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Turkey in Europe & Europe in Turkey
Turgut Özal

A New Party: The Motherland Party

"The word is a shadow of the deed."
Democritus

The party which won the legislative elections of 1983 was the Motherland Party. It belonged to neither of the two principal political movements which had been in existence since the end of the Ottoman Empire. Rejecting from the start the dichotomy inherited from the past and which it felt had no relevance to the present, the Motherland Party took general reconciliation as its starting point. It accepted into its ranks adherents of old movements in order to form, with their participation, a new synthesis, while at the same time trying to establish cordial relations with the other political parties.

The economic policy of the new party succeeded in bringing Turkey out of crisis and setting it once again on the path to development. Until we came to power, successive economic policies had been based on fear-fear rooted in the Capitulations, which had conditioned our attitude to all external credit and foreign investment. Inflation and the fear of speculative profits had led to price control. Governments, having no confidence in private enterprise, had given their protection and support to State economic enterprises (KIT). Belief in the essential weakness of economic agents was so strong, and there was such a conviction that market forces could not play any role, that planning was seen as the only means of developing the country.

In consequence, Turkish production remained weak and there was little possibility of increasing exports. In a country where capital was scarce, interest rates and exchange rates were held below their real values in order to keep down the cost of capital. There was then no way of stabilizing the balance of payments other than by exchange controls and import restrictions. Turkish businessmen were suspected of wishing to become rich without producing, like the non-Muslim merchants of the Ottoman Empire who exploited the country by collaborating with imperialist countries in taking advantage of the Capitulations. It was also a fear of the past which led to suspicion of the provinces and the concentration of power in Ankara. The provinces were then obliged constantly to send delegations to Ankara in order to resolve their local problems.

Our party renounced this introverted, fearful, and defeatist attitude. It put an end to price control, and liberalized imports and the exchange regime. The general opinion at the time these measures were taken was that prices would increase indefinitely and that the liberalization of foreign trade would cause a dangerous deficit in the balance of payments. The pessimist factions waited obstinately for their predictions to come true, but it did not happen. It took some time for them to understand the effects of a realistic exchange rate and a positive interest rate. Market stability was established little by little, and they saw with surprise that the laws of the market did function. In due course Turkish private enterprise crossed frontiers and penetrated the markets of the Middle East.

The value of services provided increased to a cumulative 17 billion dollars in 1987. Exports quadrupled compared with 1980. Of this total the percentage of industrial products increased from 35% to 80%.

We renounced all `populist' policies. Internal agricultural prices were aligned to world levels, and the subsidies which supported them were reduced. Increased production compensated producers for any loss of revenue.

By means of this policy Turkey has, while still paying its debts regularly, attained the highest rate of growth of the OECD: 8% in 1986, 7.4o/o in 1987, and 8.1% in 1988. After a slow-down in 1989, it picked up again in 1990, heading for 10%. Domestic serves, standing at 16% in 1980, increased to 23% in 1987. Funds derived solely from the import tax on foreign cigarettes, which had previously entered Turkey clandestinely, have permitted the construction of 150,000 houses each year. The construction of dams and other similar projects has been accelerated by means of an innovative system linked to the issue of 'bonds' on the revenues of other public projects and dams already in operation.

In the area of national development, the private sector has been encouraged to invest in association with foreign partners. A new approach (Build-Operate-Transfer) allows foreign investment to finance projects in Turkey, to build them, and then to own them. The construction of 3,000 kilometers of highways and three thermal power stations each capable of producing 10 billion kWh has been undertaken under this scheme. A high-technology communications network has been installed throughout the country. A large pool of machinery is employed to make the countryside as modern and productive as that. of industrialized countries. Its electrification has already been completed. The asphalting of local roads and the construction of drinking-water networks is in progress.

To reduce the disparity in regional development, we have undertaken a comprehensive project in the south-east of Anatolia, the GAP, which includes the construction of thirteen dams. It provides for the irrigation of 2 million hectares of land and the production of 20 billion kWh of electricity. The Atatürk dam, constructed with Turkish capital, engineers, and workers will be the fourth largest in the world, and has no equal in western Europe.

In education, we plan to make computers available to students in such numbers that the ratio between the two will be one of the highest in the world.

With the exception of infrastructure projects, everything has been left to the private sector, and the privatization of State enterprises has begun. The present Turkish Government, having understood that all development begins locally, has increased the proportion of public resources transferred to municipalities and local administrations from 1.2% to 15%. This will enable municipalities, which are responsible for 65% of the population, to provide their communities with better services.

As a result, Turkey has set out on the path of organic growth and development. It has begun to integrate itself into the world economy through an export-oriented liberal policy. What should have been done at the beginning of the westernizing reforms has been done at the end, with an enormous loss of time. I wonder whether the late discovery of the secret of the West was an unavoidable mistake inherent in the modernizing process of undeveloped countries which by a wrong reflex choose to implement in the first instance cultural and political reforms.

Whereas the first `Western' reforms gave us highly qualified officers, diplomats, poets, and new reformers, the most recent changes have provided us with technocrats, entrepreneurs, and bankers. Businessmen and workers as dynamic forces have rapidly formed their organizations which spontaneously and organically, i.e. from below, have initiated change and progress. Respectful of human rights within the framework of their group interests, they have become the essential instruments of democracy.

The question is how these final changes have been achieved by ANAP and not by the republican reformist élite. `Indeed, the party that has distinguished itself in dealing with one challenge is apt to fail conspicuously in attempting to deal with the next'.13o However, `the stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner,' and this stone happened to be the people who later created ANAP. They had been rejected in the early days of the Republic because they were in favour of reconciling tradition with economic modernism so as to launch reforms from below. Our movement had to withdraw before coming forth to respond to the challenge. The `disqualification of those who had played the creator's part in the former generation. . . range(d) these same ex-creators in the forefront of the opposition to. . . (those who were) making the successful response to the new challenge'.131 This fact also explains the drama of the Turkish intelligentsia.

The intelligentsia is a class of liaison officers who have learnt the tricks of the intrusive civilization's trade so far as may be necessary to enable their own community, through their agency, just to hold its own in a social environment in which life is ceasing to be lived in accordance with the local tradition and is coming more and more to be lived in the style imposed by the intrusive civilization.

The first recruits to this intelligentsia are military and naval officers. . . to save the Russia of Peter the Great from being conquered by a Western Sweden or the Turkey and Japan of a later age from being conquered by Russia who has by this time become sufficiently westernized. Then comes the diplomatist who learns how to conduct with Western governments the negotiations that are forced upon his community by its failure to hold its own in war. As the leaven or virus of Westernism works deeper into the social life of the society the intelligentsia develops its most characteristic types: the schoolmaster who has learnt the trick of teaching Western subjects. .

Wherever we find an intelligentsia we may infer. . . that two civilizations have been in contact.

This liaison-class suffers from the congenital unhappiness of the hybrid. An intelligentsia is despised b its own people because its very existence is a reproach to them.

The general opposition of the Turkish intelligentsia to ANAP and the criticism directed at it on secularism should be viewed in this light. Nevertheless, it is ANAP that developed a solution to the existentialist problem of the Turkish intelligentsia by incorporating an important segment of it into the party. They gradually understand that ANAP represents historical aspirations of the people to change. But a change from below, in other words, the real change. ANAP is not a party of status-quo which is wrongly associated with cultural conservatism in Turkey. On the contrary, it is greatly innovative. It welcomes, therefore, the intellectual contribution of the intelligentsia. This will be possible to the extent to which they realize that the days of imposing one's own élitist values on the masses are over, values which have been borrowed in a wholesale manner in the guise of universalism and expressed in a foreign or at best in a hybrid idiom. In our view the main task of the intellectual is to reassess, reinterpret, readjust, and further develop traditional values of the people in the light of the present conditions of civilization. In no way does this approach deny the universal features of culture. It only emphasizes that no people can be creative unless it draws its strength mainly from its own cultural heritage through an intensive updating and upgrading effort.

On 29 November 1987 general elections took place in which all the parties participated. The former leaders and their followers were able to take part in the vote, all restrictions imposed on their political activities during the Military Government having been lifted by referendum. We now have in Turkey an active Parliament with a very active opposition, and a Press which enjoys every freedom. We have recognized the right of every citizen to address the Court and the Commission of Human Rights; we have signed and adopted the European Convention for the prevention of torture and inhuman or degrading punishments and treatment, as well as the UNO convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishments or treatments. Our doors are open to the whole world and anyone may go anywhere throughout the country. In the light of these facts it requires a great deal of imagination still to speak of the violation of human rights.

The Turks now know how to ensure the future growth of their country. They are also capable of acquiring and utilizing advanced technology, having already learned the necessary skills. Development is no longer the prerogative only of the State. We have set in motion a process of organic evolution which will sustain itself.

Turkey has no further need of reforms or continual revolution. The economic reforms achieved by the Motherland Party were the last westernization reforms to be needed. The rest is only a matter of time. As I said in my acceptance statement of 9 November 1989 on the occasion of my election as President of the Republic, we consider three fundamental freedoms as sine qua non for our being a great civilized and civilizing power once again, namely freedom of thought and speech, freedom of religion together with secularism as its guarantee, and freedom of enterprise.

In this perspective I visualize the future Turkey, if present trends continue, as a fully industrialized and technologically advanced country whose cultural heritage will have been preserved and reinvigorated through readjustment to, and reinterpretation of modern conditions.

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