The Arab perception in Turkey

Let us keep asking who is behind the Arab Spring, whether the real actors are the ones we are all watching or whether there are other actors in the background. On top of that, let us keep listening to the claim that the revolutionary character of what happened in Egypt in fact had no horizon beyond toppling Mubarak, and that the army, having taken control after Mubarak, is trying to continue the old order in its own name.

In truth, the Egyptian revolutionaries are not naive about what is going on, and nobody is saying, nor could anyone say, that in any of these revolutionary processes everything is settled and foreign powers have been permanently excluded from here. Of course, everyone has calculations about turning the process in their own favor.

No one can say that the US, or the EU, or the Egyptian deep state order has accepted everything in complete submission and that there will be no turbulence at all in the Arab Spring from now on. The demands of the young people filling Tahrir Square are entirely justified. However, a wave of demonstrations held one week before the elections, so synchronized with police violence, gives the impression that there is more to it than meets the eye. That is why the Brotherhood approaches the Tahrir demonstrations with hesitation, pointing out the possibility that this course of events offers the army an unmissable opportunity to postpone the elections. Things are not at all easy.

Meanwhile, last week the results of the "2011 Arab Public Opinion Poll," conducted by the University of Maryland in the US, were published. According to the data of this poll, the country that gained the most from the Arab Spring and appeared the "most constructive" is Turkey; the "most admired world leader" and the "Prime Minister people look for" is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The data on the perception of Turkey in Arab countries announced some time ago by TESEV, and the data on the perception of Turkey in Egypt gathered by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ahmet Uysal at the Strategic Thought Institute, also confirm one another.

The perception in Arab countries reflects a very great and special goodwill toward Turkey. But it is quite clear that the most important determinant of today's perception is Tayyip Erdoğan and the AK Parti. That is why today's perception of Turkey is also the story of a deep change of perception. For the last 9-10 years, since Turkey adopted a different approach, it has been becoming, day by day, a country that is more cared about, valued, loved and respected in Arab countries. When Turkey exhibits a different approach, the Arabs' view of Turkey and the Turks changes; but does the Turks' view of the Arabs show a change? Undoubtedly, today we have no comparative data that would record a change between two periods in this matter.

Last week, at the invitation of the King Faisal Institute for Islamic Research, based in Riyadh, I gave a conference titled "The Perception of Arabs in the Turkish Media." The conference, attended by people from the royal family and academic circles together with researchers from the Institute's Strategic Research Center, was, I can say, one of the most productive events I have attended recently.

At the meeting where I was supposed to explain the Turkish media's perception of the Arabs, I found the opportunity to observe closely, rather, the perceptions of Saudi elites about Turkey and especially about Erdoğan. At the conference, organized with the utmost care, after my one-hour presentation I took questions and contributions from the participants for more than an hour.

During this, I can say that I felt the need to revise the view, which I too have occasionally shared, about the divergence between the Arab street and the elites in the perception of Turkey and Erdoğan. When talking about Erdoğan, you immediately feel a sincere affection, even among the most elite. They do not hesitate to voice this openly to one another, and the love for Erdoğan increasingly turns into expressions of love for Turkey and for the Turks.

They follow the change Turkey is experiencing under Erdoğan's leadership closely and with great sympathy, and they express the importance of, and the desire for, developing relations further with the new Turkey. To seek ways of doing this, they are asking what can be done not only at the level of states but especially among intellectuals, academics and civil society organizations. They ask why relations have remained short of the desired dimensions. They express their surprise at the negative news about Arabs that appears from time to time in the Turkish media.

Indeed, in contrast to the publications that create the impression of a Saudi who is hostile to the Turks and trying to erase the traces of the Ottomans, you can witness a surprisingly positive perception of Turkey and the Ottomans. They even rail against the nationalisms that spoil relations among Muslims, above all Arab nationalism.

While discussing these things, I asked the editor-in-chief of Faisal Magazine about a news item that had appeared in our press just before I came to Riyadh, about the house where Lawrence lived being turned into a museum. I described how in this news Lawrence was presented as the hero who liberated the Arabs from the Ottomans. He was astonished and said, "Subhanallah! Among Muslim Arabs there is not a single servant of God who would see Lawrence as a hero. Everyone knows that he was a spy working on behalf of the British to tear the Muslim ummah apart, and if anyone is interested, they are interested in that aspect. How can such news be given credence?"

Frankly, I too asked myself this. How do such news items regularly appear in the Turkish press, and how do all these shape the perception of Arabs among the Turkish people? Although the great majority of these reports are fabrications, since there is no correction at all, they are accepted as real. Might someone not have found, very cunningly, precisely this way of keeping us away from the region? While the Turks' perception of the Arabs works this way, the English, the Americans, Europeans of every nation pursue their investments here without any reservation.

Meanwhile, let us not be too swayed by others' perception of us; our perception of others in fact tells us a little about ourselves. On this occasion, in the "ourselves" we may discover, we can diagnose a series of illnesses of the nafs that we must struggle against, such as "arrogance," "self-conceit," "suspicion" and "unfairness." This will be, I hope, a cause of good.