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Court ban triggers
split among Turkey’s Islamist politicians
By our
own correspondent
The recent
ban on Turkey’s Islamist Fazilat (‘Virtue’) Party (Fazilet
Partisi or FP) caused division in the ranks of the country’s
largest Islamist party along the lines of a longstanding
rift between its so-called "traditionalist"/
"loyalist" and "modernist" / "reformist"
factions. The division was officially sealed with the
formation of a new party, Saadet (‘Felicity’) Partisi,
SP, led by Racai Kutan. The new party, which is believed
to be directed from behind the scenes by former prime
minister Necmettin Erbakan, represents the traditionalist
wing and includes some 50 of the 100 deputies of the
outlawed Fazilat. Some disgruntled members of other
parties, such as deputy prime minister Mesut Yilmaz’s
Motherland Party, have also turned to Saadet.
Announcing
the formation of the new party, Kutan used words of
symbolism and passion. "We will serve all the Turkish
people, without discrimination. We are going to show
our difference by being faithful to moral and national
values," he told journalists in Ankara. He emphasized
that there would be a world of difference between other
"materialist" parties and the new party, which
would advocate religious freedom but would not challenge
the secular basis of the Turkish state. Saadet would
also push for a human rights court and the end of the
overbearing judicial authority exercised by the state
security courts, Kutan said.
Fazilat’s
modernizers are rallying behind former Istanbul mayor
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and are expected to launch their
own new party shortly. As long ago as June, Abdullah
Gul, a leading figure in the modernizing camp, confirmed
that his faction had "completed all preparations"
to set up a new party. Speaking in an interview with
the Turkish daily Milliyet (June 22, 2001), he also
said that "it will not be long before we come out."
Erdogan
himself has only returned to political life in July
after a court ruling overturned a ban from politics
on him. The courts had imposed a life ban against Erdogan
for "inciting religious hatred" by reciting
a poem with pro-Islamist allusions at a rally. He has
recently drawn attention by a series of public appearances
around the country, yet his legal status remains uncertain.
He has been trying to project an image of himself as
what political scientists call a "valence"
politician, someone who emphasizes agreement rather
than disagreement and the need to appeal to a broader
electorate instead of addressing only the pious and
religiously-oriented voters. This could be a tactic
to keep the ire of the generals at bay. Yet it comes
at the enormous cost of diluting the identity and programme
of the Islamic movement. The most likely outcome is
a centre-right party with a religious inclination.
The now-defunct
Fazilat was banned in June by Turkey’s constitutional
court for "engaging in activities contrary to the
principles of the secular republic." The move annulled
the votes of more than 5 million Turks. With its 102
deputies, Fazilat led the opposition in the 550-seat
parliament. The court’s verdict banned only two Fazilat
deputies from politics, allowing the rest to remain
as independents. This is widely regardedly as an attempt
by the court to avoid causing strains in the current
tripartite government that could result from a series
of by-elections if a large number of Fazilat deputies
had been banned.
Fazilat
is the fourth Islamist party to be banned on charges
of anti-secular activities in Turkey in less than four
decades. In 1998, the constitutional court banned FP’s
predecessor, the Refah (‘welfare’) Party. Its leader,
Erbakan, Turkey’s first Islamist prime minister, was
forced to step down in 1997 under pressure from the
ultra-secularist army. He was subsequently banned from
holding political office for 5 years. Erbakan’s National
Order Party and National Salvation Party were outlawed
after the 1971 and 1981 coups respectively.
The blow
dealt to the Turkish Islamist movement by the constitutional
court’s verdict against Fazilat was compounded by another
blow on July 31, when the European Court of Human Rights
(ECHR) decided that Turkey did not violate Article 11
of the European Convention on Human Rights when it banned
Refah in 1998. The court also decided not to hear an
array of other Refah complaints against Turkey. The
ECHR judges in Strasbourg said in their decision, that
the ban on Refah could "reasonably be considered
to meet a pressing social need for the protection of
democratic society." They added that the party’s
political programme, which declared its intention to
implement the shari’ah, contravened the Convention on
Human Rights. Political parties can be banned in some
European countries, but only if they advocate or resort
to violent means. The ECHR’s approval of the ban on
Refah for its non-violent beliefs shattered the hopes
that many in the Turkish Islamist movement had had that
Europe would ward off some of the excesses of Kemalism.
Members of Refah had brought the case to the ECHR in
the hope that it would rule against Turkey. But Europe’s
ability to overcome its centuries-old anti-Islamic bigotry
is still wanting.
The rift
in Fazilat emerged at its convention last year. It was
triggered by disagreements over the influence on Fazilat
of Erbakan, widely seen as the party’s real but shadow
leader, and culminated in an unsuccessful challenge
to the chairmanship of Kutan, an Erbakan loyalist. The
division in the ranks of the Turkey’s Islamist politicians
could not have come at a more inopportune moment. It
is a blow to the chances of the Islamist movement, which
has played an influential role in the country’s political
life since the 1970s despite bans and coups, to take
advantage of the decrease in popular support that has
left the country’s major political parties and leaders
bereft of any significant following. Confidence in mainstream
political parties is at an all-time low because of rampant
corruption and the climate of economic uncertainty brought
about by a severe financial crisis. Since February,
hundreds of thousand of Turks have lost their jobs or
businesses; the national currency, the lira, has lost
some 50 percent of its value.
Despite
Kutan’s assertion that "we have emerged from this
closure decision by growing," the split will inevitably
weaken the Islamist movement, whose two factions are
expected to compete for the support of the same segment
of the electorate. Opinion polls have shown far more
support for the modernizing faction. A recent poll by
a Turkish newspaper found that 74 percent of Islamic-oriented
voters would vote for a modernizing party, whereas only
14 percent indicated that they would vote for the traditionalists.
Polls also suggest that, were a general election to
be held now, none of the current parties in government
would be able to pass the 10 percent threshold required
to enter parliament.
In the
meantime, the army has reportedly finished drafting
a new 100-page document to replace the security paper
of April 1997. The new document characterizes "fundamentalist"
and "separatist" parties as "imminent
internal security threats." The so-called "National
Security Policy" document also stresses the military’s
determination to continue its pursuit of closer military
cooperation with Israel. The fact that this year’s document
regards the bogey of "fundamentalism" as a
threat indicates the military’s determination to continue
its inquisition against any form of Islamic activism
in the country, regardless of how "moderate"
an image it tries to project. The fate of Fazilat, which
made concerted efforts in this regard, is telling. Its
political platform differed little from those of other
conservative parties; the core of its Islamist activities
centred merely on campaigning for the end of the official
bans on women wearing hijab in government offices and
on university campuses.
The new
security document, which avoids mentioning the upheavals
that could result from the country’s deepening economic
crisis, clearly signals the intent of the ultra-secularist
military to clamp down on any political groups to emerge
from the ruins of Fazilat. In this it reflects the military
establishment’s commitment, reiterated bluntly on January
16 by Turkish chief of general staff Gen. Huseyin Kivrikoglu,
who pledged that the armed forces would "if necessary
fight Islamic fundamentalism for another 1,000 years."
Perhaps
it is time for Turkey’s Muslims to take heed and try
to find another, and completely different, way forward.
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