Never Mind the Noise

Despite its proximity to the birthplace of Bolshevism, Turkey has remained a deeply conservative society, dominated by a seemingly change-proof peasantry. Thus it came as something of an eye-opener last month when the country's growing leftist organizations were able to assemble a throng of 70,000 in Istanbul to protest a labor bill that they felt would benefit right-wing workers. The demonstration quickly turned into a bloody riot. Tanks rumbled out and gunfire spluttered. The Golden Horn bridge was closed and ferry service across the Bosporus, linking the European and Asian halves of the city, was stopped to contain the rampaging mobs. With four dead and 100 injured, the government of Prime Minister Sueleyman Demirel imposed a month-long period of martial law on Istanbul and the nearby industrial city of Izmit. Last week, the parliament extended martial law for another two months.

The Istanbul eruption was only one symptom of a creeping malaise that is infecting Turkey. Inflation plagues the economy. Turkey's balance of payments is $300 million in the red. U.S. economic aid dropped from $237 million in 1963 to $40 million last year, and promises to go even lower unless Turkey shows greater willingness to force its farmers out of the profitable business of growing poppies for opium and heroin. Natural disasters have worsened the turmoil. An earthquake this year killed 1,087 people and caused more than $100 million damage. Turkey's wheat harvest is a disaster because of drought and flooding. Says Tarik Zafer Tunaya, professor of political science at Istanbul University: "Turkey is a field on which gasoline has been poured. Watch your cigarette."

Leftist Despair. In the midst of that field, Demirel is a man beset on all sides. The peasants, who constitute 70% of Turkey's 35 million people and the chief source of support for Demirel's Justice Party, are angered by his attempts to improve conditions for the middle class and the business community. The middle class wants him to place more emphasis on law and order so as to curb radical leftists. The minority leftists, who despair of ever gaining any sort of power through parliamentary means, advocate disruption as the only way to be heard.

Though the left is politically insignificant, it is both vocal and growing in influence among students, labor leaders and intellectuals. Earlier this month, teachers demonstrated in Ankara to protest conservatism in the university there, while students managed to disrupt or close down every major university in Turkey this past spring. So far this year, 14 students have died in violent demonstrations. "If the corrupt university leadership is not replaced by next term," says one student leader, "there will be more blood spilled. We are not fooling." Despite the increased vigor of the left, the Communists are not one of Demirel's problems, either as an outside threat or as a substantial internal influence on the radicals. The government itself is solidly pro-Western.

Flying Ashtrays. Demirel's government is also committed to moderate reforms. Last spring he sent five politically charged measures to Parliament. The bills proposed gun control, stricter limits on student and union participation in political agitation, an indirect tax on luxuries, a pay raise for 1,000,000 government workers and soldiers, and a labor law amendment that would in effect defuse a far-left-wing labor union by banning it from carrying on collective bargaining. Debate on the measures grew so heated that last month Demirel's own party staged a punching, ashtray-slinging brawl while members of the opposition stood by and jeered.

For a while, things looked dim indeed for the beleaguered Demirel. But last week, in a surprising move, President Cevdet Sunay and Ismet Inoenue, chairman of the opposition Republican People's Party, agreed to work with Demirel to pass the bills. Sunay argued that the reforms were more important than political jockeying. Inoenue, 86, protege of Kemal Atatuerk and one of the last links with the man credited with founding modern Turkey in 1923, agreed. As a result, four of the five bills seem certain to be passed by this week.

If they are held up, or if new riots erupt, there is always the threat of the military's stepping in as it did in 1960 when it overthrew the government of Adnan Menderes, accusing him of corruption and mismanagement. But the threat seems remote. The military wrote a democratic constitution complete with an elected Parliament and an elected Prime Minister, then turned Turkey back to the civilians in 1961. Today Turkey's generals have a strangely possessive attitude toward that constitution. While they want law and order, they also appear to want a democratically elected civilian government. Demirel himself pooh-poohs the idea of a military takeover. "People remember the military interference cf 1960 and say it might happen again. But this is 1970, not 1960."

The Big Payoff. As for Turkey's economic difficulties, Demirel talks of "the payoff" he sees coming soon. Two giant dams, three paper plants, an iron-and-steel complex, a copper smelter and aluminum and electricity plants are well under way. "Our debts are high," Demirel told TIME Correspondent Lee Griggs, "but our credit is good." He added: "I would rather be a prosperous man with a debt and a future than a poor man free of debt with no future."

Demirel figures that his parliamentary problems and occasional demonstrations are the price a country must pay for being a democracy. "Many millions in Turkey are against the ideas of the left," he told Griggs. "We continue to reflect the majority will in spite of all the noise you hear. Noise is a basic ingredient in a real democracy, and the left makes lots of it." A redeeming fact may be that, for all the noise, some of Turkey's strongest elements--the government, the middle class, and a number of enlightened generals--seem bent on preserving the democratic order.

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