By Patricia H. Kushlis
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner
On May 3, 2011 Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan finally told Muammar Gaddafi that enough was enough and it was time for him to leave. To date, Erdogan’s public pronouncement has had as much influence on the tone deaf Gaddafi as similar ones weeks earlier by President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a host of European and Middle Eastern leaders.
Or South African President Jacob Zuma's latest fruitless mediation efforts in Tripoli.
Why so slow to condemn Gaddafi?
Why was Turkey so slow to condemn the errant Gaddafi? Turkish business interests? Access to oil? Turkish overseas workers whose lives and livelihood could have been put in more jeopardy than they were already in? Relinquishment of a possible mediating role that was lost when the country agreed to the NATO mission?
Or was it Turkish pique at Europe and in particular French President Nicholas Sarkozy who has gone out of his way to sandbag Turkish membership in the EU for religious and ethnic reasons because, well it plays particularly well with his right wing base and others who have yet to distinguish between Europeanized Turks and North African manual laborers? This was suggested by Raed Ahmed on a May 1 post on Prime Minister Erdogan’s web page.
Sarkozy, after all, faces a tough re-election campaign spring 2012 and anti-immigrant bashing is popular in Europe these days. Even though Dominique Strauss Kahn, Sarkozy’s most likely chief opponent and front-runner in the polls has been suddenly, shockingly and unceremoniously knocked out of the race shortly before declaring his candidacy for his party’s October party primary, the Socialists still have time to find another candidate to face the unpopular Sarkozy.
Turkish foreign policy a bust?
Is Turkish foreign policy under AK, the mildly Islamist Party led by Turkish businessmen from the country’s interior that has been winning elections since 2002, a bust? This is how analyst Stephen Cook at the Council on Foreign Relations saw it in an FP article on May 5.
Cook is not alone in his condemnation of AK’s decision to shift the country’s Eurocentric foreign policy towards one that places greater emphasis on its Muslim neighbors than in the recent past. Is, however, this directional change really as marked or as bankrupt as various western and Israeli analysts suggest or is it more a pragmatic shift in emphasis albeit not to everyone’s liking? And what exactly was the Turkish position on the NATO bombing missions and the leadership of those strikes?
Since NATO operates on a consensus principle, the Turks could have stubbornly held out – but their initial reluctance did reportedly induce a change from French to Canadian direction of the NATO mission as a price for caving.
Turkish feet in two worlds?
Turkey has long had its feet in two worlds: Until 1922, its predecessor, the Ottoman Empire ruled regions ringing the Mediterranean across North Africa and deep into the Balkans.
From 1551 until 1911 when the Italians defeated the Ottomans, the Ottoman Sultan ruled North Africa. The Mediterranean's southern rim had previously been a province of the Byzantines and before that the Romans, the Ancient Greeks and the Phoenicians. Libya included.
It wasn’t until 1934 under the Italians that Libya was really centralized. True, it had been loosely governed as a single entity under the Ottomans, but before that it had consisted of three parts: the coastal regions of Tripoli and Cyrenica (Benghazi) and Fezzan, the sparsely populated mostly desert in the interior. Enmity between Tripoli and Cyrenica (Benghazi) dated back centuries and was deeply ingrained especially in minds of the Cyrenicans who never took kindly to rule from rival Tripoli.
Ottoman Hang Over or Post-Colonial Hang Up?
Libya is not the only country that had been under Ottoman rule well prior to the empire’s demise in 1922 to be buffeted by the New Arab Revolts now sweeping the region. After World War I, Ataturk managed to salvage Anatolia, the eastern Aegean coast and the area around Istanbul for the new Turkish state but the rest of the empire’s vast territory was carved up between the three major ascendant European victors – most notably Britain, France and Italy.
The Sultanate ruled the enormous region through local governors. Real centralization of power from Tripoli to Baghdad came only after the Ottoman exit. The Ottomans foremost controlled the population through religious hierarchies and affiliation. Geography was secondary – almost incidental.
"Can Turkey Unify the Arabs?"
As Anthony Shahid eloquently explained in “Can Turkey Unify the Arabs?” featured in The New York Times Week In Review on May 29, 2011, there were no borders within the Ottoman Empire to separate its different ethnicities from each other geographically.
When Western colonial rule arrived with its sudden and swift sword, centralization of government and destruction of traditional tribal, ethnic and religious boundaries became the name of the day. Divide and rule was part and parcel of the governing ethos. Post-colonial divisions in the aftermath of World War II created and solidified artificial nation-state borders largely dictated by earlier colonial lines drawn by the Europeans.
Autocracy often trumped democracy
Soon, for the most part autocracy, not democracy, held sway in the post-colonial period.
Since then Turkey has itself gone through ups and downs, coups as well as democratic and quasi-democratic governments. After the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was thought that Turkey would play a considerable role in the new Turkic speaking countries that had been Soviet Republics in Central Asia and the Caucasus. But Turkey’s role there has, for the most part, been underwhelming.
Instead, Turkey concentrated its efforts on joining the European Union – a goal consistent with Ottoman history. Even though the Ottomans reached the gates of Vienna under Suleiman the Magnificent in 1529 and again in 1532, conquered Hungary, ruled the Balkans for centuries and were a preeminent power in Europe in the 16th century, the Ottomans were never wholly accepted as fully European for a variety of reasons including religion – a chief stumbling block to their EU membership even today.
Looking out for other interests?
Meanwhile, Turkey also has had to look out for its other interests and neighbors on its flanks – north, south, east and west.
That neighborhood, of course, is replete with former provinces and subjects – some openly antagonistic – others more accommodating – even welcoming. As Shadid pointed out – Turkey’s improved relations with Iraq, Syria and Iran are opening those centuries-old trade routes to commerce once again.
But can economics, trade and visa free travel result in greater political influence for Turkey throughout the old Ottoman lands? Can the Turks be the key to “uniting the Arabs” in the aftermath of the Arab spring or is copying an AK-style government in the Arab world just wishful thinking?
Or, for that matter, can a more conciliatory stance on Turkey’s part towards Arab despots from Syria to North Africa make a difference in the long run?