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Almost one hundred years ago, modern Turkey emerged as an independent sovereign nation, recognized by the victors of World War I in the Treaty of Lausanne. The new polity’s first president and consummate modernizer was the transformative Kemal Ataturk (“father of all Turks”). A shrewd military leader who had rescued what became Turkey from the chaotic ruins of the Ottoman Empire, Ataturk (as he styled himself), was authoritative, charismatic, and determined to learn from Europe to uplift his peasant-dominated territory economically and spiritually.
Ten decades later, Turkey or Türkiye (as it now prefers), has rejected or is in the process of rejecting much of the secular modernity and democracy that Ataturk prescribed. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who last month won a striking electoral victory by campaigning on a stridently nationalistic platform that promised continued discrimination against Kurds (18 percent of the nation’s 87 million people) and the repatriation to Syria of 4 million displaced refugees, wants to unwind much of what Ataturk wrought.
Ataturk abolished the Ottoman sultanate, removed the caliphate and Islam as an official state religion, and abolished the fez for men and hair covering for women. He envisaged a new political entity that could, thanks to importing European advisors, soon take its place as a developmentally progressive place alongside Britain and France, and Greece, a long-time neighbor and rival. He launched Turkey, in his words “on the highroad of civilization.” That included acquiring knowledge and science and stuffing them “into the head of every individual in the country.” He promised to rid Turkish life of “irrational, useless and harmful doctrines and provisions.” He believed strongly in educating women.
Erdogan is unraveling Ataturk’s reforms as rapidly as possible. Now that he has won another election and his authoritarian rule has received strong voter approval, Erdogan is poised to redouble efforts to entrench Islam as a national creed. Before last month’s poll, he transformed the famed Hagia Sophia museum (once a cathedral) back into a fully functioning mosque. Led dramatically by his wife, he welcomed constantly covered hair for women.
Ataturk was a heavy-handed ruler who sought to strengthen democratic procedures and eventually had to bow to electoral reforms. Erdogan heads in the opposite direction. Appealing opponents, including the popular mayor of Istanbul, were imprisoned and barred from contesting the recent election, leaving the Turkish people with a bland, earnest, mild alternative to Erdogan. His security officials routinely prosecute dissidents and prevent free expression and free assembly. Turkey now has more than 9,000 political prisoners. About 87 journalists remain in detention or awaiting trial. Approximately 350,000 Turks are still being investigated for “terrorism.” A number are prominent lawyers.
Whereas Ataturk was determined to move Turkey as close to Europe as possible in the 1920s and 1930s, Erdogan has in almost every sense killed what once appeared to be Turkey’s promising application to become a member. Now Moldova and Ukraine are likely to be embraced as EU members long before Turkey.
This shift occurred as a result of Erdogan’s determination to play both sides in the war for Ukraine. Although he has sold drones to Ukraine and facilitated the safe passage of ships carrying Ukrainian wheat, barley, and sunflower oil through the Bosphorus Straits, he is also intent on enabling Putin’s war effort. He permits Turkey to purchase concessionary-priced petroleum and natural gas from Russia, despite Western sanctions, and allows (despite sanctions) banned equipment for the Russian military and civilians to transit Turkey onward to Russia.
Turkey was an early member of NATO. Its military force is the second largest (after the United States) in the alliance. But none of Turkey’s military might has been used to oppose Putin’s invasion. Contrast Turkey’s failure to the help Ukraine to the massive per capita contributions of the Baltic states on Russia’s western flank, or assistance from Bulgaria and Romania.
Furthermore, Turkey is still cold-shouldering Sweden’s accession to NATO – ostensibly because Sweden has long given refuge to Kurdish critics of Erdogan. Just yesterday Erdogan again criticized Sweden for failing to corral Kurds and send them to Ankara for punishment.
Ataturk would be appalled by Turkey’s apostasy under Erdogan – its massive retreat from democracy, its annihilation of basic freedoms and human rights, its turning against secularization, and its blatant discrimination against the Kurds. He would further have disdained Erdogan’s embrace of the cultural politics of perpetual grievance.
Trump- and Putin-like, Erdogan rails against those who try to deprive “his” Turkey of its rightful heritage. But manufacturing outrage is electorally easier and more rewarding than fixing real problems. A careful outside analysis points to a new Turkish revivalist nationalism that is “proudly Islamic, often antagonistic, and sometimes a little paranoid.” A Turkish critic says that nationalism is victimization. “You can’t have proper nationalism if you’ve never suffered.” Indeed, “suffering gives you absolution.”
Absolution in turn “justifies” absolutism. A majority of Turkish voters preferred Erdogan’s intolerance of criticism and determined authoritarianism to rights for Kurds. Turkish women favored his conservative stance in favor of strict adherence to Islam and head scarves. Voters seemingly were willing overlook rampant inflation (rising to over 84 percent), the collapse of the lira against Western currencies, and the country’s massive corruption that led to devastation in the recent earthquakes throughout its southeastern region. (Erdogan used state funds to build himself a $615 million 1,100 room presidential palace.) Erdogan also benefited from his control of media outlets and his persecution over several years of suspected critics. Self-censorship is rife.
Ataturk would never have positioned Turkey against the West. He would have disdained Putin for the egotistical self-aggrandizer that he is, no matter how much discounted oil and gas benefits the cronies and industrialists who are close to Erdogan. But Ataturk’s model and example no longer prevail. Conceivably, it will still somehow be possible to bring Turkey in from the cold, to benefit Ukraine and assist peacemaking in northern Syria. Doing so could materially end Putin’s imperialistic attack on the free world.