The AK Party effect against the global status quo

The AK Parti's 15 years of single-party rule is a period long enough to leave its stamp from top to bottom on the change and transformation of a society. Indeed, in this period the AK Parti has made an impact that transformed and determined the sociology and politics not only of Turkey but of the whole region. The AK Parti's existence and impact have today undoubtedly made themselves felt in the politics of the entire region, from Europe to the Middle East. Today the course of the EU too is affected by the AK Parti's existence, and the demands for democracy and economic dynamism developing in the Middle East are also seriously affected by the AK Parti's choices and the policies it pursues inside or outside Turkey.

It exerts this impact of course alongside many actors trying to be decisive in all these political basins, at times competing with them and at times in parallel with them. Just as no single actor or factor is decisive in any social development, when we speak of the AK Parti's impact we of course need to avoid being swept into an exaggerated language that depicts it as the sole determining actor. However, that together with other actors the AK Parti's regional impact has increasingly stood out is now an indisputable fact.

We can repeat here, in another context, what we said before. Until recently, the AK Parti's reformist, transformative power inside Turkey rested on its quite creative role as an "opposition in government." When it actually came to power in the real sense, it faced a paradox:

"The danger that the cadres that had brought about a revolutionary change in the country, when no oppositional status quo remains before them, will repeat themselves and, after a while, busy themselves with themselves and exhaust their claims."

This stage required a shake-up. It was not a problem an opposition from outside could easily solve.

This situation, which its leader characterized as "metal fatigue" and took as a starting point for a mobilization, was in fact a stage of routinization to which every charismatic movement can be exposed. The way to get through this stage was to believe anew with a new excitement, with rigorous self-criticism and renewal, and to set to work anew. The greatest advantage of a charismatic movement is that its leader, whose social legitimacy and support continue to grow with his success, sincerity and dynamism, is still at the head of the movement.

Despite all the resistance it found before it when setting out 15 years ago, the AK Parti signed its name to many revolutions that could not even have been imagined. Of course it would not be right to attribute all these successes solely to not having lost the excitement or energy of being an opposition. Moreover, the external extensions of those forces, which have been considerably pushed back inside the country today, are dropping their masks one by one and continue to display their opposition in the most immoral manner. The "global status quo," which is trying to break the AK Parti's impact as an actor, continues to give the AK Parti, in the form of opposition, the power it needs.

In the Middle East in particular, the AK Parti's vision of change was the development, progress and attainment of prosperity of all countries, the liberation of their peoples and their having a say in government, and respect for and observance of human rights reaching a certain level. The peoples of the region were in any case drawn to one another like magnets, culturally, economically and socially. Removing some obstacles between them was enough for these peoples to meet.

The free movement and trade regime developed before 2010 among Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon (which continues to some extent with Jordan and Lebanon) was in fact a step that was a candidate for building a brand new Middle East. Turkey's demand was peace, togetherness, development, progress, freedom and dignity.

This model could soon have been extended to Iraq, Egypt, Libya and the other countries in the region. Such a Middle East was ceasing to be a dream at once. While the process showed that the century-old order in the Middle East was changing radically, the most favored actor or prominent determinant of this change was undoubtedly Turkey. All the events that developed afterwards and reversed this process can be read as steps of the plans of the well-known actors who are trying to break this impact of Turkey.

The actors who took on a role against this positive impact that Turkey brought to the transformation in the Middle East represent "absolute evil," not only from Turkey's point of view but also from the point of view of general human values, from a democratic perspective, in terms of human rights, and in terms of the peoples of the Middle East.

In this sense, a clear difference is crystallizing between the role Turkey plays in the Middle East and the role played by other actors, including the US and the EU. Where Turkey seeks and looks after democracy, human rights and territorial integrity, the US and the EU, and the dictatorships that have no reason for existence other than their support, support coups, seek division and fragmentation, and either commit or turn a blind eye to every kind of human rights violation.

F. Fukuyama pointed years ago to a level at which history had come to an end in favor of liberal democracy.

How, I wonder, would he include in his analyses the development that the countries he pointed to as the owners of liberal democracy today support in our region not democracy but coups and dictatorships, and commit massacres?