Global Emerging Markets (GEMs) : Turkey

Islamic Headgear and Public Policy

Charles Krakoff — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:04:00 GMT

by Chip Krakoff in Crime & Punishment, Democracy and Governance, Politics, Social Issues

Few current issues have become more emotionally charged than the head coverings worn by many Muslim women, both in traditionally Muslim countries and in the West. This plays out in Turkey, where the ruling Islamist AK Party has struggled to allow women to wear the hijab in public universities and public buildings, something that has been banned for most of the past 85 years or so under resolutely secularist rule. Among Muslim countries, Tunisia, Syria, and Morocco have also imposed some restrictions on the practice. Now comes the latest salvo in the war on headscarves: French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s introduction of a ban on wearing of the face-covering niqab or similar garb in public, which comes into effect next month.

A brief taxonomy may be useful. In America we tend to lump the different categories of Muslim headgear under the catchall term “burka” – sometimes spelled “burqa,” but this is incorrect. The most common form of female Muslim head covering is the hijab, a headscarf that hides the hair and may or may not cover the entire neck. The hijab can be seen on women wearing tight jeans, high heels, jewelry and makeup. It can also be seen on women wearing shapeless, long-sleeved, floor-length garments, sometimes with gloves, and in just about any configuration between the two extremes. There is the chador, the black Iranian garment that covers the entire body and the hair, but leaves the face exposed. Similar to the chador is the abaya, typically worn in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, which may or may not be worn together with the niqab, a veil that covers the entire face, leaving only a slit for the eyes. Finally, there is the Afghan burka, typically light blue in color, which covers the head and body, with only a grid through which the wearer can peer dimly. Walking the crumbling pavements of Kabul can be a challenge in such a garment. Eating in public while wearing a niqab or burka is all but impossible. In Saudi Arabia restaurants have “family sections” in which women can relax their guard to a degree, sheltered from the lascivious glares of single men, but no such option exists in Afghanistan.

The French ban covers only the niqab, burka, and similar garments that cover all or most of the face. Many other European countries are debating similar bans, though only Italy, which bans all face-coverings (including motorcycle helmets) in public facilities, has enacted one. In Britain, both the House of Lords and an employment tribunal ruled several years ago that teachers could be prohibited from wearing a niqab, and could be sacked if they refused to comply with the prohibition.

It would be unfair to characterize all proponents of any kind of ban on veils as racist, though there is no question that many of them, apparently including Sarkozy, do pander to racist sentiment among the electorate. But there are legitimate concerns about the proliferation of the veil. Many, if not most, Turks favor a secular society, and Turkey has succeeded where few other Muslim countries have, in creating a Western-style separation of religion and state. This separation has come under increasing threat from the Islamist government (the wives of the President and Prime Minister both wear the hijab), and it makes many people uneasy. In the West, many immigrant Muslim populations have failed or refused to integrate. Some of this is certainly due to the host countries’ own attitudes and official policies, which can make it hard for Muslim immigrants and their children, religious or secular, integrate into a society they feel is closed to them. But there is no question that many immigrant communities, unlike preceding generations of immigrants, have no interest in integrating, and expect the host country to change its laws and practices to accommodate them. Leaving aside the idiocies of many countries’ immigration policies – why, for example, can it be easier for an illiterate Somali to gain the right of residency in the U.S. than for an Indian with a master’s degree in electrical engineering from MIT? – growing populations of immigrants who can’t or won’t integrate, many of whom seem to detest the culture and values of the countries that have taken them in, represent a real social problem, even if most right-thinking people would prefer to ignore it.

This is not to say that the “solutions” proposed by the likes of France’s National Front or Holland’s Geert Wilders (which include banning construction of new mosques, repealing the clause of the Dutch Constitution that guarantees equality under the law, imposing what Wilders calls a “head rag tax,” and a ban on preaching in any language other than Dutch) should be adopted. Wholesale deportation of immigrants, in addition to being unfeasible, is also undesirable. Banning public manifestations of religiosity is also unfeasible and undesirable. If a woman who, by tradition or choice, wears the niqab, how can banning her from going out in public improve her life? Still, secular Western countries – I wouldn’t presume to tell majority Muslim societies how to organize their social and religious arrangements – could apply some common-sense measures, which could include:

1. First, reform immigration policy, not by banning immigrants but by encouraging immigration of people who have the education and skills to contribute to the economic and social life of the country, regardless of religion or country of origin. Does this mean that you may get an occasional suicide bomber who has an advanced degree and a good job? Yes, but a policy designed to eliminate the slightest risk of this will do much more harm than good.

2. With regard to the hijab-niqab issue (I refer only to Western countries here – Muslim countries will need different approaches):

a. Government employees may not wear the niqab or burka on the job (hijab, it’s up to the individual). As a citizen, you should be able to see the face of the official you are dealing with and the teacher who is instructing your children.

b. Government offices do not transact business of any kind with anyone wearing the niqab or burka. Government employees should be able to see whom they are dealing with, while access to government buildings, already the object of security concerns, could legitimately be denied to anyone refusing to show his or her face (Italy already has such a policy, which applies to Halloween masks and motorcycle helmets as well as Islamic face coverings).

c. Private companies or organizations should be allowed to make their own policies, but cannot require anyone to wear it (religious establishments excepted).

d. Individuals should have the right to wear it in public places, including shops and other facilities that allow free public access. Access to public transport is more problematic. Security concerns could dictate that all passengers show their faces.

e. Driving while wearing the niqab or burka is strictly forbidden. Riding in a car while wearing it is no concern of the state.

It’s not a perfect solution, it may not fit all countries, and it is likely to infuriate some people on both sides of the question, but it’s a basis for discussion.

Killer BEEs: The Next Group of Big Emerging Economies

Charles Krakoff — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:54:00 GMT

by Chip Krakoff on January 5, 2011

will give Jim O’Neill, the Goldman Sachs banker who in 2001 coined the term “BRICs”, the benefit of the doubt. I suspect he meant to create a simple shorthand to refer to the big emerging economies likely to matter most over the next 10 years or so, which at the time seemed to be Brazil, Russia, India, and China. But as often happens, the thing took on a life of its own and became reified to the extent that a year or two ago there was talk of convening a BRICs summit, and in 2007 iShares, the fund management company, set up an exchange-traded BRICs fund (BKF), which has returned an impressive -3.11% annually since its inception. A fund that includes Russia, a huge energy exporter and China, soon to become the world’s largest oil importer, may provide some diversification benefits but probably not the kind of outsized returns investors tend to seek from emerging markets.

I have argued on this blog and elsewhere that the notion of the BRICs – Brazil, Russia, India, China – as a group never had a coherent meaning, especially since Russia, whose economy is nearly as dependent on oil and gas as Nigeria’s and whose governance is arguably more dysfunctional than Nigeria’s, and which is suffering catastrophic population decline, has little in common with the other three. The recent kangaroo court judgment and sentence against former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky only confirms this. Even though the Russian stock market grew by a dynamic 22.5% in 2010 and is predicted by none other than Jim O’Neill to be the star performer of 2011, the longer-term trend points clearly in the opposite direction.

Still, there may be some use for a term that distinguishes big, important, and growing emerging economies, but the term needs to become more elastic as new countries qualify and others fall by the wayside. New candidates for BRIC membership continue to surface, as much as they wreak havoc with the catchy acronym. Indonesia, for certain; with over 250 million people, GDP growth of around 6% and a stock market that rose 44% last year it can hardly be ignored. The next candidate in my view is Turkey. With a population of nearly 78 million – likely to grow to 100 million by 2030 – GDP growth of 6.8% in 2010, a dynamic stock market (25.8% return in 2010), and a growing cadre of domestic companies that are expanding their footprint throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, Turkey is growing in importance as a regional political and economic power, and it also serves as a bridge between Europe and the Middle East and Central Asia. An article in today’s New York Times highlights Turkey’s political and commercial prominence in Iraq, where it is building power plants, pipelines, hotels, and a stadium, but this is only part of the story. Ever since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Turkish diplomats and companies have made a concerted effort to bring the former Soviet republics in the Caucasus and Central Asia, many of which speak Turkic languages, into Turkey’s commercial and political orbit. Turkish construction firms are prominent on big building sites all over the region, while the markets are full of Turkish medicines and consumer products. The Arab countries of the region, nervous about Iran’s power and its unpredictability, see Turkey as a potential counterweight. The relationship is not perfect – Arabs retain a historical memory of their struggle against Ottoman rule – and Turkey has its own problems, many of which are rooted with an internal struggle between the political heirs of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) and his transformation of Turkey into a modern, secular society following World War I, and the Islamists, represented by the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development party, who promote greater religious expression in public life. But Turkey, which has still not abandoned its long quest for full membership of the European Union, and which already enjoys free access to the EU market, seems certain to become an even more prominent player in the region and even globally.

Looking a little further down the road, Egypt (the largest Arab country with a population over 80 million, 2.0% annual population growth, steady GDP growth in the 5% to 6% range, sophisticated capital markets, and some huge international construction and telecoms companies) seems poised to take its place as an important player in the world economy, though it could traverse a period of uncertainty and instability in the transition from ailing President Hosni Mubarak to whoever ends up succeeding him. But Egypt has made huge strides in liberalizing its economy over the past 10 years, and is all but certain to attain increasing prominence in regional and global markets and political forums.

Looking quite a bit further down the road we could be considering Nigeria and Vietnam as candidates.

What, then, are the criteria for BRIC-hood, and what should we call this growing group of nations? It’s doubtful that any country with a population much less than 100 million – or a high probability of getting there soon – qualifies. This excludes countries like South Africa, South Korea, Malaysia, and any of the Eastern European countries. Some of them may be or become star economic performers, but they lack the weight to matter quite as much as bigger countries. Extreme poverty and a small economy would rule out a country like Bangladesh (population 162 million and rising; GDP of only $90 billion) or Ethiopia (82 million people and a GDP of less than $30 billion). Pakistan, population 170 million, has an economy nearly double the size of Bangladesh’s, but that still leaves it extremely poor. It is also something close to a failed state, with apparently intractable political and security problems. A stagnant or declining population could also be a disqualifier unless you are China, which is big enough to flout any rule, including the one about trending towards democracy.

Let’s not forget Mexico either. With over 107 million people and a GDP of $875 billion it is already the 13^th largest economy in the world and the second largest in Latin America, after Brazil. It boasts the world’s richest person in telecoms mogul Carlos Slim, and some world-class companies, including Cemex, the third largest cement producer in the world. Closely linked to the United States economy, Mexico has experienced somewhat anemic growth over the past few years, though it chalked up a respectable 5% increase in 2010. The current drug gang violence and the corruption that goes along with it make Mexico a bit of a question mark for now, but there is little doubt it will emerge from its current crisis and take its rightful place as one of the countries that will shape the 21^st century.

So if we take the current BRIC group, add Indonesia and Turkey, drop Russia (or not) and make room for all the potential new entrants like Egypt, Mexico, Vietnam and Nigeria, we are left with an unpronounceable acronym that would have to be reinvented each time a new country makes the grade. TINMBERVIC, anyone? One solution would be to drop the whole idea. No one talks much anymore about the East Asian “tiger” economies, and most of the efforts in the 1980s and 90s to identify the common factors that made them all succeed were either embarrassingly superficial – the “Confucian ethic” or just plain wrong. The PIGS acronym, which refers to Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain as the Eurozone countries most likely to default on their sovereign debt, is both picturesque and humorous, and does describe economies with a lot of similarities, but it is hardly a club to which any country would aspire.

Here is a modest proposal. Let’s call them the BEEs, standing for Big Emerging Economies. Someone may decide to call the more dynamic among them “Killer BEEs.” Let poetic license reign. Remember, you heard it here first.