This interview was published in the last issue of Reset (Number 124, March-April 2011)

Is Turkey the example that could inspire the Arab Revolutions? This idea is more and more popular among the most influential experts of Middle East. And more and more the Arab public opinions confirm their interest in the Turkish example. According to a recent Tesev survey, two thirds of the population in the Arab countries and in Iran believe Turkey is a ‘good marriage between Islam and democracy’. Turkey offers what Arab regimes and Iran do not offer: an effective Rule of Law, a vibrant economy with real chances for those who elsewhere are excluded, and a government that, in the Arab streets’ perception, sometimes dares to challenge Israel and to disagree with the West. Even a part of the Islamist field now states that Turkey is the model, or the example. Are these Islamists honest? Has the success of AKP really changed their ideological framework, and reinforced their skepticism about armed struggle? Or are they just pretending, in order to become acceptable to the West and to the Arab regimes?
Hugh Pope underlines a fact that is central to the Turkish recent history: “The Islamist/conservative wing of Turkish politics has never resorted to armed struggle. There have been Islamist terrorist groups – Hizbollah in recent years, or local operatives of al-Qaeda – who have bombed and killed people, but these have had no apparent link with mainstream political parties. Indeed, during the very disturbed 1970s, it is possible to say that the Muslim conservatives were one of the few groups to avoid armed struggle.”

But, on the other hand, it is true that until 2001 the Muslim conservatives did have an Islamist agenda.

Certainly ­ an agenda that could not be explicit because that would have made them illegal. The change made by AKP in that year, when it split off from the old-fashioned conservatives, and adopted a modernizing agenda in support of Turkey’s EU accession process, is the one that makes Turkey an interesting case for Muslim democrats. But perhaps more broadly than that is the idea that no single faction – Muslim, nationalist, secular bureaucratic, military – is able to run Turkey without checks and balances. Also, the leader is genuinely elected by a popular majority, and appears to be able to take a foreign policy line that has genuine elements of independence from the West.

Do you mean that the region’s interest in Turkey is much more about its pluralistic political system, than “religion”?

Yes. But let me say that what Middle Easterners find attractive in Turkey, too, goes far beyond ideology. Three-quarters of Arab families now have a Turkish product in their home. Even in a far-away country like Morocco, up to three Turkish sitcoms dubbed into Arabic can be playing on three different channels at the same time. So when people talk of a Turkish model, I think they also mean something even broader than politics.

The building of the Nation-State was quite different in Turkey and in the Arab world (and the relationship between religion and State was different as well). Is the Turkish ‘model’ really exportable?

Each country is different and Turkey has many unique elements – it was never colonized, it has a long imperial history, and its language is from a completely different family than Arabic (or Persian). Also, it has a EU perspective, a real accession process, that other Middle Eastern states could only dream of. That means that Turkey cannot be a ‘model’ for other Middle East states. But elements of its experience are certainly object lessons for Middle Eastern neighbours — the privatization of a formerly state-dominated economy, an opening up of domestic markets leading to an export-driven, industrial and commercial power, the move from a one-party state to a multiparty system (even if Turkey still has far to go to reach full democracy in its political parties and its judicial system) and the removal of the military as the principal political force.

At least for historical reasons, the Turks’ average perception of their former subjects, the Arabs, at that time among the most backward, is much less positive than the Arab perception of Turkey. Could we deduce that the Turkish diplomacy will use the Arabs as pawns in its ‘neo-ottoman’ game? Or does AKP feel a real Islamic solidarity with the Arab nations?

It’s true that Turkey in general has a tendency to look down on less-developed nations to its east – rather as European states do. At the same time, there is a natural sympathy for fellow Muslims, particularly those who are oppressed, like the Palestinians, and there is a natural sense of pride in the fact that the Middle East is showing such interest and respect for Turkey, recently compared to the scorn of some major European politicians. The Ottoman nostalgia apparent in some statements and actions of AKP leaders does give rise to suspicions that Turkey may have a political agenda in its outreach to the Middle East. But no Arab countries will ever permit Turkey to become a hegemonic big brother again, and, while a certain Turkish commercial power is already apparent, Turkey is not planning to take over the Middle East. Sometimes AKP leaders do talk of Turkey acting as a spokesman or representative of the Muslim world. But more usually, if the AKP leadership has an ambition, it is to become a global champion, not just a regional or Muslim one.

In your last book, the excellent «Dining with al Qaeda», you remembered the difficulties you had in explaining the Middle East to readers, and to newspapers’ staff, who do not like anything contradicting their prejudices. And these prejudices could explain why the West was so slow in understanding the Tunisian, Egyptian and at last Libyan rebellions. Do you believe the Cairo, Tunis and Tripoli ‘revolutions’ did weaken these stereotypes?

Absolutely. These are not Crisis Group views, but personally I believe that the sense that Egyptians and others have risen up in defense of their personal freedom, rights and dignity has had a profoundly positive impact on Westerners’ view of the peoples of those countries in particular, and perhaps of Arabs in general. However, the play is not yet over, and if there is a severe breakdown of law and order in any of these countries, or a new autocracy replaces the old one, perceptions could revert to the old stereotypes . But at least the world has had a glimpse of Middle Easterners that has broken out of the old boxes of ‘Islam’, ‘Arabs’ and ‘terror’.