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A Culture of Trust and Tolerance, or a Beautiful, but Lonely Turkey? June 12, 2009 / Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı

As Victor Hugo said, nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come. Perhaps this is why the new survey on "Radicalism and Extremism" in Turkey, conducted by Prof. Yýlmaz Esmer, a member of the steering committee of the World Values Survey, has stimulated a heated debate even though its findings are neither new nor surprising.

Prof. Esmer's survey results show the lack of tolerance, generalized trust and voluntary participation in Turkey, among numerous other issues. Other researchers have confirmed his findings using the same questions. Some intellectuals and NGOs have tried to create awareness about the lack of social capital demonstrated by the survey - and its consequences for Turkish democracy - without much success.

One of the most newsworthy findings of Prof. Esmer's survey is that Turks do not want anybody who is behaviorally different from them as a neighbor. Survey respondents said they did not want to live next to the following kinds of people:
Homosexuals: 87 percent
Heavy drinkers: 72 percent
Non-believers: 66 percent
Jews: 64 percent
Christians: 52 percent
An American family: 43 percent
Families with daughters who wear shorts: 36 percent
People of a different ethnicity: 26 percent

Did we really need this survey to learn there is a lack of tolerance in Turkey? If Turkish society did not have a problem with tolerance, would it become not only politically, but also socially, this polarized?

The survey also shows Turks' distrust in the United States and the European Union: Over 75 percent of respondents say they believe that the EU and the U.S. aim to break up Turkey. In the case of the United States, the figure is 86 percent.

This result might seem shocking, but it should not come as a surprise, since Turkish society is not very trusting. According to the findings of the World Values Survey, only 5 percent of Turks believe that "most people can be trusted." The average figure for the 54 countries involved in the study was 25 percent.

Empirical evidence suggests that there is a correlation between a country's generalized level of trust and its rates of voluntary participation. Therefore, it should also not be a surprise that Turkey is a low-participation society. According to the World Values Survey, only 3.2 percent of Turks are active or inactive members of a charitable or humanitarian organization, compared to a study average of 16.5 percent.

The lack of trust, tolerance and participation in Turkey all point in the same direction: a lack of "social capital," defined by Ronald Inglehart as "a culture of trust and tolerance, in which extensive networks of voluntary associations emerge."

There is also a strong correlation between social capital and the quality of democracy in a country. Therefore, structural transformation, albeit very important, is not sufficient to increase the quality of democracy in Turkey, unless it is also accompanied by a cultural and mental transformation.

Turks' general distrust toward others is also reflected in the approach toward other countries shown in the annual "Transatlantic Trends" survey (www.transatlantictrends.org), which is conducted annually by the German Marshall Fund of the United States to examine American and European attitudes on a number of pressing international issues.

When asked how warmly or favorably they feel toward a set of countries on a scale of 0 to 100 - with 0 meaning very cold or unfavorable, 50 meaning not particularly warm or cold and 100 being very warm or favorable -respondents from Turkey gave 44 points to Palestine, 33 points to the EU, 18 points to Russia and 14 points to the U.S. This does not reflect very warm feelings toward other countries, particularly toward our allies and "fellow Europeans."

When asked with whom Turkey should cooperate on international matters, 48 percent of Turkish respondents said Turkey should act "alone." The total for the EU and the U.S. was 23 percent.

In another survey, this one conducted by Infakto Research Workshop in March 2009, 33 percent of respondents said "Turkey has no friends" and 35 percent could not name a specific country when asked who Turkey's best friend is. In this same survey, 45.6 percent of the respondents said that Turkey has no common values with the West.

The coldness of Turkish society toward other societies, the perception of loneliness and the feeling of detachment from the West in terms of values are consistent neither with Turkey's ambitions to join the EU nor with its aspiration of becoming a soft power in the region.

Prof. Esmer's recent survey is not alone in demonstrating that Turkey lacks some fundamental social values that would make her a "high social-capital society" with a stronger democracy. This situation also negatively influences Turkish public opinion toward other countries, including allies, creating a hindrance for a Turkey that aspires to be more active in the international arena.

The good news is that it is possible to change this. A determined and consistent policy that involves real educational reform, increased opportunities for participation in civil society and the right messages from politicians and other role models could create a society of trust and tolerance. Such a Turkey would still be very beautiful, but not so lonely anymore.

Özgür Ünlühisarcýklý is the Ankara Office director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of GMF.