Creeping Islamization or pre-emptive politics: what's behind Turkey's 'booze ban'?
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Student dormitories, health institutions, sports clubs, all sorts of education institutions and gas stations will be banned from selling alcohol. Already acquired licenses to sell alcohol will remain intact. For new facilities to get a license, they must to be located outside the perimeter of 100 meters of educational and religious centers.
The new bill received mixed reactions throughout the country and internationally. The opposition in Turkey argues that these regulations aim to make Turkish society more “Islamist”.
Osman Coskunoglu, a former lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), tweeted:
"Step by step toward fundamentalist Islamization by the ruling party: Turkey's new booze law”
“This is not a struggle against the ills of alcohol but an attempt to re-design the society according to their beliefs and lifestyle,” Musa Çam, a deputy from the CHP said.
The criticism is constructed in a way that discusses the regulations as being an attempt of Islamization of Turkey. This kind of labeling creates the notion that the regulations are affiliated with so-called Islamist extremism rather than a conservative ideology of a government that is religiously motivated. When a certain government in the west or the US promotes a law that is religiously motivated about abortion, alcohol or gay marriage, the words used are conservative rather than “religious” or “Christian.”
There is nothing wrong with a government that has a conservative ideology and that is in fact elected by the people of the country. Turkey is not Saudi Arabia where the government consists of a royal family and a king, who has never been elected and who introduce certain laws that they see fit without paying the least attention to the population’s needs or preferences.
Also, these restrictions, as the opposition suggests, do not actually limit people’s freedom of choice. This is not a ban on alcohol; it is a regulation for the sales and advertising of alcohol. People can still buy alcohol from retailers at anytime between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., and it is readily available in bars, nightclubs, hotels and restaurants without any time restriction. The biggest loser in all of this is the alcohol producer who will no longer be able to promote or sell their products as easy in Turkey.
Government officials argued that the regulations they have proposed are already being implemented in the west, in countries like Sweden, Norway and Finland. A number of US states also have similar regulations. The opposition, on the other hand, argues that the problems that the west suffers from are nonexistent in Turkey and thus such restrictions are irrelevant. Does this mean that a government should wait until the problems appear and then act on it? Whether the problem exists or not should not be a factor in implementing a law.
In addition, Turkey is moving towards a lifestyle that resembles the western culture, actually that was the whole point of the secular movement; to get Turkey to become more “western.” That means the country might at some point have to deal with the problems the west is facing now.
Foreign companies that might have never considered Turkey for investment 10 years ago are now rushing to acquire successful Turkish companies. Representatives of Diageo, one of the world's leading spirits company, which acquired Mey İçki for $2.1 billion in 2011, owns the country's leading raki brand said on May 25:
“The alcohol restrictions adopted by the Turkish Parliament May 24 will damage Turkey's image as a progressive and commercial country.”
This is a company that has made a huge investment in Turkey and is planning to recover their $2.1 billion and make double that in profit.The fact that the annual alcohol consumption in Turkey was 1.5 liters per capita in 2010 means that there is a vast potential consumer base in Turkey that a company like Diageo could target and benefit from.
A company of such financial capability does not make such an investment without believing that the “Muslim culture” in Turkey will not stand between them and their profits.
What does that mean for Turkey?
It means that Turkey is as interesting for those companies as the western countries once were. In those countries, societies did not remain stagnant in the face of powerful corporations, who came to increase their profits, but were actually transformed because of them. Those companies target the young emerging generation in a certain market in order to increase sales and profits. And the priority of billion-dollar companies is profit and not the well being of society. Therefore, in a fast growing country like Turkey, the young generation who strives to be modern and western and who is quite familiar with the west through the media will ultimately be affected by those companies’ effective advertising strategies.
Turkey is not immune to the problems that have emerged in the west, as a matter of fact it is closer to them than ever. The west and the US started out as conservative societies that opposed gay marriage and abortion and believed firmly in the Church. But a transformation took place; yet these modern and developed entities continue to suffer from social problems. That is the path Turkey is taking. Thus, the Turkish government should be pro-active and act responsibly and not wait for the problems - others have already experienced - to actually arise.
By Mohamed Hemish
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You've obviously never lived in Turkey nor have understood how the AKP governement has run things there. You claim that the law is strictly to do with a 100meter distance from Religious and Educational institutions along with a stricter timeframe to sell alcohol in stores. Unfortunately that's not the case, far from it. There are restaurants already refusing to sell alcohol during the day for lunches which not under the guideline of the suppsed AKP law. Unfortunately the Fehtullah Gulen movement has been influencing many AKP members of parliament, including the president, and law enforcement who have enforced some of their own social embargoes on private establishments that go against some of the 'traits' so to speak of Islam.
Some AKP members are rationalizing this law through the age old scare tactic, a lowest common denominator meant to convince a broader audience - violence. They have attributed 60 to 70% of incidents that land patients in intensive care units because of Alcohol - yet 'Honor' Killings motivated by Islam, rose to the highest in the world since the AKP came in power in 2002. Turkey is now ahead of Pakistan in terms of 'Honor' Killings, and considering Turkey's population vs Pakistans, that is a staggering and unforgivable statistic.
You make mention that the west has its problems? If the problems are so bad, why are so many Turks trying to claim asylum from their mother country to get into the west? Or claiming refugee status from a country like Turkey to immigrate themselves and their entire family to a western country? Surely it isn't as bad as you're trying to sell it. What Turkey is doing is hardly pre-emptive to 'future problems'.
So please, get your facts straight. The one credit that I will always give the AKP is that they are very good with words and very good with trying to sell themselves as 'modern' and 'moderate' islamists, when they are nothing of the sort. At the end fo the day, this is not about a law, this is about a movement that has been creeping for the last 10 years into the roots of the Turkish republic and they have clealy convinced you as well after reading your article.
