Tweet
ÖMER TAŞPINAR [email protected] Columnists
Obama and Ankara
Last week, as I was watching Barack Obama on TV, giving his Berlin speech in front of 200,000 people, a disturbing question came to mind. What would happen if Obama gave a speech in Turkey? Would the crowds be as large and enthusiastic? One side of me says, "Yes, we can!" I can't help but think that the Turkish people must be really excited about the prospect of radical change in the United States. After all, the Bush presidency will not be remembered with nostalgia among Turks. There is plenty of evidence illustrating this. For starters, according to global opinion polls, Turkey is consistently the number-one country in terms of dislike for the Bush administration's policies. Logically, in a country like Turkey, there must be a lot of sympathy for a new American president who represents by the sheer facts of his name, race, ideas and overall demeanor a mind-blowing contrast to everything that George W. Bush has come to symbolize. Add to this the fact that Turkey itself is a country where the power struggle is often defined as one between the "white elite" and the "black masses" of Anatolia. Wouldn't black Turks embrace their American brother? Think twice before getting carried away. Yes, under normal circumstances such parallels between Turkey and America would strike a chord and yes, under normal circumstances Obama would be the favorite of the Turkish people, mainly because he would be seen as the underdog defying the American system.
Yet one needs to emphasize the term "under normal circumstances." An Obama visit to Turkey may not draw hundreds of thousands of cheering crowds to the street. The reason is simple and painful. Whenever Obama's presidency is discussed in Turkey, there is a big Turkish elephant in the room: the Armenian "genocide" issue. Obama's position is well known: He is committed to the Armenian cause and has promised the Armenian-American community that he will support recognition of the "genocide." Now that's a show-stopper for Turkey. The Turkish press picked up the story from day one and began to ring alarm bells. It did not take very long for Obama's name to become synonymous with the Armenian lobby in the eyes of Turks. Similarly, the Turkish-American community in the United States has become very uncomfortable with the prospect of an Obama presidency. A senior Democratic member from the US Congress who happens to be a major Obama supporter told me last week that his staffers are already getting an earful from the Turkish community in his district. No wonder most Turkish-American organizations lined up to support Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries.
It is also no wonder that both the government in Ankara and the Turkish state apparatus (Note for dummies: government and state can mean different things in Turkish politics, especially these days…) appear to be on the same page about Obama: They prefer his opponent Republican candidate Senator John McCain. There is no major surprise here. The Turkish establishment has always had a deeply rooted love affair with Republicans. The roots of this martial romance -- which appears to have survived the Bush years -- go back to the good old days of the Cold War era, when there was no daylight between the Turkish military and the Pentagon. Iraq was of course a major bump in the road. But there are still ongoing financial reasons for this marriage of convenience to continue. For some mysterious reason (!)Turkey's best friends in Washington are always the defense companies; and the best friends of the defense companies are the Republicans. You get the picture, right? (Note for dummies No. 2: Republicans never cut America's defense budget.) Anyways, I digress. The crux of the matter for Turkey is the following: Obama is a Democrat who supports the Armenian cause whereas McCain is a Republican who values Turkey's strategic importance much more than the votes of Armenian-Americans. This is how Ankara perceives the situation.
As a result, Turkey is once again out of tune with the rest of the world. The whole world is going nuts about Obama while Ankara is stuck in history. Is there a way to remind Turkey that there are more important things in Turkish-American relations than the Armenian issue? This may be an uphill battle. But one way to do so is to focus on Obama's popularity in Europe. Imagine both McCain and Obama lobbying on Turkey's behalf with EU leaders. To whom do you think Europeans would prefer to listen? Take a second look at the crowd listening to Obama in Berlin.
28.07.2008
Comment