Permanent instability
Turkey's military puppetmasters are trying to liquidate the Islamist Prosperity Party, marginalise former Prime Minister Tançu Çiller, force through a privatisation and liberalisation policy, and maintain the illusion of Europeanstyle parliamentary democracy. Erdal Tan thinks the strain is too great for the generals to succeed. The government coalition between the Islamist Refah (Prosperity) Party (RP) and Tançu Çiller's right-wing nationalist DYP was organised in 1996. This unnatural union was the result of a very particular political conjuncture, following splits in traditional left and right-wing parties. Facing legal threats as a result of numerous corruption scandals, Ms. Çiller sought the support of the Islamist party as a way of eluding the parliamentary commission investigating her. But this coalition foundered a year later, under the unremitting pressure of a vast inter-class alliance made up of the bourgeoisie, the unions, the media, intellectuals, opposition parties, and the army.
In mid-June 1997, RP leader and Prime Minister Erbakan resigned, after army threats of a coup d'état. Then he attempted to reconstruct the same coalition, this time under Çiller's leadership: he hoped that the elevation of a "secular" person to the Prime Minister's post would calm things down. But the manoeuvre failed, when President Demirel asked conservative opposition leader Mesut Yilmaz (president of the centre-right wing ANAP party) to form a new government.
The new governing coalition comprised ANAP, the DSP (left national-populists) and the DTP (a party made up of 40 dissident parliamentary deputies from Çiller's DYP), supported from outside by the CHP (social-democrats). In effect, the Turkish establishment was able to bring down the Islamist Prime Minister through a parliamentary manoeuvre, rather than a coup d'état. The military guiding hand
Underneath the surface, the new coalition was firmly under the control of the military, which was determined to restructure Turkish politics in order to avoid another extremist adventure like the islamonationalist Refah-Çiller coalition. They wanted to "break" the RP and put it out of commission (at least for a time). The generals also wanted to punish Çiller severely, so as to discourage other rightwing leaders from attempting a similar rapprochement with the Islamist forces.
The army's plan was simple: a "completely legal" process at the Constitutional Court would order the dissolution of the RP for "threatening the non-confessional nature of the Turkish Republic." The two conservative parties, ANAP and the DYP, would reunite, after the elimination of Çiller, who would be required by the High Court to answer for her (real) acts of misappropriation. There would also be changes in the electoral laws (to prevent any future "surprises" like the earlier election of RP mayors in Istanbul and Ankara). Whichever party was in power would implement further economic restructuring as demanded by the bourgeoisie (privatisation, monetary reform, cuts in social security, austerity programs to bring down inflation, which has reached almost 100%, and so on). And measures would be taken against "Islamist media outlets and businesses", to weaken the power of the growing Islamist bourgeoisie. A more stable form of government
Having prepared this scenario, the generals hoped new elections would recreate political stability, with a re-unified right in power, a re-unified left in opposition, or vice-versa. A weaker and more moderate new Islamist party might even be tolerated, to make everything look more presentable. Everything would be done within the framework of the bourgeois parliamentary system, and would uphold the proper legal forms of the Rule of Law, to the greater credit of the Turkish Republic.
Turkey
This simplistic military logic was very quickly confronted with the hard realities of the political world. Any fragile minority coalition, whose popular support derives only from a "fear of fundamentalism" would have enormous difficulty in imposing the unpopular programme of political, social, and economic restructuring which the generals wanted.
And the "external support" which the social democratic CHP offered the Yilmaz government strongly resembled the support provided by the hangman's rope: social-democrat leader Baykal, who dreams of becoming the "Turkish Tony
, refused to become the fourth partner in the coalition, preferring to style himself as a "responsible" opposition party, ready to exploit each government weak spot so he can project himself as the better alternative come the next elections.
As a result, apart from some educational reforms (increasing compulsory schooling to 8 years, and the elimination of many Islamic secondary schools), the balance sheet of the first seven months of Mesut Yilmaz's government is a huge fiasco, since he has not been able to meet a single one of the intended goals. [This article was written in February 1998] The economic impasse
The new coalition's three-year plan for "anti-inflation initiatives" has not been given a green light by the IMF, which (rightly) doubts the stability of the government. The IMF wants to impose a more radical one-year plan, with much greater political and social costs. Yilmaz is refu-
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Turkey sing to implement this plan, which would mean political suicide, unless the IMF will give him 15 billion dollars to relieve the social pressures. Negotiations are under way, but after the Korean pay-out, it is not at all clear that the IMF will meet the Turkish demands. The question of inflation is of the greatest importance for the Turkish economy, which has seen more than 10 years of chronic structural inflation ranging from 70% to the current rate of almost 100%. The cost of the "dirty war"
Unlike Southeast Asia, where it is the private sector which convulsed, in Turkey the problem is the State budget deficit. The state has had to enter into permanent debt (with usurious interest rates) in order to cover this deficit, caused in part by infrastructure projects and energy costs, but more importantly by the need to finance the "dirty war" and the cost of modernising the armed forces. The price of public corruption is not low, either.
In contrast, the private sector has been able to maintain a certain dynamism, which is the basis for a stable annual growth-rate of 6-7%. This dynamism is based on many things: the low cost of labour, new markets in Russia (where Turkish companies are very active, especially in construction) and in Central Asia, a domestic market clamouring for new goods and an important tourist trade (with Russian and Israeli visitors increasingly common). To this must be added the existence of a "parallel economy" with many small, export-oriented companies, particularly in textiles). This unregistered sector of the economy pays neither 6 International Viewpoint #302 taxes nor social security (with the tacit connivance of the State). The "parallel economy" also includes drug profits from the Southeast, as well as money laundering, which permits a new phase of "capital accumulation". All of this has allowed the Turkish economy to overcome the shock of tariff union with Europe (nearly 60% of Turkey's foreign trade is with the European Union) despite the fact that the EU has not kept its word about monetary compensation for the tariff union. The three billion dollars in question is being blocked by a Greek veto. Meanwhile, the trade deficit with the EU has begun to increase to dangerous levels. The end of the line
This system has reached its limits. The rich rail against the "traitorous competition" of the "unregistered" sector and demand monetary and structural reforms. Each modest attempt to create such monetary reforms (to assess even minimal taxes from the "unregistered" sector, rentier capital and stock market speculators) has immediately faced a mini-capital strike, enough of a signal to make the government back off.
Unless the government can obtain large foreign credits, which would allow it to retire some of the domestic debt, it has no other solution but to lighten (again) the pockets of the working class. High price inflation, but much slower wage increases, means that the State already levies a second tax on workers, who are already footing the largest part of the economic bill. If that isn't enough, the government can always eviscerate the public sector through privatisation. This would probably create 600,000 more unemployed, in a country where there is no unemployment compensation! If that still isn't enough, the government can eliminate social security, pointing at the huge deficit in that sector (since neither the private sector nor the public - in fact, especially the public sector - pay their share). A rotting system
But these policies carry the risk of a social explosion: the splits in and erosion of the centre parties and the solid 20% Islamist voting bloc (along with the 10% support for parties of the nationalist extreme right and the 4% Kurdish nationalist vote) show the heavy political price already paid, since more than a third of the electorate has already turned to "radical" parties and become alienated from "parties within the system". Another problem is the creation of "mafias", since the informal sector obviously gives rise to its own "police" and "justice," since it cannot squeeze profit out of the official system the way the legal bourgeoisie can. These groups are making inroads on classical political parties.
Under this pressure the legal system begins to falter: the police, which already tend to accrue power on their own, are more and more corrupt and implicated in dirty politics; political life is regularly shaken by scandals and corruption which undermine the legitimacy of traditional parties and destabilise the State. All of this has begun to escalate out of the control of the central State, which had originally turned a blind eye on what was happening, having itself often used the services of thugs linked to the fascist movement (the "grey wolves") to organise the illegal aspects of the struggle against the far-left in the 1970s and the struggle against the Kurd nationalists in the 1980s and 1990s. Susurluk bad luck
It was the Susurluk Affair which revealed to the public the extent of this gang and mafia phenomenon: in November 1996, a traffic accident in Susurluk (a small town in western Anatolia) revealed a very curious car-pool: a fascist mafioso, a deputy from the Ciller party (the head of a Kurdish clan), and a chief of police. The incident unleashed a very powerful social protest movement, the "one minute of darkness for complete enlightenment" campaign, begun by the far-left ODP, then taken up by the powerful bourgeois media and discreetly encouraged by the army (which wanted to bring the police to heel, as well as sever their connection to the islamo-nationalist Refah-Çiller coalition which was in power at the time.
This illustrates why the establishment has brought forward the need for "structural reforms" in the economic and political arenas. These reforms are trumpeted by the most conscious sectors of the bourgeoisie, which understands perfectly the dangers posed by the current situation to its own domination and to the stability of the country. But the weakening of the traditional political parties, which has escaped
ie's control, has made them ding to these demands. , as the garantor of the and its institutions, has If for the political parties, to orward these reforms. They this with the support of sections of the population, who the army is the only defence he "fundamentalist menace". But a classic coup d'état would foreclose the international projects dear to the Turkish bourgeoisie's heart: integration in the EU, and imperialist recognition as a "respectable regional power". It could also offend the democratic sensibilities of secular urban layers, moving them to withdraw their support. The army has therefore had to act through a civilian intermediary, the parties of the current calition. It guldes them discreetly, through backstage whispers or coded declarations in the
In any case, the current institutional set-up offers them an excellent means by which to dominate politically. When they rewrote the constitution after their 1980 military coup, the generals gave the National Security Council the right to make "recommendations" to the government. Few prime ministers, particularly Turkish ones, would ignore a "recommendation" from a body which includes the President, key ministers of state and leaders of the General Staff.
The army has been able to bring its weight to bear on foreign policy, most obviously in Turkey's decision to form a strategic and military alliance with Israel against Iran (because of the latter's support for Islamic fundamentalists) and against Syria (because of its support for the armed guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK).
Influencing domestic policy has proved more complicated. Hesitating to launch itself into unpopular radical reforms, the Yilmaz government has tried to gain time by "talking big". intended to call elections earlier this year, once his major rivals (the RP and Çiller) were eliminated due to legal entanglements. He hoped to win the elections by
But he managed to irritate the bourgeoisie, which wants him to increase the pace of "reforms", and the military, which feared losing control of events and which had no confidence in the ability of civilians to keep fundamentalists "in check" anyway, especially in an election period (when the danger of compromise is always Something for everyone...
The Yilmaz government was promptly called to order, and forced to reconsider its strategy. The three coalition leaders met at the beginning of January, during which they undertook a series of reforms and denied all rumours concerning elections being held in Spring (although they did not rule out elections before the end of the year, if the RP has indeed been dissolved and Çiller has been knocked out of the race by then).
These "10 radical decisions" of the government can be placed in two categories: democratisation (abolishing the death penalty, reform of Article 8 of the law against terorism, extension of free speech, legalising unions for public sector employees, improvements in human rights) and economic restructuring (monetary reform, reforms in social security, administrative reform, privatisation, and a more thoroughgoing reform of education). Authoritarian "democracy"
But it is clear that these two strands of reform are contradictory. Turkish democracy is like the Loch Ness monster. Everyone talks about it, but no one has ever seen it. And it is impossible to carry out an austerity program in a country like Turkey, which has little room to manoeuvre in terms of social policies, at the same time as strengthening democracy, especially in a context of political instability. On the contrary, only an authoritarian structure which can muzzle any eventual social reaction, can create the political conditions necessary to put such a plan into practice. And it is towards this that the Turkish government looks.
This being the case, however, the promises of democratisation (and the few more or less cosmetic measures which may actually result) were not made in vain. Because, just as the economic side of the government's plan is intended to win back the confidence of the bourgeoisie, the democratisation policies are a nod aimed not only at the West, but at the secular and social-democratic intelligentsia, in the hope of gaining their support at a moment when relations are strained with the Islamists and the Çiller clan.
In fact, during the 1960s and 1970s, it was the left which dominated the social opposition to the regime, and the State called on the Islamists and the fasists to counter the far left, seen as the "main threat" (especially during the Cold War with the USSR as a neighbour). Since the 1980 coup d'état decimated the left, those who oppose the egime have turned more towards the Islamists or, in the Kurdish region, the PKK.
Today, the military identifies the Islamists and the PKK as the "main threats" (with, once again, support from neighbours; in this case, Iran, Syria, and Greece, along with the chaos in northern Iraq). The far-right mafia is also categorised (for the first time) as a threat.
On the other hand, social-democrats, yesterday charged with opening the door to communism, are today a cherished ally (especially• useful in relations with Europe). Even a section of the bourgeoisie is ready to support them (after all, haven't the western social-democracies proven that they are perfectly capable of managing austerity while soothing the working class?). The far left (like the ÖDP) is too weak to be seen as a "threat", and is therefore more or less tolerated. Gone - on paper, but not in practice
The disbanding of the RP by the Constitutional Court after an eight-month trial (to observe all the proper forms) had as its goal the destruction of one of the two
'threats" established by the generals
This is not, however, the first time a party has been dıssolved ın Turkey Leaving aside the "great radical purge" after the 1980 coup, a number of Marxist or Kurdish nationalist parties have been outlawed in the last three decades, without the Islamists (or Çiller) reacting in the
Today, of course, they bellow in outrage in "the name of democracy". Çiller and Erbakan now want to be seen as democratic victims of the military. But it was with Çiller's consent that the Kurdish nationalist HEP was dissolved four years ago. And several Kurdish deputies were imprisoned only after the RP voted to remove their parlamentary ımmunıty. Their tardy and self-serving conversion to democracy is hardly credible now.
The RP no longer officially exists, but its aparatus is still the strongest in the country. It had 200,000 members, four million "supporters" , and six million voters. Erbakan and six of his friends have lost their mandate, but there are still 144 Islamist deputies in Parlament, and many large city administrations, including Istanbul and Ankara, where the RP mayors still rule, but as "independents". Since such a strong social and political movement cannot be legally wished out of existence, it is clear that the Islamist factor will continue to be felt in the Turkish political scene.
But an Algerian outcome is not likely. Any possible actions taken by the isolated and fringe elements of the RP will be viciously repressed. Besides, Erbakan took the verdict in a dignified fashion, calling on his supporters to remain calm, and announcing that he would lodge an appeal at the European Court of Human Rights.
The Islamists will now try to find a legal and political strategy which will allow them to create a new party, just as they did after the dissolution of their two previous organisations, in 1971 and in 1981. But the task will not be an easy one: the Constitution calls for the immediate dissolution of "any party avowed as the successor to an outlawed party". They will have to be cautious, and keep their noses clean.
In addition, internal dissent is tearing the party apart. There are tensions between younger members (like Tayyip Erdoggan, the mayor of Istanbul, and Erbakan's probably successor, and the ageing old guard, Erbakan's generation, which has been active for the last thirty years.
The weeks and months to come will give rise to a series of agitations and political tensions, with a polarisation between, on one side the Islamists and the "nationalist-mafia" Çiller group, and on the other a "secular bloc" government, the media, and the Army. *
Our daily bread - today!
* Brazil The Brazilian countryside is entering the first phase of low-intensity warfare. Raúl Zibechi outlines the development of the dynamic Landless Movement (MST) and the resistance of the landlords Since the 1995 election of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the Landless Movement (MST) has stepped up its land occupations in numerous states in a sort of permanent offensive, with numerous mobilisations and ever larger local, statewide and national marches. The biggest national mobilisation, the march to Brasilia in April 1997, brought out more than 50,000 people and was supported by 80% of the population. The landowners, for their part, are stepping up the formation of militia and hire gunmen with the support, active or passive, of the police and the army. The creation of private police forces is one more step in the milltarisation of the conflict over land and agrarian reform.
The Landless Movement is the most powerful social movement in Latin America, both in terms of the number of people involved and lending it their support, as well as in terms of its organisational strength and its ability to place the issues of land, repression and social justice at the centre of the political stage.
At present there are about 140,000 families (almost a million people) living and producing on hundreds of land settlements across more than twenty states. These cover more than seven million hectares won from the Brazilian state or taken back from the landowners. Here the peasants produce collectively or on individual plots. They live as a community, electing their own authorities, setting up schools and health centres, forming production and distribution co-operatives. They also contribute to the broader movement, taking part in its mobilisations and contributing a percentage of the settlement's income.
However, the spearhead of the MST is made up of the 40 thousand families (a quarter of a million people camped out on land occupations, who together with the new families setting up new settlements, wage a sort of peaceful warfare which involves a state of permanent mobilisation. They occupy lands and resist until they are evicted, they hold marches which sometimes reach as far as the state capital, and they create, in the camps they set up along the roadsides or in front of the land they intend to occupy, a solid popular organisation. 8 International Viewpoint #302
The camps are the MST's most important schools, the main entrance into a movement which is made up of both poor landless peasants and the urban unemployed who find in the camps and settlements a source of hope which helps them overcome hunger and give meaning to their lives. It's a way of escaping from social exclusion too. In short, the MST is a successful movement. Five centuries of land struggles
The movement's own propaganda insists that in Brazil, as in the rest of the continent, the struggle of the land "began the very day the conquistadors set foot in our country". In the time of the colony, this took the form of revolts by the black slaves, who occupied remote lands to found free territories - "quilombos" which the slave masters had no access and from which they therefore could not force them to return to the plantations.
From the middle of the last century the revolts in the countryside took on a messianic character. The most important of these, Canudos, in Bahia state, involved thousands of poor peasants and was only defeated after a brutal massacre. At the beginning of this century, the "social banditry" led by Lampiao swept the North East for more than twenty years. Between 1940 and 1955 there were five peasant revolts in the states of Minas Gerais, Manranhao, Goias, Parana, and Sao Paulo. These struggles were localised but very radical, and of such a strength that on various occasions the peasants seized control of large towns and set up their own local authorities.