(I stumbled across this a little while ago. Zeynep Tufekciogul was one of the 3 moderators of the Marxism-International list that preceded Marxmail. She is analyzing the Welfare Party in Turkey, a formation that led to the AKP.)
Subject: Welfare coalition From: Zeynep Tufekcioglu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 19:56:54 +0300 TURKEY - A COALITION OF CORRUPTION As the pro-Islamic Welfare and the conservative-liberal True Path formed a coalition government, eyebrows were raised - is Turkey falling to the same path as Iran & Algiers? This article argues that Turkey is not Algiers, nor is Welfare the FIS, and no fundamental change should expected regarding Turkey's bankrupt policy of total subjection to US/IMF imperialism. --- SECULARISM OF TURKEY Secularism is one of the foundations of the Republic of Turkey, accepted by the general population - so goes the often repeated claim. However secularism in Turkey has never meant the separation of the Church (as used in the general sense, as obviously Turkey is a Muslim country) and the State. It has, from day one, meant the subjugation of religion to the state, to be manipulated and used according to the requirements of Turkish capitalism. Independent religious organisations are heavily discouraged, and outright prohibited if they represent a non-Sunni sect, i.e. the Alawites. Non-Islamic religious organisations are allowed as per the Lausanne Treaty - but they represent an ever shrinking portion of the population, and again the line is very clear - no opposition politics. This peculiar interpretation of Secularism has meant that religion was always an issue in Turkish politics. The first wave of repression began with the establishment of the Republic in 1923. Religion then represented the Ottoman-identity, which the ruling bourgeois class in Turkey saw as the major obstacle to capital accumulation and modernisation in the bourgeois sense. After the Second Imperialist War, after a generation had flourished under the Kemalist rule, and after Turkish capitalism took firmer root, religious identity again became an important pivot of politics. Following the 1980 military coup, the junta leadership adhered to the US "green-belt" policy of allowing mild-Islam to take prosper as an insurance against left/communist threat. Of course, a double-edged sword as religion is, some people did find Islam to be their expression of opposition in the era of repression and censorship. WELFARE DOES NOT DESERVE RESPECT EVEN AS AN BOURGEOIS OPPOSITION What is the Welfare, then? Not to mince with words, it is a pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist party of impressive powers of demagogy. The leadership has intense vested interest in Turkish capitalism, owning banks (no interest, just "profit sharing", of course"), holdings, companies of every sort. All their pre- government talk of abandoning Nato, Customs Union, rejecting the deployment of US forces under the guise "Operation Provide Comfort", of abolishing interest etc. has been dropped like a hot potato. The US deputy Secretary of State was the first foreign dignitary to visit the new government, promptly announcing that relations with Turkey would continue on a base of "mutual cooperation and benefit". As for the Welfare followers, composing around 20-25% of the electorate, they form a heterogeneous coalition. Some are genuine poor slum population whose recent introduction to the urban world is causing an identity turmoil, as they find themselves unable to find proper jobs and looked down by the "Western" urban population. Some are bourgeois small business owners, similar to the Bazaar following of the Iranian Mullahs, terrified of their decline into the proletariat as they are squeezed by the bigger capitalists, most of which are pro-EU, pro-Western. The leadership, as stated above, is rich capitalists whose wealth compares with other "Western" capitalists of Turkey. Erbakan, the president of Welfare, is a self-admitted Dollar millionaire. And there is a very small minority of Islamic militants, who often view the Welfare as a revisionist front to undermine while working with, much similar to the view some left groups hold towards the social democrats. One of the biggish radical groups, the IBDA-C, the followers of which read Lenin to learn how to organise and claim to denounce capitalism, suffered a major police operation - just before the coalition was formed. Welfare denounces such groups as adventurist. The fact of sharing power is bound to cause tension among the various "tendencies" that make up the Welfare. PARTNERS IN CORRUPTION Both Ciller, the leader of the Truepath, and Erbakan were facing major corruption charges before the coalition was formed. The charges were but proven, and parliamentary investigations had begun as each parties supporters launched these charges against one another. The unannounced coalition protocol called for a mutual cease-fire, and the first thing the coalition government cooperated about was dismantling the investigation committees. The corruption charges would probably end the political career of both, as they were rather outrageous even by the Turkish standards. There will obviously be a more Islamic tone in Turkish politics, but it is bound to be rather superficial. The military coup had introduced mandatory religious classes for all high-school students in 1980. Ciller had often announced that she was "the defender of the Mosque and the Ezan (the Muslim call to prayer)". Welfare already has power in Ankara and Istanbul, albeit by a 25-27% vote as the Turkish electorate is atomised between the IMF parties. Turkey launched one of its biggest ever interventions to Northern Iraq just days after the government was formed, in an another attempt to crush the Kurdish guerrillas. Hunger-strikes by political prisoners to resist separation into single-person cells, dubbed tombs, and to gain the right to books, paper, pencil, books and a more humane treatment has entered day 57 - a point of no return even in case of survival, and the new government denounced them as terrorists as the previous one had. Even a major bourgeois TV network was suspended because it attempted to broadcast some pictures of the hunger-strikers, more for the sensation value out of any concern. Mass arrests of political activists, trade-unionists, relatives of prisoners and "missing" persons continue. Murder under custody and "shoot-to-kill" policy of the police has not relented. Welfare expresses commitment to NATO, the Customs Union with EU and it will probably ratify the deployment of US forces, and a stand-by agreement with IMF is in sight. The guess now is whether the agreement will come before or after the economy crashes again, as it did in 1994. Other than that, not much new under the sun as far as the working people and the persecuted Kurdish or Alawite population of this nation is concerned. -- www.marxmail.org
