First, the neo-conservatives are not the only group that is influential on the Bush administration. Their influence is, in fact, on the decline. Moreover, not all neo-conservatives agree with each other on various issues. There are “hawkish” and “dovish” tendencies among them. As for their stance on Islam, again there is no single point of view. There are indeed some neocons, who might deserve the title “Islamophobic,” but there are others, who are much more open to dialogue and engagement with Muslims.

Not a Monolithic Block

In Turkey, neo-conservatives have also been regarded as suspicious of, and even antagonistic to, the current government led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP). Again, this is a half-truth. There are indeed figures in the neo-conservative movement, who are quite antagonistic to the AKP, such as Michael Rubin and Frank Gaffney and they routinely depict Erdoğan's government as yet another example of so-called “Islamo-fascism.” But again, that's not the whole picture.

On the other hand, there are in fact possible bridges of understanding that can be established between the AKP and the more moderate neo-conservatives and the American right in general. The AKP is a party, which advocates free markets, limited government, family values and the democratic expression of religion in public life. These are exactly the same values that the conservative movement has championed for a long time in the United States.

Adultery and the Almighty

No wonder that when the AKP government, in late 2004, wanted to pass a law that would make adultery by either spouse a crime, the only supportive view expressed in the whole Western media was in The Weekly Standard, the beacon of neo-conservatism. In his piece, “The Turkish Letter,” Steven E. Rhoads noted that adultery “always brings deception, frequently brings guilt and sometimes brings venereal disease” and Turks are not too wrong in trying to make it illegal. “The Bible, as well as the Koran, has something to say on the subject,” he argued, “and we can pledge to work together toward creating societies with laws that strengthen families.”

Which hinted that Muslim political parties could be quite in tune with American conservatives, once the latter understands that the former follows not the radical Islamist ideology but a democratic policy informed with Muslim values. After all, it was President George W. Bush himself, who greeted Erdoğan on his first visit to Washington with the ecumenical remark, ''You believe in the Almighty and I believe in the Almighty. That's why we'll be great partners.”

Is Turkey lost?

Now you can wonder what all this background information has to do with the current issues of Turkey, which is mainly what these pages are supposed to cover. Well, the background is relevant, because recently there has been an interesting sign that indicates a more balanced approach to the AKP government by the neo-conservative establishment.

The sign I am speaking about is a piece published in Commentary, the New York-based monthly opinion journal, which is also called “the neo-conservative Bible.” The writer, Michel Gurfinkiel, uses the catchy title “Is Turkey Lost?” but gives an answer quite different than some neo-conservatives have recently given.

One important point in Gurfinkiel's piece is his analysis of the anti-American sentiment in Turkey. He speaks about the xenophobic conspiracy theories that flood the media and society, but unlike some others, who tie all these to the government, he asks whether this is “a cause, or rather a consequence, of government policy?”

Rumelians versus the Anatolians

Gurfinkel searches for the answer throughout his piece, in which he gives a summary of the clash between the two major powers that has shaped Turkish policy in the past century: the secularist elites and the religious masses. According to him, this can be cut down to “Rumelians,” the Westernized Turks whose origins are in “Rumeli,” i.e, the Balkans, and the “Anatolians,” who have kept with their Islamic beliefs and traditions. According to him, there has been two “Rumelian dictatorships” in Turkey; the first by the Young Turks between 1913-1919, and the second by the Kemalists. He tells about the latter as follows:

“In Atatürk's new nation, the Rumelians and those who wished to identify themselves with them were represented by the Republican People's Party (CHP), the one and only legal political group in the country. Any activists brazen enough to enter into real dissent or to express the cultural and religious aspirations of the Anatolian populace at large were dealt with by the national Gendarmerie or the political police. As for the economy, the bulk of it was either seized by state trusts or put under direct state control. These new state assets were quickly allocated to managers, who happened to be CHP members — and Rumelians. ‘For the people, in spite of the people,' Rumelians and quasi-Rumelians used to say half-smilingly. The real meaning of this motto was: for Anatolia (the new Turkish homeland), without and in spite of the Anatolians.”

According to Gurfinkel the single-party regime of the CHP was “a Rumelian dictatorship,” which “quickly transformed into a near-fascist system.” Atatürk was “turned into a semi-god” and “plans were drawn up to redesign Ankara as a Mussolini-style capital, with Atatürk's mausoleum at its center.”

These are important facts to note, especially for the Westerners who used to learn Turkey's story only from the “Rumelians” and thus have regarded their oligarchic aspirations as a justified stance against the so-called “ignorant Muslim masses” of Anatolia.

The rise and liberalization of Anatolians

What Gurfinkel underlines in his piece is that over time these “Anatolians” have indeed overgrown the secular establishment and became more liberal then in various issues. “The conservative Anatolian parties,” he notes, “have been strongly anti-statist and often more pro-American than the rest of the political class.”

Another important reality of Turkey grasped in Gurfinkel's piece is the “the steady rise of a very particular brand of Sunni Islam,” which is represented by leaders such as Said Nursi or Fethullah Gülen and who are, “less interested in enforcing Shariah law in the public sphere than in fusing Islam and modern civilization.” He also underlines that the AKP — unlike its predecessor, the movement of Necmeddin Erbakan —represents this moderate nature of Turkish Islam. “Whereas Erbakan had been linked to more traditional Islamic organizations and even to radical Arab groups like the Muslim Brotherhood,” he argues, “Erdoğan and other leaders of the AKP were closer to the new modernizing brotherhoods of Turkey.”

Erdoğan and Israel

This analysis implies that much of the alarmist rhetoric about the AKP is unrealistic, a conclusion that Gurfinkel seems to agree. He argues that the AKP has some “worrisome” tendencies in foreign policy, but also notes, “Erdoğan has made noteworthy efforts to keep the relationship with Israel alive,” he “intervened on behalf of an Israeli businessman,” and Ross Wilson, the new American ambassador “has been treated in a friendly, respectful manner.”

Moreover, he has apparently realized the fact that the real danger in Turkey is not that the government might turn it into another Iran, but the secularist opposition might turn it into another North Korea. He writes:

“If Turkey should indeed leave the Western fold, it might well be the work not of Islamists but of a hyper-nationalist, secular-minded military determined to align the country with the post-Communist regime of Russia or China.”

Well said...

Gurfinkel's piece is an important work in itself, but the fact that it has been published in Commentary is even more significant. Commentary is simply the intellectual standard-bearer of the neo-conservative movement.

It seems that those circles within Turkey, who try to find support in Washington for their anti-democratic game plans, have reasons to be pessimistic. They have tried to dupe the neo-conservatives by portraying Turkish Islam as a hidden form of “Islamo-fascism,” but nowadays that tale seems to be less convincing than ever.