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Tim W Hayes  02/22/2007 03:01:57 PM  From  DB/Inbox:  Tim W Hayes

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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 000277 
 
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E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/01/2017 
TAGS: PGOV PREL TU
SUBJECT: NATIONALISM TURNING NASTY IN TURKEY 
 
REF: A. ANKARA 0144 
     ¶B. ANKARA 0137 
 
Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR JANICE WEINER FOR REASONS 1.5(B), (D) 
 
¶1. (C)  Summary.  The nationalism that has been a unifying 
force since the Turkish Republic's founding in 1923 is 
becoming dangerously divisive under the pressure of national 
elections, government-military tensions and the continuing 
focus on the PKK in Iraq.  The Dink assassination offered a 
brief window of sanity (see ref A), but subsequent 
nationalist backlash indicates the depth of the divide in 
Turkish society.  The government has moved only cautiously, 
reluctant to exert leadership or make waves in an election 
year.  The prevailing mood is indicative of a cross-party 
election ploy gone awry -- everyone, including the ruling 
Justice and Development Party (AKP), is competing for 
nationalist votes, a move PM Erdogan likely sees as a hedge 
against the military as well as a sop to AKP's nationalist 
faction.  In this explosive atmosphere, few, save a handful 
of outspoken media columnists, have shown the courage to urge 
that Turkey pull firmly back from the edge of volatile 
ultranationalist extremism. 
 
¶2. (C)  For months, it has been clear that the so-called 
mainstream parties, both the governing AKP and the main 
opposition, ostensibly center-left Republican People's Party 
(CHP), have been wooing the nationalist vote.  For AKP, the 
strategy has been pragmatic: it is a big tent party with a 
nationalist wing that it needs to placate.  It also seeks to 
use nationalism to protect its flank against the military and 
attract a large share of the 4 million young people who will 
be voting for the first time.  It shares with CHP the goal of 
drawing votes away from the traditional nationalists, the 
Nationalist Action Party (MHP), to prevent that party from 
entering parliament. 
 
UNCHECKED NATIONALISM 
--------------------- 
¶3. (C)  Having gone unchecked, it now appears that 
nationalism is exceeding the bounds of political expediency. 
In the wake of the Hrant Dink murder, most Turks were stunned 
by video clips released February 2 that show police proudly 
taking photos with Dink's murderer before a Turkish flag. 
The photos fueled rumors of police involvement in the 
shooting and escalated anxiety that further extremist 
incidents could happen at any time.  This was in addition to 
post-funeral nationalist reactions -- e.g., soccer stadium 
violence and overt antipathy to the "We are all Armenians" 
and "We are all Hrant Dink" funeral slogans. 
 
¶4. (C)  Erdogan's deputy chief of cabinet told us he expects 
more serious events to occur, but claimed the government can 
only "react" under Turkey's democratic system.  Instead of 
direct action, the PM is responding to the ultranationalist 
threat indirectly, by sacking negligent officials (i.e. 
Trabzon's governor and police chief) and trying to address 
unemployment in Trabzon, one breeding ground for 
ultranationalists such as Dink's alleged assailant (ref B). 
The government also belatedly offered protection to a number 
of other well-known figures who have received threats for 
defending minority and human rights, including Professor 
Baskin Oran and author Elif Shafak.  The voices of reason and 
calls for national introspection have come largely from 
newspaper columnists.  Government statements have been 
conspicuously absent, save for a tit-for-tat between the PM 
and MHP leader Bahceli, in which the PM distinquished between 
(his) nationalist patriotism and the divisive, racist 
nationalism that he implied forms the core of MHP ideology. 
 
ARTICLE 301 TARGETS POTENTIAL VICTIMS 
------------------------------------- 
¶5. (C)  Initial calls to abolish controversial Penal Code 
Article 301, under which Dink, Orhan Pamuk and others were 
charged with "insulting Turkishness", have met with weak 
responses from government officials and strong rebukes from 
opposition leaders.  Some commentators argue that 
prosecutions under the provision target the accused as an 
enemy of Turkey, opening them up to vigilante threats and 
further stoking nationalism fires.  Nevertheless, to date, 
Erdogan has ruled out abolishing the article and threw the 
difficult job of finding an acceptable amendment to a 
reconstituted NGO commission that failed to agree on language 
when first tasked by the PM last fall.  The NGO commission 
met and announced its proposed changes on February 8, 
offering a watered down version of the article that is 
unlikely to resolve the controversy. 
¶6. (C)  Justice Minister Cicek's recent comments that the NGO 
meeting is "untimely" and the Article 301 discussion 
meaningless reveal the fracture within AKP on the issue. 
Cicek, Deputy PM Sener and others contend the problem is in 
the provision's application; as more case law develops, the 
parameters of the article will become clear and 
inconsistencies will be eliminated.  Even if Article 301 were 
abolished, the argument goes, a number of other penal code 
provisions could be used to the same effect.  The opposition, 
including the liberal left, is forcefully resisting any 
change in Article 301, which has become both an international 
liability and a domestic nationalist rallying point.  The 
voices in the wilderness have come from intellectuals, who 
have taken a stand in favor of abolishing 301 because, in 
their view, it fuels nationalism and puts at risk outspoken 
thinkers, such as Hrant Dink, whose ideas are essential to 
advancing Turkey's democratic debate and continuing to break 
down taboos. 
 
COMMENT: A LEADERSHIP VACUUM 
---------------------------- 
 
¶7. (C)  In the current election-charged climate, the key 
actors seem unwilling to put aside their self-interests to 
collectively combat a dangerous trend.  President Sezer has 
been silent and Erdogan's statements seem more calibrated to 
placating nationalist voters than to unifying a troubled 
country.  Opposition leaders have added to the divisive 
atmosphere by focusing on differences within Turkey that fuel 
public fears.  Some contacts who lived through previous eras 
of extreme nationalism are worried by the increasingly nasty, 
us-against-them tone of the debate; increasing numbers of 
ordinary Turks see a country beseiged -- by the PKK, 
instability in Iraq, an uncertain Iran, EU-accession reforms 
and other perceived threats. 
 
¶8. (C)  The key missing ingredient is leadership.  Erdogan 
and AKP, rather than taking bold steps and helping to shape 
the public debate, seem intimidated by the prospects of 
elections.  Rather than leading, they are allowing public 
opinion to lead them.  The Dink murder should have made it 
clear that playing the nationalist card may have seemed 
expedient, but instead unleashes danger.  By not exercising 
leadership, AKP risks a more volatile electorate and helps to 
revive a nationalist hydra that could prove exceedingly 
difficult to put back in the box once the elections are 
behind them.  End Comment. 
 
Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/ankara/ 
 
WILSON