Response To Michael Rubin on the Court Case Against AKP
President Gul and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (Photo from Today’s Zaman)
The neoconservative Michael Rubin has been weighing in on Turkey in the US media, arguing that the case before the Constitutional Court for closing the ruling AK Party is justified. I find his writings on this topic rather polemic and selective in presenting (or leaving out) data. His information is at times inaccurate. BUT he does point out some of the failings and errors of the AKP — the creeping religious conservatism that I also have criticized (on this blog and elsewhere) that needs to be seriously addressed (rather than just the singleminded focus on the headscarf issue). However, I don’t agree with Rubin that the best way to address these issues in a democratic society is for the court to bring down the popularly elected government. I also note that Rubin does not critically discuss the context for the court case, the continual radical secularist attacks on the government that form the background to the case. These impulses in Turkey are more anti-West than the AKP.
Below, I attach links and short excerpts of two of Rubin’s articles , and a response by Saban Kardas in which he criticizes Rubin. Neither author truly engages with the position of the other, which is typical of Turkish debate on this subject: for or against. I’ll start with Saban because he summarizes Rubin’s position.
Michael Rubin presents a very grim picture of Turkey. In an essay for National Review Online, Rubin compares Turkey to Iran prior to the Islamic revolution. Having underlined the threat posed by Islamic parties in general and the AK Party in particular, he advises the Bush administration not to “abandon its ideological compatriots for the ephemeral promises of parties that use religion to subvert democracy and seek mob rather than constitutional rule.” For Rubin, “Turkey is nearing the cliff” and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should “not push it over the edge” by expressing support for the AK Party. In his contribution to a debate hosted by The American, Rubin responds to the question whether it is the ruling AK Party itself or the lawsuit brought against the AK Party that poses the greatest threat to Turkey’s secular and democratic institutions. Rubin views the legal case as an affirmation of democracy and constitutional rule. He finds Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party in grave violation of the wall of separation between religion and politics, disregard for rule of law, suppression of dissent and a policy of placing his own followers in influential bureaucratic positions. Having noted that “both AKP supporters and Western officials unfamiliar with the AKP’s record paint the Court’s actions as undemocratic,” Rubin assumes a self-declared mission to reveal “the dark side,” hence his advice to the Bush administration to reassess its true counterparts in Turkey…
This picture of Turkey, however, differs from the one most analysts and Western politicians believe, as Rubin himself admits. Rubin depicts the actors that are perceived as the pro-democracy forces and most likely allies of the West in Turkey by most international and Turkish observers as the dark side seeking to take country down a dark road… Differences of interpretation between Rubin and others aside, the factual information he cites is false at worst and unsubstantiated at best…Either Rubin’s remarks are reflective of ignorance and naïveté at best… or a deliberate attempt to misinform and manipulate at worst… If it is the former, he either lives in a wonderland which does not correspond to the Turkey most reasonable people know of, or he is being taken for a ride by his Turkish informers.
Turkey’s Uncertain Future, by Michael Rubin
The legal case against the AKP is an affirmation of democracy rather than an assault upon it. Democracy rests upon the rule of law and constitutionalism. Neither plurality support nor a majority in parliament should place any politician or party above the law….Popularity and democracy are not synonymous, though. Turkish constitutionalism separates religion from party politics in order to preserve democracy. Prime Minister Erdogan has abused this separation. He has eroded the distinction between religious and public education, sought to retire forcibly several thousand secular judges who questioned his party’s interpretations of the constitution, and then moved to replace those judges with AKP apparatchiks. He also has instituted an interview process — controlled by party loyalists — designed to evaluate government technocrats on the basis of religiosity rather than merit. Turkish Air employees have even been quizzed on their belief in the Koran…No party or prime minister in Turkey’s history has been so hostile to the press…Erdogan has treated courts, both international and domestic, with disdain.
Turkey’s Turning Point: Could There Be an Islamic Revolution in Turkey? by Michael Rubin
The secular order and constitutionalism in Turkey have never been so shaky. The government now controls most television and radio stations. Erdogan has gained the dubious distinction of launching more lawsuits against journalists and commentators than any previous Turkish prime minister.
As Erdogan discourages dissent, his and [the religious leader Fethullah] Gülen’s supporters among prominent Turkish columnists and commentators equate Islamism with democracy, and secularism with fascism, a line too many Western diplomats eager to demonstrate tolerance with an embrace of “moderate Islam” accept. Erdogan himself has argued that it was secularism which led to Hitler; that Islamism would never produce such a result…
When Islamists pursue campaigns of hatred, Western officials not only pretend nothing is amiss but also, as in the case of Palestinian leaders, often increase their support. This week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will address the judicial case against Erdogan and the AKP. Members of her staff suggest she will lend subtle support to the prime minister. Indeed, it may be tempting to condemn the court action as a political stunt: The prosecutor’s legal brief is shoddily written and poorly argued. Despite its faults, however, the underlying legal issues are real.
Rice should be silent. Any interference will backfire: Turks, already upset that U.S. ambassador Ross Wilson seldom meets with opposition leaders, will interpret any criticism of the case as White House support for the AKP. Secularists will ask why Turkey’s liberal opposition should not have the right to all legal remedies. They already ask why the West applauds legal action taken against Austrian populist Jörg Haider and French demagogue Jean Marie Le Pen, but the same U.S. and European officials appear to bless Erdogan’s legal exceptionalism. By undermining judicial recourse, Rice may accelerate violence and lead support to those who argue — wrongly — that the government’s disdain for the law and constitution should be met with the same. On the off-chance, however, that Rice accepts that the court case should run its course, Turkey’s religious conservatives will accuse her of masterminding the approach… By equating democracy only with elections, the State Department and National Security Council fumbled U.S. interests in Iraq, Gaza, and Lebanon. One man, one vote, once; parties that enforce discipline at the point of a gun; and politicians who seek to subvert the rule of law to an imam’s conception of God do little for U.S. national security. Never again should the United States abandon its ideological compatriots for the ephemeral promises of parties that use religion to subvert democracy and seek mob rather than constitutional rule… Turkey is nearing the cliff. Please, Secretary Rice, do not push it over the edge.
I can see how Kardas got a bit worked up about Rubin’s comments.
Rubin criticizes the AKP for stacking the low level bureaucracy with religiously inclined people and purging the judiciary of secularist CHP types. At the same time, he ignores the fact that secularists in Turkey have been unethically stacking the bureaucracy for years. Why hasn’t he called for the banning of the CHP?
Yes, the AKP needs to get over its illiberal, anti-democratic leanings (the events in Taksim on May 1 only remind us of this). However, stopping democracy in Turkey is clearly not the way to help foster this change.