Since the 1990s secular and religious rights organizations in Turkey have managed to cooperate, although issues such as gay rights pose new challenges to cross-cleavage partnerships, writes Melinda Negrón-Gonzales (University of New Hampshire) in Turkish Studies (September).
While there has been much political polarization in Turkey between secular and Islamic forces, cooperation among human rights activists from opposing camps has served as a site of reconciliation. In 1991 Turkish Islamists created an organization called Mazlum Der. This marked a break with an attitude that eschewed human-rights language, seen as associated with Western worldviews. But Islamist activists were isolated from domestic and international rights networks. Thus they opened communication with the secular Human Rights Association, although it was dominated by Kurdish nationalists and the far left.
Mazlum Der activists explained that they wanted to address unmet needs, a reference to the lack of attention to the plight of Islamists suffering from human rights violations.Over the years information ex-change and cooperation developed across organizations, after slow initial steps. This helped all the organizations involved to reframe ideologically centered frameworks into terms of universal human rights. It also transformed former adversaries into allies with shared aims. The Turkish application for membership of the European Union (a process that has still not been achieved) also opened new opportunities, such as the possibility for Turkish citizens to petition the European Court of Human Rights.
Initially reluctant to use this channel, Islamists started to consider these opportunities, which led to debates about international human rights legal texts within Islamist circles. A number of Islamist intellectuals legitimized the appropriation of human rights language and it has become more frequently used in Islamist circles. But it also led to changes of attitudes among secular activists on some issues, for instance an opposition in principle to the death penalty, not just when a person from the same political camp was sentenced to death.
Cross-cleavage cooperation became a sign of authenticity in the engagement for human rights.In 2005 several of the leading human rights organization (including Mazlum Der) created the Human Rights Joint Platform (IHOP). However, in 2009 new Mazlum Der leaders decided to leave IHOP, while continuing to cooperate. One of the reasons was discomfort with IHOP funding from external sources (primarily from Western countries). Another issue has been the emergence of the issue of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) rights. There were LGBT organizations in Turkey before, notes Negrón-Gonzales, but they have grown partly through an increase of funding from the European Union.
LGBT groups have forged ties to rights organizations, creating uneasiness among religious conservatives, although not all of them: many acknowledge that gays are discriminated against in Turkey, but working closely with them remains controversial, in the same way that working with headscarf activists presents a delicate issue for seculars. There is a risk of alienating supporters. Still, a culture of cooperation remains within the human rights milieu in Turkey. The challenge is to maintain the balance between commonalities and the various groups’ respective constituencies.
(Turkish Studies, Taylor & Francis, 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX1 4RN, UK)