You, me and the AKP...

I don't support their politics, their policies, or their vision of Turkey, but the Justice and Development Party (AKP) seems to have the support of the Turkish people, and I won't just shrug that off. Islamist parties have, in the last twenty years, been the only recognized and "acceptable" political opposition to the secular and liberal military/elite leadership, and as their democratic support has grown, so has their acceptability declined.

The Islamists, again and again, get organized, recognized, and voted into power on platforms based on the very same traditional, religious, family values, that the evangelical right has been famous for in the United States. It just has an Islamic twist (it comes with head scarves!). All the time, these parties are hounded by the military and elites, who claim that "secularism is under attack", "Atatürk's legacy will be undone", and "they will have us all wearing head scarves!"

Any or all of these claims may be true, and probably are. I'll make a list of what the AKP has done later. Yet, given the crimes that the military and wealthy elites have inflicted on the rest of the populace, I don't really trust them to be the healthy alternative for the future of the Turkish people.

There was a time when widespread, popular support for both political and militant leftist groups gave the wealthy minority serious cause for concern. The force required to instate Turkey's most recent constitution (circa 1982), was directed primarily against labor unions, leftist lawyers and journalists, and most anyone else trying to resist the coup d'etat. I have spent hours writing about this period, as it was the subject of my Fulbright research. Instead, I'll just say that it invoked my sympathy. Wikipedia has a reasonable, quick-and-dirty on the subject.

In the aftermath of the violence, there frankly wasn't much of the left left, at least not as an activist political body that could be a foil for the right. Many of its leaders were banned from politics and the unions were not permitted to organize. During the period, two revolutionary reforms were initiated: Islamic religious classes were made a mandatory part of the school curriculum, and the rapid (indeed catastrophic) liberalization of the economy was undertaken. The idea was prop up Islam as the opposition to class-based ideologies, and with the help of foreign investment, create an Islamic capitalist-class (known as "Green capital"). Turkey went up for sale, and it worked...

... for the most part. It has had the unforeseen consequence of creating an empowered, well-funded, traditional and religious political bloc, that more than fills the vacuum of the left. The first generation of post-coup children graduated from high school in 2000. They are going to universities and advocating for the right to wear the headscarf on campuses. They even succeeded briefly, this year, before the courts reinstated the ban. This group will continue to be very politically active, as they perceive themselves (and probably are) both the majority and the oppressed.

Neither the Islamists nor the secular elite appear particularly concerned about the economy. The present show-down between the military and the AKP, which has scared foreign investors and caused a drop in the lira, is an indication that the the elite establishment thinks it is more important to harry Islamists than it is to yield to democracy.

As a leftist friend likes to say, when the traditional and liberal elements of the political right are fighting, "İtler ve köpekler birbirine yiyorlar". Turkish has two words for dog, so roughly: "The dogs are eating the dogs".