Dr. Khalid Al-Shafi
The split between Turkish and Iranian patterns remains there. So the fate of the future of the Arab region has not yet been decided in the light of output of the political process, which swivelled its wheel that was stalled for several centuries after the eruption of the streets against the worn authoritarian regimes. In spite of the rapid movement and changes the outcomes remain disappointing, and less than what was hoped at all levels, which may be born out of the crisis for entering into more and deeper crises. Despite of the similar experiments in front of the eyes the learning and benefiting from lessons are still distant.
The Arab world along with its surrounding regions is going through the big political stage and deep internal and external interactions and changes. The movement of the street, which emerged from the womb of slavery and tyranny prolonged to the stage of re-drafting the aspects of the state, community institutions and the future of the system of ruling political, religious, social and cultural values. This situation restored the production of modern and new scientific concepts of everything revolving around them, which are called like a comparison between the light bulb and the normal lamp, as the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard points out, although there is no formative relationship between these two, but they are same as both of them give light when darkness falls. It means that their goal is one and their synthetic form is different, and when we think in a scientific way about the way of functioning of the light bulb, it cannot be compared to the way of functioning of the normal lamp, but from a scientific study that studies the relationships among a group of phenomena, which is something that distinguishes (epistemology). The Iranian experience, which I believe represents the old lamp, which works by wick and have its followers and opponents in the Arab world. The first category believes that it is a pure Islamic experience although it has a different doctrine which is a semi-approach to the method of the Islamic caliphate, and it also adopts the main issues of the Islamic nation and most importantly the Liberation of Palestine. It supports the resistance of Hamas, the stability of the regime in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The second category opposes the mandate of the clergy and the religious ideological thought on the resources of the state, and regards it as synonymous with tyranny, dictatorship, corruption of government, monopoly of power and the return to the age of darkness and domination, whether by a person or group or party or state or empire such as the Persian, but with a religious cover. On the opposite side, Turkey is overlooking at the Arab world after an absence that lasted many decades with its experience and new open fundamentals and also with the mistakes. The Turkish experience is filled with vitality and activity, from a society which is pluralistic in terms of religion, doctrine, to a balanced political society to a large extent. It enjoys the separation of legislative, executive and judicial authorities. It is a civil society which enjoys public freedoms, freedom of the press, expression and information and freedom of opinion, protest and peaceful opposition. In case of the outbreak of storming disputes and acute crises between the parties to the system of government and the protecting military establishment, they refer to the legal institutions of the judiciary, parliament and the Supreme Constitutional Court, instead of coups, military interventions and plots that we are still seeing in the Arab world.
The political and democratic maturity in the new Turkish experiment is characterised even in case of ridiculing it. A lot of criticism directed at the Justice and Development Party, and its symbols (Erdogan, Gul, Ihsanoglu), which realised many achievements and millions of Turks voted in its favour. In front of the Turkish National Assembly, Davutoglu, Minister of State defended his government’s policy that Turkey will lead the “new system of peace”, as a result of “the birth of new Middle East, making it a target of criticism addressed to it by the various opposition parties for the policy of its government, which transformed Turkey into the State of crisis in the region. The writer Aydin Engin described Ihsanoglu, in an article published by the website “T-24” that he sees himself as “Kissinger” or “Metternich” of the twenty-first century, while he is “a political figure who has wide imagination and leads a dreamy foreign policy which is far from the reality”. The writer mentioned that “all the facts confirm that there is no truth to the allegations of Ihsanoglu that the zone of peace is formed around Turkey”, stressing that Ihsanoglu is making fun of the Turkish people by these statements, because his government, which lost all its neighbours in the region, now is not able to claim peace, lead the change, draw a rosy picture of Turkey in the Middle East and draw attention from the Kurdish problem the right to democratic protest and the abandonment of the Justice and Development Party of the democratisation in the Turkish society”. The writer noted saying that “it seems that Davutoglu, who is talking about a new Middle East, excludes Arab kingdoms, and Egypt ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood, and Yemen, Sudan and Jordan and sees them as non-Middle East states”.
The Arab relationship with Turkey went through several stages including the national hatred and left-wing Arab that considered Turkey as an ally of the West and hostile to the Soviet Union and socialism and communism movements, groups and ideas locally and globally, as well as it has border disputes with Iraq, Syria and Ottoman history. There is hatred by religious groups, Sunni and Shia as well as the history of modern Turkey and a secular and democratic approach and elimination of the Islamic caliphate and its heading towards the West, Europe and America, and the friendly political relationship and strong cooperative relations with Israel. But the hostile attitudes turned positive with the arrival of the Justice and Development Party with the liberal Islamic approach, as it calls for itself. However there is still a fear of turning Turkey into an approach close to Iran when the dose of religion is increased, as the illusions of the Ottoman Empire and its use of religion to subjugate the peoples remain stuck in the minds of some. If the fear is legitimate in Turkey in spite of the break with the past (epistemology), it is also legitimate significantly and widely in the Arab world, which begins the march of a million miles to participate in the polls, in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, even it didn’t go through the stages of maturity and stability of democratic experience, not at the elite level and not at the institutional level, and not even at the level of a man in the street, and most of the religious movements which came to power are the closest in experience to the Republic of Iran rather than the Turkish experience.
The split between Turkish and Iranian patterns remains there. So the fate of the future of the Arab region has not yet been decided in the light of output of the political process, which swivelled its wheel that was stalled for several centuries after the eruption of the streets against the worn authoritarian regimes. In spite of the rapid movement and changes the outcomes remain disappointing, and less than what was hoped at all levels, which may be born out of the crisis for entering into more and deeper crises. Despite of the similar experiments in front of the eyes the learning and benefiting from lessons are still distant.
The Arab world along with its surrounding regions is going through the big political stage and deep internal and external interactions and changes. The movement of the street, which emerged from the womb of slavery and tyranny prolonged to the stage of re-drafting the aspects of the state, community institutions and the future of the system of ruling political, religious, social and cultural values. This situation restored the production of modern and new scientific concepts of everything revolving around them, which are called like a comparison between the light bulb and the normal lamp, as the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard points out, although there is no formative relationship between these two, but they are same as both of them give light when darkness falls. It means that their goal is one and their synthetic form is different, and when we think in a scientific way about the way of functioning of the light bulb, it cannot be compared to the way of functioning of the normal lamp, but from a scientific study that studies the relationships among a group of phenomena, which is something that distinguishes (epistemology). The Iranian experience, which I believe represents the old lamp, which works by wick and have its followers and opponents in the Arab world. The first category believes that it is a pure Islamic experience although it has a different doctrine which is a semi-approach to the method of the Islamic caliphate, and it also adopts the main issues of the Islamic nation and most importantly the Liberation of Palestine. It supports the resistance of Hamas, the stability of the regime in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The second category opposes the mandate of the clergy and the religious ideological thought on the resources of the state, and regards it as synonymous with tyranny, dictatorship, corruption of government, monopoly of power and the return to the age of darkness and domination, whether by a person or group or party or state or empire such as the Persian, but with a religious cover. On the opposite side, Turkey is overlooking at the Arab world after an absence that lasted many decades with its experience and new open fundamentals and also with the mistakes. The Turkish experience is filled with vitality and activity, from a society which is pluralistic in terms of religion, doctrine, to a balanced political society to a large extent. It enjoys the separation of legislative, executive and judicial authorities. It is a civil society which enjoys public freedoms, freedom of the press, expression and information and freedom of opinion, protest and peaceful opposition. In case of the outbreak of storming disputes and acute crises between the parties to the system of government and the protecting military establishment, they refer to the legal institutions of the judiciary, parliament and the Supreme Constitutional Court, instead of coups, military interventions and plots that we are still seeing in the Arab world.
The political and democratic maturity in the new Turkish experiment is characterised even in case of ridiculing it. A lot of criticism directed at the Justice and Development Party, and its symbols (Erdogan, Gul, Ihsanoglu), which realised many achievements and millions of Turks voted in its favour. In front of the Turkish National Assembly, Davutoglu, Minister of State defended his government’s policy that Turkey will lead the “new system of peace”, as a result of “the birth of new Middle East, making it a target of criticism addressed to it by the various opposition parties for the policy of its government, which transformed Turkey into the State of crisis in the region. The writer Aydin Engin described Ihsanoglu, in an article published by the website “T-24” that he sees himself as “Kissinger” or “Metternich” of the twenty-first century, while he is “a political figure who has wide imagination and leads a dreamy foreign policy which is far from the reality”. The writer mentioned that “all the facts confirm that there is no truth to the allegations of Ihsanoglu that the zone of peace is formed around Turkey”, stressing that Ihsanoglu is making fun of the Turkish people by these statements, because his government, which lost all its neighbours in the region, now is not able to claim peace, lead the change, draw a rosy picture of Turkey in the Middle East and draw attention from the Kurdish problem the right to democratic protest and the abandonment of the Justice and Development Party of the democratisation in the Turkish society”. The writer noted saying that “it seems that Davutoglu, who is talking about a new Middle East, excludes Arab kingdoms, and Egypt ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood, and Yemen, Sudan and Jordan and sees them as non-Middle East states”.
The Arab relationship with Turkey went through several stages including the national hatred and left-wing Arab that considered Turkey as an ally of the West and hostile to the Soviet Union and socialism and communism movements, groups and ideas locally and globally, as well as it has border disputes with Iraq, Syria and Ottoman history. There is hatred by religious groups, Sunni and Shia as well as the history of modern Turkey and a secular and democratic approach and elimination of the Islamic caliphate and its heading towards the West, Europe and America, and the friendly political relationship and strong cooperative relations with Israel. But the hostile attitudes turned positive with the arrival of the Justice and Development Party with the liberal Islamic approach, as it calls for itself. However there is still a fear of turning Turkey into an approach close to Iran when the dose of religion is increased, as the illusions of the Ottoman Empire and its use of religion to subjugate the peoples remain stuck in the minds of some. If the fear is legitimate in Turkey in spite of the break with the past (epistemology), it is also legitimate significantly and widely in the Arab world, which begins the march of a million miles to participate in the polls, in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, even it didn’t go through the stages of maturity and stability of democratic experience, not at the elite level and not at the institutional level, and not even at the level of a man in the street, and most of the religious movements which came to power are the closest in experience to the Republic of Iran rather than the Turkish experience.
