Emerging picture

Last week, the Ari movement debated Kemalism and invited Dutch scholar Erik Jan Zürcher to speak on the Turkey of the 1930s. The vision of modernity he outlined, based on his study of the journal published by the authorities of the time, La Turquie kemaliste, appeared perfectly suited to the pre-World War II era but was clearly out of step with today’s reality.

So what happened to make the recent developments possible? First, credit where credit is due: The prime minister and his party, as well as President Abdullah Gül, deserve praise for showing that solutions other that the use of force were possible to address the Kurdish issue. They took considerable risks in doing so.

Elements of change were, of course, already in place, even if they were not seen. Intellectuals had been pushing for reforms and a solution to the Kurdish issue for years, often facing prosecution for doing so. For as long as I can remember, there were also people within the bureaucracy who would, in the course of a private conversation, share progressive views.

I remember one particular conference sometime in the mid-1990s about the Kurdish issue. During the public round table session, Turkish officials would stick to the state discourse. Over lunch and during coffee breaks, they would speak more freely and reveal their own doubts in whispered conversations. But no critical mass or political consensus had been reached to allow them to come forward without risking their careers.

governments had, of course, tried tentatively to suggest different approaches before retreating in the face of strong opposition from the state establishment and the army. Tansu Çiller had flirted with the Basque model before illegal forces launched into a campaign of murders during her tenure. Mesut Yılmaz acknowledged that the path to European Union membership passed through Diyarbakir, while Süleyman Demirel at one point announced that he had recognized Kurdish reality. All of them shied away from taking more concrete steps. Turgut Özal took matters further and came closer to a breakthrough shortly before he died in 1993.

The slow attrition of official red lines started more than a decade ago. The 1999 earthquake, for instance, exposed some of the state’s shortcomings and gave a tremendous boost to the power of civil society. The military and the courts’ botched attempts at political engineering, in 2007 with the presidential elections and again with the closure case against the Justice and Development Party (AKP) caused strong popular reactions, as evidenced by the election results.

The Ergenekon investigation, which highlighted further attempts at political interference by non-elected players and lifted the cover of impunity that had protected underground forces, as well as the various documents published by the Taraf newspaper further confirmed that the rules of the game were changing and gave the elected government more room to maneuver. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government seized this opportunity to boldly move forward.

The road ahead is still long, but these first steps were probably the hardest. They have given new momentum to the process of democratization, and each new stage that is reached will further strengthen the government’s hand, not just at home but also internationally. Turkey is waking up, like a sleeping giant is emerging from its slumber, and furthermore, it appears to be generating enough energy to move at its own pace.