COMMENT A town hall meeting and a mosque
By Ian Williams
ISTANBUL - Istanbul has been the pivot of East-West, and indeed North-South,
relations for millennia, and Turkey was an inspired, and indeed brave, choice
for an early visit by United States President Barack Obama.
If former president Bill Clinton had been accused of being a crypto-Islamist,
or secret adherent to Islam, there is no way that either his spin-doctors or
his own timorous instincts would have allowed him with miles of a mosque. Yet
Barack Hussein Obama, demonized by web-weirdos across America as a Muslim fifth
columnist, goes to Turkey and visits the Blue Mosque - accompanied by Islamist
party Prime Minister Recep Erdogan - and holds a town hall meeting with young
Turks.
As police barriers held up Turks in the rain-swept streets of
Istanbul, there was little audible or visible resentment. They like Obama, and
they liked even more that he gave Turkey so much prominence, as well as his
emphasis on his own Muslim connections.
Turkish Islamism covers a wide spectrum, and is self-reliant enough to eschew
the excesses of Saudi Arabian Wahhabism. The day before Obama's arrival,
Sunday, is a day off in Turkey and the Eyup Mosque - allegedly the burial place
of the Prophet's standard-bearer, as revealed in a dream to a sultan - swarmed
with the visibly pious, men in skull caps and women in chadors pinned across
their face, coming to pray. But the men and their wives walked hand in hand,
and on less-solemn occasions fundamentalist fashion includes colorful
figure-hugging silk attire, with chic headscarves surrounding immaculate
maquillage.
Some of the more deluded Islamists might secretly hope that Obama is indeed the
crypto-Muslim his loony American detractors claim, but the secularists of both
left and right share with Turkey's ruling party an appreciation of Obama's
greatest asset: he is not George W Bush.
The country where popular pressure stopped the traditional military and foreign
policy establishment going along with the US invasion of Iraq, will naturally
share an affinity with the president whose major impetus in the primaries came
from his earlier opposition to the war.
But nothing is simple. Obama has not so much united as converged the Republican
military/secularist wing in Turkey with the Islamists. For example, for the
last two years the army command has boycotted parliament sessions in protest at
the presence of Kurdish Demokratik Toplum Partisi party legislators. It does
take a step back to wonder, firstly what they are doing attending parliament
meetings anyway, and secondly, who do they think they are, boycotting the
democratically elected legislature?
In the case of Iraq, once again there was an element of convergence. The
liberal secularists opposed the invasion for the same reasons as everyone else
in the world, the Islamists for obvious reasons. The military saw the operation
through their obsession with Kurdistan, tempering their usual fervent
connections to Washington and Israel.
On the occasion of Obama's speech to the parliament, the military establishment
decided that their affection for the American connection outweighed any
distaste they had for his mentions of the Greek Orthodox Ecumenical
patriarchate or Armenian charges of genocide.
This being Turkey, the mere suggestion that the Armenian charges of genocide
should not necessarily be dismissed out of hand, had some of the nationalists
up in arms. However, Obama's initiatives seemed to have been carefully
choreographed in advance. He treaded lightly with the adroit Erdogan, who has
already suggested a commission of historians to study the alleged Armenian
Holocaust of 1915, and who also knows that one very definite barrier to entry
of the European Union (EU) is allowing the Orthodox Patriarchate to re-open its
seminary on the island of Haliki.
Obama's public pressure may well be just what the Turkish prime minister needs
and wants to overcome the traditional security establishment's resistance to
necessary reforms. Any rational government would see the Ecumenical
Patriarchate as a huge asset to the prestige of the country, a suitable
adornment to Istanbul's tenure as European Capital of Culture next year.
Most cities and countries would fight for the chance of opening an Orthodox
Vatican with the huge potential for prestige and profits from pilgrims and
prophets. However, Turkey has traditionally insisted that the incumbent must be
a Turkish citizen, drawn from the shrinking Phanariot Greek community, which in
fairness would continue an age-old tradition that the secular power must have a
say in the appointment. However, Ankara closed the only seminary in the country
that could provide a native priesthood from which to recruit one, which falls
foul of EU aspirations for both religious freedom and minority rights.
The new Israeli government, if it were not deaf to everybody who disagreed with
it, should be watching and listening carefully. Erdogan, of course, gained
immense popularity across the Muslim world, and indeed much further afield, for
having the courage to dress down Israeli President Shimon Perez at the World
Economic Forum in Davos, when so many others prevaricated or supported Israel's
attack on Gaza.
Interestingly, the tidal wave of obloquy that would normally have deluged over
him was muted - and then almost silenced. The Turkish armed forces are Israel's
only ally in the area. Israeli planes practice in Turkish airspace, while
Ankara is a major customer for Israeli military hardware. The Generals may have
their own disagreements with Erdogan, but let their Israeli counterparts know
that they would be unhappy with others attacking the Turkish government. The
message was acted upon, hence the rapid silence which overcame the initial
vociferous pro-Israeli indignation.
Hence also Obama's emphasis on Turkey as a democracy with a majority Muslim
culture which could be a bridge to the Islamic world and a possible partner in
winning a Middle Eastern peace process. An essential part of which is to
persuade Muslims that the US is not irredeemably Islamophobic, or for that
matter, irredeemably Israelophilic.
Erdogan is using US leverage to get what he wants. Israel's Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu government shows no signs of such adroitness. In his Turkish
speech, Obama, yet again, sent a message to Israel's leadership that "The
United States strongly supports the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine,
living side by side in peace and security. That is a goal shared by
Palestinians, Israelis and people of good will around the world. That is a goal
that that the parties agreed to in the roadmap and at Annapolis. And that is a
goal that I will actively pursue as president."
Erdogan is shooting into the same goal posts as the US president, while the
Israeli cabinet is separately and collectively limbering up for a series of
fouls and penalties.
Maybe Erdogan's generals can speak to Netanyahu's, or maybe not. But Obama's
visit to Turkey before Israel shows his basic understanding that foreign policy
is about dealing with foreigners, not domestic lobbies.
Ian Williams is the author of Deserter: Bush's War on Military
Families, Veterans and His Past, Nation Books, New York.
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