Every day it's becoming more and more obvious why the EU & USA love and support the AK Party in Turkey, the current ruling party against which there is a constitutional court case to ban them from politics. Condoleezza Rice recently said that their relationship with the AK Party has been nothing less than perfect and that Turkey comes to mind when she's asked about what democracy would look like in the Middle-East. The biggest support came from the EU though when Hans-Gert Pöttering, current president of the European Parliament, mentioned that Turkey's ascension to the EU might be suspended if the AK Party were to get banned by the Turkish Constitutional Court. Can you feel the love?The answer lies in the political ambitions of both super-powers over Turkey and the Middle-East in general. Both feel a sense of responsibility for the disasters in the Middle-East and after trying to topple governments, bring democracy and preach pro-USA and EU attitudes in the region, they've learned that these values can't be imported into a country without its citizens demanding them. These values need to evolve on their own to have a strong founding that will last generations, but they don't have the patience for that. Giving up on the dream of secular democracies for Muslim-majority countries, they're falling on the second-best option: pro-west Islamic republics. Now all they need is an example that they can fling at the faces of the likes of Iran and Iraq to prove that Islam and democracy can live hand-in-hand, happily forever, and who else other than Turkey to help them in this endeavor. Both love the AK Party because they see this popular party with roots in political Islam as the key to change Turkey, which has already internalized democracy more or less, into an exemplary Islamic democracy that the Middle East can look up to as the model for peace and prosperity. An Islamic democracy that's friendly to the west would be a first (as if Turkey wasn't already a first in the Muslim world by being the only secular country with a majority of Muslim population) and might just render all arguments set by Islamic terrorist organizations foolish in the eyes of millions of Muslims. The Muslim world might finally say "wait a second, the West doesn't hate Islam!"
Basking in the comfort of international support they're getting, the AK Party is growing more and more defiant against the Turkish army and the Constitutional Court and giving speeches to foreign newspapers about the constitutional case against them. They are maximising the force of their international support to pressure the Constitutional Court and army by enraging the Turkish public against these two institutions that are guardians of secular and modern Turkey. This has already worked with the army where they've become absolutely powerless to direct coups anymore. Now, the second target is the Constitutional Court, which they want to blame for Turkey's future with the EU. At the same time, they're doing a fantastic job at painting themselves as the innocent by labeling the secular foundations of Turkey as a trauma so they can prove to the world that the revolutions and principles introduced by Ataturk at the start of modern Turkey are the real roots of the current political crisis in Turkey, not their political agenda and haphazard treatment of the headscarf issue.
After all, it's been decades since the world applauded Ataturk for founding a republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire and giving power to the people instead of announcing himself as another sultan like the Shah of Iran did during the same time, for supporting the multi-party system early on as he knew it would lead to a healthy democracy, for introducing the Latin alphabet and a national school system to improve the horrible levels of literacy, for adopting the Western calendar to make trade with the west easier and more efficient, for secularising the governing institutions to shield the Turkish people from religious propaganda, and for leading the world on issues of women's rights, which were all tools that young Turkey needed to grow into the world player that she is now. But AK Party figures these were decades ago and many must have forgotten so why not rewrite history. Let's call all of these advances traumatic and problematic. The absence of any meaningful opposition makes this all the more easier to achieve.
There are certain concepts upon which modern Turkey is founded and which has helped Turkey withstand the turbulence of the Middle East. The EU and USA need to look further to understand the consequences of their support for the AK Party. After all, plans in the Middle East seldom go the way the western world wants them to, so it is a dangerous game they're playing. I don't support coups as they interfere with true democracy, but I also don't support any international pressure on the Turkish Constitutional Court when it comes to the case against AK Party as I have more faith in my own court that has been dealing with these issues since the foundation of Turkey than any foreign country using Turkey as a pawn in their political agenda. Having said that I also believe that a ban on AK Party will not solve anything as the root of the issue doesn't lie with Erdogan or the party. It lies with the confusion the majority of the Turkish population has over the definition of secularism and how it relates to them individually given their religious and cultural backgrounds. But that's a topic for another column.
