Journalists are not universally renowned for their subtle inferences. Intemperate hyperbole is more their natural mode. So it was quite surprising to hear that two Turkish journalists had been charged with sending ‘subliminal messages’ during a television programme that had gone out the day before the attempted coup in July 2016. Ahmet Altan had apparently said that he believed President Erdogan would remain in power for another two years – an observation that the prosecutors claimed was in effect an incitement to the plotters to get on with it. It seems it was not alleged that Mr Altan also attempted to bend a spoon or saw himself in half during the programme but the malign intent (and, no doubt, the insult to Islam) was clear to the counter terrorism police who arrested him.
It was certainly clear enough to the Istanbul court this month for Mr Altan, his brother and four other journalists to be sentenced to life imprisonment, for ‘violating the constitutional code’. They have joined more than 70 other journalists who are currently in Turkey’s jails, together with the 50,000 people who have been arrested since the coup and the more than 150,000 teachers, doctors, judges and so on who have been thrown out of their jobs. The TV show on which the Altan brothers had deployed their evil powers was called ‘Free Thought’.
Of course to Erdogan and his AKP party all these people are complicit with the terrorists, with the US-based Gulenists and the Kurdish opposition party in parliament as well as with Islamic State, the militant Kurdish PKK and the Kurdish YPG, the US-backed militia which has been doing most of the fighting against ISIL in Syria. The writers, the thinkers, says Erdogan, are like gardeners who nourish the terrorists with the water they pour from their columns.
There is no doubt that Turkey faces a serious on-going assault from terrorist organisations, including the PKK and the remnants of Islamic State, who seem to be switching more of their attention to the country now that they have lost most of their territory in Syria. Of course most Turks are Sunni Moslems, like themselves, but perhaps the IS zealots feel that, having been a secular republic for nearly a century, Turkey is not sufficiently pious.
Mr Erdogan, however, seems to be intent on putting that right. His government has been busy in recent years pursuing people who neglect Islamic practices or make any comments offensive to Islam. In recent weeks it has even taken to describing its operations against the Kurds in Syria as ‘jihad’ and ensuring that everyone got the point by ordering all of Turkey’s 90,000 mosques to broadcast on their loudspeakers the Koranic ‘prayer of conquest’.
And as Turkey becomes daily less of a secular democracy and seeks to position itself, perhaps, as the reborn leader of the Moslem world – through ‘Ottoman Islamism’ – it is also fast becoming much more authoritarian. Opposition politicians in parliament have been imprisoned and a quarter of former prosecutors and judges have been dismissed, as well as more than half of the top tier of army officers. Since the founding of the republic by Kemal Ataturk, the armed forces have been effectively the guarantors of the secular regime but, after the involvement of some of their number in the failed coup, Erdogan has moved to create heavily armed units within the police and the intelligence services as well as promoting civil defence groups that will be loyal to him personally. It is also alleged that the government has distributed more than $10 billion seized during the post-coup purges to friendly business leaders.
Stop pretending
None of this, of course, has done anything to improve Turkey’s chances of ever joining the EU, as President Macron made clear recently during Mr Erdogan’s visit to Paris. Given what was happening there to the rule of law and freedom of expression, he said it was ‘hypocrisy’ to go on pretending that progress on Turkey’s long-standing application was now possible.
Mr Erdogan might have replied that every pampered dog on the Paris streets knew that France had never had any serious intention of allowing Turkey to join the EU, given its problems with its own Moslem population. But he contented himself with saying that all this delay was ‘seriously exhausting’ for his nation and that it might now have to take a ‘different decision’.
That, of course, set alarm bells ringing on both sides of the Atlantic. The USA already sees Turkey working with its new-found partners, Russia and Iran, in the Syrian ‘peace process’ and sees too its determination to deny the Kurdish YPG any part in that process. But the US sees the Kurds as having been a vital ally in the defeat of ISIS. Could this be the beginning of an authoritarian Turkey turning away from NATO in favour of an alliance with fellow authoritarian states Russia and Iran that might dominate the Middle East? Probably not, given the centuries of hostility between the Ottoman and Russian empires, but possible enough to keep Washington worried.
Europe, however, has a more immediate worry. Turkey’s prime minister had already warned that his country might not be able to continue with its agreement, in return for 3 billion euros of ‘aid’, to keep the 3.5 million Syrian refugees in Turkey from heading for Europe. The deal, he said, was not working well – there had been no progress on visa liberalisation – and the EU should bear in mind that Turkey had the power to unblock the route to the Balkans.
That’s a threat that no one in Paris or Berlin will be able to keep out of their minds.
For more comment, read the latest issue of Industry Europe here: