Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 1999, pages 110-115

Waging Peace

CPAP Holds a Conference on the Implications of Re-Declaring a Palestinian State on May 4, 1999

“May 4, 1999: Implications of Declaring the State” was the theme of a symposium held at the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine (CPAP) Jan. 22, 1999. A panel of five experts discussed from their varying perspectives the political and legal significance of May 4, the day the Oslo accord final status talks were to end, and the potential reactions of Israel, the United States and the international community if Palestinian President Yasser Arafat uses the occasion to re-affirm the existence of the Palestinian state originally proclaimed in 1988.

Richard Curtiss, executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, said that U.S. diplomats are telling Palestinian President Yasser Arafat that declaring a Palestinian state before the May 17 and June 1 Israeli elections will get hard-line Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu re-elected and thus cost Arafat the chance of getting any Israeli peace offer he can accept. However, Curtiss said, “experience shows that while the Palestinians keep accepting new delays, incumbent Israeli governments, whether from the Labor or Likud parties, continue building more Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem—all designed to make a two-state Israeli-Palestinian settlement impossible.”

In fact May 4 is an opportunity Palestinian leaders cannot afford to miss, Curtiss said. He argued that re-proclaiming a Palestinian state on May 4 is the best chance Palestinians may ever have to keep the recognition of the 140 members of the United Nations who have recognized an independent Palestinian state since Arafat first proclaimed it on Nov. 15, 1988. “If whatever [Israeli] government is elected in June maintains its occupation or even re-occupies what little territory is presently controlled by the Palestinians, the Palestinians will have little to lose,” Curtiss said. “On the contrary, they will have restated their well-founded claim to the 1967 borders (meaning all of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem), while maintaining the recognition of most of the nations of the world.”

Nasser el-Kidwa, permanent observer of Palestine to the United Nations, noted that one of the options the Palestinians are being advised to follow on May 4 is “to do nothing.” However, he said, “this do nothing option will effectively mean a Palestinian submission to unilateral Israeli will with no time limit. At best it would lead to an unlimited transitional period and at worst a willful subrogation of the Palestinian rights.” Postponing the declaration, according to el-Kidwa, would create the same situation resulting from the do nothing option. The Palestinians, therefore, are left with one option: “to take concrete actions toward the realization of statehood and independence,” el-Kidwa said.

Dr. Gadi Wolfsfeld, senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and a professor of political science and communications at the Hebrew University in Jeru salem, said, “I happen to believe that, in the long term, the peace process is alive and will move forward...Five years from now, the situation will be better rather than worse in terms of mutual recognition and moving toward the two-state solution.”

On the other hand, he said, if a unilateral Palestinian state is declared on May 4, it will give a boost to the chances of Netanyahu, who will make the most of it. “Netanyahu succeeds as long as the peace process and the Palestinians are his main subjects on the electoral agenda,” Wolfsfeld said. “I can say that a declaration of statehood would not make things any better, and I think there is good reason to believe that it would make things much worse.”

Professor John Quigley, of the Ohio State University College of Law, discussed legal aspects of a second declaration of Palestinian statehood. “I come from the proposition that there is a Palestine state that has been in existence now for approximately a decade and that leaves me a bit uncertain as to what the significance is of a new declaration of statehood,” he said. If a Palestinian state is to be re-declared on May 4, this statement should focus very heavily on the 1988 declaration and on the fact that Palestine is a state and that the May 4 declaration is only a re-statement of an existing legal situation.

Raif Zreik, an Arab citizen of Israel and independent lawyer and assistant professor of jurisprudence based in Nazareth, questioned the achievements the Palestinians had gained since the beginning of the peace process. “Do we achieve more the more the peace process goes on, or do we achieve less?” he asked. Zreik argued that the question of declaring a Palestinian state is growing as a terminological issue rather than an issue that would focus on borders, Jerusalem, refugees and other critical questions to the Palestinians.

More than 80 persons attended the symposium. Proceedings are available on the Internet at CPAP’s Web site, www.palestine-center.org

—Raja’ M. Abu-Jabr.

Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine Hosts Geoffrey Aronson

The Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine in Washington, DC, hosted Associate Director Geoffrey Aronson of the Foundation For Middle East Peace on Jan. 13 to discuss “Israeli Elections: The Chances For Peace in a Post-Netanyahu Israel.”

Aronson opened with the disclaimer that no one, including those involved in the process, knows what will happen during the leadup to the May 17 Israeli election. One reason is the epidemic of defections from both the Labor and Likud parties, which he characterized as the capping moments of the internal destruction of the two founding political movements of the Jewish state.

The central focus of the current Israeli campaign, aside from the implosion of Labor and Likud, according to Aronson, is the development of the first viable centrist party in the history of Israeli electoral politics. He listed the contenders for leadership of the centrists as Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, an important aide to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the Oslo negotiations and implementation process; Dan Meridor, former finance minister under Netanyahu; and Ronni Milo, mayor of Tel Aviv.

Aronson saw the serious contenders for the post of prime minister as Ehud Barak for Labor, Binyamin Netanyahu for Likud, and Amnon Lipkin-Shahak or Dan Meridor for the centrist party. (Since Aronson’s talk, however, Defense Minister Yitzhak Mor dechai has left the Likud to join the centrist party and Lipkin-Shahak and Meridor have stepped aside to let him head the centrist ticket.)

Aronson noted that under Israel’s unique election system voters may cast their ballot for a prime minister and then vote for Knesset members of the same party or a different one. The result is the breakdown of major parties into smaller groupings within the legislative body. He explained that if none of the prime ministerial candidates gets 50 percent of the vote, a runoff between the two leading candidates will follow on June 1.

Aronson startled his audience by saying that Netanyahu has been good for the Palestinians and their goals. He explained himself by noting that President Bill Clinton would not have gone to Gaza and the CIA station chief would not be monitoring Palestinian Authority compliance under a Labor government. More controversially, Aronson said that while Netanyahu evacuated Heb ron, former Labor Prime Minister Shimon Peres would not have.

Regarding the borders of any Palestinian state, Aronson said Israel would approach the matter with a plan to box in the Palestinians; the United States would figure out how to accomplish statehood without antagonizing the Israelis; and the Palestinian Authority would work on how to maximize a state without antagonizing the United States.

Aronson argued that Ehud Barak and his Labor Party would in fact be a liability to the ambitions of the Palestinian Authority, as the United States would take all pressure off a Labor government in its dealings with the PA. Aronson’s one allowance to Labor, however, was that it might make more progress on Syrian peace talks than Likud. Part of Labor’s strategy vis-à-vis the Arab world is to incorporate the Arab states around Israel into a form of regional alliance to combat rogue states in the region, an idea to which Likud does not subscribe.

Aronson closed by noting that one idea of Israeli politicians is to make the runner-up in the election for prime minister Israel’s defense minister, and then form a coalition government which would exclude officials to the left and the right of the center.

—Michael S. Lee

“Jerusalem Women Speak” Tour Succeeds Despite Attrition

The second in a series of “Jerusalem Women Speak” tours started Jan. 7 in New York City in snow, ice and biting wind with Nahla Asali, Michal Shohat and Fatin Muhawi meeting with the Council on Foreign Relations. The morning meeting marked the first time the Council heard from a three-women, three-faith, two-nations group from Israel-Palestine and was very warmly received. Their New York program, arranged and sponsored by Washington, DC-based Partners for Peace, included seven radio appearances and a reception/forum at the New York Lawyers Association.

The women’s short visit to the District of Columbia included a visit at the Department of State with Theresa Loar, head of the President’s Interagency Council on Women. There was a luncheon on Jan. 12 attended by 200, arranged by Partners for Peace and hosted by the Finnish Embassy and the Jewish Peace Lobby, Peace Links, Search for Common Ground, Seeds of Peace, Washington World Affairs Council, Women’s Action for New Directions, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Legislative Office and Women Strike for Peace. The three women also spoke at the DC Jewish Community Center as a part of the center’s Beyond Borders project, which focuses on the human dimension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The DC program concluded with a reception in the House Rayburn Building Foyer which was sponsored by Representatives Ray LaHood (R-IL), Connie Morella (R-MD), Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), James Moran (D-VA), DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Senators Spencer Abraham (R-MI) and Paul Wellstone (D-MN).

Government of Israel lobbying was heavy, and both Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) withdrew their sponsorship only a few days before the event.

Michal Shohat, the Jewish Israeli woman on the first Jerusalem Women team, started the second tour but had to return to Israel because she is running for the Knesset and the campaign is already in full swing. Irus Braverman, a Jerusalem lawyer who currently is in the United States on a New Israel Fund grant to study and work with environmentalists, graciously agreed to take Sho hat’s place for the California portion of the trip. Braverman was immediately initiated into the grueling schedule as the group stopped at the Orange County KOCE-TV station for an interview en route to a World Affairs Council of Orange County reception and dinner meeting attended by 400 people. The trio departed at 7 the next morning to drive to Santa Barbara, where they had a full-day program which included addressing two high school audiences, a reception at the Jewish Federation Building and a Forum presentation to a packed house at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

In spite of laryngitis and an ear infection, Fatin Muhawi bravely continued the schedule until a family crisis arose at home and she was sent off to Jerusalem a day before the tour ended. In the meantime, the women were interviewed by newspapers, taped a television program at Century Cable with Bill Rosendahl and a radio program for KPFK (Pacifica Radio) hosted by Don Bustany, had dinner with a group of Arab-American women and gave a forum presentation at the Leo Baeck Synagogue in Los Angeles.

They wound up their 10-day tour with a forum at the San Marino Community Church, where Irus Braverman and tour organizer Jerri Bird of Partners for Peace represented the now-diminished team. During the 10 days, millions of Americans heard from the three women the details of day-to-day life in Jerusalem and the occupied areas of Palestine. They expressed their anger over the politicization of human rights, their fears of violence (both state and individual) and their eagerness to complete the peace process and begin nation building.

—Jerri Bird

Annual MESA Meeting in Chicago Celebrates Prof. Edward Said

The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) held its annual meeting in Chicago Dec. 3-6, 1998. Over the course of these four days academics and students took part in panel discussions on a wide range of issues, ranging from “Qur’anic Hermeneutics: Past and Present” to “Developments in Iran.” One of the high points of the conference was the Plenary Session, on Dec. 5, entitled “Orientalism: 20 Years Later.” In a retrospective look at Professor Edward Said’s landmark book, Orientalism, Dr. Said himself was the plenary speaker, but he was preceded by four Middle East experts who discussed the effect Orientalism has had on various academic disciplines.

Dr. Rashid I. Khalidi, of the University of Chicago, described “Views from the Arab World and the Social Sciences,” on Orientalism. He opened with the observation that Orientalism depicted how the West relates to the East, and had its greatest impact on the fields of anthropology and history. He said that Orientalism had a powerful effect on the study of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African history, and that many people in the Arab world, particularly academics, appreciated the truths which Said, through Orientalism , was trying to reveal.

Khalidi posed the question, “Did the book create a greater understanding of the subject in the Arab world?” and answered it with a no. He noted that the Middle East has no centers for the study of North America, Europe and the West, while there are thousands of organizations in the West which study the Middle East.

The second speaker was Leila Abu-Lug hod of New York University, who discussed Orientalism from the perspective of “Re-orienting Culture and Gender: Views from Anthropology and Feminist Studies.” She explained that Orientalism is attuned to issues of gender and sexuality, with stereotypes of Muslim and Middle Eastern women having done much to damage Western images of the Middle East, an issue with which Said deals in the book. Abu-Lughod discussed the fact that scholars have been debating whether early 20th century feminism was indigenous to the Middle East or was a foreign import.

Third to speak was Gabriel Piterberg, of Israel’s Ben-Gurion University, who interpreted Orientalism through “Orientalism and ‘Orientals’ in Zionist/Israeli Culture.” He stated that Orientalism is universal, with Israeli Zionism actually an Orientalist movement. He took as a case study the removal of Yemeni Jews from the Kinneret settlement near Galilee in the 1920s by European Jews, who were attempting to maximize their share of water resources. In relating this, Piterberg noted that he was attempting to show that Zionists have ignored the plight of those they have had to trample over, and thus exhibited the same traits which Said condemns the West for in its treatment of and perceptions of the Middle East in Orientalism.

The final speaker before Said responded was Homi Bhabha, of the University of Chicago, who discussed “Orientalism and Its Others.” Bhabha, with a flair for the existential, discussed the philosophical and ontological aspects of looking out for the “other,” an ethical responsibility which Orientalism discusses.

Finally, Said took his place at the podium to discuss both the ideas brought forward by the panel and his own impressions of the work he crafted two decades earlier. Noting that the book still had a strong following, which he found very humbling, he said that at the time he was writing Orientalism his wife, Maryam, was worried about the destruction of her homeland of Lebanon, a time which he relived as he reread his creation.

He stated that the central issue of his book is the whole question of liberation and freedom, with man born in chains and always trying to go beyond that.

On the subject of the Middle East, Said stated that the politics of the last five years since Oslo have seen the continuation of loss, with no one dealing with the problem of alienation and dispossession. He noted that although Yasser Arafat says he wants to declare a Palestinian state on May 4, 1999, he already did that 10 years ago, on Nov. 15, 1988. This, Said said, is “declaring your own just for the sake of declaring your own.”

—Michael S. Lee

Peace and Justice Foundation Organizes Demonstration

The Peace and Justice Foundation of Washinton, DC held a demonstration Dec. 18 in front of the U.S. Justice Department to call attention to the civil and human rights abuses impacting the Muslim-American community. The demonstration took on a sense of urgency as bombs began to fall over Iraq. Among the speakers were Betty Molchany, a Washington lawyer specializing in human rights abuses; Kit Gage, from the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom; Abderrahim Sabir from Amnesty International; Richard Curtiss, executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs; Dr. Kaukab Siddique, editor of New Trend; Imam Mohammed al-Asi, an elected imam in Washington, DC; and Mauri’ Saalakhan, executive director of the Peace and Justice Foundation and organizer of the demonstration.

Speakers focused on the domestic and foreign policy implications of U.S. military attacks on predominantly Muslim countries; the selective and constitutionally questionable use of secret evidence against Arabs and Muslims in America; and America’s treatment of asylum seekers.

—Delinda Hanley

Galia Golan Discusses Israeli Politics at MEI

Hebrew University Professor Galia Golan spoke Jan. 13 at the Middle East Institute on the “Wye Accord and its implementation for the peace process and Israeli domestic politics.”

Golan opted not to talk about the Wye accord in any detail, since it was suspended so rapidly after the signing on Oct. 23, 1998. According to her, only pressure from the U.S. and the threat of war on May 4, 1999 prompted Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to sign the agreement.

Measures designed to Judaize East Jerusalem have accelerated in the past two years, Golan noted. The Israeli government revokes Palestinian identity cards, denies building permits to Palestinians, and will not permit spouses of Arab residents of East Jerusalem to reside there.

Golan’s discussion of Israeli domestic politics began with the 1996 election of Binyamin Netanyahu as prime minister. At the time of his election, 65 percent of Israelis favored the Oslo accords and saw the peace process as irreversible. They thought that perhaps Netanyahu could slow it down in order to get them a better deal, Golan said, but they did not think he could stop the peace process.

However, she continued, Israeli disillusionment with Netanyahu has increased over the past two years as unemployment rose, tourism declined, and foreign investments diminished. In the past year, Israel has become more isolated from the global economy. Golan also noted that “people have not felt safer over the past two years.”

Rising religious-secular tension also has created political distress in Israel, causing a loss of confidence and trust in political leadership. Golan described a dangerous estrangement between Israeli security forces and the prime minister’s office. She added that the Wye agreement presented a serious blow to the right-wing ideology of a greater Israel, yet 81 percent of the Israelis supported the accord.

Golan stressed the importance of public opinion in Israeli politics, noting a gradual shift to the left since 1967. “The intifada had an enormous effect on Israeli public opinion,” she said. During the intifada, Israeli citizens began to understand the problems involved with holding on to occupied territory. The Israelis in favor of relinquishing the territories, however, were primarily concerned with their own well-being and security, not Palestinian rights.

Regarding the possibility of Palestinian statehood, Golan said, “Last week 55 percent of Israelis supported the idea of a Palestinian state and the removal of some settlements. I remember when it was 2 percent and went up to 7 percent and that was a big deal.” Now 70 percent of Israelis currently believe that there will be a Palestinian state, she added.

In speculating on the outcome of the upcoming Israeli elections, Golan listed a number of reasons why Netanyahu may be re-elected. Netanyahu has already started campaigning and will play on Israeli fears, as he has done previously, she said. He also possesses more charisma than his opponent, Labor Party leader Ehud Barak. Nevertheless, the strong party allegiances prevalent in Israel have resulted in a virtual tie between the Labor and Likud ever since 1977, Golan said, making it very difficult to predict the election’s outcome.

—Samia El-Mahdi

Voices in the Wilderness Contest Iraq Sanctions

Voices in the Wilderness (VitW), a Chicago-based humanitarian organization, faces fines totaling $163,000 for delivering donated goods, including medical supplies and toys, to war-torn Iraq. At a Dec. 30 news conference VitW volunteer Rick McDowell described the events that led up to U.S. government action against the group. Under U.S. law, trade with Iraq and travel to the country without U.S. government permission are illegal.

On Dec. 15, VitW notified U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno of its intentions to publicly challenge the morality and legality of the economic embargo against the civilian population in Iraq. Next, David Harmon from OFAC warned the campaign to stop unauthorized missions because “criminal penalties for violating the regulations range up to 12 years in prison and $1 million in fines” and “civil penalties of up to $250,000 per violation.”

Civil disobedience, which is technical violation of the law to serve important social values, is an honorable tradition in the United States, the group reminded press conference attendees in its literature packets. VitW coordinator Kathy Kelly, who returned Dec. 29 from the group’s 19th delegation to Iraq, stated that “with respect to the enforcement of this embargo, we are conscientious objectors. We will not allow the U.S. government, in the name of democracy or national security, to order us to cooperate with a strategy designed to starve the people of Iraq, to deprive them of medicine and medical supplies, or any of the essentials necessary to sustain daily life.”

Kelly continued: “We will not consent to pay any fine. We simply reject the government’s contention that we cannot carry medicine to the sick, and assert that it is a greater evil to let the children die.”

Kelly described her February 1998 visit to the Al-Mansour children’s wing of the main medical center, which she called “death row for infants.” Friyal, a 7-month-old baby, was in cardiac arrest after a simple infection. Before her eyes the doctor brought the infant back to life, Kelly said. But then, she said, “The doctor told the baby’s mother that he did not have a small enough oxygen mask or tube to keep the baby alive. ‘This child will be with you for an hour.’ All the mothers in the room wept as I sat with the mother on her bed and watched her baby die.”

Kelly described how, ever since a missile fell in the living room of another Iraqi’s home north of Basra on Christmas day as his five children slept, his children are afraid to go to sleep. Kelly concluded with that Iraqi father’s message to America: “Have mercy on us. Enough is enough.”

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton from Detroit recalled a gospel lesson he’d taught at Christmas about another political leader almost 2,000 years ago who thought it was ‘in the national interest’ to kill all males two years old and younger in his domain. Gumbleton argued that there is no way to justify the indiscriminate use of violence against a generation of Iraqi children now.

Bishop Gumbleton said that nothing he had seen or read could have prepared him for the near apocalyptic results of eight and a half years of the U.S. embargo on the most vulnerable in Iraq. On one trip to Iraq he met an 11-year-old boy who had been hit by shrapnel in the Gulf war when he was only three. “The right side of his face was scarred, with his eye torn out, and he was blind in his other eye. He was lucky. His little friend had been killed. He told me, ‘Go back to the U.S. and ask your president not to bomb us again.’”

Father Simon Harak began his remarks by saying, “I’d like to remind you of things you already know.” In all religions God asks us to do unto others as we would have done unto ourselves. “Jesus said when you help a poor person you are caring for me. In the Qur’an if you save one person you save the world.” Harak said it was morally imperative for Americans of all religions to help the people of Iraq. Harak was sure that if ordinary American people knew about this slaughter of innocents, they would make it stop.

Jerry Berrigan, who had been to Iraq on several missions, charged that America’s cultural memory is only two weeks long. Then he issued a challenge to the media to just report what they heard at this news conference to the American people and not put a slant or interpretation on their words.

It appears that not many reporters took him up on his challenge. This reporter saw only one newspaper story, and I had to check the date to make sure it was about the same press conference I attended. For more information on Voices in the Wilderness visit their Web site: www.nonviolence.org/vitw or call (773) 784-8065.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Anthony Cordesman Discusses Operation Desert Fox at CSIS

The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC hosted a Jan. 22 briefing by its senior fellow for strategic assessment, Anthony Cordesman, entitled “The Iraqi Threat After Desert Fox.”

Cordesman asserted that while the sanctions gripping Iraq for the ninth consecutive year are economically and humanely damaging to the Iraqi people, it is unquestionable that they are limiting a still very real military threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussain. He predicted that if sanctions were lifted, the Iraqi regime would rapidly rebuild its military capability.

He explained that Iraq’s ratio of military expenditures to the total national budget is currently higher than it was in the United States during World War II. He said that one-quarter to one-third of Iraq’s GDP is going to the military. To demonstrate that the current sanctions regime is not the only factor in the destitution of the Iraqi populace, Cordesman said that even before either the Iran-Iraq war or Operation Desert Storm, under Saddam Hussain’s rule Iraq’s per capita income had already dropped by 80 percent.

With Operation Desert Fox, Cordesman said that the United States had shown Saddam Hussain that it could strike at his regime with precision while causing very little “collateral damage,” meaning civilian casualties and damage to the non-military infrasturcture. The flip side of the most recent strikes is that they did not significantly affect the Iraqi military. While a surface-to-air (SAM) missile factory was destroyed, Cordesman said, 95 to 97 percent of Iraq’s air defense system is still intact. In addition, he explained that while 600 to 1,000 Republican Guard troops were most likely killed, in a force of 80,000 men, the number is not terribly significant.

If the United States were to end its presence in the region, Iraq could roll into Kuwait City in about the same time it took in 1990, Cordesman said. His point was that while weakened, the Iraqi armed forces are still the most potent military establishment in the Persian Gulf region, aside from the United States. He was contemptuous of the idea that policymakers actually believe that some form of paramilitary group could have any chance of overtly overthrowing Saddam Hussain’s regime. That being said, he allowed that internal threats to the Iraqi regime’s power are much more credible.

Cordesman charged that Iraq continues to work on weapons of mass destruction, an activity that he feels is not necessarily regime-dependent. The Iraqi strategy to maintain regional military dominance will most likely remain in place after the departure of Saddam Hussain from the picture. He closed with the bleak assessment that even when some eventual successor regime takes power in Iraq and begins to decrease military expenditures, it will take decades for the Iraqi people to recover from the damage such spending has done to the economy of Iraq.

—Michael S. Lee

Paul Henze Discusses Turkey at MEI

The Middle East Institute hosted a lecture on Turkey on Jan. 21 featuring author and scholar Paul B. Henze. Henze’s discussion of Turkey focused on the elements within Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s reign that led to his success as a leader, which Henze labeled, “What Ataturk Did Not Do.”

The first factor addressed was Ataturk’s policy of avoiding antagonistic nationalism. Henze explained, “He made his people proud to be called Turks, encouraged them to be conscious of their past, and persuaded them that they could have a great future,” Henze said. “But he avoided the kind of hateful and aggressive nationalism that infected all of Eastern Europe between the wars and bedevils the Balkans still, to say nothing of the Arab world.”

According to Henze, the second thing Ataturk avoided was laying claims to the Ottoman Empire’s old territories or to ideas advocating the restoration of the empire. Ataturk believed that the Turks would prosper from developing the land they had rather than trying to establish their rule over the Turks residing in the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.

Henze also attributed Ataturk’s achievements to his incorporation of both state-led economics and private enterprise during Turkey’s development and modernization process. In the 1920s and ’30s, Turkey had no International Monetary Fund or World Bank upon which it could rely for development assistance. Therefore, as Henze explained, “Ataturk had to resort to governmental initiative. He built a system of state economic enterprises, but he did not idealize them or develop a body of dogma to justify their dominance.” Also, “private enterprise expanded in Ataturk’s Turkey to the point where half the country’s GDP was being generated by the private sector.”

The last facet Henze discussed was Ataturk’s non-glorification of the military and political leadership. Although a career military officer, Ataturk never allowed his country to come under military rule and, in fact, cautioned against military intervention in state politics. Instead, Ataturk labored to introduce into Turkey a democratic framework with a functioning two-party system.

Henze concluded his talk by briefly discussing the legacy Ataturk left Turkey in its quest for democracy. As Turkey moves into the 21st century, it will have to build upon its democratic foundations and move away from a preoccupation with the mechanics of maintaining power Henze said.

Simply put, the Turkish Republic must continue on the path of its founder and engage in a serious decentralization of the political process and a thoughtful restructuring of the political system.

During the question-and-answer period, a Kurdish activist questioned the characterization of Ataturk as a democratic leader opposed to aggressive forms of nationalism. He stated that Ataturk’s attitude toward the Kurds had been far from benign and had, in fact resulted in the deaths of 40,000 Kurds. He also stated that the excessive veneration of Ataturk by Turkey had resulted in the creation of a dysfunctional political system.

A lively discussion also arose among audience members concerning Turkey’s religious parties and their leaders. Most felt that the popularity of Islamist parties was less an expression of dissatisfaction with Turkey’s political process than a positive reaction to the ability of the religious parties to answer needs of local communities.

—Sadia Razaq