"Turkey at the Crossroads"

Monday, September 22, 2003

CLOSING REMARKS by BERNARD LEWIS

Transcript prepared from a tape recording

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MR. LACHMAN: We're going to have to start this thing very promptly. Professor Lewis does not have that much time today.

Since Professor Lewis requires absolutely no introduction, I'm not going to give him one. I will just say that he has to leave sharply at 3:30, so any attempt to keep him longer than that will be dealt with sharply.

PROFESSOR BERNARD LEWIS: Thank you. I'll just give them time to sit down.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I shall be brief as the time is short and I want to leave some time for discussion.

When I received the program of this event, and saw that I was down to speak on Turkey and the 21st Century, I must say I felt more than a little alarm. The 21st Century is only in its third year and hasn't even finished that, which means, in effect, that the task that was assigned to me was one of prophecy, and I'm, as you know, a historian by profession, which means to say that I deal with the past. Not only that but I'm a retired historian, so even my past is passe. Nevertheless, on reflection, I feel that there may be some lessons that we can learn, particularly because my past is passe.

As an old-fashioned historian, a very old-fashioned historian, I like to deal first with the sequence of events, you know, ask the traditional historical questions. What happened? When did it happen? Where did it happen? And for the intellectually ambitious, Why did it happen?

And that may serve a useful purpose if we start making comparisons between then and now, between events which occurred in the past and events which are occurring in our own time.

It has often been said that history repeats itself. That of course is not true. Historians repeat one another; but that's another matter.

During the last few months, my mind has gone back frequently to the events of 1939. Not long before the outbreak of war, the Republic of Turkey had signed a full military alliance with Britain and France. When war broke out, the Turkish government decided to invoke a clause which said that nothing in the treaty should require Turkey, should raise the possibility of Turkey coming into hostile relations with the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union was of course neutral at that time and remained so, until it was invaded by the third Reich. But this continued to be the basis for Turkish nonintervention. Turkish neutrality was, as you know, sustained right through the war years, going through a number of very interesting variations, and I might say, aberrations.

I was reminded again of a conversation I had with the late Turgot Ozol, which I remember very vividly. It was in November '90, that's to say after the invasion of Kuwait but before the Gulf War.

I was in Turkey on university business and spent the evening with Turgot Ozol who was, at that time, the president, but I had known him for a long time before he rose to high political office, so our conversation was, shall we say, more relaxed than would be normal between a head of state and a foreign visitor.

And at one point, he said, speaking of the possibility, not yet determined at that time, the possibility that the United States might take military action. He said there will be a war. People are wondering will there, won't there. There will be a war, he said, and when it comes, he said, it will be short, cheap and easy.

That rather surprised me. I mean, in Washington they were preparing for war as if they were about to encounter the Third Reich in its prime, and this short, cheap and easy was rather startling.

I asked him what was the basis for his assessment, and he smiled that special smile that he had, and he said we like to know what's happening among our neighbors. In other words, we have good intelligence.

And then I asked him another question. I said: if and when it comes, will you be with us? And he said of course, no hesitations, no equivocation. Of course.

I was a little surprised at this very clear, immediate answer, and again I said, May I ask why? Oh, he sad, for the same reason we declared war on the Axis in February 1945. He said when the fighting is over and the peace talks begin, he said we want to be at the victors' table and we want to be there on the guest list, not on the menu.

I've often thought of the events of the war years, and that conversation with Turgot Ozol in watching the development of current events, the present time, and much that gives rise to disquiet and concern, but not nearly as much disquiet and concern as one finds expressed in various places.

I have no time to go into a full and thorough examination, so let me just pick up and deal with a few points which seem to me significant and relevant.

We talk a great deal about our friends and allies, here or there, and sometimes use the word "friend" or "friendship" in dealings with, between nations, as if it were between individuals. It is not the same thing at all; quite different.

Friendship between nations is of two kinds. It may be based on a perceived community of interests, and therefore it will last as long as A, the community of interest lasts, B, the perception of that community of interest lasts.

A slight change in the situation, a change of ruler, particularly in an autocratic society, a change of ruler, or even the ruler changing his mind, would swiftly end the alliance and the friendship.

We saw that happen a number of times in the Middle East, in the post-war years, when Egypt passed from being an ally to being an enemy, and then to being an ally again, without any necessary changes in the Egyptian structure.

The other kind of alliance is one which is based not just on a necessarily temporary community of interests but on a genuine affinity of outlook, of institutions, of way of life, of political definitions and aspirations. That kind of alliance is more permanent, and is indeed much more difficult to end.

It seems to me that with Turkey, over the years, it is that kind of alliance that has been developing, an alliance that can survive upheavals--even, I use, I deliberately use "upheaval" rather than "glitch"--I think glitch is inadequate to describe what happened in March--can survive that and still resume its even course.

Turkey, we say is a democracy. Yes, indeed, it is. It was, for a long time, the only democracy in the Islamic world. Now there are some others, they're mostly rather far away from the region, and that, in itself, is an important basis.

The Russians, in the days of the Soviet Union realized very well that a firm relationship resets on such an affinity. That is why they tried so hard to create communistic dictatorships in all the countries to which they extended their power.

It's more difficult to create democracies than to create communist dictatorships. It's also, as it turned out, more difficult to destroy them. That is a point I think from which we may derive some encouragement, and when I say "we," I'm talking of both sides.

Let me turn now to my assigned subject, the future. Obviously, I make no pretense of being able to predict what will happen, but what I think one can reasonably attempt to do is to formulate alternatives, look at things which are likely to happen, consider how these things will affect the course of events, and try, as I say, to formulate the different ways that things can happen, the different choices that the parties may be called upon to make.

And let's look at this in the context of the whole region, and Turkey's not alone in the world, and Turkey's in an unfortunate neighborhood, I would say, and has problems, has had or has problems of one kind of another with virtually all its neighbors.

It also has affinities with a number of those neighbors. Looking at the historical record, I turn briefly back to the past, for many, many centuries the rival powers, the alternative futures for the Middle East were Turkey and Iran. These are the only two states in the region which have a long record of independence, going back for many centuries.

They were both Muslim but they represented different interpretations of Islam, different forms of Islam which were in rivalry. Their conflict went on for centuries and came to an end. Oddly enough, the same thing is happening again today, where we see Turkey and Iran representing different diagnoses of what is wrong and different prescriptions for putting it right.

Putting it briefly, I would say the Turkish prescription is and has for a long time been a lack of modernization. We have fallen behind the modern world. Therefore, the remedy is to modernize, to catch up with the modern world.

[End of tape side 5B.]

PROFESSOR LEWIS: [in progress] The Iranian message is the exact opposite from--what has gone wrong they say is not insufficient modernization but too much modernization, excessive modernization, and the remedy is to return to the pure, austere, authentic Islam of our ancestors.

In Turkey, we know that a significant number of Turks are willing to buy that alternative, willing to support it, to accept that diagnosis.

We do not know how many Iranians would prefer the Turkish line, because in the Islamic republic, it is not permitted to express that preference, nor is there any legal way of giving expression to it.

But the indications are becoming stronger and stronger, that there are probably more secularists in Iran today than in Turkey. They have tried the Islamic republic and they don't like it, and in countries under dictatorship, the most reliable indication of how people are thinking, what people are feeling is the political joke. It's the only comment which is authentic and uncensored, and nowadays, thanks to the Internet and other means of communication, one can get them piping hot. Let me just detain you with one from Iran.

Two Iranians are chatting and one says, "This is awful, that's terrible, this is worse, that's dreadful" and so on, and they go on like this, about how awful the situation is in their country, and then one of them says, "There's only one thing that can save Iran. What we need here is an Osama bin Laden," and the other one looks at him in horror and says, "What? Are you crazy?" He said, "No. Then the Americans would come and rescue us."

It's a piece of current Iranian humor which will tell you something.

Turkey and Iran, still at the present day, as in the days of the Ottomans and the Setavids [ph], represent alternatives churches, and in this case there has been no open conflict between them, I hope there wont be, but the rivalry is very clear, and there's a fair amount of, shall we say, not so open conflict, and particularly attempts at subversion by the Iranians in Turkey. That is one possibility, one possible future, or, rather, one possible line of conflict into the future which gives you two alternatives.

What is happening in the Arab countries? Here, the situation is more gloomy. Practically without exception, these countries are under corrupt tyrants and this special combination of corruption and tyranny has led to a devastatingly bad economic situation, and to a growing rage, well-justified rage, which the rulers of those countries find it necessary, advisable, to direct outwards. Obviously, there has to be a safety valve, there has to be someone you can blame.

When you become aware things are going badly wrong, two questions you can ask. You can ask, What did we do wrong? which basically is what the Turks and the Iranians asked, and then of course the next question that follows is, How do we put it right? That hasn't been asked in most of the Arab countries. The question they ask instead is, Who did this to us? and this leads into a twilight world of conspiracy theories and neurotic fantasies.

The regimes in those countries are going from bad to worse, and here it must be admitted, painfully, that a significant proportion of these regimes we are proud to call our friends and allies, which means of course that a good deal of the blame for what is going wrong in those countries is directed this way, not without some substance.

What about the larger surrounding? Well, to the West lies the European Union, now about to be enlarged by incorporating the greater part of Eastern Europe.

There are still people in Turkey who cherish the belief that they will one day be admitted into the European Union. Personally, I find this--well, since we're among friends, I'll be, I'll speak plainly--absurd. I see no prospect whatever, or other--I'll correct that. I see only one possibility of Turkey being admitted to full membership of the European Union. That one possibility is if, present demographic trends continuing, the European Union becomes a Muslim state. Short of that, I don't see a hope in hell of Turkey being admitted, and I think that from the Turkish point of view, by far the best policy for them to follow, the best tactic for them to use is to negotiate the best possible deal that they can with the European Union in such matters as customs, preferences, and the like, short of full membership.

There are many forms of associate membership which can be very useful and I think would be acceptable. That raises the larger question of relations with Europe, and here, if you will permit a retired historian another excursion into the past.

The movement for Westernization in the Middle East saw the West almost exclusively in European terms. Part of it came through a European imperial presence, mainly British or French. Part of it came through enthusiastic reformers like the various sultans and ministers in Turkey, like Muhammad Ali, pasha in Egypt, and others.

We, in the West, tend to assume, comfortably, that this is a process of improvement. In many ways it is; in many ways it isn't. In many ways, the impact of Europe, or, rather, of European-inspired change, has been harmful rather than good. Someone spoke this morning of the inflated bureaucracy and blamed it on the Ottomans. Here I must spring to the defense of the Ottomans. The inflated bureaucracy does not date from Ottoman times. It dates from the reforms, when the state took over more and more and more of public life, and when, therefore, the state apparatus got larger and larger and larger.

This is the beginnings of the modern state as it exists all over the Middle East, or almost all over the Middle East, and a British naval officer who was attached to the Turkish forces put it very well. He said the old nobility, that's to say, before the reforms--the old nobility lived on their estates. For the new nobility, the state is their estate.

I think that was a very accurate formulation which remains true to the present day in much of the Middle East.

This is seen, not inaccurately, as part of the Europeanization of the region. There's more to it than that. People talk of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and the Baath Party as if these were immemorial antiquity. This is how they are, we can't change them. This is the line that's known as pro Arab in the State Department.

In fact that type of dictatorship and that kind of party have no roots whatever in the Arab or Islamic past. They are part of the Europeanization. The Baath dates from the period of Nazi influence, through French-occupied Syria, and is modeled on the Nazi and Fascist parties.

When the Soviets took over, it needed very minor adjustments to bring it to the communist model, and so on and so forth.

So it seems to me that that, again, is part of the process of Europeanization. Now let me come back, as my time is running out--in fact it has already run out--to these alternatives.

In the west Europe, further west the United States, in the north Russia. For the moment Russia is not a major player, but I cannot believe that a country of the size, the numbers, the resources of Russia, will indefinitely remain on the sidelines of history.

Sooner or later Russia will be back as an active, major, great power. What kind of Russia it will be, I have no idea, but it's something I think that we have to think about and prepare for in planning a future for this region.

There are also two other powers which are increasingly becoming involved, China and India, and there again I think there are interesting questions for the future.

Well, let me stop there and invite your questions.

[Applause.]

PROFESSOR LEWIS: I'm sorry. You know, university teachers are programmed by internal computers to speak for 50 minutes, and it's difficult to be shorter than that.

QUESTION: A very short question.

PROFESSOR LEWIS: Good. That's all we have time for.

QUESTION: How do you think the Turkish troops will be received in Iraq, if Turkey decides to send them?

PROFESSOR LEWIS: How do I think Turkish troops would be received in Iraq, if Turkey decides to send them? I think the first reaction would be one of utter astonishment, which I would share. How they would be received, I think that depends very much on what part of Iraq and in what circumstances. They could be welcomed in some places, received with suspicion and hostility in others, but it depends mainly on the circumstances in which it happens, if it happens.

Please.

QUESTION: To follow up on that, once this utter astonishment--what do you think will happen when the Turkish parliament brings this to the floor? What do you think--what do you predict the decision that day would be?

PROFESSOR LEWIS: Well, I only make long-term predictions.

[Laughter.]

QUESTION: Well, it might take them a long time to decide on this one, so--

PROFESSOR LEWIS: I would be very surprised if it comes back at all.

QUESTION: Why is that?

PROFESSOR LEWIS: Because it would create a very awkward and difficult situation. They would have problems if it passes and problems if it fails, and I think the easiest, probably the wisest course would be to avoid that particular problem.

QUESTION: Professor, let me ask you, in your capacity as a historian, to look to the past rather than to the future.

In your book, "What Went Wrong?" you described in compelling detail the decline of Islamic civilization, and you also described the various efforts that were made by the Islamic countries to counteract this historic trend.

But could you share your thoughts with us on the reasons why Islam declined as a civilization, from the leading civilization in the world to its present state.

PROFESSOR LEWIS: Well, there's no single, simple answer to that. I mean, the decline of a civilization is a very complex process. The historian can examine the evidence and will have great difficulty in distinguishing causes, symptoms and effect. They all interact.

Now the discussion on what went wrong began more than 300 years ago. We can date it very precisely. After the second Turkish defeat in Vienna and the treaty of Karlovitz, of 1699, the first treaty that the Ottomans were forced to sign as a defeated power, they started talking about it. The debate began in the Ottoman governing elite. It spread to the rest of the Turks. It spread from Turkey to other countries. The debate is still going on, in passionate terms, all over the Muslim world. The facts can no longer be concealed or denied.

All kinds of different explanations are offered and I don't think I can give you sort of one short, simple answer. It is a complex change and, well, perhaps one simple, short answer.

The whole of human history has a record of the rise and decline of civilizations. Why should this one be different?

QUESTION: You stated that Turkey will not enter European Union, I mean, that's a very unlikely possibility, and in the same speech you also made statement that Russia will be a power that's going to grow and there is China and India.

PROFESSOR LEWIS: Yes.

QUESTION: In your mind, do you think that Turkey should look to those countries more than to Europe? Should there be a policy change in expanding horizons towards east rather than west?

PROFESSOR LEWIS: I think Turkey has to bring these countries into its calculations for future policies, but as to the main direction, I would look at it differently. Let me put it this way.

More than a thousand years ago, the Turks were still in Central Asia. They were poised between two great civilizations, China and Islam. They made the Western choice. They moved west, they became part, and then the leading part of Islamic civilization.

In the 19th Century, they find themselves again between two civilizations, Islam and Europe. Again they made a Western choice and moved in spirit and in institutions in the direction of Europe.

Now I think they face a third choice between east and west, with the Atlantic as the dividing line. I think that's a good note on which to end.

MR. LACHMAN: Since Professor Lewis has to leave, I think we're going to call it right here. I want to thank everybody for coming, and good day.

[End of closing remarks.]

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