Ayoon wa Azan (The enlightened tyrant)

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is probably the best Turkish prime minister in modern history. Yet, protests were recently staged by some environmentalists and were confronted by the Turkish government with excessive force. These protests expanded to several Turkish cities and targeted the prime minister mainly. Perhaps some good will come out of this after all because the massive success of the Justice and Development party turned Erdogan into an arrogant ruler who does not tolerate criticism or diverging points of view. The protests served as a reality check for him and we might be seeing some modesty on his part in the future. There is absolutely no threat for Erdogan or his party. The prime minister enjoys a great deal of popularity to the extent that he can organize a rally of one million people, in his own words. The party also enjoys a firm base of conservative Muslim supporters, which allowed it three successive victories in the parliamentary elections, the last of which was in 2011. I have been following up on the protests and the related comments and I feel that Erdogan might be saying to himself: May all the difficult times go away by God’s will; these times have allowed me to know who my friends and my enemies are. But perhaps he does not actually need such a challenge to his power in order for him to realize who his friends and enemies are. I would like to list the following examples: - The Likud-affiliated Commentary magazine stated that peace between the Turkish government and the PKK will fail. Why is that? Because the Israeli Likud hopes so. I tell them, you can take your anger to your grave. - In another column, the same newspaper alluded to building mosques (as if building mosques was a sin) and banning shops from selling alcohol within a distance of 100 meters from the mosques. However, the column failed to mention that the same rule applies to schools. - The same magazine compared Erdogan to Hosni Mubarak but failed to mention that Mubarak was more than eighty years old and a sick man who worked for half an hour per day while the Turkish economy saw a 100% growth during Erdogan’s 10 years rule. In this same period, per capita income rose from $3,000 to $11,000 per year. - Daniel Pipes, a Likud figure in the US, wrote a column as nasty as himself titled “The Good News in Turkey.” The good news for me would be to see Pipes being tried along with the Administration and supporters of George W. Bush for causing the death of one million Arab and Muslim persons during their wars. - A Likud website alluded to a “Turkish summer” and accused Erdogan of gradually installing the Muslim Sharia in Turkey, which is exposing him to a volcano. I tell them: this volcano will cool off in a matter of days while they will still be grumbling. - “'Islamic fascism' fears in Turkish booze crackdown” was a headline by the Daily Telegraph. I read the column and realized that this was actually a quote from the owner of a liquor store. So the owner of a liquor store is now a reference in so-called Islamic fascism. There were some other headlines that were actually fair and that reflected the real situation rather than the aspirations of the Likud people or the Europeans. Such titles read: “Crisis? It will pass,” and “Confident Turkish leader flies off on North African tour,” and “Stay Calm. Turkey's not going into meltdown.” Regardless of the fair and unfair columns, I believe that the Turkish leadership must deal with the protests so as to chase away the concerns of many Turks who fear an overbearing Islamic rule trying to impose its convictions on many Turkish seculars. Erdogan’s supporters received him with chants upon his return to Turkey. He seemed adamant with his firm position and I would have preferred a more flexible stand. When I met with Recep Tayyip Erdogan a few weeks ago, the discussions had nothing to do with the protests. Indeed, no one had anticipated the magnitude of these protests, especially that their reasons are very limited. The sources of the prime minister were alluding to turning Turkey into a presidential country like the USA where many powers would be transferred from the prime minister to the president. Erdogan would then run for president the following year with the confidence of obtaining the people’s support. Erdogan might need to revisit such aspirations following the Taksim Square events and the protests in Ankara and other Turkish cities. The protestors complained about Erdogan’s failure to take the others’ positions into account. Thus, Erdogan now has the chance to respond to the protestors’ demands and to prove that he wasn’t and will never be a dictator. Jamal Ad-Din al-Afghani once said that Muslims need “an enlightened tyrant.” For a whole century, we were plagued with irrational tyrants who were deaf to the problems of the people, mute towards any dialogue, and blind to their misfortunes. I say: We want enlightened rulers devoid of any tyranny both in Turkey and in every Arab and Islamic country. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.