On Oct. 31, 2015 the Iraqi National Alliance, a front of Shiite political groups, announced that they are in the process of drafting an important document called the “Historical Settlement.” On February 6, 2017, Ammar al–Hakeem, the leader of the Alliance, stated that the project is the result of intensive and constructive talks with all Iraqi groups and has the backing of regional stakeholder governments. Moreover, the United States and the UN will have a role in it too, and it will be announced after the end of the war against DAESH. Thus, the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) will draft the final version of the Historical Settlement after the document is approved by both the parliament and the Cabinet and Iraqi parties agree to abide by it. UNAMI will try to convince regional institutions, namely the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to support the project. The document is to addresses key issues, including power and wealth distribution between the Federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and the grievances of Sunni Arab provinces. The implementation of the Historical Settlement has many opportunities as well as insurmountable challenges, and to succeed Iraq needs to avail itself from the experience of other countries who have dealt with the same kind of divisions.

Road to Historical Settlement

Iraq, like other countries which have witnessed dictatorship and civil war, is in need of a national reconciliation. Though Iraqi governments in the past have officially committed themselves to the achievement of national reconciliation, very few tangible steps have been taken so far. In 2003, the government of Ayah al-Alawi, the leader of Iraqiyah Bloc, and Nouri al-Maliki, who would serve as Prime Minister, officially committed their governments to the process, but no concrete steps were taken. As Prime Minister, Al-Maliki pursued sectarian and authoritarian policies which resulted in alienating Sunni Arabs and Kurds, and led DAESH to try championing the Sunni cause.

In July 2014, Haider al-Abadi came to power as prime minister with a promise to curb corruption and broker national reconciliation. However, his efforts were hindered by the pro-al-Maliki group and the rising power of al-Hashd Shaabi, Shiite militias which have Iranian backing. Those Shiite militias have taken very uncompromising steps. Besides, pro-Iranian political circles used their best to prevent the formation of a National Guard in Sunni Arab majority provinces, and they made the long awaited Amnesty Law, which was passed in the parliament on August 2016, toothless and too late. For these reasons, even if DAESH were to be expelled from the cities, the grievances of Sunni Arabs will continue.

Opportunities

Through Iraq’s distant and modern history, it is evident that its diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural communities have succeeded in peaceful coexistence and intermixing. Unlike many other countries, where Shiites and Sunnis live apart, before the effects of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Shiite and Sunni Iraqis lived in integrated communities in many mixed regions, especially in Baghdad. There are several powerful tribal confederations which have a mixed Shiite and Sunni membership. These are potential resources, which need to be tapped in for reconciliation. For example, in 2007 a group of facilitators from the US Institute of Peace (USIP) in the district of Mahmoudiyah, an area south of Baghdad which was known as the “Triangle of Death,” helped to broker a reconciliation pact through tribal chieftains from Sunnis and Shiites that still endures. This experience needs to be generalized to other regions in Iraq. Besides, the implementation of the stated policies of US president Donald Trump with regard to the curbing of Iran’s undue influence in Iraq and al-Abadi’s imminent victory against DAESH will have a combined impact of weakening the al-Maliki camp and pro-Iranian Shiite militias. These will give national reconciliation internally a great momentum.

Challenges

The most serious challenges to national reconciliation are the lack of trust among various Iraqi groups, the exclusiveness in the nature of some influential elements on both sides, structural flaws in the post-2003 government, Iranian interference in Iraq, and the lack of a determined will to have reconciliation. After the US invasion, Iraqis agreed to form governments of communities, instead of government of citizens, as a power-sharing formula. Since 2014, al-Maliki’s group, supported by Iran, has been calling for the formation of a government of a “political majority.” In reality, al-Maliki is trying to use democracy to establish the government of a Shiite majority to the exclusion of Sunnis (Arabs and Kurds). In addition, al-Abadi’s inability to live up to his government program with regard to the Kurds has forced the Kurds to distrust Shiite politicians in Baghdad. During the first week of February, al-Hakeem visited the KRG to sound them out on his project. He received a cold response from their leaders, who have mostly opted for separation from Iraq and waiting to see what Trump’s future policy on Iraq will be.

These and other challenges have been spelled out in a well-written piece by Nazli Tarzi in the Middle East Eye. Tarzi rightly points that there is a lot of vagueness in the project and it has been drafted in the dark unilaterally by Shiite groups. It is not so inclusive either. But all these challenges could be overcome, if al-Hakeem’s proposed document was to be discussed openly with prominent Sunni groups and the international community lends its support to it.

Turkey and Iran have many stakes in its success and they should and could play an important role in this regard. Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group in a 2007 report, and more recently the al-Bayan Center for Study and Planning, an Iraqi think tank based in Baghdad, have prepared projects for national reconciliation which reiterate the same points: the complex nature of the conflict in Iraq has reached a point where an international and regional intervention is necessary. Iraq needs to upgrade the role of Jan Kubis, the head of UNAMI, from that of good will ambassador to that of an arbiter. The US also needs to use its influence and leverage among all communities in Iraq for this purpose. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan must put pressure on Sunnis (Arabs and Kurds) to show a readiness for a historical compromise to achieve a durable and lasting peace. Iran has to be pressured to exercise a positive influence on Iraq’s Shiites. Except for a few extremist groups, the war-weary majority of Iraqi groups are now ready to accept this.

And the Iraqis need to benefit from other countries which had experienced civil wars. The formation of a body in Iraq similar to the Committee of Truth and Reconciliation, which was established in 1990 in South Africa, for example, is noteworthy. This Committee addressed the needs of the victims of the Apartheid regime by recognition and remedies instead of revenge and punishment. It convinced the perpetuators of the crimes to admit and apologize for their deeds. The new constitution of 1996 guaranteed the rights of black majorities and safeguarded that of white Afrikaners.

Traditional and tribal institutions were utilized to bring harmony to the conflict-torn country. The hastily drawn Iraqi constitution of 2005 needs to be amended to address the needs of Sunni Arabs. The controversial practice of de-Baathification should be reversed and de-politicized and be left to the judicial authorities. The controversial current Iraqi laws and regulations on terrorism have to be either eliminated or amended to exclude its future abuse. The high-ranking Iraqi religious authorities among Sunnis and Shiites need to act as peace-makers similar to the role South-African Archbishop Desmond Tutu played. Furthermore, the issue of disputed territories and control over oil and gas revenues with the KRG needs to be addressed by resorting to a third-party for mediation, as well as the Supreme Court of Iraq.

Iraq has a chance to achieve a much needed national reconciliation, if political groups exhibit a true will to do so and receive the needed external support.

A brief look into the international and domestic media coverage on Turkey, as well as the academic debate, in recent years reveals a rather bleak picture of a country divided along several fault lines, namely the seculars vs. the conservatives, Turks vs. Kurds, and the Sunni vs. the Alawites. Among these, most of the attention has been given to the divide between the conservatives and the seculars although the recent terror attacks has brought the Kurdish issue to the forefront.

Many claim that the policies of the current governing party, the Justice and Development Party (JDP), and especially the rhetoric and style of its founder and the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has divided the country into two camps: the conservatives who support him on one side and the seculars who oppose him on the other. The polarisation of Turkish society between these two camps is treated almost as a given both inside and outside the country.

The polarisation of Turkish society between these two camps is treated almost as a given both inside and outside the country.

Claims regarding the division of the Turkish society on the basis of adherence to Islamic values and practices are nothing new. Religion and its role in society and politics has always been a contested issue in Turkey. In the early years of the Republic, the westernisation process, especially some of the reforms initiated by the founding cadre, was met with a degree of societal backlash, which often drew harsh reactions from the state. Although the tension of those early days has subsided, the supporters of the founding ideology have always carried deep suspicions about religion and the conservative elements in Turkish society. When expounding on his ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis, Samuel P. Huntington claimed that Turkey has an internal clash of civilizations, and it is a ‘country torn’ between Western civilization and its rival Islamic civilization.

However, the rise to power of the JDP in 2002 and its continuing dominance in Turkish politics gave rise to more intense claims regarding the polarisation of Turkish society. In 2007, millions of secular Turks took to the streets to prevent the election of a conservative president, a position that was first held by the founder of the Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and that was regarded as nearly sacred by many secular Turks. Again in 2010, during the constitutional amendment referendum, there was significant mobilisation and political tension between the secular opposition and the Government. Finally, in May and June 2013, the Gezi Park protests turned into a showdown between the government and the secular opposition. These protests received widespread attention outside the country and further inflamed the claims regarding the polarisation in society.

We previously assessed this claim, regarding whether social and political attitudes have become polarised in Turkish society.

We previously assessed this claim, regarding whether social and political attitudes have become polarised in Turkish society, in a study that analysed data from the period of 1990-2011, when conservative politics became more prevalent and the political scene was dominated by what we label as ‘the religiously-oriented political parties’. In this study, we used data from the World Value Surveys (1990, 2001, 2007 and 2011) and the European Value Surveys (2001 and 2009). The results of this analysis have been published in the journal Social Currents.

In doing so, we drew extensively from the ‘the culture wars’ debate in the US because of the similarity between the claims and the rigorousness of the methodology used by American social scientists to assess these claims. In the 1990s, some in the public debate claimed that American society was polarised between liberals and conservatives, which was akin to a ‘culture war’. In the early 1990s, political scientist James D. Hunter (1991) claimed that American society was divided between the ‘orthodox’ and ‘progressive’ camps, which rallied around issues such as abortion, gun control, and gay rights. During his famous speech in the 1992 Republican National Convention, presidential candidate Pat Buchanan declared that there was an ongoing war for the soul of America.

In the early 1990s, political scientist James D. Hunter (1991) claimed that American society was divided between the ‘orthodox’ and ‘progressive’ camps, which rallied around issues such as abortion, gun control, and gay rights.

In line with the empirical tradition in the American social sciences, academics approached the issue by developing measures of polarisation and testing their hypotheses with survey data rather than reaching conclusions based on circumstantial evidence, which was what was happening in the public debate in the US at the time, as well as what is happening in Turkey today.

In their seminal study, sociologist Paul DiMaggio and his colleagues defined polarisation in four dimensions: (1) if attitudes were becoming more dispersed than concentrated (the dispersion principle); (2) if attitudes were moving to separate modes (bimodality principle); (3) the extent to which opinions in one domain were dependent on opinions in other domains (the constraint principle); and (4) the extent to which individual characteristics and identities determined attitudes (the consolidation principle). When they explored these dimensions with survey data, they found no evidence of widespread polarisation between 1972 and 1994 except for views on the issue of abortion. Remarkably, they found increasing agreement on the issues of crime, racial integration, and women’s rights.

Although their methodology and findings drew some criticism, the academic research into the ‘culture wars’ debate showed that polarisation was limited to specific issues and debunked the myth of increasing division of American society into two camps based on religious conservatism. Similar claims still resurface from time to time in the popular discourse, but American sociologists seem confident that no such polarisation exists in the US.

There was some evidence that the differences increased in 2007, when political tensions were high, but these differences disappeared later.

Following this debate, we assessed the differences between the people who reported that they would vote for the religiously-oriented political parties (ROP) and those who reported a preference for secular-oriented political parties (SOP) between 1990 and 2011 in Turkey. The ROP category consisted of the three political parties established by Necmettin Erbakan, the father of conservative politics in Turkey, and his followers. We also included the current governing party JDP and the Grand Unity Party, which subscribes to what is known in Turkey as the Turkish-Islamic synthesis, to this category. The SOP category included all other political parties, including those of the center-right and the center-left, as well as the far-left and nationalist parties.

We assessed polarisation in four areas: family and sexuality, gender roles, economic and social justice, and democracy. Regarding family and sexuality, we assessed attitudes towards abortion, divorce, and homosexuality. With regard to gender roles, we assessed attitudes towards women’s participation in the labor force and working mothers. When assessing the issues of economic and social justice, we analysed attitudes towards income inequality and individual vs. government responsibility. Finally, we assessed people’s perceptions of military rule and democratic political rule.

Any polarisation that was caused by those events did not have any lasting impact. Extrapolating from this finding, we expect that the Gezi Park protests will also not have a long-lasting effect.

The results of our analyses revealed that people who voted for ROP differed only slightly in terms of their attitudes towards family and sexuality and gender roles. However, this difference in attitudes with regards to gender roles was not a pronounced difference, and there were no significant differences in attitudes towards democracy, nor in attitudes towards economic and social justice. Furthermore, there was no evidence of a steady increase in differences over time between the two groups. In fact, attitudes towards family and sexuality and gender roles moved in the same direction in both of the groups. There was some evidence that the differences increased in 2007, when political tensions were high, but these differences disappeared later.

To sum up, whatever the current tensions in the political sphere are, Turkish society is not being torn apart on the basis of religion nor its politics. As in the case of the ‘culture wars’ debate in the US, the popular claims based on circumstantial evidence cannot and should not be used to make overreaching claims about society. Some may argue that the Gezi Park protests of 2013 changed the societal dynamics significantly and created polarisation that has not been seen before. Unfortunately, our analyses did not cover the most recent period, as the relevant data are not available. However, similar claims were made during and after the 2007 protests. Any polarisation that was caused by those events did not have any lasting impact. Extrapolating from this finding, we expect that the Gezi Park protests will also not have a long-lasting effect. Also, we are in the process of planning for a data collection effort of our own in order to assess the current situation. We will be happy to utilise any secondary data that becomes available as well.

The theoretical aspect of the settlement process embraced a threefold position.  The first represented “the rights-centered approach” and was based on the notion of political equality between Turks and Kurds as basic to the redefinition of citizenship in constitutional terms. The two other component of this position were intertwined and involved local administrative or political centrifigulism that can be described as local or regional self-rule, expressed in the PKK’s political discourse as “democratic autonomy.”The scope of self-rule can be formulated as a kind of shared sovereignty as seen in federal political structures or as a form of administrative self-rule, a variant of unitary political systems. The third form of centrifigulism may emerge at the regional level that may or may not require the sharing of sovereignty.The post-2013 process of settlement created a plural political environment conducive to the elaboration of all political options for the solution of the age-long Kurdish issue in a peaceful and democratic way. This contributed to the belief in the possibility of the successful resolution of the issue through democratic negotiations in both Turkish and Kurdish popular understanding. Thus, for the first time in Republican history “the Kurds’ right to secede” was uttered loudly and without any legal sanctions by Kurdish nationalist activists and political parties.

During the settlement process, a strategically motivated tactical approach was masterminded by the PKK-HDP side, however. The latter used the time span of the process as an opportunity for the consolidation of their hold on the Kurdish populace as their instrumental support base. The HDP through the political discourse of going beyond an ethnic Kurdish party and becoming a Turkey-wide political formation procured the support of the socialist Turkish left, and increasingly turned into a platform of anti-Erdoğan rhetoric as reflected in the 2014 presidential campaign of Selahattin Demirtaş, the leader of the HDP. The prevailing motto of Demirtaş’s political campaign was “We will not allow you to become president.” This was a kind of demonization of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the main political figure thanks to whose political will the Kurdish issue became a clause in the chapter of politics.

The campaign proved to be inconclusive, but powerful enough to sever ties between the “negotiating parties.” Added to this was the IS offensive against the city of Kobani that triggered the arousal of a pan-Kurdish feeling among Kurds. This was again used as an influential step by the PKK-HDP block in order to modulate the process for their sectarian political gains. In the end, when Erdoğan witnessed the political cost of the process, he declared that “there is no negotiation table anymore” and put an end to the process. Ready for a new phase in their military campaign, the PKK, who gained advantage of the process by transferring heavy weaponry and militants into city centers, murdered two police officers in their homes in Suruç in July 2015 and ended the ceasefire. PKK leadership has two new block-partners in this new war: on the one hand, the Russians, the Iranians and the Assad regime through the PKK’s Syrian branch, the PYD,  and, on the other, the military support of the US who saw the PYD as a substitute power for its own soldiers in the field war against IS. Again, all anti-Turkey calculations were masked under the pretext of the war on IS that ended up with generous support delivered to the PKK via the PYD.

On top of all this, the HDP adopted a political discourse during the PKK offensives in cities, namely Diyarbakir, Sur, Cizre, Silopi and Nusaybin, amenable to declaring it PKK’s legal wing. HDP municipalities allow their vehicles to be used by PKK militants to dig the trenches and build barricades in city streets. Thus emerged a non-peace positional equation which came into existence by the maximalist political stance of the PKK-HDP block, and AK Party’s turn to its statist shield nurtured by the age-long survival syndrome shared by the ruling Kemalist establishment in the past.

The dramatic rupture that led to the renewal of the conflict through violent means carried the sides back to their original positions: integration  through assurance of political equality vs some form of shared sovereignty, be it local self-rule, federation, or independence. The conclusion that can be drawn from the experiences of the settlement process is that the solution may lie somewhere in the middle; the implication of which calls for the creation of “a politically space” in the form of a negotiation space, not one of political opportunism. What is obvious is that an enduring solution is possible only with the support and will of the AK Party, and it is not possible if the PKK-HDP block opposes it. It is the AK Party that holds the capacity to introduce political, legal and economic standards, and it is the PKK-HDP block that may contribute to the process by not resorting to violence.