RUSSIAN INSTITUTE
ROMANTIC TRIANGLE: RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND THE EU John Laughland
that anybody serious or pretending Russia. And it’s really only, I PROBLEMATIC FIELD PROBLEMATIC to be serious could say that Greece think, as a result of the Cold War is not a part of Western civilization but also as a result of distortions because for most Europeans since the Cold War, that the line Greece stands as the very founda between East and West has been tion of Western civilization. drawn to separate Eastern Europe We now use the word ‘West’ to from the West; but that is a com mean alignment with the foreign pletely unnatural division in his policy of America. Well, that’s torical terms. It’s a division which ridiculous too. In this case, a only came into being in 1948 and country may be physically Western it lasted for about forty years, so in every respect, like France was it’s not a division line that people under General De Gaulle, but not should continue, in my view, to necessarily be completely aligned use today. with the foreign policy of the Now you ask me to compare United States. Russia and Turkey, and I obvious Of course, Turkey has been a ly think that Russia in the broad JOHN LAUGHLAND is a British strong NATO state for a long time, est sense is indeed a Western coun journalist, academic, author, and but that doesn’t mean it’s a try. But at the same time it’s also council member of the British Western country. It did, of course, obvious that Russia, because it is Helsinki group for Human under Ataturk have a very strong so big and also because a large part Rights. He is the Director of westernizing government: as we of Russian territory self evidently Studies at the Institute of know, Latin script was introduced is not in the West, can not be easi Democracy and Cooperation in for the language, the veil was ly subsumed to any other civiliza Paris. His essays are published in banned, and the country in many tion and that it really is a sort of The Guardian, The Sunday respects was westernized. Ataturk civilization unto itself. But, cul Telegraph, The Spectator, The was, if you like, a sort of Peter the turally speaking, Russia is after all Wall Street Journal, National Great for Turkey. But I think that a Christian country and that for that was an experiment doomed to me is the key distinction. An awful Review, The American failure because we have seen that lot of ink has been spilled on the Conservative, and Antiwar.com Islam in Turkey, as in all over the question of westernizers and World, has grown stronger and slavophiles in Russia, but in my stronger. There are far more peo view it’s a false debate. It’s a false ne of the difficulties in ple wearing the veil in Turkey now, debate firstly because all countries Oanswering your question lies far more so than there were in the have vastly different geographical in the fact that the concept of 1970’s. And it was basically an and geo ideological tendencies. ‘West’ has been greatly distorted unnatural thing for Ataturk to I also think it’s a false debate or and abused particularly in the last undertake this project of extreme at least a misleading debate where twenty years. For example, in westernization, and I think that Turkey is concerned. In Turkey Huntington’s book, as you know, ultimately it’s coming to an end. you have essentially two camps: he draws a line between West and For me, the West as a cultural you have the Kemalist camp, East along the lines of Catholic unit, as a world historical body of comprised of the army and the and Orthodox Christianity. And in values and cultures, precisely people who are faithful to the his book he says something includes the Eastern and Western inheritance of Ataturk, who want a absolutely ridiculous, which is that parts of the Old Roman Empire. strong secular and sovereign state Greece is not part of Western civi In other words, it precisely on the one hand, and on the other lization because Greece, of includes both Catholic and hand you have their opponents course, is an Orthodox country. Orthodox Christianity, the coun who are the Islamists, who have Now, it is absolutely unbelievable tries of Western Europe and been in power for nearly ten years
— 8 — RUSSIAN INSTITUTE now and who are indeed pro Western in the literal THE VIABILITY OF HYBRID MODELS sense that they want Turkey to join the European
Union. But this pro Westernism when you look more PROBLEMATIC FIELD ROBERT ENGLISH closely is in fact Islamism because the reason why the is an American historian specializing Islamists in Turkey want to join the European Union in contemporary East European and is precisely that the European Union demands that Russian history and politics. He is currently an assistant professor of the role of the army, the Kemalist elite, the secular international foreign policy and sovereign elite of Turkey be reduced. So the western defense analysis in the School of ism, the Western orientation of Turkey, which is International Relations at the University of Southern California. His pushed mainly by Islamists, is meant precisely to dis books include: ‘Russia and the Idea pense once and for all the inheritance of Ataturk, that of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold is to say to dispense with the secular state. uropean’ and War’ (2000). Russia and Turkey have relatively good relations, ‘E‘Western’ cate but they are unlikely to evolve into an anti western gories are complicated, Exclusively for Yaroslavl Forum alliance. And I don’t think that Russia is being reject elusive, and often prob ed, at least not on the international level. But they are lematic. In their origins, overnight. On the con they refer to the liberal trary, they often backfired in a very different position from Turkey vis a vis the democratic philosophical when planted in soil con European Union. Russia is not a candidate to join the and political traditions ditioned by decades of European Union and so in some ways, I think, rela that, in the modern elite corruption and pop tions with Russia are more healthy. In Europe, the world, grew from enlight ular disillusion under a issue of Turkish candidacy to the European Union enment roots in Western centralized, stifling, one has been a sort of nightmare really for European Europe and later the U.S. party, state controlled politicians ever since the 1960’s when Turkey first Russia was more geo political and economic graphically distant and, system. asked to join. Basically, the European Union leaders geopolitically, faced mul Yet culture is not don’t want Turkey to be a member but they can’t find tiple threats that helped immutable or eternally a way of saying no. And so their relations are very dis prolong autocratic rule unchanging. It does honest, distorted really by the whole issue of and complicated liberal change, however slowly, European membership, which is an absurd proposi reforms. Culturally, the and it must change if tion, and one that is being pushed forth by the westernizer slavophile Russia is to evolve from a Americans and taken seriously by only some division showed many state dominated, Russian intellectuals’ resource exporting, European leaders. But fundamentally it’s absurd. It’s doubts about the ‘Western deeply corrupt ‘third absurd in economic terms, in civilizational terms, model’ and belief that world model’ economy and so on. But nonetheless it’s on the table and I Russian civilization was into a more dynamic, think it has introduced tensions unnecessarily. fundamentally hostile to innovative, high tech I do not think that Russia has the same existential liberal, free market economy that can remain need to be labeled ‘Western.’ As far as I can see, development. competitive and grow Russia is a relatively self confident country. I think The 70 year communist prosperous in the future. ‘experiment’ was in most Russia has no choice but the situation is different in Turkey not least because of respects a great tragedy to become more the strange paradoxical reasons I mentioned earlier for Russia, as most ‘Western’ in this respect. for Turkey wanting to join the EU. Russian intellectuals seem Isolation and autarky Since Europe is a cultural reality and there’s no to agree. And many ‘neo are no longer viable doubt that it’s a civilizational and cultural reality, Westernizers’ in Russia options in a globalized then I certainly think that Russia is part of it. Turkey expected that by simply world. But neither is one is not part of Europe, it is not part of European civi adopting Western style in which a single institutions Russia could ‘Western’ political eco lization. Turkey, of course, throughout the 19th cen quickly make up for a ‘lost nomic model is appropri tury and before that from the seizure of century’ of development. ate for all. China, Turkey, Constantinople onwards, of course, was a European Yet the failures of India, and hopefully power in the sense that having seized territories in the ‘shock therapy’ reforms Russia show that various Balkans it became a player in the European concert in the 1990s after the col ‘hybrid’ model – systems of powers. But it is not a European state in its origins, lapse of communism adapted to their individ its origins are from God knows where in Central Asia showed that culture mat ual historical and cultural ters as much as political traditions, yet each liber and the heartland of Turkey is Anatolia, which is not and economic institutions. alizing in important and in Europe. Western models cold not adaptive ways – are be imported wholesale and equally viable in the 21st Exclusively for Yaroslavl Forum function effectively century.
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