TURKEY: HEADSCARF DEBATE REVEALS FISSURES

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 000320 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/18/2023 TAGS: PGOV TU SUBJECT: TURKEY: HEADSCARF DEBATE REVEALS FISSURES Classified By: PolCouns Janice G Weiner, reasons 1.4 (b),(d) Where We Are -------------- ¶1. (C) Turkey again finds itself in a state of domestic tension and polarization. Among politicians, the debate over the headscarf (whether or not to allow girls who cover their heads into universities) has degenerated into a series of sophomoric arguments. They're not battling it out on the streets, but the tenor of the debate has polarized Turkish society and become irresponsible. One such exchange occurred in parliament, where Speaker Toptan had to play "mom" to get the parties to behave, as ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) MPs coined clever taunts, accusing each other of having little or no brains. ¶2. (C) In a more serious (and thus even less responsible) exchange, CHP leader Baykal raised the specter of political lynching, making a barely veiled reference to the 1960 hanging of then-PM Menderes. Erdogan responded that in 1983, when Turgut Ozal was elected PM in the aftermath of the 1980 coup, he had referred to the Ottoman habit of bringing two white shirts when assuming office: one for holidays, the other in case the person were sent to the gallows. AKP was prepared with both its white garments. ¶3. (C) Even as various AKP officials have told us this is the moment the government must act its most responsible, the PM, in the heat of the moment, has made a number of intemperate remarks and stood firm that it is his style -- and his right -- to do so. ¶4. (SBU) The media, as the PM has pointed out, have played along. Comments have run the gamut from comparisons to the Nazi era to provocations of students to block headscarved compatriots from entering university campuses. The latest stories highlight both sides of coin: two students wearing short skirts reportedly had some chemical substance thrown at their now-bandaged legs; and Arab tourists, visiting an upscale Istanbul shopping center, apparently stopped to pray at the appropriate time; they were allowed to pray, and were then escorted out. How We Got Here -------------- ¶5. (C) Several currents have combined to bring Turkey to this juncture: the events of 2007, the current shape of AKP and Turkey's demographics. --How to Fight City Hall and Win �00A;¶6. (C) Erdogan and the AKP drew lessons from the events of last spring: When challenged by the military and courts, AKP stood up to the military and the so-called deep state (the shady retired military/staunchly secular elements who see it as their mission to save Kemalist republic),and cried foul. They pursued the most democratic road possible, took their case to the people and won; the military was left to lick its wounds. Nor was the judiciary spared. An aura of suspicion hangs over the Constitutional Court because of its suspect ruling on the parliamentary quorum issue that helped invalidate the first attempt to elect Abdullah Gul president. ¶7. (C) A strengthened AKP, fresh from a general election victory, stared down the Kemalist establishment once again and elected Gul president. The military did not like it; their failure to show for the inauguration bordered on insubordination, but they have gradually and grudgingly come around. The Ankara garrison commander no longer steps out of line to avoid shaking hands with Hayrunissa Gul, in headscarf, and the Chief of the General Staff attends weekly meetings at the presidential palace. AKP won again. ¶8. (C) Having learned their lessons well, AKP and Erdogan are applying those lessons. If they follow the democratic rules and get the public behind them, they will again be rewarded. ANKARA 00000320 002 OF 003 The result: AKP teamed up with another party to pass the headscarf amendments. And they are trying to root out the deep state through a series of investigations and arrests dubbed "Ergenekon". As these work their way through the system, AKP believes, Kemalist institutions will again be "on trial" -- the judiciary, as it deals with the amendments and Ergenekon prosecutions; and state education authorities as they confront headscarves and the need to reform the university admissions process. --Tayyip's Party ¶9. (C) Today's AKP is Tayyip Erdogan's alone to lead. In re-shaping the election lists to bring in his own and purge those who hadn't toed the line on important votes, Erdogan rid himself of the other leadership legs of the AKP stool: pious/nationalist Abdullatif Sener opted out when Erdogan axed most of his people; pious/Milli Gorus follower Bulent Arinc decided to stay in (demoted from parliament speaker to run-of-the-mill MP),but his wing did not make the cut; Abdullah Gul, the cool brain who leavened Erdogan's often hot-headed political street-sense, moved up to the legally apolitical presidency. ¶10. (C) The result is a party and government devoid of its previous pillars. Sener, an economist, had his own base and was not beholden to Erdogan; he could push forward economic advice. Arinc often seemed to play the clown, but his presence as official #2 to the president helped placate the pious wing. And Abdullah Gul, perhaps Erdogan's closest political colleague and confidant, can no longer directly balance the PM's temper with well-thought out policy approaches. The new crop does not rise to this level. FM Babacan, for example, a young technocrat with no political base to call his own, remains dependent on the PM, continues to struggle with the subject matter, cannot fill Gul's shoes and has ceded much on the foreign policy front to the President. And while Mehmet Simsek knows economics and has worked hard to carve out a political base in Gaziantep, as a junior minister, he serves at the PM's will and wields little political clout. All significant decisions are the PM's. There are not enough hours in the day for him to deal with the issues that rain down (or up) in Turkey. --Grassroots People Power ¶11. (C) Third, today's Turkey is no longer the Turkey of the secular Kemalist establishment. A top down society with a system of governance designed to protect the state from the people, it had not reckoned with the rise and urbanization of the religiously conservative Anatolian middle class. They have come to money, to the cities and to power through AKP and its grassroots politics that originated in Islamic charity organizations with broad outreach to poor neighborhoods. Despite Erdogan's autocratic style, the tentacles of his party are broad, and a hole gapes where an effective opposition should be. Where We Are Going -------------- ¶12. (C) The gloom and doom camp sees Turkey as well down the road to non-secular perdition; they fear it will become another Iran. Others protest western ideals are too engrained here for that to happen. There may be a grain of truth in each. Tomorrow's Turkey will not be as free of Islam and conservatism as the Kemalists would like. Societal pressures work both ways. We cannot yet know -- in a patriarchal and conformist society -- how much pressure will be brought to bear on young women to cover. To date, the "state" -- the protector of the establishment from the people -- has circumscribed that pressure, banning headscarves from universities and maintaining government workplaces as headscarf-free zones. As AKP, in the name of individual freedom, opens spheres for individual expression, it is not yet clear if it can prevent the pendulum from swinging the opposite direction, taking away freedom not to cover. Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Turk ey ANKARA 00000320 003 OF 003 WILSON