So, whose fault is it?

The recent develeopments in Turkey has brought up some interesting debates. Such debates range from viability of Islamism as an ideology and political system to  comparing Islam and Islamism and extending to more contemporary debate on current dire situation I urley and seeing whose fault is it?

It is no secret that Hizmet movement has lended support o Erdogan and his party AKP (previous party I should say) for a while until the fall out between them most visibly corruption probes of December 2013.

Those who are not happy with Erdogan today and have always been so are accusing Hizmet for aiding Erdogan to be what he has become. One of the most commonly used phares in social media among such people have been “… but you have been hand-in-hand unitl yesterday, what happened?....” or “… when the interests clashed, the fall out between former allies became apparen …”. The big question is about testing these and attempting to establish what really happened?

In order to understand this, it is of importance to look back at the history of both movements namely hizmet and AKP. Hizmet is a borad based social movement whoch attracted support from mostly pious Muslim Turks but also some liberal minded intellectuals and people of varying political and ideological affiliation.

Those who are familiar with Turkish history, will attest to the fact that Turkey was and still is one of the most divided societies. During different periods public were divided along different axis of division and sometimes conflicts. It was left and right during the period leading up to the 1980 coup d’etat. Then around end of 1990s, it was secular and Muslim and now it is over AKP or more specifically Erdogan. Public in Turkey (at least overwhelming majority) is either pro-Erdodan or anti-Erdogan. This is also a prefeeerence of Erdogam himself as in most cases he demands unconditional support and those who don’t lend full unconditional support are deemed (by him) as his opponents. He does not accept a neutrality when it comes to what he does and says. You cannot support him in part but then reserve criticism in some other parts. Such an option simple does not exist!

Let us return to our main topic. Whose fault is it that we are today siting with this phenomenon? Well the most obvious culprits is hizmet movement and more specifically Fethullah Gulen. After all, he invited all his supporters to vote in favour in a referendum on constitutional changes which AKP tabled and the movement openly demanded votes from the public for AKP. So, this settles the case? I don’t think so! Here is why.

Firstly, it was not the hizmet movement who discovered Erdogan and placed hi in the political landscape. It was Saadet Partisi (Refah Partisi as then it was called) of Erbakan who nominated him for the position of Istanbul’s mayor. He was elected in 1994 and one must admit he did a fairly good job. When his political career was interrupted by an undemocratic imprisonment, he became a hero. So we can then include those who imprisoned him as part of the culprits. And we should indicate here that every time, Erdogan and AKP grew votes followed usually undemocratic interventions including court cases to close down the party, blocking of election of their presidential candidate. So in practice all the undemocratic practices gathered more support and those responsible failed to see this.

During all these times hizmet overtly or implicitely supported him and his party. At this moment we have to consider the direction which, Erdogan and AKP was moving toward is the key to answering our big question.

They were, pro-western values of freedom and democracy, pro-EU and anti status-quo. And at the time as most intellectuals of all walks of life would agree that was what Turkey needed. And during earlier periods of their term in office, they proved to be making progress much faster and more significant than any period in recent Turkish history. Economy was booming, there were more freedoms and greater integration with the world. So was hizmet wrong in supporting AKP then? I don’t think so. Because, at the time (as has always been the case despite some minor progress recently) opposition especially CHP was only worried about secularism and keeping pious Muslims out of the State. Although CHP has been in government for a very long time since 1950s (except short periods like Ecevit’s term) most state apparatus from judiciary to army have been exclusively reserved for secularist elite.

So the political and social forces at play downplayed the public’s desire for a leadership who attends to some of their most practical needs and concerns such as respect for their identity and tradition, basic decent living conditions for people at grassroots and dislike for an authoritarian father-like State. AKP gave these to the public. Hence they deserved support.

Hizmet also supported AKP and Erdogan when they fought against the status-quo and democratise state. But then something happened! Erdogan has tasted the power. When the previously mighty army and judiciary were not so powerful any longer, he decided to fill the seat of this strong father-like state.

And then December 17 & 25 2013! Instead of clearing the party of bad apples, he decided to interpret these investigations as an uprising against him. The rest is history.

Hizmet’s support was due to the line AKP and Erdogan has taken primarily during first two terms. And those who are familiar with it know that AKP was posting officials whom they though had affiliations with hizmet to more passive positions and placing more of their own loyalists. Despite knowing this, hizmet did not pull back the support hoping that a new more democratic constitution could be drawn and the positive atmosphere in the country would be maintained. This is very important because it indicates that hizmet did not stop support when its interests were not served, but in fact it pulled back the support when it was convinced the interests of the country were at stake. For example when Erdogan decided to close down dershanes, hizmet did not immediately launched a fight. In fact hizmet never launched a fight, all hizmet has been doing is to defend itself and its innocence on all the allegation of Erdogan and AKP. When December 17 came, hizmet basically demanded that these bad apples be removed so that the movement (AKP) which has brought soe much hope for people could still remain clean and serve the people and not become such a huge disappointment.

In summary, hizmet has clearly supported AKP when they did the right thing and earned them when they deviated but in return AKP decided to launch a witch hunt because they would not submit unconditionally to them. Therefore I argue that if the current situation is anyone’s fault, it is those who have been so happily content with undemocratic top-down style of State, those who showed no respect and sympathy to religious freedoms, those who looked after their own comfort but spare the public at grassroots of such comfort and those who excluded practicing Muslims from serving at state for decades.

AKP offered a hope and delivered partly on it and that is why they have support. The singly party rule of AKP today is first and foremost is the result of incapability of the opposition to offer anything tangible to the public. CHP realised this to some degree but they were too late and mostly insincere!

Has the hizmet not made any mistakes? Yes they did but AKP is not of them! And one should admit, Hizmet has been almost the only entity which admits to making mistakes! When last have you heard political parties, religious groups and their institutions admitting to making mistakes?