Will the CHP’s cynical ploy work?

Thus, in order to win, politicians will often bend over double to pander to sections of society that they normally would not have anything to do with. This may sound cynical, but then politics is a cynical game to start with. Ironically the more democratic a country is, the more cynical the game appears to become.

But in no democratic country can this cynicism attain the levels of absurdity that they can do in Turkey. Take the main opposition Republican Peoples Party, or CHP, for example.

Although it is billed as a "social democratic party," and for this it is a member of the Socialist International today, it has been pandering to the nationalist right-wing these past few years in an effort to shore up dwindling support.

But seeing that this has not brought it the expected results, as the disappointment in the July 2007 elections proved, it is now pandering to a completely different section of society. The whole debate, which continues to rage, started when CHP Leader Deniz Baykal ceremoniously welcomed new members to his party.

But these were no ordinary members. The women involved were bedecked in black chadors, from head to toe. These were not the headscarves that are so much at the center of the social debate in Turkey today.

Women wearing headscarves nevertheless want to go to university and get on in their careers. They are also often careful to appear stylish, despite their ultra-Islamic attire. As for the "chador," or "purdah," two Persian words which have entered the Turkish language as "cadir," meaning tent, and "perde," meaning curtain, it is quite a different thing altogether.

This sheet of black cloth represents a total negation of the woman as a person, leaving her as her husband’s property on which no others may cast an eye. It is therefore the most fundamentalist of Islamic attire as there is nothing worse than it when looked at from a humanist’s perspective.

For the CHP, "a staunch supporter of Kemalist reforms," including, of course, secularism, women’s rights, and liberal modern attire for all, to now start admitting such people into its ranks, under the guise of, "being democratic, and reaching out to everyone," is not something that many, including many genuine CHP supporters, can stomach.

As for Baykal’s justification, this is the funniest of all. According to him there is nothing wrong with the chador as it is not a "political symbol" like the headscarf. How he hopes to fool his own deputies, and the female ones among them, understandably up in arms already, is anyone’s guess.

As for the chador, whether it is a "political symbol" or not, what is certain is that it is the most backward of "religious symbols," representing the darkest and most reactionary of impositions by religious fundamentalism.

Baykal’s move must be seen as ploy as he could have arrived at the realization by which he is now justifying his move much earlier if he was sincere. It is clearly aimed at the nationwide local elections, to be held on March 29, when the CHP needs to desperately win back some of the support it has lost.

But Baykal obviously sees another victory in the making by the ruling Justice and Development party, or AKP, and is trying to change the tide by supposedly reaching out to the AKP’s Islamist grassroots.

Baykal also realizes, of course, that another devastating defeat, which might even include the traditional CHP strongholds of Izmir and the Cankaya district in Ankara, will undermine his party’s credibility, even among the staunchest of supporters who have stuck by it through thick and thin.

Whether his pandering to fundamentalists in this way, in order to allay such a prospect, will work remains to be seen. The chances are that come March this will rebound seriously and lose him and the CHP as much support, if not more, as it brings in.

Of course Prime Minster Erdogan and the political rivals of the CHP were quick to latch on to this move of Baykal’s and to mock him facetiously and ferociously, by taunting him and saying that, "he has finally come around to seeing the truth," and daring him to, "stay true to this new path of his."

It remains to be seen who gets the last laugh in March. But the person getting most of the laughs at the moment is highly apparent.