IT is unfortunate that all Turkey’s top military brass stayed away from the swearing in of the country’s new President Abdullah Gul. It is equally sad that the leading opposition Republican Peoples Party and a number of judges and top academics also absented themselves from the ceremony. It says little for the political maturity of those involved that they continue to resent a Gul presidency even after his AK party won 47 percent support in July’s elections.
Leaving aside the fact that Gul has such a strong popular mandate, the new president has gone out of his way to assure critics that he has no intention of changing the secular nature of the Turkish Republic. The new Cabinet he approved yesterday under Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a classic reformist and business-oriented body. It has made one of its top priorities the economic and social changes necessary to make Turkey an acceptable candidate for EU membership.
Secularists are concerned that the new president, with his Islamic political roots, will encourage the appointment of religious leaders to top jobs and divert money to Islamic causes. Such a concern does not square with a government committed to getting the state out of business by privatizing the KITs — state companies — and continuing to promote a healthy economic boom and financial stability. It also overlooks the activities of past secular governments. The extended and ultimately economically disappointing administration of Turgut Ozal saw a massive new mosque-building program. This was achieved using state funds channeled to religious foundations with whom Ozal’s brother Korkut was closely connected. There was no protest then from the military, no outcry from liberal secularists. Indeed the only real criticism of some of the new mosques was on architectural grounds.
As president, Gul is commander in chief of the Turkish armed forces. He deserves to be treated with respect. One can only imagine how the country’s privileged generals would react in their ferociously disciplined army, if an officer of the rank immediately below them behaved with such discourtesy as to absent himself from a key national ceremony. They would rate it arrant insubordination and the offending soldier would certainly suffer for his omission.
No Turk, be he president, general or man in the street can be a law unto himself. Modern states work through consensus and cooperation. Even if he could, Gul would not be thinking of firing his top brass. He may with justice, however, point out quietly to the officers who stayed away that by behaving so offensively, they were not doing much to protect the Kemalist constitution, which they see it their duty to uphold. By insulting the new president, they were insulting the Turkish state. The behavior of the opposition politicians in boycotting Gul’s inauguration can be dismissed as ill-informed petulance. It has not been all that many years ago that a legislator shot a rival dead in the Parliament in Ankara. Until the appearance of the AK party, small-minded and corrupt politicians had been the despair of voters. Turkey, however, has a right to expect more of its generals.
