Title: Citizenship in America and Europe: Beyond the Nation-State?
Author: Michael S. Greve and Michael Zoller
Publish Date: 2009
Publisher / Edition: AEI Press, 2009

The collapse of the Soviet Union transformed the political landscape of the West no less profoundly than it did that east of the former Iron Curtain. Long moribund but virulent nationalisms were quickly aroused in the Balkans, as were equally intense tribal rivalries in several of the Soviet Union’s former client states in sub-Saharan Africa. Ensuing civil war and violent conflict led a large exodus of refugees from these troubled regions to seek asylum in the West, along with many economic migrants, whose numbers were swollen by the large international population flows that attended the sudden global expansion of capitalism also triggered by the Soviet Union’s collapse. In Europe’s case, foreign immigration was further augmented by the opportunity the Soviet Union’s collapse presented Germany to reunify and many of the Soviet Union’s former satellite states in East Europe to join the European Union.

Read the rest at the Library of Law and Liberty blog

Last night thousands of viewers watched as “Spanish Flu” swept through Downton Abbey, taking the life of one of its residents. With no antibiotics, the effects of the 1918-1920 flu epidemic were devastating as approximately 25-30% of the world population was infected and 40 million people, mostly between the ages of 20 and 40, were killed.  Although channelled through the medium of ITV drama, it is nevertheless important to take note of this deadly episode as we reach an important milestone in the history of humankind.

On the 31st October 2011, Danica Camacho’s birth in the Philippines was chosen by UN demographers to officially mark the point at which the world population reached 7 billion.  In some quarters the figure of 7 billion has prompted renewed interest in the Malthusian argument for positive population control. See, for example, an article published in The Scotsman in which Professor Wilmut controversially argues that to prevent continuing exponential population growth, we need to start impressing upon younger generations their social responsibility to limit the number of children they have.  Arguments like this for positive population control might be flawed because they tend to only have a narrow application in comparably wealthier and developed nations but, nevertheless, Malthus and others like him are right to seek ways to avoid the alternative: namely negative population control (large-scale death through overpopulation either due to lack of resources or contagious disease).

With increasingly densely populated areas the potential for wiping out large sections of society through the rapid spread of disease are extremely worrying. The effects that poor sanitation, cramped conditions and exponentially rising birth rates can have on the spread of disease are well known: the initiative to eradicate polio for example is faltering in Pakistan and parts of Africa where the disease seems to be spreading faster than children can be vaccinated.  However, the scares over bird flu and swine flu, coupled with a worrying increase in resistance to antibiotics  and very few new antibiotic families to combat this, show that it is not just the “developing” world that may increasingly struggle with disease control. It is clear therefore  that national governments and international organisations need to work together in order to make sure that a growing population does not necessarily mean higher incidents of infectious diseases that end in large loss of life.

The best solutions for tackling this problem remain to be seen but could for example involve internationally agreed emergency measures which shut down global travel quickly and effectively.  Alternatively initiatives to spread a country’s population more evenly through its territory might be required by ensuring that investment goes into several centres of development rather than just one or two. Either way it is crucial that NGOs, governments, medical communities and international organisations offer suggestions for tackling a security issue that won’t always obey the boundaries of nation states, and could be the source of several national and international emergencies if not carefully addressed.

The vote that granted Palestine full membership of the UN Cultural and Educational Agency (UNESCO) could potentially have wide-ranging consequences for the role of international organisations within international affairs and their relationship with the United States.

The UNESCO bid forms a part of the Palestinian effort to bring their pursuit of an independent state onto the international arena, believing that gaining “international consensus” and support for statehood in this way will have a greater chance of success than the negotiations that continue to stall between the Israeli and Palestinian authorities. The strong backing within UNESCO for the Palestinians’ application, which saw 107 members voting for and only 14 against (52 abstained and 14 were absent)seems to vindicate this belief, especially as there is a possibility that it will lead to more successful bids, making Palestine a full member of other UN organisations. However, these developments are leaving the US in an increasingly difficult situation.

A law passed by Congress in the 1990s forbids the US from funding UN bodies that recognise Palestine, meaning that the US has already pledged to withdraw the $70-80 million dollars it gives to UNESCO every year: approximately a fifth of its annual budget. The difficulty here is that UNESCO’s operations might go into decline, but on the other hand another nation might step in and provide the missing funds, for example one of the BRIC nations, all of whom voted for full Palestinian membership. If the same occurred in other UN organisations the US might find itself overtaken by other member states who gain increasing influence through the resources they supply. America is already in a delicate position with regards to international law, with several countries refusing to sign bilateral immunity agreements with the US, instead confirming full allegiance to the aims of the International Criminal Court, despite US threats of withholding aid. Furthermore America is having to work hard to maintain support within the Middle East as the Arab Spring takes its course; having gained some soft power by deliberately taking a back seat over Libya, the US may stand to lose it again by taking such a strong stance in this case. Cynicism amongst Palestinians about the credibility of the US as a mediator between themselves and the Israelis is already high and a lack of flexibility over the UNESCO vote is only likely to increase it. Furthermore given that only 13 other countries voted against full Palestinian membership, (as opposed to abstaining) the image America portrays of itself is of a nation who believes that there cannot be “international consensus” unless they agree to it. America certainly isn’t alone in hoping for successful Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that lead to a viable two-party solution – Britain and other EU countries sympathise with this method – however, given that there is still a long way to go in the peace process, America must avoid being classed as a hindrance rather than a help within the wider international community.

It remains to be seen whether or not US and Israeli predictions come true about the damage this vote will cause to the Middle Eastern peace process, especially if Palestine successfully applies for world heritage status for historical sites within the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Undoubtedly, Israeli-Palestine relations continue to be a political minefield and UNESCO would be advised to tread carefully. However, for the sake of America’s reputation within the international arena they too must be careful not to isolate themselves from opinions that are becoming increasingly universal. In 1984 the US withdrew from UNESCO due to the latter’s increasing politicisation. Having re-joined UNESCO in 2003 in a bid to prove their adherence to human rights and human security America needs to avoid repeating history and cutting out its options for participation in international organisations that are steadily increasing in importance and influence.

Lady at the airport the female dress code:  that they hate it and so they wear more and more makeup  .  but they are taken off in busloads, made to swear they won’t do it again and fined.

On October 14 2011 Ayatollah Seyyid Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution and of the Islamic Republic of Iran addressed a gathering of commanders and soldiers of the Armed Forces of Iran, a gathering held in the city and region of Kermanshah (Tehran Times 15 October 2011). After the usual vigorous denunciation of the ‘arrogant and aggressive’ practices of the USA, he described Iran’s policies as based on ‘logic, wisdom, and spirituality’, ascribing this to in part due to the activities of the basiji, a force created at the behest of Imam Khomeini, who wanted to see 20 000 000 of these men and women dedicated to the defence of the 1979 Islamic Revolution: ‘the Basij volunteer forces will stand up to any deviation in the movement of the Islamic system toward the realisation of the causes of the Islamic Revolution’, said the Supreme Leader to the commanders and soldiers at Kermanshah. Perhaps this explains the relatively small crowds who tried earlier this year to kick-start an Iranian version of the ‘Arab Spring’: after all, 20 000 000 guardians over a nation of 80 000 000 is a lot of guardianship . . . .

Welcome to Iran: How brave you are for coming here. I wish I could leave with you

Are you ashamed of Iran?  I love my country but I must leave it . . . and they (the Mullahs) are glad to see us all go . . .

There may or not be 20 000 000 members of the Basij force: but travellers around Iran are only too well aware of a variety of ‘police’ checking (primarily) women for transgressions of the Islamic dress code (a mode of dress very rapidly dumped by most of the Iranian women on the flight out of Tehran’s Ayatollah Khomeini Airport): and for this reason, and to protect the various people who talked to us, I will not sign this ‘blog’. If I name myself, now that I am out of Iran, I might well be naming other people, still in Iran. The people are of course most pleasant. Time after time, people would stop you on the street or in a park and say ‘Welcome to Iran’: occasionally we would get a rather longer and usually highly critical comment about the government and/or the religious regime whose leaders stared down from many a building and gable end. Our interlocutors, who appear anonymously in italics in this article, were taking a chance: and it would be wrong to leave ‘identifiers’ of my identity, and therefore of theirs, by being too specific about who, where and when. There are simply too many ‘police’ about. It is, for example, the case that at every hotel our passports were taken by the Reception desk because, we were told, they would be inspected by ‘the police’. I know that hotels in countries other than Iran insist on taking our passports: but for whose surveillance?  Which kind of ‘police’? The same people who closed down bookshops in Tehran? Who tapped our female fellow tourists on the back to tell them off for showing too much hair – but who then wandered off, muttering how much they hated what they were doing? The same people – the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry – who demanded so many changes in a book on ‘the deviant current’ by Mohammed-Reza Qomsheh that the author withdrew the book saying that ‘if we make these amendments the book will no longer be effective and that’s why I’ve let it down’ (Iran News October 17 2011). In the NW province of Iran the small city of Bonab, a city which has an atomic energy research centre and an Islamic University, police between January and June 2011 seized 13,000 satellite receivers. Bonab has a population of 80,000, which gives about 13,000 families – a clean sweep! Apparently, Iranians prefer satellite channels, as the state-run TV is getting ‘more and more boring’ (KHABAR news agency, of Kazakhstan, in Iran News, October 11 2011). However the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Face book was allowed only as long as it did not boost the enemies of Islam: ‘It is not allowed as long as it promotes corruption and spreads falsehoods and lies and bolsters the enemies of Islam’ (AYANDE independent news channel, in Iran News October 11 2011).

Under a heading of POLICE CHIEF REJECTS STATISTICS ON BOY-GIRL RELATIONSHIPS, On October 10 Iran News reported that Police Chief Brigadier General Esmaeel Ahmadi Moghaddam rejected a university professor’s finding that 80% of boys and girls in Tehran have ‘close relationship’. The Brigadier said that ‘such statistics [are] against the security of the society . . aimed at causing social disorder [providing] the media with gloomy picture of the country’ and he offered to ‘hold a public debate with those who publish such statistics they are absolutely baseless and I am ready to resign if they are proven to be true’. His offer of peer review seems to have not been taken up.

A young woman stood with us in front of the tombs of Cyrus, Darius etc: that I am a Zoroastrian and proud of the ancient history. It is being cut out in schools; and  ‘all that Islam had added was lying pretence  – and violence

Enough of this, I think: Iran, for all the beauty of its people and scenery, is a rather terrifying theocratic state – with added police.

IRAN IN THE WORLD

The Iranian English-language Press was quite keen to equate the various street demonstrations in Western cities with the ‘Arab Spring’, presenting them as heralding the downfall of the West. An example: ‘people in at least 80 countries have supported such a widespread movement – [the Wall Street movement] . . a highly bitter and hard experience for the US statesmen’, said the Supreme Leader to a gathering of academics in western Kermanshah (Iran News October 17 2011). He went on:

The American police or army might try to suppress the movement but to no avail. He warned American and European officials and states of the influence of Zionism – ‘the day will come for your nations to find out the root cause of your misery and problems i.e. your humiliation before Zionists and that day the flames of their wrath will definitely burn capitalist system into ashes.  You have turned your back to your public and are hated by the majority. The situation is vice-versa in the Islamic Republic of Iran and huge congregation of people indicate the firm determination of the nation to confront any plot. In the region there was an Islamic awakening and under such sensitive conditions the Islamic Republic established in Iran would influence both present and future of the region. The Supreme Leader scoffed at Western slogans of  justice and freedom, they are mottos, ‘following their sinister goal of control over key economic and strategic parts of the world as well as support for Zionism: ‘Base on realities on the ground we declare that the so-called western democracy is false and empty in nature’ (ibid).

Israel is a problem for the Iranian leaders – a problem for which they have a very clear answer. An International Conference in Support for Palestine’s Intifada held in Tehran rejected the two-state solution, saying that:

There should be one state on all the Palestinian lands: Muslim governments, Islamic Parliaments, parties and organizations and all freethinkers in the world should adopt a united stance and pool their

Efforts to help restore the historic, national and legal rights of the resistant nation of Palestine so that the Palestinian land would be liberated and an independent and united government would be established on all the Palestinian territory, with the holy Qods as its capital. The Conference condemned the warmongering and naked aggression of Israel  . .the criminal officials of the Zionist regime should be put on trial . .  (TT October 3 2011)

Earlier, the Supreme Leader had urged the rejection of any two-state solution as being nothing other than

a capitulation to the demand of the Zionist . .  a cancerous tumour  . .  a constant threat to he body of the Islamic ummah  . .  trampling on the blood of martyrs . . We do not propose a classic war by the armies of Muslim countries, or throwing immigrant Jews into the sea, but a referendum of the Palestinian nation  . .  the West must stop the bullying and antihuman Zionists or await heavier blows in the not-to distant future . . . What is posing a threat to the Zionist regime is not the missiles of Iran  . . . but the strong will of men women and youth h in Muslim countries . . However if a threat is posed by the enemy then those missiles will fulfil their function (TT October 2).

A week later, President Ahmadinejad called the US and the Zionist regime ‘the main roots of the misery of nations and everybody should shout at them at the top of their voices  . . . He said that the difficulties being experienced by the Egyptians are due to the ‘enemies of the nations’ as they know that in ‘a free election the next government of the country would be an ant-Zionist one’ (Iran News 13 October 2011).

In all of this, the various newspapers reported on the efforts of the Iranian regime to consolidate its position and power in its region: various kinds of trade, cultural and political relationships are being built up with Algeria, Turkey, Myanmar, Austria, Italy Kazakhstan, Egypt, Vietnam  Myanmar, Algeria, South Korea, etc etc .

We are not Arabs and we have nothing to do with Arabs thank God

Relationships with Turkey, a country moving slowly towards greater Islamic orthodoxy, are somewhat strained because of Turkish agreement to deploy US missile defence shield on its soil – ‘a mistake’, in Iranian view: and a mistake perhaps balanced by an Iranian naval Commander’ announcement that Iran is capable of deploying naval forces in far-off waters and that ‘the Iran Navy intends to deploy naval vessels in the Atlantic Ocean near the maritime borders of the USA (TT October 6 2011). Time after time, Iranian leaders express powerful contempt for and hatred of the USA, the West  -  and the Zionists who allegedly manipulate American and Western leaders.  And yet:

Man in palace: I want you to know that the present government hostility to foreigners is not in the Iranian tradition.

Without attempting to suggest that the concerns and views of the British public do not matter, how Germans and the German Government acts in the next 6 months could determine what kind of EU Britain decides to stay in or get out of. This is because the fate of the Eurozone and the single currency will have an immense affect upon the EU and the choice faced by Britain.

Those looking to opinion polls for guidance on the direction that Germany is heading in will be disappointed. Currently the German Financial Times is running an online poll asking readers: do you want the Deutschemark back? Current results indicate that 54 per cent of the 3,180 voters do. Earlier this month Reuters reported that 54 per cent of Germans wanted the Deutschemark back, but interpreting the poll was difficult as ‘only 43 percent of those asked thought the German economy, Europe’s biggest, would benefit from a reintroduction of the mark’. Other polls covered in the Telegraph and the Daily Mail in 2010 also put the number of Germans wanting the Deutschemark back at between 50 and 60 per cent. However many polls, including the poll covered in the Reuters report, seem to indicate that support for reintroduction of the Deutschemark has not grown since a year ago, leading some to conclude that the current crisis is not having as dramatic an effect upon German opinion as is perhaps expected.

What can be gleaned from these polls is that the German populace and the German electorate’s feelings on the Euro are far from clear. This is unsurprising given the way in which the German economy has both benefitted and suffered from the Euro. Going forward German businesses and the German people cannot decide whether the Euro will prove to be a noose around the German economy’s neck or whether it will continue to keep German labour costs down to the benefit of German exporters.

In contrast support for the Euro amongst German politicians seems relatively secure. Although Angela Merkel’s coalition partners the FDP have flirted with a more Eurosceptic line, they are arguably the most unpopular party in Germany at the moment. Furthermore the opposition SPD are more pro-EU, and pro-Euro than Merkel’s party. In short, even if ‘Eurozonesceptic’ (as opposed to sceptical of the EU as a political structure) Germans exist, there is not an obvious party which they can rally around.

Nevertheless it would be false to conclude from this that when push-comes-to-shove German politicians and the German people will unwaveringly support the Euro. The current stance of the German Government reflects the fact that Angela Merkel’s party is aware that voters are increasingly sceptical of the benefits of the single currency. The German Government has so far refused to consider French demands to turn the EFSF into a bank to buy the bonds of financially embattled Eurozone states. Furthermore Merkel and her ruling Coalition have also refused to entertain the idea that Eurozone countries move into a fiscal union, either directly through fiscal transfers or indirectly through jointly guaranteed ‘Eurobonds’. This firm line, seen by some as dithering in the face of calamity, may actually reflect a concern by the CDU/FDP that the electorate will punish them for appearing weak, a concern already buttressed by defeats for the parties in Lander elections.

The problem is that while the current stance of the German Government may make sense from a national political point of view, it is looking increasingly out of touch with economic reality. This is a concern because to all intents and purposes, Germany is the Euro and without firm action by the German Government the Euro will implode. While supporters of the Euro may despair at Germany’s current inaction, those opposed to the Euro, and I include myself in this, should not rejoice. The Euro, in its current form is unsustainable, but seriously reforming it, or disbanding it will require leadership. At the moment there is scant evidence of such leadership in the Eurozone, perhaps because Germany, likes its national psyche, seems to be pulling in opposite directions.

Europe can be seen as bracketed by Turkey to the south-east and Great Britain to the north-west. These two large ex-imperial countries – with very different (though inter-locked) histories, constitutional traditions and recently-elected governments – would seem to have some things in common. As the Ottoman Empire became the nation-state of Turkey, and the British Empire also became a nation-state, both countries had perforce to re-structure their relationships with the other nation-states of the world, and in particular with their immediate geographical neighbour, ‘Europe’.

While neither country is the dominant power it once was, both countries are large enough to feel they have some degree of choice in the ‘matter of Europe’:  Turkey is the 14^th. largest economy in the world, the UK being about the 5^th. Both maintain competent military forces: Turkey, having been neutral for most of WW2, was a founder-member of anti-Russia NATO and has 510,700 men in its conscript-based Armed Forces. Both countries have extensive varied trade and financial networks: Turkey is in the middle of a credit-based boom: retail loan growth (credit cards) is running at a predicted (unsustainable!) annual rate of 40%, and April’s monthly current account deficit, at $7.7 billion, is the second-biggest monthly gap since 1984. Britain, of course, is at the other end of this kind of financial escapade.

Both countries are, in their own ways, functioning democracies. Here, however, differences are in evidence: the turn-out in Turkey’s recent election for a unicameral Parliament was nearly 90%. ‘Minor’ parties have shrunk, in part because of an imposed ‘10%’ electoral support requirement, designed in part to undermine a Kurdish political movement. The ruling AKP and the CHP (the main opposition) together won 76% of the vote. The AKP, with 50% of the votes, won 327 of the 550 seats, this being Prime Minister Erdogan’s third successive win. Whatever the AKP’s original geographical base in the more traditionally religious parts of Turkey, it is now a genuinely national party, well attuned to both the religious and material interests and concerns of the average young Muslim Turk. A kind of public-sector mortgage facility has enabled thousands of Turkish families to become owner-occupiers of a unit in the hundreds of new blocks of flats. AKP election literature made much of the hundreds of new hospitals and local medical centres: and of the reduction, through state regulation, in the prices of medicines as well as of the provision of school books (free for millions) and of the very real extension of educational opportunity and of jobs in the semi-regulated industrial and commercial life of Turkey. While Turkish per capita income is about half that of Western Europe, AKP election literature, identifying and proclaiming the progress made over the last decade, very clearly looks forward to parity by 2023, the centennial year of the founding of the Turkish Republic.

Whether actually ‘in Europe’ (an option now favoured by a minority of the electorate) or ‘merely’ in NATO, or as the major power in its Eastern and Muslim hinterland, Turkey is a major geo-political player indeed in the dangerous world of Southern Europe and the Middle East. The AKP’s foreign policy is summed up in the slogan ‘Zero Problems’ by which PM Erdogan means that Turkey will pick no fights nor respond with aggressive intent to any action of its neighbours and near-neighbours  – Greece, Bulgaria, the Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Israel, Russia  – etc: This is an extraordinarily tall order! Indeed, at the time of writing the Turkish government is watching with great care the movement of Syrian troops and Syrian refugees in the border area of Hatay   – a province which became part of Turkey only in 1938: and it has quite clearly put pressure on would-be Gaza blockade-breakers to remove the Turkish element from whatever flotilla sails away later in the year. Turkey has also yet to settle the ‘Kurdish Problem’, being home to 12 million Kurds and (other minorities). Persistently, though, whether in its conversations or negotiations with Israel or Syria, Prime Minister Erdogan’s Government seeks to adhere to the ‘Zero Problems’ approach. This foreign policy is, of course, backed up by the very considerable power and strategic importance of Turkey’s armed forces, a power and strategic importance underlined by the major up-grade of NATO’s base at Izmir. It was this power, too, which led Israel’s Prime Minister to write a very prompt letter of congratulations to Erdogan expressing Israel’s concern to maintain good relations with Turkey, relations somewhat frayed by the affair of the Gaza Flotilla and the killing by Israeli troops of 8 Turkish activists on board the Mavi Marmara. While the stability and competence of the Armed Forces risks being fractured by the on-going prosecution of very senior officers for their alleged role in ‘conspiracies, Turkey’s foreign policy is further under-girded by a wide network of international cultural and commercial connections and promotional activities. At the time of writing, Turkey is playing host to a US-based association of Balkan émigrés to the USA; and to a ‘Language Olympiad’ in which over one thousand young people from over 130 countries demonstrate their competence in the Turkish language and culture, a competence derived in part from the schools opened in countries like Nigeria by the Gullen organization. Unlike Britain, Turkey seems proud of its broader or even imperial role. An Exhibition currently at the Istanbul Museum of Archaeology traces the nature and fates of several empires, concluding with ‘the Ottoman Dominion/Empire: 1299-1923’ – note the dates! – and, over-riding the several manifestations of this ‘empire’, concludes with the statement that ‘the cultural and artistic legacy of the Ottoman Empire is kept alive in the Republic period’, i.e. from 1923 onwards. An AKP election leaflet insists that Turkey in 2011 is liked and admired throughout the world. Opinion polls now indicate that most Turks are  indifferent to the blandishments (or to the contumely) of ‘Europe’. Turkey is, according to Mr Erdogan the ‘sick man’ neither of Europe nor of anywhere else in the world.

Even a government as well supported in the Grand National Assembly as is the AKP will find it difficult to create a world of ‘Zero Problems’. The ur-text of Turkish politics is a debate or dispute about the nature of Turkey’s inheritance from the founding father, Ataturk. Statues and pictures of Ataturk are ubiquitous – a kind of explicit and public obeisance to his life, example and policies. Turkish politics are in some sense a dispute about the nature of this inheritance. While early on his leadership, Ataturk clearly found it convenient to address the sensitivities of the predominantly Muslim and conservative population of the new Republic, by the time of his death in 1938 he had established, in the new state of Turkey, a secular Republic from which Sultan, Caliph, madrassas, the adhaan and the fez had been driven out and in which the potentially anti-secular forces of conservative Islam had been neutralized by a mixture of terror, repression and electoral manipulation. Although radical – women, for example, were progressively enfranchised in 1930, 1933 and 1934 – Ataturk’s Republic, while secular – was not (as it is now) democratic. To safeguard what was obviously a precarious polity, Ataturk gave what was in effect supervisory control to the Army and to the judiciary – both of these institutions stacked with Kemalist (i.e. Ataturk’s) supporters: and three times since WW2 the Army stepped in to ‘remedy’ what it saw as the excesses of democracy. The AKP’s success has rather reversed this way of defending secularism: and in presenting ‘democracy’ as the basis and guarantor of the Republic has perhaps put secularism at risk. It has certainly set about the Army: not a day goes by when yet another senior military officer is arraigned and arrested on charges of conspiracy, while journalists too join the soldiers in the long wait for a trial: at the moment the Turkish Air Force awaits a new commander, several of the best candidates being accused or suspected of involvement in one of two long-running ‘conspiracies’. Pro-Islamic policies such as re-opening the argument about female head-covering or the sale and consumption of alcohol are further evidence of the newly-released power of Turkey’s (and Ataturk’s) ‘democracy’ to temper Ataturk’s secularism. In the political controversies engendered by these struggles, a large clutch of journalists have found themselves in prison – they are/some of them are ‘terrorists’ said President Gul. The President later qualified this claim: but there are 10 000 court cases currently pending against journalists, making journalism in some parts of Turkey ‘impossible’, said a senior journalist (Hurriyet June 8 2011).

Prime Minister Erdogan plans to complete this re-structuring of the Republic by trying to change the constitution (itself derived from an earlier military coup) to a presidential system: and he is young, able and ambitious enough to be able to see himself as President in 2023, the centennial year of the Republic.

To liberals (including the liberal authors of a much-quoted anti-Erdogan piece in The Economist) this consolidation of ‘democracy’ may well be a vote too far: it may seem odd for liberals to be critical of a politician who has quarantined an over-zealous military, but he has also quarantined a busy and assertive Press. In seeking further limitations on the sale and availability of alcohol, for example, or in liberating the inherently restrictive prescriptions of religion, the ruling AKP may well be casting edging towards a totalitarian form of ‘democracy’, not unlike that practiced by Ataturk, but with the added legitimacy of being grounded in the will of the people. In this ‘tyranny of the majority’   - a formulation seemingly miles away from the evident progress and amiable prosperity of the country  – there might be little room for or tolerance of those minority rights which are now the staple diet of Western liberalism. Turkey’s economy is booming: but there are, in levels of indebtedness and in a growing current account deficit, signs of trouble ahead which may well restrict the publicly-subsidised consumer activity which has for some years provided the relative prosperity for which ‘democracy’ so handsomely rewarded the AKP in the June election. What would then be left of Turkish ‘democracy’ other than its inherent Islamic conservatism, coupled with an edgy sense of troubles on the march in the near East and the Arab Spring – already a serious concern on Turkey’s border with Syria  – and continuing issues with a determined Kurdish minority, currently threatening a boycott of the Assembly?  How helpful and co-operative would the Armed Forces be, given the level of pruning of its senior ranks – indeed, how competent would it be?

Ataturk, in a most amazing way, turned a beaten and dissolving Empire, the ‘sick man of Europe’, into a viable and functioning secular (or secularizing) nation-state. He did this by manipulating ‘democracy’, creating what was in effect a coercive autocracy. The institutions which buttressed this autocracy have now, in the name of democracy, been demolished. What we now have is yet another experiment in nation-building, one in which a secular tradition (with a large if relatively small number of adherents) faces a democratic practice of uncertain provenance and disturbing future. Ubiquitously, over and above the hills and cities of this extraordinary country, fly huge and very visible banners, borne on steel flag-posts clearly built to last. Perhaps the evident cheerful pride Turks take in their accomplishments will see them through – probably more surely than the sad and shamefaced ‘patriotism’ with which the British face their equally dangerous world.

References:

Newspapers:  HURRIYET DAILY NEWS, and ZAMAN

AKP Party Literature

ATATURK, by Andrew Mango, John Murray, 2004

THE POLITICS OF PUBLIC MEMORY, edited by Esra Ozyurek, Syracuse University Press, 2004