An arrest in Turkey

Even though Erdogan seems to be going too far, there is no doubt Turkish military needed to be brought down a little.

Imagine if every time a former military man in Pakistan accused the elected government of corruption and incompetence, the civilians could just haul him off to jail. Obviously, this would justifiably be seen as a gross abuse of power but it would represent a stunning turnaround in the balance of power between the military and civilians. Yet, this is almost exactly analogous to what is happening in Turkey. The government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has arrested former army chief General Ilker Basbug for plotting to overthrow the government, although the evidence for this charge seems sketchy since he appears to have done little else but write scathing articles against the government on the internet.

As refreshing as it is to see the civilians reclaiming political space from the military, Erdogan is an imperfect vehicle for this transformation. His actions are inspired as much by religion as a desire to establish civilian supremacy. In his quest to root out anti-government figures, Erdogan has also arrested academics, journalists and other civilian politicians. The idea of the army being the final arbiter in Turkish politics has always been profoundly anti-democratic, but in diminishing its power, the end result could be a reduced role of secularism in the country, an eventuality that certainly not its founder, Mustafa Kemal, would have envisioned. That he is doing so on the basis of flimsy evidence is even worse. So far, it seems that Basbug is guilty of nothing more than exercising his right to criticise the government.

Even though Erdogan seems to be going too far, there is no doubt that the military in Turkey needed to be brought down a peg or two. In the last 50 years, the Turkish army has brought down four governments and, although the army has never shown the same appetite for indefinite rule in Turkey as its counterparts in Pakistan, it is to Erdogan’s credit that he is trying to forestall such an eventuality from arising. Fears about Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party bringing about Sharia law in the country by taking on the army are overblown but he needs to reduce their political role in a lawful manner. Erdogan promised to introduce a new constitution that would do just that but, regrettably, he is now taking the path of mass arrests.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 9^th, 2012.