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| It is fascinating to follow the Egypt debate in Turkey. Passion runs very high as familiar talking heads debate endlessly who is right and who is wrong in Cairo on Turkish TV. I had no idea Turkey had so many Egypt experts. | |||
| Of course, after listening for a few minutes you realize that no one is really discussing Egypt's own peculiar dynamics. The debate and the passion that comes with it is clearly about Turkey. As Turks talk Egypt through Turkish lenses (or as they talk Turkey through Egypt), political positions are quite predictable. Just replace Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with Mohammed Morsi and Tahrir with the anti-Justice and Development Party (AKP) camp, and you understand why people are so angry. After the noblesse oblige statement, "We do not endorse a military coup," the secularist, liberal and leftwing critics of the AKP are quick to point out the mistakes of Morsi. In other words, Morsi had it coming and can only blame himself for his intransigence. His Muslim Brotherhood, they point out, had authoritarian and populist tendencies. Morsi was no democrat. He never believed in pluralism. The Muslim Brotherhood government was on its way to establish a civilian dictatorship without much respect for rule of law, individual liberties, minorities, gender rights and separation of powers. In short, Morsi, in their eyes is Erdoğan minus the economic success. There is of course a mirror image of this narrative in the opposing camp. Not surprisingly, the pro-Morsi camp in Turkey is mostly AKP supporters. In their eyes, the millions of Egyptians who are frustrated with the mistakes of Morsi are irrelevant at best, or agents of Saudi Arabia or the West at worst. Just like Morsi's supporters in Egypt, the pro-AKP camp's focus is on electoral legitimacy. Success can only be judged at the ballot box. Nothing else matters. Once you have gained legitimacy through elections, you can run the country as you wish. And Morsi is a democrat because he was democratically elected. This is usually the time when one of the liberal, secularist or leftwing Turkish commentator yells, "Fascism came to power through elections, too!" And this productive debate goes on as you flip from one TV channel to another. As usual for a more objective and nuanced debate I had to turn to the "orientalist" (!) New York Times. Interestingly, despite its inherent Islamophobia (!) this American newspaper had very instructive op-eds by real Egyptians rather than those pretending to play such a role on TV. My favorite became a piece by Samer Shehata titled "In Egypt, Liberals vs. Democrats." I think Shehata's masterful summary said it all: "Egypt has a dilemma: Its politics are dominated by democrats who are not liberals and liberals who are not democrats." According to Shehata, Morsi's Islamist movement excels at electoral competition. The Muslim Brotherhood is a formidable grassroots-oriented political machine. They speak the language of the people. In a deeply religious and largely poor country they have conquered the hearts and minds of the rural and urban poor as well as deeply pious masses. Even under Mubarak, though outlawed, the Muslim Brotherhood was highly effective at campaigning because its individual members ran (as independents) in legislative and professional labor-union elections. The problem, however, was simple. The party was never fully committed to pluralism or to equal rights for minorities. Once Mubarak was ousted and the field was wide open, the Brotherhood became the main beneficiary of free and fair elections. It participated in democracy, but had no willingness to share power or play by the rules of constitutional democracy with guaranteed freedoms for individuals and minorities. Perhaps most importantly, Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood proved utterly incompetent in running the economy and offering good governance. But this is half of the story. As Shehata puts it, "Many in the opposition, on the other hand, believe fiercely in minority rights, personal freedoms, civil liberties and electoral coalition-building -- as long as the elections keep Islamists out of power. In other words, they are liberal without being democrats. They have proved themselves woefully unequipped to organize voters.” Who knew Egypt had such insightful experts on Turkey (!). | |||
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Talking Turkey through Egypt
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