{"id":7969,"date":"2011-06-24T12:38:36","date_gmt":"2011-06-24T08:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=7969"},"modified":"2011-07-16T12:54:17","modified_gmt":"2011-07-16T08:54:17","slug":"is-the-turkish-model-the-one-to-follow-in-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-politics-analysis\/is-the-turkish-model-the-one-to-follow-in-region\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the ‘Turkish Model’ the one to follow in region?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Many commentators today are basing the success of Turkey\u2019s Justice and Development\u00a0Party (AKP) in the June 12 elections largely on its ability to guide the country\u00a0through a decade of remarkable growth.<\/p>\n

Economic indicators are often seen as the obvious logic behind economic stability –\u00a0lack thereof. However, they are not enough on their own to reach such sweeping\u00a0conclusions.\u00a0In an article entitled, \u2018Look toward Turkey\u2019s economy to understand Erdogan\u2019s\u00a0re-election\u2019, Ibrahim Ozturk opined: \u201cFrom 2002 to 2007, Turkey experienced its\u00a0longest period of uninterrupted economic growth, which averaged 6-7 percent year on\u00a0year, while annual inflation plummeted. Moreover, the economy proved resilient\u00a0following the global financial crisis, with growth recovering rapidly.\u201d (Lebanese\u00a0Daily Star, June 18).<\/p>\n

According to Ozturk\u2019s perceptive analysis, the AKP\u2019s success in picking up the\u00a0pieces of a shattered economy (as a result of the 2001 severe economic \u2018crisis\u2019),\u00a0and the ever-popular Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan \u201cappear to have secured\u00a0democratic political control of Turkey\u2019s military and bureaucracy.\u201d The powerful\u00a0Turkish military had repeatedly interfered in the country\u2019s politics, leading three\u00a0military coups which all but destroyed Turkish democracy.<\/p>\n

The very promising Turkish political experience, now branded the \u201cTurkish model\u201d,\u00a0had its many challenges. It took a new generation of Turkish leaders to position\u00a0their country as a politically stable regional power with a rising economy (the GDP\u00a0registered an increase of 9 percent in 2010).<\/p>\n

Did sound, self-assured policies engender a strong economy, or was economic growth\u00a0responsible for the political stability (by keeping the military at bay, thus\u00a0further solidifying Turkey\u2019s democratic experience)?\u00a0Libya is an interesting example to consider while reflecting on this question. The\u00a0North African country, which is currently undergoing an armed revolt and Western-led\u00a0war, had been scoring high in terms of sheer numbers. Thanks to petroleum-generated\u00a0revenues, and a small population, Libya has the highest per capita GDP in Africa.<\/p>\n

Its economic growth has been relatively stunning from 2000 onwards. In 2010, GDP\u00a0grew by over 10 percent.\u00a0For many Libyans however, social justice, distribution of wealth, political freedom\u00a0and other issues proved of greater relevance than gratifying GDP charts.<\/p>\n

In Egypt too, despite the greater poverty experienced by the much larger population\u00a0(compared to Libya), the youth of the January 25 revolution came from varied\u00a0economic backgrounds. For many of them, freedom seemed to top mere economic\u00a0sustenance.<\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s case is not dissimilar to these. In fact, a discussion of Turkey\u2019s success\u00a0cannot be reduced to one decade of economic growth and political stability. More,\u00a0\u2018modern Turkey\u2019 cannot be reduced to the palpable successes of the AKP. It goes back\u00a0to earlier generations, starting with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the\u00a0Republic of Turkey. A larger-than-life figure in the eyes of several generations of\u00a0Turks, Ataturk was able to win Turkey\u2019s independence \u2013 no easy feat, considering the\u00a0challenges of the time. However, neither he nor his style of politics resolved the\u00a0question of Turkey\u2019s cultural and political identity as a majority Muslim country\u00a0that defined modernity based almost exclusively on Western values. This question\u00a0actually lingered in the country for decades.<\/p>\n

One could argue that situating Turkey in suitable socioeconomic, cultural and\u00a0political contexts was one of the greatest challenges facing modern Turkish\u00a0politicians.\u00a0For decades, Turkey was torn between its historical ties to Muslim and Arab\u00a0countries on the one hand, and the impulsive drive towards Westernization on the\u00a0other. The latter seemed much more influential in forming the new Turkish identity\u00a0in its individual, collective, and thus foreign policy manifestation and outlook.<\/p>\n

Even during the push and pull, Turkey grew in import as a political and economic\u00a0player. It also grew into a nation with a decisive sense of sovereignty, a growing\u00a0sense of pride and a daring capacity for asserting itself as a regional power.<\/p>\n

In the 1970s, when \u2018political Islam\u2019 was on the rise throughout the region, Turkey\u00a0was experiencing its own rethink. Various politicians and groups began grappling\u00a0with the idea of taking political Islam to a whole new level.\u00a0In fact, it was the late Dr Necmettin Erbakan, Prime Minister of Turkey between 1996\u00a0and 1997, who began challenging the conventional notion of Turkey as a second-class\u00a0NATO member desperate to identify with everything Western.<\/p>\n

In the late 1980s Erbakan\u2019s Rafah Party (the Welfare Party) took Turkey by storm.\u00a0The party was hardly apologetic about its Islamic roots and attitude. Its rise to\u00a0power as a result of the 1995 general elections raised alarm, as the securely\u00a0\u2018pro-Western\u2019 Turkey was deviating from the very the rigid script that wrote off the\u00a0country\u2019s regional role as that of a \u201clackey of NATO\u201d, (a phrase used by Salama A\u00a0Salama in an Al-Ahram Weekly article last year).<\/p>\n

The days of Erbakan might be long gone, but the man\u2019s legacy never departed Turkish\u00a0national consciousness. He began the process of repositioning Turkey – politically,\u00a0as well as economically – with the creation of the Developing Eight (D-8), which\u00a0united the most politically significant Arab and Muslim countries. When Erbakan was\u00a0forced to step down in a \u2018postmodernist\u2019 military coup, it was understood as the end\u00a0of short-lived political experiment.<\/p>\n

But the 2002 election win of the (AKP) rekindled Erbakan\u2019s efforts through a young\u00a0and savvy new political leadership. This has just been awarded yet a third mandate\u00a0to continue its program of economic growth, political and constitutional reforms.<\/p>\n

Now Turkey seems to be offering more than stability at home. It is also serving as a\u00a0regional model to its neighbors, an important contribution in the age of Arab\u00a0revolutions and potential political transformations.<\/p>\n

It is essential that the Turkish experience is not reduced to only charts and\u00a0numbers delineating economic growth. Some very wealthy countries are politically\u00a0restless. The success of the Turkish model supersedes the economy to sensible\u00a0political governance, democracy, the revitalization of civil society and its many\u00a0institutions.<\/p>\n

Good economic indicators can be promising, but without responsible leadership to\u00a0guide growth and distribute wealth, political stability is never guaranteed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAMZY BAROUD: It has endured some punishing attacks but the democratic experience in Turkey is presented as a model for the region to follow. How useful is it, however? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":7970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,83,60,265],"tags":[2009,2692,1696,125,18300,5635,18332,191,3181,2204,3038,18325,2865,7552],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}