The Turkish 'Model' For Authoritarianism in Egypt
Both Turkey and Egypt may be models for a new authoritarianism and more confrontational societies, writes Cengiz Candar.
For about two years, the Arab Revolution was truly an "Arab Spring," an appropriate label for historical developments that began in Tunisia and led to the relatively bloodless toppling of a long-term authoritarian regime in Egypt.
Tunisia and Egypt grew as blossoms of democracy in the Middle East by liberating themselves from autocratic regimes with relatively non-violent protests. The initial consequence of the Arab Spring was the Tunisian version of the Muslim Brotherhood, an-Nahda, and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party winning the elections.
From those days onward, Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government assumed a new strategic role with the stamp of approval of the Western world. Until the Arab Spring, the main Western debate was whether Turkey was undergoing an axis shift. The sight of Turkey resembling a ship that had lost its anchor in the Western world and was drifting toward the Arab-Islam world generated heated debates in the West, especially in US circles where the Israeli lobby is most influential.
First Tunisia and Egypt, then Libya and Syria removed the AKP government from being the subject of arguments about an axis shift to being a regional power as a role model, or at least, a source of emulation.
