VIEW FROM ABROAD: Turkey’s role in the German election
SPARE a thought for Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor: she faces a tough re-election challenge later this year, but is dogged by charges of having opened the doors into the country too wide for mostly Syrian refugees.
A new wave of refugees — currently being blocked by Turkey — would alter the current electoral calculus as Turkey’s unpredictable president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is threatening to unleash another flood of asylum-seekers. A number of events and incidents have pushed Turkish-German relations to their lowest point in years, and Erdogan says he might hit back by allowing more Syrian refugees to enter Europe.
The immediate irritant is the refusal by several German cities to permit political rallies by Erdogan and his ministers who would like to drum up support for the referendum scheduled for next month. This vote would determine the future of Turkey as it seeks to transform the country into a presidential state, and give Erdogan unprecedented powers. Using last year’s failed coup to crush his opponents, Erdogan has pushed through the proposal to hold a referendum in a weakened parliament that has signed its own death warrant.
There are some four million Turks living in Germany today; around 1.5 million of them hold dual German and Turkish citizenship, and are thus eligible to vote in the referendum. Erdogan has been infuriated at being told that he and his AK Party colleagues cannot hold rallies to address Turks living in German cities. The federal government insists these are purely local and state decisions that have nothing to do with Berlin, but the Turkish president is convinced that this is evidence that Germany doesn’t want him to win the referendum.
The huge Turkish presence in Germany dates back to 1961 when the Berlin Wall came up, preventing East Germans from working in West German factories. On Oct 30, 1961, Turkey and Germany signed an agreement permitting Turks to come to Germany as ‘guest workers’ for a period of two years. But under pressure from German employers who resented losing workers shortly after they had been trained, this condition was withdrawn. This path into German became a highway in 1974 when family reunification rights were granted, and between 1974 and 1988, the number of Turks in Germany nearly doubled.
Another element in the ongoing tensions is the detention of Deniz Yucel, a German-Turk journalist who has been accused of having links with terrorists. The basis for this charge is an interview Yucel conducted with a Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) commander for his German newspaper, Die Welt. Yucel had also been reporting on the ongoing Turkish military operation against Kurds. In jail awaiting his trial, Yucel has become a symbol of Turkish persecution of journalists. The country currently has the highest number of journalists in jail anywhere in the world. The German foreign office has denounced the arrest, and Merkel has termed it “bitter and disappointing”.
As the number of Turks living in German cities has mounted, so has the resentment against a minority with a different religion and culture. Turks continue to face discrimination when looking for jobs. Several nationalist groups spew anti-Muslim vitriol, especially in the wake of the recent exodus of Syrian, Iraqi and Afghan refugees.
But relations between Germany and the Ottomans were very good until the defeat of their alliance in the First World War. The Turks lost an empire, and a generation of German youth was decimated. Even back in the 18th century, there was plenty of goodwill for Turks in Germany.
Frederick the Great said in 1740: “All religions are just as good as each other, as long as the people who practise them are honest, and if Turks and heathens come and want to populate this country, then we will build mosques and temples for them.”
Sadly, we live in less tolerant times. Now, the inexorable rise of right-wing, anti-Islam parties threatens Muslim immigrants across Europe. The Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD), established in 2013, advocates a ban on minarets, the azan, or the call to prayers, and the full-face veil. Pegida, or the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West, was set up in Dresden in 2014, and has organised rallies in many European cities. France’s leading right-wing contender for the approaching presidential elections, Marine Le Pen, is openly anti-immigrant.
If Erdogan were to once more open his border to refugees currently provided shelter in eastern Turkey, there would be another flood that would head towards Germany. These unfortunate people have seen a million refugees being admitted and accepted there, and would make a beeline for the promised land. But they would face many hurdles along the way as several east European states have built barriers to prevent a recurrence of the recent torrent of refugees.
No matter how many of them reached Germany, they would present Merkel with a political headache. Erdogan is aware of this, and is using the presence of Syrian refugees in Turkey as a bludgeon to get his way.
Another grievance he has voiced frequently is the failure of the EU to grant Turks visa-free travel in the Schengen states. This pledge was made last year, together with a promise to provide some four billion euros to help Turkey cope with refugees. In return, Turkish borders would be sealed to block the flow of asylum-seekers.
Given how the opinion polls are tightening, Merkel’s re-election is no longer as inevitable as it once seemed. A fresh immigration crisis could well tip the balance towards her principal rival, Martin Schultz, the left-leaning SPD candidate. So while dealing with an enraged Erdogan, Merkel will have little space for manoeuvre.
Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2017