Murky American minds, murky Turkey

Timing of such pieces is particularly advantageous for US administration, because it might put Turkish government in defensive before Prime Minister Erdoğan meets President Obama in Washington on December 7. They present the US officials with the opportunity to say the following to their Turkish counterparts privately: ‘Look, there are such and such reports and editorials in our media. It gets more difficult for us to publicly support your policies. Please help us in easing some of those public concerns’ One of the least offensive methods of issuing a diplomatic note is hiding your views behind the public opinion, isn’t it?

Washington Post editorial carries many attributes -positive or negative- of US foreign policy establishment’s thinking on Turkey. Americans generally want Turkey to be more democratic, but not at the expense of secularism and other Western interests. Inside the Western mind, there is an ongoing questioning whether pious Muslims can really be democrats. An EU-aspirant Turkey with seemingly pious leaders from AK Party in charge and growing visibility of pious Muslims in public sphere presents a live test-ground for that question.

Neither the secular nor the religious in the West have much reason to be in love with pious Muslims. Especially in the post-Iran revolution and post-911 era, perceived role of Islam in anti-Western radicalism only added salt to the wound. Although more open minded Westerners like those in Washington Post editorial board has so far given benefit of the doubt to pious Muslims in the Turkish context, their patience is not limitless. American right, mostly for the wrong reasons, has already given up on AK Party and pious Muslims. Support among the left is apparently getting more fragile. Nevertheless, although some of their expressed concerns are legitimate, Americans are not immune from prejudices and biases. Tax penalty case against Doğan Media Group and Ergenekon investigation are two examples.

The Western observers have all the right to pursue with the claims that Erdoğan government is going after unfriendly media. No matter how nasty and corrupt Doğan media group might be, Turkish government should not have enforced tax laws selectively. On the other hand, in a dispute between any media group and government in Turkey, usually neither side is fully innocent. Turkish governments often offer carrots to friendly media groups to make sure they stay on board. Since many big Turkish media owners also heavily invest in non-media related sectors, they sometimes (ab)use their ability to influence public opinion as a stick to garner legislative, executive and even judicial support for their special interests.

I wish I could also see some constructive criticism from democracy-conscious Westerners about murky business engagements, inappropriate governmental relations and huge editorial ethic problems in Turkish media including Doğan Group. Instead, they seem to be falling into the emotional trap of ‘Secular media persecuted by a religious Muslim government’ outcry too easily.

When it comes to the Ergenekon case, American establishment, including major media, seems to focus too much on some of the problematic aspects of the legal proceedings –emblematic with outdated judicial system, and lose sight of the big picture. For the first time in its modern history, Turkey has come so far with holding the military and their suspected civilian collaborators responsible for horrible attempts to undermine democracy and human rights. In a nation where the military has institutionalized meddling with politics and society, sometimes by violent means, the core claims of the Ergenekon prosecutors do not seem so inconceivable. Last time I checked, allegedly staging coups and terrorist actions was not a way of ‘domestic opposition’ in a Western-style democracy.

Prosecution is yet to prove its case. And of course nobody is guilty until proven so. But it’s disappointing to see renowned American media institutions prefer going more after the prosecution and the government, who are in fact taking fatal risks, while giving the coup-monger military and their suspected civilian comrades almost a free ride. One of the latest examples to that was New York Times news article by Dan Bilefsky, whose piece was mainly based on information and quotes from critics of Ergenekon investigation. One does rarely see such confusion and bias in Europe on Ergenekon. For some reason, American minds are murkier on this topic.