17 December against 17 December

17 December is both the date when, 10 years ago, the first spark of a great sociological development that spread in waves across the whole Islamic world appeared, and the day when the most interesting, most insidious, most self-surpassing form of coups appeared in Turkey. These two developments, which seem independent of each other, are in fact quite closely connected.

The only link between them is of course not that the coup attempt in Turkey happened on the same day, three years after the revolution in Tunisia, or that one concerned the whole Middle East while the other took place only in Turkey. The truth is that neither was the event that began in Tunisia independent of Turkey, nor was the judicial coup attempted in Turkey on 17 December 2013 unrelated to the Arab Spring experienced in the Middle East.

Exactly 10 years have passed since the wave of Arab Revolutions that began on 17 December in Tunisia, when a street vendor set himself on fire in reaction to the ill treatment he received from the municipal police. The Arab Spring, which became the name of the most comprehensive demands for freedom and democracy the peoples of the Middle East have experienced since the time of colonial administrations, went through different experiences and different channels in each country during these ten years, but there is one thing common to all of them: the tension between the Arab peoples' demands for democracy, freedom and a dignified life and the despotic administrations trying to suppress them. This tension continues to keep societies everywhere at the point of explosion at any moment.

The Arab peoples who set out 10 years ago with these demands were seeing on many occasions how far behind the despotism they had lived under for a hundred years had left them, and that a different kind of state-people relationship was also possible. Of course, the process called globalization was affecting them too. They were realizing why many developments in the world were missing in their own countries, and that the reason for the absence of human rights, freedom of expression, a dignified life and prosperity was rulers who had been imposed on them like a fate, without being elected.

The education level and urbanization in Arab societies have reached a serious level. Yet despite the rising education level, no administration of corresponding quality has developed. Suitable employment conditions for the educated masses could not be created either. It is not possible for them to be created with the existing administrations, because the economy is generally run by those who have governed the country for 20-30 years each, without being elected, arbitrarily, and who share the resources among narrow circles. Corruption is the basic character of the administration, and despite the rising education level in the country, poverty also increases at the same rate. Yet peoples whose education level rises and who urbanize become more critical and more demanding, and begin to strain the channels of political participation more.

At the same time, the fact that their countries have opened up more to the outside world through global channels gives people the opportunity to compare the situation of their own countries with other countries. Every comparison of course further increases the peoples' questioning attitude toward their own rulers.

Meanwhile, before the eyes of these peoples there was Turkey, with its open and striking success story. Turkey, which in the national histories they had been made to memorize for a hundred years was characterized as a country that had exploited them for centuries.

Turkey, which in the last century had turned its face away from Islam and the Arab peoples and set out on a secular path toward Europe.

Turkey, the prop of the US and its policies in the Middle East, which had been the first to recognize Israel.

Turkey, which in this state in fact had rulers no different from their own rulers, whom they were increasingly getting used to criticizing, and was therefore doomed to live in poverty and need.

This is the perception of Turkey among the Arab peoples up to five years before the Arab Spring.

Yet precisely from five years earlier on, something was happening in Turkey. Turkey was experiencing a tremendous economic development revolution. A serious democratic revolution accompanied this revolution. That was not all: Turkey was turning its face again to Islam and the Arab peoples, making peace with Islam, and was able to do this without giving up integration with Europe. What is more, Turkey's elected leader could, when the occasion arose, say no to the US, stand up to Israel, and in his negotiations with Europe display not a capitulationist attitude but one that looked after his country's and his people's interests to the utmost. Somewhere in this new landscape reflected from Turkey to the Arab world are also the images of an Erdoğan saying "one minute" to Shimon Peres in Davos and of the Mavi Marmara, translated into Arabic as the "freedom ship."

This landscape was one that, as it developed the Arab peoples' critical attitude toward their own rulers, they had now begun to take as a reference for comparison. In the person of Erdoğan in Turkey they saw that rulers who were utterly despotic, arrogant and disrespectful toward their own peoples but utterly abject toward the US, Israel and the Europeans were not a fate.

In the new model in Turkey they saw the possibility of an administration that was utterly modest, compassionate and accountable toward its own people but displayed an honorable, upright and independent stance toward the US, Israel and the Europeans.

The century-old colonial order had thus begun to crack. Secularism, Zionism, colonies, despotism were slipping away. Something had to be done.

Moreover, something had to be done in the places where revolutions were taking place, and other things in Turkey, which had served as a model for these revolutions. The Arab Spring had to be turned into winter through counter-revolutions, and a coup had to be made in Turkey, which had led them astray.

Against 17 December, another 17 December three years later.