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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 January 2000 Issue No. 463 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 January 2000 Issue No. 463
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Heritage Millennium Features Profile Living Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Time for a Turkish silver lining
By Gareth JenkinsThere is an old Turkish saying that one cannot find a treasure in every ruin. But, after a year dominated by two devastating earthquakes, continuing high inflation and international isolation following the death sentence passed on imprisoned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan, most Turks entered the new millennium full of hope about the future.
At first sight, Turks appear to have good grounds for optimism. The war against the PKK has dwindled to its lowest level in a decade. At the 10-11 December 1999 summit meeting in Helsinki, the EU finally officially named Turkey as a candidate for membership. While on 22 December 1999 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced a $4 billion stand-by agreement to support a Turkish government's programme to liberalise the economy and reduce inflation, which has averaged over 60 per cent per annum since 1985, to single figures.
During December 1999 prices on the Istanbul Stock Exchange more than doubled, while Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit confidently predicted that Turkey would meet all the criteria for EU membership well before 2004, when Brussels is expected to announce which of the candidates will be included in the next round of expansion.
But Turkish politicians have always been stronger on rhetoric than action. Despite the heady talk, there has been little sign of a genuine commitment to changing not just laws and regulations but the mentalities that were largely responsible for the extent of the disasters that befell the country in 1999.
On 16 February Turkish special forces, acting on a tip-off from US intelligence, seized Abdullah Ocalan in Kenya, where he had taken refuge in the Greek Embassy four months after the threat of war had forced Syria to expel him from Damascus. He was brought to Turkey for trial on charges of masterminding the PKK's bloody 15 year campaign for Kurdish independence.
Ocalan's capture, trial and sentencing fuelled an upsurge in nationalist pride. In the 19 April general elections, the ultra nationalist National Action Party (MHP) more than doubled its vote from 8 percent to 18 percent, finishing only second to the nationalist-left Democratic Left Party (DSP) of Bulent Ecevit, with which it subsequently formed a tripartite coalition government in partnership with the conservative Motherland Party (ANAP).
Two earthquakes shook Turkey's people and government(photo: AP)
But Ocalan's capture and trial, and the violent protests by his supporters in Europe, focused international attention on Turkey's Kurdish issue.
While most Turks saw Ocalan's capture as a vindication of their government's often draconian suppression of any expression of Kurdish identity, outsiders argued that government policies had actually exacerbated, not eradicated the Kurdish problem, and driven many Kurds to resort to violence.
Although the Turkish parliament is unlikely to ratify Ocalan's death sentence before the case has gone before the European Court of Human Rights, which is expected to rule in early 2001, there is still little sign of any easing of the restrictions on the expression of Kurdish identity.
In August Ocalan announced that the PKK would suspend its armed campaign and withdraw from Turkish territory. By the end of December 1999, most PKK units appeared to have complied, but field commanders continued to warn that they would resume the armed struggle unless the Turkish authorities eased restrictions on Kurdish political and cultural rights.
Meanwhile, there is no indication that the Turkish establishment will ease restrictions on the expression of a religious identity. Under pressure from both the state and internal divisions, the Islamist Virtue Party (FP) performed relatively poorly in the April elections, finishing third with only 15 percent. Many of its supporters shifted allegiance to the MHP, whose philosophy is based on a synthesis of nationalism and religion.
Secularists in the Turkish establishment mistakenly interpreted the FP's poor performance as an indication of a weakening of religious sentiment and increased the pressure on Islamist students, foundations and even businesses.
In May noisy protests from secularists prevented FP deputy Merve Kavakci from taking her seat in parliament while wearing a headscarf. While there is some truth to the claims that Ms Kavakci has built a political career out of her insistence on wearing a headscarf, the same cannot be said of most of the thousands of young girls who are currently prevented from taking up their places at university unless they remove their headscarves.
Nor does there appear to be any indication that the establishment has yet learned that, as with the Kurds, draconian suppression may exacerbate, not eradicate, a problem. 1999 saw a marked increase in violent acts by fringe Islamist groups, including a number of bombings and the October assassination of leading secularist Ahmet Taner Kislali.
In December security personnel held an emergency meeting in the south-eastern city of Diyarbakir amid claims that armed Islamist groups were becoming as great a threat as the PKK.
But for most Turks, 1999 will simply be remembered as the year of the earthquakes. The first tremor, which measured 7.4 on the Richter scale, struck in the early morning of 17 August. It was centred on the town of Golcuk, in the heart of Turkey's industrial zone, some 100 kilometres east of Istanbul. The official toll stands at 18,000, although unofficially it is believed to have been at least 25,000.
Over half a million people were made homeless. Most of the dead were in poor areas, where corruption and inadequate enforcement of building regulations resulted in flimsy, multi-storey blocks crumbling like cardboard.
Three months later, with survivors still being traumatised by aftershocks, another huge tremor, this time measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale, struck the town of Duzce, 50 kilometres east of Golcuk, killing over 800 people.
The Turkish government was bitterly criticised for the slowness and inadequacy of its response to the August earthquake. Even Turkey's usually deferential media named the builders and contractors it accused of giving and receiving bribes to ensure that building regulations were not enforced. Yet, by the end of the year, there had been no prosecutions and the Turkish people appeared, once again, willing to forgive and forget.
Government officials estimate that they need at least 12 months of stability in order to push through economic and political reforms. But privately they are worried that domestic politics might be thrown into confusion by the presidential elections due in May. There is no clear successor to President Demirel, who is constitutionally forbidden from running for a second seven-year term, and the contest to succeed him threatens to divide an increasingly strained coalition.
Even more worrying are the persistent rumours about 75-year-old Prime Minister Ecevit's health. In addition to becoming increasingly physically weak, even sources close to Ecevit admit that he is showing signs of intermittent mental frailty. Few believe that the coalition government could survive without Ecevit. Time is limited and optimism alone will not enable Turks to realise their high hopes for the new millennium.
