Islam, conservatism, and democracy in Turkey: comparing Turgut Ozal and Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

• Author: Heper, Metin
• Position: Report

Turkey has inherited from its Ottoman times a cultural center-periphery divide. The Westernization reforms undertaken in the early Republican decades were aimed at the modernization of the center, while the periphery was left to its own devices. Even after the transition to multi-party politics in the 1940s, in the eyes of the Republican establishment, the periphery for the most remained "backward" in cultural terrms. Under these circumstances, the periphery could not play a significant role for several decades, except in the ballot box beginning in 1950. Despite the fact that several road blocks were laid in their path, Turgut Ozal in 1983-1993 and Recep Tayyip Erdogan from 2002 to the present (2013) have managed to bring the periphery into the center, thus, eventually enabling it to begin to play a major role in the Turkish economy and polity. The present essay is an introduction to that saga. (1)

Turgut Ozal's Story

Turgut Ozal (1927-1993) was Turkey's eighth Pesident of the Republic. After having attended secularly oriented primary and secondary schools, Ozal graduated from Istanbul Technical University, and then for a while studied economics in the United States. He headed twice the State Planning Organization (SPO), worked at the World Bank and at the Sabanci Holding Company. In 1983, Ozal formed the Motherland Party, served as Prime Minister until 1989, and was the President of the Republic for another four years. Ozal had a deep attachment to Islam. His father, Mehmet Siddik, was a devout Muslim, having played a significant role in Ozal's religious beliefs and practices. At different periods in his life, Ozal regularly attended the Naksibandi Brotherhood's Iskenderpasa Dergahi (Seminary) in Istanbul. Ozal had connections with Mehmet Zahit Kotku (18971980), who was the Shaykh of the Iskenderpasa Dergahi. Kotku had an extraordinary sensitivity to modernity. He had played a significant role in the forming of the National Order Party (Milli Nizam Partisi-MNP) in 1969; the MNP was the first of the five religiously oriented political parties established in Republican Turkey. (2)

For Ozal, Islam had remained a significant personal reference. He publicly expressed his Muslim identity.This particular orientation to Islam on the part of Ozal, however, did not prevent him from leading a modern life-style. Indeed, Ozal occasionally consumed alcoholic drinks in public, so did his wife Semra Hanim. Mrs. Ozal had never covered and was even known to smoke cigars. The Ozals were often seen showing affection in public by walking hand in hand.

Ozal was an idealist with far-fetched dreams, as he set for himself grandiose goals, believing that he had a "calling," a "divinely ordained mission," and Allah would help him to achieve that mission. Despite the fact that he increasingly sought Allah's help and direction, his primary means to realize his goals remained secular. He was a Western oriented engineer with a secular mind-set. When he was faced with an important issue, he used rational thinking rather than turning to religious texts. Also as he was a pragmatic person, Ozal took his distance from closed-minded secular ideologies. Neither did he allow Islam or his loyalty to a particular Islamic group to shape his decisions and policies. For instance, while prime minister, he did not tap into the Islam-friendly private sector. He based the allocation of resources solely on objective economic criteria.

Moreover, Ozal's particular take on Islam must have played an important role in why he kept a distance not only from secular (closed-minded) ideologies but also from radical Islam, advocated by Arab, Persian, and Pakistani Islamists such as Sayyid Qutb (1906-1979), Ali Shariati (1933-1977), and Mawlana Mawdudi (1903-1979). Rather, Ozal's views were more inclined towards the Islam of certain Turkish Muslim intellectuals like Necip Fazil Kisakurek (1904-1983) and Nurettin TopCu (1909-1975) as well as Sufi groups such as the followers of Fethullah Gulen. The latter thinkers and groups did not subscribe to radical Islam and thus they have not embraced political Islam. This means they are not a group of thinkers that promote a return of a state based on religion. Prime Minister Ozal even lifted the ban on Fethullah Gulen's preaching because he wanted to employ Gulen's views and activities against radical Islamic groups. (3)

Although Ozal opposed certain Republican ideals and policies, his reservations about those ideals and policies were not informed by religious considerations. Particularly in the early Republican period, the Ottoman past had been relegated to the attic of Turkish history, as those centuries were considered a complete failure. In contrast, Ozal's held the Ottoman past in high-regard. On a completely different cultural topic, Ozal even argued in support of the growing popularity of Arabesk music, a Turkish folk music genre with a mix of Western popular and Egyptian elements, as it was frowned upon by the Republican establishment. Ozal held the view that the Republican establishment had no right to pass value judgment on popular pleasures and consumer choices. More significantly, Ozal challenged such taboos in Turkey as the long-standing Kurdish problem. He opined that all possible solutions to deal with that problem, including federalism, should be freely debated.

More generally, for Ozal it was necessary that instead of "people serving the state, the state should serve the people." It is no coincedence that the three significant dimensions of Ozal's Turkey project had been the introduction to and consolidation in that country of three crucial freedoms, namely the freedom of expression, the freedom of entrepreneurship, and the freedom of religion and conscience. Ozal wished to enable Turkey to compete with advanced countries on the international markets as well as transform the Turkish state so it could be responsive to the needs, preferences, and sentiments of its people. Ozal thought he was the only person capable of successfully carrying out this "mission."

Ozal also made significant contributions to democracy in Turkey. Ozal enabled Turkish politics to leave behind certain taboos and thus begin to debate such significant issues as the very function of the state vis-a-vis the people, possible solutions to the Kurdish problem, the nature of Republican secularism and laicism, and the civil-military relations in Turkey. In the process, Turks began to have real debates on these quintessential issues without necessarily incurring crises of political legitimacy.

Ozal also contributed to the gradual emergence of consensual politics. With the goal in mind to leave behind the polarized and conflict-ridden politics of the 1960s and 1970s, he attempted to bring together and reconcile the center-right, the center-left, the ultra-nationalist, and the Islamist views under the roof of the Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi-ANAP), which he had formed in 1983. At least for a while, ANAP had become a melting pot of these four parties, which one could argue held four different world views. For the first time, those with different political platforms began to come together in panel discussions and engage in a real debate. It has been suggested that the relatively smoothly functioning ANAP coalition governments of 1991-1993 and of 1999-2002, bringing together diverse parties, such as the Republican People's Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi-CHP), the True Path Party (Dogru Yol Partisi-DYP), the Democratic Left Party (Demokratik Sol Parti-DSP), and the Nationalist Movement Party (MilliyetCi Hareket Partisi-MHP), have been the end results of the politics of harmony begun by Ozal's vision of how the Turkish political system should work.

Yet, not unexpectedly, fully liberal yet less than democrat Ozal came to have a penchant for a highly personal leadership. Not unexpectedly he longed for a presidential system of government. Seeing his presidency as the centerpiece to this system, Ozal preferred to make all the important decisions by himself, expecting others only to provide the information he needed. In the 1987 general elections, ANAP had not been as successful as it had been in the 1983 general election. Thereupon, a number of faculty members, including the present author, were asked by Mesut Yilmaz, who was Minister of Culture and Tourism in the Ozal government, to brief Ozal on what might have been the possible reasons behind this relative electoral failure of ANAP. However, during their meeting with Ozal, the faculty members could hardly get a word in edgewise, as Ozal dominated the conversation and rattled on about how successful ANAP have been over the years. Ozal had been an entrepreneurial politician who managed to get things done as soon possible. Thus, he was referred to in Turkish as 'i?bitirici polikac?.' He tried to get things done at all costs. Consequently, Ozal had a great deal of impatience for the procedural rules of democracy, so much so that on one occasion, he stated "it would not be the end of the world if one acts contrary to the [1982 Turkish] Constitution only once!"

When Ozal was Prime Minister (1983-1991), he made key political...