October Roundup
Bayraktar interview, Iranian women, the Eastern Mediterranean
I have just returned from Antalya, where I was visiting relatives. The place has changed quite a bit since I last saw it in 2011 or so. The foreigners now speak Russian and Arabic instead of German, Dutch and English. It's also a criminal offense to be tattooless below a certain age. True story: walking down a street, I witnessed how a band of ruffians caught a blank-skinned youth, ripped off his t-shirt, dragged him to the nearest tattoo parlor, and inked some oriental-looking swirls on his arms. They also put gel in his hair and pierced his ears. (Your blogger is just above the cutoff age, and was left alone.)
Now that that’s behind me, I’m going to share some of my notes on the things I’ve been reading and watching in the last few weeks:
I watched the latest Bayraktar interview for you
Selçuk Bayraktar, the chief technology officer at Baykar and Erdoğan’s son-in-law, is the man behind the Turkey’s thriving drone industry. He’s somewhat unusual among the governing elite in that he only rarely grants interviews. He gave this 2h+ interview on the occasion of Teknofest, an annual festival the government holds to promote technological innovation, especially among young people, and especially geared towards the defense sector. The interview was on Habertürk on August 30, which remains a zone between the popular government channels (Ahaber, TRT Haber, etc.) and opposition channels (Halk TV, Fox).
Here are some of my notes while watching:
14: Bayraktar argues that Turkish society greatly values indigenous technological innovation, and that the Erdoğan government is overcoming a “learned helplessness” in this regard. Turkey used to be dependent on Western technology, but now, he argues, it is developing its own technology and has embarked on the road of true independence. Teknofest embodies this cultural shift. This is a big theme in government circles, and it comes up again and again here.
24: when assessing Turkey's place in the global arms industry, he says "I can't say we're very good and I can't say we're very bad," arguing that Turkey is a middle power that's on the ascendant. Bayraktar is making a point here of diverging from popular government channels that tend to vastly exaggerate Turkey’s geopolitical stature. This makes him more credible. Next to the government media’s bombast, he appears like a results-oriented realist.
51: Bayraktar implies that the political tradition that the CHP represents does not want to develop weapons systems in Turkey. He says that they have ridiculed native developments in the past and continue to do so now. This is a common claim in government circles, but, I would argue, conflicts with the idea of the 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation and the foundation of defense firms in its aftermath.
1:09: I think this is the most critical part of the interview. The interviewer asks Bayraktar what would happen if the opposition would win the elections in 2023, and whether he's confident that he could continue developing the weapons systems he is developing now. Bayraktar says he isn't. He says that the opposition would sabotage his efforts at making Turkey an independent power. He points out that the armed drone behind him is the product of state of the art engineering, design, and millions of lines of code. He says it would all be worthless if there's a little wooden chock positioned in front of its front wheel, implying that that's what an opposition government would be. The interviewer gives him a couple of opportunities to soften his response, pointing out that main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has expressed support for his company, but Bayraktar doesn't budge. His father-in-law's continued presidency, he argues, is an existential issue for the continued improvement of Turkey’s weapons technology, and by extension, its independence.
1:50: They're talking about Baykar's hiring practices. Bayraktar points out that there is absolutely no favoritism at his company, and that they mostly hire newly graduated people of exceptional talent ("we don't easily hire anyone who's worked anywhere else" he says). They also don't care about the "lifestyle choices" (code for religiosity) of their employees. All they want is for their staff to be highly capable and patriotic. This is in line with what I've heard it's like at Baykar. It isn't, however, what I hear about pretty much every other firm in the defense industry, where know-how is getting thinner every year. I suspect what's happening is that Baykar is so politically connected that they can afford to hire based almost solely on merit. Less fortunate firms have to accept politically connected people rammed down their throats. I know have seen bosses in (non-defense) firms refrain from announcing job and internship openings because it would merely result in a slew of rich and powerful people asking them to hire their offspring. I don’t think the Bayraktar brothers have to worry about that.
2:09: Bayraktar continues to temper expectations. He insists that Baykar is the product of decades of work, and that firms like his aren't easy to replicate. The country can't invest in today's technologies - it has to identify what's going to be key in 10-20 years and jump straight to that, with the hope of being a leader when that time comes.
There is definitely something genuine about Bayraktar. There's a point where he is talking about how his father, who recently passed away. Bayraktar was at his bedside at the hospital, reading through medical journals about the particular cancer he was suffering from, trying to find a way to help him. I can see how he would do that. He gives off crazy scientist vibes, battering against the scientific limitations of his time, as well as his country’s rank in the international order.
Still, I didn't come away thinking that the Erdogan regime would produce more firms like Baykar, which probably couldn’t have grown the way it did without the familial link to the president himself. They do seem to be putting a lot of kids through technological boot camp, but I’m not sure if that’s a substitute for the structural problems of the Erdoğan regime. Smart kids who grow up in the regime’s circles have a way of spinning out of its orbit.
Women in Iran and Turkey
The protests in Iran following the killing of Mahsi Amin have resonated strongly in Turkey, prompting protests in front of the Iranian embassy. There are good reasons for this. People can relate to what it means to living under a theocracy. Amin was also Kurdish, which is a theme of the resistance culture in Turkey as well. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that many of my relatives who aren't particularly political or progressive had strong feelings about this. The (opposition) press has also kept up its coverage of the issue.
I don’t take this for granted. One would think that, as the the two great non-Arab countries of the Islamic world, people in Turkey and Iran would be closely connected, akin to Germany and France, say. That’s not always the case. Our two countries are strangely disparate. I would argue that both countries are too focused on their relationship (and all too often, their confrontation) with the West to build deep and lasting relationships with each other. Our intuitive understanding of each other seldom grows into knowledge and social relationships. Few people who work in politics or journalism in Turkey could name a single Iranian political party, but they're going to be up to date on the latest elections in Europe and the US.
That's why it's refreshing to see that - however awful the news - we are becoming more involved in the affairs of our neighbor, often at great personal cost. Savash Porgham, who covers Iran closely in Turkish, has written about how he is accused of “being America’s stooge” and receives death threats on a daily basis. In a similar vein, religious groups have been lobbying (successfully) to cancel the concerts Mohsen Namjoo was scheduled to hold in Turkey.
Below is also a video I recently watched of an Iranian woman recounting her experiences of living in Turkey. I’m very skeptical about some of her claims, but it’s very good to see greater interaction between our societies (more foreign students is one of the few things I like about “New Turkey”).
Thoughts on recent discussions on the Eastern Mediterranean
People have been discussing Ryan Gingeras' piece in War on the Rocks. Gingeras had argued before that "a conflict between Greece and Turkey is not only possible, but probable." Citing the recent attitudes of Turkish officials, argues here that the probability is increasing.
The piece, as such pieces do, has prompted quite a bit of finger wringing. The enormous and terrible implications of such a scenario means that people are tempted to short circuit such discussions with “constructive” and practical policy suggestions.
Here’s the kind of thing I’m thinking of:
Maybe it’s nice that analysts are trying to find a reasonable middle ground, but for it to work, politicians need to be doing it as well. Gingeras’ point is that they aren’t. Nigar Göksel’s tweet a) assumes that Erdoğan means to deter Greece in the Aegean, and b) that all this is somehow caused by insufficient communication. I’m not confident that either of those assumptions would stand up to rigorous scrutiny, at least looking from the Turkish perspective.
When writing about these issues, my heuristic is to pretend that nothing I write has any political impact (it isn’t hard to do), so the best thing to do is to describe political reality as accurately as possible.
What about Greece though?
I think a certain degree of Turkey-centeredness is understandable since that’s what most of us do - we write about Turkish politics and rely on others for analysis of the Greek side of things.
From what I understand, there are reasons to be concerned about Greek conduct as well. Turkey and Greece have long-standing disagreements, mostly about the demarcation of the Aegean. Their NATO membership has meant that they had to cushion those disagreements with layers and layers of diplomatic procedure (and Washington won’t tolerate an inter-alliance shooting war). As Turkey is becoming more toxic across Western capitals, however, that balance could change. Greece could seize an opportunity to move the allies towards its camp, permanently upsetting the balance. Serhat Güvenç reflected on this possibility in his Medyascope column:
There is a “window of opportunity” in front of Athens that will likely be closed with the 2023 elections. In the case that Erdoğan loses the elections, the new government in Turkey will have some credit [with the West]. While it has Turkey this isolated and weak, Greece is after attaining lasting political advantage. It’s impossible to know when it will next attain such an opportunity, and it might be short-lived.
Güvenç argues that Greece is probably trying to get Turkey to activate its S-400 batteries, which, given Russia’s pariah status, would further deteriorate Turkish standing in Western capitals. I wouldn’t know about where the military trigger points are, but I guess that makes sense. What’s blurrier for me is whether we can really assume that we can see a new government in Ankara, and whether Athens really thinks that we can. If so, are they prepared to incur heavy costs on such a fresh Turkish government? I don’t know enough about Greek thinking on it to hazard a guess.
The trouble of course, to get back to Gingeras, is that all this is predicated on Turkish conduct. The concern isn’t just bellicose statements, but the nature of the Erdoğan regime and “New Turkey,” specifically that it seeks to re-negotiate historical agreements from a position of strength.
The liberal arguments about off-ramps and dialogue were easier to sustain before the Ukraine war. People are now starting to pay more attention to the types of ideas underpinning political regimes. Once you do that, this issue looks very bad. To quote a pro-government source that Gingeras is also quoting, "I don't know to what extent Greece is prepared, or how much they think about whether this business is going to reach this point or not, but what I know is that this is how these things start. Next time you look, Turkey will suddenly have come one night."
I am so excited to find you. I lived in Istanbul for a while and left part of my heart there. I find it difficult to get reliable reports on the goings-on in Turkey, especially since my Turkish isn't good enough to read a Turkish newspaper. So this is great! Thanks so much!
Also, is it weird that I find it *much* easier to understand the Iranian woman's Turkish than the Turk reporter? Perhaps her vocabulary is simpler or she speaks more slowly.