How to Fix Turkey’s Fall From International Favor

Michael Shank, Ph.D.
Michael Shank, Ph.D.


Date posted: March 13, 2015

MICHAEL SHANK, PH.D.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent attack on the West for “hate speech” and misattributing terrorism during the Paris attacks is ironic. Erdogan is erroneously doing both already: labeling the Gulen movement a terrorist organization and using hate speech to characterize it. In fact, Erdogan is cracking down on religious groups more heavily than ever before.

While the Turkish government is allowing the construction of a Christian church, the first in 90 years, no one is under the illusion that Erdogan’s regime is now suddenly supportive of religious freedom and rights. If anything, it’s quite the opposite. Failure to allow the reopening of Halki Orthodox seminary and the defamatory references to Armenians are examples of how Christians continue to suffer under Erdogan’s regime.

Indiscriminate persecution of the Islam-inspired Hizmet movement — and the recent jailing of journalists, police chiefs and teachers who support the movement and its leader, Fethullah Gulen — shows that protection of rights is clearly not a priority in the president’s administration. The recent crackdown on a major newspaper and a television station based in Istanbul — the Zaman newspaper and Samanyolu Broadcasting Group, respectively — garnered Erdogan few friends in the international community.

Most likely, this church building is a last-ditch attempt to send a political olive leaf to Christians in the West and any allies in Europe who haven’t already dismissed Erdogan’s administration for endangering its democracy.

It’s a shame that it has come to this. Prior to the crackdowns that escalated with the Erdogan corruption scandal and Gezi Park protests of 2013, Turkey had witnessed over a decade of economic growth and democratic reform under Erdogan’s leadership. As one of the world’s most powerful economies, Turkey was positioned to be one of the world’s biggest trading partners and one of the West’s key allies and negotiators in the Middle East. Those hopes are now all but gone.

Erdogan has thrown much, if not all, of this goodwill away. And as Erdogan chairs the G20 this year, the irony of Erdogan overseeing the G20’s Anti-Corruption Action Plan isn’t lost on anyone — especially as Turkey’s Corruption Perceptions Index rankings have slipped precipitously, falling more than any other country in last month’s index findings.

What’s most confounding, however, from a geopolitical perspective, is Erdogan’s deep political insecurity. The president’s efforts to undermine or eradicate any opposition party ranks as one of the most imprudent political power grabs of the 21st century. By alienating the Hizmet movement — which has built its civic base on an Islam-inspired commitment to tolerance, nonviolence, education, and science — Erdogan simultaneously alienated other allies throughout the international community.

Aggressively jailing without warrant, closing schools without just cause, and erroneously and irresponsibly slapping the “terrorist” label on critics of the administration, Erdogan is slowly but surely associating himself with the more infamous autocrats who have angered America and other rich countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in the past. Turkey must remain in the moderate Islamic middle so as to not be associated with the likes of ex-presidents Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, autocrats who preferred emergency rule as a way of tamping down public protest.

The way forward, then, if Erdogan wants to slow his country’s free fall from international favor, is to recognize that the power of his presidency, and his recent reelection, rests in his ability to curry favor among the many, not the few. And no amount of cozying up to the Kurdistan Workers Party (also known as the PKK and labeled by the U.S. as a terrorist organization) as a way of garnering Kurdish votes will make up for the violations of basic human rights and freedoms of the Hizmet movement and beyond, all of which has been documented by international media.

The world wants Turkey to be back on the international trade and regional diplomacy track, but that’s only possible if corruption and crackdowns discontinue. These are scandals that no international ally wants plaguing their internal politics via external association with Erdogan’s administration. And while a course correction for Ankara is possible in 2015, it must come quickly and unequivocally. The biggest obstacle, at this point, to a lasting and successful Erdogan presidency is Erdogan himself.


*Michael Shank, Ph.D., is adjunct faculty at George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and senior fellow at the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict.

Source: Huffington Post , March 12, 2015


Related News

Time For Gulen Movement To Leave Turkey?

Turkey is a hell for people inspired by teachings of cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is residing in rural Pennsylvania. Participants of the movement always say that their dream is way big to fit in the constraints of Turkey. Perhaps it is time to jump out of these constraints. At least for now.

Kimse Yok Mu heals wounds in the Philippines

Having earlier delivered Turkey’s relief aid to the Filipino flood victims, Kimse Yok Mu Foundation now gears up for a polyclinic and an orphanage as a part of its permanent aid initiatives in the region.

What is at stake is not prep schools [in Turkey]

Will Prime Minister Erdoğan really close prep schools down if he is bent on it? Why not? Although Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, speaking after a Cabinet meeting last Monday, tried to reassure people by announcing that the government will discuss the matter once more with the stakeholders involved, PM Erdoğan refuted Arınç once again by saying they would shut them down. Isn’t this sufficient in showing his resolve in this regard?

Pro-gov’t media knows no limits in ’parallel’ claims

Ever since President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan launched a battle against the faith-based Hizmet movement after a corruption probe went public on Dec. 17, 2013, almost no day has passed without pro-government media outlets’ bringing forward allegations about the “parallel structure or state” and associating any negative development in the country with this so-called structure.

Fethullah Gülen on Acts of Terrorism – in light of Paris and Beirut

Gülen’s position on violent extremism is based on a comprehensive, thorough and robust understanding and reading of the spirit and teachings of Islam’s primary sources, the Qur’an and Sunna – the same foundations on which its core teachings are based.

A Case for Why Gulen Would Never Support a Coup

In his interview with the prominent French newspaper Le Monde, Gulen has called the July 15 events in Turkey a “terror coup.” As a man who has always condemned terrorism and violence in any shape or form, to which his life’s work is evidence, it is hard to believe that Gulen could have had the slightest connection to the coup.

Latest News

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

University refuses admission to woman jailed over Gülen links

In Case You Missed It

Erdoğan calls on US to extradite Gülen in return for jailed US pastor in Turkey

European Muslims Want Participation, Not Integration: Role of the Gulen Movement

Nigeria – Our students should not be victims of Turkey’s high-handedness and authoritarianism

They think we are terrorists, they think we are evil

Halki, pope, patriarch and Gülen

Gulen-linked RI schools remain calm amid coup in Indonesia

Brazil’s top court denies extradition of [Gulen-linked] Erdogan opponent

Copyright 2023 Hizmet News