Dispensing with the Turkish model

İhsan Yılmaz

CAIRO - After learning that I was in Egypt not only for research but also for academic collaboration, the manager in the famous Al Burg restaurant told me that Egypt and Turkey also need to collaborate, but it should be on the basis of equality not Turkey's imposition of its model on Egypt.

That seems to be a sentiment shared by many Egyptians. Almost all of them are curious about the Turkish experience, but they are quick to underline that the Egyptian case is different. The people I have spoken to -- ranging from the old elite to Hizb al-Wasat members, from independent intellectuals to Ikhwan activists -- gave me the impression that they were not happy with an imposition of a model on their country that they suspected has some Western backing too.

These people find the Turkish model unnecessarily “irreligious” and argue that freedom of expression and religion and protection of minorities could also be provided in an Islamic setting. They underline that even though Article 2 of their constitution affirms Islam as a state religion, amended in 1980 to add recognition of the principles of Islamic jurisprudence as the principal source of legislation, the Christian minority that comprises 9 percent of the population were not discriminated against. They presume that nothing much will change in this regard even if the Ikhwan comes to power. In particular, Ikhwan people argue that if we talk about a democracy then people's identity must also be reflected in the political identity of the state. These are difficult and complicated issues, but what I told them was that it is now easy to shout against the regime, Mubarak, the police-state, establishment and so on, but once in power they will have to devise ways and methods to sustain peaceful co-existence where they have not only practicing Muslims but also westernized secularists, liberals, atheists, Coptic Christians, etc. They will eventually develop a sort of Muslim democracy and will even have a kind of “Muslim secularism” without labeling it as such. Maybe it is high time that we formulate indigenous Muslim concepts to talk about these issues rather than borrowing loaded Western terms.

Unlike Turkish Islamists, Egyptians are unlucky in the sense that they were not given enough opportunities to benefit from democratic learning and fine tune their approaches by trial and error. Without any gradual evolution they have now found themselves in a position to rule the country. If we take into account the past record of Turkish Islamists who thought that the ones who were not voting for them were not Muslims or some odd religion or that democracy was a train and at the right stop they would get off, we can see how far Justice and Development Party (AK Party) leaders have travelled towards democracy thanks to democratic leanings and the establishment's constraints. The Ikhwan lack this experience to a great extent, and what is more, they are worried about the ultra-Islamist pressure that will come from Salafi and Jihadi groups and parties. They also resent the fact that they do not have an influential non-political faith-based group such as the Hizmet (Gulen) movement that played a tremendous role in democratizing practicing Muslims and Islamists in Turkey. Given that the Ikhwan is not monolithic and has given birth to the post-Islamist Hizb al-Wasat party, presumably with democratization, some of them will decide to move to the non-political spectrum and focus on NGO activities in the areas of education, health, poverty alleviation, media and intercultural dialogue following in the footsteps of Hizmet. Last but not least, even though we Turks keep talking about “the” Turkish model, the Egyptians are aware of Muslim democracies such as Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia, and they are best advised to learn from their experiences as well.

Published on Today's Zaman, 25 November 2011, Friday