Turkey's Identity Problem
GELB, NORMAN
ECHOES OF RAMADAN Turkey's Identity Problem By Norman Gelb Istanbul My first night here was disturbed by a strange dream —or at least so I thought. It was four in the morning. What...
...The Turks realize, too, that if EastWest hostility is genuinely on a downward spiral, existing American interest in them as a staunch NATO ally is likely to diminish...
...Even the Japanese, scouring the world for places to plump down their trading profits, are reluctant to invest in Turkey...
...High unemployment in teeming Istanbul is complicated by a ceaseless influx of job-seeking youths from the impoverished eastern districts of the country...
...There appears to be little chance for immediate improvement...
...Communication problems notwithstanding, an impression is left of agreeable, sympathetic and—when the language barrier is breached—warmly accessible people who are proud and patriotic without being chauvinistic or truculent...
...I had arrived in the middle of Ramadan, the holy month when orthodox Muslims fast from sunup to sunset...
...The government is also clamping down on a move by local authorities in a central Turkish town to require that school girls wear scarves reminiscent of religious headgarb, and to provide segregated school transportation for boys and girls in accordance with strict religious precepts...
...Not only in Istanbul but around the country drummers wander through the streets at the end of each Ramadan night to awaken the faithful, so that they might partake of a sustaining meal prior to ushering in another day of abstinence...
...assistance...
...What sounded like a drum pounding out a marching cadence echoed over the city's Laleli district where my hotel was located, not far from the majestic vestiges of the Topkapi Palace of the Ottoman sultans...
...For nonreligious Turks (and, of course, non-Muslim visitors), this predawn patrol is a sleep-shattering nuisance...
...No one here believes an Islamic takeover has any chance...
...That, however, is more than double the backing they had a mere 10 years ago...
...The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Iran has been pumping vast sums of money into the coffers of groups sympathetic to his Islamic revolution, hoping to undermine the secular basis of its neighbor's political and social structures...
...At breakfast I would learn otherwise...
...In my semi-conscious state, the drumming seemed to intensify and then to fade slowly into the distance...
...Some believe that both Greek and Armenian Americans in the State Department have an inherited ancestral hatred of Turkish oppression that militates against greaterU.S...
...The fundamentalist mayor of a town recently was arrested for saying he supported neither Atatürk nor secularism...
...It is estimated that fundamentalists can count on the support of, at most, about 5 per cent of the Turkish population...
...They consider it a risky prospect because of its poor economic performance in spite of extraordinarily cheap labor costs—65 cents an hour on average, compared to $9.60 in the United States and $9.31 in Britain...
...Yet a contributing factor in Turkey's case may be its seemingly insoluble economic difficulties...
...Only the small Welfare Party—heavily financed by the Iranians, its powers bases limited to a few rural areas—dares to suggest that Atatürk might have been mistaken...
...Bread prices have increased 1,400 per cent in six years...
...The land is blessed with sites of magnificent beauty and historic significance, which have made tourism one of the mainstays of the economy...
...This is no doubt indicative of the reversion to religious observance that has been sweeping many parts of the world in recent years...
...The Prime Minister has resisted subsequent calls to announce national elections soon rather than wait for 1992, the latest they can take place...
...The annual inflation rate is nudging 85 per cent (bank interest rates on certificate of deposit-type instruments hover around 65 per cent...
...In addition, although nothing is said openly, EC countries are concerned about the possible impact of even a secularized Moslem society on secularized Christian Europe, especially once barriers between member nations come down...
...Kemal Atatürk, who led a secular revolution in the country after World War I and carefully had Muslim influences outlawed, remains a truly venerated figure on both the Left and the Right...
...West Germany and West Berlin are still trying to solve the social conundrums deriving from their having years ago availed themselves of great numbers of Turkish gast arbeiter...
...Exhausted from aday of traveling and some tramping around town before getting to bed, I was convinced my tired brain had simply been rebelling...
...In the meantime, he proposes to introduce measures to bring down inflation, probably involving severe austerity...
...When this is coupled with Europe's standoffish responseto Turkish membership entreaties, one cannot help wondering what beyond Ramadan those dawn drums portend...
...On the other hand, as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) country having the longest borders with Warsaw Pact nations, Turkey plays a disproportionately large role in the Atlantic alliance...
...More important these days, though, are the political overtones of the beat one hears, for fundamentalism has reared its head in Turkey...
...Norman Gelb, The New Leader's regular London correspondent, has just returned from a brief stay in Turkey...
...All these difficulties evoke a great sense of regret in the visitor to Turkey...
...By the time I was fully awake it had petered out...
...Many Turks feel the U.S...
...Some Westerners may view such governmental intercession as a gross violation of local democracy and civil rights...
...If he ever doubted that some progress toward finding economic solutions has to be made long before then, Prime Minister Turgut Ozal, head of the conservative Motherland Party, recently received a sharp indication of the extent of popular discontent: In local elections the Social Democratic Populist Party and the Right-wing True Path Party made massive gains at his party's expense...
...This would impose greater burdens on most Turks than they now carry—raising the specter of more illegal antigovernment demonstrations for pay increases, and of police crowd-control methods that could cost lives...
...A drought currently is hurting agricultural production, requiring expenditure on wheat imports, while exports are generally on the decline...
...But concern about the potential dangers of fundamentalism is so widespread and profound that any outcropping is immediately pounced upon by national authorities with broad public approval...
...And Greece makes no secret of its traditional distrust of Turkish ambitions...
...Thus Turkey's strongest EC supporters do not see it gaining membership until the year 2000 at the earliest...
...No one could possibly have wanted to play a drum in the street at so early an hour, especially in a country whose police stringently maintain law and order...
...EC members, preoccupied with their own difficulties, are not enchanted by the idea of tackling Turkey's formidable problems as well...
...does not adequately appreciate their loyalty...
...Three other mayors suspected of violating secularist principles were hauled in for questioning by the State Security Court in Ankara...
...Turkey has been one of the firmest supporters of American international policies and has benefited from United States military and foreign aid...
...Turkey has been an associate member of the European Economic Community (EEC) since 1964, but attempts to fully join the European Community (EC) have thus far been spurned...
...At the same time, the mosques of Istanbul, virtually empty even on Fridays a decade ago, have been attracting larger congregations of worshipers...
Vol. 72 • May 1989 • No. 8
