Islamists Strive for Firmer Ground

Long suppressed by Turkey’s secular government, Islamic activists are looking for political opportunity in a growing public outcry over the state’s bungled handling of earthquake relief.

Well-organized activists from the Virtue Party, the main Islamic political group, and from a variety of Muslim aid agencies mobilized from the first hours after the Aug. 17 quake. They provided comfort and assistance to victims while the government relief efforts were slow to get going.

“Citizens were waiting for help from the people they voted for,” said Huseyin Burge, the Virtue Party mayor of Bayrampasa, a suburb of Istanbul. “They wanted to see their politicians alongside them. But they did not see it. I’m sure the response will be seen at the ballot box.”

To fill the vacuum left by the state, Burge and the mayors of 20 other municipalities spearheaded the Virtue Party grass-roots campaign, attending to their own towns and then fanning out eastward into the most heavily damaged areas, armed with tents, hot meals and baby formula.

Burge spoke Wednesday in his office at City Hall, where secretaries wore Islamic head scarves and verses from the Koran decorated the walls.

As the Virtue Party tries to gain political ground, the government appears to be attempting to clamp down on the Islamists’ activities. The Islamists complained of increasing police harassment, the blocking of their bank accounts and undue restrictions on some of their aid projects in the field.

Turkey has long been a testing ground for whether democracy and secular modernity can coexist with Islam, in a society where 99% of the people are Muslim. Turks are bitterly divided over the role of Islam in their society: The staunchly secular and enormously powerful military has purged Islamists from its ranks, reined in Islamic parties and ordered trials of Islamic businesspeople.

Turkey’s first Islamic prime minister was forced to resign in 1997 and his Welfare Party, a precursor to Virtue, was outlawed. Head scarves, like those worn by women in Burge’s office, are banned in most public buildings and in universities.

Keeping Islamic fundamentalism in check in Turkey has strategic importance to the United States, Western Europe and Israel, all of which have been at the forefront of international quake relief.

After rising steadily in opinion polls, the Virtue Party slumped to third place in elections last spring.

Today, Turkish analysts are skeptical about the Islamists’ ability to capitalize politically on their role in the disaster relief. The public outrage has focused not just on the mishandled rescue and recovery operations but also on corrupt local administrations that permitted shoddy housing construction that contributed to a higher death toll.

One of the areas where destruction was heaviest, and illegal building practices were reportedly among the most egregious, was the city of Adapazari. Its mayor, Aziz Duran, is from the Virtue Party.

National anger is so great that it transcends parties and instead condemns the entire Turkish political system, analysts say.

Although no one is predicting the swift demise of Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit’s 4-month-old secular government, the Islamists are hoping to use an anti-establishment backlash to their advantage. Numan Kurtulmus, head of the Virtue Party in Istanbul, said he believes that Turks’ common fear of criticizing their government has been broken down by the quake and its painful aftermath.

“We have to expand . . . this process of empowering the society,” Kurtulmus said. “The quake showed that the ability and potential of a nation to organize and walk toward a goal is better than what the government and political and economic elites of Turkey can do.”

Unlike Islamic parties in other countries, the Virtue Party presents a relatively secular face. Although female members cover their heads and dress modestly, the male officials interviewed for this story wore Western clothing and shook hands with a foreign female visitor. Under strict Islam, unrelated men and women avoid physical contact.

The Virtue Party has deliberately added its voice to criticism of the government. On Wednesday, it asked parliament to investigate the government-affiliated Turkish Red Crescent for alleged mishandling of quake relief.

And Islamic newspapers have seized upon a widely held popular belief that the magnitude 7.4 quake, which killed at least 13,000 people and left more than 200,000 homeless, was Allah’s way of punishing a nation that has betrayed Islam.

Necmettin Erbakan, who was forced to quit as prime minister in 1997, called the quake a “divine warning.”

Sadi Carsancakli, president of Mazlum-der, a coalition of Islamic aid agencies, said that such sentiment is widespread and that he too is convinced. It is no coincidence, he said, that the quake sent devastating fissures beneath a military officers club in the city of Golcuk.

“It makes people wonder,” he said. “The earthquake has shown us a lesson.”