Turkey as Model State for a Reformed Egypt?

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The Concepts of the Turkish Model and the Greater Middle East Initiative
By Metin Camcigil, President of Atatürk Society of America

1-Should the modernization of Islam be an issue of a formal international agenda?

Any suggestion by outsiders to moderate or to modernize Islam is a non-starter. No religion -and Islam is no exception- is amenable to change, much less to any advice given by the believers of another religion. Firstly, such suggestions imply condescension on the part of the “suggestor”, and humiliation on the part of the “suggestee”. And yet we often read in the newspapers that missionary organizations are active in the area under the disguise of humanitarian assistance. I concede that this well-meant action is based on the presumption that Christian tradition is compassionate and by proselytizing the Muslims they will also be rendered compassionate. Thus their antagonism will disappear. I claim that conversely this would create an instinctive reaction to change and a hardening of Puritanism and Fundamentalism. The non-Turkic and non-Sinic Muslim nations are particularly sensitive in this respect. I mean the Smaller Middle Eastern Muslims. We cannot even try to have control over a modernization effort in Islam. Any change in Islam, or in any religion for that matter, has to come from within the authorities of that religion itself.

At any rate, there is no guarantee that democracy and secularism would follow a modernized Islam. At this point you might suggest that democracy and secularism should precede the modernization of Islam. If we encourage democracy and secularism prior to modernizing Islam, democracy will bring back Islam to power, as we know it. Modernization of the religion will be shown the back seat. Islamic rule requires conformity of laws and of their application to the Koranic dicta. We observed the outcome of recently drafted constitutions in Afghanistan and Iraq. In a society ruled by Islamic principles the Book governs the public and private lives in detail. You may compare the Koran to a constitution. While any religion in politics is undesirable for its traditionalism, political Islam is nothing short of autocracy. The exception of Turkic and Sinic Muslim countries is based on their cultural difference from the Semitic Muslims. This is the crucial distinction between the Greater and the Smaller ME. The question should not be to moderate Islam or whether Islam can embrace modernization and democracy, but whether Muslims as individuals can embrace liberty and modernity. To achieve this we should rather look for means of educating, thus modernizing the minds of these people, rather than modernizing their religion. Transforming minds is an easier task than transforming a religion. Once people are transformed they may attempt to modernize their religion on their own volition, without the bloodshed that happened during the two hundred years of Reformation in the West.

Turkish modernization reform was a case in point. Atatürk’s reforms were subtle than most foreigners and even scholars seem to have understood. The success of the public acceptance of the fast and sweeping reforms was that they were not aimed at modernizing Islam, but rather modernizing the people. However, Turkey benefited from two ingredients to achieve this modernization: the guidance of a genius of a leader in the person of Atatürk, and the adaptability of the Turkish people to developments.

The tactical key to Atatürk’s success was to isolate the issue of religion, and to lead the people to modernity, progress, education, and rationality.

-The substantive key to success was Atatürk’s understanding of Turkish people’s culture and mind. He ascribed the modernization process to the people themselves at every step of it. He was aware that for a social development to be well rooted it must be adopted by the people, it must belong to the people. Like any social element, if modernity and democracy were to be brought about by force they will create a counterforce.

Therefore, there should not be any reference to Islam or to any religion for that matter, much less any reference to its moderation or modernization, in any foreign policy design of the US in the Muslim world. In fact, even a perception of any religious element in any US foreign policy should be avoided at all cost for it would produce an entirely opposite effect in some Muslim countries.  

Israel contemplates worst-case scenarios as Egypt’s crisis deepens

As the Middle East faces a violent shake-up of the old regional order, Israel may be forced to align itself with Syrian President Bashar Assad who shares a desire to maintain the current status quo.
“It’s ironic that the rise of Islamist governments in Egypt and Jordan may force Israel to turn to Syria. The status quo in the Middle East is an illusion; the old order cannot be kept forever like the Israelis and the Syrians believe. The Israelis have been told that this could happen if they did not solve the Palestinian situation and other governments didn’t deal with unemployment, poverty and corruption. These are the elements of which revolutions are made of.”
“Jordan is ripe for revolution,” Mekelberg said. “There is a majority of Palestinians there who are fervent supporters of Hamas while the legitimacy of the government and King Abdullah is limited.”

With Egypt and Jordan in unfriendly hands, and with former ally Turkey increasingly turning toward Iran and Syria, Netanyahu could find himself without an ally in the region and may find that he needs to step up the tentative efforts Israel has already made to reach a peace agreement with Damascus.

Turkey, Syria and Qatar brokering a new government in Lebanon  

Egypt moves 800 soldiers into demilitarized Sinai to quell unrest

(Haaretz) – Meanwhile, in an unusual move and with Israel’s agreement, Egypt moved some 800 soldiers into Sinai in order to deal with the Bedouin unrest in the peninsula. The deployment of the troops in the Sinai is an infringement of the peace agreement signed between the two countries in 1979, which requires the area to be demilitarized.