The Transformation of Turkey

The nation's reaction to an assassination illustrates the power of media networks to promote openness—one of the key themes at Davos

by Christopher Power

The assassination happened far offstage from Davos—in Istanbul, to be exact. Last week, Hrant Dink, the outspoken editor of Turkey's main Turkish and Armenian-language newspaper, was gunned down.

Turkey, of course, has long had an ambivalent relationship with its own past. Successive Turkish governments have been condemned by the West for not recognizing the country's role in the deaths of a million Armenians in World War I. The Armenian tragedy is a sore spot in relations between Turkey and the European Union, just when Turkey is eager to gain membership.

It would be easy to assume that Turks would silently condone the hit that ended Dink's life, and the nationalist extremists who were probably behind the deed. But quite the contrary has happened. Tens of thousands of Turks have demonstrated to condemn the murder and demand justice. A rising chorus of voices seems to be saying: "This is not the Turkey we want."

How is this a Davos tale? One of the themes of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in the Swiss alps is the power of networks to promote change, open closed societies, and cross cultural barriers. As Ali Babacan, Turkey's Economy Minister and chief negotiator with the European Union, explains: "Turkey has become very open, very fast."

Preparing a New Openness

To prepare its bid to join the EU, Turkey has striven to come up to EU standards of openness. That's where the networks come in. A whole new media web has sprung up in the Eurasian nation of 75 million people—where almost none existed before.

From a single state-owned TV station, more than 300 stations have emerged. Eleven hundred radio channels crowd the airwaves. Every private school is now linked to the Internet, and the government is distributing 400,000 PCs to schoolchildren.

There are other networks as well. The Istanbul government has dispatched thousands of Turks to work alongside civil servants and others in the EU states to learn the ways of the West. Turkish courts are now basing more of their own rulings on the corpus of judgments found in EU law books.

Given all these efforts to open up, says Babacan, the assassination of Dink "looks like an anachronism." It's not part of the open society the Turkish government wants.

Is Turkey the perfect Western society? Not by a long shot. Babacan admits that "mental reform" is still needed—that judges, police, and prosecutors are not changing overnight.

The human rights violations are still there. A Kurdish minority still wants more justice. And the Armenian question still smolders, though the Turks now propose to form a joint committee of historians with the Armenian government to determine what happened.

Foreign Investment

Maybe globalization can help Turkey finish its transformation. Under the present government, Turkey has opened its economy to a surprising degree.

In the last five years exports have expanded from $36 billion to $86 billion. Foreign direct investment has zoomed from $1 billion to $18 billion. GDP growth has averaged 7%—not quite in China's league, but close.

And Americans and Europeans are part of the story. Ford has invested hundreds of millions in auto plants in Turkey—and ended up with one of its most productive facilities anywhere. Porsche manufactures vital components there (see BusinessWeek.com, 1/10/07, "Carmakers Shift Their Sights to Turkey").

Toyota, Honda, Electrolux—multinationals are flocking to the country to benefit from workers that cost $500 a month, universities that churn out engineers, and managers who grasp the concept of quality. At the same time, Turkey is starting to build global giants of its own that export products around the globe (see BusinessWeek.com, 6/9/06, "The Unknown TV Giant").

Economic change does not always mean a political mind-shift follows. But Turkey does not want to lose its economic gains in an atmosphere of political murders and terror fomented by a small but determined minority. It wants the payoffs of globalization, not the blowback.

Power is an assistant managing editor at BusinessWeek, responsible for international coverage.