Who lost and who won in the Arab Spring?

Tezkire Magazine, which enters its 30th year this year, set its mission in its first issue, published in 1991, as taking on the problem of depth and continuity in Islamic thought. Although over 30 years the magazine has had some short and long breaks, it has continued to publish uninterruptedly since 2014, and gives space to pieces that discuss the topics it takes up at length, without compromising on academic format and intellectual level.

IS IT ONLY WESTERNERS WHO MAKE REVOLUTIONS?

We had said that in the latest issue, edited by Maşallah Nar, serious questions are asked about the Arab Revolutions process, which has completed its 10th year. But before the questions, an observation of the situation: Islamists had not been decisive in the beginning of the process called the Arab Spring, as is supposed. In the uprisings in Tunisia as well as in Egypt, Libya and Yemen, there was no question of any cliché slogan of Islamism in the foreground. Indeed, Western circles, examining slogans based on demands that can be summarized as "bread, freedom and dignity," even said on this basis that these revolutions had a Western character. For according to them both the social events called "revolution" could only be events experienced in the West, and these slogans were in essence Western slogans.

Of course, in this approach a serious problem of reductionist cliché-making, concerning both "revolution" and "Islamist discourse," had a serious share. That demands for bread, dignity and freedom could not be ascribed to Islamist discourses was also a sign of how foreign one was to the Islamic world. Especially what was said about the effect of social media networks spreading over the internet in the revolution almost reduced to zero the share of those who took part in the revolution itself, giving their lives, shedding their blood, body and soul. Who were these dark-skinned remnants of primitive tribal societies to make a revolution? There was a revolution in the process, but its revolutionaries were outside.

THE BROTHERHOOD DID NOT START THE REVOLUTION BUT IT COMPLETED IT

That is one side of this matter. But on another side of the matter there was another truth. In Egypt, for example, the Brotherhood hesitated for a long time from the beginning of the revolutionary process to take part. It was not the Brotherhood that started the revolution, but for the revolution that had set out to be completed, the Brotherhood's participation was regarded as essential. For in Egypt, and in all other Islamic countries, the most widespread organic structure alternative to the existing system at the social level belonged to them. That is why mass participation in the revolution remained inadequate, at the level of a mere protest movement, until the Brotherhood too came down to the streets.

The Brotherhood was subjected to severe criticism because of these hesitations it displayed at the beginning. As far as we could follow in those days, the Brotherhood, with its experience approaching a century, could not see the outcome of this matter very clearly.

There were those who openly voiced that this revolutionary process might be hiding a trap both for itself and for Egypt. The hesitations displayed in joining a process it had not started and whose calculations it could not make well even gave the Brotherhood the impression of cooperation with the army. In a way the Brotherhood joined the revolution at the last stage and by having the last word.

In other countries the situation was in fact not different. There too the revolutions had not been started by Islamists, and Islamists were not the most important actors of the process. Nevertheless, the war that launched the counter-revolution processes that later opened onto the Arab Spring in a way targeted Islamism first and foremost. For Islamists were at the center of social change. Expressing demands for economic and social justice, and having the most organized structure in society at the level of civil society and solidarity, they were, though passive, the most natural actors of democratic change against the state. Therefore it was destined that they become the de facto bearers of the Arab Revolutions.

FEAR OF THE BROTHERHOOD IS IN ESSENCE FEAR OF DEMOCRACY

In the end, setting aside those of Salafi persuasion who are collaborators of autocratic regimes, whose relations with democracy have never been pleasant anyway, the primary demands of Islamists were democracy and freedoms. That is why, although the visible target of the counter-revolutionary interventions against the Arab Spring was Islamists, in essence it was democracy itself. Fear of the Brotherhood or of Islamism is itself fear of democracy.

That the democratically elected President in Tunisia, on the grounds that he could not solve the problems because of the disputes of the political parties, directly targeted democracy and suspended parliament is merely a simple expression of this understanding.

To ascribe failure as well to the Islamists overthrown by coups in the Arab Spring means in fact nothing other than exonerating the coup-makers and the autocratic regimes. Perhaps winning a struggle by turning every kind of intrigue if necessary, by staging coups and massacres, and having seized power at whatever cost could be counted as a success.

THE MEANING OF THE ISLAMISTS' FAILURE

Had Islamists come to power in this way and held on to power, would they have been counted as successful? Could there be an Islamist success obtained by losing, indeed destroying, Islamist claims and the style of Islamist politics? Another question is this: against Islamism, which showed its failure by being overthrown through coups, whose success can we speak of?

The coup-makers, who could not defeat the Islamists with their claims, their projects, their populism, defeated them with their massacres, their coups and their merciless dictatorships. What kind of success can be spoken of now in the countries they govern? Are regimes that have turned into civil-war arenas or open prisons, whose economies are dreadful, which have trampled human dignity underfoot, counted as successful?

What kind of measurement and evaluation is this?

In this issue of Tezkire, Berker Yaldız appears with "Making Sense of the Arab Spring in Syria: 'Institutionalized Social Division' and the Rise of Non-State Armed Actors," Ayşe Nur Leblebicier with "The Women of the Arab Spring: Egypt and Yemen," Hamdullah Baycar and Emrullah Atar with "Britain's Pragmatic Arab Spring Policy: A Case Analysis of Bahrain," Hamza Yurteri and Ömer Faruk Uğurlu with "The Changing Theopolitical Discourse of Islamism: Rashid al-Ghannouchi in the Arab Spring Process," Ufuk Necat Taşçı with "The West's Failed Libya Test: Evolving a Secular Military Dictator from Proxy to Surrogate," and Salman Sayyid with his article "Political Islam After 'Islamic State'," translated by Serra Tuğba Genç. There is also a fine interview with Wadah Khanfar, one of the best intellectuals of the Arab world, who has recently brought a new approach to the sira with his book "The First Spring."