But We Used To Be Friends!
Pew Global Opinion Survey 6/27/07
What accounts for the precipitous drop in favorable views toward the US over the past six years? The debacle in Iraq, a possible US attack on Iran, US intransigence on PKK…. But could this statistic also be a result of mechanisms internal to Turkey, an increasing xenophobia, militarism, and turning away from “outsiders” (who aim to undermine and divide Turkey), and suspicions of “insiders” (who are in cahoots with the outsiders and who betray Turkey from within)? (If you’re wondering where this language is from — it’s from Turkish school textbooks. See my blogs on Turkish education.)
That leaves one more question — if this ideological indoctrination has existed in textbooks, schools and public rituals for some time, what has caused the recent upsurge and spreading in society of radical and militant nationalist views?
What is going on?
Imho, the single biggest factor behind the picture is Iraq, or more specifically, the Northern Iraqi Kurds’ being propped up by the US. It is thus largely conjunctural. (I am not saying Turkey is completely right on the matter, and the US completely wrong.)
There is another factor, often considered by secular Turks: the West’s or US’s moderate Islam dream as a political model for the greater Middle East. This goes to ‘undermining Turkey’ column.
People can and do differentiate between people and governments, or individuals and instititutions. I forgot who said it, but some Turkish nationalist said something to the effect that ‘don’t think the British gov’t you’ll deal with in Turkey as a Turk will be like the people who gave you Shakespeare.’
We’re taking losses to our conscript army almost every week. This is a bigger deal than many realize and it is festering right beneath the surface[1]. People do believe that the US presence in the region after ‘91 has worsened the problem and be it through hints or openly they are told that the US controls the PKK in some ways. The figures may have improved a bit after the (apparent) deal reached last fall though. Around the date that survey was done there was both heavy PKK action and a lot of anti-AKP propaganda that used anti-US rhetoric (Nihat points out how).
[1] Nihat if you live abroad, you might want to search for ’sehit cenazesi’ on Youtube to see what I mean. (Um, of course, if you can actually do that you must be living abroad or breaching our censors’ scheme somehow.)