Interview

Nilüfer Göle is a sociologist teaching at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. She is the author of Islam and Secularity, The Future of Europe’s Public Sphere. (Duke University Press, 2015); and is editor of Islam and Public Controversy in Europe (Ashgate, 2014). The following interview was conducted by Ramin Jahanbegloo.

 

Thank you for accepting this interview. My first question concerns the recent parliamentary elections in Turkey. How do you read the outcome of this election? How did Erdogan win a majority again?

The result of the November 2015 election was unexpected; it came as a surprise – a good one for Erdogan, and a bad one for his opponents. After losing its parliamentary majority in the 7 June elections, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) regained 49 per cent of the votes and consolidated its power as a single party government. In a mere six months, the oppositional political forces, as also pluralistic trends that appeared during the June elections, were defeated.

In spite of the fact that the AK Party, in power for more than a decade, had lost its reformist orientation and contributed to a politics of polarization, failed in its efforts to pacify the Kurdish movement, expressed intolerance and repression towards those segments of society that challenged its power, namely media, journalists, intellectuals, the business community and other organizations, including its former ally the Gülen pious movement, it successfully convinced voters that it was the only party in a position to provide stability and security, thus regaining its majority vote. The question of security became decisive just before the elections with the ISIS-linked bomb attacks in several cities such as Diyarbakir and Suruç, as also Ankara, killing hundreds of young people from leftist and Kurdish movements that had gathered to demonstrate for peace.

The political atmosphere that prevailed during the June elections had made some of us prematurely optimistic about the prospects for Turkish democracy. We thought that an authoritarian turn had been avoided and a coalition government was possible. Furthermore, the entry of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) to Parliament, with 13 per cent of the votes and 80 seats, was a major breakthrough. The HDP represented a promise of political representation for Kurdish citizens and a framing of the Kurdish problem within parliamentary democracy. The HDP and its charismatic leader, Selahattin Demirta, emerged as the main oppositional figure, one with a pluralistic democratic agenda for society and speaking on behalf of a new societal contract. The HDP gained popularity by bringing together and linking the East and West of Turkey, the Kobane resistance of Kurds and the Gezi Park protesters.

We need to recall that the Gezi Park protest movements that started in Istanbul in the summer of 2013 and spread to many cities in Turkey, were a turning point both for the government and oppositional forces. The wave of protest movements were an expression of distrust in the AKP mode of governance, namely social engineering of society from top to bottom.

Gezi released a different kind of energy and sensibility and brought to the public square a new generation, which expressed a critique of consumerism and a defence of the environment, combined personal matters with collective ones, became the voice of those who did not recognize themselves in the majoritarian narrative of the AKP government – that of the conservative Sunnite citizens. Gezi revealed the limits of the AKP government and its authoritarian and intolerant face. The brutality of the police, the repressive power of the judiciary and conspiracy theories were all used to intimidate and delegitimize the citizens who protested. Since then, all dissent has been framed and criminalized as an attempt to overthrow the government.

 

Erdogan has been successful in nearly 10 elections within the last 14 years. Hereafter, how do you see the future of Turkey? Will Erdogan ultimately change the Constitution to give himself more executive powers?

The constitution making is on the agenda once again. But the prevalent pessimism and mutual distrust is an obstacle for building a consensus. In an environment where the stakes are high, one needs political will and democratic mobilization to bring about a recognition of Kurdish rights in the Constitution and reform the Republican ideology. The separation of powers can be guaranteed by a strong opposition, and checks and balances in the Parliament. The current personalization of power undermines the broadening of societal debate about shared responsibility and political negotiation. The future of Turkey will depend on the capacity of political parties to shape democratic agendas and lead change. To state it more bluntly: Is a ‘post-AKP Turkey’ possible, and how? Even though the question seems irrelevant after the elections, it is a reminder about the importance of democratic succession and the self-limitation of the power of the AKP. The AK Party came to power by democratic means, and we need to be reassured that they both respect pluralistic politics and will also relinquish power democratically.

 

Turkish Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk in a recent interview said that Turkey’s military, which forced out civilian governments in the past, has been pushed to the sidelines and replaced by an Islamist, authoritarian government. Would you agree with this analysis?

Defenders of Turkish secularism have always been deeply skeptical of AKP politics. They fear that secularism, if not backed by the army, risks being dismantled by the rise of Islamic power. The irony of history is that while the hardliner, secular, western elites opposed Turkey’s membership of the European Union, the AKP, namely the new political elites of Muslim background, was initiating reforms for a more democratic system. They were not alone; the country also witnessed a societal mobilization, an alliance including many secular democrat intellectuals, minorities, civil society organizations, business associations, parliamentary members who backed the institutional and judicial reforms for democratization in 2005. That democratic momentum, unfortunately, now seems to be over. At the same time, we cannot dismiss the negative role of Europe and its distancing from Turkey.

However, independent of the current situation, I do not believe that the alternation between secularization and Islamization is inevitable. We are not obliged to think in terms of either/or; a more inclusive definition of secularism and a pluralistic politics should be on the democratic agenda. Otherwise it is likely that we will be trapped in a vicious circle of authoritarian regimes, whether secular, Islamic or nationalist, that would only deepen societal polarization.

 

What is your understanding of Turkish foreign policy towards the Middle East after the recent electoral success of the AKP in the parliamentary election in Turkey?

The 2011 Arab uprisings brought Turkey to the centre stage. After disappointment with European countries, the Arab Spring seemed to create an opportunity for Turkey to be a central part of the debate and the game. Turkey became a ‘desirable’ model, combining economic development, democracy and Islam. In the first phase, the affiliation with Muslim Brotherhood movements in the region, especially in Egypt, Tunisia and Syria, helped the AKP to play a regional role, but in the second phase, the failure of succession in Egypt and in Syria isolated Turkey. Erdogan took the overthrow of the Egyptian government in a military coup personally. The instability in the Arab world made him more skeptical and repressive against all opposition within the country. Turkey is fast losing its position as a ‘role model’, and under the AKP government is now referred to as an illiberal democracy representing authoritarian conservatism.

 

Do you think Turkey will be able to maintain its western foreign policy orientation while at the same time taking advantage of its interests and objectives in relation to Iran and the Arab countries?

The Cold War situation is over, the game is changing, times are not still, and many regional powers are becoming global players, sometimes in spite of their will and control. Turkey is one among them. It tried to play the role of a facilitator, an intermediate between different conflicting countries, an interface between Europe and the Middle East. It attempted to reactivate its Ottoman heritage and tried to give a new impulse to its relations with neighbours, increased commerce, used soft power, cultural exchanges, and so on. However, both neo-Ottomanism and the motto ‘zero conflict with our neighbours’ seem foredoomed to failure. Turkey is in conflict with almost all its neighbours, including Russia. The war against ISIS in the region, and the Kurdish separatist movement have complicated the picture. We are witnessing the globalization of ethnic and religious problems, without forgetting the drama of almost two million Syrian refugees in Turkey. European countries are increasingly becoming aware that they are not immune to these problems.