"Questions for the Arab "secularists" after the Islamic victory in Turkey"
Azmi Bishara, an ex MP in the Israeli Knesset, wrote in the independent Saudi owned newspaper Al Hayat on July 26:
"The "Justice and Development" party won in Turkey. The Turkish republic has never known such prosperity and stability as under its reign. The party pledged directly after the victory to preserve the secular constitution of the country. I contrast this against a memory I have of one of the symbols of the moderate movement inside the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood who testified at the trial of the murderers of the Egyptian writer Faraj Al-Audah, as a witness for the defence, where he claimed that such a murder by overzealous youth is justified because secularism is equivalent to recanting one's religion.
"There is a major difference between a party that announces its commitment to the secularism of the regime and another that doesn't settle for disagreeing with secularism but also considers it a form of blasphemy. But the central Islamic movements are celebrating this Turkish victory secretly and publicly while knowing that this attitude that the party announced would have been considered blasphemy in their regions. The "Justice and Development" party is neither liberal nor leftist but I know not of any Turkish liberal or republican or leftist party who ruled Turkey better than this one. Despite this, the party was dissolved and forced to change its name and then suffered from a wide ranging campaign against it by the right and left which met under the slogans of secularism.
"There are many factors that pushed this Islamic party towards the parliament. There is also no doubt that the army put an end to its ambitions. The cultural identity of the people and their struggle to assimilate [with] globalization are also factors. But, what is important remains the fact that this party didn't lose its balance and managed to adapt itself to the rules of the game. Europe has a serious problem on its hand as these developments in Turkey show once again that it is a racist Europe that refuses to allow an advanced country with a democratically elected government to become one of its members… But while this Islamic party, which won democratically, is expressing more moderation, pragmatism, and reasonability than all the secular parties opposed to it, we are witnessing in the Arab world a weird retreat from democracy both in speeches and slogans.
"This retreat is suspect because it is full of hidden agendas and is accompanied by a sudden realization of the importance of secularism and the unity of the secularist forces. It is well known that the majority of the regimes in the Arab world are secular but not democratic and that most of the corruption is secular in nature … The reality is that secularism for most of the Arabs is a way of life and not a regime to separate religion from state. It often turns out that most of them are not secularists at all as they often replace religion with narcissism as soon as they are criticized… Thus these regimes use "secularism" as a title to keep the Islamists out of power. Therefore they can't rule democratically as democracy is impossible with the exclusion of these large swathes of Islamists who come from various social classes…"
- Al Hayat, United Kingdom
Click here for source <http://www.daralhayat.com/opinion/07-2007/Item-20070725-fe7d1b98-c0a8-10ed-0169-5e999d2dcf1b/story.html> -- Yoshie