Ataturk's withering Istanbul?

Istanbul is one of my favorite cities. I first visited Istanbul in February 2003, on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq. From 2003 onwards, I have visited Istanbul regularly.

In Istanbul, one cannot take more than a few steps without running into a historical monument or place of worship. Istanbul, after all, was the home of the Ottoman Empire – the Sublime Porte. An Empire which attempted to synthesize modernity and Islam, ultimately leading to the personality of Ataturk and ideas associated with Kemalism.

A painting of Ottoman era Istanbul. The Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia are visible in the background. 

For me, Turkey is Ataturk's Turkey. A nation pursuing a staunch, fascist-like, secular vision believing secularist thought is a prerequisite for modernizing society. Headscarves were not permitted in government institutions. Islamist tending politicians were persona non grata in Ankara, the nation's capital. Any deviation from Ataturk's path and the military flexes its muscles to remind society of the correct way. Remember Turkey's 'post-modern' coup and the fate of Erbekan's Islamist government in 1997?

Since 2003, Istanbul's character has changed. Along with the rest of the world, Turkey has seen a resurgence of religiosity in the post 9/11 environment. Ataturk's secular ideals have withered with time. Secularism is all but dead.

A process helped on its way by three successive governments formed by the Islamically inclined Justice and Development Party (AKP). Since the AKP's first election victory in 2002, the party swept the polls again in 2007 and most recently in 2011.

Tayyip Erdogan, in his capacity as Prime Minister from 2003-2014 and from 2014 as President, has presided over many far reaching changes in Turkish society. The headscarf debate is history. His wife – as Turkey's First Lady - adorns the headscarf at state functions. The AKP's symbolic victory in the headscarf debate underscores the increasing influence of religion in Ataturk's secular Turkey.

To the AKP's credit, Turkey has seen its status and image in the world transformed. With the largest standing army within the NATO alliance, Turkey was always an important state militarily. However, Turkey is now an economic powerhouse too. At the end of 2012, Istanbul had twenty-four billionaire residents, ranking it at number seven in the list of cities with the most billionaires. According to compiled by the CIA, Turkey's economy is the seventeenth largest in the world. It's GDP per capita on a purchasing parity basis is over USD 15,000. Turkish companies are global players with large overseas investments, particularly in neighboring Central Asian and Balkan states.

Politically, Turkey now pursues a more muscular and independent foreign policy – often bringing the country into conflict with its traditional US and NATO allies. Consider Turkey's vacillations over supporting Kurdish militias in battling extremist Islamic State fighters lodged in the Syrian city of Kobani. Or Turkey's increasingly active role in regional conflict zones such as Libya and Palestine.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic, seen in his military uniform (1918)

Perhaps all of these changes simply represent a maturing of Turkish society? Or maybe the shift towards Islam is a belated recognition of the European Union's non-acceptance of Turkey as an European state? (Turkey has virtually abandoned the formal process of becoming an EU member state.) More likely, it is a combination of several factors. Whatever the reasons, the changes are unlikely to stop me from visiting Istanbul again in the coming years – as often as I possibly can. It remains a charmingly, beautiful city with many hidden secrets I have yet to uncover!

__________________

Imran is a Singapore based Tour Guide with a special interest in arts and history. Imran has lived and worked in several countries during his past career as an international banker. He enjoys traveling, specially by train, as a way to feed his curiosity about the world and nurture his interest in photography. Imran can be contacted at imran.ahmed.sg@gmail.com.

The Death of the Secular Islamic Polity

The death of secular nationalism across the Islamic world is a painful occurrence. It's not simply the rise of political Islam but also the weakness of secular (left wing?) intellectual thought which adds fuel to the fire. 

Perhaps it was the death of communism which left Muslim nationalists orphans in a world fueled by God-fearing capitalists. Perhaps it was the increasing gap between urbanized, westernized elites and mainstream populations in much of the Muslim world. (It could not have been easy for many Afghanis to accept local women parading around in miniskirts in 1970s Kabul when no more than the eyes of a 'traditional' rural Afghani woman show through her burqa while she is in public!) 

Female Kabul University students walk around campus in 1970s Afghanistan

To many, left wing nationalists such as Saddam Hussein or Hafez al-Assad were bestial tyrants ready to kill their own people given even the most trivial of excuses. Surely, Iraq and Syria were not model societies. However, neither were their counterpart right wing dictatorships found in many Latin American or developing countries. In many instances, capitalist, US supported strongmen were just as lethal to their own people as Soviet supported leaders. 

Nonetheless, the death of Islamic nationalists did not occur with the passing of these two brutal leaders. It is progressively taking place even as these words are being written.   

Of particular note are the two bastions of secularism found on either pole of the Islamic world: Turkey and Indonesia. Arguably, the two nations tasked with 'protecting' the Western and Eastern most physical and ideological borders of the Islamic world. 

Turkey: the birthplace of the first Muslim Republic in the world. A nation which banned headscarves for women and the fez headgear for men; a nation where one can sit in a bar nursing a glass of wine while watching (and listening) to people praying in a nearby mosque. 

After over a decade of rule by an Islamically inspired political party, today's Turkish state is intent on rolling back Ataturk's secular markers from Turkish society. 

A copy of the first Koran printed in the Turkish language after the formation of the secular Turkish Republic in 1923

And so with Indonesia: the most populous Muslim nation in the world. Hitherto a staunchly secular republic, now a fertile playground for the bearded brigade to attack public art and impose 'Islamic' moral standards at will. 

For Islamic modernists, the importance of secular societies lies in the enabling intellectual environment it fosters. A socially liberating ecosystem permits otherwise pious Muslims to question established archaic conventions, many of which are ripe for modernization. 

Islam is a dynamic belief structure. Hobbling it with strictures and 'out of bound' markers is destined to fail. The depth of Islamic intellectual strength will ultimately overcome these obstacles. The only question remains how many more lives must be lost in defeating the die-hard battling Muslim obscurantists.   

__________________

Imran is a business and management consultant. Through his work at Deodar Advisors and the Deodar Diagnostic, Imran improves profits of businesses operating in Singapore and the region. He can be reached at imran@deodaradvisors.com. 

Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Mali: still more interventions to come?

Over a decade ago, the United States reacted to the 9/11 attacks with military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Afghanistan's Taliban and Iraq's Saddam Hussein may be history but Islamic extremism is anything but weakened. So, while another attack on the US mainland may not have occurred in the intervening years, US foreign policy successes have been limited at best. Particular if curbing the growth of austere, extremist Islam is defined as a key US policy objective.

A balance sheet of events in the Islamic world since the turn of the century makes poor reading. In the years since America started to proactively (aka militarily) 'defend' its overseas interests, much bad stuff has happened. At the same time and just as important, positive events within the Islamic world have been in short supply.

Afghanistan: The war is winding down and the US seems only interested in making sure Pakistan releases all the Taliban captives held in its custody. Afghanistan may not be another Vietnam but it is hard to argue for a clear-cut American victory. In fact, Islamic radicalism in Pakistan has increased partly due to the effects of the US intervention in Afghanistan.

Islamic terrorism nearly brought Pakistan to its knees a few years ago, with the Pakistani Taliban attempting to move out of its traditional havens in the tribal areas and into 'settled' areas of Pakistan like the Swat Valley and Peshawar's outlying districts. The immediate danger may be past for Pakistan but political instability and Taliban inspired violence will negatively affect the country for some years to come.

Iraq: Saddam's gone and in its place is a nation divided along ethnic and sectarian lines. The Kurds have their piece. Sunni – Shia bloodletting continues with alarming frequency. Iraq's minority Christian community, a beneficiary of Saddam's secular nationalism, is struggling to maintain its freedoms.

The real winner in Iraq is former president Bush's arch-enemy: Iran. Shia politicians have taken over Iraqi state institutions and provide Iran a potent platform through which to play the centuries old Persian – Arab rivalry. The heightened Shia – Sunni tensions in the Arab Gulf, particularly Bahrain, can be attributed partly to Iran's greater presence within the Arab world.

Egypt: It seems Egyptians wanted democracy as much as their Iraqi brothers. Egypt did not wait for American troops to bring them democratic freedoms. Instead, following Tunisia's lead, Egyptians took to the streets and brought down longstanding dictator, Mubarak. Subsequently, Mubarak's nemesis, the Muslim Brotherhood has assumed control of the Egyptian state.

The 'legitimization' of the Muslim Brotherhood through the formation of Egypt's government is significant. Arguably, the Brotherhood is the spiritual Godfather of Al-Qaeeda and other Islamic extremist offshoots. How the Brotherhood's leadership uses its new found powers, prestige and organs of the Egyptian state may be decisive in the battle for Islam's silent majority.

Syria: Another bastion of secular Arab nationalism is tottering and on the verge of collapse. In Syria, Western intervention has been crucial in allowing Islamic extremists to create another battleground and, possibly, ultimately control the reins of a recognized nation- state. Islam's historic Sunni - Shia rivalry will most certainly be exacerbated by events in the Levant as Syria's civil war deepens. As in Iraq and Egypt, Syrian Christians will be big losers as Islamist influence further pervades the country.

Africa: Africa has been an unfortunate continent in so many ways for so long. Islamic extremism can now be added to the woes of the African continent.

From Nigeria in the west to Somalia in the east, there is no denying radical Islam has found itself a new playground. Lest one wishes to give Africa the benefit of the doubt, one can throw Mali into the mix for good measure. Oh and there are also thousands of unaccounted weapons and trained jobless Tuareg fighters – formerly part of Libyan leader Gaddafi's military – looking for a piece of land to settle.

Libya itself is not handling the transition to democracy too well. Essentially the country is divided into fiefdoms controlled by different tribes and groupings, with the active participation of Sunni extremists.

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): The GCC is mentioned not because several Islamists have been arrested in the normally sedate United Arab Emirates (UAE). Or the troubles in Bahrain continue and threaten to spill over into Saudi Arabia. No, the GCC is important because of Saudi Arabia's influence (and cash) within the wider Islamic world.

In Saudi Arabia, the most pertinent issue is the pace of social reforms and the development of civil society. Surely, reforms are proceeding apace. Women have been nominated into the country's consultative assembly. Nonetheless, real reforms in empowering women and co-opting females into mainstream society are still missing from the agenda. Separate but equal is not only expensive but does not work.

9/11 is understood primarily as an act of war against the US and western interests – and it most certainly was such an attack. However, it is the Islamic world which has suffered the greatest repercussions since September. The show of aggression not only prompted western military interventions in a host of Muslim countries – the list appears to grow annually – but has resulted in introspective soul searching by the Islamic world. During this intellectual exercise, Muslims have killed each other in large numbers with both randomness and precision. Undoubtedly, all the blame cannot be placed at Washington's door. However, the US might better serve international security by nudging reforms in the Saudi kingdom rather than sending troops to foreign shores at the first hint of trouble. The ripple effects from a reforming Saudi society will be positively felt far and wide in the Islamic world.

__________________

Imran is a business and management consultant. Through his work at Deodar Advisors and the Deodar Diagnostic, Imran improves profits of businesses operating in Singapore and the region. He can be reached at imran@deodaradvisors.com. 

Africa's radical Islam: Benghazi and Cairo as harbingers of the future

It is not easy to best the fury of Pakistan's mullahs but several post 'Arab Spring' nations have done so in the last few days. In normal times, Pakistan's radical clerics will be the first to rile up people to destroy public infrastructure whenever there is a 'threat' to Islam. So far, Pakistan's mullahs have been unusually quiet.

However, the furor over the anti-Islam film has caused widespread unrest within other parts of the Islamic world. The US ambassador to Libya was killed allegedly by an outraged mob in Benghazi. Additionally, the US embassy in Cairo was overrun by protestors who burnt the US flag and replaced it with an 'Islamic' flag. Protests have also spread to Tunisia and Sudan.

Clearly, Pakistan's radical clerics have other things on their mind these days. Either they are busy preparing for the forthcoming general election, due by March 2013. Or they have agreed a separate 'deal' with President Zardari to keep the peace. It is impossible to believe that Pakistan's clerics have changed their stripes. They must have calculated this not a politically opportune time to raise the heat in the country.



The new face of Egyptian state television

On the other hand, the politics of post 'regime change' Libya and Egypt have become clearer following the reaction to the film, "The Innocence of Muslims." Undoubtedly, the alleged identity of the key filmmaker being a Coptic Christian makes the issue more sensitive in Egypt, given the size of the country's Christian Coptic minority. Nevertheless, in Mubarak's Egypt the storming of the US embassy in Cairo would have been a remote possibility. Egyptian state's machinery was good not only for repression but also for maintaining order on the country's streets.

Likewise in Libya. Unless 'attacks' were intentionally orchestrated by Colonel Gaddafi own apparatus, foreign diplomatic missions in Libya were safe. In this instance, not only was the US consulate in Benghazi overrun but the US ambassador was also killed - an act of war in normal times.

As time progresses, the real face of the Arab Spring reveals itself. Egyptian state television news presenters donning scarves is simply the presentable face. The real danger lies in the unseen elements lurking behind the revolutions: these are the people who conspire to impose wahhabi Islam on all Muslims by force or threat of force.

The attacks on US interests in Libya and Egypt were neither random nor isolated. The world can expect more upheaval as radical Islam seeps into the mainstream political structure in African countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Mali, Nigeria and Libya.

__________________

Imran is a business and management consultant. Through his work at Deodar Advisors and the Deodar Diagnostic, Imran improves profits of businesses operating in Singapore and the region. He can be reached at imran@deodaradvisors.com.