Changing Turkey in a Changing World

C. Akça ATAÇ received her PhD in History from Bilkent University. Among her research interests, there are the theories and rhetoric of empire, neo-Stoicism, historical cosmopolitanism and definitions of normativism. On topics of empire and normativism, she has published both in the referred international and national journals and the newspapers and popular magazines. She spent the summer term as a Visiting Scholar at the UCLA and currently teaches Diplomatic History at Çankaya University, Ankara.

NEO-OTTOMANISM:  UNIVERSALITY VS PARTIALITY

C. Akça ATAÇ

A student of theories and history of empire, though s/he contemplates mostly on the non-existent or the past, cannot remain indifferent to the contemporary manifestations of empire or resurface of imperial aspirations. The prominent professors of the Imperial Studies have been giving considerable thought to whether the US, EU, Russia and China are fit to be considered modern-time empires. It seems that for the Social Sciences, empire has become a topic as recurrent as it is in the Humanities. A brief Google search of the phrase “empire strikes back” would reveal hundreds of recent hits. Even though International Relations as discipline hurried to announce in the last century the irreversible extinction of empires from the international order, empire has been for sometime striving to restore its relevancy in understanding and explaining the current affairs.

Given the new tendencies in Turkish foreign policy, Turkey has begun to be increasingly perceived as another contender for empire in the 21^st century. Its historical character as the descendent of the Ottoman Empire, of course, encourages such perceptions. The AKP foreign policy, shaped in the hands of the long-time advisor to the Prime Minister and now the rather fresh Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmet Davutoğlu, lays particular and forceful emphasis on the relations with Turkey’s immediate eastern neighbours and beyond. The moment that the AKP government has pointed the Middle East as its requisite geography of interest, co-operation, and action, the Turkish foreign policy has been inevitably connoted with an Ottomanist revival. Neo-Ottomanism, as this revival is popularly known, is not peculiar to the AKP government since the term was first deployed to assess the nature of the foreign missions of Turgut Özal era in the early 1990s. What did not gain currency back then, however, has stuck strong in 2009 and neo-Ottomanism has come to be understood by the scholars and journalists as the backbone of Turkey’s ambitious novel design for relaunching itself as a regional superpower.

Davutoğlu’s best-selling manifesto of foreign policy, “Strategic Depth,” prescribes that the Turkish republic’s persistent foreign-policy priority of allying with the US and Western Europe has rendered Turkey one-sided, under-capacity, and less exciting. A reconnection with the rest of the world, in particular with the Middle East, would overhaul Turkey’s capabilities as a regional and global actor. This strategy rises on the principles of aiming “zero-problem” with neighbours, providing them with both freedom and security, pursuing multi-dimensional policies of political and economic integration and conducting dynamic diplomacy. Once Turkey has thus embraced its greater neighbourhood, its ties with the US and EU would be automatically tightened further. Turkey’s just-rekindled relations with Syria, Iraq, Libya, Jordan, and other Middle Eastern countries, which were previously the dominions of the Ottoman Empire, seem to be in compliance with the vision of “Strategic Depth.”

The word neo-Ottomanism has never been used at the official level and, as it looks, will never be heard from a Turkish official, unless through a Freudian slip. Nevertheless, –similar to how the world has caught up on the term “American Empire”– it has acquired a widespread usage and acceptance worldwide, hence altered the basic tone of Turkish foreign policy. Although some rejoice in the overt enthusiasm in the face of Turkey’s reclaim of its Ottoman imperial legacy, the author of this opinion piece would like to join with those who contemplate rather on the unbalanced and immature side of this neo-Ottoman rhetoric and action-plan.

First of all, Ottomanism has a baggage burdened with post-colonial discourse, rarely evidence-based, mostly value-charged historical analyses, and political clichés. One recent book on world empires, Amy Chua’s Day of Empire, for instance excludes the Ottoman Empire from consideration under the unjust pretext of having been intolerant. If Turkey sets to launch a fully enhanced foreign-policy strategy that will undo its past faux-pas such as the negligence of the East and undermining of its global-actorness capacity, it should be able to construct a rhetoric brand new, more universal than ever and reminding of no past exemplar. Association with past creates reasonable doubt over the virtue of the message aimed to be conveyed. Second, neo-Ottomanism has a strong religious connotation giving the impression that it is partial to Islam. AKP’s Islamic emphasis on real politics and the Prime Minister’s unconditional support to the Muslim world leaders, including some very problematic names such as Iran’s Ahmedinejad and Sudan’s Al-Bashir, harm the universality and sincerity of the mission at hand and justify the reservations over the partiality of neo-Ottomanism. Furthermore, neo-Ottomanist diplomacy to the Middle East has not so far achieved a positive, tangible impact in Turkey’s EU bid. On the contrary, it may have underpinned the un-Europeaness of Turkey in the eyes of Europe’s Turco-sceptics.

Amin Maalouf’s recent book Le Dérèglement du Monde urges the leaders and peoples around the world, particularly of the Middle East, to avoid the past reflexes that had ended in certain catastrophes and to proceed towards an unprecedentedly new phase in human history. Only the opening of a phase in which the legitimacies, identities, values, and norms will be recreated from the beginning could, as Maalouf argues, save our civilisations lethally endangered by partiality. And it is my wish to see Turkey to partake in the recreation of universality rather than to create yet another partiality in the international community.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author/s who retain the copyright.

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