Progressive secularism and moderate Islam. Extortion called bail. Human nature, equality and those in charge of leveling.
 
1. Its phrasing did not quite reveal why Turkey’s vote, on September 12, had a significance that transcended the affairs of that often ignored country. Even if it is not quite PC to talk about it, the vote has implications. On top of the list stands the European Union which, under the pressure of the indigenous Left and the USA, is being nudged to accept Turkey as a member. Of greater significance is what the results tell about the prospects and stability of states intending to be secular democracies that happen to have a Muslim population. Beyond that, crucial scenarios regarding the future of the Caucasus-Black Sea and Caspian regions are affected by the decision.

On the surface, the Turks had to decide the fate of a new constitution. Officially, the case put forward had democratic plating. The new basic law was to replace the one that the soldiers, which ran the country in the 1980s, had imposed. According to the draft, the military’s privileged position in politics is to be reduced. Furthermore, the judicial system’s personnel become dependent of parliament. That body is to determine the appointment of judges and it is the legislature that will make the appointments to the enlarged constitutional court of the country.

In fact, if one considers motives and hidden agendas, the matter is more opaque than the foregoing would suggest. Much is concealed behind the plucking of the military’s feathers. The same applies to the new, legislature-appointed composition of the highest court that is there to protect the modern system.

Whatever the reader’s views regarding politics made by soldiers, and the judiciary’s independence might be: not only abstract principles but also local conditions should be considered. The founder of modern Turkey was an officer. In Atatürk’s analysis, backward institutions, a matching culture, and the corresponding way of life were the cause of the country’s weakness in 1918. These burdening characteristics he saw as being rooted in Islam. (The deposed Sultans were also heading the state religion.) Therefore, Atatürk’s new Turkey became laicistic to the extent that it strived for modernity. Accordingly, the break with the past by privatizing religion was to facilitate modernization. In charge of this new way was the military whose officers had a relatively modern education.

Erdogan and his party claim to be representatives of moderate Islam. As such, his party nibbled away some of Atatürk’s reforms. In the vote, the real and unstated issue was the choice between an open turn to Islam and the retention of a secular system. Therefore, the advanced areas of Turkey voted “no” on the constitution and thereby registered a “yes” in favor of continued modernization.

The new constitution’s support –and the nod in favor of Islamism- came from the backward provinces. Time will demonstrate whether the professing moderates, especially if the country is not admitted to the European Union, will continue to drift along the Prophet’s path. If so, the early signs that confirm that Islam and modernity do not mix well will gain emphasis. Washington and Brussels congratulate Ankara to “the minarets are our missiles” Erdogan’s victory. This official enthusiasm might represent a disconnect with the facts on the ground.

2. Finally, Iran has released a female member of the trio that foolishly decided to do some mountain climbing right on the Iranian border. Under murky circumstances they were captured –or is kidnapped the better word? The charge, following an old Soviet recipe, became espionage. The scheme must have been a devilishly shrewd one. The innocent observer detects at the venue of apprehension nothing except bare peaks. The adventure-seeking lady has been freed on bail. The Swiss - as neutrals they represent America in Tehran -  were raising and transferring the money. The bad, because precedent- confirming part of the story is that, the posting of bail does not conclude the story. The script that has been followed in this case too, makes those released on bail leave the country and forfeit the money. Therefore, the end of the story is not a happy end. And the bail is no bail but extortion.

3. Democratic individualists –adherents of progressive conservatism- hold that all men are equal in that they are different. These differences are nature given. As such, they are also a symptom of a quality that defines us as individuals and therefore as human beings. Flowing from these assumptions, the differences that define us personally are seen as constituting something precious. This is so to the extent that one of the primary purposes of government, and the duty of the governors, is to protect it. Therefore, a protected basic right is the right to be as different from others as we think it to be proper –as long as this does not diminish the basic rights of our piers. Putting it differently, the summary could be “as divergent as desired and as safe in that condition as possible.”

Here the modern bureaucracies that are dedicated to the enforcement of equality enter the picture. No state –whether limited or omnipresent- is possible without them. This poses a fundamental problem. Even if not in the service of a system committed primarily to leveling, the bureaucrat’s instinct is to apply the power that comes with his office and function. The task given to the bureaucrat is to handle all of us the same regardless of the differences that prevail between men. This means that he is encouraged to make all men alike so that they can be made equal. This is the point where individualism and equality, as imposed by the office in charge, clash. Often a component of this conflict is that our free will, our reason and the office’ standard order of procedures wind up at odds.

4. Equality imposed by government machinery has its quirks. Even if the same rules are applied to all, there will continue to be divergent outcomes. Some will thrive and others will fall behind. If compared to the spontaneous order of principled non-interference, all that will have changed is that success and failure, will to a considerable extent be the result of policy and parameters created by a bureaucracy. We can only guarantee identical achievement by equalizing all of us with the resulting unequal rights for all. In the practical execution of such projects, the price paid will be the privileged inequality of the applicators.

Do we wish to adjust to the challenge of a changing world and the conditions that it imposes upon us? Or do we opt for the protection from competitors that represent a response to a world in motion? It might be better to accept the risks inherent in competition than to opt in favor of the immunity from rivals because that will stifle all and favor the unproductive that are well connected to the engineers of our order.

5. Have the attempts to change the natural and organic course of human events been interrupted by actions that aim to change their direction? Apparently inchoate reality created uncertainties. These challenged our desire for the security that radiates out of the predictable. The response determined the modern era of our development.

We are inclined to want a simple explanation for a complex reality. Change makes not only the workings of the place where we are located physically hard to grasp. When we look around through our ever wider scanning binoculars, we discover that the little centers around which other local worlds churn, appear to operate according to divergent principles and that they do so in the pursuit of confusing ends. Modern times have extended the boundaries of the world of which we can be aware with our limited span of attention. Subjectively the world becomes larger because we see ever more of it. Not only has the extent of the field we are enabled to view grown. Subjects, earlier kept private have become, as the boulevard press proves, public. Our ancestors might have suffered from a lack of information. Today we have to protect ourselves from contradictory and unrelated data, which we are, due to its volume, unable to digest. Just think here of the pages in the Sunday paper you discard unread and the announced disaster you ignore in favor of your expected pet calamity.

Acting to regain our controlling comprehension over our surroundings, also to overcome the distractions of the age of complexity, we hunt for a simple formula that can bring order into the chaos. We are seeking something that restores visibility while we appear to submerge in pea soup. The result is the spread of utopias. Sometimes these take the form of traditional religion, most frequently they emerge as secular faiths based, as our prejudice demands, on something that looks like science. Accordingly, the age of multiplicity and complexity provoked the age of ideology.