The Challenges to Turkey

Eric Rouleau

From Foreign Affairs, November/December 1993

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Summary:  Turkey's historical knack for melding contradictions continues. Kemal Atatürk, founder of the modern republic, left a legacy that Turks are actively adapting. Relative isolationism is giving way to rising regional power. Secular democracy has let Islam back out of the bottle. And dogmatic homogeneity is being usurped by growing cultural awareness of, and even fondness for, the Ottoman past. Turks are becoming more Turkish again, and old taboos are falling one by one.

THE CONTRADICTIONS OF ATATÜRK'S LEGACY

Istanbul is an apt metaphor for Turkey: at once multifaceted, diverse, and unitary; Byzantine, Ottoman, Asiatic, and European; modern and traditional; parochial and cosmopolitan; Muslim and Christian, even Jewish. Astride two continents-figuratively and literally, then, of Asia and Europe-the megapolis bears the marks of a succession of civilizations that are not merely superimposed, but that continue to coexist. The splendid domes of the Byzantine churches, built under the Eastern Roman Empire between the fifth and fifteenth centuries, are set off by the thousand and one graceful minarets of the mosques later built to the glory of the sultans of the Ottoman Empire: the basilica of Sancta Sophia, disguised as a mosque, symbolizes the synthesis. The presence in the city of the Greek patriarchate, the "Vatican" of Orthodox Christendom, testifies to the tolerance that allowed the sultans to reign over a multitude of peoples and races, religions and sects, in an empire that stretched from the Arab east to the borders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, from the Balkans to North Africa. The astonishing range of physical types and complexions in Istanbul today is a reflection of that great diversity.

In founding the republic on the ashes of empire following the debacle of World War I, Kemal Atatürk imposed upon these disparate peoples the dogma of the homogeneity of the Turkish nation. He saw the elimination of ethnic and cultural differences as the only way to forge the cohesion needed to create a modern nation state on the European model. Through persuasion, but also by draconian decrees and repressive measures, he succeeded in imposing an identity that sought to be monolithic, a culture of Western inspiration.

The vestiges of Kemalist policy are considerable, but atavisms and centuries-old traditions began to resurface soon after Atatürk's death. They have continued to gather force with the democratization that has been proceeding by fits and starts since the 1950s, and especially since the early 1980s. Taboos are falling one by one. Not so long ago, favorable references to the history and culture of the Ottoman Empire were frowned upon in "politically correct" circles. Today, Turks speak with pride of their Ottoman heritage even while retaining a certain critical distance. They likewise readily refer to their ethnic origins without in any way diminishing their "Turkishness," in much the way an American might speak of being "Irish" or "Italian."

Former President Özal, who died earlier this year, contributed a great deal to reconciling the Turks with their past and promoting the synthesis between Kemalism and what he considered to be the positive aspects of Ottomanism. He believed that diversity in unity could contribute to strength and stability, just as it had under the empire.

BEYOND KEMALIST ISOLATION

Özal's convictions were well suited to the geopolitical needs of a new international situation. The fall of the Berlin Wall ended Turkey's long-standing strategic role in a bipolar world. Meanwhile, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequent independence of the Central Asian republics ...

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