What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
Analysts over the world have been watching the recent rise of Turkey with extreme interest. It made a certain kind of sense when experts like Brzezinski or Friedman predicted Turkey’s rise as a regional power. But that kind of sense that builds itself up around forecasts printed on the pages of a book usually gets dwarfed when the same predictions play out in reality. And Turkey’s rise as a regional power, while validating Friedman or Brzezinski, has astonished a lot of us.
To understand the story behind Turkey’s rise, one must come to terms with the inherent instability within the Islamic world. Right after the death of their prophet, uncertainties and conflicts rocked their trajectory. From the initial Shia-Sunni divide, the numerous infightings and the different contesting dynasties, to the modern-day nation-states of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Qatar, Egypt and their different political manoeuvres to outsmart each other, Islam’s intrinsic wish to dominate the globe has been constantly matched by their internal fault-lines and sectarian intolerance. And that has always kept open the ‘winner’ slot in their midst – something that even ragtag thugs like ISIS or Al Qaeda are competing for. Turkey too aims for the same.
To understand the components that can facilitate this mission to the top, one has to understand the crucial apparatuses in the rise of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) – the current ‘leader’ of the Islamic world. [It was the fall of the Ottomans that led to the rise of the Sauds, and it would be the diminishing impact of KSA that would make way for a Turkish ascendance. A twisted humour has kept these two as Siamese twins; in this amphitheatre of regional geopolitics, one grows only when the other shrinks.] They will provide a macro-view of the Turkish sequence. In chronological order, they are:
REAL ESTATE. The Sauds – an insignificant and primitive little tribe at the start of the 20th century – were promised a prime portion of the Islamic world were they to side with the Brits during WWI. And the Brits delivered as promised once the Ottoman empire crumbled. Mecca and Medina moved under the thumb of the Nejdi Sauds.
MONEY: There is no need here to rehash the kind of wealth that oil and petrodollars have created for the Saudis. A kind of a rich, the scale of which the world has only read about in old folklores and has seldom seen with its own eyes, translated into reality for the al Saud clan.
SOFT POWER: With money comes clout. Both these are assets worthy of investment. In the case of the KSA, the tipping point was the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. What better reason to invest a part of its riches and influence other than to propagate Saudi’s own Salafi Wahhabi ideology to counter the impact of Shia Iran? And so, Wahhabism proliferated. This quickly radicalised the Sunni Muslim population along extensive stretches of the Islamic world; which in turn made way for the mainstreaming of terrorism and victimhood as vital negotiation tools for the radicals and the moderates, respectively.
The result of it? Consider this: Mecca has been there for quite some time now with proper guardianship, one that remained pretty much unchanged till 1925 – and from a time when travel restrictions were hardly there. And yet, this frenzy around Haj is fairly recent. If we go back by 500 years, one would think that a pilgrimage to Mecca should have been a major affair. And yet, the traffic towards Mecca and Medina was not even a patch on, say, the Silk Route. This changed after the al Saud family began encouraging and often facilitating travel, through direct or indirect incentives. This resulted in influencing not just the overtly/covertly/vaguely religious Muslims all over the world, but also governments across regions to facilitate this sudden rise of interest. What began surrounding Mecca quickly morphed into cultural appropriation targeting millions of Muslims around the world who began rejecting the influence of their local language, dress or culture for the Arab way: an ecosystem that became self-perpetual in its nature.
Turkey, too, would need these components to fuel its ambition. But it is the order of progression – especially in comparison to KSA that makes it intriguing. Turkey has reversed the order, taking up projecting its soft power first.
Based on the ecosystem that the KSA built, Turkey is trying to legitimise its image in the eyes of Muslims who were born after the disappearance of the Ottomans. Hence, Ertugrul, Imam Hatip Schools, or political parties in the EU (the details of which I have covered here). Hence the takeover of Hagia Sophia and Chora Church, or catalysing local influencers in the shape of politicians (Imran Khan), Bollywood (Aamir Khan), and sundry NGOs. This plan is a low-cost image multiplier. And there is enough optimism about the result. Pakistan, for example, already considers itself Turk. A constant hammering of old Ottoman propaganda is certain to have the same effect on India or Europe.
Turkey’s second target would be access to money. Though it is a first-world economy, and it has ways and means to find temporary solutions, like blackmailing the EU for finances (thanks to its ever-faithful servant Germany), Ankara is presently not at its peak regarding its financial potential. As a contender for the prime slot in the Islamic world, Turkey also stands a chance of becoming the global custodian of radical Islamist money. But for all of that, Turkey needs to find a way to consolidate its legitimate finances to reach a state where it can usher in a ‘post-KSA’ Islamic era. That is perhaps the reason why Ankara is eyeing all the oil and gas fields in its neighbourhood – from Syria to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean basin.
The last on Turkey’s list would be real estate. If it goes according to plan, then Mecca at one end, and portions of Western Europe at the other – is the intended outcome. It might sound funny now, but Europe is not going to be Arabized; it is going to be Turkified. Europeans remain fairly influenced already by Turkey – thanks to the physical proximity, prolonged immigration, and cultural exposure. (We can discount radical influences like white-skin ISIS exports, forced conversions and grooming gangs; it is the ‘benign face’ that usually wins hearts and minds.) As far as portions of the Middle East are concerned, there are certain advantages that Turkey enjoys – physically (Anatolia, for example, holds two keys in the shape of Tigris and Euphrates), and psychologically (that of the Ottoman legacy in areas surrounding modern-day Turkey).
Is it going to be easy? Perhaps not. At the moment, the most difficult task for Turkey is to stabilise its economy. Besides, social engineering is never easy. But to give credit where due, Ankara has been successful in the first stage, and it has time and again demonstrated its cunning, its resourcefulness; and that’s the only reason why some of the sharpest political minds of our times have always kept an eye on Turkey. The only way this could be addressed is by exploring the inherent contradictions present within that world. And provided they are willing, India, the EU, and Russia need to employ their best brains to work.
Arindam Mukherjee is a geopolitical enthusiast and the author of JourneyDog Tales, The Puppeteer, and A Matter of Greed
Disclaimer: Views expressed above are the author’s own
