2022.11.04 欧洲能与土耳其重新接触

shiyi18

土耳其的国际关系
哈坎-阿尔蒂奈在狱中写道，他希望欧洲能与土耳其重新接触
这位土耳其学者认为他的国家已经被写成了专制国家

2022年11月4日



我正在服18年的刑期，在最高安全级别的监狱里手写这篇专栏。我是最近被监禁的七人之一，他们涉嫌在2013年组织反政府抗议活动，这些活动是在拆除伊斯坦布尔的盖茨公园的计划出现后开始的。经济学人》的普通读者可能对土耳其民主标准恶化的说法很熟悉。我的共同被告包括一名建筑师、一名城市规划师、几名学者和民间社会人士、一名电影制片人和一名律师。大赦国际选择将我们列为良心犯。欧洲人权法院已经裁定，我们的司法程序违反了《欧洲人权宪章》中规定的几项权利，所有审判结果都必须作废。然而，我们仍然被监禁。

也许你觉得你对土耳其的了解已经足够了，因为你熟悉它的人权记录和民主倒退？我的故事似乎符合对这两者的严峻评估。但如果你认为这就是故事的全部，那么我担心你错过了一个复杂而矛盾的现实。有一些发展不容易被归入关于专制土耳其的叙述中：伊斯坦布尔艺术双年展在9月开幕，可能会吸引超过50万的游客；独立和有弹性的网络新闻供应商激增；全国各地保护森林、橄榄树和河流的环境斗争；多种民间努力，如教师网络和教师学院基金会，以帮助公共部门的教师；以及成千上万的无偿律师，决心确保没有人独自面临起诉和没有援助。


博斯普鲁斯海峡提供了一个恰当的比喻：船长必须在黑海和地中海之间航行，这是一条狭窄但繁忙的海路，有90度的转弯。看得见的上层水流从北向南流动，但也有一个下层水流，其中地中海的水更重、更咸，从南向北流动。除非船长了解这两方面的情况，否则博斯普鲁斯海峡是无法成功航行的。欧洲和土耳其之间的关系也是如此。我们需要大量的关注和好奇心来辨别有时看似矛盾的动态并建立融洽的关系。

土耳其和欧洲其他国家彼此之间存在着深深的纠葛。如果我们在欧洲和其他地区的朋友希望与土耳其表现出一些友谊，那么真正的好奇心和进行健康对话的意愿将是一个不错的开始。我们需要的不是领导人之间的交易关系，而是同龄人之间更多的互动：父母与父母在讨论抚养孩子的挑战和乐趣的平台上，教师与教师在塑造未来教育的论坛上，艺术家与艺术家在重新想象我们共同问题的文化项目中。好的对话的美丽和神奇之处在于它能够使每一方对另一方更有渗透力。

我承认，最近的情况并不令人鼓舞。2016年7月15日，土耳其人看着我们自己的飞机轰炸该国的议会，而土耳其的坦克则碾压汽车中的人。指挥官被他们自己的阵营的助手扣为人质。对于任何一个社会来说，这都会是一个深刻的不安全感的来源，他们会感谢他们的朋友在他们身边。不幸的是，土耳其人并没有这样做。绝大多数土耳其人认为应对政变企图负责的法土拉-古伦（Fethullah Gulen）在过去几年中甚至在西方主要报纸的专栏页上占有一席之地，并被称为 "土耳其异见人士"。同时，土耳其的高级官员十多年来一直对欧洲使用好斗的语言。我们是否能够打破这种恶性循环？


我们有理由担心，西方的忧虑有很深的根基。以巴黎的卢浮宫为例，它是所有艺术机构中最伟大的。尽管今天的参观者可能会对《蒙娜丽莎》趋之若鹜，但最宏伟的房间的中心位置却留给了欧仁-德拉克洛瓦的《基奥斯的屠杀》。它描绘了奥斯曼帝国的士兵在1822年希腊独立战争期间杀害岛上的希腊人。德拉克洛瓦从未目睹过他所描绘的事件。然而，他对土耳其人的野蛮行为有足够的把握，因此画了一幅大画。时至今日，没有人去问为什么德拉克洛瓦和卢浮宫的馆长们会如此轻易地被说服。在 "罗德斯必须垮台 "和伍德罗-威尔逊在自己的大学里被废黜的时代，没有 "解救德拉克洛瓦 "运动。而且，对于东方主义的过去和现在，仍然没有值得清算的东西。这可能也解释了为什么 "独裁的土耳其 "的说法在欧洲人的意识中找到了如此肥沃的土壤，并为放弃与该国充满活力的社会进行有意义的接触提供了借口？

我们不能放弃在欧洲和土耳其之间进行更好对话的承诺。我们可以而且应该做得更好。为什么不为土耳其大学生提供无障碍签证，以便他们能够与欧洲的同龄人接触，作为一个开始？要找到非常好的理由来放弃对方并不难。但回顾一下，已故的米哈伊尔-戈尔巴乔夫，我们都欠他很多，要求在他的墓碑上写上 "我们尝试过"。土耳其和欧洲也应该尝试。
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哈坎-阿尔蒂奈是一位学者，曾在卡内基理事会、耶鲁大学和布鲁金斯学会任职。他是伊斯坦布尔欧洲政治学院的院长，直到2022年4月被捕并被定罪。



Turkey’s international relations
Writing from prison, Hakan Altinay says he wants Europe to re-engage with Turkey
The Turkish academic believes his country has been written off as authoritarian

Nov 4th 2022

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Iam serving an 18-year sentence and writing this column by hand from a maximum security prison. I am one of seven people recently imprisoned for allegedly organising anti-government protests in 2013 that started after plans to demolish Istanbul’s Gezi Park emerged. Regular readers of The Economist are probably familiar with accounts of deteriorating democratic standards in Turkey. My co-defendants include an architect, a city planner, several academics and civil-society personalities, a film producer and a lawyer. Amnesty International has chosen to classify us as prisoners of conscience. The European Court of Human Rights has already ruled that our judicial process has violated several rights enshrined in the European Charter for Human Rights, and that all results of the trial had to be vitiated. We nevertheless remain incarcerated.

Perhaps you feel you know enough about Turkey by being familiar with its human-rights record and democratic backsliding? My story seems to fit into dire assessments of both. But if you assume that is the whole story, then I fear you miss out on a complex and contradictory reality. There are developments not easily subsumed into a narrative about authoritarian Turkey: the Istanbul Art Biennial, which opened in September and may draw more than half a million visitors; a proliferation of independent and resilient web-based news providers; environmental struggles across the country to preserve forests, olive groves and rivers; multiple civic efforts, such as Teachers Network and Teachers Academy Foundation, to aid public-sector teachers; and thousands of pro-bono lawyers determined to ensure that no one faces prosecution alone and unassisted.


The Bosphorus offers an apt analogy: a narrow but busy seaway with 90-degree turns that captains have to navigate between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The visible top current flows from north to south, but there is also a lower current with heavier, saltier Mediterranean water flowing from south to north. Unless the captains are aware of both, the Bosphorus cannot be successfully navigated. The same goes for relations between Europe and Turkey. We need a good deal of attention and curiosity to discern dynamics which seem contradictory at times and build rapport.

Turkey and the rest of Europe are deeply entangled with each other. If our friends in Europe and beyond wish to show some camaraderie with Turkey, genuine curiosity and a willingness to engage in a wholesome conversation would not be a bad start. Rather than transactional relationships between leaders, we need more interactions between peers: parents with parents in platforms that reckon with the challenges and joys of raising children, teachers with teachers in forums that shape the future of education and artists with artists in cultural programmes that reimagine our common questions. The beauty and magic of good conversation is its ability to render each side more permeable to the other.

I will admit that the recent past has not been encouraging. On July 15th 2016, Turks watched our own aircraft bomb the country’s parliament, while Turkish tanks crushed people in cars. Commanders were taken hostage by their own aides de camp. For any society, this would have been a source of profound insecurity, where they would have appreciated their friends to be by their side. Sadly, that did not happen for Turks. Fethullah Gulen, whom the vast majority of Turks hold responsible for the coup attempt, has even had space in the op-ed pages of leading Western newspapers in years past and has been called a “Turkish dissident”. Meanwhile senior officials in Turkey have resorted to using combative language towards Europe for more than a decade. Will we be able to break this vicious cycle?


There is reason to fear that Western apprehension has deep roots. Take the Louvre in Paris, the greatest of all art institutions. Although visitors today may flock to the Mona Lisa, the central placement in the grandest room is reserved for Eugène Delacroix’s Massacre in Chios. It depicts soldiers of the Ottoman Empire killing Greeks on the island during the Greek War of Independence in 1822. Delacroix never witnessed the events he depicted. Yet he was certain enough of Turks’ beastly conduct to paint an outsized canvas. To this day nobody bothers to ask why Delacroix—and the curators at the Louvre—were so easily convinced. In the age of “Rhodes Must Fall” and Woodrow Wilson being dethroned in his own university, there is no “Unhang Delacroix” movement. And there has still been no worthwhile reckoning with the past and present of orientalism. Might this also explain why the narrative of “authoritarian Turkey” finds such fertile ground in the European conscience and provides an excuse to abandon meaningful engagement with the country’s vibrant society?

We cannot give up on the promise of a better conversation between Europe and Turkey. We can and should do better. Why not offer hassle-free visas for Turkish university students so that they can engage their peers in Europe, for a start? It is not hard to find very good reasons to give up on each other. But recall that the late Mikhail Gorbachev, to whom we all owe a great deal, asked that his tombstone read “We tried”. Turkey and Europe should try, too.■
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Hakan Altinay is a scholar and held positions at the Carnegie Council, Yale University and the Brookings Institution. He was the director of the European School of Politics in Istanbul until his arrest and conviction in April 2022.