What is the most important legacy of Turgut Özal?

What is the most important legacy of Turgut Özal? *Aslıhan Dursun Istanbul 29 Mayis University Introduction Turgut Özal was one of the most effective politician in Turkish history that left many legacies behind him to the next generations. He managed with a lot of difficulties and brought many new things in Turkey especially about economy or for the development of the country. Özal had an unique and strong political history, which strenghten his actions. He brought liberal economy, types of freedoms for human rights, cared about education, urbanization and foreign policy. His career in World Bank made him gain knowledges about economy and those informations led him made reforms about economy. He was also known as the breaker of taboos and a great reformer because of what he done. Özal made Turkey to have revolution of mentality as well. During the era of him, Turkey tried to enter to European Union but these tryings will not be successfull because of the relations with the Europe and because of many other reasons they did not want Turkey that I will mention about it in below. Another problem during the Özal period was Kurdish question and he broke the taboos of this question. He claimed that this question was a big problem of Turkey and the politics makes. Till now, we can see the trails that he left to the Republic of Turkey. This article will first talk about Turgut Özal’s political background and explain his legacies in three types of titles; economy, foreign policy and inner policy also it will give examples from some quatitions and researchs. Turgut Özal’s Unique Political Experiences Turgut Özal had an effective political history that made him one of the important leader in Turkey. He was graduated from Istanbul Technical University (ITU) Electrical Studies Institute and he worked in State Planning Organization (SPO) in that work he became the undersecretary of SPO (Bora, 2005: 589). During the period of 1971-1973, Özal started to work in World Bank, which made him learn about economics more. One of the reason that why people liked Özal is also because of his policies about the economics because Turkey did not have a politician who knew about economics like Özal (Karpat, 2012: 284). At the end of the 1979, 1 he became the undersecretary of the prime ministry and the deputy of under secretary of the SPO in Demirel’s government (Bora, 2005: 589). During the coup era of 1980s, he was the one who was looking for the government’s economy because as I mentioned above, he had an experience in World Bank. After this duty of him, in 1982 he resigned from the job and went to America. When he came back from the America he built his own political party called as Motherland Party. Some parties had bannings to go to the sixth of November 1983 elections but his party were not one of them. Özal’s Motherland Party won the elections by passing the Nationalist Democrat Party and Populist Party with a big difference and took the power (Bora, 2005: 589). Özal’s place continued till the general elections of 29th of November 1987 then he became the prime minister of Turkey between 1983 and 1989 after all he became the president of the Turkish Republic in 1989 (Bora, 2005: 589). The Big Reformer: Turgut Özal’s Legacy about Economy Özal was an intelligent man and the one who make Turkey to pass the liberal economy was him. Turkey had a bad economy and there was no leader to fix the problems like Özal. Turgut Özal brought many reforms with him economically and he was seeing the economy as the key of the relations between the states (Ertosun, 2016: 43). Özal had a strong history to put economy policies and he thought that 24th January Decisions would be a big step to solve the economical problems. These decisions’ main idea was to open the Turkey’s economy to the world, to pass the free trade, to decrease the state’s interfere on an economy and to narrow the foreign trade deficit (Ertosun, 2016: 40). 24th January decisions were based on IMF’s reform packet and at the end it did not work. On the other hand Özal changed the taxation system and the tax system that he put was the Value Added Tax. He claim that to have a good foreign policy, Turkey need to have a good economy first and it was important for developing the country as well. Turgut Özal’s desire was to bring the freedom of enterprise and liberalize the economy. He basically wanted to change the system of import-substitution under the control of state to the export-oriented market economy (Heper, 2013: 145). The import-export liberation was first started with Turgut Özal. Özal brought the free trade in Turkey and actually from the beginning he thought that it could force the Turkish businessmen to improve their products but he also believed that the developed foreign goods can make the Turkish businessmen work hard (Pope, 1997: 174). However, Turkish products started to make exportations in 1980 and they found 2 markets in Central Asia to produce in the 1990s (Pope, 1997: 174). Turkey started to become better and have money with the reforms of Özal. John Golden, who was his office mate in World Bank said, “He didn’t really speak English. He spoke economics.” (Pope, 1997: 175). This sentence of his office mate, shows how much he was interested in economics and brought as a legacy to the Turkey. At that time, to show the progress of the economy he used the television broadcast (Pope, 1997: 175). As a result of these economic revolutions, businessmen of the Turkey started to more likely to be a business-minded people and the factories started to increase, also the producing of goods such as cloth exporting spread. During the 1990s, car companies such as Opel and Renault realized the quality of the Turkish products and after that Turkey’s products spread all around the world (Pope, 1997: 175). Furthermore, Turkey became more attached to the exportation and the firms who works for outside became richer while the poor companies stayed lower or middle class. We can say that Özal failed about the little companies in Turkey because this system did not work for their benefits. After coup d’état, Özal brought privatization process again but it was not successful because of the inceasing of the foreign and domestic borrowings and lack of capital (Karpat, 2012: 222). Even if the privatization did not have a successful result, it became successful by the following governments. However, big steps such as Second Bridge that called Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge has been built in 1988 and such projects as South Eastern Anatolia Project planned in or before the coup d’état era but continued in Özal era (Karpat,2012: 222). By the mid-1990s Turkey was producing its own good with its engineers and designers for the foreign firms even the food companies started to spread to the Middle East and it followed the textile industry (Pope, 1997: 176). While the Turkey’s export was $2.9 billion it rose to $21.6 billion in 1995 and the export increased from $7.9 billion to $35.19 billion (Pope, 1997: 176). Between the period of 1990-95 telephone subscribers doubled and the cars in the country increased its numbers (Pope, 1997: 176). Özal started to change the countries’ appareance and urbanized it fastly. He replaced the shantytown or gecekondu houses with apartkondu, which is blocks with flats. Tourism was any other reason to start to get benefit from it again in Özal period. He realized the beauty of the coasts and thought that Turkey can have an advantage from these coasts. Especially in Mediterranean and Aegean costs tourism started to have a good business. Many hotels built in these regions and Turkey became one of the best holiday place in the world. Especially in the late 1980s Turkey became one of the good holiday destination to go with package tours (Zürcher, 2004:309). During the mid-1990 seven million tourists entered Turkey for a holiday and after that it doubled Turkey became the third largest holiday destination 3 (Zürcher, 2004: 309). For the first time, Turkey started to open itself to the world economically and successed to make big jobs in Özal era (Karpat, 2012: 222). Turgut Özal’s Legacies about Foreign Policy Özal’s foreign policy carried the Turkey into 21st century through his reforms and relations with the other states. It was important to be active in foreign policy for Özal to make the Turkey much more developed and strong. After Özal came to the power the old thinking of military left from the behind of the Turkish history. There was no politician except İsmet İnönü, who was taking care of the national defence and security, it was only in the hands of the soldiers but with Özal it changed and civil governers started to have a voice about foreign policy and security (Özdal vd., 2010: 176-177). While the Özal was in the power, he visited the other countries at the same period, the population of the country started to interest in foreign policy more than ever before (Vurgun, 2015: 70, Özdal vd. 2010: 176-177). Turgut Özal was one of the essential politician that created the new Turkish foreign policy (Balcı, 2013: 186). As I mentioned above, he was thinking that without good economy there cannot be a good foreign policy. He was claiming that, If a country who begs for money or opens his hands to the outside, that country cannot have political weight on the others and If a country strengthen its economy than it can have a voice on the others (Ertosun, 2016: 43). That’s why he was more focused on economy of the country to have a strong foreign policy. However, Turkey started to have multidirectional foreign policy and economic interests started to become essential more and more. In the period of Özal Turkey tried to build strong relationships with the Middle East, the USSR, the Black Sea regional states and the Central Asian countries (Zürcher, 2004: 323). During the 1980s with Özal, Turkey had increased their communications with the Western countries and while it was doing that, it also become concerned more with the regional issues of Turkey (Ertosun, 2016: 39). Turgut Özal supported East and Islamic regions to balance the relations with the West. While the Turkey was in the relations with the Europe at the same time it was showing the common ties with the Islamic world and regional states (Ataman, 2003: 5153). Özal started to make new alternatives to balance the relations between West and Turkey such as Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization and he claim that Turkey was different from the West because of its religion and Turkey was the bridge between the east and west (Ataman, 2003: 51-53). The Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization was showing the Özal’s foreign thinking. This organization was concluding the states of Black Sea to manage 4 the economic affairs (Vurgun, 2015: 71). Turgut Özal shifted the way of understanding of Turkey culturally and politically. Before Özal, Turkey was fully secularist and western but after he governed the Turkey it changed as technologically dependent on the west but culturally to the east (Ataman, 2003: 54). We can say that after this shifting of the the way of understanding, Turgut Özal also left a legacy to the next generations about the changing of Turkish foreign policy understanding. Özal applied for accession to full membership European Community on 14 April 1987. Orhan Pamuk, who was novelist, “Turkey is constantly moving towards Europe, becoming more Westernized. But a union will never be realized. Turkey’s place is in continuous flux. This limbo is what Turkey is and will stay for ever. This is our way of life here,” said to the ones who was next to him as a visitor (Pope, 1997: 180). As he explained to his visitors, Turkey was getting improved but it will not be easy to enter to this community because they have many reasons to not let Turkey enter. In Pope’s book it explains the situation with a clear example, “ Even If Turkey might one day become an economic Cindirella and a dream partner of European businesses, the European establishment reacted as If one of ugly sisters has asked the prince for a dance.” (Pope, 1997: 179). Turkey could not reach the success on 1980 coup d’état times because the Council of Europe thought that Turkey, which was once a full member, is violating the human rights and they decided to freeze the relations with Turkey. However, European governments kept their promises and did not cut the relations economically with Turkey (Pope, 1997: 187). On the other hand, the trade between Europe and Turkey rose greatly and the numbers of travellers had increased. In 1991, the European Community claimed that Turkey would become a member of custom union (Zürcher, 2004: 323). It became an aim to achieve for the late governments of Turkey after Özal. Turgut Özal was also having an active foreign policy with the Middle East. He was having a sympathy towards the Islamic world and for him these good relations with them comes from the feeling of brotherhood religiously and the culturel ties (Gözen, 2000: 124). Özal was thinking that the bad relations between Turks and Arabs during the Ottoman Empire’s time should not be the issue to care and saying that “This problem finished. It was seventy years ago. Arabs and Turks lived together for four-hundred years. We have a common culture. Our traditions are same. Why shouldn’t we have cooperation together?” (Gözen, 2000: 125). Hence, after this saying of Turgut Özal, it was thought that he is trying to rebuild the Ottoman Empire and some of them was claiming that he was acting more like a Sultan rather than a president of the republic (Gözen, 2000: 125). It has to say that Özal was not trying to do the things that they claimed on him but his main point was to mix the western values with his 5 understanding of Islam. Nevertheless, when the war came up between Iran and Iraq, Turkey wanted to get benefit from it. US was supporting Iran and it turned to be a target to produce Turkish products and Iraq allowed to give oil to Turkey. On the second of August 1990, Iraq forces occupied the Kuwait and Turkey as its border got affected by it (Akşin, 2005: 289). Özal was having the dream of expansionism and he was thinking that the map of the Middle-East will be drawn again so he wanted Turkey to be in this issue (Akşin, 2005: 289). When the Gulf War happened in 1990, Turkey stood with the US forces and this issue concluded Iraq to cutt off the oil trade and the other trade actions with Turkey. Even when Özal gave a speech before the outbreak of war and said “The ground shakes when we move. We have got used to luxury and we don’t want to lose it. But war is nothing to be afraid of. Don’t forget we are a martial nation. Saddam executed the Kirkuk Turks, he crushed the Kurds, he used poison gas. Won’t he do the same to us next? We must remove such dangerous regimes. Let’s finish it quickly and break the man’s back,” to a group of provincial businessmen (Pope, 1997: 219). Turgut Özal also let the İncirlik Airbase used by the US airforces to help them. However, the result of the war was not beneficial at all for Turkey because Turkey had many immigrants who were running out of northern Iraq into Turkey, its economy got loss and it could not revive the trade relations with Iraq (Akşin, 2005: 290). Any other active foreign policy of Turgut Özal’s Turkey happened after the collapse of USSR. Ending of the collapse in 1989 had essential results for Turkey; Turkey got rid of the of the communism that they live in a climax, it opened the Turkey and Russian relations and have benefical relations for each other also a good collaboration with the Turkic countries (Akşin, 2005: 287). As in Sinan Akşin mentions in his book, the languages that they talk in Turkic countries were close to Turkish but different except Azerbaijan. However, in 1991 five Turkic states became independent: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyztan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. After they had their independence Turkey started to have political relations with them and started to have active policies in Central Asia. Even If Turkey realized that Russia was superior on these countries by their language and culture it did not become as an issue (Karpat, 2012: 277, Akşin, 2005: 288). By the time these meetings created the International Organization of Turkic Culture in 1993. Consequently, Turkey had many essential steps in the Özal era. As I mentioned above, Turkey concluded many meetings with those Turkic countries and they had agreements both beneficial for them. He took an advantage of the conflicts in Middle East and most importantly he applied for a full membership to European Council. Turkey had a very active foreign policy 6 with Turgut Özal and all the things that he did shows that he was an ambitious man to carry Turkey to the world and strengthen it. Breaker of Taboos: Inner Policy of Turgut Özal Turgut Özal was not just active in foreign policy and economy but also inner policy of the Republic of Turkey. One of his main active move was about the Kurdish question. Turgut Özal was carrying a Kurdish blood, his mother’s side was Kurdish. As its known the Kurds who lived in Turkey was once did not have this much freedom but Turgut Özal broke the taboos and one of his important legacy movement became the Kurdish question solving. He believed that these questions of Armanian and the Kurds can be solved and If he solve the problems than Turkey would be much more strong (Özdal vd., 2010: 176). Nevertheless, we cannot say that Kurdish people had a good life in Turkey because generally they were trying to being assimilized by the Turks. Musa Anter, who was the writer of Turkish Kurd letters and dictionary said, “ They think the Kurd is sick. The cure is either to give him medicine, to beat or to give him electric shocks. The Turks are always beating us in order to make us better. But we understand what we are. You can’t make people love you by force. You can’t forge unity and amity from fear and prohibition,” (Pope, 1997: 256). Turkey was having 12 millions of Kurds and Turgut Özal was thinking about to change something about their rights and not want them to be known as “mountain Turks” (Pope, 1997: 247). As we know, Atatürk put a probihition for speaking Kurdish in public and who were speaking Kurdish was having fines. However, Özal removed the Law 2932 which banned the Kurdish speaking and writing so now Kurdish people had their right to talk and write in their languages but before the Özal era they had no rights, it was one of his legacy that he brought (Pope, 1997: 265). During the era between 1984-1990, Kurdish question became a problematic political issue and PKK movements were started. PKK is the terrorist organization which came up with feudal and tribe based environment in Ankara with the leading of Öcalan firstly as a small group but after that they started to connect with the Kurdish tribes in the country (Akşin, 2007: 281). The terrorist actions was mainly about the PKK. Most of the people died because of their terrorist actions and in 15th of August 1984 they attacked the military buildings and police stations in Eruh and Şemdinli (Akşin, 2007: 281). However, Turgut Özal did not take these attacks so seriously and this situation continued till 1999 with the death of 30.000 innocent people (Akşin, 2007: 281). In 1992, he claimed that If the Kurdish people move to the Western side, Turkey 7 could have social entegration (Bora, 2005: 594). Later on, he prepared a report and believed that this problem of the Kurdish people need to be solved. However, in 1992 Özal declared cease fire with the PKK (Bora, 2005:594). In 1992 Özal said that, “ Let’s go and help them in northern Iraq. Let’s take our television stations and our electricity there. What will we lose by spending $30-40 million dollars? We can fight the PKK better this way. As long as Turkey opposes it, no Kurdish state can be formed. But many kinsmen of our Kurdish citizens live there. We should protect them as much as we protect the Bulgarian Turks.”(Pope, 1997: 238239). It has to say that terrorist movements did not stop but inceased year by year: in 1984 it was 160, in 1991 it was 1.494, in 1993 it was 5.717 and in 1994 it was 6.357 and still (Akşin, 2007: 282). Turgut Özal gave a new understanding of state and he was thinking how to make Turkey to become better. Except of his projects on economy and the foreign policy that I mentioned above he was also interested in with the urbanization, social life and the education of Turkish society. One of his service to the citizens was to make the municipality in with the seperations as metropolitan municipality and district municipality (Findley, 2011: 354). He was thinking that with this system he can connect with the citizens and give them better service also make them attein to the politics in new places. Another project of Turgut Özal was about the education. In Özal time, private universities started to build such as Bilkent University which was built in 1984, number of the anatolian highschools increased and the way of the education system changed and the opportunities to learn English became higher, numbers of the religious highschools increased (Findley, 2011: 355). Özal also was the one who told his son to set up the first private television station called as Star TV after 1989 and it became the best information revolution at that time in Turkey (Pope, 1997: 206). Özal was having three concepts of the freedom; freedom of thought and expression, freedom of religion and faith and lastly, freedom of enterprise (Bora, 2005:597). However, we can see the example of how much freedom was important for Özal through the right to individual application to European Court of Human Rights in 1987 for Turkish citizens and the removing the articles of 141, 142 and 163 from the Turkish Penal Code (Bora, 2005: 590). He was seeing those articles as they were limiting the freedom of thought and these articles especially 141 and 142 was not about to establish or not establish the communist party or allowing to make communist propagandas or not but it was all about the freedom of thought and believe that he was thinking (Alacakaptan, 1965-1966: 12). Nevertheless, he removed these articles in the belief of a democratic states should not have such articles, which limits the freedom of the individuals. 8 As a result, Turgut Özal was not just putting his signature by just one or two important legacies, the things that he done was nearly all legacy for the Turkey to the next generations. He broke the taboos in inner policy when he gave the rights to the Kurdish people by removing the law of abolishing the using of Kurdish, removed the laws which gives limitations to the individuals of Turkey, cared of urbanization, enlarged the cultural freedom and the other things as I mentioned above. On the other hand in this era of him PKK movements started to increase and became more radical, wanted more rights for the selves, which will not be good for Turkey in coming years. Conclusion Turgut Özal made Turkey to have a revolution especially about the economics that he were proffesional about but he also interested with the other topics to develop the country such as foreign policy and inner policy of Turkey. The new things that he brought changed Turkey and till now we can see the results of it. However, his reforms about economy were not giving a super benefit for the lower and middle classes but the uppers. On the other hand, the years with Turgut Özal made Turkey to gain many benefits from them as I mentioned above. It is also the truth that most of the researchers accepted him as the most effective politician after Atatürk and different from the others with the reforms that he was done. His unique background was also the reason for those changings because when he went to America and work there, he had an opportunity to see the other country’s governing and after that he was knowing how to make Turkey liberal as they are. Hence, he connected with the other countries and our foreign policy became stronger than before. It has to say that changing the system of economy to free market economy affected the foreign policy relationships in fact, he was the first one who started to open economy to the world and make trade with the countries. Hence, I believe that this brought an attachment to the foreign countries, especially to be under the control of US more. On the other hand, he cared about urbanization of the country, liberation, rights, education and made reforms as I mentioned in the article. Turgut Özal’s reforms and revolutions for the Turkey were the legacy for the next generations. In my opinion, we cannot talk about just one exact when it is the topic of his legacies because there are many of them as I talked about them in three titles but mostly economy and foreign policy were essential than the others because it opened Turkey to the world and developed it with his actions. He had an aim and goals to achieve in his mind and since he was in the power he tried to make them real. On the other hand, some of his aims did 9 not become true or some of them were not seemed good by the others but whatever he did in this country carried Turkey to the 21st century and Turkey became strong also had a big revolution with Turgut Özal. References Akşin, Sina. 2007. Kısa Türkiye Tarihi. İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları. Alacakaptan Uğur. 1965-1966. “Anayasa ve Ceza Kanunu’nun 141 ve 142’inci Maddeleri.” Ankara Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi 22-23(1-4): 3-20. 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