http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1065/op1.htm
22 - 28 September 2011
Issue No. 1065
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875
No need for the Caliphate
Egypt should not be copying Iran or Turkey but rather rediscovering the principles of civil government its forefathers laid down, writes Abdel-Moneim Said
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I must admit that I am a great admirer of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the way he steered his country towards economic development and then turned this progress to the advantage of his country's foreign policy. Naturally, I have some reservations with regard to some of his histrionics. Diplomacy should be more sober, even if it engages theatrical elements.
Bill Clinton mentioned in his memoirs that throughout his political career he felt as though he were part of an exciting, action-packed film. Erdogan may feel the same, although he has always been a hero of a special sort, one that acquired definition from his handling of the Palestinian cause and his visit to Somalia. But perhaps it showed clearest when, with his encouragement, his Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Egypt received him with the cry for the revival of the Islamic Caliphate. Of course, the Turks couch this calling in more sophisticated and contemporary terms. They call it "neo-Ottomanism" -- "Ottoman" because of the centuries of Ottoman/Turkish influence on the Caliphate and "neo" because for more than a century before its collapse, the "old" Ottoman Caliphate did not have all that much to recommend it and was commonly known as "The Sick Man of Europe".
What Erdogan has going for him is that he has a very keen understanding of the world we live in. Turkey is a member of NATO and it is still seeking membership in the EU. He is Muslim, but Muslim in accordance with the secular frame of reference that, in fact, ultimately enabled him to reach power and hoist the banner of Islam at the same time. His knowledge of today's world and openness to the spirit of the age helped him appreciate that Christianity flourished when it distanced itself from the state and, also, that his party would not have reached power had it not been for the separation between religion and the state in Turkey.
I imagine that a good many Muslim Brothers here were shocked when the Turkish prime minister rose to the defence of secularism rather than construing it as a synonym of heresy. Erdogan realises that Islam offers a vast and bountiful expanse for the heart, mind, soul and conscience and that it needs no bureaucratic machinery, especially of the sort that some would like to use to tame people and force them into a single mould in which there is no space for creativity or ingenuity.
Egypt, today, is caught between the pull of two socio-political models, one Iranian, the other Turkish. Historically, Egypt had always offered a model of its own, to which testifies the birth of the modern Egyptian state in 1922. However, history never reproduces itself exactly so perhaps drawing closer to Turkey is our only salvation from Iran. On the other hand, maybe we will summon the courage to return to our own indigenous principles of civil government as laid down by the fathers of the Egyptian state. Imagine, in those days there were also voices calling for the re-establishment of the Caliphate, but in Cairo, not in Ankara.
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