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Tuesday October 16, 2012

Turkey rising!

Ceritalah
By KARIM RASLAN


Turkey has achieved some stunning successes in developing its economy. In 2011 for instance, its economy grew by an astounding 8.5% and its GDP stood at RM2.3 trillion.

TURKEY is fast-changing. The question for Malaysia is whether the republic represents a paradigm that we should be considering as we plan for our future?

Of course, there are major differences: Turkey’s population at over 75 million is almost three times the size of Malaysia’s. It’s GDP per capita, however, is US$10,444 (RM31,332) compared to Malaysia’s US$9,700 (RM29,100).

Moreover, you cannot hope to understand contemporary Turkey without acknowledging the enduring impact of its history: the Ottoman Caliphate, Byzantium plus Rome and Ancient Greece.

Traces of the past are everywhere in modern Turkey. To this day, the skyline of Istanbul – especially the historic core of Sultanahmet and Beyoglu – is studded with minarets of the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Galata Tower, symbols of different eras and peoples.

The decade-long leadership of the charismatic Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country’s dynamic economic growth (5.2% in the past decade) and recent events along the Syrian-Turkish border are forcing Ankara into a very public set of diplomatic and military manoeuvres as the civil war spills into Turkish territory.

Indeed, this is the culmination of an intense and dramatic strategic shift by the country’s Islamist elite.

In the decades after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s, Turkey was a wounded nation, uncertain of its identity and hesitant about its imperial past.

However, Turkey was fortunate to have a single-minded autodidact, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as its leader. He was to lead his country into a radical, modernist overhaul, turning a polyglot and backward population into a secular Turkish polity.

Moreover, Ataturk and his successors, having lived through Turkey’s appalling weaknesses in the face of the European powers, chose to embrace their former tormentors and turned westwards.

In his haste to turn Istanbul into a latter-day Paris or Vienna, he suppressed his people’s Muslim and Anatolian roots, promoting instead a secular modernity with a powerful military as its guardian.

Now, led by Premier Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey is turning both inward (rediscovering its traditions) and eastward by embracing the Arab Spring with a rare boldness.

This has undoubtedly been facilitated by the domestic successes of the AKP administrations.

As noted, Turkey has achieved some stunning successes in developing its economy.

In 2011 for instance, its economy grew by an astounding 8.5% and its GDP stood at US$772bil (RM2.316 trillion).

Over dinner with a leading industrialist, Ahmet Calik, the head of the eponymous US$6bil-strong (RM18bil) Calik Holdings, I listened as he outlined his country’s transformation.

According to Ahmet Bey, there are now 50 million Turkish Internet users compared to just four million in 2000. In that same period, too, the number of mobile phone and credit card users shot up to 65 million and 51 million, respectively, from 26 million and 16 million.

Aircraft passengers rose from 33 million in 2000 to 118 million – indeed, Istanbul’s Ataturk Interna­tional Airport is now a major hub with 82,000 passengers using it each day.

Approximately 700-730 planes arrive and depart daily to and from exotic destinations like Osh, Ashga­bat, Almaty, Novosibirsk, Krasnodar and Baku.

This signals Turkey’s diplomatic and economic “push” into Central Asia, something that Calik Holdings knows all too well with its interests in Turkmenistan and elsewhere.

These achievements have given Erdogan leverage against the Turkish military, which has traditionally been suspicious, if not outright hostile to religious-based parties.

September 2012 saw some 300 military officers convicted of attempting to overthrow the government via the “Sledgehammer” plot – an unprecedented development when you consider how the armed forces used to dictate terms to civilian governments.

This has further strengthened Erdogan’s hand in remaking Turkey as well as projecting its power abroad.

Whilst the republic may not completely eschew the secular legacy of Ataturk, the new Turkey that is emerging is one that gives more space to religious expression and is proud of its Ottoman past.

Witness the proliferation of period-piece soap operas, such as the Ottoman-nostalgic Muhtesem Yuzyil (“The Magnificent Century,” which chronicles the life of Suleiman the Magnificent). Turkish “soft” diplomacy, its soap-operas (and pop music) are being broadcast in over 40 countries – roughly the same footprint covered by Turkish Airlines’ network.

Now, just under a century after the Ataturk’s emergence, Turkey appears to be reasserting its place in the world.

Still, huge challenges face Erdogan (who is said to be now seeking to assume the presidency) and his colleagues.

Whilst the economy is growing dramatically there are concerns about the sizeable current account deficit – which stood at US$1.18bil (RM3.54bil) in August. Could the boom be just as swiftly replaced by a currency-related major bust?

Also, with Turkey facing increasing violence on its southern borders from the spill-over from Syria, will it be able to continue to grow peacefully?

For nearly a century, Turkish leaders have sought to avoid the mistakes of WWI in which it sided with the losers, costing it its European and Arab possessions.

Turkey recognises that its foreign policy demands a certain agility in order not to incur the wrath of powerful neighbours such as Russia.

Should it overreach itself, Turkey may well find Syria becoming its “Vietnam” or “Afghanistan” rather than its chance to shine.

In turn, we should ask what this means for those who hold up “Erdogan-isme” as a way forward in Malaysia?

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