Islamism and Turkey’s foreign policy during the Arab Spring

ABSTRACT

The Arab Spring truly caught Turkey by surprise. In interpreting what was happening in the region, Turkey’s foreign policy-makers relied on a particular view, which helped steer Turkey’s foreign policy in the ensuing regional earthquake. This article seeks to dissect that view and deconstructs its main components mainly through the speeches of Ahmet Davutoğlu, who served as Turkey’s Minister of Foreign Affairs during the heyday of the Arab Spring. The paper also illustrates how Davutoğlu’s interpretation heavily borrows from the Islamist interpretive frame of modern Turkish history. That frame, this article claims, originated in the late Ottoman period and has since evolved in contestation with alternative readings, both official and non-official. The article suggests that Davutoğlu’s view of the Arab Spring helps explain why Turkey welcomed the Arab Spring and advised Arab regimes to implement political reforms.

KEYWORDS:

• Turkish foreign policy
• Ahmet Davutoğlu
• Islamism
• Arab Spring

Acknowledgements

I thank Burak Bilgehan Özpek, Bill Park, Katerina Dalacoura, İhsan Sezal and all other contributors to this special issue for all their comments, suggestions and criticisms. All errors are of course mine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Birol Başkan is Assistant Professor of Government at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. Previously, he taught at the State University of New York-Fredonia in 2006–2007 and at Qatar University from 2007 to 2010. His research examines the roles religion, religious institutions and grassroots religious groups play in creating, maintaining, undermining and destroying political order in the Middle East. He has published in Akademik Ortadogu, Arab Studies Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, HAWWA: The Journal of Women in the Middle East and the Islamic World, Insight Turkey, International Sociology, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, The Muslim World, Politics and Religion and Turkish Yearbook of International Politics. He is the author of From Religious Empires to Secular States (Routledge, 2014), Turkey and Qatar in the Tangled Geopolitics of the Middle East (Palgrave, 2016) and the co-editor of State-Society Relations in the Arab Gulf States (Gerlach, 2014).

Notes

1. Al Jazeera, “Al Jazeera Forum: Ahmet Davutoğlu.”

2. Davutoğlu’s ideas have been analyzed in a literature that seeks to situate him in broader international relations theories. For a discussion of this literature see Cohen, “Ahmet Davutoğlu’s Academic and Professional Articles,” as well as Arıkan and Kınacıoğlu, “Enabling ‘Ambitious Activism’.”

3. There is a sizable literature on Turkish foreign policy under the AKP. For a useful summary see Çakır and Akdağ, “An Empirical Analysis.”

4. There had been critics of Davutoğlu early on. But, many began to be critical of him only later in the game. See Kıvanç, Pan-İslamcının Macera Kılavuzu. For a more academic treatment, see Özkan, “Turkey, Davutoğlu and the Idea of Pan-Islamism.”

5. The press releases of the Minister of Foreign Affairs are available at http://www.mfa.gov.tr/sub.tr.mfa?3fc6582e-a37b-40d1-847a-6914dc12fb60 (accessed September 3, 2011).

6. TC Dışişleri Bakanlığı, “Tunus’ta Meydana.”

7. TC Dışişleri Bakanlığı, “Tunus’ta Olaylar Hk.”

8. The full text of Erdoğan’s speech can be found at http://www.akparti.org.tr/site/haberler/basbakan-erdoganin-ak-parti-grup-toplantisinda-yaptigi-konusmanin-tam-metni/7006#1 (The link is unfortunately no longer functional).

9. TC Dışişleri Bakanlığı, “Bahreyn’de Meydana.”

10. NTV, “NATO’nun Libya’da ne işi var.”

11. For an insightful take on Turkey’s position on Libya, see Şaban Kardaş. “Turkey’s ‘Moral Politics’ in Libya,” and Kardaş, “Turkey Balances.”

12. Reuters, “Turkish Assembly.”

13. Anadolu News Agency, “Turkey and Syria.”

14. Anadolu News Agency, “Turkish Army.”

15. F. Gregory Gause III called it ‘the new Middle East Cold War.’ See his “Beyond Sectarianism.” Malcolm Kerr originally coined the term the Arab Cold War to describe the rivalry that raged in the 1950s and the 1960s pitting Egypt against a number of other Arab countries, such as, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia. See Kerr, The Arab Cold War.

16. See Wehrey et al, Saudi-Iranian Relations.

17. See Başkan, Turkey and Qatar.

18. Zengin, Kavga, 124.

19. The speech is available at. http://www.akparti.org.tr/site/pdf/ak-parti-grup-toplantisinda-konustu/16252.

20. One could also have visited his earlier writings. See Davutoğlu, Alternative Paradigms; Davutoğlu, “The Clash of Interests”; Davutoğlu, Stratejik Derinlik; Davutoğlu, Küresel Bunalım. Yet, analysis of these earlier writings would not serve my objective in this paper for I would also like to point out the link between Davutoğlu’s reading of Middle East history and his explanation of the Arab Spring.

21. Al Jazeera Turk, “Gazze davasını yalnız bırakmayacağız.”

22. The following excerpts are taken from TC Dışişleri Bakanlığı, “Dışişleri Bakanı Ahmet Davutoğlu’nun ‘Arap Uyanışı ve Ortadoğu’da Barış.”

23. Davutoğlu derived these virtues from the Prophetic stories that took place in the said places.

24. Ahmet Davutoğlu’s view of history is Hegelian in the sense that Middle East history is God’s own doing. Davutoğlu would possibly not disagree that world history is also God’s own doing. But, his association of civilization and revelation seem to be borrowed from Sezai Karakoç. Ahmet Davutoğlu admits the influence of Sezai Karakoc on his thinking. For a discussion of how similar and dissimilar the two are, see Ardıç, “Modernite, Kimlik, Siyaset.”

25. See Al Jazeera, “Al Jazeera Forum.”

26. In his Dicle speech, Davutoğlu also adds the artificiality of the current political borders in the Middle East. See TC Dışişleri Bakanlığı, “Dışişleri Bakanı Sayın Ahmet Davutoğlu’nun Diyarbakır Dicle.”

27. Al Jazeera, “Al Jazeera Forum.”

28. I claim in this paper that Davutoğlu’s thinking strongly resonates with the Islamist interpretative frame that has developed in Turkey. Whether other Islamists elsewhere in the Muslim World have a similar interpretive frame is a question that needs further research. But, interestingly while writing this paper I accidentally came across the following quotation of Abdelhak Layada, one of the founders of the militant Islamist group in Algeria, known as Armed Islamic Group or GIA. “The great tragedy the Muslim community living in this era is the collapse of the Caliphate, because it is now living an abnormal and disharmonious life due to the separation between its high values, ideals and principles in which it believes and the pagan (jahili) reality imposed upon it [emphasis is mine].” Cited in Hafez, Why Muslims Rebel, 165.

29. Al Jazeera, “Al Jazeera Forum.”

30. The interview was aired on 24 May 2011 in TRT Haber. Available at http://www.frequency.com/video/dailymotion-trt/7546170.

31. TC Dışişleri Bakanlığı, “Dışişleri Bakanı Sayın Ahmet Davutoğlu’nun Diyarbakır Dicle.”

32. Al Jazeera, “Al Jazeera Forum.”

33. TC Dışişleri Bakanlığı, “Dışişleri Bakanı Sayın Ahmet Davutoğlu’nun Türk Ocakları’nın Kuruluşunun 100.”

34. Al Jazeera, “Al Jazeera Forum.”

35. TC Dışişleri Bakanlığı, “Dışişleri Bakanı Sayın Ahmet Davutoğlu’nun Diyarbakır Dicle.”

36. TC Dışişleri Bakanlığı, “Dışişleri Bakanı Sayın Ahmet Davutoğlu’nun Türk Ocakları'nın Kuruluşunun 100.”

37. TC Dışişleri Bakanlığı, “Dışişleri Bakanı Sayın Ahmet Davutoğlu’nun Fas Dışişleri.”

38. Haber 7, “Davutoğlu.”

39. Davutoğlu, “Medeniyetlerin Ben-idraki.”

40. Davutoğlu, Stratejik Derinlik.

41. In Turkish, it goes as, “Diyar-ı küfrü gezdim, beldeler, kaşaneler gördüm; Dolaştım mülk-I İslam’ı bütün viraneler gördüm.” This is a famous couplet from Ziya Paşa, “Gazel I.”

42. See Karpat, The Politization of Islam.

43. Alternatively one might also look at Mehmet Akif. See İmamoğlu, “Mehmet Akif’te Medeniyet Kavramı”; Özgürel, “Mehmet Akif Ersoy’un Safahat Adlı.”

44. Said Nursi was born in the Ottoman Empire and lived to see its collapse. During the Republic, he became a dissident and formed his own movement, which came to be known as the Nurcu Movement. See Mardin, Religion and Social Change.

45. Nursi, Eski Said Dönemi Eserleri, 672–673.

46. Ibid, 673.

47. Ibid, 337.

48. Ibid, 337.

49. Said Nursi would even claim that his mission was to save and strengthen Muslims’ faith.

50. Such an instrumentalism toward Islam could also be observed among Turkish nationalists as well, most famously of course, for Gökalp, Türkleşmek, İslamlaşmak.

51. The word ‘Salaf’ in Arabic means ‘predecessors’ and often come with the adjective ‘Salihiin.’ The phrase in Islamic parlance refers to the Prophet’s companions and the two generations who succeeded them.

52. Like Said Nursi, Mehmet Akif (Ersoy) was born in the Ottoman Empire and lived to see its collapse. Yet, unlike Said Nursi, he lived in Egypt for the most of the rest of his life. A famous poet, Akif did not lead a religious movement, but his poem book, Safahat, was widely read by religious groups.

53. Ersoy, “Süleymaniye Kürsüsünde.” Safahat. Available at https://safahat.diyanet.gov.tr/PoemList.aspx?bID=7

54. These reforms are well known and well studied. Two classic works are Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey; Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey.

55. According to the 1927 census, the Turks constituted 86.2% of the population in Turkey. The number is calculated according to those who declared their mother tongue as Turkish and from Brice, “The Population of Turkey in 1950,” 350.

56. Compare this with the fact that in 1914 the Muslims constituted around 80% of the population of the Empire. Both numbers are from İçduygu, Toktaş and Soner, “The Politics of Population,” 363.

57. The scholarly literature more or less agrees with Islamists on this. See, for example, Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey; Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey For an unorthodox reading see Başkan, From Religious Empires to Secular States.

58. Sabri Efendi, Hilafetin İlgasının Arka Planı, 43–44. Mustafa Sabri repeats similar accusations throughout the text.

59. In a letter he wrote to Charles Harding, then advisor in the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the future Governor of India, Howther made the said claim. The letter is available in Kedourie, “Young Turks.”

60. See Baer, The Dönme, and Baer “An Enemy Old and New.”

61. Nursi, “5. Şua.”

62. See Edib, Kara Kitap.

63. A classic in this genre is Kısakürek, Son Devrin Din Mazlumları.

64. See Aydın and Duran, “Arnold J. Toynbee and Islamism,” and Duran, “Türkiye İslamcılığında.”

65. The term jahiliyya is used to describe the pre-prophetic period.

66. This is in large part because Islamists in Turkey had not faced the same level of persecution the Muslim Brotherhood faced in Egypt. As for Sayyid Qutb’s declaration of the Egyptian society as a jahiliyya society, which had the features of the pre-Prophetic society, see Qutb, Milestones.

67. See Baskan, From Religious Empires to Secular States.

68. On the conservative turn in Islamism, see Aktay, “İslamcılıktaki Muhafazakar Bakiye.”

69. Said Nursi, “27. Söz.”

70. I use the term in the sense as opposite to conservatism.

71. Turkey has produced its own radicals such as Ercüment Özkan and Hamza Türkmen, who however have remained on the margin of Islamist activism and thinking.

72. More research is needed on how this transformation happened.

73. See also Davutoğlu, “The Clash of Interests.”

74. Mudde, Populism: A Very Short Introduction, 6. On the concept of populism, also see Muller, What is Populism?