"According to 2002 estimates, 27 percent of Turkey's urban population resides in gecekondus [squatter settlements]. This figure is estimated at over 50 percent in metropolitan areas such as the capital city of Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir. . . . The rather high income disparity among the regions has fueled migration from eastern to western provinces. Historically, three metropolises -- Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir -- have attracted the migrant populations. . . . . Not surprisingly, all inequality measures rank Istanbul first and Adana second in terms of income inequality" (Meltem Dayioglu and Cem Baslevent, "A Regional and Provincial Income Inequality Analysis for Turkey in the Presence of Imputed Rents," Economic Research Forum 11th Annual Conference, 14th-16th December 2004, <http://www.erf.org.eg/11conf_Lebanon/Labor/Dayioglu_&_Baslevent.pdf>).
Were many from the poorer majority of Istanbul found at the rally? Doubtful, based on reports which show the protesters to be mostly secular elitists:
When hundreds of thousands of protesters filled the streets of
Istanbul on Sunday, it may have looked like a protest of
government policy.
It was not.
Behind the slogans and signs of marchers in Istanbul on
Sunday and in Ankara two weeks ago was something much
more basic: a fear of the lifestyles of their more religious compatriots.
Some concerns were snobbish: religious Turks were uneducated
and poor, their pesky prayer rugs got underfoot in hospital halls.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"These people are from poor areas; they just don't know what
the government stands for," said Aysel Tuikman, 39, a civil servant
wearing a skirt, a sweater, beige pumps and pearls. "They're only
being manipulated. We are here for their good also."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It is an emotional reaction to a relatively new layering of society
that began 20 years ago but has accelerated recently. A massive
migration from rural areas to Turkey's cities and a large-scale
economic boom have drawn an entirely new class of religious
Turks from the country's heartland into the life of its secular cities.
The class is represented by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
who is challenging the secular elite, forcing a presidential candidate
upon them whom they find completely distasteful.
On Friday, the military gave him a warning. It has ousted four elected
governments since 1960, and seemed to be considering whether to
make Mr. Erdogan's the fifth. On Sunday, Mr. Erdogan gave a warning
of his own: He will continue to push his candidate, an action that will
probably lead to early national elections.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The message of secularist protesters, said Metin Heper,
a professor at Bilkent University in Ankara, was this: "We are
uncomfortable with the lifestyles of these people."
"They fear these people, but these fears are groundless," he said.
"Gradually, they will see that these people are no different from themselves."
Prejudices among secular Turks have their roots in Turkey's education
system, Mr. Heper said. "Education here teaches that if you are a practicing
Muslim, you are an ignorant person who will bring the country back
to the Middle Ages," he said.
M. Hakan Yavuz, the author of "Islamic Political Identity in Turkey," describes
being shocked at the rigidity in the political science department at Ankara
University, where he got his undergraduate degree, compared with the village
where he grew up, where interpretations of the teachings of a thinker of
Sufism, a mystic branch of Sunni Islam, were welcomed everywhere.
"It was not a dialogue, but rather a carefully structured program of
indoctrination," Mr. Yavuz writes in the preface of his book, published by
Oxford University Press in 2003, referring to his education at Ankara.
(Sabrina Tavernise, "In Turkey, Fear and Discomfort About Religious
Lifestyle," 30 April 2007, <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/world/europe/30turkey.html>)
This rally is not small, nor was the one before it, but neither were the Venezuelan opposition rallies against the Hugo Chavez government in Venezuela*, the rallies for the so-called "Cedar Revolution" in Lebanon, and others like them. Upper classes and strata in the South can mobilize pretty impressive numbers for their causes, too.
The foreign and domestic policies of the AKP, however, are unlike those of Chavez and his comrades, Hizballah and its allies, etc. They might be usefully compared to those of the PT of Brazil, except it is not a traditional social democratic party rooted in organized labor like the PT either.
What is at stake in Turkey now is therefore not populism vs. liberalism (except the AKP's constituency are less elite than the militarist establishment's), pro-imperialism vs. anti-imperialism (except that the AKP is more oriented toward the EU and the military is more tied to the USA), but democracy vs. the "deep state" (the military and other security establishment).
Secondarily, it is also about two different interpretations of what secular modernity ought to be. As I said, the AKP's Turkish government is itself far more secularist than the USG. (People wearing hijab, for instance, are not excluded from schools and so on in the USA.) Ahmet T. Kuru puts it this way in "Reinterpretation of Secularism in Turkey: The Case of the Justice and Development Party" (The Emergence of a New Turkey: Islam, Democracy, and the AK Parti, ed. M. Hakan Yavuz, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2006, <http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~akuru/EMERGENCE.doc>):
the JDP [the Justice and Development Party, the AKP] is
not anti-secular; rather, it defends a distinct
interpretation of secularism that differs from that of the
Kemalist establishment. The debate between the
establishment and the JDP is not simply a conflict between
secularism and Islamism, but rather a discussion about
the true meaning and practice of secularism itself.
Apart from marginal groups, there is an overall consensus
on secularism in Turkey. The real debate occurs between
the supporters of different interpretations of secularism.
* "Un millón cuatrocientas mil personas en la 'Avalancha Tricolor'": <http://www.globovision.com/news.php?nid=43696>.
On 4/29/07, Joseph Catron <jncatron at gmail.com> wrote:
> Like most Western media accounts, the ones posted to this list
> present, or at least highlight, only half the story seen in the
> Turkish media:
>
> --------------------------
> More than one million rally in Turkey for secularism, democracy
>
> ...
>
> "Turkey is secular and will remain secular," "Neither Sharia, nor coup
> d'etat, democratic Turkey," they chanted.
>
> ...
> --------------------------
>
> http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=173637
>
> Meanwhile, the Reuters article practically claims that these
> protesters are agitating for a coup d'état:
>
> > The Istanbul protesters said they backed the army, long viewed here
> > as the ultimate guardian of the secular republic.
>
> So who's telling the truth? I suspect it's the Turkish media, but not
> being in Istanbul, can't say for sure.
>
> Personally, I would far prefer a First Lady with a headscarf to
> military rule. My neighborhood contains plenty of women in
> headscarves, most of whom seem nice enough, and to quote Thomas
> Jefferson, their choice of headgear "neither breaks my leg, nor picks
> my pocket," while a dictatorship overseen by bourgeois generals,
> however brief, very well might.
It's clear that the protesters support the military against the AKP, if not a bloody coup against it, and the protesters won't object to a soft coup like the one in 1997:
Following the "soft" military coup d'etat in February 28, 1997,
the WP-TPP coalition collapsed, and the WP was dissolved
by the Turkish Constitutional Court. The February 28 process
was very destructive for Islamic education and practicing
Muslims in Turkey. In that period, the headscarf ban in
universities was strictly enforced, the Imam-Hatip secondary
schools were closed, and teaching the Qur'an to children
under age twelve became illegal. The military expelled allegedly
Islamist and avowedly pious officers. In addition, pro-Islamic
corporations and financial institutions faced official discrimination.21
These oppressions ignited a transformation in pro-Islamic groups
in terms of their views of Turkey's EU membership, democracy,
and secularism.22 The JDP became a leading actor in this
transformation as explained in the following section.
Changing Muslim Perspectives toward Secularism
Following the February 28 coup, pro-Islamic groups recognized
that religious freedoms should be their main priority. Pro-Islamic
politicians, movements, and intellectuals have tended to embrace
democracy and (passive) secularism to be protected from the
oppression of the (assertive) secularist state. This resulted in a
convergence between the above-mentioned three groups:
ascetics [i.e., political quietists] and political Islamists decided
to support a liberal version of secularism -- what I call passive secularism.
Ali Bulaç, an influential Islamist thinker, declared that "political"
Islamism was dead. He called for a new "civil" Islamism, which
did not contradict secularism as a political regime.23 Along the
same line, the influential Gülen movement abandoned its indifference
and participated in the debate on secularism. The movement initiated
by Fethullah Gülen has focused on education and opened more than
400 schools in about 50 different countries, in addition to its international
media network. This movement avoided political issues, including
secularism, following Nursi's teaching.24 Yet in the late 1990s, the
Journalists and Writers' Foundation affiliated with the Gülen movement
began to organize the Abant workshops to head off socio-political
polarization and to search for a new social consensus in Turkey.
The annual workshops have included about fifty Turkish intellectuals
from sharply different ideological backgrounds. The first workshop in
1998 was devoted to Islam and secularism. Its press declaration
emphasized that God's ontological sovereignty is compatible with
the political sovereignty of the people. The second workshop also
examined the relationships among state, society, and religion.25
The young generation of the National Outlook movement also
transformed their ideological framework. Several of them have
participated in the Abant Workshops to discuss issues such as
secularism. In 2000, three leaders of the young generation --
Erdoğan, Arınç, and Abdullah Gül -- emphasized their pro-democratic
and pro-secular ideas.26 Following the closure of their party, the
WP's parliamentarians founded the Virtue Party (VP). Despite the
VP's pro-EU and democratic discourse,27 the Constitutional Court
dissolved it in 2001, arguing that the VP defended the freedom to
wear the headscarf, and was therefore anti-secular. That deepened
the disagreement between the elders of the National Outlook
movement led by Erbakan, and the young generation led by
Erdoğan. The former founded the Felicity Party (FP), whereas
the latter established the JDP. The FP made a return to the anti-EU
discourse whereas the JDP took a step further to defend Turkey's
membership to the EU, as well as supporting democracy and secularism.
In the elections of November 3, 2002, the FP was marginalized with
2.5 percent of the national votes while the JDP became the leading
party with 34 percent of the votes. (Ahmet T. Kuru, <http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~akuru/EMERGENCE.doc>) -- Yoshie