Cuneyd Zapsu explained how they settled into the European market: “First, we earned their trust. We sold the intermediate goods that they manufactured for cheaper. When they cut down on their investments on the manufacturing of intermediate goods, they fell behind us technologically and they became unable to manufacture cheaper than us, even if they wanted to.”

THE SECRET OF SUCCESS OF THE ZAPSU BROTHERS IN EXPORT

“Strategy” Lessons for the Strategy-Enthusiasts

 Azizler Holding is a group that is known more for its UZEL Machine Factory in Turkey. But now, the activity of its textile, ready wear and food branches within its holding is in the forefront. Balsu Gıda, operating within Azizler Holding, has been receiving the exporter’s award for the last six years. The company had over 30 million Dollars of export within the last year. And its target for this year is 50 million Dollars…

Cuneyd Zapsu, who is in charge of Balsu Gıda, Parsu and the Holding’s A+C Marketing companies which are founded in Germany, went to primary school in Germany and high school at the German School of Istanbul. He got into the Istanbul University’s Business School and also enrolled at the University of Munich.

Cuneyd Zapsu and his older brother Aziz Zapsu, who is the Head of the All Food Importers Association (TÜGİDER), began working as workers even though they were the children of an employer father. They worked at their father’s UZEL factory during their secondary school and high school years. Except for the scissors department, which is the most dangerous department of the factory in terms of job safety, of course… Because their mother would not agree to it.

Both brothers got into the UZEL Board of Directors at a very young age, during the last years of college. But Cuneyd Zapsu, who got married at the age of 21 and now has three daughters, was not able to adapt to the situation all that much. He got home every night as a “bag of nerves”. He says during the Board of Directors meetings, “They never listened to me, never took me seriously despite all my rashness and arrogance out of youth”. He went to Germany to “revive” his father’s company importing thread and raw clothing in Munich. School on the one hand, while carrying on with importing thread and raw clothing on the other… Meanwhile, he convinced his older brother Aziz Zapsu, whom he got hooked, to come to Germany a year later. And they took the business that they had started from scratch forward at the end of 1978 and turned it into a business of 300 thousand Marks in 1979. This figure increased incrementally every year and reached 3 million Marks in 1980, 8,5 million in 1981, 22 million in 1982 and 35 million in 1983. During this time, they imported many products from live crawfish to soap and readymade garments.

During all these works, Turkey’s hazelnut export caught Zapsu’s attention. Turkey only export raw materials. “Why?” he asked to himself, “Why would manufactured goods not be exported just like in the textile and readymade garment industry?”. After a little research, he understood that this was feasible. Having made his first contact with Memduh Hacıoğlu, the Head of the Istanbul Chamber of Industry (ISO), started bringing the products of Balin Şekerleme to Germany. Then, the company’s other products came into the picture. Cuneyd Zapsu founded another company in Germany in 1983 and focused on the hazelnut business by transferring the other business to his older brother Aziz Zapsu.

Zapsu, who speaks Germany at a near-native level, says that he has not encountered any challenges in communicating with the Europeans, but that the attitude toward him changed the moment he “declared” that he is Turkish. According to Zapsu, the foreigners are scared of “uncertainty” above all… They want to know whether the prices will change, thus whether the undertakings will be implemented.

From trade to manufacturing

Getting the blow in 1985 paved the way for a new step. The Zapsus decided to establish a hazelnut spread facility. “Pops would be more than willing to do this” says Cuneyd Zapsu. Because he is worried about both of his sons going to Germany for good. They decided to establish the facility jointly with Memduh Hacıoğlu and they named the company: Balsu. ‘Bal’ from Balin Şekerleme, and ‘Su’ from Zapsu… The Zapsus took care of establishing the company when Memduh Hacıoğlu did not get along well with his own family then. But they did not change the name Balsu which they “fathered” with Hacıoğlu.

Balsu started getting many offers like “establish this, do that” from their customers who found out about them opening a hazelnut processing facility. Because they got hooked on the trust created by Balsu. The existence of such a trustworthy partner was vital to them because they were in it for the long run. The Italian Ferrero Group, one of Balsu’s biggest customers, made them a partnership offer in 1988. They received the answer, “Come on in, if you bring along your own products” and thus Ferrero became Balsu’s partner with 49 percent… Ferrero’s most common product in Turkey is Kinder Surprise… Ferrero left Balsu’s management to the Zapsus. But they were extremely meticulous about auditing and they performed it themselves. Balsu also got into food import business after this partnership.

Hazelnuts, hazelnut kernels, roasted hazelnut kernels, several types of roasted and chopped hazelnut kernels and hazelnut spread… The food group of Azizler Holding currently does all of these aside from hazelnuts garden ownership. That is, it purchases hazelnuts, it breaks them, roasts them, chops them and crushes them. And next up is the foodstuff made using hazelnut spread… Yes, the Zapsus are determined to do that, too… For now, Balsu Gıda markets the products which is provides via import.

Cuneyd Zapsu knows Europe well and knows which factories need what kind of products. Zapsu, who emphasizes that it is difficult to make it in the European market, says that they offer 30-40 cents less per kilo than the price that they produce to sell any product to the businessmen in Europe. The businessmen wish to buy a product of the desired standard at a lower price but the difference between should be at least this much, because the businessmen do not want to be faced with the risk of not being able to find the products. They ask for a satisfactory discount to take the risk. Saying that they gave up on the investments for the intermediary goods manufacturing of the factories which they made contacts with during the first years with Balsu, Zapsu says, “Therefore, they fell behind us technologically. They became unable to make intermediary goods at a low cost even if they wanted to make them…”

Cuneyd Zapsu believes that Turkey must start selling brands… Zapsu considers Sağra franchising abroad to be a crucial step taken in the food sector in this sense, and also gives the early signals about them increasing their manufacturing and marketing activities in the chocolate and candy sector in the next period.

ID CARD

Name – Last Name : Cuneyd Hasan Zapsu

Place of birth: Istanbul

Date and time : 19/11/1956, 22.30

Zodiac sign: Scorpio

Lucky number: None

Favorite color: Blue

Occupation: Businessman

Education: Istanbul University, Business

Foreign languages: German, English

Marital status: Married

Number of children: 3 daughters

Favorite soccer team: GS

Car brand: BMW

Does he have another car?: No

How many credit cards does he have, any which ones? : He has most of them (Necessary, unnecessary)

Which one does he use the most?: Visa, Amex

Which country has he been to the most?: Germany

The country that he wishes to be taken as an example : The USA in terms of the parliament and foundation system, Germany in terms of associations and the social system

His favorite political leader : Turgut Özal

The party that he supports: None

Is he actively interested in politics?: Yes

Does he consider politics?: –

Number of daily newspapers that he reads: 4 – 5

Number of weekly magazines that he reads: 3 – 4

Monthly magazines that he follows: All the magazines in English and German

Hobbies: Chess, Tetris

The hazelnut king embarks upon retailing

Azizler Holding, which is among Turkey’s giants with its turnover of almost four hundred million Dollars, is not that well known by the public due to the “conservative” structure of the family. However, the process of being recognized which started off with Capri-Sun will continue with Balsu hazelnuts and the BIM chain stores. And Cüneyt Zapsu, the “hazelnut king” is behind these breakthroughs.

Azizler Holding is a “conservative” family company which has never considered going public and making its name heard. The holding, which is known abroad for its investments in the field of food, is also partners with Uzel Makine, which has 52 percent of the tractor market in Turkey. The public knows them more for Capri-Sun which they introduced to the market only last year. But there is almost nobody who knows that the primary business of Balsu company which produces Capri-Sun is actually “hazelnuts”. And the holding’s total turnover reaches 383.6 million Dollars.

Although they share their powers with the other eight members of the board of directors, there are two brothers running the holding, Aziz and Cuneyd Zapsu. The “hazelnuts affairs” which is run by the younger brother Cuneyd Zapsu has been in a breakthrough nowadays. Balsu, which is one of the names that first come to mind when one hears hazelnut, is among the biggest ones in the world with its export of a total of 70 thousand tons of over 110 million Dollars. Cuneyd Zapsu, the “hazelnut manager” of the Holding, is the name behind this success. By “imitating” the breakthrough that Turkey achieved in the textile industry so to speak, that is, by realizing hazelnut production from the raw material to the intermediary goods, and to the branded products from there, Zapsu earned his title of being the “hazelnut king”, and says that they will conclude a new investment of 10 million Dollars in the next month.

But Balsu’s real surprise will be in the retailing field. Stating that they will be conquering Istanbul soon with their chain stores called BIM, Cuneyd Zapsu says that they will open tsores that will “make the cheapest sales” by taking the Aldi chain in Germany as an example. So, here are the aspects of Cuneyd Zapsu, who got many reactions with his surprise assertion and who appeared before the public for the first time, and Azizler Holding which you want to know about:

Azizler Holding is a group that is not that well known by the public, could you introduce it briefly with its operations and partnership structure?

Azizler Holding is one hundred percent a family company, but it does not operate like one. There is a board of directors consisting of 10 people and there are only 3 family members in it. And the other 7 are my late father’s dear friends and people whom he recommended, we are on the same level as them, we do not have a right to veto. Surely, we could gather the general assembly and change the board of directors, but that will not happen, we would have to convince the others. An executive board of four people have been elected from this board of directors, and there is a task distribution among them. And there is only the brother Aziz Zapsu and myself from the family. Everyone is the “leader” of one or two companies.

And the reason why we have not become much known out there so far is because there has been no need for that. We have not become well known so far because we have not had many products that have been sold in Turkey or the products have not required ads.

And we are against promotion on a personal basis. We are a pretty “conservative” group.

What are the companies within the group?

Now, we have some partnerships, there are some companies that we control, and there are companies that we entirely own. There is Uzel Makina Sanayi as a partner. İbrahim Uzel is my grandfather and our partnership there still goes on.

What is your share?

Our partnership is 10 percent but because it is also one hundred percent a family company, it is a pretty effective 10 percent. For instance, not even the vice manager can change without our approval. The Uzel status is a recognized one, our famous teachers have achieved it. The tractor does not need to be advertised today in Turkey, Massey Ferguson already has a market share of 52 percent in Turkey currently. I am also the deputy chairman of the board of directors of Tarman, our tractor sales company. We get plenty of orders. On the one hand we are thankful, but on the other hand we say what a shame. Because you lose the market when there is waiting. Indeed, there is a wait of almost 5 months in tractor, the only sector that moves forward properly in the automotive industry. We produce sub-industry products such as springs, rims, brakes in addition to tractor. 90 percent of the rims are ours today from Tofaş to Renault. And as for the issue of recognition, there is no need for advertisement there, either.

Balsu is a bit different, I guess…

Yes, we have our Balsu group on the other hand. We went over 90 million Dollars in export last season. There are several companies within the group. Balsu Gıda Sanayi, Balsu Pazarlama, Balsu Marketing, Balsu Nakliye, Balsu Gıda Sanayi will most probably appeal to the consumers as well in the years to come. We do everything about hazelnuts at Balsu Marketing from a to z. We do everything about it: obtaining it from the farmers in their shells to breaking them, sifting them, roasting them and making them into spread.

You don’t have your own trees?

We have trees that can produce 5 – 10 tons of hazelnuts in the area around our Hendek factory. But there is no such plantation thing for the hazelnuts, we get them from the farmers. 6, 7 million people live on hazelnuts in Turkey. 500 thousand tons of hazelnuts are produced. The hazelnuts that our group produces is 70 thousand tons. We export all of it.

Where do you currently stand in the hazelnut business as a product and a brand?

We are abroad as Balsu Marketing. I can say that there are no major chocolate makers in the world to whom we do not provide hazelnuts or hazelnut products. But we need new markets, and we are striving for that.

What about Capri-Sun?

On the other hand, Balsu Gıda Sanayi started making Capri-Sun. We imported it at first. With our importing company called Teksu. Teksu is the Turkey representative of the most well-known 36 brands in the world. And we saw that Capri-Sun, one of these brands, was a niche, something that children and young people between the ages of 4 – 15 did not have in Turkey. It was number one in Germany among that age group, it was consumed even more than cola. The cost was really high when we imported it, it was being brought in for a certain group. So, we thought a larger audience could buy it if we did the research and could sell it for a lower price by being relative, and we started with its licensed production. We have been making it for about a year and it is number one in the 0.2-liter fruit juice market. I believe we are in the third place in the whole market after Aroma and Meysu.

How much have you invested?

 We have had an extra 2.5 million Dollar investment in addition to our current factory. Normally, it would be more but it cost that much because we only brought in its own machine and packaging machine in addition to our hazelnut business factory which was already there with its building and substructure.

All in all, this investment of yours was made during a year of crisis, were you able to achieve your expected sales chart?

It was not bad even though we were in a year of crisis, we are satisfied.

And you got in with a higher price compared to your rivals.

 Sure, we got in with a quite high price for last year, with 15 thousand Liras. When you look at its pricing in the whole world, it is between cola and fruit juice. Although fruit juice is really cheap here, and it is not because it is “fruit juice”. The prices are low, just like their quality. I think that the Turkish people are looking for quality products now and buys it when they find it. We are going full-capacity with Capri-Sun. We moved on with 0 percent raise in a year in terms of price, it still costs 15 thousand Liras. Because the other fruit juices do this, so we have to follow their lead.

Has there been a loss with 0 percent price increase in return for one hundred percent inflation?

In a sense, yes, but the market share matters greatly in such matters. When the market exits one day, you exit with that market share.

Are you planning on introducing new products?

The new products will be about hazelnuts. We have been doing this business in the entire world for 15 – 16 years. We thought about why we never provided any products to Turkey. We will be introducing our products in 30-gram packs with the Balsu brand to the market in several weeks as a trial run. Balsu is well-known abroad, but not in Turkey. There will be a chance to eat a different hazelnut in Turkey. Today, the hazelnuts at the nut shops are Fiskobirlik’s 92, 93 crop hazelnuts. Ours will of course be the hazelnuts of 95. Gıda Sanayi will introduce a couple of more products as “consumer products” again from now on.

In which field?

It will be hazelnuts again but different products in the field of “snacks”.

Are you not considering using hazelnuts in the field of chocolate like Sagra?

Not for now. We are considering sticking with snacks. The hazelnut might go into potatoes someday, so we will stop at snack production. Sagra does it as a “confectionary”.

How do you get the competitive edge in Europe?

The competitive edge in Turkey cannot be found anywhere else. There are no alternatives to producing hazelnuts in Eastern Black Sea. Turkey can give this product for much, much cheaper if necessary.

We had a reverse start as Balsu. I took the textile industry as an example when I was in Germany in 1979. Turkey was a cotton exporter at first, then in the 60’s, cotton yard factories were founded, and their export began, then raw fiber, fabric, then Turkey has now become one of the biggest readymade garment exporters in the world.

CHEAP GROCERY STORES TO BREAK GROUND

You are going into a new market with the BIM chain stores…

These stores are “discount stores”, that is, real “hard discounters” (meaning stores that sell with major discounts). There has not been such a thing in Turkey so far. What we mean by that is, the prices are the cheapest, when you look at it. Our people get the prices of the other retailers, look at the cheapest one, and declare a lower price. The system is that simple and some make loss and some profit; the average margin of profit is pretty low. Thus, cost per person is kept really low. For instance, the ambiance is not a luxurious store. 

How do you manage to be the cheapest?

Firstly, your style is pretty harsh. Our general manager has made it to being a member of the board of directors of Aldi, world’s number one “hard discounter”, in Germany. The mindset about costs is really different, there are absolutely no such things as cars for the company employees or anything. Secondly, the expenses made for the store are only for what is mandatory. The shelves are not luxurious. There is no store manager like the system at McDonald’s, everyone works. Goods circulating as fast as possible, a low margin of profit, and thus giving the lowest prices. Surely, this can only be achieved in great amounts.

How many has been opened so far?

We open 1 – 2 of them weekly. Until Istanbul is full of them, but we do not think it will be all that easily. It does not need any ads, either, the audience that shop promotes it verbally. If the same brand can be bought for 25 percent cheaper from here, this reaches gigantic figures on a yearly basis.

Have you not received any reactions from some chain stores, or from supermarkets like Metro or Migros?

We have received many, many reactions. And more will come. But this is not a hypermarket, you can shop for your daily needs, not your weekly or monthly ones. That is, think of it as a 600-square meter grocery store slightly larger than your local grocery store near where you live. But it is 40 percent cheaper than the grocery store and while you can buy a years’ worth of goods at the grocery store, you can buy 2-3 days of goods there. And I believe that it will break fresh ground in Turkey. There will be many more of these stores to come very soon, we know the big groups are prepared, we will use the advantage of being number one. We think “hard discount” is essential for our people.

ALMOST EVERYONE IS INVOLVED IN HAZELNUT

The hazelnut is an agriproduct which the political environments use as a vote means in Turkey. Cüneyt Zapsu expresses what the sector “suffers” from in this sense as follows:

“The hazelnut is a truly interesting topic. There are such groups and persons within this business, it is an extremely political thing, for one thing. The hazelnut can be a topic of discussion in the council of minister for hours, as if Turkey has no other business. Because there are so many ministers from the Black Sea. Normally, there is one group in charge of a business. And the Undersecretariat of Foreign Trade is in charge of this, because the export is 90 percent; because there is Treasury, finding the money; because there is the Ministry of Industry, and Fiskobirlik is affiliated with it, because there is the Ministry of Agriculture, and it is an agriproduct, and because there are government ministers who have nothing to do with it, because they are from the Black Sea. And you work so hard to get something out of this. But the folks at the undersecretariat have gotten this business pretty well, and hopefully they will succeed.”

MAY GOD HELP BOYNER

How does Cüneyt Zapsu spend a day?

There is someone whom I greatly respect. Mr Korkut Özal told me a story, and I will tell it because I am like him. So, they were in a hard negotiation with BP when he was in charge of Turkiye Petrolleri Anonim Ortaklığı. It lasted a full week, day and night. Mr Korkut said to the Americans, “I go home really late, the wife will get mad, they ask me where are you”. And the English said, your folks ask you where you are but mine ask me “who are you?”. This is like my situation. Unfortunately for my children, I have three daughters, I cannot make the necessary time for them. When you said your day, I thought, my yearly flight time is no less than 800 hours. I can give a THY stewardess as an example who flies 700 hours a year except for overtime so that you can understand what that means. That is, it not exactly a hobby of mine but travelling has become a habit. And when I spend my weekends at home, I do not want to leave home.

How do you like sports?

I snowboard and water ski.

What is your political view?

I support nobody right now. We are a little “opposing”. For example my folks used to support the Democratic Party back in the day, you know, against the soldiers and all. My father used to be an extremely religious person, he supported MSP, the only religious party. Then we tried to support Mr Turgut. Currently, I support Cem Boyner, who is my friend and also whose thoughts I admire. I say may God help him, and that is all I can say because he has his work cut out.

Are you considering joining YDH (The New Democracy Movement)?

Again I have a saying from Mr Korkut, which goes, “I will not oppose”. One should not become a politician just to become one, one needs to do something.

Does this mean YDH will stay in the opposition?

I hope not. I think it will succeed greatly in the long run. But I am not sure if we have enough time for it, because Turkey is moving toward a direction really quickly.

I saw hazelnut similarly, only raw hazelnut went out of Turkey at first. I thought we could at least send it by roasting it first. I spoke with the chocolate companies there to see if we could shred them, crush them and take them as semi-products from Turkey after roasting them. But because they cared about price stability, etc., we decided to make the production for this business ourselves. And we founded the factory in 1985 by consulting to my late father.

Your rivals emerged later on, I believe…

After the unfair competition with the government’s Fiskobirlik for years, we are happy to get into a regular competition with those who have stepped into this business from the private sector recently. As far as I am concerned, there are 12 different hazelnut processing investment that started this year alone. But it is not like we did nothing. We have an investment from scratch that is double our current capacity.

When did it start?

We started last year, and it will end in a month, hopefully. It was a high investment for hazelnut because it started from zero. It is over 10 million Dollars. We are going for some innovations in the processing, packaging and roasting issues as well; we have to, in order to remain the leader.

Do you have foreign partners?

We have a longstanding partnership with the Italian Ferrero at Balsu Gıda.

Where does the name Balsu come from?

There was Balin Şekerleme which we worked together with in 1985 when we founded this business, and we were satisfied with. Memduh Hacıoğlu was running it. He was someone whom we loved and respected, and we thought we would do this business together. We brought together the “bal” of Balins and the “su” of the Zapsus called it Balsu. But unfortunately, they were also a family company and they could not agree with their own partners. So, Mr Memduh could not get into this business but the name stuck.

31 October 2002

Von Michael Thumann / Zeit

Istanbul/Ankara

Er ist 67 Jahre alt und einer der beweglichsten Kleinunternehmer Istanbuls.

Ali hat seinen Stuhl auf dem Bürgersteig im Istanbuler Stadtteil Eminönü aufgeklappt, gleich hinter dem Großen Basar und in Hörweite des Muezzins der Süleymaniye-Moschee. Vor Ali steht seine alte Singer-Nähmaschine. Dazu kommen links ein Holzregal, rechts ein Haufen ausgetretener Schuhe, eine Kiste voller Sohlennägel, Lederstücke und Leimtuben. Fertig ist der Schusterladen.

“Manchmal wechsele ich zwischen zwei Paar Sandalen schnell den Arbeitsort.

Wenn’s hier zu eng wird”, sagt Ali, lacht und zeigt auf die wartenden Autos im Stau vor seiner Nähmaschine.

Auch sonst ist es eng in Alis Leben. Er hat fünf Kinder und doppelt so viele Enkel. Allein in seiner Zweizimmerwohnung leben fünf der Sprösslinge. Alis staatliche Rente wiegt nicht mehr als ein Almosen: “Kaum halte ich das Geld in der Hand, frisst auch schon die Inflation daran.” In der Familie muss jeder arbeiten, der irgend kann. Ali besaß früher einen richtigen Laden. Aber der musste einem Parkhaus weichen, auf Befehl der Stadtverwaltung. Seitdem werkelt er am Straßenrand.

Zürnt Ali den Mächtigen? “Na ja, viele sind einfach korrupt bis ins Mark.”

Alle? “Nein.” Ali hat einen Helden. “Der Erdogan war einer von uns. Er kam hierher ins Händlerviertel und fragte, was wir brauchen.” Recep Tayyip Erdogan war von 1994 bis 1998 Bürgermeister von Istanbul. “Er sorgte dafür, dass die Müllabfuhr gut arbeitete, dass die Straßen sauber wurden. Er ließ Bäume pflanzen – und vor allem: Er nahm kein Bestechungsgeld!” Erdogan verstehe einfache Menschen, sagt Ali. “Und deshalb wähle ich seine Partei …”

Er bricht plötzlich ab und hämmert schweigend auf einer Schuhsohle herum. Nur drei Meter entfernt steht ein Polizist in Zivil und hört zu. Besondere Vorkommnisse, Herr Wachtmeister? Der Lauscher zieht die Lächelmaske über und geht langsam weiter. Ali starrt auf seine Sohle. Ende des Gesprächs.

Es ist Wahlkampf in der Türkei. An diesem Sonntag bestimmen 68 Millionen Türken ihr neues Parlament. Wenige Tage zuvor deutet alles darauf hin, dass eine Partei gewinnen wird, die den Militärs und dem säkularen Establishment so gar nicht gefallen will: die Partei für Gerechtigkeit und Entwicklung (AKP) von Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Für sie, die sich als Hüter des Erbes Kemal Atatürks, als Wächter einer streng weltlich ausgerichteten Türkei begreifen, besteht die AK-Partei aus “Islamisten”, andere sehen sie als “muslimische Konservative”.

Die alarmierten Kemalisten zeigen auf die verborgenen Wurzeln der AKP: Die Partei ist aus den Trümmern der 2001 verbotenen islamistischen Tugendpartei von Expremier Necmettin Erbakan hochgeschossen. Erbakans Gefolgsleute gründeten vor gut einem Jahr die Wohlergehenspartei, der gemäßigte Flügel unter Führung von Erdogan die AKP. Ausgerechnet gegen sie hat der Staatsanwalt nun kurz vor der Wahl ein Verbotsverfahren angekündigt. Ihren Parteichef Erdogan hatten die Gerichte bereits zuvor vom Schlussspurt ins Ministerpräsidentenamt ausgeschlossen – wegen der öffentlichen Verlesung eines als islamistisch ausgelegten Gedichtes. Doch mit jedem neuen hingebogenen Justizverfahren legt Erdogan Partei in den Umfragen zu. Woher die erdrutschartige Popularität? Es sind nicht nur arme Schuster wie Ali, die der AKP zuwinken. Hinter der Partei stehen auch Besserverdienende.

Man darf sich den schnauzbärtigen Hasan Gürsoy nicht als rückwärts gewandt vorstellen, nur weil er offen bekennt, die AKP zu unterstützen. Der Inhaber einer Istanbuler Farbenfabrik hat die Ärmel aufgekrempelt, sucht rastlos nach neuen Herausforderungen. Gerade hat der 45-Jährige eine ehemalige Textilfabrik als Messegebäude herausputzen lassen. Nachdenklich zieht er in der prächtigen, leeren Halle an einer Zigarette: “Noch hat sich kein Aussteller angekündigt.” Die chronische Wirtschaftskrise sei schuld. “Und die korrupten Regierungen.” Vor acht Jahren arbeiteten 2000 Leute in seiner Farbenfabrik bei 50 Millionen Dollar Umsatz. “Heute sind noch 500 angestellt, bei 10 Millionen Umsatz.”

Ach so, und nun soll Recep Tayyip Erdogan die Firma mit ein paar Krediten retten? “Bitte nein, bloß keine staatliche Hilfe”, wehrt Gürsoy ab. “Weniger staatliche Blockadepolitik wäre besser: Streichung überflüssiger Vorschriften und klare, durchsichtige Entscheidungen der Behörden.” Will sagen: “keine Korruption”. Mit dieser schier unausrottbaren Tradition soll ausgerechnet der Außenseiter Erdogan brechen? “Er hat das schon einmal vorgemacht”, entgegnet Gürsoy, “als Bürgermeister in Istanbul.” Aber jetzt darf er nach dem Willen der Justiz nicht Premier werden, was also kann er tun? “Macht nichts, er hat dafür die richtigen Leute in seiner Partei.”

Der Vertrauensvorschuss für Erdogan AKP ist riesengroß. Vor allem bei jenen, die nicht an den Segnungen der türkischen Klientel- und Klüngelwirtschaft teilhaben. Verarmte Händlerfamilien wie die von Ali gehören dazu. Auch die mindestens zwei Millionen Arbeitslosen. Und Fabrikbesitzer wie Hasan Gürsoy.

Wie er unterstützen große Teile des so genannten Grünen Kapitals die AK-Partei. Dieser anatolische Mittelstand will über das Geschäft muslimische Traditionen nicht vergessen – im Gegensatz zu den Chief Executive Officers der säkular-globalen Industrieholdings, deren Glaspaläste die Ausfallstraßen von Istanbul säumen.

Vor 12 Jahren gründeten kleine und mittlere Unternehmer – als Gegengewicht zum Großunternehmerverband TÜSIAD – ihre Interessenvertretung: MÜSIAD. Auf sie wird heute Rücksicht genommen. Als jüngst muslimische Geschäftsleute zu Beginn der Fastenzeit Ramadan nach Mekka fliegen wollten, führte ihr Weg am Flughafen von Istanbul an einer Reklametafel für Bademoden vorbei. Auf der schmachtet eine barbusige Türkin mit Pumablick und nur angedeutetem Slip im offenbar sehr heißen Sand. Die Flughafenleitung war so umsichtig, die Reklamewand beim Einchecken der gläubigen Geschäftsleute zuzuhängen.

Pilger nach Mekka? Erst die Bademoden-Reklame zuhängen

Die Synthese aus städtischer Moderne und ländlicher Familientradition, aus kapitalistischem Geschäftssinn und Verbeugung vor muslimischen Bräuchen, aus prowestlich-linker Staatsräson und Wertekonservatismus ist nicht ganz neu in der türkischen Politik. In den achtziger Jahren verkörperte der legendäre Ministerpräsident Turgut Özal diese Mischung. Er versöhnte die historischen Gegensätze der türkischen Gesellschaft, er war religiös und stieß sein Land voran in die Moderne.

Könnte die AKP ihm nachfolgen? Ihre Parteizentrale in Ankara sieht schon mal sehr fortschrittlich aus: ein fünfstöckiger Palast aus prowestlich anmutendem Glas und Stahl. Davor hängen, als anatolische Draufgabe, kunterbunte Wimpel mit einer aufgemalten Glühbirne, dem Wahrzeichen der Partei. Recht originell und nicht ganz frei von populistischen Zügen ist auch die Entstehung der Partei und ihres Programms. Erdogans PR-Berater starteten eine landesweite Umfrage und wollten wissen, ob die Leute eine neue, unverbrauchte Partei wünschen, welches Programm sie haben sollte, welchen politischen Führern sie vertrauen. Das Ergebnis war die AKP.

Die Kleiderordnung entscheidet über das politische Überleben

Parteiführer Recep Tayyip Erdogan sitzt im Kreise seiner meist jungen Getreuen. Er thront fast, so groß ist die Ehrfurcht der oft in Amerika oder Deutschland ausgebildeten Ökonomen und Juristen um ihn herum. Doch immerhin: Er hat es geschafft, junge, kluge Leute in seine Partei zu holen. Kompetente Unternehmer wie Ali Babacan und Cuneyd Zapsu haben ihre Spitzenjobs in der Wirtschaft aufgegeben, um Erdogan zu beraten. Mit Erfolg: Auf der Internet-Seite von AKP werden sämtliche Spenden und ihre Verwendung aufgelistet – eine in der Türkei unübliche Transparenz. Es klingt nicht abwegig, wenn Erdogan mit tiefer Stimme sagt: “Der türkische Staat braucht ein besseres Management.”

Aber welchen Staat will Erdogan? Die Militärs vergessen nicht, dass er vor dreißig Jahren im Nationalistischen Türkischen Studentenbundes Front machte gegen Demokratie, Laizismus und den Westen. Heute hat er in seinem Büro ein Bild von Kemal Atatürk mit Abgeordneten des ersten Parlaments der Republik aufgehängt. Alles nur zum Schein?

Eine Gesandtschaft der AK-Partei ist gerade zurückgekehrt von einer Reise nach London, Boston und New York. Erdogan wollte dort, wo man ihm und seiner Partei skeptisch begegnet, gut Wetter machen. “Wir möchten eine Partei, die offen ist für die Märkte und für die Investoren”, sagt er. Das Vertrauen in die staatlichen Institutionen müsse wiederhergestellt werden. “Denn wir wollen die enge Kooperation mit dem Internationalen Währungsfonds und der Weltbank.” Besser hätte es ein Prediger der Globalisierung nicht sagen können. Und wie hält er’s mit der EU und deren für die Türkei so schwer verdaulichen Rechtsstandards? “Unser Land hat ein ernstes Problem mit Freiheitsrechten. Ich bin für die volle Durchsetzung der EU-Gesetze, um die Türkei für einen Beitritt zur Union zu qualifizieren. Sie helfen uns auf dem Weg zu einer besseren Demokratie.”

Erdogan bekennt sich rückhaltloser und selbstkritischer zur EU als die meisten seiner politischen Konkurrenten. Aber nicht über die EU streitet er mit der Staatsmacht. Der Zwist geht um eine scheinbare Nebensächlichkeit: die Kleiderordnung. Der Generalstaatsanwalt zum Beispiel nahm Anstoß daran, dass bei der Gründung der AK-Partei sechs Frauen mit Kopftüchern anwesend waren.

Ein strenger Kemalist findet so etwas empörend. Generell dürfen türkische Frauen in öffentlichen Gebäuden, in Behörden, im Parlament, aber auch an den Universitäten kein Kopftuch tragen. “Daran wird sich nichts ändern, so lange das Kopftuch religiös ausgenutzt wird”, ließ die Familienministerin unlängst wissen. Dieses staatliche Kleiderdiktat stellt viele gläubige muslimische Frauen vor ein Problem. Auch Erdogans Töchter, die wie ihre Mutter ein Kopftuch tragen. Der Vater hat deshalb beide Töchter ins westliche Ausland geschickt, damit sie studieren können – mit Kopftuch.

Das Thema erregt den Vorsitzenden sichtlich. “Für mich ist das Tragen eines Kopftuches nicht Symbol für eine politischen Bewegung, sondern ein Grundrecht”, sagt Erdogan. Die Türkei verletze Menschenrechte, wenn sie Studentinnen wegen ihres Äußeren von der Uni ausschließe. “Das muss aufhören.

Wir wollen einen angelsächsischen Säkularismus. Jeder soll seine Religion praktizieren, aber niemandem darf sie aufgezwungen werden.” So denkt Erdogan, so spricht er. Aber handelt er auch so?

Vorsicht ist geboten. Immerhin waren es auch die Kopftuchkrisen, die früher zu den Verboten der islamistischen Parteien von Necmettin Erbakan führten.

Erdogan habe daraus gelernt, lautet das jüngste Gerücht in Ankara. Stelle die AK-Partei nach den Wahlen die Regierung, so die Zeitung Hürriyet, dürfe niemand Premier, Außen- oder Verteidigungsminister werden, dessen Frau ein Kopftuch trage. Bloß nicht die Generäle reizen. Erdogan schwieg zu dem Gerücht. Alles andere wäre eine Dummheit. Denn viele seiner Wähler sind Kopftuchträgerinnen oder deren Ehegatten.

Offen bleibt also, wer Premier wird, wenn Erdogan am nächsten Wochenende die Wahl gewinnt. Offen ist auch, ob der Generalstaatsanwalt wirklich noch ein Verbotsverfahren gegen die AK-Partei betreibt. Sicher scheint nur so viel: Bei dieser Wahl werden die kleinen Mitte-rechts-Parteien, die im vergangenen Jahrzehnt die Macht hatten, aus dem Parlament vertrieben. Doch damit rutscht die Türkei nicht nach links, im Gegenteil. Genosse Trend wählt heute konservativ. Das ist die Chance für eine Volkspartei der rechten Mitte, für eine Art muselmanischer CSU, wertkonservativ und prowestlich-demokratisch.

Also für eine Partei wie die AKP von Erdogan.

Manche Türken meinen, eine AKP-Regierung sei ein Experiment mit unsicherem Ausgang. Vielleicht. Doch wenn es schief geht, greift ohnehin die Grundsatzabteilung für “Keine Experimente!” ein: das Militär. Die Generäle halten die Notbremse stets in der Hand. Es wäre schlimm für die türkische Demokratie, würden sie daran ziehen, bevor die AKP gezeigt hat, was sie wirklich will.

Source:https://www.zeit.de/2002/45/Mit_Kopftuch_in_den_Westen/komplettansicht?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

Karl Vick / The Washington Post

A party with roots in political Islam won a decisive victory in Turkey’s national election today, presenting a possible challenge to a long secular tradition in a key strategic ally of the United States that Washington holds up as a democratic example to the Muslim world.

The Justice and Development Party, known by the Turkish initials AKP, drew more than one-third of the vote, a plurality that would allow it to govern without a partner. The only other contender assured of winning seats in parliament was the Republican People’s Party, created by Kemal Ataturk, who founded the modern Turkish state on rigidly secular terms. It garnered about 19 percent of the vote, more than the 10 percent required for representation in parliament.

Turkey, which straddles Europe and Asia, has looked to the West since it was founded in 1923 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the ruler of the Muslim east for 500 years. As a member of NATO, it was a crucial U.S. ally in the Cold War, and it would be asked to play a key role in any new military campaign against neighboring Iraq.

Yet the meddling role the military has played in politics, especially against religious parties, has damaged Turkey’s dimming prospects for membership in the European Union, an effort the country has pursued with increasing vigor since its economy nearly collapsed early last year.

AKP capitalized on public outrage over the economy, analysts said. Throughout the two-month campaign, it presented an image of moderation and responsibility, and sought to distance itself from a boldly pro-Islamic government that was forced from power in 1997, largely by the senior officers that Turkey’s constitution designates as guardians of Ataturk’s vision.

Tonight, in a series of interviews that aides said were calculated to calm fears of radical change, the AKP’s chairman, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, vowed not to interfere with the “lifestyle” of Turks, 98 percent of whom are Muslim, but who show widely varying degrees of piety. As mayor of Istanbul in the mid-1990s, Erdogan had banned alcohol in municipal restaurants.

He said tonight that the top priority of the new Turkish government would be to persuade the European Union to accept Turkey as a member, a widely shared goal in this largely low-income nation of 67 million. But the chances of reaching that goal have become increasingly remote. The last chance for admission for at least a decade, the EU Copenhagen summit, is scheduled to take place next month.

“First things first,” Erdogan said, vowing to dispatch envoys to European capitals to deal with EU objections to Turkey’s record on human rights, as well as concerns about admitting a Muslim nation to what some call a “Christian club.”

The moves underscored AKP’s insistence that it would keep Turkey pointed firmly toward the West.

In an interview with American correspondents, Erdogan voiced the reservations held by many Turks about a possible U.S. military campaign in neighboring Iraq. But Erdogan also called the United States “a natural ally of Turkey” and vowed that “our relationship will continue increasing.”

“We have to be cool right now,” said Cuneyd Zapsu, an AKP founding member and Erdogan aide. “We don’t want big tension.”

[Early Monday, Erdogan said Turkey would abide by U.N. resolutions regarding Iraq, the Reuters news agency reported. “We are bound by the U.N.’s decision, we cannot say anything before seeing the U.N.’s attitude towards the issue,” he said in a news conference in the capital, Ankara.

[“We don’t want blood, tears and death. We hope that the issue will be solved peacefully.”]

Political analysts applauded what they said was the party’s moderate stance, after a campaign marked by state efforts to derail AKP as a party and remove the popular Erdogan as its chairman.

“I think there are some good signals,” said Sedat Ergin, a prominent columnist. “He tried to give reassurances to the secular segments of the society.”

Ilter Turkmen, a former foreign minister, said many voters would be surprised by AKP’s showing, which Ergin termed “bigger than we all expected.”

“But they’re making a very determined effort,” Turkmen said. “There is the possibility that this party will be for the first time a liberal Islamic party, which would be positive. It’s possible.”

He defined a liberal Islamic party as resembling “Christian Democrats — they have some religious references, but there’s nothing specifically religious in their policies.”

“We see secularism as the guarantee of all the faiths,” Erdogan said.

But Erdogan’s own history of mixing politics and religion has created a unique problem: He cannot serve as prime minister.

AKP was founded by self-described “moderate” veterans of a religious movement organized first as the Welfare Party and later the Virtue Party. Both were eventually banned for violating Turkey’s secular constitution, and several leaders were jailed for “Islamic sedition.”

Erdogan, who was popular as mayor of Istanbul, served a four-month prison term in 1999. The sentence also carried a lifetime ban on holding political office.

During the campaign, AKP skirted the ban by pitching Erdogan as the party’s spokesman. His picture appeared on buses and posters. At rallies, he railed against the political establishment that many blame for the economic crisis that has put hundreds of thousands out of work and that tried to ban the AKP. And as AKP chairman, Erdogan’s name appeared on ballots directly below the party’s logo.

But because of the ban, Erdogan cannot take the logical next step of becoming Turkey’s prime minister.

Yet no obvious second choice emerged during the campaign. AKP officials said the party’s 50-member governing board would meet Tuesday to decide on a name to forward to President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who formally appoints the prime minister.

That appointment, while fulfilling the letter of the law, also holds great potential for confusion, observers said. The prime minister, who is presented to the world as the country’s head of state, may not be the Turkey’s most powerful figure.

“This will be a test for Erdogan, because he might be tempted to choose a weak figure in order to manage the country from behind the scenes,” said Turkmen, the former foreign minister.

The next prime minister will also sit on the National Security Council, a mix of elected officials and military leaders, including the powerful chief of general staff. The council, which meets in secret, makes crucial decisions on all affairs, including the future of elected governments, as it did on Feb. 28, 1997, when it forced the resignation of Turkey’s only openly Islamist prime minister.

Like the rest of Turkey’s political establishment, senior generals are also said to be deeply skeptical of Erdogan’s party. “I am worried about the AKP coming to power,” said outgoing prime minister Bulent Ecevit, whose discredited party drew less than 5 percent of the vote.

The new chief of general staff refrained from comment during the campaign, and was scheduled to depart Monday for a visit to the United States, a move one analyst called “a good coincidence.”

Researcher Yesim Borg contributed to this report.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party, stressed a desire for close relations with the United States after a decisive election victory.

Source:https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/11/04/party-tied-to-islam-wins-big-in-turkey/1997a8bb-a9f3-4cb4-bc32-c204d91b623f/

Ian Fisher / The New York Times

Voters angrily drummed Turkey’s incumbents out of office today, choosing by a sound margin a party led by a former Islamicist, who quickly sought to calm fears by emphasizing his support for a moderate, secular Turkey.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 48, the leader of the party, Justice and Development, said tonight that it was firmly committed to joining Europe and to continuing strong relations with the United States.

”Secularism is the protector of all beliefs and religions,” Mr. Erdogan, who is barred from a formal role in the government, said in an interview here with American reporters. ”We are the guarantors of this secularism, and our management will clearly prove that.”

Though he once opposed joining the European Union, Mr. Erdogan said tonight that his first priority was to begin formal talks to become a member. ”We’re running out of time on E.U. membership,” he said at a news conference.

With 99 percent of the ballots counted, Justice and Development had won 34.2 percent of the vote — enough under Turkey’s election law for it to form a government without a coalition partner.

Its nearest rival, the staunchly secular, center-left Republican People’s Party, won 19.4 percent, and is expected to become the sole opposition party. None of the 16 other parties in contention appeared likely to cross the 10 percent threshold needed to gain seats in Parliament. Under the Turkish system, votes cast for the parties below the 10 percent threshold are distributed among the parties above it. In a measure of voters’ anger at incumbent politicians — especially at corruption and the bad economy — the party of Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit barely won 1 percent of the vote.

”I’m not surprised, even though I didn’t expect it to be so low,” said Mr. Ecevit, 77, whose ill health this summer prompted elections two years ahead of schedule. The party that had been running third in the polls, the Youth Party, fell short of the 10 percent threshold.

Though Justice and Development looked set to dominate Parliament, the role of its charismatic leader, Mr. Erdogan (pronounced EHR-doh-han) was far from certain.

He is not permitted to serve as prime minister, nor to hold any government position, because of a 1998 conviction for reading a poem that a court said incited religious hatred. Some experts worry that Turkey will suffer under a weak prime minister — with Mr. Erdogan effectively ruling from behind the scenes — as the nation seeks to begin accession talks with the European Union and the United States ponders an attack in Iraq. Turkey is considered crucial to any American action because of its air bases near the Iraqi border.

Mr. Erdogan declined to say tonight exactly how his party would handle the problem, though he noted that voters were well aware of his ”legal prohibitions.” He suggested that he could remain head of the party, presumably setting policy, while a prime minister tended to the state itself.

”People voted for the party, and the reason behind the existence of the party is its program,” he said in the interview at party headquarters as supporters cheered in a parking lot outside. ”There are similar examples in the world, where the leader of the party is not necessarily the leader of the government. This can work in Turkey as well.”

The ban on his holding office runs out early next year, though he still could not become prime minister because that job must be held by an elected member of Parliament. Moreover, the fate of the party itself is clouded by charges brought by the nation’s chief prosecutor last month that were intended to ban it outright.

The victory tonight gave the party a clear majority of a projected 364 seats in the 550-seat Parliament as well as the highest percentage for any single party in Turkey in at least 20 years. Voting is mandatory in Turkey, and the turnout is usually at least 80 percent.

But some experts believed the party’s hold on power remained tenuous because despite its strong support, around 65 percent of Turkey’s 41 million voters did not cast their ballots for Justice and Development, and because there remain ongoing questions about Mr. Erdogan’s precise role in government and his Islamic past.

”It’s not like they are in an earthquake, but they will never feel very safe,” said Ahmet K. Han, a professor and political analyst at Istanbul Bilgi University, who predicted that the government would not last long.

But Mr. Han also said the election marked a watershed in Turkey’s politics: voters denied seats to all three parties in the current ruling coalition, as well as to any other party that has recently held power.

”This the death of politics in Turkey as we know it,” he said. ”This is a real call for new politics. The population is in real need for a change.”

The sentiment was echoed by Yakup Kepenek, a leading member of the Republican People’s Party, begun by Kemal Ataturk, who founded the Turkish Republic in 1923.

”What we would wish the most,” Mr. Kepenek said in an interview tonight, ”is that they should re-establish the lost respect for Turkish politics.”

Though much attention in the campaign focused on Mr. Erdogan’s past as a proponent of political Islam, many voters seemed willing to overlook their concerns. Mr. Erdogan was a popular mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998, and many voters said they wanted leadership that was competent, clean and not responsible for the current political mess.

”Tayyip Erdogan was the only man I could trust,” said Murat Oren, a 29-year-old cab driver in Istanbul who voted for Justice and Development. ”The situation we are in right now has nothing to do with religion. It is all the economy.”

But many questions remain about how Mr. Erdogan and his party will get along with the leaders of Turkey’s establishment, especially in the military, which staged three coups in the last 42 years when it felt the state was in danger. In 1997, the army nudged aside the first Islamist government in Turkey, headed by the Welfare Party, and newspapers are full of rumors that the army is eyeing Mr. Erdogan with concern.

Mr. Erdogan and many of his top leaders were members of the Welfare Party and its later incarnations — and, in many ways, the victory tonight marks a new stage for what he says are his evolving political views. As mayor, he opposed joining the European Union and advocated withdrawing from NATO.

In 1998 he was imprisoned for reciting a poem in public that read, in part, ”The mosques are our bayonets, the domes our helmets and the believers our soldiers.” He served four months in prison for that offense, which his supporters quickly point out would probably not be a crime under reforms passed here last summer.

Cuneyd Zapsu, a party leader and businessman, said that most voters believed Mr. Erdogan had changed, and that opposition to him among Turkey’s political elite was based less on fear of Islam than fear of a poor boy who made good. As a boy, Mr. Erdogan sold lemonade to help support his family.

”The whole issue is how somebody like Tayyip Erdogan — who doesn’t know English, who didn’t study abroad, from someplace like the Bronx in New York — how he can say, ‘I’m going to rule you,’ ” Mr. Zapsu said. ”This is the issue in the end. Everybody knows Tayyip Erdogan is not a shariat guy anymore,” he said, referring to Islamic law.

Justice and Development Party leaders said tonight that they expected the first major step toward forming a government would come on Tuesday, when 50 party members would discuss whom they might nominate as prime minister.

Source:https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/04/world/voters-in-turkey-expel-leadership.html

04 November 2002

Catherine Collins / Chicago Tribune

The elections were watched closely by the United States. Turkey houses U.S. warplanes at its southern Incirlik air base, which was a staging point for attacks on Iraq during the gulf war. Western diplomats contend that Turkey’s position would not change, although the question of how much additional support Turkey might provide remained unclear.

Uncertainty in victory

With Erdogan unable to join parliament, his party’s victory brought with it an air of uncertainty. Most analysts said the law allows President Ahmet Necdet Sezer to select the prime minister. While custom dictates that the prime minister be selected from the majority party, some analysts said Sezer could choose from another party with seats in parliament.

AK Party officials dispute that interpretation, saying the law mandates that the majority party select the prime minister. One AK Party founder, Cuneyd Zapsu, said the party’s executive committee would meet to choose a candidate for prime minister Tuesday.

“It will be a difficult ride for all of us,” said Ozel. “I am worried about who they chose to run the show…. In the best of times, balance would be difficult to achieve, and these are not the best of times.”

Ian Fisher / The New York Times

The question is even more relevant now that Recep Tayyip Erdogan is, in all but name, the leader of this nation that vitally joins East to West: has he really changed?

The beliefs he expressed as a younger man, though not much younger, make many in Turkey wonder and fear a little.

”Thank God, I am for Shariah,” Mr. Erdogan once said, referring to Islamic law. Another time he said, ”For us, democracy is a means to an end.” Perhaps most infamously, ”One cannot be a secularist and a Muslim at the same time.”

The public mythology of Mr. Erdogan, 48, is that he began to see the world in a different way as these things happened: Turkey’s only Islamist government fell in 1997, he lost his job as Istanbul mayor the next year, and he went to jail for reciting a religious poem.

He then began to back off the muscular Islam that had always defined his life, praise Turkey’s secular state, and engage the West. ”I changed,” he said this year. ”It was necessary to catch up with developments, the modern age.”

Voters in Turkey, a nation proud of its religious moderation, believed him, or at least were willing to take a risk for broader political change. In the elections on Sunday, they swept away a generation of established politicians to give his Justice and Development Party enough seats in Parliament to form a government on its own, though Mr. Erdogan is himself barred from holding a formal post because of his conviction for reading the poem.

Many here, and in a Western world wary of Islamic radicalism after Sept. 11, say he still has to prove that change. But many who know Mr. Erdogan, or have followed his career, say he has either given up his more strident views or understands now that he is unlikely to hold onto power if he acts on them. Some say he has always been more pragmatist and populist than Islamist.

If he is sincere, Mr. Erdogan may usher in what Günter Verheugen, the European Union official in charge of expanding its membership, this week hopefully called ”one of the most interesting experiences in the future — whether we can have a modern democratic party in an Islamic country, a party based on religious values.”

Can Turkey, or any Muslim country, create a system like those in many Western democracies, where religion is paid due heed, but as a matter of values, not governance? Turkey, so far, has flinched from overtly religious political leaders as a threat to its vulnerable secular state, often at the expense of full democracy.

”It is very important,” said Metin Heper, a professor at Bilkent University in Ankara, who has written a detailed study of Mr. Erdogan. At best, he said, Mr. Erdogan may bring ”an enlightened interpretation of Islam, to make it compatible with the modern world and compatible with modern democracy, while he is a pious, devout Muslim himself.”

Mr. Erdogan has a long record of injecting Islam into politics. On his election as mayor of Istanbul in 1994, he proclaimed himself the city’s imam, a Muslim religious leader, and opened public meetings with prayers.

His belief was formed in childhood in Kasimpasa, a conservative, religious, poor and somewhat rowdy neighborhood in Istanbul. In Kasimpasa today, women may cover their heads, but they also sit outside smoking cigarettes or navigate cars down the narrow, busy streets — uncommon sights in many Islamic countries, and a legacy of the more tolerant Islam practiced in the Ottoman Empire, centered in Turkey, where Jews, Christians and Muslims all lived.

Since the emergence of modern Turkey’s secular founder, Ataturk, the country’s leaders have often sought to stifle many expressions of Islam, and that has energized religious activists. But, Mr. Heper says in his study, this still gave rise to a more tolerant view of Islam than that in many other Islamic nations, and it is this view that Mr. Erdogan imbibed as a young man.

He attended a religious school in Kasimpasa — an experience he later said ”I owe everything to” — and played soccer well enough to become a neighborhood celebrity and, nearly, a professional athlete.

In everything, said Esref Yararbas, 47, a grocer in Kasimpasa who knew him since childhood, Mr. Erdogan wanted to win.

He started in politics organizing for a religious youth group, and by the mid-1980’s was active with the Welfare Party, headed by Necmettin Erbakan, the leader of Islamist politics in Turkey.

As Istanbul mayor, Mr. Erdogan won praise for an efficient administration. But his early career also stoked controversy: he banned alcohol in municipal restaurants; proposed returning prayer to the Ayasofia, the Byzantine church here, later a mosque, now a museum; suggested that Pierre Cardin ”stage a fashion show of dresses with veils.”

Some who know him say that it was as mayor that his view of the world began to shift — he traveled abroad and was exposed to broader ideas.

But in 1997 he recited a poem and opened the defining chapter of his career. It read, ”The mosques are our barracks, the minarets are our bayonets.”

Mr. Erdogan was convicted of inciting religious hatred in 1998 and served four months in prison in 1999. Several people who know him say that experience was pivotal.

”It was a turning point,” said Rusen Cakir, a former journalist. ”There were two alternatives. One was to be an Islamist Mandela in Turkey, resisting in jail and never obeying. The other was trying to find a compromise with the state, with the system. He tried the first one, but one week later, he changed his mind and accepted his punishment.”

Cuneyd Zapsu, a businessman and leader of Justice and Development, added: ”That made him see much clearer. When you are four months out of everything you know, you have to figure out what’s really going on.”

People who know him say that Mr. Erdogan was coming to a larger, more pragmatic realization about politics with an Islamic tinge. It did not work well in Turkey, and he is a man interested in grasping political power. The lesson was clear: in 1997, the army shoved aside Mr. Erbakan, who had become prime minister a year before, for what soldiers saw as taking religious politics too far. Mr. Erdogan also saw other Islamic regimes in the region, many underdeveloped and despotic.

”He found that radicalism is not the way to solve problems,” said Fehmi Koru, an influential columnist and Muslim intellectual. ”Now I believe he has changed and he deserves to be given at least the benefit of the doubt.”

Last year, Mr. Erdogan and several other former Welfare Party members founded Justice and Development and turned it into what some experts call a center-right political party, not a religious group. On several major issues, Mr. Erdogan has indeed shifted. He no longer opposes Turkey’s joining the European Union.

On election night, he assured the nation — and the outside world — that he supported a secular, democratic and West-looking Turkey.

”Secularism is the protector of all beliefs and religions,” Mr. Erdogan said in an interview. His explanation of the party’s victory was more populist than anything. ”Justice and Development is the party of the people,” he said. ”It’s reliable, democratic, honest, respects and protects basic rights and freedoms. It is the voice of the silent masses, protector of the defenseless.”

The question many have in Turkey is whether Mr. Erdogan’s new moderation was merely a means to win. Newspapers often talk of a ”secret Islamic agenda.”

Many experts do believe he will attack issues that anger devout Muslims, like the ban on head scarves for women attending university, but say he will do it slowly so as not to rattle Turkey’s army, which sees itself as the guardian of the secular state and has intervened in the past — most recently in 1980 — to impose its vision of order.

Mr. Heper argues that Mr. Erdogan will most likely continue to represent his views of Islam, but more as a moral force than an outright political one. If he strays over the line, he knows the military may clamp down on him.

”Erdogan differs from this secular view of the world,” he said. ”He thinks that for the individual you need ethics derived from Islam. He also thinks that at the community level, Islam should to some extent regulate interpersonal relations. This is the extent to which he wants to use Islam.”

Kaynak:https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/07/world/turkey-waits-and-wonders-how-closely-bound-to-islam-is-election-victor.html

14 January 2003

Catherine Collins / Chicago Tribune

ISTANBUL — Under heavy pressure from the Bush administration and eager to establish itself as a bona fide player in the international arena, Turkey’s new government is struggling to justify opening its doors to American troops for a possible attack on Iraq without antagonizing its own population or its Arab neighbors. As the government tries to solidify an economic recovery, the dilemma it faces, according to Turkish officials, Western diplomats and analysts, is how to say “yes” to the United States without alienating a population that strongly opposes the war. The latest public opinion polls by Ankara Social Research Center say 87 percent of the Turkish public opposes U.S. military intervention in Iraq. If military action were to take place, 62 percent of the Turkish public opposes allowing the use of Turkish air force bases or the participation of Turkish troops. Only 6 percent of the Turkish public surveyed believes that Turkey should fully support the war effort with access to all Turkish military facilities and deployment of its own troops. “This war is unpopular and no one wants to get tagged with responsibility for being the advocate,” said a senior Western diplomat in Ankara, the capital.

U.S. begins inspecting bases

 While senior Turkish and American officials expect Turkey, which enjoys a strategic geographical position, to support its longtime ally Washington, no one is willing to say how far the support will go. On Monday, U.S. military inspectors arrived in Turkey to begin examining bases and ports for possible use in a war. The U.S. Defense Department is in the midst of a massive military buildup and is expected to send 150,000 troops to the region by mid­February. Pentagon officials have made it clear they would like a sizable number of those troops based in Turkey for a possible strike against Iraq from the north that would coincide with a southern prong moving in from Kuwait. ł 1 The Turkish media have reported that the United States wants to base as many as 80,000 troops in Turkey and that it wants to use bases for commando operations. In return, Washington has pledged to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to improve Turkish bases and ports. U.S. military planners say an attack from Turkey would shorten any war, a point underlined last month by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on a visit to Ankara. “Obviously, if we are going to have significant ground forces in the north [of Iraq], this is the country they have to come through,” he said. Juggling the competing demands of Turkish public opinion and the United States comes at a tough time for the governing Justice and Development Party. The party has been in power only two months and has as its prime minister Abdullah Gul, an able politician but one who was not elected to the post. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the party’s charismatic leader, could not take the prime minister’s chair because of a conviction for sedition, though efforts are under way to change the law and allow him to take office. The two­headed nature of the Turkish government makes it all the more challenging for the high­level delegations that have been crisscrossing the Atlantic in recent months to make their cases. “Unfortunately for the Americans there is no single person in this country today who can guarantee support. There are a half­dozen heads they have to talk to each time,” said a Western analyst who works in Ankara. Public opinion always has been of questionable significance in Turkey’s topdown democracy. While the public clearly opposes assisting the Americans in a war against Iraq, its voice is not always heard in Ankara. “This is what makes Turkey America’s most valuable ally,” said an official in the Foreign Ministry. “The Turkish government and its military will not hide behind public opinion. If they are treaty­bound, they will fulfill those agreements to the letter.” Still, the new government is more attentive than previous governments to public opinion, said a Western diplomat. Part of the reason is the new party’s desire to strengthen its roots with the population, and part of the reason is an unease with the war itself, said the diplomat and senior Turkish officials. “Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah Gul both have a doubt, down deep inside,” said Cuneyd Zapsu, a confidant of Erdogan and a founding member of his party. “Everyone should because this is a war we are talking about. “But this is not just an issue of the heart. Our foreign policy must look at the larger picture,” he said. “It is clear that Turkish public opinion does not support this war, but public opinion can be changed.”

Gul pushing peace

While the government may find it impossible to deny the United States access to its bases and ports, Zapsu said that the civilian leaders would like to convince the public that they have done everything possible to avert a Featured Articles Related Articles war and that the final decision was made with the approval of the Turkish military, which is the most respected institution in the country.

Source::https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2003-01-14-0301140168-story.html

Deborah Sontag / The New York Times

The new prime minister of Turkey stood stiffly in his formal office in Ankara, his mustache pulling his mouth into a frown. Serious pouches hung beneath his eyes as he shook hands briskly and positioned his lanky frame on a high-backed chair. Like a patient nodding to the dentist, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 49, signaled he was ready to be interviewed. It seemed clear that he would have preferred to stretch out on the carpet and go to sleep.

There was no trace of Erdogan’s famous charisma, of the fiery oratorical skills on display just the previous day in Parliament, when I found myself responding instinctively to his booming voice’s cues, knowing, without understanding the Turkish, when I was supposed to rise, to clap, to cheer. Rather, during that evening interview last month, at several points while his remarks were being translated, Erdogan’s head bobbed forward and his eyelids drooped shut. He could be forgiven; his party’s first months in office had been grueling.

The war in neighboring Iraq was drawing to a close, much to Erdogan’s relief. The war was unpopular in Turkey and costly to Erdogan. Because he is a pragmatist, Erdogan supported America’s request to use Turkish soil as a staging ground. Yet, despite the fact that his party held two-thirds of the Parliament, he failed to win legislators’ approval for the request. It was a significant failure, damaging his new government’s relations with the Bush administration, depriving Turkey of billions in loans and grants and provoking questions about Erdogan’s competence and control of his party.

As he also backpedaled on the ever-divisive Cyprus issue, fumbled with Turkey’s wrecked economy and confronted Kurdish riots in an earthquake zone it seemed that Erdogan was extinguishing all too quickly the hopefulness that his fledgling party’s emphatic win in the Nov. 3 general elections had produced. Influential Turkish columnists abandoned their infatuation with the young Turk who had vanquished the old guard. One, Cengiz Candar, told me he had ”stopped even pronouncing Erdogan’s name publicly.” (It is pronounced EHR-doe-ahn, by the way).

Such pressure would have taxed the most seasoned politician, and Erdogan, once a popular mayor of Istanbul, was a novice on the national stage. Yet Erdogan was accustomed to proving himself. A pious man in a country where secularism is worshiped, and once a kid from the wrong side of the tracks, he had always been an outsider. And now, though he was tired, he was, more precisely, annoyed. It had been only a month since he assumed the premiership. He clearly felt, not unreasonably, that he deserved the benefit of the doubt.

The stakes were high, as not only his advisers but also opposition leaders told me. Tayyip Erdogan was an experiment for Turkey with ramifications that went well beyond Turkey. As a devout Muslim with an Islamist past who had nonetheless evolved into a modern, pro-Western democrat, Erdogan had the potential to set a powerful example for the region. If he could ease Turks into a less hostile separation of mosque and state, if he could help Turkey undertake long-overdue democratic reforms, then perhaps one day he would exemplify a way in which Islamic faith and democratic principles not only coexisted but also collaborated.

But first he needed to be given a chance to succeed. The transition to statesman after a life of struggle with the state was not a simple one. Fingering the Turkish flag on his lapel, Erdogan crossed his legs. ”Our people made us the governing party,” he said defiantly. ”Those who claim to respect democracy, why don’t they respect the vote of the people?”

Erdogan knows that many in the establishment distrust him or look down on him or do both. He knows they can’t quite believe that Erdogan is their prime minister; indeed, many seem embarrassed by his ignorance of foreign languages and by the head scarf that his wife wears as an emblem of her faith. He knows they are suspicious of his claims that he has evolved and that they imagine him to have a secret plan to impose religion on the nation. ”I have faced this all my life,” Erdogan said.

But he is weary of it. ”Before anything else, I’m a Muslim,” Erdogan said. ”As a Muslim, I try to comply with the requirements of my religion. I have a responsibility to God, who created me, and I try to fulfill that responsibility. But I try now very much to keep this away from my political life, to keep it private.” Poker-faced, he exhaled. ”A political party cannot have a religion. Only individuals can. Otherwise, you’d be exploiting religion, and religion is so supreme that it cannot be exploited or taken advantage of.”

To understand Erdogan’s dilemma, it helps to understand the depths of Turkey’s commitment to secularism. It began with the very establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, and the founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s rejection of traditional Islam as incompatible with his goal of establishing a modern European state. Ataturk shut the Islamic caliphate, dissolved religious courts, outlawed mystic sects and secularized schools. He replaced the Arabic script with Latin script. He outlawed the fez and all but imposed the homburg. He adopted the Swiss civil code and granted women the vote.

As secular nationalism became Turkey’s religion, the military took on the role of protecting Ataturk’s legacy, which meant keeping elected officials on a leash and overthrowing or undermining them if necessary. Erdogan himself is unofficially on probation. Turkey’s ”deep state” sees its duty as preventing the nation from backsliding into religion and ethnic, especially Kurdish, separatism. Islam was, of course, never snuffed out. While most Turks came to consider themselves Turks first, they were still Muslims. And from the start, especially in the heartland, traditional Islam survived despite repression. To this day, in what seems an arcane, self-defeating expression of Turkey’s secularism, women wearing head scarves are not allowed to attend universities or work in government. Prime Minister Erdogan’s two daughters, in fact, go to Indiana University, where they are free to cover their hair and get a degree at the same time. His wife does not appear at state functions lest her designer head scarf provoke fears of an imminent theocracy.

Erdogan’s family comes from a devout world in the Black Sea region. His father, Ahmet, migrated to Istanbul in the 1930’s, settled in Kasimpasa, a rough working-class quarter, and found work as a captain with a state maritime company. Kasimpasa has a body language all its own, and Turks say that Erdogan retains the Kasimpasa swagger, a way of leading with his right shoulder. Although the district was infamous for its gangs and pickpockets, Erdogan remembers the neighborhood as an idyll, with fruit trees and fields, where kids could get their hands dirty. ”I was shaped by that mud,” he said, ”not like the poor kids of today who are surrounded by asphalt.”

Near the now-ramshackle mosque where Erdogan studied the Koran as a child, the district manager of Kasimpasa, Ali Riza Sivritepe, spoke of growing up with him. They fetched water from the same well, flew kites and shot marbles over the irregular paving stones. (Erdogan, steely in his ambition even then, always won.) ”He was a very serious child,” Sivritepe said. ”Everyone respected him here and called him Big Brother.”

His father, according to a biography, was an authoritarian with a temper that could be tamed best by Erdogan’s kissing his shoes. Once, Erdogan’s father punished him for using bad language by hanging him from the ceiling by the arms. ”After that day, I never swore again,” Erdogan said.

When Erdogan was 7, Prime Minister Adnan Menderes — ”God bless his soul,” Erdogan said — was hanged. Elected in 1950 in Turkey’s first free elections, Menderes was a secularist but demonstrated a tolerance for religious practice that his predecessors had not possessed. Over 10 years in government, he faltered and became repressive, and when the Turkish military overthrew him, the coup was largely welcomed. But when Menderes was sent to the gallows, many Turks were horrified. ”Some are saddened by things like this, and they give up,” Erdogan said. ”In my case, this sadness turned into an attraction for politics.”

Part of the Erdogan lore is that in fifth grade he refused to use a newspaper as a prayer rug in a religion class. It was inappropriate, he told his teacher, who took a special interest in him and persuaded Erdogan’s father to send him to a state-run Prayer Leaders and Preachers school, which offered a secular curriculum amplified by religious instruction. Erdogan was particularly good at reciting nationalist poetry. During poetry contests, Sivritepe recalled, Erdogan would hide a Turkish flag inside his shirt and whip it out for dramatic effect.

Erdogan was also good at soccer, but he kept his playing secret from his father for years, hiding his soccer shoes in the coal bin. His father considered soccer a diversion from education and faith. In truth, politics was the real diversion. Erdogan juggled soccer — playing professionally for 11 years — political activism and school for more than a decade. He graduated with a degree in management at age 27.

During that era, political Islam became a force in Turkey, and Necmettin Erbakan, a German-educated engineer, emerged as its leader. Erbakan preached a return to religious values, which resonated in the heartland and in the poorer urban neighborhoods. While Erbakan’s first party, National Order, was banned for fomenting fundamentalism, the authorities later encouraged him to try again, seeing him as a counterweight to leftist parties. But his second party, National Salvation, grew steadily more radical and anti-Western, inspired by the Islamic revolution in neighboring Iran.

Erdogan was one of Erbakan’s disciples. His political climb began when he was appointed chairman of National Salvation’s youth group. Young Erdogan would practice his fiery rhetoric on abandoned ships, facing into the wind as he rehearsed his salutation: ”My sacred brothers whose hearts beat with the excitement of a big future Islamic conquest. . . . ”

Erdogan’s future wife, Emine, belonged to an Islamist women’s group, the Idealist Ladies Association, and she was mesmerized by his oratory. After six months of chaperoned dating, the couple became engaged and married in 1978. Two years later, National Salvation was dissolved along with all other parties in another military coup. Not to be suppressed, National Salvation was reborn as the Welfare Party, which is where the Islamists, some of whom saw an Islamic state as their goal and some of whom aspired only to greater tolerance of religion, hit their organizational stride.

Erdogan named a son after his leader, and Erbakan made him chairman of the Welfare Party’s Istanbul branch. They built a political machine that provided social services as it secured political power, appealing to the needy and disgruntled as well as to the faithful. But they did not always agree. Erdogan stopped kissing Erbakan’s hand because it struck him as retrograde, and he subtly pushed for greater democracy within the party and for broader outreach. Erdogan was not Erbakan’s first choice to be the Welfare Party candidate for mayor, but the older man bowed to the will of the party. Erdogan took his campaign into pubs, discotheques and even bordellos, and computerized the campaign offices. He made women the worker bees of his organization and involved secular men too.

In 1994, Erdogan was elected the first Islamist-oriented mayor of Istanbul. His victory stunned the country. It meant that the Islamists were succeeding in reaching beyond the mosque communities. It also meant that Erdogan was a force to be contended with. Indeed, many found Erdogan a more compelling package than his mentor. Whereas Erbakan was a flashy dresser and an autocratic figure, Erdogan styled himself as an authentic representative of the masses. ”In this country, there is a segregation of Black Turks and White Turks,” Erdogan once said. ”Your brother Tayyip belongs to the Black Turks.”

At the Hope Barbershop in Kasimpasa that Erdogan used to frequent, Ibrahim Azak, a barber, called him ”the best” at politics for just that reason. ”He was raised in a place like this,” Azak said. ”He doesn’t come from a palace. When he shops, he carries the bags himself.”

As mayor, Erdogan adopted modern management practices and proved singularly adept at delivering services, installing new water lines, cleaning up the streets, planting trees and improving transportation. He opened up City Hall to the people, gave out his e-mail address, established municipal hot lines. He was considered ethical and evenhanded. (One building-trade professional, however, told me that the corruption endemic to Istanbul City Hall persisted under Erdogan and that donations of equipment and vehicles were still solicited in exchange for building permits.)

Yet from the moment he pronounced himself the ”imam” of Istanbul, Erdogan began both provoking anxieties and recoiling from the fact that he had provoked them. He banned alcohol from municipal establishments, which created concern that he would eliminate alcohol from restaurants too. But he never did. He revived an elaborate project for a mosque complex in the city’s heart, then backed off when there were protests. He never clearly allayed secular concerns, keeping them alive instead with comments like: ”Democracy is like a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get off.”

Meanwhile, the Welfare Party finished first in a close national election, and Erbakan became the country’s first Islamist prime minister in 1996. With his rhetorical cannons firing away, he declared Turkish politics a pitiful imitation of the West and announced a campaign for worldwide Muslim solidarity. He overreached. After 12 months, the military forced him to resign.

There had long been differences between the younger party leaders, who came to be known as the modernists, and Erbakan and his men — whom they called the Politburo. When Erbakan was ousted and subsequently banned from politics, the modernists had their opening. But first they had to withstand the legacy of Erbakan’s radical provocations of the establishment, a crackdown that would pave the way for Erdogan’s rise.

In December 1997, the Welfare Party sent Erdogan to a political rally in southeastern Siirt, an impoverished, religious district where his wife’s family originated. On that day, as he had several times before, he recited a quatrain by Ziya Gokalp, an ideologue of Turkish nationalism: ”The mosques are our barracks, /the domes our helmets, /the minarets our bayonets, / and the believers our soldiers.”

Erdogan told me that the poem had been approved for textbooks by the education ministry, and he added, somewhat disingenuously, I think, that it principally served oratorical purposes. ”It was an attention getter,” he said. ”It would make the people spirited.” In the speech following the poem, however, Erdogan went on to proclaim that Islam was his compass and that anyone who tried to stifle prayer in Turkey would face an exploding volcano.

It was what one observer, Asla Aydintasbas, a New York-based columnist for the newspaper Sabah, described as an ”Al Sharpton moment.” Erdogan was playing to the crowd and prodding the military. And the military took the bait. Erdogan was charged with inciting hatred on the basis of religion, and convicted.

But this time, it was the bureaucracy that had overreached. Erdogan’s conviction not only enhanced his popularity among religious Turks but also disturbed many secular Turks. ”It’s not right what happened to him,” said Cuneyd Zapsu, a businessman who owns the Azizler holding company. ”I don’t want to live in a country where someone goes to jail for a poem. He was persecuted because they sensed his power, and I think it was not religion but a class thing. The so-called elite has never lived in this country’s reality. They’ve always been afraid of the people. That’s why all our laws are restrictions, not freedoms.”

In 1999, thousands accompanied Erdogan to the gates of the prison in western Thrace where he would serve five months. Erdogan told me that when the door clanked shut behind him it marked a breaking point as well as a turning point. ”Prison,” Erdogan said, ”matures you.”

Zapsu visited Erdogan in prison frequently. A free-spirited 46-year-old, Zapsu first met Erdogan when he was running for mayor. Erdogan had been looking for a liaison to the business community, and he heard that Zapsu, whose grandfather was a well-known Kurdish poet, was a maverick with an open mind. ” ‘I don’t want your money,’ ” Zapsu said Erdogan told him. ” ‘I want your help. Nobody from the establishment wants to talk to me.’ ” At that time, Zapsu said, Erdogan was more rigid. He wouldn’t shake the hands of Zapsu’s daughters; he hugs them now. But Zapsu said there was something special about Erdogan. During Erdogan’s incarceration, Zapsu worked to persuade him to break with Erbakan and his anti-Western philosophy. It wasn’t that hard, Zapsu said. Erdogan was coming to that conclusion himself. And Erbakan never visited anyway.

For the modernists in the Welfare Party, Erbakan’s ouster followed by Erdogan’s conviction undeniably demonstrated that confrontation with the establishment wasn’t getting them anywhere. Fehmi Koru, columnist for an Islamic-oriented newspaper, told me: ”When I first started writing about democracy, some members of the community criticized me openly, saying Islam and democracy were incompatible. But they grew ready for a change.”

They decided to start a new party that would aim for a broader political base. They would stop conducting politics with religious symbols and demonstrate instead how true belief informs politics wisely. Metin Heper, a political scientist, said that Erdogan believes in the potential of Islam to unite people around an ideal and build morality, integrity and drive. ”He believes in a kind of Islamic version of the Protestant work ethic, where you work hard for the benefit of the country because it is the good and right thing to do according to Islam,” Heper said. A poll taken to determine the public’s chief concerns generated the party name, Justice and Development, and its symbol, a glowing electric light bulb.

Justice and Development would be a party in which religious people could feel at home, but it wouldn’t be a religious party. Its members would be Muslim Democrats in the mold of Europe’s Christian Democrats. It would entice Westernized Turks from abroad, like Egemen Bagis, 33, a businessman living in New Jersey until Erdogan recruited him to run for Parliament without, Bagis said, ever asking whether he drank (he does) or whether his wife covered her hair (she doesn’t).

Zapsu, a founder of the party, introduced Erdogan to Ishak Alaton, an industrialist who is part of Istanbul’s small Jewish community. The avuncular Alaton told me that he came to see Erdogan as a ”practical man of good will” who represents ”the forces of change” in Turkey.

Just as Zapsu was Erdogan’s Henry Higgins, advising him on how to deal with the establishment and the West, Alaton took on introducing Erdogan to the American Jewish community and helping him send signals that he would maintain Turkey’s relationship with Israel. It required a little re-education first. ”They had this impression that the world was run by Jews,” Alaton said.

On Nov. 3 last year, Erdogan’s 16-month-old political party captured the first single-party majority in 15 years and the first substantial one in 50 years. It won 34 percent of the popular vote, which translated into a phenomenal 363 seats out of 550 seats in Parliament. All but one of Turkey’s established political parties — the Republican People’s, founded by Ataturk — failed to reach the 10 percent threshold needed for representation.

The victory was a resounding rejection of the old, corrupt, mismanaged and fragmented Turkish political order. It was also an embrace of Erdogan personally but not of Islamism. On election night, Erdogan immediately sought to reassure the establishment that he would not be an agent of unwanted change. In a news conference, he said that his government would not interfere with anyone’s way of life, would uphold Turkey’s Western-oriented foreign policy, would abide by an International Monetary Fund rescue plan and would continue the battle for admission to the European Union. The Turkish markets soared.

Even then, many distrusted his transformation. ”He’s saying all the right things about Europe and moving westward,” an American diplomat told me, ”but I fear he’s like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Those who knew him well, though, took him at his word. ”He wanted to change the system, but the system changed him,” said Rusen Cakir, one of Erdogan’s biographers. Alaton said he had no concerns that Erdogan was a closet fundamentalist. ”He came to power partly because he had this religious platform, but he knows it’s a dead end. He knows confrontation with the bureaucracy on religion would break him.” One Turkish lawyer put it to me more cynically: ”He believes in profits, not prophets.”

After his victory, Erdogan had a problem: banned from politics in 1998, he could not become prime minister. So, Abdullah Gul, who is now the foreign minister, assumed the premiership temporarily. In early December, President Bush invited Erdogan, still only chairman of the party, to the White House. This caused considerable controversy in Turkey, since it meant the United States was according international legitimacy to a leader considered illegitimate by the Turkish military.

According to Bagis, who served as Erdogan’s interpreter during the December meeting, Bush raised the issue of faith that Erdogan has worked so hard to keep in the background. Startling the Turks, Bush said: ”You believe in the Almighty, and I believe in the Almighty. That’s why we’ll be great partners.” Erdogan left Washington with Bush’s backing for Turkey’s long-frustrated accession to the European Union and headed to Europe to lobby for a firm date for talks. There he faced his first serious setback. The E.U. scheduled negotiations to begin in December 2004, but only if Turkey had undertaken sufficient reforms.

Erdogan’s party, meanwhile, speedily passed a reform of a more self-interested variety, amending the Turkish constitution so that the ban on Erdogan could be lifted. Conveniently, the results of elections in Siirt were nullified because of procedural irregularities, opening up a few seats in Parliament. So, Erdogan was preparing to run in by-elections just as the United States was moving closer to war in Iraq.

Erdogan had been open in his disdain for Saddam Hussein and calculating in his backing for the American request to base tens of thousands of troops in southern Turkey. The Turkish public, however, was adamantly antiwar, and many in Erdogan’s party, especially the more hard-line religious members, firmly opposed him on this issue. Erdogan was quickly learning that his high-wire act wasn’t going to be easy to pull off. He was supposed to be the anti-Erbakan, so he was not about to impose his will on his party. Critics of Erdogan’s performance, however, say that he should have done just that. ”Leaders have to lead,” the columnist Candar said, adding cuttingly, ”Being the darling of the simple people is not enough during such turbulent times.”

Erdogan’s advisers said that the United States did not fully grasp the political risk that he was taking and how much he needed written agreements demonstrating what Turkey would get in return for cooperating. ”They were used to dealing with our generals and not a politician trying to be democratic,” Zapsu said. The Turks were insulted when the Americans sent a State Department negotiator rather than a senior leader to work out an agreement with them. They acknowledge that they misjudged the United States’ determination to launch a war, with or without Turkey’s help, and that they bargained inexpertly. They were thin-skinned too when details of the financial bartering were leaked and cartoons in American newspapers portrayed them as bazaar hagglers. ”There was a very ugly campaign against my country,” Erdogan said.

In the end, Gul, the acting prime minister, had to go to Parliament with promises but no signed guarantees from the Americans. The military establishment didn’t want to help Erdogan, so the generals, whose support for Turkey’s participation in the war might have persuaded opposition members to vote for it, kept a low profile. Parliament failed — by three votes — to authorize the stationing of American troops in Turkey. The Americans were furious.

In early March, Erdogan was elected to Parliament and Gul prepared to step aside. Erdogan told me that Bush called to congratulate him, saying he’d never known any politician who had won 85 percent of the vote; Bush also asked him to try again in Parliament. Erdogan, however, told the American president that he needed to wait for Parliament to formally approve him as prime minister first, which his Turkish critics saw as cheeky, immature standing on ceremony.

By the time Erdogan was installed as prime minister, the Americans were asking only for the right to fly over Turkish airspace, and they got it, Erdogan said. Luckily for Turkey, the war was quick and contained. As it was drawing to a close, during that April interview, Erdogan insisted that Turkey had done more for the U.S. war effort than any other country except England. Turkish airspace was a singularly essential ingredient, he said. ”How could they feel let down by our doing all this?” he said defensively.

Earlier this year, when Muslim faithful were traveling to Saudi Arabia for the hajj, the new Turkish authorities shrouded a billboard at the airport that featured a model in an itsy-bitsy bikini. Arch-secularists wrung their hands: this must be the first sign of the coming fundamentalism, they cried. The swimsuit company sued the government, and secularists cheered it on, until one day some realized that they were rushing to the defense of a pretty cheesy picture. Suddenly, everyone got quiet. Overnight, the billboard was moved to a discreet location and uncovered. It was a small, common-sensical compromise. But it raised the possibility of grander, more profound ones.

Alaton argues that Erdogan should be given more time by his own people and more open support from Europe and America. ”Erdogan shouldn’t be punished,” he said. ”Maybe people of good faith should understand how important he is.”

And even Kemal Dervis — a leading opposition figure and, as an elite, polyglot former World Bank official, the antithesis of Erdogan — told me he thinks the government’s success, remote as it seems now, would truly reverberate. ”It would send the message that you can be an overtly Muslim country and part of the club of developed nations too,” Dervis said. ”The significance of that for the world at large would be incredible.”

Unfortunately for him, Erdogan has been scrambling on several fronts. His government rattled the business community by advocating a pension increase, just the kind of populist spending measure that Turkey didn’t need. Further, while he had pledged to push a plan to reunify Cyprus, his government ended up backing away from a showdown with Rauf Denktash, the Turkish Cypriot leader, and the Turkish military at a critical moment. This greatly disappointed those who thought he would be an agent of change. To take on the military too soon might be suicidal, they acknowledged, but to defer confrontation could also render him impotent.

Slipping confidence in Erdogan, as always, has been colored by distrust of his intentions — or at least his party’s intentions — on the religion issue. But maybe that concern is misplaced.

Maybe Erdogan doesn’t have the guts or power to push through any serious reforms, least of all on religion. Or maybe Erdogan, straddling two worlds, is the perfect person to defuse the tensions between secular and religious forces in Turkey.

Source:https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/magazine/the-erdogan-experiment.html

16 February 2004

Von Chirstiane Schlötzer / Süddeutsche Zeitung

Regierungschef Tayyip Erdogan sagte nach einem Treffen mit der CDU-Chefin: “Dies steht nicht auf unserer Agenda”. Merkel, die einen EU-Beitritt Ankaras ablehnt, hatte sich zuvor für eine privilegierte Partnerschaft der EU mit der Türkei stark gemacht und betont, niemand in Europa wolle der Türkei das Tor nach Europa verschließen.

Die CDU-Vorsitzende Angela Merkel hat bei ihrem ersten Besuch in der Türkei versichert, die EU sei “kein Christenclub”. Gleichzeitig lehnte sie aber im Gespräch mit dem türkischen Regierungschef Tayyip Erdogan erneut die Aufnahme von Beitrittsverhandlungen über eine EU-Vollmitgliedschaft ab.

Merkel, die von CDU-Vizefraktionschef Wolfgang Schäuble begleitet wurde, begründete ihre Haltung mit “den Zuständen in der EU”, die nun die Erweiterung um zehn Länder zu verkraften habe. “Die Probleme sind im Moment in der EU”, betonte Merkel.

Erdogan verwies bei dem einstündigen Treffen mit der CDU-Chefin dagegen darauf, dass die EU der Türkei seit 40 Jahren die Vollmitgliedschaft versprochen habe. Bei jedem anderen Angebot müssten sich die Türken daher als “Bürger zweiter Klasse” fühlen. Erdogans außenpolitischer Berater, Cüneyt Zapsu, betonte, würde sein Land von der EU fern gehalten, könne die Regierung das “den enttäuschten Türken nicht erklären”. Auch die türkischen Militärs seien für die EU, meinte Zapsu.

Erdogan äußerte die Hoffnung, Merkel werde ihre Haltung ändern, nachdem sie sich selber ein Bild von der Türkei gemacht habe. Merkel sagte, sie sei auch gekommen, “um zu lernen”. Ausdrücklich würdigte sie die Reformpolitik der Regierung in Ankara. Sie sprach von “dramatischen Fortschritten” bei der Erfüllung der Kopenhagener Kriterien, die als Maßstab für die Aufnahme von EU-Verhandlungen gelten.

Merkel gratulierte Erdogan auch zu der unter Mithilfe Ankaras erreichten Aufnahme neuer Friedensgespräche für Zypern. Erdogan versicherte, die Türkei wolle die Wiedervereinigung der seit 30 Jahren geteilten Insel.

Merkel: Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen CDU und AKP

Trotz der Differenzen entdeckte Merkel auch Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen den beiden konservativen Parteien. Es sei “interessant”, dass auch die türkische Regierungspartei ihre “Werte aus der Religion” beziehe, aber dass sie ebenso zwischen Religion und Politik trenne, sagte Merkel nach einem Gespräch mit der AKP-Spitze. Die AKP hat ihre Wurzeln im politischen Islam, will sich aber nicht als “islamistische” Partei bezeichnen lassen.

Die türkische Regierungspartei will Mitglied in der konservativen Europäischen Volkspartei (EVP) werden, dem Zusammenschluss der christlichen Parteien Europas. Die CDU lehnt dies aber ab. Merkel, die bei ihrem Türkei-Besuch von Unionsfraktionsvize Wolfgang Schäuble begleitet wird, bewertete aber den politischen Reformprozess in Ankara positiv. Es habe “unglaubliche Veränderungen” in der Türkei gegeben, sagte die CDU-Chefin und unterstrich, dies sei unter entscheidender Mitwirkung der AKP geschehen.

Kranzniederlegung an Mausoleum zu Ehren Atatürks

Im Gespräch mit dem türkischen Parlamentspräsidenten Bülent Arinc versicherten Merkel und Schäuble, sie seien “als Freunde der Türkei gekommen, um diese Freundschaft zu vertiefen und um zu lernen”. Arinc entgegnete, “die große Freundschaft, die unsere Länder in 200 Jahren aufgebaut haben”, werde auch helfen, Meinungsverschiedenheiten zu überwinden. Wie es türkischem Protokoll entspricht, legte Merkel am Morgen einen Kranz am Mausoleum für den Staatsgründer der laizistischen Republik, Kemal Atatürk, nieder.

Die Menschenrechtsbeauftragte der Bundesregierung, Claudia Roth, warf Merkel vor, die Türkei in die “Zweitklassigkeit zu deklassieren”. Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schröder will am kommenden Sonntag in die Türkei reisen.

Kaynak:https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/angela-merkel-stoesst-bei-besuch-auf-skepsis-tuerkei-lehnt-privilegierte-partnerschaft-mit-eu-ab-1.929509