The diversifying Turkey model seen from Egypt

"Türkiye's special and exceptional situation should remain just that for us as Islamist Arabs. That is, we should benefit from the method by which it manages the affairs of the state, its adversaries and its enemies, its relations with other Islamic groups, and its international and regional relations. We should approach this method and study it, without being captivated by its magic and trying to imitate it as it is. For we must always keep in view the "social differences" between different experiences."

These words belong to the Egyptian researcher and writer Dr. Kemal Habib, from the paper titled "Debates on the Turkish Experience in the Arab World" that he presented last December at the Arab-Turkish Social Sciences Congress organized by the Strategic Thought Institute in Ankara.

Habib was displaying an approach that reveals the real dimensions of Türkiye's or the AK Parti's status as a model. There is no doubt that in the Arab world, in academic and intellectual circles, the experience of Türkiye and the AK Parti has recently been the subject of serious debates, but these debates really need to be interpreted correctly. There is no trace of a blind, word-for-word eagerness to imitate in any of them. On the contrary, the debates are very diverse in themselves, and the Turkish experience is at the same time the subject of serious criticism, together with its shortcomings. In a comprehensive report on the perception of Türkiye in Egypt, prepared these days for SDE by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ahmet Uysal, the model debates are analyzed in a way that confirms Habib.

In Habib's paper, the debates about the Turkish model, first in Egypt and in the whole Arab world, are classified. According to this, the attitudes of Islamists in the Arab world toward the AK Parti experience vary according to everyone's perspective on the political process, their handling of it and the realities. It is possible to classify the debates on the subject, quoting Habib, as follows:

"1- The Salafis' AK Parti Debate: The Salafis do not permit entering the political process through elections and party founding, because legislation contradicts the most important characteristics of divinity, which makes God one. Some speak of entering the people's assembly as contrary to tawhid, because the matter is viewed as a question of belief. According to this perspective, the Turkish model is a model that America is trying to spread in the Arab world.

2- The Muslim Brotherhood's (MB) AK Parti Debate:

That one of the contemporary Islamic parties like the AK Parti won elections in Muslim Türkiye made the Brothers happy, on the logic of the spread of brotherhood and freedom and the establishment of justice in that country. But it would be wrong to compare the AK Parti's victory with the MB, because it is impossible to compare two movements clearly different from each other in method, goals, constants, aims, means and mechanism. The MB does not change its principles. The AK Parti, however, accepts and consents to the secularism of the state with Western concepts; that is, it displays a stance different from the idea of Muslims having an Islamic state, which is our basic goal. The article concludes that Egypt is a state with an Islamic identity, while the AK Parti is one of the basic elements of the secular Turkish state.

In this context, according to an article titled "The Turkish Question and Clarification of Concepts," it says that the AK Parti shares the happiness that the Shari'a does not object to. But when it comes to ends and methods of change and reform, the AK Parti came to power without making any Islamic change. The MB, however, works for change and for making religion dominant. The article says: "The AK Parti's goal is not a community but coming together. Besides, nobody in the MB says we should follow the coup path that Turabi followed in Sudan. The article finally reaches the conclusion that the AK Parti's experience cannot be applied by the MB.

3. The Founding Deputy of the El Wasat Party says that the party has a moderate orientation bearing similarity to the AK Parti from an Islamic perspective. But he also points out that there is a difference in perspective because of the legal differences between Egypt and Türkiye. In his article titled "Election Results in Türkiye" he also says that the secularism understood by the AK Parti is a form of civil government that does not rest on clergy but does not contradict prevailing Islamic values either.

One of the El Wasat thinkers addresses the AK Parti experience by analyzing an interview with Davutoğlu in Al-Ahram Weekly. In his article the author presents Davutoğlu's views on the relationship between Islam and the mechanisms he sees as a human domain. These are mechanisms that can be developed in the desired direction according to conditions, provided that they reinforce the basic values of Islam. Moreover, this mechanism will be legitimate when it realizes these values

4- The Tunisian En-Nahda Movement's AK Parti Debate:

In the article titled "A Special Reading of the AK Parti Experience in Türkiye," the founder of the movement points to the transformation of the Islamic movement in Türkiye through the process extending from the Refah Party's removal from power and Fazilet's closure to the AK Parti's coming to power. The author also points to the most important lessons the AK Parti learned and says that these lessons were to avoid everything that could lead to conflict with power, the army and secularism, and to win the trust of power.. The author also does not agree with the view that the AK Parti project is a betrayal of Islam or that it has abandoned its project. According to him, the AK Parti's real project is to rid the public sphere of the extremist secular junta, and afterwards to accept a secularism that is not hostile to religion and the religious. According to the author, the ijtihads of the AK Parti family have broadened in connection with realities and how they understand them."

According to these analyses made about a month before the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, all the groups representing this diversity of models are among those who actively took part in the recent revolutionary process. So what does it turn out? One must not simply say "the Turkish model" and move on. Nobody intends to imitate anybody blindly, it cannot be expected, and it should not be.

In the end, what is at issue is not the one-to-one imitation of social models but their making an impact, their inspiring, and the Turkish model in this form is sufficiently fulfilling its function.