Crescent & Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds
by Stephen Kinzer
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001; paperback, 2002

book reviewed by William Rainbolt

One of the most incisive anecdotes that arose from the many perceptions that Stephen Kinzer gathered as a New York Times correspondent in Turkey in the 1990s occurred in a small antiques shop in Ankara. It is fitting that the shop sat in a capital city of a nation that for most of the 20th Century was racked by perplexities rooted in both history and a search for the future, a condition that endures today.

Kinzer asked the young owner which political party he favored in the 1995 national elections. Kinzer recalls being "astonished" when the young man replied instantly: "Welfare," an avowedly Islamic party. (Some 99 percent of Turks are Muslim, but the nation is highly, forcibly secular, an agreeable status for the majority of Turks.) The man ranted against the corruption and inefficiency he saw in the ruling politicians: "No one expects this place to run like Switzerland, but things have gone too far. I've had it!"

What surprised Kinzer was that the proprietor was "a budding capitalist with a Christian girlfriend who spent his free time drinking and dancing." The girlfriend lived in Austria, and the man visited her when he could afford to; otherwise, he liked to go to discos "until the wee hours." Yet, he supported a religious party that was sending tremors throughout Turkish society. The party seemed to advocate that Western influences be eradicated, that moral and religious codes be tightened to the point of intolerance, and, indeed, that an Islamic state aiming to inspire others in the Middle East be created. In campaign speeches, the charismatic, populist Welfare leader had promised that his party would "create an Islamic currency" and "an Islamic United Nations, an Islamic NATO and an Islamic version of the European Union."

Shouldn't the young man worry, Kinzer asked, about the consequences of a Welfare Party victory, that Turkey might be turned into "another Middle Eastern backwater"?

"Don't worry, that could never happen," the storeowner reassured him. "If they try to do anything like that, the army will throw them out."

An American might consider the possibility that the anecdote shows Turkey's real progress toward becoming a Western democracy: it may be that true democratic intelligence comes from feeling free and safe enough to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time, and assume the right idea will emerge eventually.

But the possibility dissipates with the young man's own assumption: there is little freedom or comfort in relying on dour, secretive generals to make sure that the nation survives, regardless of what happens politically. In such a case, holding contradictory ideas is symptomatic of deeper confusions.

Kinzer is an unabashed Turkophile,. And, as someone who lived there for 2 1/2 years in the early 1970s, I can agree with that enthusiasm. My own affection for Turkey was born entirely out of living with Turkish families and swimming deeply in the currents of life and culture and society in a small village. I knew very little about Turkish politics at the time, except to realize every so often that for a good part my stay the country was under martial law, though it had little affect on me or on most of the Turks in the village.

Kinzer's own zeal is much more formidable: he was the Times' first bureau chief in Istanbul. He has produced an illuminating, highly readable book that goes far in educating an American public woefully ignorant about a nation vitally important to us. He is not only a knowledgeable reporter of the country, especially its recent history, but also an astute commentator.

His concise but descriptive book is a history, a report, and an exhortation. He is almost parental in reiterating in plain language a constant theme that he wants Turkey to be the best than it can be. A "truly modern Turkey governed by the rule of law would raise the Turkish people to levels of prosperity and self-confidence they have never known," he asserts. Elsewhere, he declares: "If any country is going to prove that Islam can coexist with modernity and democracy, it will almost certainly be Turkey."

Two-thirds of Turks are under 35. Noting in particular that perhaps a "youthful, vigorous, and enthusiastic" generation of leaders might arise to guide the nation through this "most profound period of self-examination in its history," Kinzer suggests that if new leaders could "manage to transform their country into a modern democracy, they will become happier and richer than they ever have been." Without apology, he makes it clear that he truly believes that Turkey can become a nation that can "reshape the entire world."

He points to several aspects of Turkish society that must be addressed in order for this potential to be reached: the educational system must promote free inquiry, especially among university faculty; the press must become responsible and impartial; income distribution must be more equitable; taxes must be collected "fully and fairly;" judges and prosecutors must become more independent (at trial, they sit together on a platform looking down on the accused and defense counsel); corruption at all levels and in all facets must be eradicated.

But, first, Turkey has to confront its history.

For several centuries under the Ottomans, the Turks surveyed an empire that included Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Crimea, North Africa, and much of the Middle East. As the only Turkish military leader with a significant battle victory in World War I, Mustafa Kemal - he had repulsed the British and Anzac siege at Gallipoli - wrenched his nation from his Ottoman past and thrust into modernity.

Kemal believed that Turkey's future lay to the West. He abolished the sultanate and caliphate, he transliterated Arabic script into Latin letters for use in the language, he abolished the fez and the veil, decreed that the Muslim calendar be replaced by the European one, instituted a version of the Swiss code in place of Islamic law, and forced citizens to adopt surnames (Mustafa Kemal became Ataturk, Father of the Turks, a name no one can ever use again). By the time of his death in 1938 (at only 58), Turkey had survived one of the great transformations of the century. It had become a twentieth-century democracy by having a prophetic, creative, but strictly demanding leader impose his will on the nation, with little tolerance for dissent. The irony of this birth would not be lost in the country's history in the rest of the century.

Eight decades later, Turkey still seems mired in confusion that squeezes it from West and East, and America's own role in controlling that vise continues.

A staunch NATO member, an eager merchant beckoning Western trade and tourism, Turkey has long wanted to be part of the European Union. It has been a candidate member since 1999, but cannot convince the EU that some prominent changes to address a history of human rights violations actually will be enforced: the nation has banned the death penalty, for example, and granted more rights to its Kurdish minority.

In early October, the Union's executive commission recommended that 10 candidate countries be invited to join in 2004 -- mostly, Eastern European and Baltic nations, along with Cyprus and Malta -- but excluded Turkey. The New York Times reported that the commission's reasons for rejection included "restrictions on freedom of expression, torture of prisoners, excessively long pre-arrest detentions, and insufficient civilian control over Turkey's armed forces, which wield strong influence on national policy." Turkish leaders rebuked the report.

But just two weeks later, and about 10 days before national elections, the nation's chief prosecutor moved to outlaw the country's most popular party, Justice and Development, a moderate Islamic group which had been gathering about 30 percent of the vote, far ahead of competitors. The party had continued to grow in its potential to produce the next prime minister even after current PM Bulent Ecevit, in response to the EU rejection, had urged voters to support secular parties in order to reassure Europe that Turkey would not become another Islamic fundamentalist state. The leaders of Justice and Development have argued that their Islamic themes are moderate at best, and they have successfully cultivated a pro-Western image.

The United States has supported Turkey's bid for the European Union. The strategic locations of airbases and communications stations that are vital to American plans for dealing with Iraq (as they were for dealing with the nearby Soviet Union in the Cold War) provide supporters with a rationale, as does Turkey's steadfastness in fighting alongside Americans, from Korea to Afghanistan.

But once again, a puzzlement of possibilities presses on Turkey, and they mostly have to do with Kurds, Kinzer explains.

For half of the 1980s and most of the 1990s, the Turkish military and the guerrilla army of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fought a vicious war throughout southeastern Turkey that left at least 30,000 dead. In recent years, there has been an uneasy peace among the fighting factions, though, Kinzer points out, more often than not common Turks and Kurds "live together peacefully in cities and towns all over Turkey, often barely conscious of each other's backgrounds, and intermarry frequently." Kurds hold many local political offices, and have proven to be efficient and fair.

But, Kinzer reminds us, "in Turkey public opinion has only a slight effect on official policy. . . . Any substantial change in direction must be approved by the military-dominated elite," through its formal body, the National Security Council. Kinzer argues that Kurds must reassure this elite that they do not want a breakaway republic of their own, but rather can "strengthen and enrich" Turkey itself. And of course, civilian leaders (bolstered by the generals who consider vigilance their national legacy) must accept the reassurances, and strive honestly to build an invigorated nation that includes Kurdish rights and culture, as well as those of all minorities.

"The Kurdish conflict is mainly about fear," Kinzer writes.

The predominant Turkish fear right now is that American military action in Iraq will send 250,000 or more Iraqi Kurds into southeastern Turkey. The fear is that denying America the opportunity to use Turkish airbases, and other strategic and tactical support, might sacrifice a vital ally. The fear is that there is strength in numbers, and perhaps such an influx of Kurds might re-ignite nationalist tendencies, as well as strain an already difficult economy. The fear is moderate Islamic factions, even if they are truly moderate, and worse if they are not -- even moderate Islamic factions may be bolstered.

And the fear among the traditional elites is that younger Turks may not blindly embrace the same fears. Kinzer points out that the fear is that younger leaders may not be "gripped" by two "ancient Middle Eastern taboos" that weigh on the traditional elites: the taboo against "change, which they equate with admitting failure," and the taboo against "dialogue, compromise and negotiation."

It is a particularly Turkish conundrum, Kinzer stresses throughout this persuasive book. It is the confusion of the Ankara shop owner. Or, of Tulay, a 23-year-old, intelligent, determined woman who happens to be a devout Muslim. Modern Turkish society has allowed her to dream of becoming a doctor ("a career beyond the wildest dreams of girls in Saudi Arabia," Kinzer notes), and to receive an education in her teens and early twenties that would help her toward that goal. But when she arrived at Istanbul University to take an examination, she and several other hundred other devout women were told they could enter the room only if they removed their headscarves. They refused, and were expelled.

Kinzer interviewed Tulay at a nearby McDonalds, over burgers and fries. "I am protesting as much as possible because I really want to become a doctor," Tulay said. "It's bad to become a fanatic, but they are pushing us to fanaticism."

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William Rainbolt is Interim Director of the Journalism Program at the University at Albany.

10/30/2002