After The Referendum: New Age Islam's Selection, 19 April 2017
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
19 April 2017
• After The Referendum
By Vijay Prashad
• Spectre Over Europe: D-Day For France
By Charles Marquand
• The Gilgit- Baltistan Feint
By Tilak Devasher
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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After The Referendum
By Vijay Prashad
April 19, 2017
Turkey feels more and more socially divided, and Recep Erdogan may not govern to unify
Turkey is a fundamentally divided society. The vote this weekend over a referendum to give the President additional powers and a longer term, showed the extent of Turkey’s divisions. The “Yes” vote, a victory for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was won with 25 million votes, while the “No” campaign fetched almost 24 million votes. But given the nature of electoral democracy, a fractured verdict will nonetheless mean an expansion of the powers of Mr. Erdogan and of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The referendum amends the 1982 Constitution with some significant provisions, such as making the President both the head of state and the head of government, weakening Parliament, the judiciary and the military. Mr. Erdogan could remain in power — virtually unchallenged — till 2029. Society’s divisions will not be reflected in the political sphere.
The AKP, and its far-right ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), had hoped to commandeer close to two-thirds of the vote in order to make these changes legitimate. They were not able to get near this margin. Turkey’s three largest cities — Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir — voted decisively against the changes. It was rural and small-town Turkey that delivered the votes for the “Yes” campaign. These areas, located in remote parts of Anatolia, have long been neglected by the Istanbul elite and have for the past two decades seen the AKP as their champion. Personal piety is not their only link to the agenda of the AKP, which has pushed against the barriers of Turkey’s official secularism. A great deal of pent-up resentment against urban affluence is wrapped up in the support for Mr. Erdogan, who speaks in the idiom of the small town.
Unleashing Repression
But this support base was insufficient during two parliamentary elections in 2015, when Mr. Erdogan hoped to push these changes through a friendly Parliament. Since the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) — a Kurdish and Left alliance — won over 10% of the vote, it was able to stymie Mr. Erdogan’s plans. What followed after that defeat set the terms for significant political repression. Mr. Erdogan’s government declared that the HDP was linked to terrorism, opened up a war against the largely Kurdish southeast of Turkey with the displacement of over 200,000 people and imposed endless curfews on major towns. Visitors to the Turkish city of Diyarbakir might be tempted to make comparisons with the flattened cities of Syria’s Aleppo and Iraq’s Fallujah. HDP politicians have been imprisoned, with both their leaders, Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yüksekdag, facing hundreds of years in prison.
A failed coup on July 15, 2016 deepened the repression by the state. It was blamed on the U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen. Almost 100,000 people have been arrested since that coup, and over 100,000 state employees fired from their posts. The purges (tasfiye) have not only denuded Turkish society of trained and capable people but have also chilled the atmosphere in the country. Gloom is the mood amongst large parts of the urban population, which has not experienced this kind of open harassment since the coups d’etat of 1971 and 1980. It was as if this failed coup had an aftermath as anti-democratic as the successful coups of Turkey’s past.
Curbing Democratic Processes
It was apparent during the campaign over this referendum that Mr. Erdogan would prevail. Society is not united behind him, but the state apparatus came into great use. Opposition leaders were arrested — 122 HDP leaders by their count. Campaigners for the “No” vote were accused of being part of the Gülen plot. In the largely Kurdish province of Sirnak, the provincial governor banned the HDP’s song “Say No” on the pretext that it would incite “public hate”. The popular cartoonist, Musa Kart, spent a hundred days in jail, while Turkey’s most respected constitutional law expert, Ibrahim Kaboglu, lost his job. With 150 media outlets shut down and almost 200 journalists arrested, press scrutiny of these manoeuvres was minimal. Democracy was already curtailed before the referendum. Critics of Mr. Erdogan warn that Turkey is under “tek adam” rule — one-man rule.
Turkey’s High Electoral Board chief Sadi Güven announced that the referendum had passed despite the numerous complaints of fraud. The Opposition moved the board to reconsider the 1.5 million ballots that raised eyebrows. The margin of victory was only 1.1 million. Intimidation of voters was general. Even supporters of Mr. Erdogan who had decided to vote “No” — such as editor, Yeni Safak, and columnist Ali Bayramoglu — were beaten on polling day. The government dominated the media and prevented the Opposition from making its case against the referendum.
#HayirDahaBitmedi is the new hashtag on social media. “It is not over yet”. There is great expectation from half of those who voted that the President must not be allowed to rule as if he has a mandate. No wonder that Mr. Erdogan’s victory speech was uncharacteristically subdued. His Prime Minister, Binali Yildirim, said of the result: “We are one body. We are one nation.” But it did not feel like that. Turkey feels more and more socially divided. Mr. Erdogan will not govern to unify. That is not his style. His policies — like that of other Strong Men in the Age of Anger — will more ferociously tear at the social fabric of this fine country.
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Vijay Prashad’s most recent book is “The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution”. He is a columnist for the Turkish daily, BirGün
Source: thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/after-the-referendum/article18113797.ece
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Spectre over Europe: D-day for France
By Charles Marquand
Apr 19, 2017
A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of Commun-ism”, so wrote Karl Marx in 1848 in the Communist Manifesto. Today, another spectre haunts Europe — that of nationalism. It is a spectre which has been haunting Europe for some time now and which on April 23 may loom again. The occasion is the first round in the French presidential polls, and the spectre takes the form of Marine Le Pen, leader of the nationalist Front National and presidential hopeful.
Ms Le Pen, 49, an articulate former advocate, took over the leadership from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen six years ago. He was a bruiser of the hard right, prone to anti-Semitic jibes and suspected of having tortured guerrillas during the Algerian uprising against French rule. His daughter has worked hard to modernise the party and remove its nastier elements. Even so, Ms Le Pen’s programme is extreme. If elected, she would cosy up to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, seek to take France out of the European Union, close its borders, institute economic protectionism and launch a culture war against France’s Muslims, some 10 per cent of the population.
Against her range candidates from the hard left to the conservative right, but the frontrunner is probably Emmanuel Macron. He is 39, a former banker and graduate of France’s elite institution for top officials, École Nationale d’Administration, married to his schoolteacher 24 years his senior, and without a formal party machine behind him. His programme is diametrically opposed to Ms Le Pen’s: a supporter of the European Union, a believer in free trade, open borders, and a staunch defender of liberal values.
Opinion polls suggest that Ms Le Pen and Mr Macron are neck and neck, with about 25 per cent of the vote each. Opinion polls also suggest that Ms Le Pen would lose against Mr Macron in the second round runoff two weeks later, with about 35 per cent of the vote. If so, that would be the highest vote ever in a French presidential election for the extreme right, roughly twice her father’s vote in 2002.
But the opinion polls also suggest that some 30 per cent of voters remain undecided, and another 30 per cent may not vote. The result is, therefore, wide open and the outcome highly uncertain. This uncertainty is accentuated because Ms Le Pen seems able to attract support from the most unpredictable places. A little while ago I was passing a minor manor house in the village where I live in France. I saw plastered on the entrance sign a Front National poster. The property is owned by a couple who run it as a guesthouse. She, slight, possibly of Mediterranean origin, vaguely bohemian in style; he stocky, ruddy-faced and down-to-earth; both apparently pragmatic, reasonable and comfortable; neither giving any clue that they are active supporters of Ms Le Pen.
On the other side of the political divide, more recently I struck up a conversation with a young woman, a lawyer by training, once a volunteer helper at the so-called “Jungle”, the refugee camp in Calais. She explained to me that none of the candidates spoke to people of her generation, like her: educated, motivated, internationalist and generous-minded. The hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon has a programme which in practical terms is much like Ms Le Pen’s, save for the Islamophobic elements. François Fillon, the traditional right-wing candidate, has a programme of social conservatism which appears to be “Le Pen-lite”. Anyway, he is embroiled in a corruption investigation involving illegal payments of public money to his wife and children. Benoît Hamon, the moderate-left candidate of the Socialists, is trailing badly in the polls and has been eclipsed by Mr Mélechon. That leaves Mr Macron. And that is the problem for Mr Macron. His support is indifferent and lukewarm.
Ms Le Pen’s support, on the other hand, is fervent and committed. One of the students I taught in Paris put it very well: she asks the right questions, but her answers are wholly wrong. Wholly wrong certainly, but also highly persuasive. The questions are how to address economic dislocation and stagnation and how to create a sense of community and coherence as France becomes multi-cultural and multi-ethnic. Ms Le Pen’s answer is a programme of “national priority”, neatly summed up as “France for the French”. To that segment of the electorate which feels culturally and economically insecure, Ms Le Pen gives the reassurance that she understands them. She plays to their sense that they are an embattled people, menaced by the liberal elite, the forces of globalisation and the Islamisation of France. She, and she alone, will defend them.
Mr Macron’s appeal is more cerebral. He refers to himself as “doubly liberal”: politically and economically. The concern is that an appeal to people’s intelligence and better natures when they are feeling uncertain and anxious does not have traction.
Important as the choice between Ms Len Pen and Mr Macron is for France, it is doubly important for Europe. The French presidential election is another in a sequence of elections where the fight has been between differing conceptions of Europe — atavistic Europe against altruistic Europe. First came the Hungarian parliamentary elections in 2010, won by Viktor Orban. In power ever since, he proudly claims that he wants an “illiberal democracy”. Next came the Polish parliamentary elections in 2015, won by the like-minded Law and Justice Party. Then came the UK’s vote by the slimmest of margins in mid-2016 to leave the European Union: another victory for nationalism and intolerance. The first reverse came at the end of 2016 in the Austrian presidential polls, where the far-right candidate was defeated by a narrow margin. The second reverse happened in the Dutch parliamentary elections in March, when the nationalist Freedom Party failed to make an expected breakthrough, although its vote did increase.
But these contests were relative sideshows. France is the main event. France, the home of the Rights of Man, the second largest economy in Europe, one of two European nuclear powers (the other being the UK), is a founder member of the European Union. The Franco-German alliance is the axis around which Europe revolves. Without France, European integration comes to a stop and European coherence dissolves. A victory for Ms Le Pen would be a mortal blow to the European Union and a fatal relapse into Europe’s dark past. A victory for Mr Macron would allow Europe to breathe a sigh of relief, but celebration would be misplaced. There is still much to be done to exorcise the spectre.
Source: asianage.com/opinion/oped/190417/spectre-over-europe-d-day-for-france.html
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The Gilgit- Baltistan Feint
By Tilak Devasher
April 19, 2017
Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) has been in the news recently due to the March 14 revelation of a Pakistani minister that the government was considering making it the fifth province of Pakistan. This was pursuant to the recommendations of a committee headed by the adviser on foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz.
GB is one of the two parts of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK), the other being the so-called “Azad Jammu and Kashmir” (“AJK”), both of which formed part of the territory of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). GB has an area of 72,000 sq km and comprises about 85 per cent of the total area of PoK. Despite its strategic location — providing land access to China, containing vast reservoirs of fresh water and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) passing through it, GB does not form part of the territory of Pakistan.
The territory was handed over on a platter to the newly created state of Pakistan in November 1947 by the action of a British officer of the Gilgit Scouts. Despite being in the service of the Maharaja of Kashmir, he revolted and joined Pakistan. Instead of being court-martialled, he was rewarded by the British with an MBE in 1948, quite possibly because he was working on their instructions rather than those of the Maharaja. Posthumously, the Pakistan government also decorated him with the Sitara-e-Pakistan.
The proposition of making GB a fifth province is not new. It has been examined several times in the past. Each time, the conclusion has been that GB is part of J&K and any such move would seriously damage Pakistan’s Kashmir case. Additionally, Pakistan was also hedging its bets in case it needed the Muslim-majority population of the area to vote for it in a plebiscite. The impediments Pakistan faces in making GB its fifth province are many. Two UN resolutions of August 13, 1948 and January 5, 1949 clearly established a link between GB and the Kashmir issue. Pakistan was faced with two issues in the UN resolutions: First, the August 13 resolution mentioned that “pending a final solution, territory evacuated by the Pakistan troops will be administered by the ‘local authorities’.”
Second, GB was Shia-dominated and Pakistan was apprehensive of setting up a Shia state in its north. The Shia Political Conference had opposed Jinnah’s two-nation theory and saw few opportunities for themselves in an overwhelmingly Sunni Pakistan. Not surprisingly, Pakistan has been deliberately altering the ethnic and religious balance in the region.
To circumvent these issues, Pakistan arranged to have the Karachi Agreement of April 28, 1949, signed by Mushtaq Gurmani, Pakistan’s “minister without portfolio”, Sardar Ibrahim Khan, the president of “Azad Kashmir” and Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas, head of the Muslim Conference. There was no representative from GB. With this agreement, the administration of GB was handed over to Pakistan by those who had no locus standi on the issue. The agreement was kept secret and its existence revealed for the first time in a judgment of the “AJK” High Court in 1993.
Making GB its fifth province would thus violate the Karachi Agreement — perhaps the only instrument that provides doubtful legal authority to Pakistan’s administration of GB — as well as the UN resolutions that would damage its position on the Kashmir issue.
Any such move would also be violative of the 1963 Pak-China Boundary Agreement that calls for the sovereign authority to reopen negotiations with China “after the settlement of the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India” and of the 1972 Simla Agreement that mentions that “neither side shall unilaterally alter the situation”.
Several court verdicts have averred that GB is a part of J&K. The most notable is the 1993 “AJK” High Court verdict. The order was set aside in 1994 by the “AJK” Supreme Court that held that GB was a part of J&K state as it existed until 1948.
Pakistan would also have to overcome the adverse reaction of Kashmiris on both sides of the LoC. While it can manage the reaction of people in “AJK”, its constituency in J&K would be seriously damaged. Hurriyat leaders have already made this known.
Given these serious impediments, why has Pakistan chosen to raise the issue?
The elephant in the room is, of course, China. With a $50 billion investment in the CPEC, China would hardly want the territory through which the route passes to have a dubious status. India has made its concerns over the CPEC clear to China at the highest levels since the area belongs to India.
Quite possibly, Pakistan has raised the controversy for one of two reasons. First, to tell the Chinese how difficult it is to make GB its fifth province and how this would compromise its long-standing position on the Kashmir issue. China is unlikely to buy into this argument, given that $50 billion is at stake.
The other possibility is that Pakistan wants to give the impression of freezing its territorial ambitions in J&K in order to concentrate on the CPEC and remove any misgivings that the Chinese may have on the status of GB. This, however, would be a feint to lull India into complacence. In effect, Pakistan would end up absorbing GB while continuing to finance and materially support the violence and unrest in Kashmir.
India’s statement opposing the move was timely. India has to ensure that it does not fall into a Pak-China trap to take GB off the table by making it the fifth province in the hope that Pakistan will curb its ambitions. It is unlikely that Pakistan will ever relent on the Kashmir issue.
Source: indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-gilgit-baltistan-feint-fifth-province-for-pakistan-sartaj-aziz-pok-azad-jammu-and-kasmir/
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