One of the comforts produced by Eurocentrism is a stronger justification to criticize, humiliate and dominate everyone else, after demonstrative soul-searching. Joost Lagendijk, who is known for his contributions to Turkey's EU membership, addressed me in one of his recent articles published in Today's Zaman. He introduced me and Etyen Mahçupyan as "two respected Turkish thinkers," and then criticized us for our evaluations of Russia. Lagendijk said, "In Russia pro-Putin intellectuals have been working hard in the last decade to construct the scholarly foundations for Russia's new confrontation with the West. In Turkey, unfortunately, we are seeing the same tendency among academics and columnists close to the government," presenting both of us as representatives of this tendency. He concludes his article saying, "Eurocentrism is used as a poor excuse to cover up a major democratic setback and subversion of the rule of law in both countries. It is sad to see that intellectuals in Turkey are preparing themselves to follow the bad example set by their Russian counterparts by legitimizing a clear power grab as some sort of intellectual freedom fight."
It seems to me that Lagendijk, rather than abandoning the conformism I stated in my introductory sentence, is opting to present us solely from his own point of view. However, neither my criticism of Eurocentrism nor my evaluations of Russia could have led him to this conclusion. It is obvious that the discourse on democracy and human rights with regards to Europe's relations with other cultures is not always realistic, and is utilized more often than not, to maximize European interests, revealing that Eurocentrism is not just about cultural arrogance. There is no objection to the core principles of democracy such as the separation of powers, judicial independence and pluralism, but rather, what is problematic is how these principles are transferred to other countries and practiced there. For instance, the military coup in Egypt is justified on the principle that the Muslim Brotherhood lacks democratic values. However, democratic values are products, not causes. It is the democratic system itself that produces these values. However, this did not work for Egypt, where democratic values were used as an instrument for precluding a democratic system. Europe gave a blank check to the military to stage this coup.
The Western world welcomed the one-party regime that was introduced in Turkey after 1924, and presented it as the emergence of modern Turkey. The military coup of 1960 and the Constitution of 1961 that followed, also received full support from the West. They described the constitution as an example of separation of powers, state of law and pluralism in a manner that managed to fool us. Similarly, the military coup of 1980 was received with sympathy in Western countries, so much so that they did not even think of suspending Turkey's membership of the Council of Europe. The Constitution of 1982 was also highly appreciated in the West, and almost regarded as an issue of the European Court of Human Rights. This system was described as a state of law as a whole.
All of these examples, along with many others not mentioned here, reveal that Europe impedes the construction of democracy in other countries as long as it looks at them from an orientalist point of view. I am not criticizing Eurocentrism because it does not construct a pluralist judiciary that is based on the principle of separation of powers and democratic legitimacy. My argument, on the contrary, is about striving to construct these institutions in this region despite the West, and giving no room to a Eurocentric approach to scupper this process. A country's need to become democratized and to exist as a cultural entity at the same time may not carry much meaning for Europe. However, it is natural for countries like Turkey to consider these two needs together. British democracy cannot be explained in any other way either.
Democratization is not the kind of work carried out in a laboratory, nor is it an engineering activity. Therefore, our criticisms of Eurocentrism are not a pretext - quite the reverse! It is about building the rule of law and other democratic values in these areas in real terms. Lagendijk would see this if he could abandon the aforementioned conformism and stops feeling sad on my behalf.
About the author
Osman Can is a Law Professor and Reporting Judge at the Turkish Constitutional Court. He holds a PhD from the University of Cologne, Germany.
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