Turkey chose a new president today in the person of Abdullah Gul, the former prime minister, and most recently foreign minister. Gul is widely recognized as a reformer and leader in Ankara's bid to join the European Union. He is also sometimes called a dangerously right-wing Islamist.
Yesterday I got involved in a conversation with Kossack protectspice about whether Gul is or is not an "Islamist." For the purposes of our conversation -- and this one -- I think the Wikipedia definition of Islamism should suffice:
Islamism is a term used to denote a set of political ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism holds that Islamic law (sharia) must be the basis for all statutory law of society; that Muslims must return to the original teachings and the early models of Islam; and that western military, economic, political, social, or cultural influence in the Muslim world is un-Islamic.
So, by that definition, is Abdullah Gul an Islamist?
Before answering, I thought it might be helpful to know who he is. So I fired up The Google.
Abdullah Gul was educated in economics, and has served as a member of the Turkish parliament since 1991. He has been a member of three political parties, the first two of which (the Welfare Party and the Virtue Party) were disbanded after being judged illegal under Turkey's strict interpretation of secularism. He is currently a member of the Justice and Development Party (AKP, for "Adalet ve Kalkina Partisi"), of which he is a founding member. He was briefly Turkey's prime minister in 2002, and has been the deputy prime minister and foreign minister since 2003. His initial bid for the presidency was blocked by Turkey's military, which sees itself as the guardian of the secular tradition established by Ataturk after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
The AKP claims to be a center-right party in the tradition of European parties like Germany's Christian Democratic Union. By this criteria alone they might be seen as a party whose positions would be antithetical to progressives. However, the AKP has built a strong base of popularity among the rural poor in Turkey by backing social programs that might not normally be associated with a "far right" party. On the other hand, they are strongly nationalistic in their opposition to Kurdish autonomy, either in Turkey or in neighboring Iraq.
Gul has pledged to uphold Turkey's secular system. But our president pledged to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," and we all know how well that turned out. So it's fair to say that presidential pledges need to be taken with a grain of salt. At least one Turkish observer, journalist Suna Erdem, has voiced concerns about Gul's AKP:
Now, AKP is pushing hard to turn this country into an Islamic State. Yet still, - unbelievably - they are telling the whole world they are secular!
The world should urgently see the fact that the secular people in this country are not a "minority" but more than half the nation; AKP's votes are %47; AKP is taking a dangerous step against the secular Republic which is not acceptable.
AKP should immediately explain why they are trying to bring down the secular republic and set up an Islamic one.
It would be easy to dismiss these and other objections to the AKP as partisan bickering, or merely sour grapes from a secular elite afraid to lose power. Indeed, this may very well be the case. So far, the most "damning" evidence of Gul's intentions are repeated -- but poorly documented -- allegations of past associations with hardline Islamist groups, and his wife's wearing of the Muslim headscarf in public buildings (which is forbidden in Turkey; as absurd as it seems, this will become at least a technical issue of law, inasmuch as the Guls will be living in a "public building").
Gul has claimed to have severed any links with Islamist groups in 1999. Certainly his active role in negotiating Turkey's entry into the EU would seem to suggest a man comfortable with the expectations of modern, secular democracy. And it would be prejudicial in the extreme to suggest that someone's faith, no matter how devout, would automatically prevent them from honoring the separation of church and state. (Possibly our own experience with certain "people of faith" in politics has unfairly colored our judgment on this.)
On the other hand, there have been many cases of political figures disavowing connections with right-wing groups in an attempt to make themselves more palatable. Austria's Jorg Haider and Louisiana's David Duke come to mind. And far-right, Islamist candidates like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have been elected on populist platforms. So it would seem unwise to simply dismiss concerns about Gul's allegiances.
Is Abdullah Gul an Islamist? I don't know. It's a loaded question, because it conjures up the image of a Turkey "fallen" to Muslim theocracy in the style of Iran or Saudi Arabia. That image is admittedly troubling, but in the final analysis, I think, unlikely. The European countries appear to be comfortable with Gul, which they would not be if he were a Muslim extremist. I think the worst that can be said of him is that he's conservative, and that some of his stances -- notably his opposition to any degree of independence for Kurdistan -- may prove troublesome in finding a solution to the crisis in Iraq.
On the other hand, only Nixon could go to China.