The ghost of Morsi

Yesterday was the 3rd anniversary of the passing into eternity of Muhammad Morsi, who is recorded as the only elected President in Egyptian history, when he collapsed in a courtroom and breathed his last in this world of mortals. On this occasion, as last year, he was remembered in many parts of the world with feelings of mercy, gratitude and thanks.

Until he was toppled by a coup before he could even complete a single year of the office to which he had been elected for five years, even within so short a time he gave very meaningful messages to the Islamic world and to the whole world about what it means for Muslim peoples to take ownership of their own will, and, by laying down his life and his very being, explained very well what we, as the Islamic world, have lost or what we need.

How false all the voices we hear from the West today about the lack of democracy and human rights in the Islamic world are has been shown most clearly by the blindness and deafness displayed toward his overthrow and toward the isolation that continued from his overthrow until his death. The silence displayed toward his being led step by step to death after being toppled in the most unjust and merciless way is of course not only about the simple international interests of certain countries. It is a stance that has far more to do with an unwillingness toward the possibility of a successful Muslim democracy or Muslim model of government.

The performance Morsi displayed within a one-year period in taking the people into account in government, in representing the people and in being accountable to the people set an example never before seen in Egyptian history. That example contained the secret that Muslim peoples have longed for, awaited for a century, and which has left them behind in this world.

The development of democracy in Muslim countries also opens the way for peoples to take ownership of their own will and to determine their own destiny.

Türkiye, as the Muslim country in which democracy works best, is putting forth today a serious story of development and progress. Do not mind those within Türkiye who find this story of development insufficient or even far from credible. Even the words they say and the discontent they display are included in the sum of this success story.

This success story achieved through democracy tells of the march of a political body in which the beliefs and values of the people and the aims and actions of the state meet, reconcile and blend. A significant part of what is experienced as problems in this story also comes onto the stage to confirm this success. The fact that people from all over the world, especially those fleeing as victims and oppressed from the political pressures or wars of their own countries, prefer to take refuge in Türkiye shows that this country is a reliable and stable harbor.

If those fleeing the problems in Arab countries come not to another Arab country but to Türkiye, this is of course a result of Türkiye's historical identity and status, but also related to the attraction created by a success story lived in Türkiye over the last twenty years.

Türkiye secured this attraction largely through the successful implementation of democracy. Through democracy, cadres with organic roots in the people and the nation of this country were able to come to office. They saw serving this nation as a kind of worship and worked wholeheartedly. They saw politics not as a matter of domination (hakimiyet) but as a matter of service (hadimlik). Indeed, this is the most ideal horizon pointed to by democracy in the sense of accountability to the people, transparency in government, and the involvement of the governed in government.

From the moment this path was entered, the circles that sought to establish tutelage over the people were, though gradually, put out of action. Ultimately a political situation emerged in which whoever comes to the fore in the race of servanthood and representation is the one who is appreciated.

The army, for example, which until yesterday worked as the center of exercising tutelage over the nation, had forgotten its essential duty and so displayed a very serious weakness in the defense of the country. With the untouchable and unquestionable domains it created, in the history of its non-transparent fight against terror it did nothing other than make the terror problem bigger and increase the number of terrorists. Yet with democracy being operated more, with the soldier returning to his essential duty, today the TSK has truly become a world power that instills trust in friends and fear in enemies as never before in its history. It not only ended the terror that could not be ended for forty years, but displayed heroic deeds in Libya, Syria, Azerbaijan and other places that won the admiration of the world. Because this army is now this nation's army; like all institutions, it has risen to the point of being this nation's servant.

Thanks to this, Türkiye today is a much stronger country, a country whose word carries much more weight, and this does not please or satisfy everyone as much as one might think. Türkiye's being strong also means its being able to act independently. And its acting independently means that it can, when necessary, say "no" to some great powers it used to obey almost unconditionally.

Naturally, this ability to act so independently does not make at all happy the powers that have been accustomed until now to regarding Türkiye as "a partridge in the bag." For that reason they never cease interventions that will reverse this situation in Türkiye as well. There is no counting the coups and interventions they have tried; they have not succeeded so far, but they have not given up either; they continue to try on every occasion.

The opportunity seized in Egypt with Morsi, or with democracy, was the possibility of Egypt acting independently like Türkiye. This possibility was very disturbing to those who dominate the world system. Egypt's acting independently was seen as unacceptable. For that reason they had no objection whatsoever to Morsi's being toppled, as if making him eat all his idols concerning democracy.

His being dragged to death before the eyes of the world, and his collapsing in the courtroom and breathing his last as if crying out this distorted order to the world, were also not seen, were not wanted to be seen. Had they wanted to see, all they would have seen there was their own hypocrisy; why would they look, why would they see?

And he, from the Ruler of the heaven he has reached, continues to send his woes upon the rulers of the earth; his ghost has already begun to roam the world we live in. May his soul be at peace, and his abode be paradise.