Middle East Forum published a great, high quality, and well-researched article about Turkey, written by Bassam Tibi. Tibi shows that the country’s leadership, the AK Parti (or Justice and Development Party) of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul may sometimes act as if it respects and even favors secularism but that it has, in fact, a clearly religious goal; the Islamization of Turkey.

As Tibi explains, Erdogan and Gul want to bring the Islam of Anatolia – Turkey’s heartland – to the rest of the country, especially to its major cities. Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir – the three largest cities – are slowly but surely overtaken by conservative Muslims from Anatolia who live in slums, who are often uneducated, and who believe that political Islam is the answer to their problems.

Interestingly enough, the AKP is supported by both the European Union and the United States, because it acts as if it values democracy. It does not do so, however; as Tibi explains, the only reason Erdogan and Gul have embraced democracy is because they believe that they may accomplish their goal (the Islamization of Turkey) by democratic means. Not because they value democracy – they oppress the opposition, they ignore it, vocal opponents are persecuted and so on – but because they understand that they have the advantage because a large part of the Turkish electorate is uneducated, undeveloped and distinctly non-modern.

The author also explains that what Turkey truly needs is a “Europeanization of Islam.” By this he means an “enlightened” and “tolerant” Islam; an Islam most Turks – not just Turks living in Turkey but also Turkic peoples in the rest of the world – already adhere to. Turkish Islam is far more tolerant and modern than “Arab Islam,” which brings me to my only point of disagreement with Tibi: Turkish Islam has historically been quite dominant. Not ‘enlightened’ as such, because the masses were not educated, but tolerant nonetheless, and open to other influences and change. Erdogan et al. are factually reforming Islam in Turkey; they are actively trying to make it less tolerant, less open, less ‘enlightened.’ They want to make ‘Turkish Islam’ similar to the interpretation of it in most Arab countries.

Nonetheless, the article is a good read. Tibi shows what the problem with Erdogan and his AK Parti is, and why secularists in and outside of Turkey should do everything in their power to remove them from power. Europeans and Americans should stop pretending that the AKP is an ally; it is not. In essence, it is the worst leader of Turkey imaginable to the West.

Especially this part of the article is worded perfectly: “The Turkish diaspora in Europe, as well as the population in Turkey itself, is caught between Europeanization and Islamization. The European decision-makers have proven in the past to be incapable of designing policies to address challenges arising from ethnic-cultural diversification of the population. European officials neglect or simply ignore cultural issues such as the identity of Europe and Europeanization.”

So what should Europe (and the U.S.) do? Well, Tibi explains: “The proper solution for crisis-ridden Turkey is neither the tacit Islamic law of the AKP nor a coup by the Turkish secularists. Rather, the European Union and the United States should encourage the strengthening of civil society by making the weak institutions of Turkish democracy stronger. Moderate Islamists want to Islamize, not democratize.[41] They are committed to the procedure of democracy but not to its pluralistic and peaceful political culture. Political Islam in Turkey is an important issue for Europe. Turkey not only has close relations to the West, but it also has a diaspora of more than four million in the European Union.[42] While many moderate Muslims seek to Europeanize Islam, the Islamism practiced by the AKP is an ideology of cultural divide, tension, and conflict, despite all of the pro-Europe rhetoric in which Islamists in Turkey engage in their pursuit to exploit the European Union for their agenda of Islamization.”

I am again somewhat in disagreement because I wonder whether ‘full democratization’ will produce the results we long for. Liberal democracy is, as we know full well in the West, far from a perfect system; it is merely the best system humans have come up with, at least when applied to Western countries. The situation is quite different in Turkey, I am afraid. Here, secularists need to be protected against conservative Muslims, whom we often also call “Islamists” (conservatism does not mean the same in Turkey as it means in the West; it means a bigger role for – what they see as – Islam in the affairs of the state, for instance). Not only do Islamists use the power of the state to force their will on the population at large, they also use public pressure, which is highly effective in a social and even collectivist society. ‘Democratization’ may be less effective than Tibi thinks.