Hürriyet Daily News published an article by Cihan Çelik headlined 'Turkey can now be ‘model’ for Middle East with Occupy protests.'
"When the popular outrage against the long-time autocratic leaders in the Middle East and North African countries reached its heights, Turkey tried to impose itself on those countries and their people as a “model” with its democratic system blended with conservatism, which stemmed from the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) drive for “moderate Islam” in the country," the article begins.
"Paying no attention to differences in historical, cultural and sociopolitical structures, many foreign observers, mainly based in Western countries, promoted Turkey to the countries engulfed by the so-called “Arab Spring” unrest as the “preferable choice” with its booming economy and political stability while turning a blind eye to the growing conservatism, burdens on media freedom and many other anti-democratic practices in the country."
"Avoiding openly offering their system as a “political export” to the “Arab Spring” countries, senior Turkish officials also embraced the idea of being a “model” with an unspoken dream of dominating the region with the “neo-Ottoman” motto. In order to elevate the AKP-made system, senior Turkish government officials, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was so popular on the cheering streets with his rhetoric lauding Muslims values, particularly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, engaged in highly publicized endeavors calling for support for the new regimes while trying to convince them that Turkey would be "their best choice," the author writes.
"But in recent weeks, Turkey, in fact its people, unexpectedly proved to not only a couple of countries looking to change its rulers but to the entire region that it would make an outstanding “model” not as a political export product but as a tale of a united power against heavy-handed authorities seeking to curb freedoms."
"With the latest stage of the Occupy protests remaining in limbo amid calls for calm, the experience of Turkey still does not provide a breakthrough for neighboring nations, but if the level of outrage sees no ebb and continues to grow with the antagonistic stance of the government, the experience of Turkey could further send tremors to the heart of the Middle East. And that would be something more than a "model," the author concludes.
