Change and democracy coming out of Tahrir

CAIRO

One has to live and see Egypt these days. Witnessing the re-founding of a country is a wholly different feeling. In the country of the future, at every level one can witness everyone making their own calculations and seeking a place for themselves, their group, their community, their party, their class, their family. Parties have sprung up like mushrooms in a short time. Even the number of those who have managed to meet the minimum conditions that founding a party requires, which can actually be considered quite difficult, has reached into the dozens. Each of the communities, large and small (unions, associations, circles), is striving either to turn into a political party or to keep the community separate and found a party for the community as well.

What is striking in these quests is that almost all the groups possess a strong political theory and accumulated knowledge. There is an extremely lively discursive richness about politics: constitution, tutelage, representation, revolution, the actor of the revolution, its goal and its addressee. It is clear that people did not sit idle in the days of dictatorship, and that at least theoretical accumulation and observations were developed. For that reason the intellectual and cultural background of the revolution is certainly much deeper than it appears. The much-vaunted actor called the Facebook youth of course had a special role and effect, but it would have been impossible for the revolution to be pulled off with their scattered enthusiasm alone, and it could not have been sustained until these hours.

Although their theoretical accumulation is great, they have no practice other than having lived within an intense dictatorship while knowing of the existence of a globalized world. For that reason, as they take their steps on the new path opening before them, they are all very cautious, questioning and investigative. They are researching the experiences of the whole world with democracy, parties, organization and election campaigns.

Meanwhile, what draws the most interest and is cited most is the Turkish experience. As interest grows, knowledge about it grows too, and they are gradually beginning to agree that in this experience, for example in the constitution, there is not much to take as a model. Even so, Turkey, and especially the struggle the AK Parti has waged on the road to democratization, forms an inspiring model owing to the stance it has shown both against deep forces within and against Western powers abroad. In fact the AK Parti draws interest not only for this reason but also, for all the parties that aspire to contest an election and govern the country, for its successful performance in governance, public relations and holding the center.

Listeners from almost all the parties attended the two-session panel at the Cairo University political science department, moderated by Prof. Pakinam al-Sharqawi and with the participation of Berat Özipek, Assoc. Prof. Ahmet Uysal and myself. Among the participants' intense questions, what stood out from the first moment was that they were curious not so much about the Turkish model as about an AK Parti model and Erdoğan's leadership in all its dimensions.

When Özipek said that he had heard that the Turkish constitution had been translated into Arabic and that this was unnecessary for them, they replied that they had in any case translated all the world's constitutions. That they responded with laughter to Özipek's "let the 12 September Constitution be deficient" also showed that they had a healthy awareness of what is called the Turkish model.

Almost all the parties that came to the panel as listeners separately invited us to their own venues and wanted to hear Turkey's experience of democracy and politics. During our time in Cairo we tried to accept most of these invitations.

Among the parties, as everyone expected and emphasized, the party founded by the Brotherhood (the Freedom and Justice Party) is more organized and more self-confident than all the others. However, its entering all the debates during the revolution process with the airs of the known winner of a probable election, with this organization and self-confidence, has gradually led to the formation of a strong anti-Brotherhood coalition of antipathy among the other segments. This time too its arrival at Tahrir Square came at the last moment, and its departure was before everyone else's. Although its arrival was quite reassuring in terms of displaying the unity of the revolutionary forces, its distant stance is criticized by the other groups as being put up for sale. The Brotherhood, for its part, explains its position as making others subject to its own politics and not allowing anyone to set its agenda.

After the Brotherhood's party, one of the groups given the most chance is the Salafis, but they too are divided into three among themselves. The Nur Party and the Fazilet Party appear to be the leading ones. The relationship between party and community seems to have been settled both in the Brotherhood and among these and among the Sufis. The community's will decides to found the party, but once the party is founded it is assumed to be in a completely autonomous position in conducting its own politics and carrying out its own work.

But no one expects the relations to run smoothly all the same. In almost all communities there is a palpable divergence of views and approaches between the old and the young. The young tend to do politics with all its requirements. The old, as everywhere, are cautious to the point of bigotry toward openings.

The young, who have begun to experience running a political party, have already started to see in the field that this is also a matter of establishing and managing perceptions. In our meeting with the youth of one of the Salafi parties, even we were amazed at the interest and curiosity we encountered. Like all the parties, the Salafis too seem to have turned their faces not to their own molds or to Saudi Arabia but to Turkey. They probably have also had a strong experience of self-confrontation in the face of the democracy and politics process they are about to enter. For example, in recounting that among themselves, on the question of the presidential election, they are trying to break away from the community mechanism and run a fair election, saying "we are trying to realize democracy first within ourselves," they meaningfully reflect their adaptation to the process.

Together with theirs, we can expect that, very different from the experience the other Islamic groups will have, new Islamic interpretations and models will emerge.