After the bombing of the two synagogues in Istanbul on 15 November 2003, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, declaimed against the attack in bombastic style. If this were meant to be a message, he said, his government was not going to take such a message under any conditions and could only trample on it.
But it is one thing to understand a message, and another to do as it bids. Let us then try to understand what it meant before we trample on it.
Explosion in front of the British consulate building
Why Turkey?
The synagogue attacks, and then the bombing of the British consulate and HSBC bank which followed on 20 November, were in an obvious sense aimed at Jewish and British people. However, more Turkish Muslims than either Jews or British were killed and this was, of course, predictable. So Turkey was not merely the site, but also the major target of the attacks. Why?
Turkey is a Muslim country and it did not, in the end, participate in the American-led invasion of Iraq. But Turkey also did not have a very clear policy towards the invasion and certainly did not stand against it.
More important than the fact that Turkey is a Muslim country is that she is a secularist Muslim country. This has drawn more and more attention lately. Many people in the west as well as in the Muslim world, including in Turkey herself empathise with this fact as evidence of the possibility of secularisation in a Muslim society. From my point of view, there is an important distinction between secular and secularist, and Turkey fits the second category better than it does the first but lets not discuss this question in this context.
This secularist Muslim country has for a long time been part of a western alliance as a Nato member, but also in its wider determination to belong to the western world. The prospect now of an even closer relationship with the west, including membership of the European Union, looks threatening to certain nationalist / isolationist forces in the country. But it is one of the many fascinating aspects of the complex Turkish reality that these forces are at the same time precisely the most avidly anti-Muslim.
But the most important factor involved in choosing Turkey as a target must be the character of the governing party since the elections of November 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AKP). The AKP, which won an absolute majority of seats in the election, is the product of a split from the much more conservative Refah Partisi / Welfare Party (RP).
The AKP today is a profoundly moderate party, one trying usually under the visible surface of day-to-day politics to disentangle itself from radical Islam and groups or ideologies of a more fundamentalist bias. Despite the fierce battle waged by the Kemalists who cleave rigorously to the secular vision of the founder of the republic, Kemal Ataturk the party is currently the most suitable candidate to carry Turkey towards the goal of becoming a democratic Muslim country that achieves a satisfactory balance between its religion and secularism, as I argued in openDemocracy in November 2002.
No one can expect an organisation like al-Qaida to nurture friendly sentiments to a party of this kind, one in government in a country like Turkey. The western alliance, the will to secularism, and a moderate Islamic party able to coexist with these conditions must all be punished and the whole enterprise must be blown away.
Turkey thus is and will remain an important target for an organisation like al-Qaida. Compared to the US and Britain and other rich western countries in the alliance, it is perhaps not the main enemy. But in a practical way, the country may be a convenient target because it is much more disorganised than the others in taking protective precautions. Moreover, it is obviously easier to recruit the required type of militants from among the native population.
What happened?
The bombing has created great shock and deep resentment in Turkey. An action of this kind undertaken by an Islamist organisation is not going to increase sympathy for radical Islamist groups and policies. On the contrary, it is more likely to antagonise people in the middle, so to speak, who for a variety of reasons have not yet reached a definitive attitude towards them.
Many writers in the Islamist press, themselves under the shock, try to argue that it was not Turkey the bombers were really attacking, but Jews and Brits. Their arguments are not persuasive. Others, though fewer, intimate that the attackers have their point. Such an argument may be quite pleasing to the determined militant, but will do nothing to persuade the majority outside Islamist circles to tolerate anything directed against us.
The government is another matter. It has to, and does, take it personally. This explains the vehemence that Erdogan has been demonstrating since the first attacks. It appears that his governments commitment to the European Union and to its own policy of moderation has been strengthened, not weakened, by the bombs.
A significant development in this respect is the international response, from certain EU countries in particular. German, Italian and British ministers have already stated that the attacks provided ground for closer relations between Turkey and the west. After all, if the so-called message is indeed a warning to Turkey about its closeness to the west, the west should also be able to read it.
Any small ripple can disturb the very precarious balance of forces in Turkey those for Europe and democracy, and those for isolation and semi-military authorisation. These now stand poised in an uncertain equilibrium. But the bombs were more than a ripple. At a time when some of us would not be surprised by bombs of a more native kind, these explosions immediately triggered a chain-reaction among the broad nationalist coalition of opinion.
Some in this coalition have even attempted to transfer blame onto the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), the militant group that waged a fierce fifteen-year war with Turkish security forces in the eastern provinces. Others as usual emphasised the need for more security via more suppression of liberties, and called for the repudiation of the legal improvements achieved as part of the EUs Copenhagen criteria, which laid down preconditions for Turkeys entering negotiations to join the Union.
The strategy of reinforcing the states security and authority requires the strong support of Turkeys vigorous, diverse media. But many newspapers and TV channels were clearly determined to resist any suggestion that the country should be diverted from its route towards Europe, secularism and democracy.
The media, in short, invited people to carry on resolutely as if nothing had happened. Instead of creating fear and panic, as they routinely do in similar circumstances, they tried to contribute to a swift normalisation.
And when the media chooses to behave in this way, defeatism cannot make much progress.
What can be expected to happen?
This war, however it is described, will apparently go on for a long time. As the United States strives to rule the world unilaterally, there is bound to be a centre like al-Qaida, whatever it is called, and whoever it is composed of, which offers violent resistance to the prospect. Turkey may well be visited again by al-Qaida militants, most of whom may (as seems to be the case with the recent bombings) be Turkish citizens.
It seems that this organisation works in quite a decentralised manner, probably receiving projects for action from various fundamentalist groups based in many countries, and choosing whether or not to finance them. It must have its own programmes, aims, and targets, but it can also articulate what may be called local projects into the universal policy.
Since the synagogue bombs, we in Turkey have been hearing authorities saying that Turkey is a country with a long experience of terrorism. What this reveals is the state mechanism using exaggeration and distortion to justify its own methods.
During the 1970s there was indeed an undeclared civil war between the far right and the far left that caused many casualties and widespread social disruption. But it was nothing like what we have now.
In the 1980s, the fierce struggle between the army and the PKK was seldom accompanied by any comparable terrorist attack in the overwhelmingly Turkish part of the country particularly not in the big cities where masses of civilians could be targeted.
Turkey, then, while it has experienced violence and bloodshed of many kinds in the last three decades, is not at all prepared for this new kind of terror.
Yet with or without new al-Qaida attacks, the government will not change direction. It will continue to pursue EU membership, and a series of democratising legal reforms, because such policies are necessary for its own political survival. The disturbance caused by the recent attacks may even give the AKP a chance to articulate more clearly its policy of moderation, and to further disentangle itself from some of its more radical components or supporters. If the AKP wants to have majority, popular support, it will have to get rid of these radical appendages.
The international repercussions of these bombs may work both in and against Turkeys favour. In Europe, many will argue that allowing Turkey into the Union will entail importing all this terrorism as well. This, as far as I can judge, is both incorrect in itself and a new disguise for the old religious and cultural conservatism. But it may become more convincing to public opinion in Europe as the first reflexes of compassion begin to fade.
At present, Cyprus whose southern, Greek component is moving towards EU membership amidst newly-opened borders and the frustration of the Turkish Cypriot population of the north is a very crucial problem in Turkish-EU relations.
Indeed, Cyprus could be fatal to both government and party. Turkey needs to break with the unpopular government of her erstwhile ally in northern Cyprus, Rauf Denktas, and contribute to a solution that accommodates the interests of all parties. But the nationalist coalition is hawkishly waiting to accuse the government of giving away Cyprus without reaching some irreversible position in the process of integration with the EU.
For understandable reasons, Europe is reluctant about speaking of dates before the Cyprus problem is safely resolved. But, if Europe does appreciate the Turkish dedication to western values, it should find a way to reassuring the AKP government.
Who will govern Turkey?
As in any narrative of mystery, the ultimate question concerns the antagonist; in this case, the nationalists, who want to pull yet another trick to steer this society away from democratisation and into its own authoritarian past. How effective can they be?
Almost certainly they did not plant the bombs that exploded. But, for them, a world of bombs is always better than one without. Bombs immediately create the ground where ominous speeches about dangers and peace and order can be made, talk of mysterious enemies and conspiracies released (the Turk has no friend but the Turk, as this strange rhetoric of self-adoration goes).
Some in the coalition of nationalists choose to associate the bombs to the PKK terror; the majority prefer to stress an identity between Islamic terror and the Islamism of the governing party. The latter may prove a more successful tactic as the government tries to avoid talking about the religious character of the attacks.
All of the nationalists want to create an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty to stop, if not reverse, the course of legal reform initiated by the government. Could they even dare to plant a few bombs of their own to make this atmosphere of fear more permanent?
In normal circumstances, the synagogue and consulate bombings and the strong likelihood of a repeat should encourage the more responsible actors on both sides of the Islamist / secularist divide of the country to understand each other and seek common policies. If this option wins, Turkey can solve most of its current problems and become a significant and valued member of the international community. Thus hope can emerge, terrible though it may be to say, from the smoke and carnage of the Istanbul atrocities.
