Countering AKP Propaganda
A friend of mine, and reader of this blog, Kemal, has written a guest post for PoliGazette in response to an op-ed by Mustafa Akyol, which was published in the Wall Street Journal. As you all will know, we encourage readers to send us their opinions; if we like what they write - we don’t have to agree with it of course - we’ll publish it. Here’s Kemal’s post called “Countering AKP Propaganda.”
The AKP is adept at, if nothing else, promoting propaganda to demonize its opponents and using legal and illegal means to silence its opponents, all while quietly marching a country in which the vast majority of the population is against religious fundamentalism towards Sharia law. The AKP is nothing more than a wolf wrapped in sheep’s clothing.
Who is Mustafa Akyol?
He is an Islamic writer, who claims to argue both against Islamic extremism and what he calls extreme secularism. Yet, he is an outspoken promoter of intelligent design. He works with Islamic foundations that base theories of modern science on religion. Akyol identifies himself as a spokesman for Bilim Arastirma Vakfi, a group accused of intimidating Turkish university professors in campaigns to limit academic freedom as part of a creationist movement. He is director of a subsidiary founded by Fethullah Gülen-leader of a movement that has founded thousands of Islamic religious schools that indoctrinate students and a man who has urged his followers in the judiciary and public service to “work patiently to take control of the state.”
Mustafa Akyol is part and parcel of a movement to eliminate secularism and that promotes an Islamic state, based on Islamic law-the antithesis of democracy.
What is Akyol’s propaganda?
Akyol’s opinion piece promotes tyranny of the minority and is a smear campaign against those who wish to maintain the separation of religion and government in Turkey, and leave religion in the private sphere-as is done in all modern democracies.
Akyol fails to mention that 53% of the population in Turkey did not vote for the AKP and that secularists who voted for the AKP did so in response to the AKP’s moderate message of tolerance, its promise of economic and not religious reforms, and assurances the AKP was not moving the Republic of Turkey towards Sharia law, messages the AKP has dropped from its platform since the election. Contrary to Akyol’s assertions, secularists comprise the undisputed majority in Turkey.
Who is the AKP and what do they stand for?
Akyol misrepresents and craftily avoids discussing the most objectionable of the AKP’s recent attempts to bring religion into government. He does not discuss how AKP politicians have attempted to make adultery punishable by a three year prison sentence, make consumption of alcohol illegal, or the AKP’s censorship of the media and any who dare to criticize it.
While Akyol references Gucci wearing women in headscarves, he fails to mention the increased incidents of so-called “honor killings” in the more conservative provinces, the proponents of which find support in Islamic fundamentalism, that women who dare not wear “Islamic fashions” are now increasingly harassed on the street, that a follower recently found justification for throwing acid on the legs of a women who was wearing a skirt that was “too short”, that families of poor women are paid to force their daughters to wear the hijab, or that the Koran says no more than for followers to dress modestly–it says nothing of scarves, hijabs or burkhas.
Just this week, the AKP raided the house of an 83 year-old Ilhan Selcuk, a journalist and the head of Turkey’s Cumhuriyet newspaper (akin to the NY Times in the U.S.). 12 others were arrested in simultaneous raids in Ankara and Istanbul. One of the arrested is Professor Alemdaroglu, former president of Istanbul University, the largest in Turkey. Another is the Labor Party’s leader, Dogu Perincek. Others are journalists and media people. These people now join about 30 others who were recently arrested and charged with the same offense.
The imprisoned all share the common attribute of being outspoken critics of the AKP, and all stand accused under the same 2 articles of the penal code, inciting riots against the state and forming secret organizations for that purpose.
While Akyol tries to represent the AKP as a party representing democracy, AKP based government officials have now sued or jailed more journalists and critics of its regime than any other government in Turkey. That is the AKP-style democracy Akyol promotes in his propaganda piece.
A Turkish historian recently wryly commented that Turkey now in 2008 is like the Iran of 1978. All that is needed now is the return from the U.S. of Fethullah Gulen who, just as Ayatollah Khomeini was in Tehran, could be met by a crowd of one million.
Why do the EU and U.S. support the AKP?
The E.U. and U.S. want to maintain Turkey in a weakened state to maintain control over the transport of precious natural resources (oil and gas) and create reasons to keep Turkey out of the E.U. What better way to accomplish both goals than to promote a religious regime the majority of Turkish society opposes?
However, the destabilized state in which the west wishes to maintain Turkey by supporting Islamic regimes requires a delicate balance–something the west has proven, via its former support of the Taliban “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan and its Iraqi invasion, to be completely inept at achieving and maintaining at the expense of millions of people. Nor does the west learn from its past mistakes.
All that the west has achieved by interfering in Turkey’s internal politics (ongoing since the 1800s) is a precarious balance that was slowly, and is now more rapidly tipping towards an intolerant, undemocratic and religious regime that ignores the will of the majority of the citizens of the Republic of Turkey.
Akyol’s opinion piece is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to make Sharia strictures socially acceptable before forcing their formal adoption by a society that rejects them.
Hhmmm, interesting,
Have you read anything on Suffism from Mr. Güllen ?
Mr. Gülen mentions the word Sufism, but he says "Sufism should be according to Coran and Sunna". I’m sorry, but that is absurd. Sufism claims a spiritual level that actually goes beyond textual literalism.
He also rejects core Sufi beliefs such as wahdat al-wujud/vahdet-i vücud and claims spiritual experience in Sufism to be crazyness, but for which he has a lot of tolerance.
So, I am sorry but Mr. Gülen claims the term without subscribing to the content. As for his actual beliefs, it should be interesting to note that he cites Sayyid Qutb/Seyyid Kutub as one of his inspirations.
AAB - Would you please explain what Sayyid Qutb/Seyyid Kutub is?
Although it is impressive that the AKP obtained 47% of the vote in the last election, it is true, as the author states, that 53% did not vote for the AKP. The AKP seems to believe that the last election gave it a mandate, yet the country seems to be deeply divided. This is not a good state of affairs.
Isn’t the real question here why the EU and US support the AKP whereas it does not represent the true majority? Why do they support the AKP’s religious reforms as "democratic" when it does not represent the will of the majority of the people?
And, isn’t the reason that Turkey is portrayed as a successful model of "moderate Islam" due to its secular tradition from which all apperances the AKP is moving away from?
Do the EU and US really want to alienate the 53% of the population (roughly 38 million people) who oppose introduction of religion into the government sphere?
I find it odd that countries that oppose the wearing of headscarves by muslim girls in their schools support a political party that is opposed to such a policy.
There is too much hypocrisy inherent in the response of the west towards this issue for comfort.
That’s a radical Hally. It’s a founding father, so to speak, of the modern extremist movement. He, basically, was a terrorist and told others to become terrorists as well.
Exactly: and for some reasons too many Europeans don’t understand that there’s a connection between the two. Either that, or they don’t truly care.
The following article is from: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oew-ellis28mar28,1,7404770.story
My apologies if this is in violation of any Poligazette policy against posting entire articles, but this one was too good not to share. It actually cites facts, figures and quotes to support its statements.
BLOWBACKTurkey’s religious bentThe ruling party is corrupting the country’s secular character.By Robert Ellis
March 28, 2008 In his Blowback, "My party is good for Turkey," Egemen Bagis does what can only be described as a hatchet job on Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Bagis, who is a foreign policy advisor to the Turkish prime minister, calls Cagaptay a "self-proclaimed Turkey expert," but this kind of language is nothing new to Bagis.
In November 2005, he dismissed a warning by Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, concerning Turkey’s current account deficit as "entertaining." But now the chickens have come home to roost. Turkey’s current account deficit is close to an annual $40 billion, and the ongoing credit crunch combined with the political turmoil in Ankara could have foreign investors heading for the door. As those investors plug a large portion of the deficit and sit on 72% of the shares traded on the Istanbul Stock Exchange, their departure could precipitate a crisis similar to the one Turkey experienced in 2001.
And incidentally, Bagis seems to be nowhere as thin-skinned as his boss, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. According to a report by the Turkish Publishers Union two years ago, Erdogan had already earned around $90,000 in compensation by suing journalists and authors for "violating his rights and freedoms."
When Bagis claims the governing Justice and Development Party, known as the AKP, is "upgrading the country’s democratic standards," this is construed differently by the secular opposition. In the words of columnist Cüneyt Ülsever, the party is engaged in "the formation of a religion-based state," which is different from the concept of a secular democracy enshrined in the Turkish Constitution.
One of the leading principles in that constitution is Article 10, which concerns gender equality and explains the opposition to wearing head scarves at universities and in schools and public offices. Bagis claims that letting women wear them is a sign that Turkey is an "advanced democracy," and that otherwise, women wouldn’t go to university. But as the European Court of Human Rights noted in a November 2005 ruling allowing the prohibition of head scarves, "[The head scarf] appeared to be imposed on women by a religious precept that was hard to reconcile with the principle of gender equality."
The head scarf is also perceived as the banner of political Islam. Erdogan remarked in January: "Even if [the head scarf] is a political symbol, can you ban political symbols or can you say that wearing a symbol is a crime?" Furthermore, recent research shows that only 1% of female students say that head scarf concerns stop them from enrolling in universities.
The AKP is replacing the top echelons of the educational system — along with state administration and the judiciary — with its own followers. It intends to give religious school graduates the same access to universities as state high school graduates as part of this process, so that students primarily trained to be imams can replace secular leaders in the bureaucracy.
As far as Turkish foreign policy is concerned, the last word still belongs to "Bearded Celal," a little-known Turkish philosopher who wrote 50 years ago that "Turkey is a ship heading for the East. Those aboard think they are heading for the West. In fact, they are just running westwards in a ship sailing eastwards."
Among examples of the reorientation of Turkey’s foreign policy toward the Middle East are the visit to Ankara by Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in February 2006 and the cordial reception given to Sudan’s President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir in January. And when Erdogan visited Khartoum two years ago, he declared that no assimilation or genocide was committed in Darfur.
On the visit of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to Turkey in August 2006, Abdullah’s foreign minister declared Turkey to be Saudi Arabia’s new strategic partner, and this entente was enhanced when Abdullah was awarded a state medal of honor from Turkey last November.
This cordial relationship undoubtedly has to do with the level of Saudi investment in Turkey, but there is a more sinister element. Michael Rubin, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has researched the influx of money into Turkey from wealthy Islamist businessmen and Middle Eastern states and concludes that this is "an engine for Islamist parties to whittle away at Turkey’s secular traditions."
Therefore, it would have been helpful if Bagis had spent time substantiating his assertions instead of attacking Cagaptay. As I learned at school when playing rugby, "Go for the ball and not the man!"
Robert Ellis is a regular commentator on Turkish affairs in the Danish press and in the Turkish Daily News.
The great surprise to me is the fact that Wall Street Journal actually posted the disagreeing comments on its discussion forum including the one above :)))
http://forums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php?t=1899
This article has been published and mentioned in ArmenianGenocideHoax.com! We thank you for your insightful article and await your comments!
We at AGH believe that the AKP is very dangerous for the future of Turkey, and we are against the Turkish government, but we do agree about the Armenian genocide label being a fabrication, a political leverage for Westerners who don’t care for the truth and open-minded research.
Please review the following article published in AGH:
Countering Turkish Government (Accepting Opposing Views)
Let`s suppose. Kemal is right! AKP and other conservative muslims are threatining Turkish Republic and have a secret agenda to establish islamic state. So secular establishment should shut down AK Party and execute %47 of turkish population.
Of course nobody can kill anyone for not having the same ideology. But Secular establishment are trying to do the smiliar things. They are using every possible way to opress from observant muslim majority to kurdish minority, greek and armenian minority.
This opression led road to PKK terorist organization. I fear that this steps by the establishment cause people express themselves using violence.
We all need democracy and observant muslims and kurdish minority want Turkey`s European Union membership to be freed from the establishment`s opression. Like many turkish immigrants seeking safe heaven on european soil.
Mr Kemal’s comment is misleading in the sense that 53% of the population is fiercely opposing AK party and prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Public opinion polls tell that 30% of the voters wont ever vote for the AK Party, and their reasons vary from far right to far left, and 20 % out of the remaining 53% voters indicated that AK party would be their second choice.
The rest of Mr Kemal’s comments are just copy/paste from CHP(Republican party) propoganda.
Mustafa you are wrong, when did anyone who believes in secularism (which is the more enlightened view after centuries of religious oppression by various religions) want to execute "47% of the Turkish population", you are sounding very ignorant right now.
Secular establishment IS DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM. It is the belief that government should not have a religious bias towards Muslim, Christians, Jews, or any other religions.
Secular establishment PROTECTS minorities, while parties like AKP are the antithesis of democracy and freedom because they want religious institutions to control people’s lives rather than the freedom of each one’s own belief derived by their own thinking rather than what others force them to believe.
The Headscarf IS an oppression of freedom and religion, because it solidifies a belief in religious institutions of Islam rather than Islam, the Qur’an, or God. Neither God nor the Qur’an ever clearly states that Muslims should wear head scarves–this is a MYTH.
This MYTH was created by corrupt religious leaders who want to control women– it is an offense against every woman in the face of the planet. No feminist would accept such bullcrap.
While I strongly dislike headscarves, it is obvious that in a free state people can freely wear what they like. Separation of church and state means that the state does not concern itself with religion, not that it bans religious (or for that matter political) symbols.
While some of the things I’ve read about AKP are worrying, and while surely a lot of AKP politicians are dangerous radicals, I just cannot agree that Turkey’s "secular establishment" is all that good either. Turkey’s secular establishment is first and foremost, let us not forget this, the military, that had effectively ruled the country before being challenged by the AKP. Wholesale oppresion of the Kurdish minority, and active incitement of hatred against the Greek minority, that lead to the Istanbul pogroms in 1956 (actively provoked by the "secular establishment") is among its chief achievements.
It would seem that the two choices in Turkey are secular hard-core nationalists or radical Islamists. Neither choice seems good (and I strongly suggest Turkish people look for alternatives). However, if the Turkish people freely elect the AKP, in any kind of a free republic their choice should be respected.