doğu, 1997 [1969]), Chapter 1.   6. Enver Ziya Karal, Osmanlı Tarihi [Ottoman History], vol. IX (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1999), p. 102.  7. Abdülkadir Selvi, ‘Yeni Yol Haritası [New Roadmap]’, Yeni Şafak, 10 June 2013.   8. European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [hereafter European Convention], Article 11.  9. DİSK and KESK vs Turkey (2012). See, in particular, the separate concurring opinion of the judge András Sajó appended to the judgement. 10. İzci vs Turkey (2013), para. 89. 11. Ibid., para. 67. 12. Constitutional Court judgement, individual application no. 2013/2394, 25 March 2015; Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 29390, 18 June 2013. 13. European Convention, Article 3. 14. Turkey 2013 Progress Report. 15. Report to the Turkish Government on the Visit to Turkey Carried Out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment from 9 to 21 June 2013, Strasbourg, 15 January 2015. 16. Gezi Park Protests: Brutal Denial of the Right to Peaceful Assembly in Turkey, Amnesty International, 2013. 17. The figure disclosed by the Ministry of Interior. See ‘2,5 Milyon İnsan 79 İlde Sokağa İndi [2.5 Million People in 79 Cities Took to Streets]’, Milliyet, 23 June 2013. 18. Ahmet İnsel, ‘Haysiyet Ayaklanması [Revolt of Dignity]’, Radikal, 4 June 2013. 19. ‘Tıksırıncaya Kadar İçiyorlar [They Drink till They Spew]’, Cumhuriyet, 14 January 2011. 20. Erdoğan would subsequently issue a disclaimer, of sorts, in a television inter-

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notes | 373 view, revealingly with the onset of the Gezi protests: ‘Those who drink rarely, and only one or two glasses, are of course no alcoholics.’ Habertürk, 2 June 2013. 21. Ibid. Once again, Erdoğan would ‘rectify’ his comments with the start of the Gezi protests, stating: ‘I observe out there in front of my Dolmabahçe office the state of those [women] who arrive from Kadıköy. Yet I respect them.’ 22. ‘Erdoğan: O Evlerde Karmakarışık Şeyler Olabiliyor [Erdoğan: Messed Up Stuff Could Be Taking Place in Those Homes]’, Bianet independent news network online, 5 November 2013. 23. ‘Kırklareli’nde “Gezi” Diyene Dava [Criminal Charge for All Who Uttered “Gezi” in Kırklareli]’, Radikal, 7 February 2014. 24. ‘Court Acquits 26 Gezi Protesters, Including Taksim Solidarity Platform Members’, Hürriyet Daily News, 29 April 2015. 25. ‘Turkish Court Convicts 244 Protesters over Gezi Park Protests’, Hürriyet Daily News, 23 October 2015. 26. ‘Prosecutor Demands Football Fan Group’s Acquittal for Coup Charges’, Hürriyet Daily News, 11 September 2015. 27. ‘Probe Opened into 94 People Two Years After Gezi Protests’, Hürriyet Daily News, 21 September 2015. 28. Ayşe Arman, ‘Olmaz Olsun Böyle Polis Destanı [To Hell with Such Legendary Action by Police]’, Hürriyet, 30 March 2014. The title alludes to the statement by Erdoğan in the aftermath of the protests, lavishly praising the police: ‘The diligence displayed by the police has been nothing short of legendary.’ 29. YouTube, available at (last accessed 13 February 2016). 30. ‘Kırmızı Renkli Fular Sosyalizm Simgesi [Red Scarf is a Symbol of Socialism]’, Hürriyet, 10 October 2013. 31. ‘Kırmızı Fular Sosyalist Oldu [Red Scarf Means Socialism]’, Milliyet, 11 October 2013. 32. ‘Kırmızı Fulara Özgürlük Yok [No Freedom for Red Scarf]’, Cumhuriyet, 1 November 2013. 33. ‘Kırmızı Fularlı Kıza Tahliye Yok [Girl with Red Scarf Denied Release]’, Hürriyet, 30 November 2013. 34. ‘Kırmızı Fular Takmakla Suçlanan Kızın Annesi İsyan Etti [Mother of Girl Accused of Wearing Red Scarf Cries Out]’, Radikal, 12 October 2013. 35. ‘Cezaevinde Taciz İsyanı [Harassment Outcry at Prison]’, Cumhuriyet, 9 November 2013.

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374  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y 36. ‘Kırmızı Fularlı Kız İçin 5 Yıl Hapis Talebi [Request of 5 Years’ Imprisonment for Girl with Red Scarf]’, Radikal, 30 April 2014. 37. ‘Savcı, Kırmızı Fularlı Kızın PKK’ya Katılmasını Ek Delil Olarak Sundu [Prosecutor Finds Additional Evidence in Fact that Girl with Red Scarf Joined PKK]’, Radikal, 16 July 2014. 38. European Convention, Articles 11, 3, 5 and 6, respectively. 39. ‘Muammer Güler’den Gezi Parkı Açıklaması [Statement on Gezi Park by Muammer Güler]’, Bugün, 13 June 2013. 40. ‘No Suspects Left in Jail in Turkey’s Corruption Probe’, Hürriyet Daily News, 28 February 2014. 41. In February 2014 the main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu would play the leaked graft tapes and read out the officially rendered transcripts in the parliamentary group of his Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi). See ‘Kılıçdaroğlu, Muammer Güler ile Barış Güler’in Konuşmasını Dinletti [Kılıçdaroğlu Plays Tape of Phone Exchange between Muammer Güler and Barış Güler]’, Doğan Haber Ajansı news network, 12 February 2014. 42. ‘Barış Güler o Villayı 1.6 Milyon Liraya Satmış [Barış Güler Sold that Mansion for 1.6 Million Liras]’, Radikal, 25 December 2013. 43. ‘HSYK Kanunu Resmi Gazetede Yayınlandı [Law on HSYK Published in Official Gazette]’, Hürriyet, 28 February 2014. 44. ’­15-­Year-Old Gezi Victim Berkin Elvan Dies after 269 Days in Coma’, Hürriyet Daily News, 11 March 2014. 45. ‘Boy’s Death Spurs ­Anti-­Erdoğan Feeling in EU Parliament’, EUobserver online, 12 March 2014. 46. ‘Berkin Elvan Honored in Powerful F ­ ull-­ Page New York Times Ad’, The Huffington Post, 14 March 2014. 47. ‘­Ex-­EU Minister Bağış Raises Eyebrows with “Necrophiles” Tweet During Berkin Elvan’s Funeral’, Hürriyet Daily News, 13 March 2014. 48. Amberin Zaman, ‘Erdoğan’s Silence Shows Absence of Moral Compass’, Al-Monitor online news portal, 12 March 2014. 49. ‘PM Erdoğan Denies He Ordered Arrest of Former Army Commander’, Hürriyet Daily News, 20 March 2014. 50. ‘Erdoğan’a Şok Suçlama [Shocking Accusation against Erdoğan]’ Vatan, 11 March 2009. 51. İsmail Saymaz, ‘Başbakan’a “Allah Belanı Versin” Demek Hakaret Değil Beddua [“God Damn You” Said to PM is No Insult but a Negative Prayer]’, Radikal, 2 January 2014.

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notes | 375 52. Penal Code, Article 125. 53. İsmail Saymaz, ‘13 Yaşındaki Çocuğun Başbakan’a Hakaretten Bir Yıl Hapsi İsteniyor [Request of One Year’s Imprisonment about a 1­ 3-­year-old Child for Insulting PM]’, Radikal, 19 August 2009. 54. Penal Code, Article 31(2). 55. ‘Sonuç: M. S. Ö. Daha Bir Çocuk [Judgement: M. S. Ö. Still Just a Child]’, Radikal, 9 September 2009. 56. Saymaz, ‘Başbakan’a “Allah Belanı Versin” Demek [“God Damn You” Said to PM]’, note 51. 57. ‘Boyun Sıkmaya Takipsizlik, Başbakan’a Hakarete Dava [Case on ­Neck-­Squeezing Dropped, Insult to PM Case on]’, Milliyet, 26 June 2009. 58. Avi ­Asher-­Schapiro, ‘Teen Arrested for “Insulting” Erdoğan on Facebook as Crackdown in Turkey Continues’, Vice News online, 23 October 2015; ‘Two Children Face Two Years in Jail for Tearing Down Erdoğan Poster’, Hürriyet Daily News, 28 October 2015. Chapter 7   1. ‘Genelkurmay’ın Akreditasyon Listesi [Accreditation List of Office of Chief of Staff]’, Milliyet, 8 March 2007.   2. ‘Genelkurmay’dan Akreditasyon Uygulamasına Son [Office of Chief of Staff Ends its Accreditation Policy]’, Radikal, 18 June 2012.   3. ‘Bülent Arınç: TRT de Dahil Bazı Kanallar Bana Ambargo Uyguluyor [Bülent Arınç: Including TRT, Some TV Stations Have an Embargo on Me]’, Hürriyet, 24 October 2015.   4. ‘Penguen Yayınlayan Kanallar Yine Sessiz [TV Channels Broadcasting Penguins Are Once Again Silent]’, Cumhuriyet, 17 December 2013.   5. Hazal Özvarış interviewing Mustafa Mutlu, the columnist fired from the daily Vatan, T24 online news portal, 14 October 2013.  6. ‘Erdoğan: Demirören Bana Sordu, “Akif Beki’yi Al” Dedim [Erdoğan: Demirören Asked Me, and I Said “Get Akif Beki”]’, T24, 22 March 2013.   7. ‘Turkey versus YouTube: Erdoğan’s Draconian Reaction to Silence a Scandal’, The Independent, 27 March 2014.  8. ‘Başbakan Erdoğan’ın Doğruladığı İki Tape [Two Tapes Verified by PM Erdoğan]’, Radikal, 5 March 2014.   9. On media capture in Turkey, see Andrew Finkel, Captured News Media: The Case of Turkey (Washington, DC: Center for International Media Assistance, 2015).

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376  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y 10. Fikret Bila, ‘Aydın Doğan’a Karşı Vergi Terörü [Tax Terror against Aydın Doğan]’, Milliyet, 10 September 2009. 11. Kadri Gürsel, ‘Is Audit of Koç Companies Erdoğan’s Revenge for Gezi Park?’ Al-Monitor online news portal, 29 July 2013. 12. ‘Turkish Journalists Report Police Raid on Their Own Offices’, The New York Times, 28 October 2015; ‘Turkish Media Denounce “Biggest Crackdown on Press in Republic’s History”’, The Guardian, 29 October 2015; Mustafa Akyol, ‘When the State Steals Newspapers’, Hürriyet Daily News, 31 October 2015. 13. ‘Court Issues Total Media Ban Over Ankara Suicide Bombings’, Hürriyet Daily News, 14 October 2015. 14. Metin Gürcan, ‘Would You Like Your Terror Straight Up or as a Cocktail?’ Al-Monitor, 22 October 2015; ‘Erdoğan: ISIS, Syrian Intel, PKK Behind Blast’, Al-Arabiya News online, 22 October 2015. 15. ‘Hepsinde Yasak Var [All Banned]’, Zaman, 16 October 2015. 16. ‘Second Worst Year on Record for Jailed Journalists’, special report on Turkey by the Committee to Protect Journalists, 18 December 2013. 17. Reporters without Borders, World Press Freedom Index, 2014. 18. Freedom House, Freedom of the Press, 2013; Freedom of the Press, 2014. 19. Human Rights Watch online, ‘Turkey: Crackdown on Opposition Media’, 15 December 2014. Following this raid, one seasoned international correspondent in Istanbul would refer to the Freedom House ranking of the Turkish media as ‘not free’ in an ­op-­ed, adding: ‘Now it may have to create a new category: “not free at all.”’ Andrew Finkel, ‘Brave New Turkey’, The New York Times, 21 December 2014. 20. ‘International Editors Urge for Ensuring Press Freedom in Turkey in Letter to Erdoğan’, Hürriyet Daily News, 30 October 2015. 21. Freedom House, Freedom of the Press, 2015. 22. ‘Hürriyet’e Saldırının Başında AKP’li Vekil Var [Assault on Hürriyet Led by AKP Deputy]’, Cumhuriyet, 7 September 2015. 23. ‘Hürriyet Gazetesi’ne İkinci Saldırı [Second Attack on Daily Hürriyet]’, Hürriyet, 9 September 2015. 24. ‘Hürriyet Yazarı Ahmet Hakan Evinin Önünde Saldırıya Uğradı [Hürriyet Columnist Ahmet Hakan Assaulted in Front of His House]’, Hürriyet, 1 October 2015. 25. ‘Cem Küçük, Ahmet Hakan’ı Ölümle Tehdit Etti [Cem Küçük Threatens Ahmet Hakan with Death]’, Sözcü, 9 September 2015. 26. ‘Cem Küçük, Aydın Doğan’a: “Artık Seni Biz Yöneteceğiz” Dedi, Canlı Yayında

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notes | 377 Kovulacak Gazeteciler Listesi Açıkladı [Cem Küçük Addresses Aydın Doğan, “From Now on, We Will Be Ruling You,” Announcing in Live Show List of Journalists Doğan Should Fire]’, T24, 4 November 2015. 27. ‘Cumhuriyet Gazetesi’ne Saldırı İhbarı Hakkında Açıklama [Statement on Warned Attack on Daily Cumhuriyet]’, Cumhuriyet, 30 October 2015. 28. On this practice, see the special report of the International Press Institute on Turkey in 2015, Democracy at Risk. 29. See Akyol, ‘When the State Steals Newspapers’, note 12. 30. Official criminal claims (fezleke) as read by Kılıçdaroğlu in the parliamentary group of CHP would greatly verify the leaked tapes. See ‘Havuz Parası Bankaya Zırhlı Araçla Taşındı [Pool Money Transported to Bank in Armoured Vehicle]’, Radikal, 6 February 2014. 31. ‘Sabah eski Sabah mı? [Is Daily Sabah Old Sabah?]’, Hürriyet, 5 February 2014. 32. ‘Havuz Medyasının Üçlü Çetesi Panikte [Triple Gang of Pool Media in Panic]’, Hürriyet, 22 October 2015. 33. ‘In Scandal, Turkey’s Leaders May Be Losing Their Tight Grip on News Media’, The New York Times, 11 January 2014. 34. ‘Süleyman Şah Bombası: Tarihi Skandalın Tam Metni [Tomb of Süleyman Şah Bomb: Unexpurgated Text of Historic Scandal]’, Cumhuriyet, 27 March 2014. 35. Cumhuriyet, 29 May 2015, and subsequent editions. 36. ‘Turkish President Erdoğan Wants Editor Jailed for Espionage in Video Row’, The Guardian, 3 June 2015. 37. ‘Can Dündar ve Erdem Gül Tutuklandı [Can Dündar and Erdem Gül Arrested]’, Hürriyet, 27 November 2015. Facing aggravated life sentences, the journalists would be released, pending trial, through a judgement of the Constitutional Court following an individual application, having been detained by then already for over three months. See Chapter 5, the text accompanying note 37, for Erdoğan’s notorious response to the Court ruling. 38. ‘Defamatory News Portals Go Unpunished’, Today’s Zaman, 27 May 2014. 39. The Turkish Wikipedia had a whole item on the cartoons sued by Erdoğan, available at (last accessed 13 February 2016). 40. E.g. ‘Uludere Yazısı Başbakan’a Hakaret Sayıldı [Piece on Uludere Considered Insult to PM]’, T24, 18 July 2013; ‘Başbakan’dan Şimdi de Perihan Mağden’e Dava [Another Criminal Complaint by PM, This Time against Perihan Mağden]’, Bianet online independent news agency, 21 February 2008.

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378  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y 41. The Court of Cassation would subsequently quash this judgement; see ‘Musa Kart’ın Kedili Karikatürü Aklandı [Cat Cartoon by Musa Kart Acquitted]’, Radikal, 18 November 2006. 42. Tuşalp vs Turkey (2012). 43. That is leaving aside the brief experience with the daily Zaman in Ankara in 1986–7, before this paper became the flagship of the Gülenist media. 44. ‘Mi Minör’den Önce Londra ve Mısır Turu [Travels to London and Egypt before “Mi Minor”]’, Yeni Şafak, 21 June 2013. 45. ‘Bu Ne Tesadüf [What a Coincidence]’, Yeni Şafak, 10 June 2013. 46. ‘Gökçek Gezi Olaylarının Bir Numarasını Açıkladı [Gökçek Discloses “Number One” of Gezi Events]’, Yeni Şafak, 22 June 2013. 47. ‘Sana Bunun Hesabını Soracağız [We’ll Bring You to Book]’, Yeni Şafak, 15 June 2013. 48. ‘Text of Noam Chomsky Electronic Mail Interview with Yeni Şafak Newspaper: This is the Full Interview, Professor Chomsky Did Not Answer Any Additional Questions, 13 August 2013’, at chomsky.info. 49. ‘Aksine ne zaman ki her şey süt liman olur, düzene girer, işte o zaman Batı’da telaş başlar.’ 50. See, for example, ‘İşte Fethullah Gülen’in Masonluk Belgeleri [Here are Documents on Fethullah Gülen as Freemason]’, Yeni Şafak, 30 March 2015; ‘Gazi’yi Zehirlemişler [They Poisoned Atatürk]’, Yeni Şafak, 6 April 2015. The latter report ‘revealed’ in the subheading: ‘The documents . . . prove the “assassination” was engineered by İsmet İnönü’, the second figure after Atatürk, and still a hero of the republican opposition. 51. ‘Dinleme’ye MİT Kökenli Başkan [New Wiretapping Director from MİT]’, Milliyet, 24 December 2013. 52. ‘Social Media and Opposition to Blame for Protests, says Turkish PM’, The Guardian, 3 June 2013. 53. Freedom House, Freedom on the Net, 2013. 54. ‘Turkey Tops Google Content Removal Request List’, Hürriyet Daily News, 20 December 2013. 55. ‘2014’te Twitter Sansürünün % 90’ı Türkiye’den [90 Per Cent of Twitter Censorship in 2014 from Turkey]’, Bianet, 7 February 2015. 56. A website created locally, Engelli Web, kept a list of the sites blocked either by courts or by the administration without a court order, as it was not possible to receive this information from the TİB itself, the body in c­harge­– ­­despite the promised and, on the surface, legally secured transparency of the

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notes | 379 administration. The list of banned sites kept by Engelli Web was constantly updated via online contributions, accompanied with evidence, from private web users. 57. Freedom House, Freedom on the Net, 2014. 58. Freedom House, Freedom on the Net, 2015. 59. Parliamentary Act No. 5651, 4 May 2007, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 26530, 23 May 2007. 60. Ibid., Article 8. 61. Ibid., Article 8(4), emphasis added. 62. European Convention on Human Rights, Articles 10, 6, and Article 1 of Protocol No 1, respectively. 63. Yıldırım vs Turkey (2013), para. 62. 64. Ibid., para. 67. 65. Article 226. 66. For more bizarre examples, see Emre Kızılkaya, ‘Why is Turkey Censoring Lingerie, Antique Books?’, Al-Monitor, 29 January 2015. 67. ‘Onbinler Haykırdı: İnternet’ime Dokunma [Tens of Thousands Cry Out: Hands Off My Internet]’, Bianet, 15 May 2011. 68. ‘Marchers Protest New Turkish Web Filtering Rules’, CNN International online, 15 May 2011. 69. Parliamentary Act No. 6518, 6 February 2014, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 28918, 19 February 2014. Articles 85–100 in this ‘mixed bag’ law were on Internet regulation, and Articles 102–6 on electronic communication. For the highly controversial practice of ‘mixed bag’ parliamentary acts under the AKP rule, see Chapter 5. 70. ‘Turkey Blocks Twitter After Erdoğan Vowed “Eradication”’, Hürriyet Daily News, 20 March 2014. 71. ‘Başsavcılık’tan “Yasak” Açıklaması: Bizim Böyle Bir Kararımız Yok [Statement from Office of Chief Public Prosecutor: We Made No Such Request]’, T24, 21 March 2014. 72. ‘YouTube Yasaklandı [YouTube Banned]’, Hürriyet, 27 March 2014. 73. ‘YouTube Access Restored in Turkey’, BBC News online, 4 June 2014. 74. Majority judgement by the Plenary Court, individual application no. 2014/4705, 29 May 2014. For this new function of the court as a human rights tribunal, see Chapter 5. 75. Unanimous judgement of a chamber of the Constitutional Court, individual application no. 2014/3986, 2 April 2014.

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380  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y 76. Hasan Cemal, ‘Tayyip Erdoğan ve “Gayrımillî” Anayasa Mahkemesi [Tayyip Erdoğan and an “Unpatriotic” Constitutional Court]’, T24, 5 April 2014. 77. ‘Turkish PM Erdoğan Criticises Twitter Court Ruling’, BBC News online, 4 April 2014. 78. ‘Twitter Yasağına Yürütmeyi Durdurma [Stay of Execution for Ban on Twitter]’, Hürriyet, 26 March 2014. Chapter 8   1. Resolution No. 543, 28 November 2013.  2. See Soli Özel, ‘Sırat Köprüsü [­Wafer-­thin Bridge to Paradise]’, Habertürk, 20 May 2015; Şükrü Küçükşahin, ‘Milletin “Adamı” Değil Vicdanı Konuştu [Conscience Rather than “Man” of People Speaks]’, Hürriyet, 8 June 2015; ‘Camide Siyaset [Political Campaigning at Mosque]’, Cumhuriyet, 22 May 2015; ‘Muhalefetten TSK’ya Mehter Tepkisi [Opposition Critical of Military over Mehter]’, Hürriyet, 1 June 2015.  3. ‘CHP Reklamlarına Tartışılacak Sansür İddiası [Controversial Censorship Claim about CHP Publicity Material]’, Hürriyet, 9 December 2013.   4. ‘Afiş Sansürü İddiasında CHP’den Erdoğan, Gökçek ve Varank’a Suç Duyurusu [Criminal Complaint by CHP against Erdoğan, Gökçek and Varank, on Poster Censorship]’, T24 online news portal, 26 February 2014.  5. OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), Limited Election Observation Final Report on the Presidential Election of the Republic of Turkey, 10 August 2014, Section X(B).   6. Ibid., Section VIII.  7. OSCE/ODIHR, Limited Election Observation Final Report on Parliamentary Elections of the Republic of Turkey, 7 June 2015.  8. OSCE/ODIHR, Statement of Preliminary Findings and Conclusions on the Early Parliamentary Elections of the Republic of Turkey, 1 November 2015.   9. ‘Türkiye’deki AGİT Heyetinden “Basın Özgürlüğü” Yorumu: Endişe Verici” [Comment by OSCE Mission in Turkey on “Press Freedom”: Raises Concerns]’, Hürriyet, 30 October 2015. 10. ‘TRT’den “Tarafsızlık Rekoru”: Bir Ayda Toplam 37 Konuk Aldı, 37’si de AKP’den [TRT Breaks “Record of Neutrality”: 37 Guests in One Month, All 37 of them from AKP]’, Birgün, 30 October 2015. 11. ‘Bir TRT Belgeseli: AKP ve Erdoğan 59 Saat, CHP 5 Saat, MHP 1 Saat, HDP 18 Dakika! [TRT Documentary: AKP and Erdoğan 59 Hours, CHP 5 Hours, MHP 1 Hour, HDP 18 Minutes!]’, T24, 27 October 2015.

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notes | 381 12. ‘Turkish Election Campaign Unfair, Say International Monitors’, The Guardian, 2 November 2015. 13. Roger Cohen, ‘Erdoğan’s Violent Victory’, The New York Times, 2 November 2015. 14. For a thorough study of Turkish experience in democracy from a comparative political perspective, see İlter Turan, Turkey’s Difficult Journey to Democracy: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 15. Consociational (or p ­ ower-­sharing) democracies are those that employ mostly informal practices for some such participation beyond the strict majority rule, typically in India. See Arend Lijphart, Thinking about Democracy: Power Sharing and Majority Rule in Theory and Practice (London: Routledge, 2008). Where greater participation of masses in policies is ensured through quantitatively measurable formal and institutional arrangements, as in the majority of European democracies; that which is at work is a consensus democracy. See Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries, second edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012). 16. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory, expanded edition (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2006), Chapter 3. 17. All three rights were formally protected within the European regime of human rights, binding on Turkey: European Convention on Human Rights, Article 3 of Protocol No. 1, Article 10 and Article 11, respectively. 18. On the benchmarks and criteria for acceptable, free and fair elections, see also the work of the ­Inter-­Parliamentary Union, an ­inter-­parliamentary organisation of states, functioning since 1889, and the guidelines by the European Commission on Democracy through Law, also known as the Venice Commission, an advisory organ under the Council of Europe. 19. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) would find no violation in this practice though, by five votes against two, in Yumak and Sadak vs Turkey (2008), later to be confirmed by the Grand Chamber by thirteen votes against four. The judgement came as no surprise, as the Court was known to be somewhat shy of being drawn into wrangles that were understood to form rather sensitive fault lines in the domestic politics of the respondent state. A later case on electoral threshold brought about by a number of individual applications to Turkey’s Constitutional Court acting as a human rights tribunal would be found inadmissible by the court, ostensibly for a provision in the law on the functioning of the Constitutional Court that left legislative acts out of the purview of individual applications. See ‘Anayasa Mahkemesi Seçim Barajı Kararını

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382  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Verdi [Constitutional Court Rules on Electoral Threshold]’, Hürriyet, 7 January 2015. 20. Again, deemed to be an inevitable offshoot of the earlier holding, note 19, the ECtHR would find no violation in the practice, by five votes against two, in Özgürlük ve Dayanışma Partisi vs Turkey (2012). Yet, see the strongly enunciated dissenting opinion by judges Françoise Tulkens and András Sajó appended to the judgement. 21. As expected, the majority of a chamber of the ECtHR would find no breach in the practice in the case Baskın Oran vs Turkey (2014). 22. ‘Turkey’s Government Forms 6,­000-­Member Social Media Team’, The Wall Street Journal, 16 September 2013; ‘Ak Parti’den 6 Bin Kişilik Sosyal Medya Ordusu [6,­000-­Strong Social Media Army of AKP]’, Hürriyet, 14 November 2013. 23. ‘Erdoğan: O Savcı Adaletin Yüzkarası [Erdoğan: That Prosecutor is a Disgrace to Justice]’, Posta, 27 December 2013. 24. ‘Erdoğan’a Destek İçin Kefen Giyip Yürüdüler [­Shroud-­donned Supporters Rally for Erdoğan]’, Yeni Akit, 10 March 2014. 25. ‘ÇYDD’ye Vergi Kıskacı [Tax Grip against Society in Support of Modern Life]’, Cumhuriyet, 11 December 2013. 26. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. T. Burger (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), p. 4. 27. ‘Erdoğan Bayraktar İstifa Etti [Erdoğan Bayraktar Resigns]’, Hürriyet, 25 December 2013. 28. ‘Corruption Scandal is Edging Near Turkish Premier’, The New York Times, 25 December 2014. 29. Erdoğan had shortly before described ­al-­Qadi as a ‘friend’, who was known to have secretly visited Turkey several times while facing travel restrictions placed by various international policy bodies on suspected terror charges. On the Erdoğan and a­ l-­Qadi friendship and the business dealings of the latter in Turkey, detailed long before the corruption allegations, see ‘The A ­ l-­Qadi Affair’, Forbes online, 24 January 2008. In one of the allegedly wiretapped telephone conversations, posted online, Erdoğan would be heard to speak to Sayyid Qutb’s nephew Osama in Turkish, following a few words of greeting in Arabic. Reassuring Osama about a business deal, Erdoğan would send his regards to Mohammad, Sayyid Qutb’s brother. Osama, just as a­l-­Qadi’s son Muadh, was apparently naturalised at some point during the AKP rule and started living in Istanbul

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notes | 383 as well as Mecca, where his father, who would die shortly afterwards, was in April 2014. See ‘Polis Fezlekesi: Bilal Erdoğan Gizli Ortak [Police Records: Bilal Erdoğan Secret Partner]’, Cumhuriyet, 4 August 2014. According to one of the allegedly authentic tapes, ­al-­Qadi and Qutb accompanied by the head of the then prime minister Erdoğan’s personal protection unit had had a curious road accident on 15 February 2013, with those on board hurt and hospitalised. As heard on the tape, Erdoğan had purportedly been the first person Qutb had called after the accident. Yet, for some reason, the mysterious travellers injured in the incident would be omitted in the subsequent traffic report. See ‘Yasin ­el-­Kadı’nın Kaza Kayıtları [Recordings from Yasin a­ l-­Qadi Accident]’, Hürriyet, 24 February 2014. 30. ‘Savcı, Polis Şeflerine Söz Geçiremedi [Police Chiefs Refuse to Obey Prosecutor]’, Radikal, 26 December 2013. 31. ‘Savcı Krizi Patladı [Prosecutor Crisis Breaks Out]’, Radikal, 27 December 2013. 32. ‘The Second Chamber of the High Council of Judges and Public Prosecutors (HSYK) debars from the profession the prosecutors Zekeriya Öz, Celal Kara, Muammer Akkaş, Mehmet Yüzgeç, and the judge Süleyman Karaçöl.’ See ‘HSYK, Zekeriya Öz’ü Meslekten İhraç Etti [HSYK Debars Prosecutor Zekeriya Öz]’, Anadolu Ajansı, official news network, 12 May 2015. ‘Top Judicial Officials of Corruption to Be Tried in Supreme Court’, Hürriyet Daily News, 15 June 2015. The ‘Supreme Court’ referred to in the report was the Court of Cassation (Yargıtay). 33. According to the figures disclosed by Turkey’s Association of Journalists in December 2014, close to seventy journalists were on trial in 120 separate cases, with charges related to the reports on corruption allegations. See ‘Gazeteci Kabaş’a Tweet Baskını [Tweet Raid against Journalist Kabaş]’, Milliyet, 31 December 2014. 34. The front page of the p ­ ro-­government daily Yeni Şafak on 26 December 2013 devoted to the exploding corruption charges had the following headlines from a speech by Erdoğan: ‘Liberation War of Great Turkey’, ‘It’s Me They’re Targeting’, and ‘This is a Coup’. 35. ‘Erdoğan Admits Calling Habertürk Executive to Change Reporting during Gezi Protests’, Today’s Zaman, 11 February 2014. 36. The ­editor-­in-chief of a mainstream daily, revealed in the leaked tapes to have been censoring news and manipulating poll results for the government, would subsequently argue in s­elf-­defence that there was no other way to be able to

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384  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y c­ ontinue as a journalist under the AKP rule, stating on a live television interview: ‘I have been raped; go after the rapist, not me.’ See ‘Fatih Altaylı: Gazetecilik Onuru Ayaklar Altında [Fatih Altaylı: Journalistic Ethics Being Trampled On]’, Radikal, 11 February 2014. 37. ‘In Scandal, Turkey’s Leaders May Be Losing Their Tight Grip on News Media’, The New York Times, 11 January 2014. 38. This craze around Erdoğan as the new ‘caliph’ would later gear down yet effectively go on. See Adam Taylor, ‘“The Caliph is Coming, Get Ready,” ­Pro-­Erdoğan Turkish Politician Tweets’, The Washington Post, 19 March 2015. 39. ‘Erdoğan’ı Halife Olarak Tanıyor ve Biat Ediyorum [I Recognise Erdoğan as Caliph and Pledge Bay‘ah to Him]’, Agos weekly, 30 August 2013. 40. ‘Yeni Demokratikleşme Paketi TBMM Genel Kurul’unda [New Democratising Package at General Assembly of Parliament]’, Hürriyet, 20 February 2014. 41. ‘Başbakan’dan Brüksel’de Önemli Açıklamalar [Critical Statements by PM in Brussels]’, Hürriyet, 21 January 2014. 42. Hamid Dabashi, Islamic Liberation Theology: Resisting the Empire (London: Routledge, 2008). 43. See Ali Rahnema, An Islamic Utopian: A Political Biography of Ali Shariati (London: I. B. Tauris, 2014). 44. ‘Başbakan Erdoğan ve Bilal’in Ses Kaydının Tam Metni [Unexpurgated Text of PM Erdoğan and Son Bilal Voice Recordings]’, Cumhuriyet, 26 February 2014. 45. ‘Turkish Prime Minister Targeted in Second Audio Tape’, Reuters online, 26 February 2014. 46. Roy Gutman, ‘Erdoğan Recordings Appear Real, Analyst Says, as Turkey Scandal Grows’, Miami Herald, 26 February 2014. 47. ‘Koç: Tayyip Bey’in 1 Milyar Doları Varmış [Koç: They Say Tayyip Bey Has $1 Billion]’, Hürriyet, 5 August 2001. 48. Fehim Taştekin, ‘Iranian Gold Stars in Turkish Corruption Scandal’, Al-Monitor online news portal, 20 December 2013. 49. Mümtaz’er Türköne, ‘As Crony Capitalism Collapses’, Today’s Zaman, 1 February 2014; idem, ‘Islamism and Corruption’, Today’s Zaman, 10 February 2014. On this, see also revelations ‘from within’ by a former I­ slamo-­nationalist journalist, ‘Levent Gültekin: Erdoğanistler Tayyipçilere Yalan Söyleyerek Geçiniyor [Levent Gültekin: Erdoğanists Make a Living by Lying to Tayyipists]’, Bugün, 22 March 2015. 50. Hayrettin Karaman, ‘Rüşvete ve Yolsuzluğa Fetva Verilmez [There can Be No Fatwa to Justify Bribery and Corruption]’, Yeni Şafak, 27 December 2013.

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notes | 385 51. Ali Bulaç, ‘Havuzun Suyu [Water in Pool]’, Zaman, 13 February 2014. 52. Mümtaz’er Türköne, ‘How does AK Party Finance Political Activities?’ Today’s Zaman, 15 February 2014. 53. Parliamentary Act No. 6496, 13 July 2013, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 28724, 31 July 2013, Article 18. 54. ‘Army “Concerned” by Turkey Vote’, BBC News online, 28 April 2007. 55. See, for example, ‘EU Warns Turkish Army over Vote’, BBC News online, 28 April 2007; ‘US Urges Turkey to Heed Constitution, Democracy’, Reuters, 28 April 2007. 56. ‘Anayasa Paketi Referandumda Yüzde 58’le Kabul Edildi [Package Amending Constitution Approved in Referendum by 58 Per Cent]’, Bianet independent news online, 12 September 2010. 57. Deniz Zeyrek, ‘Askerden İki Çekince [Two Reservations by Military]’, Hürriyet, 5 October 2015. Chapter 9   1. ‘Turkish Government and Kurds in Bid to Revitalise Peace Talks’, The Financial Times, 28 February 2015; ‘Renewing Call to End Turkey Conflict, Kurdish Rebel Leader Hails “New Era”’, The New York Times, 21 March 2015.    2. ‘Sevan Nişanyan’a Hapis Cezası [Imprisonment to Sevan Nişanyan]’, Hürriyet, 22 May 2013.   3. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, para. 37, in his The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, and Other Writings, edited by A. Ridley and J. Norman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).   4. E.g. Yusuf Kaplan, ‘Nietzsche: “İslam’ın Önünde Diz Çökmeliydik” [Nietzsche: “We Should Have Gone on Our Knees Before Islam”], Yeni Şafak, 21 December 2007.    5. ‘Fazıl Say’a 10 Ay Hapis [10 Months’ Imprisonment to Fazıl Say]’, Hürriyet, 15 April 2013.    6. Penal Code, Article 216(3).    7. European Convention on Human Rights [hereafter European Convention], Article 10.    8. ‘Sevan Nişanyan Yıllarca Cezaevinde Kalabilir! [Sevan Nişanyan May Remain in Prison for Years!]’, Radikal, 5 December 2014.   9. ‘User Gets Prison Sentence for Using “Allah CC” Nickname on Twitter’, Hürriyet Daily News, 29 May 2014.   10. Say would object to the suspension of the sentence and appeal against the

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386  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y judgement before the Court of Cassation (Yargıtay). This high court of civil and criminal cases, known at the time to be a battleground between the ­pro-­government members of the judiciary and the dissidents, especially the alleged Gülenists (see Chapter 5), would quash the earlier ruling in October 2015 with a ‘majority’ decision. Once again, the ball would be put in the first instance court, which would either retry Say or be defiant, insisting on its earlier ruling. ‘Top Appeals Court Reverses Blasphemy Decision against Turkish Pianist Say’, Hürriyet Daily News, 26 October 2015.   11. ‘RTÜK “Tanrı” Sözcüğünü Uygunsuz Buldu [RTÜK Finds Word “Tanrı” Inappropriate]’, Cumhuriyet, 11 February 2015. The show in question was Vous les femmes (Ah Biz Kadınlar), 2007.  12. For this and other examples, see Sibel Hürtaş, ‘Turkish Media Watchdog Scrutinises “The Simpsons”’, Al-Monitor online news portal, 16 February 2015.  13. ‘TÜBİTAK 50 Bin Kitabı Toplattı, Sakıncalı Bulunanlar İmha Edilecek [TÜBİTAK Recalls 50,000 Books, Those Found Problematic to Be Destroyed]’, Hürriyet, 25 November 2015.  14. ‘İnceleme “Büyüyerek” Sürecek [Inspection of Books to Continue “on Increasing Scale”]’, Hürriyet, 26 November 2015.  15. ‘Turkish Parliament’s Filter Denies Access to Church’s Website due to “Pornographic” Content’, Hürriyet Daily News, 29 May 2014. See also Mustafa Akyol, ‘Turkey’s Protestants Complain of Discrimination, Harassment’, Al-Monitor, 12 January 2015.   16. ‘Kadıköy’de Alevi Mitingi [Alevi Rally in Kadıköy]’, Hürriyet, 3 November 2013.   17. 15–25 per cent, according to the Annual Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (Washington, DC, 2015), p. 187.  18. ‘Alevilerden Yavuz Sultan Selim Köprüsüne Tepki [Alevi Fury over Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge]’, Radikal, 30 May 2013.   19. Taha Akyol, ‘“Sen Alevisin [“You’re an Alevi”]’, Hürriyet, 4 August 2014.   20. In the case Hasan and Eylem Zengin vs Turkey (2007), the Court found Turkey in violation of the right to education for compulsory religious teaching and, by implication, although not pronounced, of the freedom of thought, conscience and religion. In Mansur Yalçın and Others vs Turkey (2014), the Court once again ruled for a violation of the right to education for the lack of ‘objectivity and pluralism’ in compulsory religious teaching. In Sinan Işık vs Turkey (2010), the Court decided for a contravention of the freedom of thought, con-

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notes | 387 science and religion for the section in Turkish identity documents that, beyond ignoring Alevism, forced people to disclose their faith. Finally, in Cumhuriyetçi Eğitim ve Kültür Merkezi Vakfı vs Turkey (2014), the Court found a breach in the discriminatory treatment of Alevi houses of worship in conjunction with the freedom of thought, conscience and religion.   21. European Convention, Article 9, Article 2 of Protocol No. 1, and Article 14, respectively.   22. Over six years after the historic case of Hasan and Eylem Zengin (note 20), Turkey’s minister of education would disclose in May 2014, in response to a parliamentary question, that the Alevi students had still been granted no right to opt out of the compulsory religious classes in schools. See ‘“Danıştay Duvar Oldu” [“State Council Turned into Wall”]’, Cumhuriyet, 11 May 2014.   23. ‘Başbakan Erdoğan: Dört Dörtlük Aleviyim [PM Erdoğan: I’m Alevi, Four out of Four]’, Radikal, 17 July 2013.   24. ‘Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan Almanya’da Konuştu [President Erdoğan Speaks in Germany]’, Hürriyet, 10 May 2015.   25. Hayrettin Karaman, ‘Bir Dinin İki Mabedi Olmaz [A Religion Cannot Have Two Different Temples]’, Yeni Şafak, 13 September 2013: ‘no matter how greatly they differ in terms of persuasion [mezhep] or order [tarikat], the faithful of one religion should have one single temple as their place of worship.’ This view that reflected the outlook of the majority of local Islamic scholars would be quickly challenged by another Islamic scholar; see Ali Bulaç, ‘Cami ve Cemevi [Mosque and Cemevi]’ Zaman, 16 September 2013: ‘According to the maxim “no compulsion in religion”, we cannot impose our temple on [the Alevis] . . . rather, we should accept [the Alevis] as they define themselves, and if, correspondingly, they demand for cemevis a status as a [separate] place of worship, we should simply go along. From an Islamic viewpoint, there is nothing in the way whatsoever.’ The piece was an implicit polemical exchange with the earlier scholar, who would thus promptly respond, again implicitly: Hayrettin Karaman, ‘Kimseyi Camiye Zorlamıyoruz [We Are Not Imposing Mosque on Anyone]’, Yeni Şafak, 19 September 2013. The point in the latter piece, as perhaps hinted in the very title, was simple: that was what Islam was, namely one historical Islam and one place of worship as a logical corollary; you could either take it or leave it. The Alevis, he implied, had to pay more attention to the sources of the historical Islam, and, as the case might be, should perhaps give up Alevism, which was historically only a false, ‘distorted’ version of the true Islam. One other columnist in another ­pro-­government daily,

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388  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y joining the polemic, would ask the following question in the title of his piece, well reflective of the mood that prevailed in the government circles on the matter: ‘What [do you think] would happen if cemevis were to be considered as places of worship?’ The answer provided in the column, with the unnerving air of an approaching ill omen, was: ‘this would be tantamount to recognising Alevism as a separate religion.’ İbrahim Kiras, ‘Cemevleri İbadethane Sayılsa Ne Olur? [What Would Happen if Cemevis Were to Be Considered as Places of Worship]’, Star, 19 September 2013.   26. Parliamentary Act No. 442, 18 March 1924, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 68, 7 April 1924, Article 2.   27. ‘Dersim İçin Özür Diliyorum [I Apologise for Dersim]’, Radikal, 24 November 2011.  28. ‘­ Alevi-­ Bektaşi Federasyonu Başkanı: “Yargıtay Hükümete Cemevlerini Düzenleme Görevi Verdi” [Head of A ­ levi-­ Bektaşi Federation: “Court of Cassation Ordered Government to Regulate on Cemevis”]’, Bianet online independent news network, 17 March 2015.   29. ‘Yargıtay’dan Cemevi Kararı [Judgement by Court of Cassation on Cemevis]’, Hürriyet, 17 August 2015.  30. Dink vs Turkey (2010), paras 50–2.  31. ‘Minister: Bullets Fired at Santoro Target Turkey’, Hürriyet Daily News, 2 November 2006.   32. ‘Three Slain at Bible Publishing House’, Hürriyet Daily News, 19 April 2007.   33. Hrant Dink, ‘Ermenistan’la Tanışmak [Meeting Armenia]’, Agos weekly, 13 February 2014.  34. Modified, and made subject to the official leave of the minister of justice (apparently in order to avoid particularly embarrassing cases that might be instituted by prosecutors), Article 301 of the Penal Code would nevertheless go on haunting the exercises of intellectuals in free speech. According to the account provided in a later case decided by the European Court of Human Rights, this time involving a historian, again, on the treatment of the Ottoman Armenians, between 8 May 2008 and 30 September 2009, there had been 955 applications to the minister of justice by prosecutors, seeking authorisation to initiate criminal proceedings for insulting Turkish people or the state. The minister had granted leave for s­eventy-­seven of these requests. See Taner Akçam vs Turkey (2011), para. 29. This was more than one case per week. In January 2015, a human rights lawyer and activist would be convicted to ten months’ imprisonment under Article 301. She had made a comment on

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notes | 389 the killing of a ­thirteen-­year-old Kurdish boy in 2004 by the security forces, articulating that ‘the state’ had killed him, and that Turkey had a ‘soiled’ (kirli) history. See ‘Eren Keskin’e 301’den 10 Ay Hapis [10 Months Imprisonment for Eren Keskin under Article 301], Bianet, 22 January 2015. Incidentally, the European Court of Human Rights had already ruled in 2014, finding Turkey in violation of several rights in this latter case, including the right to life. See Makbule Kaymaz and Others vs Turkey (2014).   35. European Convention, Article 10.  36. Dink vs Turkey (2010), para. 94.   37. European Convention, Articles 2 and 10, respectively.  38. Fethiye Çetin, Utanç Duyuyorum: Hrant Dink Cinayetinin Yargısı [I’m Ashamed: Judiciary in Hrant Dink Murder] (Istanbul: Metis, 2013).   39. ‘Yargıtay Hâkimi: Hrant Dink Türk Olsa Ceza Almazdı [Court of Cassation Judge: Hrant Dink Would Have Received No Punishment Had He Been a Turk]’, Radikal, 14 September 2013.  40. ‘Kamu Denetçiliği Kurumu: Hrant Dink Suçlu Olduğu İçin Ceza Aldı [Ombudsman Institution: Hrant Dink Received Punishment for Being Guilty]’, T24 online news portal, 23 November 2013.   41. Parliamentary Act No. 6328 [Law on the Ombudsman], 14 June 2012, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 28338, 29 June 2012, Article 1.  42. ‘Zekeriya Öz’e Giden İsim Ombudsman Nihat Ömeroğlu muydu? [Was Figure Who Went to Zekeriya Öz Chief Ombudsman Nihat Ömeroğlu?]’, T24, 8 January 2014.   43. Cengiz Çandar, ‘Ombudsman İstifa [Ombudsman Should Resign]’, Radikal, 2 December 2012.   44. Özgür Mumcu, ‘Ombudsman Doğru mu Söylüyor? [Is Ombudsman Telling Truth?]’, Radikal, 10 December 2012.   45. ‘Karanlık Eller Yine Bizi Seçti [Dark Hands Once Again Pick on Us]’, Hürriyet, 20 January 2007.   46. ‘İsmet Özel: Türkiye’yi Türkler Yönetmiyor [İsmet Özel: Turkey Is Not Run by Turks]’, Nokta news weekly (No. 21, 22–8 March 2007).   47. Hrant Dink, ‘Ruh Halimin Güvercin Tedirginliği [Skittishness of a Dove in My Soul]’, Agos, 10 January 2007.   48. Tolga Şardan, ‘6 Kamu Görevlisi Samast’ı İzlemiş [Assassin Samast Was Being Watched by 6 Officers]’, Milliyet, 19 November 2015.  49. Akdıvar and Others vs Turkey (1996).  50. Benzer and Others vs Turkey (2013).

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390  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y  51. See Metin Gürcan, ‘Arming Civilians as a Counterterror Strategy: the Case of the Village Guard System in Turkey’, Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict: Pathways Toward Terrorism and Genocide (Vol. 8, No. 1, 2015), pp. 1–22.   52. Nurcan Baysal, ‘Bir Köy Nasıl Yakılır? [How Do You Burn Down a Village?]’, T24, 22 October 2014.  53. Benzer and Others vs Turkey (2013), para. 10.   54. Ibid., para. 11.   55. Ibid., para. 15.   56. European Convention, Articles 2 and 3, respectively.  57. ‘Top Kurdish Lawyer Shot Dead in Southeast Turkey’, Reuters online, 28 November 2015.  58. Ibid.  59. ‘Air Strike Kills 35 Villagers in an “Operational Mistake”’, Hürriyet Daily News, 30 December 2011.   60. Turkish Constitution, Article 145.   61. Full text of the decision, dated 6 January 2014, by T24, at (last accessed 11 February 2016).  62. Ibid.   63. ‘Komutanların Yargılanması Başbakan İznine Bağlanıyor [Prosecuting Military Commanders Becomes Subject to Leave by PM]’, Radikal, 21 December 2014.  64. ‘Jet Hızıyla İmzalandı [MİT Law Amendment in Force at Extraordinary Speed]’, Milliyet, 18 February 2012.   65. ‘MİT Yasası Meclis’ten Geçti [MİT Legislation Gets Enacted in Parliament]’, Cumhuriyet, 17 April 2014.   66. ‘Uludere Bize Sorulmadı [We Were Not Asked about Uludere]’, Milliyet, 15 February 2015.  67. ‘Komutanım Bunlar Kaçakçı [Those Are Smugglers, Sir]’, Cumhuriyet, 26 September 2015.   68. ‘Uludere Uluslararası Ceza Mahkemesi’nde [Roboskî at International Criminal Court]’, Bianet, 27 January 2012.   69. ‘DAİŞ ve Destekçileri UCM’de [IS and Its Supporters at ICC]’, Özgür Gündem, 30 October 2015.   70. ‘Erdoğan’s Blind Faith in Muslims’, The Guardian, 11 November 2009.   71. See, for the full text of the statement by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, ‘Türkiye Suriyeli Diplomatları Sınır Dışı Ediyor [Turkey to Expel Syrian Diplomats]’, Hürriyet, 30 May 2012.

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notes | 391   72. ‘Davutoğlu Esad’a Ömür Biçti [Davutoğlu Counts Assad’s Days]’, Hürriyet, 25 August 2012.   73. C. J. Chivers and Eric Schmitt, ‘Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, with Aid from CIA’, The New York Times, 24 March 2013: ‘The Turkish government has had oversight over much of the program, down to affixing transponders to trucks ferrying the military goods through Turkey so it might monitor shipments as they move by land into Syria . . . Although rebel commanders and the data indicate that Qatar and Saudi Arabia had been shipping military materials via Turkey to the opposition since early and late 2012, respectively, a major hurdle was removed late last fall after the Turkish government agreed to allow the pace of air shipments to accelerate, officials said.’ Patrick Cockburn, ‘An Obvious First S­ tep­– ­­Close the Jihadis’ Highway’, The Independent, 24 August 2014: ‘For the first two years of the Syrian civil war, the route of the foreign fighters was unimpeded. According to Iraqi intelligence officials, who interrogated captured fighters, they would arrive at Istanbul or Ankara airports, move to safe houses, then travel freely by car or bus over the border crossing points into Syria. Arms and ammunition for the rebels, mostly paid for by Qatar and private donors in the Gulf, took the same route, the whole supply operation monitored and to a degree orchestrated by the CIA.’ For an assessment of the US intelligence sources on the arming of the rebels, see Seymour M. Hersh, ‘Military to Military’, London Review of Books (Vol. 38, No. 1, 2016), pp. 11–14.  74. Verda Özer, ‘­Eğit-­Donat Programı Başladı [Train and Equip Programme Starts]’, Hürriyet, 16 May 2015.  75. ‘Turkey Election Fraud Claims Emerge as Twitter Ban is Dropped’, The Financial Times, 3 April 2014. The local courts would either delay various claims of electoral fraud or declare n ­ on-­jurisdiction in favour of one another, ignoring the claims. In one case concluded by an Istanbul court in 2015 a defendant that had cheated in favour of the ruling AKP would be sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. See ‘Oy Hırsızlığında Karar Çıktı: AKP Adına Oy Çalan Sandık Başkanı 5 Yıl Hapis Cezası Aldı [Judgement in Vote Theft Case: Ballot Box Chief Controller Who Stole Votes for AKP Receives Sentence of 5 Years’ Imprisonment]’, Zaman, 6 June 2015.   76. Official figures as disclosed by the Supreme Board of Elections (YSK) on its website.   77. ‘BDP’nin İtirazının Reddedildiği Ceylanpınar’da Tansiyon Yüksek [Turmoil in Ceylanpınar, with Formal Objection by Kurdish Opposition Rejected]’, T24, 1 April 2014.

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392  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y  78. ‘Turkish President Erdoğan Says Airstrikes Not Enough to Save Kobanê’, Hürriyet Daily News, 7 October 2014.   79. Fehim Taştekin, ‘Erdoğan Fears Fall of Syria’s Tell Abyad’, Al-Monitor, 14 June 2015.  80. Sabah, 19 June 2015.   81. Semih İdiz, ‘Ankara Suspected of Arming Jihadists in Syria’, Al-Monitor, 3 January 2014.  82. ‘MİT Tırlarını Durduran 4 Savcı ve Jandarma Komutanı Tutuklandı [4 Prosecutors and Gendarmerie Commander Who Halted MİT Trucks Arrested]’, Milliyet, 6 May 2015; ‘MİT Tırları Soruşturmasında Üst Düzey 7 Muvazzaf Subaya Tutuklama [7 ­ High-­ Level Military Officers Arrested as Part of MİT Trucks Investigation]’, T24, 17 May 2015; ‘MİT Tırları Soruşturmasında 3 Üst Düzey Komutan Tutuklandı [3 H ­ igh-­ Ranking Commanders Arrested in MİT Trucks Investigation]’, T24, 29 November 2015. Assumed by the government to have been behind all this, the Gülen community was known to have dormant followers also within the ranks of the armed forces, especially the gendarmerie. The government had easily uprooted the Gülenists in the civilian bureaucracy, yet the military greatly resisted a similar purge. The MİT reportedly submitted to the Office of the Chief of Staff a 1,­200-­person list of ‘known’ Gülenist officers in the army: ‘MİT’te Orduya 1200 Kişilik Liste [1,­200-­Person List to Army by MİT]’, Hürriyet, 19 May 2015.   83. ‘“MİT Tırları” Davasında Gizlilik Kararı [Gag Order on “MİT Trucks” Trial]’, Hürriyet, 1 October 2015.   84. ‘Turkish Intelligence Helped Ship Arms to Syrian Islamist Rebel Areas’, Reuters, 21 May 2015; Fehim Taştekin, ‘Turkish Military Says MİT Shipped Weapons to ­al-­Qaeda’, Al-Monitor, 15 January 2015. In a written statement made by one of the prosecutors who seized and inspected the MİT trucks, a detailed inventory of the arms and ammunition in question would be provided. See ‘MİT Tırlarını Durduran Savcıdan Açıklama [Statement by Prosecutor Who Stopped MİT Trucks]’, T24, 16 January 2015.  85. ‘Bu TIR’lar Açılırsa Yarın Hükümet Düşer [If These Trucks Exposed, Government Will Fall Tomorrow]’, Cumhuriyet, 10 April 2015.   86. ‘Turkish President Erdoğan Wants Editor Jailed for Espionage in Video Row’, The Guardian, 3 June 2015; Kadri Gürsel, ‘Turkish Daily Exposes Transfer of Weapons to IS’, Al-Monitor, 1 September 2015.   87. Headlines in Cumhuriyet, 29 May 2015, and subsequent editions.

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notes | 393  88. ‘Başbakan Davutoğlu’ndan MİT Tırları Açıklaması [Statement by PM Davutoğlu on MİT Trucks]’, Cumhuriyet, 30 May 2015.   89. Headline in Cumhuriyet, 6 June 2015.   90. Headline in Cumhuriyet, 11 June 2015.   91. Headline in the daily Birgün, 12 June 2015.   92. Barney Guiton, ‘“ISIS Sees Turkey as its Ally”: Former Islamic State Member Reveals Turkish Army Cooperation’, Newsweek online, 7 November 2014; Michael Weiss, ‘Confessions of an ISIS Spy’, The Daily Beast online, 2015; İlhan Tanır, ‘Kilis’teki İki Cami Kaide ve IŞİD İçin [­Al-­Qaeda and IS Have a Mosque Each in Kilis]’, Cumhuriyet, 17 November 2015.   93. Ahu Özyurt, ‘Sympathy for the Devil that is ISIL’, Hürriyet Daily News, 26 September 2014.   94. ‘Recordings, Posted Online, Rattle Officials in Turkey’, The New York Times, 27 March 2014.   95. See Ishaan Tharoor, ‘Why Turkish Troops Entered Syria to Reach a Medieval Tomb’, The Washington Post, 23 February 2015.   96. ‘Turkey Is at War with Syria, Erdoğan Says in P ­ ost-­Election Speech’, Today’s Zaman, 31 March 2014.  97. Conflict Armament Research (iTRACE), successive reports from September 2014 to April 2015 documenting the weaponry left behind by IS in Iraq and Syria.  98. ‘Erdoğan’s War Crimes in Syria at Strasbourg European Court of Human Rights’, The Syria Times online, 23 March 2014.   99. Seymour M. Hersh, ‘The Red Line and the Rat Line’, London Review of Books (Vol. 36, No. 8, 17 April 2014), pp. 21–4. 100. See Orhan Kemal Cengiz, ‘Turkish Court Investigates Syrian Jihadist Use of Chemicals’, Al-Monitor, 30 September 2013. 101. Fehim Taştekin, ‘Turkey Mostly Mum on Chemicals Seized on Syria Border’, Al-Monitor, 5 November 2013. 102. Hersh, ‘The Red Line and the Rat Line’, note 99 above. 103. Robert Fisk, ‘Has Recep Tayyip Erdogan Gone from Model Middle East “Strongman” to ­ Tin-­ Pot Dictator?’ The Independent, 10 April 2014. 104. Hakan Dirik, ‘Dosya TBMM’de . . . “Sarin Gazı Sorumlusu AKP” [Dossier at Parliament . . . “AKP Responsible for Sarin Release”]’, Cumhuriyet, 20 October 2015; ‘İslami Teröre Koruma . . . İşte o Tapeler [Shield Extended to Islamic Terror . . . Here Are Tape Recordings]’, Cumhuriyet, 22 October 2015;

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394  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y ‘Savcıdan “Sarin” Tarifi [Sarin Description by Prosecutor]’, Cumhuriyet, 23 October 2015. 105. ‘Adana’da “Sarin Gazı” Davasında Mahkumiyet [Conviction in “Sarin Gas” Case in Adana]’, Hürriyet, 29 December 2015. 106. Dikran Ego, ‘Turkey’s Role in the Kidnapping of the Syrian Bishops’, Assyrian International News Agency online, 1 February 2014; Tolga Tanış, ‘Kafa Kesmenin Türkiye’deki Cezası 7,5 Yıl [Punishment in Turkey for Beheading is 7.5 Years]’, Hürriyet, 15 November 2015. 107. Metin Gürcan, ‘Are Turkish Courts Delaying Trials of IS Militants?’ Al-Monitor, 31 July 2015. 108. ‘Polis Herşeyi Biliyordu [Police Knew Everything]’, headline in Cumhuriyet, 17 October 2015. Above the headline, the paper declared: ‘Cumhuriyet continues to publish the facts, despite the gag order.’ 109. ‘Turkey Shipped Arms to Nigeria, Leaked Tape Claims’, The Times, 20 March 2014. 110. See Jonathan Schanzer, ‘Turkey’s Secret Proxy War in Libya?’ The National Interest, 17 March 2015. See also this report on captured weapons shipment on a cargo vessel sailing from a Turkish port and headed ‘apparently’ for Libya, ‘Greek Coast Guard Finds Weapons Shipment on Cargo Ship’, The New York Times, 1 September 2015. 111. Letter dated 23 February 2015 from the Panel of Experts established pursuant to resolution 1973 (2011) addressed to the president of the Security Council, S/2015/128. 112. E.g. ‘Erdoğan ve Davutoğlu’na IŞİD’i Azmettirmekten Suç Duyurusu [Criminal Complaint against Erdoğan and Davutoğlu for Inciting IS towards Crime]’, T24, 8 October 2014; ‘Hüseyin Aygün’den Suç Duyurusu [Criminal Complaint by Hüseyin Aygün]’, Milliyet, 30 December 2014. 113. ‘Roboskî Katliamı Yeniden UCM’ye Taşınıyor [Roboskî Massacre Once Again to Be Taken to ICC]’, Evrensel, 9 January 2014. 114. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 2187 United Nations Treaty Series 90. 115. Ibid., Article 13(b). 116. On 31 March 2005 the Security Council adopted its Resolution 1593 and referred crimes committed in the Darfur region of Sudan to the ICC. On 26 February 2011 Resolution 1970 by the Security Council referred to the ICC the crimes committed by the regime in Libya during the civil war. 117. In the resolution on Sudan, eleven states voted in favour of it, and two of

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notes | 395 the permanent members (the United States and China) abstained, with no member voting against. With that on Libya, all of the members supported the resolution. Chapter 10    1. World Economic Forum, The Global Gender Gap Report 2015 (Geneva, 2015).   2. ‘AKP Faturası: Toplumsal Çöküntü [AKP Bill: Communal Slump]’, Cum­ huriyet, 29 December 2014.    3. ‘Erkek Şiddetinin 2014 Grafiği [2014 Chart of Male Violence]’, Bianet online independent news network, 16 January 2015.   4. ‘Erkekler Son 11 Ayda 255 Kadın Öldürdü [Men Killed 255 Women in Last 11 Months]’, Bianet, 24 November 2015; ‘Erkekler Aralık’ta 19 Kadın Öldürdü [Men Killed 19 Women in December]’, Bianet, 6 January 2016.    5. ‘Erkek Şiddetinin 2014 Grafiği [2014 Chart of Male Violence]’, note 3.    6. Ibid., note 3.    7. Ibid., note 3.   8. See Opuz vs Turkey (2009), unanimous judgement. The relevant articles of the European Convention on Human Rights were, respectively, Articles 2 (right to life), 3 (prohibition of ­ill-­treatment) and 14 (prohibition of discrimination in the implementation of the rights protected within the system).    9. ‘Kadın Şiddete Karşı Yapayalnız [Women Entirely Alone against Violence]’, Hürriyet, 16 January 2015.   10. ‘Erkek Şiddetinin Yargıdaki Bir Yılı [One Year of Male Violence at Judiciary]’, Bianet, 6 March 2014.   11. Parliamentary Act No. 6284, 8 March 2012, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 28239, 20 March 2012.  12. Regulations for the Implementation of the Law on the Protection of the Family and the Prevention of Violence against Women, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 28532, 18 January 2013.  13. Following the first ten ratifications, including that of Turkey, the Istanbul Convention came into force on 1 August 2014.   14. ‘More than 500,000 Child Brides Married in Turkey in the Last Decade’, Hürriyet Daily News, 8 March 2014.   15. ‘“Panic Button” Fails to Protect Women from Violence in Turkey’, Hürriyet Daily News, 28 January 2015.   16. ‘More than 500,000 Child Brides’, note 14.   17. Ali Bulaç, ‘Neye Yarar? [What’s the Use?]’, Zaman, 8 March 2014.

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396  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y  18. ‘Kadınlar “İnadına Özgürlük” Dedi [Women Say “Freedom against All Odds”]’, Cumhuriyet, 8 March 2014.   19. See Mehmet Murat Somer’s ‘­Hop-­Ciki-Yaya’ thrillers by Penguin Books.   20. The term ‘transsexual’ is somewhat misleading for mixing sexual preference in identity. ‘Transgender’ and ‘­gender-­variant’ are probably the more accurate terms, as the issue is one of gender identity rather than sexual preference, yet for some reason those are little used. Finally, a ‘transvestite’ is the person who has not been through a gender r­e-­assignment operation. ‘Trans’ people, used increasingly to refer to the overall identity, seems to be a good term of compromise.   21. Carsten Balzer et al., Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide: A Comparative Review of the Human Rights Situation of Gender-Variant/Trans People (Berlin: Transgender Europe, 2012), p. 54.   22. ‘Türkiye Trans Cinayetlerinde Dünya Dokuzuncusu [Turkey Rates Ninth in World in Trans Murders]’, Bianet, 12 May 2015.   23. European Convention on Human Rights [hereafter European Convention], Article 2.   24. Ibid., Article 14.   25. European Commission (EC), Turkey 2013 Progress Report.  26. EC, Turkey 2014 Progress Report.  27. Yavuz Baydar, ‘Erdoğan’s Democracy Package Gets Cool Reception’, AlMonitor online news portal, 30 September 2013.   28. ‘Nefret Tasarısında Üç Kritik Eksik [Three Critical Omissions in Hate Crime Draft Bill]’, Radikal, 27 October 2013.  29. See, in particular, the OSCE Ministerial Council Decision No. 9/09 on Combating Hate Crimes, adopted in Athens, 1–2 December 2009.   30. OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, Hate Crimes in the OSCE Region: Incidents and Responses, Annual Report for 2011 (Warsaw, November 2012); online.   31. Much of the information below on the historical measures involving prostitution comes from Zafer Toprak, ‘İstanbul’da Fuhuş ve Zührevî Hastalıklar, 1914–1933 [Prostitution and Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Istanbul, 1914–1933]’, Tarih ve Toplum (Vol. 7, No. 39, 1987), pp. 31–40.  32. Giovanni Scognamillo, Beyoğlu’nda Fuhuş [Prostitution in Pera] (Istanbul: Altın Kitaplar, 1994).  33. Murat Bardakçı, Osmanlı’da Seks [Sex in Ottoman Era] (Istanbul: İnkılap Yayınları, 2005).

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notes | 397   34.   35.   36.   37.

Toprak, ‘İstanbul’da Fuhuş [Prostitution in Istanbul]’, note 31. Ibid., note 31. Ibid., note 31. Policy Guidelines for Rules Governing Public Women and Public Houses and on Combating Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Prostitution, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 10786, 19 April 1961.   38. Articles 77 and 227.   39. Parliamentary Act No. 5326, 30 March 2005, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 25772 mükerrer, 31 March 2005, Article 32.   40. ‘Women Who Have No Lives’, research conducted by Ankara Chamber of Commerce, and published online on its website on 18 July 2004.   41. Note 37, Articles 21, 50–2.  42. ‘Bir Transsan Eğer, Sahnenin Sonunda Mutlaka Ölüyorsun [If You Are a Trans, You Definitely Die at the End of Act]’, T24 online news portal, 28 May 2012.  43. Ibid.  44. Ibid.   45. European Convention, Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, and Article 14, respectively.  46. Note 37, Supplementary Article introduced into the Guidelines in 1973.   47. European Convention, Articles 12 and 8, respectively.   48. Ibid., Articles 3 and 13, respectively.   49. Ibid., Article 5.   50. Ibid., Article 6.   51. Ibid., Article 7.   52. Ibid., Article 4.   53. ‘Turkey’s Sex Workers Seek to Establish a Union’, Hürriyet Daily News, 8 November 2008.   54. European Convention, Article 11.   55. ‘Kuddusi Okkır Yaşamını Yitirdi [Kuddusi Okkır Loses His Life]’, Radikal, 6 July 2008.  56. ‘Prof. Hilmioğlu Cezaevinde Kanser, Siroz, Şeker Hastalıklarıyla Savaşıyor [Professor Hilmioğlu in Prison Fights Cancer, Cirrhosis, Diabetes]’, T24, 5 January 2013. He would be set free on 20 February 2014 through a judgement of the Constitutional Court, an interim measure following an individual application, pronouncing that the applicant should not be in prison due to his health condition. See ‘Anayasa Mahkemesi’nden Fatih Hilmioğlu’na Tedbiren

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398  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Tahliye Kararı [Constitutonal Court Rules Interim Measure of Release for Fatih Hilmioğlu], T24, 20 February 2014.   57. Constitution, Article 104(2).  58. ‘Fatih Hilmioğlu Yeni Rapor İçin Hastanede [Fatih Hilmioğlu Taken to Hospital for New Medical Report]’, Hürriyet, 30 January 2014.  59. Parliamentary Act No. 5275, 13 December 2004, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 25685, 29 December 2004, Article 16(2–3).   60. Parliamentary Act No. 6411, 24 January 2013, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette], No. 28545, 31 January 2013.  61. ‘İnfazın Ertelenmesi Kriteri Gözden Geçirilecek [Criteria for Stay of Execution to Be Reviewed]’, Anadolu Ajansı, official news network, 30 January 2015.  62. ‘Hasta Tutsak Çiçek Tedavi Edilmiyor [Ailing Captive Çiçek Receives No Medical Care]’, Firatnews online news network, 30 January 2014.   63. Long victim of an incomprehensible bureaucratic imbroglio, Hasan would be released in March 2014. ‘Hasta Mahkum Hasan Kaçar Bırakıldı [Ill Convict Hasan Kaçar Released]’, Radikal, 14 March 2014.   64. ‘Yüzde 95 Engelle Hâlâ Cezaevinde [95 Per Cent Handicapped, Yet Still in Prison]’, Taraf, 17 December 2013.   65. ‘Gömi Ne Zaman Özgür Kalacak? [When is Gömi to Be Released?]’, Birgün, 7 August 2014.  66. See Gömi and Others vs Turkey (2006).   67. See, for example, Gülbahar and Others vs Turkey (2008), Keser and Kömürcü vs Turkey (2009), İsmail Altun vs Turkey (2010), Saçılık and Others vs Turkey (2011), Peker vs Turkey (2011), Düzova vs Turkey (2012), Vefa Serdar vs Turkey (2015).   68. ‘Propaganda Aracı Olur Diye Tahliye Reddedilmiş [Release Refused to Prevent it from Being Used as Propaganda Tool]’, Cumhuriyet, 3 March 2014.   69. ‘Kanser Hastası 50 Tutsağın Durumu Ağır [50 Captive Cancer Patients in Critical Condition]’, Dicle Haber Ajansı, online news network, 26 January 2014. The Civil Society Support during Enforcement of Criminal Judgements (Ceza İnfaz Sisteminde Sivil Toplum Derneği), a specialist ­non-­governmental organisation locally, did unmatched work in raising awareness, legislative ­lobbying, and practical help to the inmates and relatives, including a website on healthcare in prison.   70. United Nations (UN) Covenant of 1966 on Civil and Political Rights, Articles 10(1), 7; UN Convention of 1984 against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman

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notes | 399 or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Article 16(1); UN Convention of 2006 on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Articles 1, 13. See also, for the procedure in cases of severe health problems in prison, Rules 43(3) and 45(1) of European Prison Rules, dated 11 January 2006, a document consisting of a set of recommendations by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, and as such not a treaty, yet arguably tantamount to consistent and ­near-­uniform state practice; that is, possibly the emerging customary law in the matter in Europe.   71. Article 3.  72. See Kudla vs Poland (2000), para. 93.   73. Ibid., para. 94.   74. European Convention, Articles 3 and 2, respectively.   75. Ibid., Article 14.  76. Mouisel vs France (2002).   77. Ibid., para. 45.   78. Ibid., para. 48.  79. Farbtuhs vs Latvia (2004).   80. See note 59.   81. See note 60.  82. ‘Turkey Mine Blast: Distraught Relatives Fear the Worst at Soma’, The Guardian, 14 May 2014; ‘Erdoğan’s ­Self-­Defence over Soma’s Mining Disaster was Badly Misjudged’, The Guardian, 15 May 2014.   83. ‘CHP’s Motion on Mine Accidents in Soma Rejected by AKP Two Weeks Ago’, Hürriyet Daily News, 14 May 2014.  84. ‘Soma Mine Operator Praised Lucrative Cost Reductions in Previous Interview’, Hürriyet Daily News, 14 May 2014.   85. ‘Public’s Outrage over Mine Disaster Casts Harsh Light on Turkey’s Premier’, The New York Times, 16 May 2014.   86. Pınar Tremblay, ‘Erdoğan, Entourage Lose Control in Soma’, Al-Monitor, 16 May 2014.  87. ‘Turkey Mine Explosion: PM Erdoğan Filmed “Slapping Protester”’, The Telegraph, 16 May 2014.   88. ‘Turkey Coal Mine Explosion: Protester Attacked by Adviser to Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “was Relative of Dead Miner”’, The Independent, 15 May 2014.   89. ‘Police Disperse Turkey Mine Disaster Mourners as Survivor Hopes Fade’, The Wall Street Journal, 16 May 2014.

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400  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y   90. ‘Turkey Clamps Down on Mine Disaster Protests As Death Toll Reaches 301’, The Huffington Post, 17 May 2014.   91. ‘AKP Düştü mü Zora, Tarikat Koşar Yardıma [When AKP in Tight Spot, Religious Communities Drop for Rescue]’, Birgün, 18 May 2014.  92. Selin Arslanhan and Hüseyin Ekrem Cünedioğlu, Madenlerde Yaşanan İş Kazaları ve Sonuçları Üzerine Bir Değerlendirme [An Assessment of Labour Accidents in Mines and their Consequences] (Ankara: TEPAV, 2010).   93. ‘Country Profiles: Turkey’, ILOSTAT online.   94. ‘Fatal Accidents at Work by Economic Activity’, EUROSTAT online.   95. ‘Fatal Occupational Injuries by Industry and Event or Exposure’, US Bureau of Labor Statistics online.   96. Official figures disclosed by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, headlined in the daily Cumhuriyet, 1 February 2015: ‘Katilleri de Açıkla [Why Not Disclose Killers Too]’.   97. ‘2014 Yılı İş Cinayetleri Raporu [Report on Occupational Murders in 2014]’ by the local ­non-­governmental organisation the Worker Health and Labour Safety Assembly (İşçi Sağlığı ve İş Güvenliği Meclisi, İSİG).   98. ‘2015 Yılı İş Cinayetleri Raporu [Report on Occupational Murders in 2015]’ by İSİG.  99. ‘Accidents at Work and ­ Work-­ Related Health Problems, 2013’, Turkish Statistical Institute online. 100. International Trade Union Confederation, Global Rights Index 2014: The World’s Worst Countries for Workers. 101. ‘Slavery Still Shackles Mauritania, 31 Years After its Abolition’, The Guardian, 14 August 2012. 102. ‘Cases of Fatal Occupational Injury by Sex and Economic Activity, Turkey’, ILOSTAT. 103. ‘Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan Başkanlık Sistemi İhtiyaçtır Dedi [President Erdoğan: Presidential System is a Need]’, Sabah, 17 January 2015. 104. ‘150 Bin İnşaat Şirketi Olmaz [150,000 Construction Firms Excessive]’, Sabah, 28 October 2013. 105. ‘Kol 10 Bin, Can 100 Bin Lira [An Arm Costs 10,000 Liras and a Life 100,000]’, Taraf, 14 April 2014. 106. Güneş A. Aşık, Madencilik Sektörü: Çocuk İşçiler, Hukuk ve İstatistikler [Mining Sector: Child Labour, Law, and Statistics] (Ankara: TEPAV, 2014). 107. See note 97.

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notes | 401 108. Parliamentary Act No. 4857, 22 May 2003, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette] No. 25134, 10 June 2003. 109. Ibid., Article 71. 110. Directive on the Method and Principles in Employment of Children and Youth, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette] No. 25425, 6 April 2004. 111. Directive Amending the Directive on the Method and Principles in Employment of Children and Youth, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette] No. 28566, 21 February 2013. 112. Ibid., Article 5, additional clause. 113. Parliamentary Act No. 3308, 5 June 1986, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette] No. 19139, 19 June 1986. 114. ‘Facianın İçinde 15 Yaşında Çocuk İşçi [­15-­Year Old Child Miner in Midst of Disaster]’, Cumhuriyet, 14 May 2014. 115. ‘Çocuk İşçiler Yönetmelik’le Geldi [Child Workers Came with Directive]’, Hürriyet, 14 May 2014. 116. National Strategy Document and Action Plan on Children’s Rights, 10 December 2013, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette] No. 28851, 14 December 2013. 117. ILO Convention No. 176, dated 1995, and in force since 1998. 118. ILO Convention No. 155, adopted in 1981, and in force from 1983. Turkey became a party on 22 April 2005. 119. Parliamentary Act No. 6331, 20 June 2012, Resmî Gazete [Official Gazette] No. 28339, 30 June 2012. 120. Ibid., Article 4(1)a. 121. ‘Company Admits There was No Refuge Chamber in Soma Mine, but Vows to Continue Operations’, Hürriyet Daily News, 16 May 2014. 122. ILO Convention No. 167, from 1988, and in force since 1991. See ‘Uluslararası Çalışma Örgütü’nün İnşaat ve Güvenlik Sözleşmesi 27 Yıl Sonra İmzalandı [ILO Treaty on Construction Safety Gets Signed with a Delay of 27 Years]’, T24, 6 February 2015. 123. This Council of Europe agreement was adopted in 1996, to come into force from 1999. Turkey became a party on 1 August 2007. 124. Ibid., Articles 2, 3 and 11, respectively. 125. Ibid., Article 7. 126. 1577 United Nations Treaty Series 3, Article 32. The treaty was adopted in 1989 and entered into force the following year. Turkey became a party from 4 April 1995.

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402  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y 127. Unless otherwise specified, the figures in this section are from the World Bank online open data. 128. ‘Babacan: “Görüşlerimi Daha Liberal İfade Edebilirim [Babacan: “Now I Can Air My Views More Freely”]’, T24, 17 September 2015. Babacan would once again become a parliamentary deputy in November 2015, following a break of about five months from June of the same year. Yet he would be denied a post in the cabinet formed immediately after the November election. 129. Asım Erdilek, ‘Turkey’s Aborted Fiscal Rule’, Today’s Zaman, 13 September 2010. 130. Cengiz Çandar, ‘Erdoğan Takes on Central Bank, Judiciary’, Al-Monitor, 16 April 2014; Erdal Sağlam, ‘BDDK’nın Zor Kararı [Tough Decision for BDDK]’, Hürriyet, 17 September 2014. 131. ‘Bir Ayda Bavulla 2,9 Milyar Dolar Geldi [In April 2015, Turkey Receives $2.9 Billion in Suitcases]’, Zaman, 12 June 2015. 132. Ibid. 133. ‘Kaynağı Belli Olmayan 9 Milyar Dolar Para Geldi [Turkey Receives $9 Billion from Undocumented Sources]’, Hürriyet, 10 September 2015. 134. Ömer Şahin, ‘Erdoğan’s Solo Act’, Al-Monitor, 20 January 2015. 135. ‘Central Bank didn’t Get Message, Says Turkish President Erdoğan’, Hürriyet Daily News, 21 January 2015; Semih İdiz, ‘Erdoğan Aims to Create Stronger Presidential System’, Al-Monitor, 3 February 2015. 136. ‘Turkish Construction Sector Sees 4–5 pct Growth in 2013’, Reuters online, 11 January 2013. 137. ‘What Left to Sell After $54 Billion of Privatisation’, Hürriyet Daily News, 27 July 2013. 138. Prime Ministry Privatisation Administration figures for 2013; online. 139. ‘İşte İstanbul’daki Sınır Değişikliğinin Asıl Sebebi [Here’s the Real Reason for Boundary Revision in Istanbul]’, Cumhuriyet, 11 September 2014. 140. David Harvey, ‘The Right to the City’, New Left Review (No. 53, September– October 2008), pp. 23–40. 141. Cengiz Çandar, ‘Napoléon’un 18 Brumaire’i, Erdoğan’ın 17 Aralık’ı [­Louis-­Napoléon’s Eighteenth Brumaire, Erdoğan’s Seventeenth December]’, Radikal, 23 February 2014. 142. Daron Acemoğlu, ‘The Failed Autocrat: Despite Erdoğan’s Ruthlessness, Turkey’s Democracy is Still on Track’, Foreign Affairs online, 22 May 2014.

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notes | 403 Conclusion   1. On this, see Shadi Hamid, Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).   2. German Marshall Fund Transatlantic Trends Survey 2014 indicated a 10 per cent increase in 2014 in favour of both the European Union (EU) and NATO, compared to the findings of the previous year. According to the Kadir Has University Survey on Social and Political Trends in Turkey in 2014, the increase in support of the EU in the same period was by about 50 per cent, at 71.4. There was also a rise in the same survey in favour of NATO, from 72 per cent in 2013 to 76.2 in 2014.   3. See, for instance, the following successive titles in the early 2015 in one single column in the ­ pro-­ government daily Yeni Akit, ‘Kim Demiş “İslam Barış Dinidir” Diye? [Who Says “Islam is a Religion of Peace”?]’, 12 January 2015; ‘Başkanlık Sistemi Yerine Hilafeti Konuşsak mı? [Shouldn’t We Start Talking about Caliphate rather than Executive Presidency?]’, 2 February 2015; ‘Hukukta Şeriat, İdarede Hilafet [Sharia in Law, Caliphate in Administration]’, 4 February 2015, ‘Hilafet Düştüğü Yerden Kaldırılmalı [Caliphate Should Be Picked up Precisely Where It Fell]’, 3 March 2015.   4. ‘Turkey Kurdistan Democratic Party’ (Türkiye Kürdistan Demokrat Partisi). See Çetin Çeko, ‘T. C. Tarihinde “Kürdistan” İsimli Legal Partiler Dönemi [Period of Legal Political Parties with “Kurdistan” in Title]’, T24 online news portal, 18 November 2014.  5. ‘Mismatches had No Bearing on Turkey’s Final Election Result: Vote and Beyond’, Hürriyet Daily News, 4 November 2015.   6. The frequent warnings by Ali Bulaç, a prominent Islamic scholar and Islamist intellectual, against growing secularisation of the pious Muslims formed a case in point. According to him, Turkey’s ruling ­Islamo-­nationalists ‘ruined the legacy of a century and desiccated the Islamist imagination’. Ali Bulaç, ‘İnhisarcı ve İstilacı [Monopolist and Invading]’, Zaman, 12 February 2015. Another intellectual, writing a column in the p ­ ro-­government daily Yeni Şafak (see Chapter 7 on this paper), whose sharp rebuke of some of the Muslim intellectuals for upholding ‘liberal immorality’ I noted earlier (Chapter 5), was Akif Emre. Consistently aloof from the overall triumphalism of the ­pro-­government literati, on one occasion Emre would bitterly criticise a seminal Islamist intellectual, Nuri Pakdil, known for his a­nti-­capitalist views, for unconditionally submitting to the ruling AKP, which, as Emre saw it, practically championed ‘global finance capitalism’. See Akif Emre, ‘Değerlerin İkonlaşması [Values Turned

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404  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y into Icons]’, Yeni Şafak, 4 November 2014. More revealingly perhaps, during the early phase after the regime change, Islamist media often published harsh disapprovals of hijabi women in social life, increasingly indistinguishable from ­non-­pious, secularist women in lifestyle, despite the hijab.   7. See, in particular, the writings of the local Islamists such as İsmet Özel and Atasoy Müftüoğlu.   8. ‘The monster on its last tooth called civilisation’ was a line from the Turkish national anthem, authored by an early Islamist, Mehmed Âkif (1873–1936), who became ­self-­exiled in Egypt as the republican Turkey came into full swing.   9. On Turkey’s Hizbullah, active from the 1980s in the predominantly Kurdish populated ­south-­east, see Ruşen Çakır, Derin Hizbullah: İslamcı Şiddetin Geleceği [The Deep Hizbullah: The Future of Islamist Violence] (Istanbul: Metis, 2011); Mehmet Kurt, Din, Şiddet ve Aidiyet: Türkiye’de Hizbullah [Religion, Violence, and Identity: Hizbullah in Turkey] (Istanbul: İletişim, 2015). 10. See Behlül Özkan, ‘Turkey, Davutoğlu and the Idea of P ­ an-­Islamism’, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy (Vol. 56, No. 4, 2014), pp. 119–40. 11. Ahmet Davutoğlu, Stratejik Derinlik: Türkiye’nin Uluslararası Konumu [Strategic Depth: Turkey’s International Position] (Istanbul: Küre Yayınları, 2001). 12. The online booksellers Amazon listed, as of April 2016, a 2010 book (without cover or details, including author name) entitled The Strategic Depth by one ‘Arab Scientific Publishers’, yet it did not seem to be Davutoğlu’s work in English translation. 13. Davutoğlu, Stratejik Derinlik [Strategic Depth], note 11, p. 2. 14. See Gearóid O’ Tuathail, Critical Geopolitics: The Politics of Writing Global Space (London: Routledge, 1996). 15. See, in particular, the work of Sezai Karakoç as the principal figure in this tradition. In addition to a largely tautological, vacuous rhetoric that rested on the inherent virtues of Muslims in social, political and economic imagination, as in his İslam Toplumunun Ekonomik Strüktürü [The Economic Structure of the Muslim Society] (1976), this line of work was at once conspicuously ‘geopolitical’. A highly regarded poet otherwise, Karakoç would make such concerns a constant in his work from the late 1970s. See especially his poetry collection Alınyazısı Saati [Time of Destiny] (1979–88), with strong geopolitical ‘arguments’. See also the discussion earlier (Chapter 5) on geopolitics as part of the Islamist discourse. 16. See Hugh Pope, ‘Pax Ottomana? The Mixed Success of Turkey’s New Foreign Policy’, Foreign Affairs (Vol. 89, No. 6, 2010), pp. 161–71.

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notes | 405 17. Kadri Gürsel, ‘Davutoğlu’s Tragedy’, Al-Monitor online news portal, 12 February 2015. 18. Cengiz Çandar, ‘Erdoğan Takes on Central Bank, Judiciary’, Al-Monitor, 16 April 2014. Erdoğan, then the prime minister, seemed to use one of his advisers, a former n ­ eo-­nationalist, to attack and libel none other than his own minister responsible for the economy, Babacan. See ‘Bulut Babacan’ı Paralel İlan Etti, Sabah Ne Yapacağını Şaşırdı [Bulut Declared Babacan Gülenist, with Daily Sabah Left at a Loss as to What to Do Next]’, Evrensel, 7 August 2014. A daily allegedly ­ghost-­owned by Erdoğan (see Chapter 7) would run a head column, claiming that the head of the Central Bank was personally in a conspiracy with the United Kingdom in keeping up the interest rates despite constant admonishments by Erdoğan. See Ergün Diler, ‘Merkez Operasyonu [Central Bank Operation]’, Takvim, 4 June 2014. 19. ‘Erdoğan Plan for ­Super-­Presidency Puts Turkey’s Democracy at Stake’, The Guardian, 25 March 2015. 20. ‘T. C. Anonim Şirketi [Turkey Plc]’, Cumhuriyet, 15 March 2015. 21. Perinçek vs Switzerland (2013, 2015). For Perinçek, see Chapter 4. 22. Yetvart Danzikyan, ‘Siz Bu Toprakların Asli Çocuklarısınız [You Are Genuine Sons and Daughters of This Land]’, Agos weekly, 12 February 2015; ‘Ahmet Davutoğlu Türkiye’yi İçeriden Vurdu [Ahmet Davutoğlu Hits Turkey from Within]’, Aydınlık, 14 February 2015. 23. The ­neo-­nationalist daily edited by Perinçek, Aydınlık, would run the statement in headline: ‘Ahmet Davutoğlu Hits Turkey from Within.’ See ibid. 24. ‘Arkadaşı Ermeni Diasporası Olanlardan Fayda Gelir mi? [Would Anything Good Come Out of Those Who Befriend Armenian Diaspora?]’, Anadolu Ajansı, official news network, 27 May 2015. 25. ‘Erdoğan Cites Hitler’s Germany as Example of Effective Government’, The Guardian, 1 January 2016. 26. ‘Başbakan Ahmet Davutoğlu’ndan “Beyaz Toros” Çıkışı [“White Toros” Speech by PM Davutoğlu]’, Hürriyet, 20 October 2015. The ‘white Toros’ cars (modified Renault 12), used by the law enforcement officers and the ­pro-­government militia in the 1990s, were a symbol of the summary executions and forced disappearances of the Kurdish activists. Davutoğlu stated, addressing the Kurdish voters in Van, that if the AKP government would be brought down, ‘the white Toros cars would once again start roaming the streets’. 27. ‘Şırnak’ta Cenazeye Yapılan İşkencenin Videosu da Ortaya Çıktı [Video of Tortured Dead Body in Şırnak Surfaces]’, Hürriyet, 5 October 2015.

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406  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y 28. Reported by İMC television, September 2015, video available at (last accessed 18 February 2016). 29. ‘Esedullah Genelgesi: İtibarımıza Zarar Veriyor [Esedullah Circular: Damaging to Our Reputation]’, Hürriyet, 20 November 2015. 30. ‘Silvan’da Özel Harekât Polisleri Duvarlara Yazılama Yaptı [Special Operation Teams Put Graffiti on Walls in Silvan]’, T24, 14 November 2015. 31. Quoted in Aydın Engin, ‘Mahmut Esat Bozkurt Güzellemeleri [Praises of Mahmut Esat Bozkurt]’, Cumhuriyet, 21 September 2014, adding, however, that the minister was dismissed from the post within four days after this statement. That is, the posture at issue was rather marginal even then. 32. Orhan Kemal Cengiz, ‘Who are “Allah’s Lions”?’, Al-Monitor, 25 November 2015. 33. ‘Amnesty: Turkish Army Operations “Beginning to Resemble Collective Punishment”’, Hürriyet Daily News, 21 January 2015. 34. ‘Prof. Vamık Volkan: 11 Eylül’den Sonra Bush’a Destek Yüzde 90lara Çıkmıştı, Ankara Katliamı Türkiye’nin 11 Eylül’ü [Professor Vamık Volkan: Support for Bush after 11 September Rose to around 90 per cent, Ankara Massacre is Turkey’s 11 September]’, T24, 8 November 2015. For the Ankara massacre, see Chapter 1. 35. The pollsters A & G and MAK Consultancy (the latter commissioned by the AKP), with poll estimates of the choices of fi ­ rst-­time voters, communicated, respectively, in the following two reports: ‘Gençlerin Tercihi Muhalefet Oldu [Youth Go for Opposition]’, Habertürk, 10 June 2015; ‘İlk Kez Oy Kullanacakların Seçimi Çok Düşündürücü [Choices of ­ First-­ time Users ­Thought-­provoking]’, Vahdet, 28 May 2015. 36. ‘Merkel’s Embrace of Turkey Draws Criticism in Turkey’, Reuters online, 19 October 2015. 37. ‘Declaring “New Beginning”, EU and Turkey Seal Migrant Deal’, Reuters, 30 November 2015. 38. ‘Turkey Downs Russian Warplane Near Syria Border, Putin Warns of “Serious Consequences”’, Reuters, 25 November 2015. 39. ‘Turkey Strikes Kurdish PYD in Syria Twice: Turkish PM’, Hürriyet Daily News, 28 October 2015. 40. In two simultaneously articulated arguments for the justification of its action, which cancelled out each other, Turkey would cite (1) reprisal, invoking a prior hostility of the Kurdish fighters under the SDF, having fired at Turkey, which did not appear to be accurate, and (2) issue a directive to the Kurdish

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notes | 407 fighters to stay away from the region. See ‘Turkey Shells YPG [Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, Yekîneyên Parastina Gel] Targets in Northern Syria in Retaliation’, Hürriyet Daily News, 13 February 2016; ‘PYD [Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party, Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat] Should Withdraw, Turkish PM Tells US as Shelling Continues’, Hürriyet Daily News, 14 February 2016. 41. Simon Tisdall, ‘Ankara Bombing: Blaming the Kurds Suits Erdoğan’s Political Ends’, The Guardian, 18 February 2016. 42. ‘Turkey PM Erdoğan Issues Syria Border Warning’, BBC News online, 26 June 2012. 43. ‘Uçak Düştü, Erdoğan’a Destek Tavan Yaptı [Jet Falls, Support for Erdoğan Soars]’, Sözcü, 7 December 2015. 44. ‘Turkey, Israel in Talks May Reach Deal Soon: Turkish Official’, Hürriyet Daily News, 17 December 2015; ‘Israel and Turkey Agree to Restore Diplomatic Ties’, The New York Times, 17 December 2015. 45. Abdülkadir Selvi, ‘Rus Uçağı Tuzak mıydı? [Was Russian Jet a Trap?]’, Yeni Şafak, 8 December 2015. 46. Actually Davutoğlu had stated that he had ‘personally’ ordered the strike. ‘Davutoğlu: Uçağın Vurulması Emrini Bizzat Ben Verdim [Davutoğlu: I Personally Gave Order on Downing of Jet]’, Cumhuriyet, 25 November 2015. 47. See Slavoj Žižek, Revolution at the Gates (London: Verso, 2002). 48. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 14. 49. For a more detailed account of such change through mimesis, see my International Relations, Meaning and Mimesis (London: Routledge, 2012), pp. 139–44.

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INDEX

Abdülaziz, Sultan, 22 Abdülhamid II, Sultan, 22–5, 26 Acemoğlu, Daron, 317–18 Adorno, Theodor W., 136 Afghanistan, 78, 150–1, 162, 328 Agamben, Giorgio, 135 Ahmad, Feroz, 28 Ahmad, Jalal al-e, 119 Ahmet Mithat Efendi, 23 al-Ash‘ari, Abu al-Hasan, 161 al-Assad, Bashar, 282 al-Bashir, Omar, 281, 289 al-Nusra, Jabhat, 283, 286–7, 337 al-Qadi, Yasin, 236, 382–3n al-Qaeda, 236, 283, 287, 337 al-Sham, Ahrar, 337 Alevis, 36, 45, 55, 57–8, 66, 77, 79, 104, 135, 145, 155, 188–9, 235, 254, 261–6, 320, 334, 339–40, 386–8n Althusser, Louis, 120 an-Na‘im, Abdullahi Ahmed, 154 Ankara massacre (10 October 2015), 69, 210, 287 anti-Semitism see Jews of Turkey Arab Spring, 36, 62, 116, 123, 126, 218, 282, 320, 321, 330 Armenia, 268 Armenians of Turkey, 16–17, 24–5, 29, 31–2, 36, 54, 58, 99, 100, 124, 249, 256, 259, 262, 266–74, 332, 334, 335, 344n, 360n

Asad, Talal, 184–5 Assyrians of Turkey, 26, 59, 340 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal, 19–21, 25–6, 27, 44, 46, 56, 60, 61, 137, 189, 253, 266, 269, 325, 339 Australia, 312 Austria, 81 authoritarianism, 1, 2, 3, 4–7, 18, 31, 32, 35, 147–8, 149, 173–4, 249, 333–4, 341n before and after regime change, 319–20 majoritarianisms vs authoritarianisms, 319–24 modern complicity in regional authoritarianisms, 116–38 Ba’athism, 137, 187 Babacan, Ali, 314, 331, 402n Baird, Robert, 134–5 Balian, Krikor, 189 Başbuğ, İlker, 109–10, 133–4, 135, 174–5, 214–15, 358n, 362n Bataille, Georges, 130 Bauman, Zygmunt, 133, 136 Benjamin, Walter, 59 Benoist, Alain de, 128 Berlusconi, Silvio, 5 bureaucracy, 2, 3, 4, 21–4, 29, 34, 35, 41–5, 47, 48–51, 53, 54, 57, 64, 65–6, 67, 72, 75–6, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 99, 106–7, 115–16, 126, 141–2, 144, 145,

419

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420  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y bureaucracy (cont.) 147, 164, 166, 174, 186, 229, 244, 254, 325, 344–5n ambivalence in bureaucracy during regime change, 82–6 and ‘deep state’, 102–5 and media, 206–7, 274 ‘trusteeship/tutelage’ (vesayet), 29, 47, 106, 166, 249, 318, 319, 322, 344n Bush, George W., 335 Çalış, Şaban, 60–2 centre–periphery relations, 31, 41–2, 43, 44–5, 46, 48, 49, 52, 75 Çetin, Fethiye, 270–2 Chávez, Hugo, 5 China, 84, 123, 125, 178, 211, 308, 312, 370n Chomsky, Noam, 58, 218–19 civil society in wake of old regime, 323–4 Cold War, 27, 32, 61, 103, 106, 124, 127, 133, 134 ‘Second Cold War’, 78, 104 Committee of Union and Progress (İttihâd ve Terakkî Cemiyyeti, CUP), 23–5, 26, 31, 32 Constitutional Court, 59, 85, 98, 202, 225, 331, 349n, 356n as human rights tribunal, 113, 143, 159, 163–9, 193, 225–6, 367–8n, 377n, 381–2n, 397n corruption allegations, 2–3, 6, 8, 70, 93–4, 145, 148, 152, 153, 156, 158, 164–5, 171, 178–9, 180, 182, 183, 201–2, 203, 210, 213, 220, 224–5, 236–47, 250, 251, 272, 282, 317, 322, 326, 327, 330–1, 334, 377n Council of Europe, 49, 163, 232, 253, 295, 321 Cyprus, 29, 64, 83–4, 86, 87, 100, 103, 107, 268 Dabashi, Hamid, 119, 242 Dahl, Robert, 233–4 Davutoğlu, Ahmet, 57–8, 149–50, 281–2, 285, 335 and corruption allegations, 330–1 and foreign policy, 329, 330, 332–3 as Islamo-nationalist ideologue, 329–33 cooperation with military during ‘coup’ of 28 February 1997, 332 personal style, 331–2

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Strategic Depth, 329–30 tension with Erdoğan, 330–2 ‘deep state’, 90–1, 92, 102–5, 108, 175, 266–74, 346n, 405n Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP), 27–8, 75, 166, 186, 206, 227 Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, PYD) of Syria, 70, 72, 283 Derrida, Jacques, 130 Derviş, Kemal, 313, 314 Descartes, René, 131 Dink, Hrant, 48, 58, 107, 109, 256, 259, 266–74, 278, 298 Doğan, Aydın, and Doğan Media Group, 208, 209, 211–12, 213 Dugin, Aleksandr, 127–8, 129–30, 131, 134 Ecevit, Bülent, 104 economy, 2, 3, 5, 37, 47–8, 63–4, 69, 88–9, 106, 247, 313–18, 330 construction sector, 188, 309–10, 312, 315, 318 GDP, 313–14, 315 growth, 314 inflation, 313 neoliberal economic policies, 317 privatisation, 2, 85–6, 315–16, 317, 354n undocumented foreign currency influx, 314 Egypt, 64, 119, 147, 150, 158, 217, 218, 250, 320, 323 Muslim Brotherhood, 127, 144, 145, 157, 162, 189 Elçi, Tahir, 277–8 elections, 233–6, 244–5, 308, 321–2 1995 (24 December), 79 2002 (3 November), 49 2007 (22 July), 50 2011 (12 June), 49, 67, 74, 133, 144, 147, 181, 334 2015 (7 June), 68, 69, 70, 71, 74, 152, 171, 188, 211, 230–1, 232, 241, 251, 255, 265, 283, 314, 322, 323, 331, 332, 333, 334, 335–6, 339 2015 (1 November), 68–70, 71, 72, 74, 188, 210, 212, 213, 232–3, 241, 251, 322, 323, 331, 334–6 irregularities, 230–3, 282–3, 391n Eliade, Mircea, 128 Elvan, Berkin, 202–3, 205 Enlightenment, 119, 121, 128, 129, 130, 135, 136, 184–5, 327

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i ndex | 421 Erbakan, Necmettin, 79, 86, 157, 158, 213, 216, 351n Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip, 2–3, 8, 16–17, 18, 67, 74, 91, 93, 99, 110, 142–3, 146, 149, 151, 152–3, 154, 157–8, 188, 189, 218, 219, 232, 246, 281, 282, 283, 289, 308, 309, 329, 333, 334, 338, 382–3n allegations of ‘ghost-owning’ media, 212–13, 283 alleged interest in nuclear weaponry, 178 alliance with loyalists of old regime, 180, 251 and Alevis, 263, 265–6, 334 and Arab Spring, 63–5 and Kurdish question, 68–9, 70, 71, 179, 285 and management of economy, 314, 315, 330–1, 405n as mayor of Istanbul, 79, 178–9, 184, 245, 246–7 contempt for secular urbanites, 193–4, 248, 372–3n corruption allegations, 236, 242–3, 245, 322 ‘coup’ of 25 December 2013, 236–7, 316–17 cult of, 19–21, 35, 182–5, 238–9, 325 evading and bashing judiciary, 165–6, 171–2, 179, 182–3, 226, 230 fighting Gülenists, 103, 112–13, 114, 156, 158–9, 161, 162, 165, 211, 212, 236–7 ‘insulting’ him as a criminal offence, 205 lawsuits against media, 215–16 litigating children, 203–5 media control, 206–16, 220–1, 225–6, 237–8 mobilising informants, 183 Occidentalism, 328 on Dink murder, 273 on ‘war with Syria’, 286 personal style, 172–82, 183–4, 214, 217, 225, 228, 234, 237, 238, 265, 322, 369n prison term, 79, 175, 180 rule by policy, 141–2, 145, 159, 165, 169–75 sex tapes of rival politicians, 180–2, 371n tension with Davutoğlu, 330–2 urging a business model of state, 331, 363n

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urging executive presidency, 331, 333–4, 338, 363n European Court of Human Rights, 49, 53–4, 57–8, 85, 96, 145, 159, 164, 166, 167–9, 192–3, 215–16, 222, 223–4, 226, 259, 264, 270, 271, 272, 274–7, 278, 286, 292, 306, 307, 332, 360n, 366n, 381n, 382n, 388n European Union, 29, 34, 44, 45, 55, 65, 108, 166, 309, 321, 339 accession talks, 80–1, 82, 83, 87, 336–7, 345n application to EEC for membership, 60–2 following regime change, 147, 178, 239, 325, 336–7 public support for, 88–90 reforms induced by, 81, 82, 85, 87–90, 106–7, 247, 268, 269, 277, 295–6 refugee crisis of 2015–16, 336–7 Evola, Julius, 128, 130 Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi, SP), or Party of Bliss, 81–2, 86 Ficino, Marsilio, 129 Fidan, Hakan, 285–6, 288 finance of politics, 233, 242–7, 322 Fisk, Robert, 287 forced disappearances, 105, 273, 335 foreign policy, 62–5, 281–9, 327–30, 336–9 Foucault, Michel, 32, 118, 119, 120, 129, 130, 148–9 France, 316–17, 332 freedom of assembly and association, 190–203, 234, 235, 303 freedom of expression, 215–16, 221–4, 225–6, 232, 234–5, 257–61, 268–74, 277–8 French Revolution, 15, 134 Gaddafi, Muammar, 289 gender equality, 291 gentrification, 301, 318 Germany, 32, 173, 265, 334, 336 Gezi protests, 2–3, 18, 35–6, 143–4, 145, 146, 148, 150, 156, 172, 176–7, 179, 187–203, 207, 209, 217–18, 219, 220, 235, 238, 239–40, 241, 242, 248, 250, 251, 263, 268, 282, 290, 316, 318, 319, 323, 333, 336 Ghannouchi, Rachid, 153–4, 364n Girard, René, 6–7, 9–18, 33, 340 Gladio, 103, 356n

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422  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Gökalp, Ziya, 352n Gömi, Kemal, 306 Gramsci, Antonio, 128 Greece, 25, 29, 54, 61, 83, 88, 332, 343n Greeks of Turkey, 16–17, 25–6, 28–9, 54, 262, 340, 343n Guénon, René, 128–9, 130 Gül, Abdullah, 50, 56–7, 99 Gülen, Fethullah, 93, 156–7, 161, 162 Gülenists, 7–8, 16, 95–6, 100, 101, 103, 112, 113–14, 122, 152, 156–63, 177, 179–80, 195, 209–10, 211, 212, 213, 235, 240–1, 244, 251–2, 272, 284, 287, 365n, 371n, 392n Habermas, Jürgen, 130, 133, 134, 235–6 Hacı Bektaş-ı Velî, 262 Hâlide Edib, 27 Harvey, David, 316–17 Haushofer, Karl, 330 Havel, Václav, 175 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 9, 10, 120 Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin, 151 Hersh, Seymour, 286–7 higher education system, 19, 29, 47, 49, 50, 51, 83, 84–5 hijab issue, 31, 46, 53–4, 57, 77, 78, 91, 145–6, 153, 160, 347n Horkheimer, Max, 136 identity politics, 4, 17–19, 34, 41–2, 60–2, 75–82, 166, 229, 347n, 352n ill-treatment, 193, 194–7, 200, 235, 302, 307 İmam Hatip schools, 84–5, 144 Independence Tribunals (İstiklâl Mahkemeleri), 27, 95 India, 123, 312, 381n ‘international crimes’, 256, 281–9 International Criminal Court, 280, 281, 288–9 international criminal law, 288–9 International Labour Organization, 308–9, 312 International Monetary Fund, 48, 88, 313, 314, 317 İpekçi, Abdi, 104 Iran, 47, 84, 90, 107, 119, 123, 125, 127, 129, 154, 162–3, 211, 262, 327, 337 gas-for-gold scheme with Turkey, 243–4 Iranian revolution, 119, 129, 157, 162, 242

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Iraq, 64, 69, 90, 107, 278, 328 Ireland, 88 Islamic State (formerly Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/Levant), 69, 70, 72, 156, 179, 210, 256, 281, 283, 285, 286, 287, 327, 328, 329, 334–5, 337 Islamism, 1–2, 3, 4, 18, 46, 47, 62, 65, 66, 77, 90, 119, 123, 129, 132, 169, 177, 236, 253, 256, 257, 262, 263, 273, 282, 288, 340 and corruption, 152, 245–6 and democracy, 143–56, 160–1, 162–3, 242, 320–3 and neo-Salafism, 327–9 and secularisation of piety, 326–7 and secularism, 153–6 and state worship, 325 Hizbullah, 328–9 Islamo-nationalism (Millî Görüş), or Islamo-nativism, 30, 31, 35, 36, 76, 77–82, 86, 89, 112, 115, 137, 143, 147, 156, 157–8, 160, 161, 183, 186, 187, 188, 213, 216–17, 220, 227, 228, 229, 239, 241–2, 243, 245, 247, 249, 250, 253–4, 266, 284, 318, 321–2, 329–30, 332, 336, 339, 344n, 351n Kemalism as ‘Islamo-nationalism’, 324–5 pan-Islamism, 23, 329 Israel, 64, 65, 108, 121, 122–3, 127, 131, 132, 150, 179, 328, 339 Italy, 103 Izetbegović, Alija, 175 Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan, 157 Japan, 178 Jews of Turkey, 18, 26 anti-Semitism, 99–100, 131, 132, 150, 229, 261, 325, 328 judiciary, 19, 29, 43, 47, 49, 50, 52–60, 78, 85–6, 92–114, 164–5, 171, 175, 177–8, 180, 202, 210, 214, 215, 225, 241, 248–9, 316, 348n case on student pledge, 56, 59–60 cases against Gezi protesters, 195, 197–200 cases of violence against women, 292, 293–4, 295–6 corruption cases, 201–2, 210, 213, 236–7, 272 Dink case, 266–74 equality of arms ignored, 97, 200, 279

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i ndex | 423 hate crimes, 258, 261, 291, 295, 296–8, 301 ‘insulting’ president (Penal Code, Article 299), 205 ‘insulting’ Turkish state and ‘Turkishness’ (Penal Code, Article 301), later ‘Turkish nation’, 58–9, 268–74, 388–9n on state responses to Kurdish insurgency, 274–81 protecting religious values (Penal Code, Article 216), 257–61 specially authorised courts, 95–7, 112–13 specially authorised magistrates’ courts, 95–6 State Security Courts, 96, 276–7 see also trials of regime change from 2007 Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), 1–4, 5, 6, 8, 29, 31–2, 34, 35, 36, 37, 46, 47–8, 49, 50–1, 56, 60, 62, 64, 66–74, 75–6, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 84–5, 86, 88–90, 98, 103, 106, 110, 115, 122, 123, 124, 125, 127, 133, 134, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148, 153, 157–8, 160, 161, 163, 164, 171, 181, 182, 183, 187, 188, 189, 206, 207, 210, 213, 216, 217, 227, 228, 230–3, 234, 236, 237, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 245, 247, 249, 251, 255, 259, 265, 272, 273, 283, 286, 290, 291, 292, 300, 301, 308, 313–14, 316, 317, 318, 321–2, 324–5, 329, 331–2, 333, 334, 335–6 Justice Party (Adalet Partisi), 157 Kaçar, Hasan, 305, 398n Kant, Immanuel, 116, 136, 184, 185 Karacagil, Ayşe Deniz, 197–201 Kemalism see republicanism Keynes, John Maynard, 317 Khayyam, Omar, 258 Kılıçdaroğlu, Kemal, 181–2, 213, 243, 245, 263, 374n Kısakürek, Necip Fazıl, 77 Kobanê, siege of, 70–1, 156, 179, 210, 255–6, 281, 283, 285, 333 Kojève, Alexandre, 9, 10 Köprülü, Fuat, 166 Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq, 122–3 Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK), 45, 68–73, 86–7, 90,

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107–8, 109, 112, 161, 199, 210, 241, 277–8 Kurds, 18, 26, 30–1, 36, 44–5, 46, 52–3, 55, 56, 58, 60, 66, 67, 81, 82, 90, 100, 104, 107, 156, 234, 235, 249, 251, 254–6, 262, 268, 274–81, 283–4, 288, 292, 305, 306, 309, 320, 322, 323, 326, 334, 340 of Syria, 283–4, 285, 328, 333, 334, 337–9 ‘settlement process’, 68–73, 112, 158, 179, 241, 255–6, 334–5 violence after collapse of ‘settlement process’, 68–9, 72, 334–5, 338 see also Kobanê, siege of, and Roboskî incident labour rights, 291, 308–13 child labour, 310–11, 312–13 Lacan, Jacques, 9–10, 116 Lausanne Peace Treaty, 25, 264 legislative rewritings, 171, 245 LGBTI, 160, 176, 235, 290, 295–6, 301, 320 Liberal Party (Ahrâr Fırkası), 24 liberal intellectuals, 1, 3, 4–5, 31, 42, 48–9, 65–6, 73, 74, 80, 89–90, 115–16, 117, 132, 134, 141, 142, 148, 152, 175, 179, 215, 216, 217, 227–8, 244, 247, 248, 249, 251, 324–5, 332 ‘liberation theology’, 35, 85, 117, 118, 119–20, 126, 133, 135, 138, 359n Libya, 287, 288, 289, 394n, 395n Lijphart, Arend, 233, 381n Lincoln, Abraham, 233 Linz, Juan J., 341n Luxembourg, 88 Mackinder, Halford, 330 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 330 Marx, Groucho, 10 Marx, Karl, 316 Mauritania, 309 media independence, 156, 166, 183, 206–26, 228, 232, 234, 237, 237–8, 245, 284–5, 322, 376n, 383–4n fabricated reports in pro-government media, 176–8, 216–20, 378n gag orders, 210, 212 global ratings, 211 Internet freedom, 220–6, 378–9n Islamo-nationalist media, 216–17, 325

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424  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y media independence (cont.) journalists fired, 209, 217 journalists imprisoned, 210–11, 214 media capture, 209 media outlets seized, 210, 212–13 physical assaults on media, 211–12 social media, 165–6, 169, 220–1, 224–6, 234, 260, 282 Medina Document, 155 Mehmed Âkif, 27, 404n Mehmed Reşad, Sultan, 24 Merkel, Angela, 336 military, 1, 29, 36, 43, 47, 48, 49, 50–1, 61–2, 82–3, 84, 87, 90, 100, 102, 103–4, 125–6, 131, 133–4, 141, 144, 145, 180, 187, 206–7, 215, 233, 268 1909 (13 April/ 31 March) ‘rebellion’ and coup, 24, 189, 343n 1960 (27 May) coup, 28–9, 82–3, 84, 186, 300 1971 (12 March) coup, 61–2, 96, 300 1980 (12 September) coup, 29, 50, 76, 78, 87, 96, 104, 191, 239, 247, 333, 344n 1997 (28 February) ‘coup’, 31, 79–80, 84, 86, 144, 156, 206–7, 332 2003–4 coup ‘plans’, 106–8, 175 2007 (27 April) coup ‘threat’, 50–1, 56–7, 248 2016 (15 July) abortive coup, 252 democratic control of, 51, 94–5, 124, 247–8 under AKP rule, 240, 242, 247–52, 278–81, 344–5n see also bureaucracy ‘mixed bag’ (torba) laws, 169–71 Modi, Narendra, 5 Mojaddedi, Sibghatullah, 151 Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi, ANAP), 88 Murad V, Sultan, 22 Muslim Brotherhood see Egypt Muslim identity, pious, 18, 44, 45, 46, 53, 66, 77, 78, 82, 146, 157, 254, 258, 320, 323, 326 Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, 129 National Liberation (Millî Mücadele) War, or War of Independence, 18, 25–6, 106, 237 Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket

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Partisi, MHP), 88, 181–2, 232, 336, 359n NATO, or Euro-Atlantic alignment, 49, 63–5, 78, 103, 104, 125, 150, 178, 247, 253, 281–2, 321, 327, 337, 338 Nazism, 32, 173, 334 neo-conservatism, 35, 117, 118, 120–2, 124, 125–7, 128, 129, 131, 132, 135, 360n neo-nationalism (ulusalcılık), 16, 58, 84, 86, 93, 99–100, 111–12, 115, 118, 124, 131, 133, 209, 247, 267, 273, 325, 332, 345n, 358–9n Nietzsche, Friedrich, 11, 257 Nigeria, 288 Nişanyan, Sevan, 257–8, 259–60 non-Muslim minorities, treatment of, 16–17, 18, 26–7, 28, 54, 78, 103, 261, 264, 268, 320, 334 Öcalan, Abdullah, 68, 71, 73, 86–7, 333 Occidentalism, 327–9 Occupy Wall Street, 194 Ombudsman, 271 Oran, Baskın, 347n Orbán, Viktor, 5 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, 231–2, 296–8 Orientalism, 129, 257 Ottoman caliphate, 25, 83–4, 124–5 Ottoman Constitution of 1876 (Kânûn–ı Esâsî), 23, 24 Ottoman Imperial Reform Edicts of 1839 and 1856 (Tanzîmât), 21–2 Ottoman millet system, 54–5, 56, 78, 254, 324, 351n Ottoman Second Constitutional Period from 1908 (İkinci Meşrûtiyet), 24–5 Ottomans, Young, 22, 23 Öz, Doğan, 104 Özal, Turgut, 31, 61, 76, 85, 104, 215, 314, 316 Pakistan, 157, 323 Pamuk, Orhan, 48, 58–9 Paris Treaty (1856), 22 Party for Democratic Left (Demokratik Sol Parti, DSP), 88, 157 Party for People’s Democracy (Halkın Demokrasi Partisi, HADEP), 82 Paxton, Robert, 102–3

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i ndex | 425 Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, HDP), 68, 70, 71, 72, 188, 229, 232, 291, 332, 334, 335, 336 Perinçek, Doğu, 122–4, 125, 126, 131, 133, 134, 135, 138, 358n, 360n Perot, Ross, 5 police brutality, 193, 194–7, 202–3 ‘pool’ (havuz) system, 178–9, 207, 213, 245 Pope, 104 Popular Democratic Party (Demokratik Halk Partisi, DEHAP), 82 populism, 2, 5–6, 28, 30, 35, 77, 143, 153, 163, 344n, 351n pornography, 223–4 president as head of bureaucracy, 3, 50–2, 53 presidential system debate, 74, 315, 330, 331, 333–4, 338, 363n prison raids of December 2000, 306 prisoners unwell and dying, 241, 291, 303–8, 398–9n privacy of home challenged, 149, 171–3, 178, 194, 238–9 pro-regime demonstrations of 2007, 47, 108, 115 Progressive Republican Party (Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası), 26 Puritans, 5 Putin, Vladimir, 125, 178 Qassab, Haytham, 286–7 Qatar, 282 Qutb, Sayyid, 236, 382n Rabbani, Burhanuddin, 151 Ratzel, Friedrich, 330 referendum of 12 September 2010, 3–4, 55, 100, 168, 248 refugee crisis of 2015–16 see Syria Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Fırkası/Partisi, CHP), 26, 27, 28, 67, 69, 72, 73, 87, 177, 180–2, 213, 231, 232, 243, 250, 266, 287, 292, 336, 339, 345n, 360n, 374n republicanism, 1–2, 19, 25–7, 28–9, 30, 31, 44, 48, 55, 57, 60, 61, 62, 65–6, 75–6, 78, 86–7, 90–1, 93, 98–9, 100, 116, 131, 137, 141–2, 147, 161, 162, 176, 179, 180, 186, 187, 227–9, 239, 240, 244, 249, 250, 253, 254, 259, 322–3, 324–5, 332, 334, 339

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and European integration, 80–1, 83–4, 86 and French republicanism, 44, 76, 344n and Kurdish question in wake of old regime, 72, 73, 333 term ‘republicanism’, 344n right to a fair trial, 200, 222, 303 right to free and democratic elections, 234, 235, 381–2n right to personal liberty, 200, 302–3 right to property, 159, 222, 302 Robespierre, Maximilien, 15 Roboskî incident, 210, 255, 278–81, 288, 289 Rojava, 283, 333 Russia, 72, 84, 123, 124, 125, 126, 132, 295 crisis with, 65, 337–9 Eurasianism, 118, 124, 125, 127–8, 131 Sabancı, Özdemir, 105 Sade, Marquis de, 130, 136 Safavids, 262 Santoro, Andrea, 107, 109 Saudi Arabia, 127, 154, 185, 282 Say, Fazıl, 258–9, 260, 385–6n Saylan, Türkân, 161–2, 365n Schmitt, Carl, 184 Schuon, Frithjof, 128 secularisation theory, 134–5 Sedgwick, Mark, 129 Selim III, Sultan, 299 separation of powers, 3, 6, 60, 100–1, 164–5, 171, 202, 236–7, 331 sex work, 291, 295, 298–303 Shah Massoud, Ahmad, 151 Shanghai Cooperation Organization, 178 Shariati, Ali, 119, 242, 359n Social Democratic Popular Party (Sosyaldemokrat Halkçı Parti, SHP), 82 Socialist International, 177 Soma mine disaster, 17–18, 210, 308, 311, 312, 317 Somer, Mehmet Murat, 295 Soroush, Abdolkarim, 154, 162–3 South Africa, Republic of, 312 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 339 State Council (Danıştay) raid (17 May 2006), 90–1, 107, 109 Sudan, 154, 281, 289, 394–5n Süleyman Nazif, 25 Susurluk incident, 105

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426  |  reg i me chang e i n co nte mpo r a r y tur k e y Syria, 63, 65, 69, 70, 71, 72, 107, 118, 122–3, 126, 127, 131, 132, 135, 136, 138, 150, 156, 179, 210, 218, 288, 333, 334 Alawism, 135, 262 false flag operation considered in, 214, 285–6 policy over, 241, 251, 255–6, 281–9, 327, 328, 337–9, 406n refugee crisis, 65, 336–7 Russian involvement in, 337–9 sarin gas release (21 August 2013), 286–7 Syrian Democratic Forces, 338, 406n transfer of arms to, 180, 210, 212, 214, 256, 281, 284–5, 289, 337–8, 392n Taliban, 151, 328 Tanzîmât see Ottoman Imperial Reform Edicts of 1839 and 1856 traditionalism, 128–9, 130 transgender murders, 295–6 trials of regime change from 2007, 7–8, 16, 35, 48, 51, 83, 91, 92–114, 115, 122, 123, 125, 131, 161–2, 211, 228, 235, 247, 248, 251, 273, 304 and government–Gülenist split, 93–4, 179–80 Balyoz (Sledgehammer) case, 93, 94, 110–11, 113, 114 Ergenekon case, 109–10 irregularities, 94–102, 162, 240 OdaTV case, 111–12 Poyrazköy case, 111 releases of defendants, 113–14 Şile case, 111–12 wiretappings, 97–8 Truman Doctrine, 61

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Trump, Donald, 5 ‘trusteeship/tutelage’ (vesayet) see bureaucracy Tunisia, 153 Uludere incident see Roboskî incident Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 78, 124, 150–1, 162, 287, 301 United Nations, 83, 86, 87, 107, 288, 289 United States, 5, 60, 63, 72, 84, 108, 118, 121–2, 124, 125–7, 131, 132, 133, 135, 179, 247, 282, 283, 308, 309, 312, 317, 327, 335, 337, 338, 360n urban disfigurement, 291, 318 violence against women, 292–4 Virtue Party (Fazilet Partisi), 86 Volkan, Vamık, 335 wealth tax (varlık vergisi) of 1942–3, 27 Weber, Max, 15 Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, RP), 79–80, 86 Westernisation (Batılılaşma), 34, 44, 46, 80 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 31 Wolin, Richard, 130 World Bank, 313 World War I, 24–5, 106, 124, 249, 267, 334 World War II, 27, 32, 317 Yaman, Hakan, 195–7 Yassıada Tribunal, 95 Yavuz Sultan Selim, 263 Yunus Emre, 260 Zirve killings, 107, 109 Žižek, Slavoj, 339 Zürcher, Erik, 26

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