Saldıray'dan Memleket Manzaraları

Birkaç gazetede Abdullah Gül’ün 1998′de Christian Science Monitor’idan Scott Paterson’a verdiği demeci cumhurbaşkanlığı seçimi öncesinde tekrar gündeme geldi. Daha önce de 1995′te Jonathan Rugman ile yaptığı bir röportajı ile laik çevreler tarafından eleştirilmişti Abdullah Gül.

Yine sevgili okurlarım için araştırdım buldum. Sağdan soldan dandik gazetelerden kırpılmış şekilde okumayın diye aşağıda röportajın Türkçe tercümesini yaptım. Zayıf olan İngilizce’me güvenmeyenler için de İngilizce aslını yazının sonuna koydum. Benim gördüğüm fazla yeni bir fikir açılımı yok, eskilerden bir demet sunmuş Abdullah Gül abimiz.

Mini Etekler ve Çarşaflar Camiler Arasında Yürüyebilir Mi? (20 Ocak 199

Türkiye’nin İslamcı Refah Partisi’nin mirasçıların listesinin başında eski devlet bakanı ve partinin ılımlı sesi Abdullah Gül var.

Yeni şekliyle varlığını sürdürebilmesi için İslamcı partinin, laik düşmanlarının Türkiye’nin İslami bir devrimin eşiğinde olduğuna dair korkularını yatıştırması gerekecek.

Sayın Gül’e göre bu korkular partinin gerçek amaçlarının abartılmasından kaynaklanıyor.

Gül’e göre partisinin istediği kadınlara İslami kıyafetleri zorla giydirmek, zorla İslami eğitim vermek veya İslam kanunları empoze etmek yerine Türkiye’de Batı ve İslami geleneklerin sentezi ve karşılıklı saygısı. Bazı radikal Refah çevrelerinde Türkiye’nin yıllardır süregelen laik geleneğinin geri çevrilmesi isteniliyorsa da Gül “Türban ve mini eteğin el ele yürümesinden” bahsediyor.

Bunun karşısında, ordu ve laik elitler çoğu zaman kendilerine İslam’ın açıkça kendini göstermesini engellemeyi görev biliyorlar - mesela devlet dairelerinde İslami kıyafet giymek yasak.

Sayın Gül “Bunlar laik elit tabaka değil, bunlar din karşıtı” diyor meclisteki ofisindeki röportajımızda. “Bunlar ateizm diye başka bir din yaratmaya çalışıyorlar. Asıl tolerans göstermeyenler laik insanlar, kendi hayat tarzlarını burada empoze etmeye çalışıyorlar.”

“Bütün bunları Batı dünyası için yapıyorlar ama Batı ülkelerine bakarsanız hiçbirinde böyle değil” diyor. “Bu ülkede bir partiyi kapatıyorlar ama bu parti mecliste en büyük grup olmaya devam edecek, yazık değil mi. Utanç verici.”

Gül Refah Partisi’nin liderlerinin iktidarda geçirdikleri bir yıl boyunca hatalar yaptığını kabul ediyor ama hiçbirinin kanunları çiğnemediğini iddia ediyor. Gül, İslamcı Başbakan Necmettin Erdoğan’ın Ramazan ayında verdiği iftarın Anayasa Mahkemesi’nin partiye kapatma kararındaki faktörlerden birisi oluşuna işaret ediyor.

“Bu ülkede bilge bir politikacı bunu yapmaz, çünkü bu olay başka bir şekilde yorumlanabilir” diyor Gül. “Ve bu ve buna benzer hatalarımızı Refah Partisi’ni kapatmak için kullanıyorlar. Bunlar politik açıdan yanlış hareketler olabilirler ama hiçbiri kanunsuz veya yasadışı hareketler değiller.”

Gül nüfusa göre belediyelerin üçte ikisinin Refah Partisi tarafından yönetildiğine ve icraatlerinin beğenildiğine dikkat çekiyor.

Ama bazı {laik} çevreler bize çok kötü bir imaj yaftalamak istiyorlar, çünkü bizimle rekabet edemiyorlar.” “Vatandaşlara hizmet etmeyi beceremediler, ve öz güvenlerini geri kazanmak için kendilerini kanıtlayacakları yerde bizi gayrimeşru göstermeye çalışıyorlar”

Eğer bizimle rekabet etmek istiyorsanız, malınızı satmayı (öğrenin)”

Can Miniskirts And Veils Walk Amid Mosques?

Scott Peterson, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

479 words

20 January 1998

The Christian Science Monitor
High on the list of likely successors to the old guard of Turkey’s pro-Islam Welfare Party is Abdullah Gul, a former minister of state who is a moderate voice of the party.

To survive in a new form, the reworked Islamist party will be required to ease hard-line views that cause its secular enemies to fear that Turkey is ripe for Islamic revolution.

Such fears blow the party’s real and legitimate aims out of proportion, Mr. Gul says.

What his party wants is not enforced Islamic dress on women, enforced Islamic education, or imposed Islamic law, Gul contends, but a melding - and mutual respect - of the joint Western and Islamic traditions in Turkey. Though some Welfare hard-liners have called for turning Turkey’s decades-long secular tradition on its head, Gul speaks of the “Islamic headscarf and the miniskirt walking hand in hand.”

The military and secular elite, in their turn, often interpret their role as one that must prevent any overt manifestation of Islam - wearing Islamic dress in government offices is forbidden, for instance.

“They are not the ’secular elite,’ they are anti-religious,” says Gul, in an interview in his parliament office. “They want to create another religion, which is atheism. It’s the secular people who are not tolerant, and they want to impose their lifestyle here.

“They do all this for the sake of the Western world, but if you look at Western countries none of them are like that,” he says. “Isn’t it a shame for this country that they are closing the party, and still the party will continue as the largest group in parliament. It’s very shameful.”

Gul admits that Welfare leaders made mistakes during their year in power, but rejects that any of them broke the law. He points to the case of Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan giving an iftar dinner party during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan - one of the examples used by the High Court in deciding to ban the party.

“In this country, maybe the wise politician wouldn’t do this, because it would be interpreted in a certain way,” he says. “But these are the kind of mistakes they are using to shut Welfare down. Maybe they are politically wrong, but none of them are unlawful or illegal.”

Two-thirds of the population is ruled locally by Welfare officials, he notes, and their work is largely appreciated.

“But certain {secular} circles create a very bad image of us - because they can’t compete with Welfare,” Gul says. “They failed to serve the people, to get their confidence, so instead of proving themselves they are playing us as illegitimate.

“If you want to compete with us, OK,” he adds. “Sell your goods.”

Abdulah Gul’un1995′te yaptigi cok tepki ceken reportajin orjinal metnini asagida yayimliyorum. Factiva adli parali bir haber servisinden arayip buldum, kelimesine dokunmadim, Abdullah Gul’un meshur sozlerini kalin harflerle yazdim.

TURKISH ISLAMISTS AIM FOR POWER. By Jonathan Rugman.

27 November 1995, The Guardian

ABDULLAH GUL is dressed in a well-cut suit and tie. The MP may be the deputy leader of Turkey’s Islamic revivalist Welfare Party, Refah, but he speaks good English and seems to have been schooled within the political traditions of the West.

Such is his charm that Mr Gul is often given the task of explaining Welfare’s policies to suspicious foreigners. Yet his message is unmistakably radical, a direct challenge to Turkey’s unique status as the only secular democracy among 52 Muslim countries.

“This is the end of the republican period,” Mr Gul says flatly. “If 60% of Ankara’s population is living in shacks, then the secular system has failed and we definitely want to change it.”

With a general election less than a month away, and Welfare performing well in the opinion polls, Mr Gul’s message cannot be ignored.

An opinion poll by the True Path Party of the prime minister, Tansu Ciller, puts the Islamists in second place, 3% behind True Path, while other parties rank Welfare first.

Last year Welfare made sweeping gains in local elections, winning the mayoralties of Ankara and Istanbul and 20% of the vote. Next month it is aiming for 30% - enough to form Turkey’s next government.

That percentage will probably be difficult to achieve, because of the vote is fragmented between numerous left and rightwing secular parties, which have, however, not united to combat Welfare.

Fifteen years after the last military coup, many Turks are disillusioned with the failure of secular politicians to tackle their mounting social and economic grievances. Analysts agree that Welfare will attract a large protest vote.

“They are a serious political force,” said a Western diplomat in Ankara. “Very purposeful, very organised. They are preying upon real structural problems that need to be solved. If Welfare comes to power, will it still be one man, one vote?”

The party says it wants to abolish un-Islamic bank interest rates and pull Turkish troops out of the war zone of the mainly Kurdish south-east, where vague talk of “Muslim brotherhood” between Turks and Kurds has won it much support.

Mrs Ciller is standing on a rightwing law and order platform, with leading security chiefs standing beside her as candidates. She has taken tea with religious leaders and is anxious to present herself as a good Muslim. But in Europe she presents the election as a straightforward contest between pro-Western reformers and Islamic fundamentalism.

Her opposition to fundamentalism has won her broad secular establishment support, including that of Cefi Kamhi, an Istanbul industrialist and the first Turkish Jew attempting to enter parliament since 1957. “I see Welfare as the major challenger,” Mr Kamhi says.

Welfare’s leader, Necmettin Erbakan, is vehemently anti-Jewish and has blamed Christian Armenians for Turkey’s social ills.

“Europe is a continent of drug addicts - a cauldron of intrigue and oppression,” Mr Erbakan said recently, describing Welfare’s mission to “forge the world unity of Islam and rescue the West”.

Oguzhan Asilturk, one of 38 Welfare MPs in the 440-seat parliament, refuses to rule out the possible introduction of Islamic sharia law, because, he says, he does not want to hurt the feelings of Welfare’s supporters.

At the municipal level, Welfare has been more restrained - championing headscarves against mini-skirts, promising to ban prostitution, describing ballet as indecent, demolishing “obscene” statues and painting bollards in Istanbul an Islamic green.