I recently found out that one of my old acquaintances converted to Islam. I listened to his explanation of his decision with polite respect, and was intellectually interested to discover his reasons for becoming Muslim.
This experience got me thinking more about why Westerners in particular become Muslims. As with many people who are religious in general (I am not), the most common explanation for the attraction of Islam to Westerners is the moral and ideological certainty inherent in the faith. In Islam, there is little room for equivocation; for the most part, there is only right or wrong - halal and haram.
In many cases, Westerners who convert to Islam are either people who were non-religious (and usually morally lax, or even entirely absent of morality), or people who were religious (eg. Christian) but had fallen out with their former faith. In these circumstances, the appeal of Islam is obvious: such people are attracted to the certainties of the moral guidance that Islam provides. Submit, and be happy.
Can't you take a joke?
There is a reverse side of the coin to this. After what has happened in the Islamic world in the last fifteen years, it is hard to see how Westerners can convert to Islam, and yet ignore (or rationally explain) the reality that Islam has brought to the world compared to other major world religions. There is little objective doubt that in the contemporary world, Islam is the most uncompromising, polarising and extreme of the major faiths on the planet.
I should emphasize from the last sentence the part "in the contemporary world". Islam was not always so uncompromising or extreme in its methodology, but gradually became so over the last hundred years (more on that here). But the radicalisation of Islam in the last fifteen years or so is impossible to refute or ignore. Compared to other major world religions (Catholicism and its many Christian Protestant off-shoots, Hinduism and Buddhism), Islam is the most-feared religion in the world today. And for good reason.
There is a stereotype that Muslims are cheerless, and take their religion and life too seriously. Unfortunately, this "stereotype" is often proven to be truth in many cases. Recently, some British Muslims made a version of the Pharrell song "Happy". The response to this from some quarters of the Muslim community was less charitable, calling it "haram". This has then led to a debate about whether the idea was "haram" or not. Seriously. This tells you the mentality of some Muslims, living up to the stereotype of being cheerless and taking things too seriously.
Much more controversial was the "Danish Cartoons" issue, that provoked outrage across much of the Muslim world. The worst that can be said of some of the cartoons is that they were in poor taste, but some of the cartoons featuring "Mo" were actually helpful to the agenda of moderate Muslims: one cartoon featured the Prophet at the gates of heaven, saying to two suicide bombers "I'm sorry, we've run out of virgins".
The best way to refute the ideas of extremism is to ridicule and lampoon them.
The controversy about picturing the Prophet Mohammed is that the prophet's face isn't shown because it is considered idolatrous in Islam. And yet "Mohammed" is the most popular name given to men in Islamic countries. There was also a controversy some years ago in Sudan when a female English teacher was arrested for allowing local children to name a school teddy-bear "Mohammed".
Yet why is it not idolatrous for parents to name their children after the prophet? Surely this should be "haram" too, for encouraging the idolatrous idea that the boy is equal to the prophet himself?
A "Trojan Horse"
The most recent scandal relating to Islam in Britain was the unearthing of the so-called "Trojan Horse" project within the school system in urban areas with a high number of Muslims. Again, we see an example of what might be called "Islamic exceptionalism": Muslims being given ground to change the teaching of the national curriculum (as well as breaking schools policy, if not the law) in state schools. The creeping Islamisation of Britain has been going on for decades, but its only in the last ten years that people have paid any attention to it.
Another example is the "halal" controversy just uncovered in some of Britain's biggest food chains. Some food companies had been serving "halal" meat to its unwitting, non-Muslim customers for years. Regardless of the "animal rights" aspect to this issue, which I'll ignore for the sake of the argument, there is the central issue of a) choice, and b) minority rights subverting majority rights. In a supposedly democratic, free-market society, it is extraordinary that private companies are happy to autocratically decide what their customers should eat, out of fear of the wishes of a small minority of their customers.
These two examples demonstrate what is "exceptional" about Islam compared to other contemporary major religions: the disproportionate amount of bullying some of its adherents use to get what they want from society, and the fear that they create in the rest of society. Apart from isolated cases of fundamentalist Christians in the USA, or occasional stories about conservative Hindus in India, the prevalence of this aggressive attitude that emanates from many Muslims is unprecedented in modern society. Of the theocratic states that exist in the world, almost all of them are Islamic; of the most religiously-conservative nation-states that exist in the word, almost all of them are Islamic.
Rebels with a cause
I've digressed from the original theme of this article, which was about why Westerners convert to Islam. Apart from the "moral" reasons, there may well exist a more superficial one. Because it is the ultimate act of rebellion towards "Western values".
Back in the days of the Cold War and the earlier threat of Bolshevism, some Westerners became drawn to some idealistic romanticism of equality and morality that they saw in the principles of Communism. Some journalists had a word for these types: "useful idiots".
While I don't wish to make direct comparisons, it is a self-evident truth that some "real" (i.e. born into the faith) Muslims have a wariness towards Western converts, being initially sceptical of the converts' true belief in Islam. They are wont to "test" them. On the other hand, Western converts often turn out to be much more uncompromising in their Islamic faith than those actually "born into it", often shocking even "real" Muslims about how seriously they take things.
Those imams that are responsible for a Westerner's conversion to the faith often use the strategy of preying on those Westerners that seem pliant and willing to listen to an alternative telling of the "accepted" Western world-view. Tied in with the moral underpinning of Islam is the implicit politics of the faith: that, like Communism, becoming Muslim is the ultimate act of rejecting the "New World Order".
Modern Islam is fused with the politics of conspiracy theories: like Communism (and Fascism), it uses conspiracy theories to argue that Muslims are the world's great "victims", have been oppressed, and that "the Jews" can be squarely blamed for much of it.
It goes without saying that some of these imams are responsible for radicalising converts into suicide bombers or for fighting "Jihad".
The irony these days is that Islam's biggest "war" is not against non-Muslims, but fighting a sectarian war against the Shia Alawite government of Syria. After fighting a "jihad" against the West for ten years, radical Sunnis like Al-Qaeda and others are now fighting a civil war against Shias in Syria instead.
Then again, there is a further ideological divide within the Islamic world, at least in the Middle East. Apart from the sectarian Shia-Sunni civil war in Syria, there is the wider, ideological "cold war" between those supporting the Muslim Brotherhood (such as Qatar and Turkey), and those opposed to it, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
So for those Westerners converting to Islam, please understand what kind of world you're signing up for.
Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Erdogan's Neo-Ottomanism, Political Islam, Fascism and Anti-Semitism
Last month I wrote about some of the divisive and fear-mongering language that Erdogan and his ministers have used since the rise of the "Gezi Park" movement.
Over the last few weeks, the language has become more aggressive and paranoid: the latest salvo from the AKP is the accusation from the Deputy Prime Minister is that the "Jewish diaspora" is also involved with foreign conspirators in a plot to destroy Turkey's economy.
As well as blaming the foreign media (and even threatening legal action against CNN), Erdogan himself has rounded on his those Turkish journalists who have reported on the protests, using the example of Selen Girit, a Turkish BBC correspondent, who he called a "traitor". The purpose of such appallingly-aggressive language is clear - to threaten all domestic journalists into not daring to criticise the government. So while critical foreign media are called "conspirators" who want to destabilise Turkey, critical native journalists are called traitors.
As well as the war on the media, there is a clear trend of victimising foreigners. In the last two weeks, a British teenager was attacked until unconsciousness by Turkish men in the tourist resort of Marmaris because he was seen kissing a Turkish girl in a bar.
Apart from such vigilante attacks, the state itself has deported two foreign women for being involved in the protests, even if only incidentally: a Swedish tourist was deported for being seen to chant along with anti-government slogans; while a French foreign student was deported for being in a DSP (Democratic Left Party) building during mass disturbances with the police.
The message here is clear: for foreigners to mind their own business, and not interfere with Erdogan's "national will".
I wrote last year about Kaiser Wilhelm's plan to ally himself with the Ottomans in order to raise a "jihad" against the British and the Russians. Linked to this is the rise of anti-Semitism, which was first exported from Imperial Russia (using the propaganda tract "The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion"), to post-war Germany, where it quickly got the attention of would-be Nazis. Anti-Semitism then spread to the Middle East, the Nazis (and other Fascist movements) taking up Kaiser Wilhelm's old cause of raising trouble with the West through the force of Islam, by forming loose alliances.
The gradual rise of Political Islam
Like Fascism, the rise of Political Islam in the Middle East in the inter-war period grew through a perceived "victim complex", and a desire to purge society of impurity.
Most of the Middle East had been under the power of the Ottoman Turks for centuries, but hadn't had power in their own right. Similarly, Egypt had been under the power of the British Empire. Organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood grew in the 1930s, as Fascism was becoming a force to be reckoned with in Europe. They had spread across much of the Middle East by the Second World War. Both political creeds were viciously anti-Semitic and against what they saw as Western immorality; their answer was pure authoritarianism and tight social control. Both creeds blamed the Jews for much of their plight.
Political Islam was kept under close watch by the various regimes around the Middle East, so as Fascism was defeated in Europe, Political Islam and organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood were not allowed to spread. Meanwhile, the Jewish state of Israel was created out of the ashes of old Palestine, adding further insult to injury. The Cold War gave another reason for the West to financially prop up secular dictators in the Middle East, in competition with the Soviet Union. Neither "The Great Satan" or the atheist Soviet Union wanted anything to do with Political Islam. While Nasser of Egypt was the nearest thing that the "Arab Street" had to an "anti-Semitic idol" in the Cold War, it all ended in humiliation in the Six Day War of 1967. The re-match, the Yom Kippur War six years later, fared little better, leaving Arabs feeling humiliated and impotent.
That idea received a shock with the Islamic Revolution in Iran, making the West realise its complacency in thinking that Political Islam could be forever kept down on a diet of bullying and political marginalisation. Yet, there was still no other method that anyone could think of. While the Arabs remained divided by borders drawn up after the First World War, the strongest Arab state in the Middle East was Saudi Arabia, followed by Egypt. As one was a hardline Islamic state, and the other a secular dictatorship, the chance of the two ever getting their act together seemed remote in the extreme. It would take a revolution to bring Political Islam to the fore, and no expert thought that was conceivable.
Turkey, another Muslim secular state, provided the answer. As I've described before, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was able to "break the mould" in Turkish politics in 2002, becoming the first party of Political Islam to gain a foothold in a Middle Eastern country.
Erdogan's path to power, and his manner of maintaining it, became an exemplar to other would-be parties of Political Islam across the Middle East. For ten years, he had successfully deceived the West into thinking he was a true democrat, gradually consolidating his grip on power through a smokescreen of "democratic reforms" on a path to eventual EU membership - destroying the influence of the military, judiciary, opposing parties and the media in turn. At the same time, he has taken baby-step after baby-step towards an Islamic state in Turkey, so that by the time of the Arab Spring, Erdogan was the benchmark that Arabs could use to bring Political Islam to power across the Middle East.
In Egypt, Political Islam's biggest "success story" in the Middle East, the Muslim Brotherhood has overstepped its mark. Unlike in Turkey, Egypt's military had not been yet "neutralised". let alone filled with government sympathisers, so it would have been much wiser had the Muslim Brotherhood's President Morsi taken a much more careful and gradual approach like Erdogan. Instead, the Muslim Brotherhood showed their cards far too early, and it is difficult to say what the next step for them will be.
Neo-Ottomanism, the main force of Political Islam
In the meantime, Erdogan's "Neo-Ottomanism" is more and more becoming a force to be reckoned with. With Egypt's future still uncertain, the other Arab governments dominated by Political Islam will continue to look to Erdogan as their mentor.
Erdogan and his ministers are increasingly looking back to the old Ottoman Empire as their inspiration. The secular symbols of Turkey are, one by one, subtly (and sometimes not-so-subtly) being discarded, and being replaced by an increasing affection for the "old ways". Erdogan himself had implied years ago that he was keen to restore some of the old symbolism. The replacing of Gezi park with an Ottoman-era barracks is but one small sign of that.
The expansion of Turkey's ties and alliances with the Middle East, and the rapid frosting of relations with the West is a statement of Neo-Ottoman geopolitics put into practice: to restore Turkey's relations, power and influence so that it is comparable with that before the First World War, when the Turks controlled much of the Middle East. "Neo-Ottomanism" is therefore a kind of localised neo-colonialism; except that while Western Neo-Colonialism is resisted by its erstwhile "colonies", the contemporary Middle East is largely embracing Neo-Ottomanism, as a means to an end: as the coming-together into an informal alliance of a restored "Ottoman Muslim" power that protects the conjoined interests of Political Islam in the Middle East.
"Neo-Ottomanism" as the main agent of Political Islam in the Middle East might therefore be more similar to the politics of Fascism than one might think. Neo-Ottomanism might not threaten the political integrity of Europe, but it does put the Arab Spring in a new light. The Syrian Civil War can be seen as a battle between a (failed) "secular" regime and a militant force of Political Islam. In this way, Neo-Ottomanism has the same kind of stake in the Syrian Civil War as the Fascists had in the Spanish Civil War.
The battle for Syria has become a symbol of the wider future of the Middle east: "Neo Ottoman" Political Islam (and supported by the Gulf States), or Iranian-backed satellite? Iraq is another toy for the larger forces nearby to play with, squeezed between Turkey's Neo-Ottomanism and Iran's Shia theocracy in one direction, and with the Syrian Civil War boiling over in another.
Europe in the 1930s was an ideological battleground between the forces of Fascism and liberal democracy; but also behind that was the threat of Communism, which tempted liberals to indulge Fascism as the "lesser of two evils", and then allowed Fascists to claim "democratic" support.
The Middle East in the 2010s faces a similar ideological battle between the forces of Political Islam, and the varied regimes of the "old order" still allied to the West; but also behind that is the threat of Iran. Thus in the Middle East of the 2010s, Iran has become the bogeyman that Communism was to Europe in the 1930s. While in the Europe in the 1930s it was Fascism versus Communism, in the Middle East in the 2010s it is "Sunni" Muslim Political Islam versus "Shia" Islam Iranian-style theocracy; ideological battles in Europe are instead sectarian battles for control in the Middle East, with liberals used as pawns in the same manner.
Thus the initial indulgence of Political Islam by Westernised liberal Arabs compares with European liberals' indulgence of Fascism in the 1930s.
Following this comparative logic, as Mussolini pre-dated Hitler's rise to power by a decade, so Erdogan pre-dated the rise of Political Islam in the Middle East (i.e. The Arab Spring) by a decade. Hitler learned from Mussolini's example. However, Morsi failed to learn the proper lessons from Erdogan's careful, incremental approach to applying Political Islam (and, fatally, never had the support of the army), leaving Erdogan as the unopposed ideological leader of Political Islam in the Middle East, with no near-comparable rival in the scene.
Thus, in an ironic way, Erdogan may actually benefit politically from Morsi's fall from power: giving greater ammunition to the "victim complex" trait that Political Islam shares with Fascism, sowing further unrest in Egypt, and giving Erdogan further scapegoats to use for his own advantage. The fact that Erdogan's AKP supporters have so clearly allied themselves with Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood tells you how closely-linked the two are.
The rise of Political Islam back in the 'thirties was originally intended to restore the old Islamic caliphate, which had resided for five centuries in Istanbul. Day by day, the Islamist Turkish government distances itself from the West, and opens its arms more and more to the East. Turkey is building a hospital in Gaza, in partnership with the Hamas government (and doubtless to Israel's fury); Turkey is looking to buy a missile system from China instead of the West, that would render it incompatible with NATO.
To what end are these symbolic moves?
The anti-Semitism coming from Erdogan's ministers is more likely opportunism rather than paranoia, but whatever its reason, its purpose is to cement the divisions in Turkish society, between an "us" and "them"; leaving it unspoken but obvious that "they" are not "real" Turks.
And in the cynical numbers game that Erdogan and his ministers are playing, they hold all the trump cards. And if "they" don't like it, it goes without saying, "they" know where the door pointing West is: in the other direction, the East beckons with open arms.
Over the last few weeks, the language has become more aggressive and paranoid: the latest salvo from the AKP is the accusation from the Deputy Prime Minister is that the "Jewish diaspora" is also involved with foreign conspirators in a plot to destroy Turkey's economy.
As well as blaming the foreign media (and even threatening legal action against CNN), Erdogan himself has rounded on his those Turkish journalists who have reported on the protests, using the example of Selen Girit, a Turkish BBC correspondent, who he called a "traitor". The purpose of such appallingly-aggressive language is clear - to threaten all domestic journalists into not daring to criticise the government. So while critical foreign media are called "conspirators" who want to destabilise Turkey, critical native journalists are called traitors.
As well as the war on the media, there is a clear trend of victimising foreigners. In the last two weeks, a British teenager was attacked until unconsciousness by Turkish men in the tourist resort of Marmaris because he was seen kissing a Turkish girl in a bar.
Apart from such vigilante attacks, the state itself has deported two foreign women for being involved in the protests, even if only incidentally: a Swedish tourist was deported for being seen to chant along with anti-government slogans; while a French foreign student was deported for being in a DSP (Democratic Left Party) building during mass disturbances with the police.
The message here is clear: for foreigners to mind their own business, and not interfere with Erdogan's "national will".
I wrote last year about Kaiser Wilhelm's plan to ally himself with the Ottomans in order to raise a "jihad" against the British and the Russians. Linked to this is the rise of anti-Semitism, which was first exported from Imperial Russia (using the propaganda tract "The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion"), to post-war Germany, where it quickly got the attention of would-be Nazis. Anti-Semitism then spread to the Middle East, the Nazis (and other Fascist movements) taking up Kaiser Wilhelm's old cause of raising trouble with the West through the force of Islam, by forming loose alliances.
The gradual rise of Political Islam
Like Fascism, the rise of Political Islam in the Middle East in the inter-war period grew through a perceived "victim complex", and a desire to purge society of impurity.
Most of the Middle East had been under the power of the Ottoman Turks for centuries, but hadn't had power in their own right. Similarly, Egypt had been under the power of the British Empire. Organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood grew in the 1930s, as Fascism was becoming a force to be reckoned with in Europe. They had spread across much of the Middle East by the Second World War. Both political creeds were viciously anti-Semitic and against what they saw as Western immorality; their answer was pure authoritarianism and tight social control. Both creeds blamed the Jews for much of their plight.
Political Islam was kept under close watch by the various regimes around the Middle East, so as Fascism was defeated in Europe, Political Islam and organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood were not allowed to spread. Meanwhile, the Jewish state of Israel was created out of the ashes of old Palestine, adding further insult to injury. The Cold War gave another reason for the West to financially prop up secular dictators in the Middle East, in competition with the Soviet Union. Neither "The Great Satan" or the atheist Soviet Union wanted anything to do with Political Islam. While Nasser of Egypt was the nearest thing that the "Arab Street" had to an "anti-Semitic idol" in the Cold War, it all ended in humiliation in the Six Day War of 1967. The re-match, the Yom Kippur War six years later, fared little better, leaving Arabs feeling humiliated and impotent.
That idea received a shock with the Islamic Revolution in Iran, making the West realise its complacency in thinking that Political Islam could be forever kept down on a diet of bullying and political marginalisation. Yet, there was still no other method that anyone could think of. While the Arabs remained divided by borders drawn up after the First World War, the strongest Arab state in the Middle East was Saudi Arabia, followed by Egypt. As one was a hardline Islamic state, and the other a secular dictatorship, the chance of the two ever getting their act together seemed remote in the extreme. It would take a revolution to bring Political Islam to the fore, and no expert thought that was conceivable.
Turkey, another Muslim secular state, provided the answer. As I've described before, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was able to "break the mould" in Turkish politics in 2002, becoming the first party of Political Islam to gain a foothold in a Middle Eastern country.
Erdogan's path to power, and his manner of maintaining it, became an exemplar to other would-be parties of Political Islam across the Middle East. For ten years, he had successfully deceived the West into thinking he was a true democrat, gradually consolidating his grip on power through a smokescreen of "democratic reforms" on a path to eventual EU membership - destroying the influence of the military, judiciary, opposing parties and the media in turn. At the same time, he has taken baby-step after baby-step towards an Islamic state in Turkey, so that by the time of the Arab Spring, Erdogan was the benchmark that Arabs could use to bring Political Islam to power across the Middle East.
In Egypt, Political Islam's biggest "success story" in the Middle East, the Muslim Brotherhood has overstepped its mark. Unlike in Turkey, Egypt's military had not been yet "neutralised". let alone filled with government sympathisers, so it would have been much wiser had the Muslim Brotherhood's President Morsi taken a much more careful and gradual approach like Erdogan. Instead, the Muslim Brotherhood showed their cards far too early, and it is difficult to say what the next step for them will be.
Neo-Ottomanism, the main force of Political Islam
In the meantime, Erdogan's "Neo-Ottomanism" is more and more becoming a force to be reckoned with. With Egypt's future still uncertain, the other Arab governments dominated by Political Islam will continue to look to Erdogan as their mentor.
Erdogan and his ministers are increasingly looking back to the old Ottoman Empire as their inspiration. The secular symbols of Turkey are, one by one, subtly (and sometimes not-so-subtly) being discarded, and being replaced by an increasing affection for the "old ways". Erdogan himself had implied years ago that he was keen to restore some of the old symbolism. The replacing of Gezi park with an Ottoman-era barracks is but one small sign of that.
The expansion of Turkey's ties and alliances with the Middle East, and the rapid frosting of relations with the West is a statement of Neo-Ottoman geopolitics put into practice: to restore Turkey's relations, power and influence so that it is comparable with that before the First World War, when the Turks controlled much of the Middle East. "Neo-Ottomanism" is therefore a kind of localised neo-colonialism; except that while Western Neo-Colonialism is resisted by its erstwhile "colonies", the contemporary Middle East is largely embracing Neo-Ottomanism, as a means to an end: as the coming-together into an informal alliance of a restored "Ottoman Muslim" power that protects the conjoined interests of Political Islam in the Middle East.
"Neo-Ottomanism" as the main agent of Political Islam in the Middle East might therefore be more similar to the politics of Fascism than one might think. Neo-Ottomanism might not threaten the political integrity of Europe, but it does put the Arab Spring in a new light. The Syrian Civil War can be seen as a battle between a (failed) "secular" regime and a militant force of Political Islam. In this way, Neo-Ottomanism has the same kind of stake in the Syrian Civil War as the Fascists had in the Spanish Civil War.
The battle for Syria has become a symbol of the wider future of the Middle east: "Neo Ottoman" Political Islam (and supported by the Gulf States), or Iranian-backed satellite? Iraq is another toy for the larger forces nearby to play with, squeezed between Turkey's Neo-Ottomanism and Iran's Shia theocracy in one direction, and with the Syrian Civil War boiling over in another.
Europe in the 1930s was an ideological battleground between the forces of Fascism and liberal democracy; but also behind that was the threat of Communism, which tempted liberals to indulge Fascism as the "lesser of two evils", and then allowed Fascists to claim "democratic" support.
The Middle East in the 2010s faces a similar ideological battle between the forces of Political Islam, and the varied regimes of the "old order" still allied to the West; but also behind that is the threat of Iran. Thus in the Middle East of the 2010s, Iran has become the bogeyman that Communism was to Europe in the 1930s. While in the Europe in the 1930s it was Fascism versus Communism, in the Middle East in the 2010s it is "Sunni" Muslim Political Islam versus "Shia" Islam Iranian-style theocracy; ideological battles in Europe are instead sectarian battles for control in the Middle East, with liberals used as pawns in the same manner.
Thus the initial indulgence of Political Islam by Westernised liberal Arabs compares with European liberals' indulgence of Fascism in the 1930s.
Following this comparative logic, as Mussolini pre-dated Hitler's rise to power by a decade, so Erdogan pre-dated the rise of Political Islam in the Middle East (i.e. The Arab Spring) by a decade. Hitler learned from Mussolini's example. However, Morsi failed to learn the proper lessons from Erdogan's careful, incremental approach to applying Political Islam (and, fatally, never had the support of the army), leaving Erdogan as the unopposed ideological leader of Political Islam in the Middle East, with no near-comparable rival in the scene.
Thus, in an ironic way, Erdogan may actually benefit politically from Morsi's fall from power: giving greater ammunition to the "victim complex" trait that Political Islam shares with Fascism, sowing further unrest in Egypt, and giving Erdogan further scapegoats to use for his own advantage. The fact that Erdogan's AKP supporters have so clearly allied themselves with Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood tells you how closely-linked the two are.
The rise of Political Islam back in the 'thirties was originally intended to restore the old Islamic caliphate, which had resided for five centuries in Istanbul. Day by day, the Islamist Turkish government distances itself from the West, and opens its arms more and more to the East. Turkey is building a hospital in Gaza, in partnership with the Hamas government (and doubtless to Israel's fury); Turkey is looking to buy a missile system from China instead of the West, that would render it incompatible with NATO.
To what end are these symbolic moves?
The anti-Semitism coming from Erdogan's ministers is more likely opportunism rather than paranoia, but whatever its reason, its purpose is to cement the divisions in Turkish society, between an "us" and "them"; leaving it unspoken but obvious that "they" are not "real" Turks.
And in the cynical numbers game that Erdogan and his ministers are playing, they hold all the trump cards. And if "they" don't like it, it goes without saying, "they" know where the door pointing West is: in the other direction, the East beckons with open arms.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Comparing models of "Muslim Democracy": the Turkish and Egyptian experiences
Nowadays, two of the most populous Muslim nations in and around the Middle east are, or appear to be in the process of becoming, democracies in the general sense of the word: Turkey and Egypt respectively.
The Turkish experience is the one that many Egyptians have been claiming to act as their inspiration, but this is itself deserves more than a cursory look at the similarities and differences: both between it and Western democracies in general, as well as the social differences between it and Egypt.
Turkey may be the most obviously Muslim "democracy" in the world (except for Pakistan and Lebanon, who have their own problems), but even that label deserves some qualifications.
Turkey was founded by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) as a secular state, from the remains of the Ottoman Empire. It was NOT, initially a democracy. Ataturk understood that full "democracy" would be difficult for Turks to deal with straightaway, so the party he founded, the CHP, ruled the country unopposed until 1950, from the foundation of the republic in 1923. Ataturk died in 1938. Multiparty elections in 1950 resulted in the CHP being defeated by another party, and was out of power for ten years.
But this is not the only issue. For "Turkey" to remain a stable state, issues such as obvious ethnic and religious divides had to be pasted over by the state: The country's biggest city, Istanbul, for example, had a huge population of Greeks, and there were also Greeks scattered all across the nation, in the west in particular. This issue was dealt with through mutual population exchanges with Greece (who had a large number of Turks in the east of their country). But there still remained large numbers of Greeks in Istanbul upto the 1950s; a controversial "pogrom" against the Greeks took place in that decade, that encouraged almost all the Greeks to leave. Only a few thousand still remain at present.
Then there are the Kurds. These are people with a distinct language living mostly in the south-east of Turkey. Up to this day, the issue of representation is a controversial one. Due to the necessarily centralised and rigid parameters of the civil code, the Turkish state has huge difficulties in dealing with their linguistic and other issues. Kurdish "political parties" are usually banned; the party that gains the most sympathy from the Kurds is the ruling AKP, in power since 2002.
There are also the Armenians, as the Greeks, another Christian minority in Turkey, though generally they have had relatively few problems with the Turkish state over the years, as they have been accepting of their status within Turkey. For this reason, they don't need further mention.
So the foundation of the Turkish state was from its inception bound in insecurity, due to the ethnic and religious complexity of the country. The cult of "Kemalism" (in other words, following the secular "ideology" of Ataturk) has been the guiding principle of the Turkish state.
Until 2002, no openly religious party had been successful at the ballot box (apart from the brief and controversial rule of the religious "Refah" party in the mid-nineties, who were overthrown in a coup).
The fact that the "Islamist" AKP, who took power in that year, have remained in power and generally popular, is a testament to the lessons the AKP's politicians have learned: how to maintain, manufacture and manipulate popular opinion, as well as against the "secular" state itself. The last point, the campaign against the "secular establishment" is seen through the continuing "Ergenekon" conspiracy; a right-wing plot by nationalist politicians and military staff to engineer an internal crisis, allowing the military to take power from the "Islamist" government.
In general, the main point about the condition of "Turkish democracy" is this: the tenets of secularism and the status of Ataturk as a semi-revered founder of the republic, are inviolate and are not open to (negative) discussion.
Like Italy, Turkey has a plethora of parties, though only a small number of those that exist have ever tasted power in the lifetime of "Turkish democracy". Also like Italy, until the AKP came to power in 2002, most governments were coalitions of some sort, and their time in power was sometimes brief, especially in the seventies and nineties.
But the healthy number of parties (the lesser ones usually being a confusing combination of acronyms) does not change the fact that the status of "Turkish democracy" relies on the centralised state and in immovable civil code. This necessarily stymes opinion and dissent.
The irony now is that the governing AKP, who have been so critical of this rigid civil code over the years (as they had been at the wrong end of it in the past), are now using the same civil code to limit press freedom. The government is using it against those "secularists" who claim the AKP has its own Islamic agenda, and accuse the government of arrogance or worse.
The other components of the Turkish state, the judiciary, are caught in the middle of all this, between the government, military and secular sphere. Sometimes they have launched prosecutions against the government, sometimes against the military. The result has generally appeared to be a mess to most observers, with no sign of things being resolved in the near future.
So where does Egypt fit into all this?
Like Turkey, Egypt is culturally heterogenious: with a large Coptic Christian minority (10%), as well as the smaller Greek and Armenian churches. Also like Turkey, its modern secular state was founded by a military man, Abdul Nasser, in the 1950s. And, also like Turkey, the state has used the shield of "secularism" as a way to manage and impose its own version of "democracy" onto its population.
Until now. With the overthrown of Hosni Mubarak, there were fears of an Iranian-style Islamic revolution (as Iran itself had hoped, when it initially encouraged the protests). This fear, though, was based on a misunderstanding of the nature of Egpytian society, as well as wishes of the protesters themselves.
The protesters' model, as many of them said, was that of Turkey. But at the same time, 2011 in Egypt was not the same as 1923 in Turkey; for Egypt had already had their "Ataturk" moment with Nasser in the 1950s.
No, these young protesters wanted a model more like Turkey circa 2002. But at the same time, Turkey's AKP government happened as a gradual evolution using the current "Turkish democracy" system; it seems that what Egyptians are demanding is something less constrained by civil codes and unbending constitutions as Turkey - something more pure and unrefined.
We can see that by the fact that free expression and protest are happening organically as we speak. There have been signs of religious unrest between Coptic Christans and Muslims (though people have said that former Mubarak loyalists have been behind this in any case); but it also appears that Egyptians are, at least for the moment, willing to accept these occurances as the necessary "price" of true freedom.
That may sound a little like Donald Rumsfeld's notorious explanation of Iraq's anarchic "version" of democracy: "stuff happens". But the longer-term signs for Egyptian democracy are good. The religious divide in Egypt points towards a tendency for tolerance and acceptance of other points of view. The early years of Turkey's republic show us that there the religious and ethnic issues were papered over, with messy results in the long-term. Egypt seems to already be learning from those experiences; anyway, Egypt may be religiously diverse, but it ethnically fairly homogenous. Turkey, meanwhile, has yet to fully grasp the nettle of the Kurdish question.
So, to sum up, don't worry about Egypt: they know what they're doing. It may look a bit confusing now, but given time, Egypt has the clear potential to be a great example of Muslim Arab democracy. And it is also the biggest Arab country.
It would be ironic indeed if, after the lengthy fiasco and bloody chaos one American president caused to establish democracy in Iraq, his successor could give a speech in the Egypt, and less than two years later, preside over a spontaneous democratic revolution in that same country.
So much for the supposed benefits of "regime change".
The Turkish experience is the one that many Egyptians have been claiming to act as their inspiration, but this is itself deserves more than a cursory look at the similarities and differences: both between it and Western democracies in general, as well as the social differences between it and Egypt.
Turkey may be the most obviously Muslim "democracy" in the world (except for Pakistan and Lebanon, who have their own problems), but even that label deserves some qualifications.
Turkey was founded by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) as a secular state, from the remains of the Ottoman Empire. It was NOT, initially a democracy. Ataturk understood that full "democracy" would be difficult for Turks to deal with straightaway, so the party he founded, the CHP, ruled the country unopposed until 1950, from the foundation of the republic in 1923. Ataturk died in 1938. Multiparty elections in 1950 resulted in the CHP being defeated by another party, and was out of power for ten years.
But this is not the only issue. For "Turkey" to remain a stable state, issues such as obvious ethnic and religious divides had to be pasted over by the state: The country's biggest city, Istanbul, for example, had a huge population of Greeks, and there were also Greeks scattered all across the nation, in the west in particular. This issue was dealt with through mutual population exchanges with Greece (who had a large number of Turks in the east of their country). But there still remained large numbers of Greeks in Istanbul upto the 1950s; a controversial "pogrom" against the Greeks took place in that decade, that encouraged almost all the Greeks to leave. Only a few thousand still remain at present.
Then there are the Kurds. These are people with a distinct language living mostly in the south-east of Turkey. Up to this day, the issue of representation is a controversial one. Due to the necessarily centralised and rigid parameters of the civil code, the Turkish state has huge difficulties in dealing with their linguistic and other issues. Kurdish "political parties" are usually banned; the party that gains the most sympathy from the Kurds is the ruling AKP, in power since 2002.
There are also the Armenians, as the Greeks, another Christian minority in Turkey, though generally they have had relatively few problems with the Turkish state over the years, as they have been accepting of their status within Turkey. For this reason, they don't need further mention.
So the foundation of the Turkish state was from its inception bound in insecurity, due to the ethnic and religious complexity of the country. The cult of "Kemalism" (in other words, following the secular "ideology" of Ataturk) has been the guiding principle of the Turkish state.
Until 2002, no openly religious party had been successful at the ballot box (apart from the brief and controversial rule of the religious "Refah" party in the mid-nineties, who were overthrown in a coup).
The fact that the "Islamist" AKP, who took power in that year, have remained in power and generally popular, is a testament to the lessons the AKP's politicians have learned: how to maintain, manufacture and manipulate popular opinion, as well as against the "secular" state itself. The last point, the campaign against the "secular establishment" is seen through the continuing "Ergenekon" conspiracy; a right-wing plot by nationalist politicians and military staff to engineer an internal crisis, allowing the military to take power from the "Islamist" government.
In general, the main point about the condition of "Turkish democracy" is this: the tenets of secularism and the status of Ataturk as a semi-revered founder of the republic, are inviolate and are not open to (negative) discussion.
Like Italy, Turkey has a plethora of parties, though only a small number of those that exist have ever tasted power in the lifetime of "Turkish democracy". Also like Italy, until the AKP came to power in 2002, most governments were coalitions of some sort, and their time in power was sometimes brief, especially in the seventies and nineties.
But the healthy number of parties (the lesser ones usually being a confusing combination of acronyms) does not change the fact that the status of "Turkish democracy" relies on the centralised state and in immovable civil code. This necessarily stymes opinion and dissent.
The irony now is that the governing AKP, who have been so critical of this rigid civil code over the years (as they had been at the wrong end of it in the past), are now using the same civil code to limit press freedom. The government is using it against those "secularists" who claim the AKP has its own Islamic agenda, and accuse the government of arrogance or worse.
The other components of the Turkish state, the judiciary, are caught in the middle of all this, between the government, military and secular sphere. Sometimes they have launched prosecutions against the government, sometimes against the military. The result has generally appeared to be a mess to most observers, with no sign of things being resolved in the near future.
So where does Egypt fit into all this?
Like Turkey, Egypt is culturally heterogenious: with a large Coptic Christian minority (10%), as well as the smaller Greek and Armenian churches. Also like Turkey, its modern secular state was founded by a military man, Abdul Nasser, in the 1950s. And, also like Turkey, the state has used the shield of "secularism" as a way to manage and impose its own version of "democracy" onto its population.
Until now. With the overthrown of Hosni Mubarak, there were fears of an Iranian-style Islamic revolution (as Iran itself had hoped, when it initially encouraged the protests). This fear, though, was based on a misunderstanding of the nature of Egpytian society, as well as wishes of the protesters themselves.
The protesters' model, as many of them said, was that of Turkey. But at the same time, 2011 in Egypt was not the same as 1923 in Turkey; for Egypt had already had their "Ataturk" moment with Nasser in the 1950s.
No, these young protesters wanted a model more like Turkey circa 2002. But at the same time, Turkey's AKP government happened as a gradual evolution using the current "Turkish democracy" system; it seems that what Egyptians are demanding is something less constrained by civil codes and unbending constitutions as Turkey - something more pure and unrefined.
We can see that by the fact that free expression and protest are happening organically as we speak. There have been signs of religious unrest between Coptic Christans and Muslims (though people have said that former Mubarak loyalists have been behind this in any case); but it also appears that Egyptians are, at least for the moment, willing to accept these occurances as the necessary "price" of true freedom.
That may sound a little like Donald Rumsfeld's notorious explanation of Iraq's anarchic "version" of democracy: "stuff happens". But the longer-term signs for Egyptian democracy are good. The religious divide in Egypt points towards a tendency for tolerance and acceptance of other points of view. The early years of Turkey's republic show us that there the religious and ethnic issues were papered over, with messy results in the long-term. Egypt seems to already be learning from those experiences; anyway, Egypt may be religiously diverse, but it ethnically fairly homogenous. Turkey, meanwhile, has yet to fully grasp the nettle of the Kurdish question.
So, to sum up, don't worry about Egypt: they know what they're doing. It may look a bit confusing now, but given time, Egypt has the clear potential to be a great example of Muslim Arab democracy. And it is also the biggest Arab country.
It would be ironic indeed if, after the lengthy fiasco and bloody chaos one American president caused to establish democracy in Iraq, his successor could give a speech in the Egypt, and less than two years later, preside over a spontaneous democratic revolution in that same country.
So much for the supposed benefits of "regime change".
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