Turkey's Transitional Pain

Ankata at night

Turks were informed in 2002 by its recently installed Islamist government under the Justice and Development party that a new day had dawned for Turkey. Henceforth, a "zero problems" doctrine would prevail. One that spurred rapid economic growth, complacent with its relationship with the world of the West, and that of its closer neighbours to the East, a crossroads of Western-style democracy celebrated by a Muslim population; a regional model celebrating "soft power" through diplomacy, trade and popular culture.

How the world has turned completely around for the Islamic Republic of Turkey. It has strayed far from its Ataturk pride as a Western-aligned, secular-governed heir of the Ottoman Empire, to become a bedevilled country, its voters pushing back against an increasingly autocratic regime headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, defiant of charges that he and his entourage in government are corrupt dictators, and now meekly meeting with France's Francoise Hollande, to advise of Turkey's preparedness to join the EU.

There's a problem there; France has always presented as the major obstacle to Turkey's acceptance in the EU, and the European Union has time and again informed Turkey that its human rights record must be improved before its entrance into the EU could be seriously considered. When the Justice and Development party's government was again consolidated with majority status Erdogan's drive to emasculate Turkey's Ataturk-loyal military went into overdrive. Senior military personnel were charged in a plot to overthrow the government.

Members of Turkey's military were charged, imprisoned and tried, found guilty as charged and sentenced to extremely harsh prison sentences. Lately intimations of the government's having falsely charged and railroaded the senior generals and other members of the military have surfaced. But the deed was done and the military no longer capable of mounting a possible putsch. More recently, the discharge of large numbers of senior police officers and other members of the Turkish police, the imprisonment of journalists critical of the government, and more latterly the cleansing of the judicial system of those the regime accuses of plotting against the government.

Tellingly, after enjoying years of blazing-fast growth under a presumably reformist leader, Erdogan is looking more like a dictator with every passing day, and Turkey is experiencing a far shakier economic prospect for the future. The spectre of serious political conflict in a division of popular opinion is another future prospect, and perhaps given the speed with which events are unrolling, not too far into the future. Investors are concerned that Turkey's growth is hugely dependent on imported cash, and it's drying up.

Moreover, over the years, Turkey has seen quite the transition in its government diplomatic and political policy. Its long tradition of cooperation with Israel came to a shuddering halt when the Erdogan government shifted its attention and sympathies toward the Palestinians, viewing Hamas as a responsible government in Gaza, and accusing Israel of crimes against the 'refugees' when the IDF mounted a counter-attack against the innumerable, intolerable rockets fired into Israel.

The Islamic Republic of Iran suddenly seemed to present as a suitable partner in advancing the aspirations of the Middle East. It obviously occurred to Turkey's Islamist government that despite the division between Shia and Sunni, any government that professed to uphold Islamist traditions was one to support. The closeness with Iran remains intact despite Erdogan's furious denunciation of Syria's Bashar al-Assad and Turkey's decision to side with Syrian rebels, giving them haven from which to mount attacks against the Syrian regime.

On the advent of the Arab Spring, Turkey smugly announced it would have no truck with dictators; it was its intention to encourage the growth of democracy. It has cut civil and political contact with the only real democracy in the Middle East, withdrawing its ambassadors from Israel and from Egypt as well, rather important regional nations. Egypt's removal of Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood from power did not sit well with Mr. Erdogan.

"Turkey's foreign policy strategy has entered a dead-end street, and a correction has become a must. [Ankara should take leave of its connection with Sunni Islamist groups like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, to establish "sound contacts" with all the vital and important groups in the geography, including Egypt's new government, the Syrian Kurds, the Shia leaders of Iraq, Fatah, and also Israel]" according to Gokturk Tuysuzoglu, political scientist at Giresun University on Turkey's Black Sea Coast.

Of course contact with the Syrian Kurds might be problematical for Turkey having to focus yet again on the agitation of Kurds in Turkey for their own sovereign country, a completely legitimate aspiration for the largest ethnic group in the world that is without a land of its own, thanks to the colonialist interference that marginalized and bypassed their need, when boundaries were drawn to demarcate the nations of the Middle East.

It isn't at all likely that Prime Minister Erdogan and his crew will ever be prepared to swallow hard and recant on some of their divisive policies and interference in other countries' affairs to more closely reflect their own Islamist approach to political life in the region. But then, the Justice and Development party remains popular in Turkey, it has a large and loyal following that likes the growing Islamism in Turkey.

Absent those in the population who are more liberally inclined, who value their Ataturk legacy and the secular nature of a country that has been subsumed by the growing Islamism prevalent all over the world of Muslim majority, it is entirely possible that what occurred in Egypt may re-occur in some part in Turkey, enough so to entirely disrupt a country that once felt such great satisfaction in its stature bridging East and West.