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It's the Wedge Issues, Stupid

Turkey and the U.S. Focus on Polarizing, Unproductive Politics

Published: Saturday, March 29, 2008

Updated: Saturday, January 2, 2010

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Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdo?an and President Bush

akp party.jpg

i.l.cnn.net

turkey.gif

shunya.net

erdogan and bush.jpg

a.abcnews.com

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdo?an and President Bush

It seems a reasonable observation that when people do not have much control over their government and political process, they narrow in on a few divisive issues that they have little hope of affecting but that for some reason rile them up.

In America, I get frustrated when people won't vote for a candidate because they think he or she is a Democrat and will therefore raise taxes and make gay marriage legal (foolish stereotypes), or is a Republican and will ban abortion (probably something that a single office holder has no ability to affect).

America is not a true democracy. As a democratic republic, citizens elect representatives who vote on behalf of their constituencies for specific issues. Turkey, however, has a far less democratic system. Turkish citizens vote only for the party they prefer, not particular candidates, and from this single vote the parliament, president, and prime minister are eventually selected. Who specifically fills these offices is all worked out internally within the party mechanism-taking representation one major step further from the voter. It follows, then, that this same type of counterproductive issue is even more dominant in Turkish politics.

What I have found thus far from my travels and discussions in Turkey is that many Turks do not really like any of the political parties. They find all the parties to be quite flawed, and are forced to simply choose the lesser of several evils. I often find myself in this position in America, but-thanks to primaries, and our ability to vote for individuals and not parties-there is at least a chance that a voter could find a candidate whose views are fairly close to her own for whom to vote.

If the Turks have less of an ability to influence their government than Americans do, it would make sense that they also focus on issues based more on passion than productive practicality. This has proven true in the domestic arena, where it seems the only thing people will talk about the headscarf ban issue. The current ruling party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), supports lifting the ban on Muslim women wearing their traditional headscarfs in universities. The country's secularists want to keep the ban, as they find it inappropriate and against the secular nature of Turkey to allow religious symbols to be worn on university campuses. No one seems to care about the economy, taking steps domestically to join the E.U., or many other issues.

The trend also proves true in terms of foreign policy and global issues. Certainly the American presidential elections will have a big impact on the global community with some issues specifically affecting Turkey.

And yet, when I met with a few Turkish parliamentarians in Ankara, they had little to say about the matter. One remarked that they are all very good, qualified candidates with whom Turkey would be happy to work. Perhaps this is just a political line, but the idea that all of the American presidential candidates will affect Turkey the same is ridiculous, especially if we include former candidates who have by now dropped out.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ.) says that the war in Iraq may well go on for one hundred years. Whereas Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL.) has promised all combat troops out within six months of him taking office and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) wants to take a slightly more moderate stance. As Iraq borders Turkey, surely these differences in opinion would make a difference.

How about the fact that Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) wanted to create a three-state system in Iraq that would create a quasi-autonomous Kurdish state at Turkey's back door? This would be a devestating blow to Turkey's strategy of tackling the issue of its own Kurdish population, which has on the one hand led to terrorism and on the other to poor treatment by the government of this ethnic minority.

The position of Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) that Mecca and Medina should be bombed if the U.S. is again attacked by Muslim terrorists would hardly resonate well in this almost entirely Muslim state.

Even in the fairly liberal, tourism-heavy town of Alanya in which I currently reside, the issue of Israel still stirs up strong emotions; when Israel invaded Lebanon in the summer of 2006, murdering scores of civilians and ravaging much of the state, some shopkeepers here closed their doors to Israeli tourists. It should be noted that Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and former candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) were two of about 15 congresspersons who did not vote to support Israel's actions.

For all of their differences, no one here seems to really care. The only thing many Turks care about regarding American politics is whether or not America will produce a non-binding resolution labeling the actions taken against the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire a "genocide."

The Turkish Coalition of America recently sent out a press release entitled "Turkish American Community Responds to Presidential Candidates." My professor forwarded it to me, thinking that it would be an endorsement of some kind, or an overview of important issues. Instead, it is essentially ten paragraphs saying that the candidates had better not call the Armenian tragedy a genocide. The coalition writes that the "Armenian dispute with Turkey is being politicized to the point of becoming an issue in the U.S. election campaign."

As someone who follows the election with sickeningly close attention, I must say that this issue has not broached the top hundred issues debated by the candidates, and never will. I empathize with the Turks and their sensitivity about the Armenian issue-many Americans can still not come to call the annihilation of thousands of Native Americans genocide. But that does not change the facts.

The fact of the matter is that there are dozens of issues in the American election that will greatly affect the Turks and the Turkish Diaspora in the U.S. and elsewhere. To narrow it down to a single issue that-while certainly provocative-has no impact on people's everyday lives, I believe, is a poor choice. It is just as counterproductive as homophobic Americans casting their votes solely based on keeping the LGBT community from having any rights, or pro-abortion rights folks being scared into voting for whoever has the cleanest pro-choice record, all without regard for other concerns.

Why do citizens of republics limit themselves to focus on so few issues, and ones that are often the most divisive, that barely effect them at all, and that the person they're voting for probably won't be able to impact anyway? Why not instead take a broader look at the political consequences of electing each person or party?

One answer is that people pick these foolish issues to follow when they feel that they will not really have an impact on their government no matter what they do-it'll be the same old politics at play no matter what. Voting with their head won't help, so they might as well go with their gut.

The political establishment encourages this, because the phenomenon is cyclical: the more people who vote and act this way, the less power the electorate has. In the U.S., this meant giving George Bush a second term in 2004 because the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth didn't like Kerry. In Turkey today, it means that the headscarf issue has consumed domestic politics, and people couldn't care less about the U.S. election- so long as no one uses the word "genocide" in discussing Armenia. The world keeps spinning, and governments keep moving farther away from the hands of the people.

Prachniak is a Government and Theology junior.

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