Turkish Armed Forces is the people
Your editorial titled Blocking militarism (June 18) has given me an opportunity to reply to an Indonesian source completely out of touch with realities in Turkey.
The Turkish Armed Forces consists of 600,000 soldiers, as all young Turkish men are recruited. It has professional soldiers but it is not an Armed Forces of professionals. It has no vested interests in any political or economic initiative. As the republic itself was founded by the Armed Forces, the Armed Forces has the constitutional right and obligation to protect the country against external and internal threats.
Today, each family in Turkey has at least one member in the Armed Forces. The Turkish Armed Forces is the people and vice- versa. Therefore, the Armed Forces could not and would not act against the will of the people. Any ill-fated and regrettable definition of the Turkish generals as "trigger-happy" is putting the Turkish Armed Forces within the same category as criminals. Such a wording is condemnable and The Jakarta Post should apologize to the Turkish Armed Forces and the Turkish nation for this insult.
Turkey's population is over 99 percent Moslem. It is a religiously homogeneous country. Religion is not an issue and, contrary to what you may want to believe, the society is not divided between groups of the same faith.
The editorial gave the impression that Islamic values have been marginalized in Turkey. For your information, the Department of Religious Affairs in Turkey is a constitutional body and it employs over 500,000 imams and Moslem scholars. There are currently more than 850 imams who have been assigned in Europe and paid by the Turkish government for nearly 20 years, just to satisfy the religious needs of Turks or other Moslem brothers in Europe. The yearly budget of the Department of Religious Affairs, which exceeds the budget of the Ministry of National Education, provides an example of how Islamic values are supposedly marginalized in our country.
The Turkish people enjoy democracy in full. Turkey is the only truly democratic country in the Moslem world in the exact sense of the word. People are free to talk about anything without fear of prosecution. Everybody has the right to be fundamentalist or secular, practice Islam or other religions, and one can be atheist if he wishes to. Therefore, if 21 percent of the people wanted to vote for a religiously more conservative party, they have the right to do so. And thanks to the democratic nature of the system, they have the right to be represented in government.
The editorial alleges that students "are discouraged from attending Friday prayers". The writer would be pleased to know that the religious education in primary and secondary schools is a constitutional obligation. The freedom of religion and worship is guaranteed under the Turkish constitution.
As for the mosque in Taksim Square, the editorial pretends that this was an initiative of His Excellency Erbakan. In Turkey, the construction of mosques is under the authority of freely elected Municipal Councils. The central government, including the prime minister, has no authority on that matter. The mosque in Taksim Square, that met the strong reaction of the people, was the idea of the Mayor of Istanbul. The Armed Forces have, on no occasion, expressed any opinion on the issue.
As for the editorial's allegation that "any regime which believes that religion is the antithesis of secularism as the best concept is heading for atheism", can only be qualified as a lack of knowledge on political science, a blindness of history and a lack of goodwill. Secularism is not antireligion. Contrary to what some people are inclined to believe, secularism is a system that guarantees the freedom of religion. As it separates state and religious affairs, it leaves the practice of religion to the people without any outside interference.
For a population of 65 million people, Turkey has more than 400,000 mosques. This is a ratio of one mosque for every 150 Turkish citizens. One should look at how many other Moslem countries reach this ratio.
As for the claim that "the country has made pornographic films which Hollywood was reluctant to touch", I can only say that the writer, with the sole aim of discrediting Turkey, was primitive in his argument which was short of any proper debate. If pornography is such a concern for him, in a democracy, nobody would force him to watch it.
As to your writer's wish that "the Ciller government will last until a general election", I would like to remind him that in a democracy one may have several cabinets during one electoral period. I should also remind you that contrary to your article, Prime Minister Erbakan did not resign under the pressure of the military but following an understanding with his coalition partner.
As to the advise that "Turkish generals should learn from the experiences of other countries... before their system is turned upside down", let me say that the Turkish Armed Forces have no system of their own. The respectful Turkish generals have only one principle: to protect the country. The Turkish state has its own system. Considering that Turks have had their own states and empires for more than 2000 years, we have absolutely no lesson to learn from any other country. But we are happy to share our experiences with newly independent countries.
SEVINC DALYANOGLU
Ambassador
Turkish Embassy, Jakarta