I felt urged to intervene, mainly because the PhD I'm writing at the
moment in Ankara is about, broadly speaking, the political economy of
Turkey's mainstream Sunni-Islamist movement. What I am researching is
how the pursuit of economic interests relate to the pursuit of
Islamist-political interests inside the movement. What was the class
profile of the businesses which supported the movement in the 80s? Did
this profile change after the Welfare Party emerged as an electoral
power after the 1994 Municipal Elections? To what extent business
interests inside the movement contributed to the break-up of AKP in
2000-2001?
The Turkish literature on the Sunni-Islamist movement (National
Outlook Movement, led by the Welfare Party for long years -- nowadays
there is no "the movement", but various factions, including the Old
Guard, now represented by the Felicity Party) heavily relies on
political arguments, very much in the tradition of mainstream
political science. Most left-liberal works which recognize the
anti-democratic nature of the military-bureaucratic pressures put on
the movement confine themselves with analyses disconnected from the
neoliberal transformations experienced in Turkey.
So Yoshie's response to Louis' entry sounded familiar. A lot of
anti-military, anti-Kemalist left-liberals in Turkey choose to use a
"politically correct" language when they analyze the right-wing
populism of the National Outlook Movement, or of today's AKP.
Honestly, most of the celebratory stuff they wrote about AKP back in
2002 was embarrassing, well, for at least the "left" fragment of their
left-liberal position, if not from a Marxist perspective. They had
high hopes for the party, and for a while, the liberals applauded the
party's pro-EU stance, its more democratic approach to the Cyprus
Question, its relative openness to accept a non-militarist solution to
the Kurdish Question, etc.
Yet there is almost nothing to applaud about AKP's political-economic
performance. "Being a Sunni" did not mean anything when it came to the
party's capitalist allegiances (keep in mind that Tayyip Erdogan and
most of his cabinet are fat cats of conservative business
conglomerates, a class profile very very different than the
capitalists of the small- and medium-sized Anatolian firms documented
in Louis' post). Let me clarify that -- the AKP leaership was
successful in using their Sunni identity in a stragetically pragmatist
way. My research so far indicates that when it comes to business,
religious identity usually becomes a source of rhetoric, tautology and
ideological backpedalling. When poor Muslims who feel attached to AKP
raise their voices, the party leadership reaches for its stick.
Especially Erdogan is quite a bully, a disgusting one at that.
Yes, AKP's electoral base is heterogeneous, but the leadership so far
made it clear that it doesn't give a shit about the working class.
Thanks to its strong hold in the parliament, AKP passed numerous
pro-business reforms in the past years. For one thing, the Social
Security System in Turkey is being devolved to resemble the US one,
all in the name of "reducing bureaucracy, saving, and better service",
of course. The health services system was in no good condition back in
2002 after the crisis, thanks to AKP's privatizations, cost-cutting
measures, and alliances with the oh-so-secular drug industry, the
system is even more people-unfriendly than ever. The party, through
the Ministry of Health, aggressively fights against progressive
organizations of doctors, nurses and medical students, and shamelessly
justifies its aggression using the "oh look there they go again, these
laicist, anti-Islamist, pro-military scum" line.
Despite protests even from conservative unions once closer to the
mainstream of the Sunni Islamists, AKP, in the name of
competitiveness, passed a number of employment reforms making it more
difficult in the private sector to unionize, or to secure a job. These
reforms contributed to the "jobless development" way out of the 2001
crisis.
The party, in alliance with agricultural exporters' interests,
confronted the demands of small farmers, most of them Sunni
conservatives themselves. There have been many reductions in
subsidies, and many more will follow.
I have many more examples, but little patience. When I hear somebody
talking about "democratic conservatism" (a self-ascribed motto of
AKP), somebody trying to whitewash Turkish Islamists in the name of
being PC, I get really pissed off.
...
And a few words on the "culture wars" side of Islamist AKP
politicking. Every government in Turkey's political history tries to
bring its loyal cadres into the ranks of the civil service, but AKP
became the best player in this business. Except the Foreign Affairs
and Defence Ministries, most of the state bureaucracy is filled with
incompetent, misoginist, sometimes fascist-leaning religious zealots
from the mid- to lower ranks of the AKP organization, most of whom
come from extremely conservative peripheral provinces, and most of
whom have never broken ideological ties with the Old Guard of the
National Outlook Movement (unlike the AKP leadership). Especially the
famous Department of Religious Affairs, with thousands of bureaucrats
overcrowding many ministries, operates like a small, backward
theocracy nowadays.
The worst effect of the AKPization of the civil service is on the
education system. The community of teachers and school managers in
Turkey was already dominated by either Kemalist fanatics (on the
laicist side), or racist nationalists (with more religious leanings);
with the coming of AKP cadres, the quality of education especially in
peripheral provinces is downwardly mobile. Hanefi (with Vahhabi
leanings) indoctrination in secondary schools is on the rise, an
indication of which is that reactionarism against bio-evolution is at
its highest in Turkish history not only among students, but among also
teachers. On the other hand, progressive teachers' unions trying to
fight in two fronts (against religious indoctrination and against the
ever-worsening economic status of teachers) meet with the usual AKP
hatred of social dissent.
Another effect of AKP's culture wars was on the science and technology
policymaking. The party tried hard to penetrate the Turkish Science
and Technology Research Association (a state institution), which
previously employed a lot of bright minds, scientist or bureaucrat,
not (mostly) left-leaning but all secular, Turkish and middle-class.
Failing to penetrate, AKP used its legislation weapon, cut the
association's budget, practically crippled it. Now some AKP loyalists
are in the rank-and-file, but policymaking functions of the
institution is as good as dead.
The Ministries of Justice and Internal Affairs are no more democratic
under AKP than before. On the contrary, the police organization, as a
result of religious discrimination in promotions and recruitments,
became far more reactionary and conservative to say the least.
Numerous tarikats (religious orders) have now, thanks to the Old Guard
elements inside the AKP organization, infiltrated into the police
forces. No meaningful step has been taken by the government towards
progressive reforms in the prison system. As PKK's pointless violence
resurfaced, anti-terrorist legislation took back any democratic gains
made in the field of human rights and freedom of speech.
I will not go into the details of how Hanefi-based AKP policies
discriminate against Alevi communities, especially against those who
place their religiosity outside the sphere of Islam. This post is
already too long.
...
So back to political economy. In my research, I am increasingly
suspecting that there is something wrong with the phrase "Muslim
businessmen" (or "green capital", or "Sunni bourgeoisie", "Islamist
capitalists" etc.). I have yet to empirically establish what exactly
is wrong, but let me throw this at you:
If the research question is about the political leanings of
capitalists in Turkey towards the Islamist movement, it might make a
sense to use a category like this to signify the specific group of
capitalists under scrutiny. Or, if the research question is about how
religiously-inclined entrepreneurs form an "economic enclave" amongst
themselves through formal or informal networks (remember the "ethnic
economy" debate, which has more explanatory power in some US cases),
using such a category is even more legitimate.
Now, the PBS documentary (I'd so like to see it) appears to lean
towards the second usage of the category "Muslim businessmen". And for
some small-to-medium-sized businesses, which employ anywehere from 10
to 200 people, in terms of accessing clients, partnerships, using
credits, trans-provincial or inter-national connections, the "enclave
economy" argument might hold. It is more of an empirical question. But
what Marxists (of any kind) should be alert about is the way "Sunni
identity" is abused by a lot of businesses for PR purposes. Worse than
that, I found out that a lot of "Muslim businessmen" used religion as
a disciplinary technology in their "human resources management"
activities, similar to the Japanese discourses on "team work",
"company belongingness", and shit like that.
There are many cases from the Welfare Party days where the company
management, supportive of the movement, and the workers, members of
Islamist unions (again, supportive of the movement) clash -- the union
complains about very secular class issues, and the company tries to
shame the union for compromising the peace, the "Muslim brotherhood"
in the company, both sides approach the Welfare Party organization,
the Politbureau protects the capitalists, since most of the Islamist
politicians are capitalists themselves, and it is the workers/unions
who get the shaft.
What I am trying to say is that there are empirical cases where the
"Muslim" in the "Muslim businessman" category might be redundant, or
just a source of rhetoric to be (ab)used for PR or management
purposes. That's why I am so skeptical about this "Calvinism" talk. In
terms of competitive advantage or economic performance or rate of
exploitation, at least for Turkey's firms, Muslim / non-Muslim
distinction does not explain a lot. When you look at the history of
Turkey's holdings (a legal multicompany conglomerate body, like the
Korean chaebol), those which were integral to the Islamist movement
were also those who caused (or at least, greatly contributed to) the
break-up of the movement. The strongest "Muslim capitalists" backed up
the so-called "reformists" led by Erdogan and found new opportunities
to collaborate with the stronger (and more secular) Western-Turkey
capitalists.
If you look at the "Islamist" firms and holdings which perished since
the 2001 crisis, there are studies which demonstrate that despite
their managements' discursive bulshitting about "religious ethics",
"Hanefi justice", etc., these organizations lost the financial
speculation game mostly because bad management and greed, not unlike a
lot of "secular" firms.
And there is also a minor literature on Enron-like scandals of
"Islamist" companies hoarding large amounts of money through fake
export-import activities, or robbing savings from Turkish workers in
Europe for "religious" purposes, and investing their savings in stock
markets under the disguise of "Islamic banking".
Moreover, empirically speaking, "Turkey's Tigers" are not
predominantly Islamist enterprises. Left-liberal economists in Turkey
popularized this, pushing analysis away from cross-sector and
inter-company investigations, away from looking into the clashes
amongst capitalists. It is as if there is this pro-military, secular,
"Istanbul bourgeoisie" competing with the pro-Islamist, conservative,
"Anatolian middle class". This is nonsense. Structurally, businesses
emphasizing their Hanefi identity do not operate under the rules of an
"ethnic economy", the networks are far too heterogeneous; the more
successful firms have long learned to play by the rules (practices
guaranteeing the reproduction of their class positions); the most
successful ones have mastered the use of religion as an employee
management technique. And AKP was not populist at all when it came to
choosing between the interests of conglomerates and the weaker
"Anatolian tigers".
...
To wrap up: AKP is not an agent of "Muslim democracy". At most, it is
an agent which fakes "bourgeois democracy". And, I tried to argue, the
cabinet's Muslimhood is practically abused in ways which undermine
democracy in Turkey.
Yes, the party held a relatively (relative to previous governments)
progressive ground regarding some important issues, including the
issue of Kurdish individual and collective rights (at least for a
while), and yes, its politics positively challenged the weight of the
Army (and their "civilian" stooges) inside the political field. But
the left-liberal whitewashing of the party, especially emphasizing its
rightful attempt to resolve conficts related to forms of public
religious expression is largely blind to the political economic
realities, to the question of power. If the Army is pro-Washington
(and the Army is not homogeneous when it comes to what to do with the
US), AKP is no different, if not more pro. Erdogan and his Foreign
Minister have traveled to the US more than any previous politician in
power.
AKP has perhaps the most hierarchical and authoritarian party
organization after Mustafa Kemal's Republican People's Party during
the single-party era. Exemplied by the bullyish (and boyish) charisma
of Erdogan, the party does not tolerate social dissent, unless it is
about Hanefi expression rights or Hanefi education rights.
I can go on and on. There is so much to say. But "Muslim democracy" by
AKP? Come on.
emrah