[Part I | Part II]

My last post discussed Turkey’s historical fears, past wars and ongoing threats all of which helped form their present form of government and its policies. I’ll now move on to the present

So what does the future hold for Turkey? Increasing connectivity and the multifaceted forces of globalization will not spare Turkey. Increasing fragmentation within the country will be offset by regional integration. Yet, where is Turkey supposed to integrate. Turkey’s NSC have already been scared by the fall of the Shah in Iran, the breakup of the USSR and the meltdown of Yugoslavia. With nothing but shaky autocratic regimes in its neighborhood, Turkey rightly feels threatened not only by the collapse of neighbors but also of Turkey itself and Iraqi Kurdistan isn’t helping.

Multiethnic, not multicultural

Thus, one of Turkey’s biggest challenges for internal stability and to gain EU membership is to finally accept that Turkey is a multiethnic society and work quickly to implement real change to that end. Oppression of non-Turks goes all the way back to Atatürk himself who first began persecuting the Kurds and any civilian government who wants to distance himself from the historical party line will have great difficulty. Turkey wants to have its cake and eat it too, not allowing the Kurds and others to separate but also not affording them the same government services and protections of ethnic Turks, which is actually all many of them want.

A Bridge too far?

Being both a geographical and cultural bridge between East and West, Turkey has always been the odd one out, like the child of a mixed marriage. Geopolitically, Turkey is faced with a strengthening and solidifying EU block to its West in which all of the Balkans will soon be incorporated. Even nearby Romania and Bulgaria join the EU in about 8 days. To the east, Turkey is faced with an increasingly volitile and unstable Middle East on top of the Caucasus, struggling to keep out the Russians and to mitigate the consequences of thawing frozen conflicts. Add energy to that equation and as usual, things become more interesting.

With Europe increasingly trying to diversify its energy supplies and to play a bigger role in the Middle East (though whether they can is unclear), Turkey provides the perfect gateway and front man for securing energy transit routes (especially with Georgia as a reliable partner). Cyprus will be the thorn in everyone’s side yet Turkey and Europe have enough mutual interests to make their union not only necessary but geopolitically savy.

New Checks and Balances

Although Turkey boasts a fairly successful hybrid regime, it needs to migrate from the army as its system of checks and balances to Brussels. The following is an excerpt from Turkey Unveiled.

“The legal umbrella of the European Union today is what attracts some Turks, frustrated by the growing inefficiency and injustices of the judicial and governmental system in Ankara. From customs regimes to personal justice Brussels, they believe, could organize things better. Perversely, the republican state machine sometimes seems to believe the same, as if Turkey needed an outside control mechanism to keep it on the straight and narrow.”

The military needs to realize that one of the reasons Turkey’s politican system needs oversight is that the military’s history of intervention has, similar to overprotective parents, kept politicians from learning to accept full responsibility for their actions and also from working. Instead of being allowed to learn from their own mistakes, politicians merely plot their return to politics more carfully, some trying to sidestep the army whenever possible. But even the technically Islamist Welfare Party was moderated in office and maintains very vague religious platform for fear of losing most of its support.

Turkey’s political system was tainted from the begininng by Atatürks autocratic tendencies and has led to a culture of not compromising and where disagreements precipitate party leaders breaking away to found new parties. A look a the country’s long list of parties that have come and gone testifies to this. In addition, Turkey’s radical secularism will need to be checked allowing true separation of mosque and state instead of state oversight and sometimes control of religious schools and places of worship.

Conclusion

Instead of giving in to petty fears and discrimination, Europe must realize that the barbarians are at the gates of Vienna again. However, this time, those gates are on Turkey’s eastern frontier. Turkey too must try to overcome its historical insecurities about Europe and work to secure itself a place in the European block rather than become sandwiched between a stable and succesful Europe and an increasingly chaotic Middle East.

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