Between East & West
Carnegie, M. D.
"Between East & West" BETWEEN EAST WEST Istanbul "Here comes one of the glue boys." Even though it's almost midnight, the moonlight reflected off the late-season snow illuminates the city like a medieval...
...It took 1,800 Turkish lira to buy a U.S...
...At a hair-raising campaign speech at Istanbul's Eytip Sultan Mosque, the cradle of Turkish Islam, party chairman Necmettin Erbekan told voters that his party would put an end to "interest, imitation, IMF slavery, Western slavery...
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...But here on the waterfront, there is only so much sunlight left, and the boats are not yet full...
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...Raw energy, the unmistakable whiff of possibility, is in the air...
...A head covering is a necessity of our religious belief," says Mine Aktiz, head of the Istanbul branch of Refah's Women's Commission...
...Turkey is Muslim, okay...
...Inflation may be keeping most Turks from feeling the economic boom in 40 May 1996 • The American Spectator their own wallets, but that boom is happening all around them nevertheless—and with it comes the kind of social changes that Westerners well know to be corrosive to traditional religious belief...
...Today, skirts (at least some of them) are high, necklines are low, and there is even a smattering of punks with purple hair and strangely-placed piercings...
...Although city officials had banned very low-grade coal in Istanbul, they made sure party bosses distributed lots of it free in poor neighborhoods in the days before the election...
...Asim Erdilek, a Turk who is chairman of the economics department at Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University, is likewise pessimistic...
...Usually Istanbul looks as filthy as it is—the perpetual burning of a low-grade coal has coated the city in soot, everything is dusty and grimy to the touch, and a thick smog chokes out the light...
...Yet the streets remain crammed with the junkiest of junk men, incessantly wheeling about enormous carts that hold an absurdly meager inventory—an old bent screw or two, a scrap of cloth...
...The streets of Istanbul speak of majesty and splendor, each step an echo of Byzantine and Ottoman glory...
...Our estimates suggest that the embargo of Iraq has cost Turkey $25 billion...
...Well, I know a guy who used to run a shelter for the glue boys," he says...
...IMF slavery, Western slavery...
...So they smear glue all over their wrists and arms and just sniff it all day long...
...His ideas are ridiculous," says Deniz, who owns two gun stores...
...I ask, turning to watch his sad stumble up the street...
...He wants to send Turkey backwards, but we can't go backwards anymore...
...Ciller vowed to accelerate the privatization of critical state-owned industries and promised that before long all Turks would have "two keys"—one for a house and another for a car...
...prostitutes discreetly peddle their wares...
...We are here to do business...
...Hand-crafted for those same men who insist on fine watches, fine wine, fine cars and above all, fine cigars...
...It was a consolation prize...
...Its grass-roots organization, complete with a (novel for Turkey) computer system to track members and supporters nationwide, is the envy of rival politicians...
...They think we are uncivilized...
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...He called Turkey's entry into the Customs Union—widely seen, or at least hoped, to be the stepping stone to full membership in the European Union—"the "the poison of Frankenstein...
...Here the men are bowed down with heavy loads of goods, very much bowed down towards the West...
...The price of bread has gone up sixteen-fold since 1992...
...The walls of just about every shop and restaurant display his portrait...
...The Refah administrations of Istanbul and Ankara have cut the municipal work force by thousands, for example, yet still managed to improve public services dramatically...
...Yet they are also home to the glue boys, to amputees wrapped in old filthy rags who pull themselves along with a rusted iron in each hand, their skins encrusted with soot and scum...
...Their help was invaluable to the success of Desert Storm...
...Even though it's almost midnight, the moonlight reflected off the late-season snow illuminates the city like a medieval manuscript...
...His world view is so focused upon them that I don't understand how you Americans could support him, or the administration he works for...
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...Even the lay of the land—most of Turkey sits in Asia, though the riches of Istanbul stretch along the southeastern tip of Europe—speaks of a country divided...
...dollar seven years ago...
...They're always getting beaten and raped and abused...
...At the shop two doors down, that guy is a Jew...
...I don't believe admission to the Customs Union was a first step to joining the E.U...
...The official trade with Moldova last year was, like, $i million," says one Western journalist who writes about business...
...But people have seen so much corruption from the other guys, and inflation has gotten so bad, they think it's time to give Refah a chance...
...Most recently, at the Sharm el Sheikh anti-terrorism conference, they were the only nation besides the United States to pledge money immediately to the common cause...
...At some point, we get the idea we are not your important allies...
...Isn't there anywhere the kid can go...
...And then we think, maybe we shouldn't be...
...And while the economy thrives—Turkey's is now the seventeenth largest in the world, and a new member of the European Customs Union—inflation is astronomical, more than loo percent in the past two years...
...As is the norm in "emerging nations," the ruling elite has paid more attention to its own affairs than to the business of the country...
...But the Refah fundamentalists closed it down...
...When I was last in Turkey nine years ago, there were fewer women in the streets...
...And her campaign agenda sounded equally in tune with the times...
...The inside of his forearm is coated with something shiny, and his eyes glisten with the distinct shimmer of someone blown out of his gourd...
...Upon assuming the post of prime minister several years before, the Yale-educated Ciller seemed to be a politician with as much promise as her nation...
...To ban it is tantamount to restricting the rights of believers...
...It is really a very simple matter of diplomacy," he said, his voice admitting a tone of regret...
...They're the poor kids who don't go to school and can't find any work," my friend tells me...
...But we are not going to start going to the mosque five times a day...
...Still another spoke resentfully of the fact that, while Clinton paid a visit to hostile Syria, he could not be bothered to visit America's old friends next door...
...The inflation makes it difficult for Europe to see Turkey as a full partner...
...on the day I left Turkey it took 67,00o, a thousand more than it had when I'd arrived ten days before...
...It's what is known here as the "suitcase trade"—boats arrive with empty holds and return home stocked to bursting with local goods, all of them cheap to foreign buyers holding hard currency against the soft Turkish lira...
...Next time we will have even more votes...
...Yet while that message rings loud and clear at home, it doesn't necessarily get a full hearing abroad...
...I just don't think they could do it...
...And while inflation has effectively wiped out the average Turk's savings, Ciller has amassed an enormous personal fortune...
...No one believes that a diplomatic faux pas, or even Clinton's bizarre idea of foreign policy, is enough to undermine Turkey's longtime allegiance...
...But tonight the snow's white hides the grime, and the sky is clear...
...It's a message I hear from many business owners, not a single one of whom has a good word to say about Refah's leader, Necmettin Erbekan...
...Moreover, her husband oversaw the collapse of one of the state banks, from which tens of millions are alleged to have disappeared...
...You claim to be opposed to terrorism, yet there is Clinton pleading with Damascus...
...M. D. CARNEGIE is managing editor of The American Spectator...
...Though not enough seats for majority control, the victory was a clear repudiation of the ruling center-right, pro-Western alliance headed by then—Prime Minister Tansu Ciller...
...These are the sorts of changes for which Refah cannot help but have a tin ear, dedicated as it claims to be to maintaining a distinctly Islamic culture...
...Visit the TAS home page at: HTTP://www.amspec.com/tas/home.html Send letters to the editor, subscription queries, threatening messages, and other essential correspondence to: amspec@ix.netcom.com sent United States administration commands little affection, and even less respect, in the Turkish parliament...
...Refah's rise to power, however, presents a direct challenge to Turkey's relationship with the West...
...Turks are literally getting poorer by the minute...
...Even if slightly inflated, that's an enormous burden to bear for a nation whose average worker makes around $130 a month —particularly if the reason for bearing that burden gets forgotten...
...They joined NATO after the Korean War, during which Turkish soldiers fought beside our own...
...It's time to go forward...
...And not long after taking over the administration of Istanbul, one of Refah's first initiatives was to close down a popular jazz club—not a strategy likely to endear the party to the 70 percent of the population that is under 3o...
...Ultimately it comes down to Islam," says a prominent economist who asked not to be named...
...The upset was particularly stunning given the nation's long-standing commitment to both secularism and pro-Westemism...
...Speeding new BMWs share the road with pack mules...
...Obviously we have been very loyal allies of the United States," says Seyfi Tashan, head of the Foreign Policy Institute, one of Turkey's leading think tanks...
...Their mutual detestation is widely known, and their respective election campaigns were almost entirely spent slinging accusations of terrible corruption at each other...
...As a woman, she effectively dispelled the notion that the country was culturally out of step with Western "progressiveness...
...Turkey is too much of a burden for the Europeans to carry," he says...
...He is a tiny lad, surely no more than seven or eight, staggering toward us like a drunk...
...And everywhere the Muslim faithful are doing so...
...It closed down the shelter for the glue boys because it could not bear to admit that such a problem existed in its society...
...They don't have anything else to do except to get high...
...And it has been playing its exclusion from the coalition perfectly, remaining calm rather than growing petulant...
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...Not just black—his features are freakish and distorted, his eyeballs bulging as if about to explode...
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...Progress is so rapid that it's impossible to find an Istanbul neighborhood that isn't abuzz with the clank of hammers and the scrape of saws, even in the middle of the night...
...These very visible successes have gained Refah invaluable credibility with the public who, even if they are wary of the party's nominally Marxist economic platform and decidedly reactionary religious views, see them as an organization that gets things done...
...Among other compatibility problems, Islam prohibits the taking of interest on money...
...pri O There is a growing feeling in Ankara that Turkey's inflexible pro-Western stance harms the nation's pocketbook as much as its de...
...We just want to make a better living for ourselves...
...Whoo,clio Blita The complete text of The American Spectator is now available online...
...Many places have several, and it is not uncommon to see storefronts crowded with dozens of them...
...More like $56 million...
...With Moldova...
...A rapidly developing nation of nearly 6o million people means a vast untapped market—and if no official sanction is given to do business, business will get done anyway...
...On Istikal caddesi, Istanbul's grandest boulevard, the West is as prominent as it could hope to be...
...one source tells me that part and parcel of her coalition agreement with Yilmaz (which also required her to relinquish the post of prime minister to him until next year) was the mutual understanding that they would stop calling for investigations of each other's finances...
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...Then, in last December's national parliamentary elections, Refah stunned Western observers by collecting 21 percent of the popular vote and winning 158 of the 55o seats in the National Assembly—more than any other party...
...Couples nuzzle and kiss as they walk in public...
...Jamaican reggae and American rap music blast from enormous banks of speakers in front of the biggest boosktores...
...At other times during the campaign Erbekan vowed to rid the Turkish constitution of the very clauses safeguarding the nation's secularism that Ataturk insisted be included...
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...As he approaches I see that his skin is a mottled, ghastly, inhuman shade of black —like a wax dummy the color of car exhaust...
...Perhaps nothing captures the paradox at the heart of Turkey today more than the stunning rise of Refah, the Islamic fundamentalist party...
...That sort of attitude, along with the crippling inflation, makes the West nervous about fully accepting Turkey into its fold...
...Those guys are terrible," says Irfan, a young shopkeeper who sells knickknacks and tchotchkes, of Refah...
...BE T W E E N EAST WEST Istanbul "Here comes one of the glue boys...
...His clothes are tattered and greasy, horrifying even by local standards...
...He commands no respect amongst his peers...
...And another Refah candidate went further still, vowing that his party would nullify the Customs Union agreement "with blood if not with votes...
...P.O...
...Even today, Ataturk remains a national hero in a way impossible to understand, let alone replicate, in the United States...
...Another expressed the dismay of many Turkish politicians about the White House's seemingly boundless admiration for Russia, a long-standing Turkish rival...
...In recent years Refah, which means welfare, has captured the mayoralties of both Istanbul and the capital city of Ankara, as well as several other prominent municipalities...
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...Many of those charges, in fact, may well have been true...
...Instead there are Russians and Ukrainians everywhere, hustling from ship to ship, cradling thick wads of German marks and hundred-dollar bills in their hands...
...Full-bodied but not harsh with Natural wrapper, it's preferred by those uncompromising leaders of men who strive for excellence...
...Indeed, at the Istanbul docks on the Sea of Marmara you can be hard-pressed to find someone straightaway who speaks any Turkish...
...Under Yilmaz's relentless campaign attacks, she even made a half-hearted attempt to appease public anger about her wealth: "I am thinking of donating my assets in the U.S...
...Of course she has not done so, though there may no longer be any need...
...To the eighteenth-century eye they must have seemed even more magnificent, I think, but cannot pursue my reverie furM. D. CARNEGIE 37 O ther before my friend taps my arm and repeats: "Here comes one of the glue boys...
...Strobe Talbott is in the Moscow orbit," he said...
...Maybe not, but as the afternoon sun lowers on the waterfront sky, the unmistakable wail of the muezzin erupts from minarets across the city...
...But if the West won't finally embrace Turkey, the East will be more than happy to...
...When Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the war hero and conqueror, founded the nation out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, he abolished the Sultanate and decreed that Turkey should remain always under secular rule, even seeing to it that the constitution guaranteed against an Islamic government...
...But as Refah continues to gain in popularity— its effective exclusion from its legitimately-elected role in parliament will only fuel its appeal —the idea gains credence that the West is not where Turkey should look for support or inspiration...
...estimates run from one-third to as much as two-thirds of the official GNP...
...For obvious diplomatic reasons, no government official will speak about the Clinton administration for attribution, but what they have to say is far from gentle...
...You claim to be our friends, yet you don't come speak to us...
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...Erbekan is s---," says one businessman...
...Everywhere the Muslim faithful are being summoned to afternoon prayer —one of five times daily they are asked to stop their worldly activities, and bow themselves to the East before their god...
...Some new figure is reached, and a dozen men sprint away in different directions...
...Refah can wait," says Abdullah Gul, an MP and the party's deputy chairman...
...And his precepts have been scrupulously followed in the nearly three-quarters of a century since, not least in Turkey's role as one of America's staunchest allies...
...Where before there had been only the ubiquitous kebab stands, there are bars with names like Kafka and Hades...
...Date OFFER EXPIRES 12/96 • OFFER NOT AVAILABLE TO MINORS • OFFER GOOD ONLY IN THE USA 1.800-237-2559 Ext.-T123 Fax: 813-882-4605 The American Spectator • May 1996 39 up— especially crucial in so filthy a place —and they have banned the burning of very low-grade coal, which has helped to ease the choking smog and reduce the number of days on which, as a local newspaper puts it, "It is simply impossible to breathe...
...So they would not let us have the government this time —so what...
...It is the black market currency exchange, and the value of the mark and dollar is re-calibrated almost every minute...
...But modern Turkey seems to be comprised almost entirely of them, like a completed jigsaw puzzle made of pieces that don't fit together...
...to a foundation...
...He claims not quite to know what happened...
...Europeans have a difficult time seeing a Muslim nation as their equal...
...When I inquire for a copy of the Koran, I am told there is only one, and that it's in English...
...MTV blares from clothing store video monitors...
...the golden arches of McDonald's have sprouted up, too...
...except for the odd tourist, none of them was wearing anything immodest...
...This political shrewdness shows itself at all levels of the party...
...In a hair-raising speech, Refah's Erbekan said his party would put an end to "interest...
...Her empire reportedly now includes strip malls in New England, a mansion in Oregon, and farmland in the Midwest—and those are only her United States holdings...
...Foreigners are more likely to hear about the prominent stockbroker who was handcuffed to his car and set ablaze in November...
...The unofficial trade...
...But that loyalty has come at a tremendous price...
...Even if they were to come to power, I don't think Refah would be able to move Turkey back to the Middle Ages," says Asim Erdilek...
...Maybe it's something in the glue here, but when they do it for long enough it turns their faces all black...
...Warren Christopher is a perfect fool," one veteran MP told me, "and everyone knows it...
...And Refah has done a very unIslamic thing in giving women a far more active and visible role than have the other parties...
...And not too far away, crammed into a tiny, dirty alley, are at least a hundred Turks, screaming their heads off both at each other and into their cellular phones, determining just how soft the lira is...
...That sentiment is also growing in Ankara, where many connected with the government—both members of parliament and experienced political observers —are feeling that Turkey's inflexible pro-Western stance harms the nation's pocketbook as much as its pride...
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...Both Ciller and Yilmaz entered the deal holding their noses...
...in the moon-glow the omamental splendor of the mosques is renewed, some of their original majesty restored...
...But privatization did not pick up significant speed, and the government still operates a slew of industries with predictable bureaucratic success: everything from the coal mines to major banks to the combination phone company/postal service—that agency alone spends more than three times its revenue...
...We can get along with everybody...
...38 May 1996 • The American Spectator yet Refah has been unable to enact its avowed reactionary agenda, for the two major center-right parties, tiller's True Path Party and the Motherland Party headed by Mesut Yilmaz, announced an uneasy coalition in early March to give themselves a majority bloc...
...Inside there are very sexy looking paperbacks of the works of Che Guevara—all black, with just his silhouette and, in a casual script above it, "Che...
...For, in addition to the cumulative effect of Refah's incessant anti-Western drum beat, it must be said that the preAilierican Spedator a Xi I. 74...
...Turkey's underground economy is enormous...
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...Many schools, for example, have female Refah representatives, often selected for their willingness to advocate publicly the wearing of traditional dress in the classroom—something taboo since the time of Ataturk...
...But those believers, however many they are —and it cannot be forgotten than 8o percent of the population voted for one of the secular parties—will be hard-pressed to resist the changes being wrought on Turkish society by the nation's burgeoning economy...
...Even those Istanbul residents opposed to the party admit that daily life in the city is more pleasant now...
...The one across the street there—he is Christian...
...Every place has its paradoxes, its jarring contrasts that startle the visitor as much as they go unnoticed by the native...
...Nobody knows who murdered the man, who was also a Motherland Party parliamentary candidate, but an Islamic jihad group has already claimed responsibility for slaying his Jewish business partner...
...O The American Spectator • May 1996 41...
...Ataturk saw the West as a role model for the fledgling Turkish republic, both a civilizing force and an antidote to centuries of unenlightened religious rule...
...The appearance of such not very subtle corruption has helped Refah, whose own reputation is that of a remarkably clean party...
Vol. 29 • May 1996 • No. 5
