Tag Archives: Justice and Development Party

Turkey: Artists, Free Press Under Fire

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Turkish PM Erdogan greets Syrian refugees with his wife Emine on the Turkish/ Syrian border near Akcakale. (Photo: Reuters)

Turkish PM Erdogan greets Syrian refugees with his wife Emine on the Turkish/ Syrian border near Akcakale. (Photo: Reuters)

by: Abigail R. Esman

Islamofascism, a controversial buzzword among the pundits and commentators since the attacks of 9/11. The term poses any number of questions, particularly for governments of Muslim countries: Is Political Islam a fascist ideology? Can Islam coexist with democracy? What is the difference between Nationalism and Islamism in an Islamic state?

These are precisely the issues that now rear their heads in the face of a series of arrests, lawsuits, and most recently, allegations of a state-sponsored assassination in Turkey over the past several months, and which have captured the attentions not only of the international media, but of human rights organizations worldwide.

Fazil Say

Fazil Say

Moves that elicit accusations of Islamism and fascist dictatorships are not new to the governing style of Turkey’s current government, led by the Islamist AKP, or Freedom and Development party.   Ongoing imprisonment of journalists, coupled with the arrest of world renowned pianist/composer Fazil Say last April on charges of insulting Islam, as well as the filing of charges earlier this month against the Turkish chapter of PEN for their defense of Mr. Say and “denigration of the state,” have particularly alarmed human rights activists abroad and pro democracy advocates at home.The charges against Say were brought after the 42-year-old musician joked on Twitter about a call to prayer lasting less than a minute. Sending out the message to his thousands of subscribers, the openly atheist Say wrote, “Why such haste? Have you got a mistress waiting or a raki on the table?”

Fundamentalist Muslims were not amused. The references to a mistress and to raki, an alcoholic drink, were inappropriate and insulting, they said, leading prosecutors to charge him with “public enmity” and “denigration of Islam.” If found guilty when his case comes to trial next month, Say could face a prison term of 18 months.

But the joke was not Say’s only misdeed.  Charges were also brought against him for another tweet, in which he quoted Omar Khayyam: “You say rivers of wine flow in heaven, is heaven a tavern for you? You say two houris [virgins] await each believer there, is heaven a brothel to you?”

What is significant about this is that Say’s tweet was, in fact, a “retweet” – the reposting of a twitter comment someone else had initiated. Moreover, hundreds, if not thousands, of others had also tweeted the same text.  Why, then, was Say singled out?

The case made headlines worldwide.  In an interview with Newsweek last June, Say defended himself, saying, “I did not insult Islam. I just retweeted a verse that I thought was funny. One hundred and 65 others retweeted that verse the same night, but I am the only one being tried.”

Neither Say and nor his manager responded to my requests for further comment on the case. It is said that he is no longer speaking to the press on this issue – an understandable position, if true.

But supporters of the 42-year-old pianist – who has performed with the New York Philharmonic, among others – continue to speak out. In June, the Turkish chapter of PEN issued a statement condemning the prosecution of Say: “The international community has been put on alert in the face of fascist developments in Turkey,”

Read more at Radical Islam

Abigail R. Esman, an award-winning writer based in New York and the Netherlands, is the author, most recently, of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West

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Turkey, Closest to Leading the Middle East

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by Şenay Yıldız Akşam January 7, 2013

http://www.danielpipes.org/12459/turkey-leading-middle-east

Translation of the original text: Ortadoğu liderliğine en yakın ülke Türkiye Translated by Elif S. Gürbey

N.B.: This translation from Turkish includes numerous changes in the text by Daniel Pipes to improve the presentation and to make it more accurate.

Founder and president of the Middle East Forum, Daniel Pipes is well known for his work on the Middle East and political Islam. Pipes, an award-winning columnist for the National Review and Jerusalem Post, writes commentaries and articles about the Middle East in leading media organizations such as the BBC, Al Jazeera, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. After visiting Turkey last month, Pipes, who has 12 books and numerous articles on Islam, Syria, and the Middle East, published an article in National Review Online titled “Talking Turkey.” We talked with him [in mid-December] about his impressions of Turkey and his expectations from the Middle East.

- When were you in Turkey the last time? I was in Turkey two weeks ago. I visited in 2007 as well. My first visit to Turkey was in 1972. I spent the summer of 1973 trying to learn Turkish while living in Istanbul’s Üsküdar quarter … but I was not very successful at it.

- How long did you stay in Turkey before writing your last article, “Talking Turkey”? Did you meet anyone from the government? I stayed in Turkey for 5 days. My request to meet members of the AKP did not succeed. However, I was able to meet with representatives of the CHP (Republican People’s Party) and the Gülen movement.

- Considering your visits to Turkey, what kind of difference do you see between now and then? Two major changes occurred in the last 40 years. First, economic development, especially in Istanbul: there are so many new buildings, businesses, and global brands. This differs completely from the Turkey I saw 40 years ago, which was quite separated from international business. Second, Islam. The religiosity of people in Turkey was semi-visible then. If it was necessary to go to mosques or other places to see them, now they are everywhere.

- Do you mean women who wear headscarf? Yes, the turban [headscarf] symbolizes this phenomenon. Many observers used to see Turkey as a European country with a different language. As someone interested in the history of Muslims, I always saw Turkey as a Muslim Middle Eastern country. The Atatürk revolution impressed me and I began writing a book comparing it with the Meiji transformation in Japan. I find it strange to see Turkey as European just because a small part of its territory is in Europe. Would Morocco controlling Gibraltar make it a European country? I think not.

2055- Does Turkey fit exactly into the Middle East? Yes, Turkey is historically, culturally, religiously, commercially, and politically a part of the Middle East.

- Do you think Islam’s visibility is negative? I have no opinion if people want to pray, fast, and on pilgrimage to Mecca. I do, however, have an opinion on attempts to implement the Shari’a. The Shari’a causes great suffering, sorrow, and pain. In the past [Necmettin] Erbakan and now [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan is moving toward Islamic law and I think this a terrible development.

- Do you really think Erdoğan is heading toward Sharia? Almost everybody I spoke to in Turkey told me, “Turkey will never be a country where hands are cut off, of burqas or jihad. Erdoğan, Gül, Davutoğlu, Arınç, and Gülen all know that and accept the order Ataturk implemented 80-90 years ago. They are only trying to create a more religious environment within that order.” Among those I spoke to, only an Alevi person did not subscribe to this opinion. According to him, Erdoğan and Gül aspire to apply Islamic law. “It will take a very long time,” he noted, “but it is their objective.” I agree with this view.

- As someone who lives in Turkey, I am having hard time to understand how you can see implementation of Shari’a. What makes you so skeptical about the AK Party’s goals? Gül and Erdoğan were members of Erbakan’s Virtue Party in the 1990s; and although he failed to achieve his objectives because he was removed from power by the military, Erbakan clearly intended to apply the Shari’a. The question now is: Did Gül and Erdoğan only change their tactics to maneuver better than him – or did they really abandon his objectives? I do not believe they altered their goals. I grant that I am speculating here because I cannot read their minds but it makes more sense to conclude that they only changed tactics.

As I see it, these lieutenants of Erbakan learned a lesson from his mistakes and are now implementing his policies more intelligently. Erdoğan is a more capable and sophisticated version of Erbakan. Should the AKP stay in power, the implementation of Islamic law will begin. The result will not look like Afghanistan under the Taliban, the Islamic Republic of Iran, or Saudi Arabia but the Shari’a will give direction to the social order.

I expect the AKP to rule for a long time, in part because the opposition in Turkey is so weak. It is reduced to hoping for divisions between Gül and Erdoğan, or Gülen and the AKP. The intellectual base of the CHP and the other parties is weak.

- Can you clarify your comment in your last article, that you heard that the AKP aspires “to create a post-Atatürk order more than an anti-Atatürk order”? Does the AKP leadership really accept the order established by Atatürk? I have my doubts. I think, deep in the leaders’ hearts, they want step by step to erase Ataturk’s accomplishments. In this sense, Erdoğan is the anti-Atatürk. Let me add that I have no problem with the removal of Atatürk from walls, quotations, and celebrations. It seems odd that a person who died 75 years ago remains ubiquitous. In the United States, I would not welcome seeing George Washington everywhere.

- Turkey is in leadership struggle for the Middle East. Do you think that Turkey can be the greatest power in the Middle East? Turkey absolutely is the best candidate right now for Middle East leadership. Given its population, the ruling party’s vision, its economic strength, and its intellectual capacity, Turkey is the country closest to leading the Middle East.

- What do you think of highly controversial Gülen movement? I never met Gülen, though he lives near me in Philadelphia. I know a number of people from the movement. It is highly sophisticated, intellectual, and impressive, especially the hundreds of schools. In my opinion, its objective is to make Islam the primary component that regulates people’s lives, and it works for this very carefully and cleverly.

Islamism in Turkey is far more intellectual than, for example, in Egypt. Take a look at Mohamed Morsi: in a few months, he tried to do more than the AKP has attempted in ten years, and for that reason, he is in great danger. Egypt faces so many problems, from a sinking economy to violent protests on the streets. In contrast, Gülen builds schools and has a media empire, which is much more impressive than Muslim Brotherhood, Khomeini, or the Taliban. For me, the most powerful feature that separates Islam in Turkey from other countries is capable leadership.

- The Arab Spring began with high hopes; at this point, do you think it brought spring to the Arabs? I never call it “Arab Spring”; the term Arab uprising is much more accurate. The Arab Middle East was surprisingly stable between 1970 and 2010, with little change of the dictators in charge. These regimes lacked an ideology or vision, so they—except for Syria—established good relations with the U.S. government. Following the incident in Tunisia in December 2010, the Islamists have increased their power. I believe this worsens things for the people of the region: dictators are bad enough but Islamists are even worse. Dictators kill tens of people; Islamists kill hundreds or thousands.

- Why are you contrasting Islamists and Americans? Islamism is the third totalitarian movement. We beat the fascist and communist threats; now we have to defeat the Islamists.

- Saudi Arabia is very close partner of the United States. No, Canada is a close partner. Saudi Arabia is only a tactical partner. The U.S. and Saudi governments work together but differ in everything from ways of life to long-term ambitions.

- Do you criticize Saudi Arabia? Yes, the government in Saudi Arabia is horrible. I am uncomfortable with the extent of privileges given to Saudi Arabia in Washington.

- You have a very negative, inflexible position about Islam? No, I am not negative about Islam, but I am negative about Islamism. A government, a movement, or a people who seek ways to implement Islamic law fully are rather a small minority in nearly every country. They are not the majority, and yes, I am negative about them. My motto is; radical Islam is a problem moderate Islam is the solution.

- Which countries you can think of in the Middle East that can implement a moderate version of Islam? Governments such as Iran, Turkey, and Tunisia that followed a moderate version of Islam are gone. Nowadays, the closest example is Algeria. The AKP and Gülen movement try to look like moderate, but they are not because both want to implement Shari’a.

- In the mission statement of the Middle East Forum’s Legal Project, of which you are the founder, it says, you “work to protect the right in the West to freely discuss Islam, radical Islam, terrorism, and terrorist funding..” But Islam is not the only religion in the Middle East, so why do you not show same concern about Christianity and Judaism? I do not see Islamism is comparable to anything in Judaism or Christianity. As I mentioned earlier, I see it comparable to Communism and Fascism. I see Islamism as far more a bigger threat than Jewish nationalism or a fundamentalist Christianity. You can criticize Jews and Judaism, Christians and Christianity without facing danger. However, you risk your life criticizing Islam.

Talking Turkey: As Turkey’s “chief social engineer,” Erdogan talks up secularism and prepares the way for sharia

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Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan

by Daniel Pipes, December 26, 2012

The menu for meals on my Turkish Airlines flight earlier this month assured passengers that food selections “do not contain pork.” The menu also offered a serious selection of alcoholic drinks, including champagne, whiskey, gin, vodka, rakı, wine, beer, liqueur, and cognac. This oddity of simultaneously adhering to and ignoring Islamic law, the Shari’a, symbolizes the uniquely complex public role of Islam in today’s Turkey, as well as the challenge of understanding the Justice and Development Party (known by its Turkish abbreviation, AKP) which has dominated the country’s national government since 2002.

Political discussions about Turkey tend to dwell on whether the AKP is Islamist or not: In 2007, for example, I asked “what are the AKP leadership’s intentions? Did it … retain a secret Islamist program and simply learn to disguise its Islamist goals? Or did it actually give up on those goals and accept secularism?”

During recent discussions in Istanbul, I learned that Turks of many viewpoints have reached a consensus about Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: they worry less about his Islamic aspirations than his nationalist and dictatorial tendencies.

Applying the Shari’a in full, they say, is not a feasible goal in Turkey because of the country’s secular and democratic nature, something distinguishing it from other Muslim-majority countries (except Albania, Kosovo, and Kyrgyzia). Accepting this reality, the AKP wins ever-greater electoral support by softly coercing the population to be more virtuous, traditional, pious, religious, conservative, and moral. Thus, it encourages fasting during Ramadan and female modesty, discourages alcohol consumption, attempted to criminalize adultery, indicted an anti-Islamist artist, increased the number of religious schools, added Islam to the public school curriculum, and introduced questions about Islam to university entrance exams. Put in terms of Turkish Airlines, pork is already gone and it’s a matter of time until the alcohol also disappears.

Islamic practice, not Islamic law, is the goal, my interlocutors told me. Hand chopping, burqas, slavery, and jihad are not in the picture, and all the less so after the past decade’s economic growth which empowered an Islamically-oriented middle class that rejects Saudi-style Islam. An opposition leader noted that five districts of Istanbul “look like Afghanistan,” but these are the exception. I heard that the AKP seeks to reverse the anti-religiousness of Atatürk’s state without undermining that state, aspiring to create a post-Atatürk order more than an anti-Atatürk order. It seeks, for example, to dominate the existing legal system rather than create an Islamic one. The columnist Mustafa Akyol even holds the AKP is not trying to abolish secularism but that it “argues for a more liberal interpretation of secularism.” The AKP, they say, emulates the 623-year-old Ottoman state Atatürk terminated in 1922, admiring both its Islamic orientation and its dominance of the Balkans and the Middle East.

Mohamed Morsi could learn a thing or two from Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Read more at National Review Online

Daniel Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum

 

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Pushing Back Against Stealth Jihad Charter Schools

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By Arnold Ahlert

Americans may not realize it yet, but Turkey’s regression from a secular democracy into an Islamic state may be based on an educational movement that has also taken root in America. Imam Fethullah Gülen and his Gülen Movement (GM) have had enormousinfluence in setting the increasingly Islamist agenda of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Much of this is due to GM’s vast empire of media entities, financial institutions, banks and business organizations. But the most critical component of this empire is educational institutions. In Turkey, 75 percent of the nation’s two million preparatory school students are enrolled in Gülen institutions. In America, GM runs the largest charter school network in the nation. Such an empire is slowly receiving the kind of scrutiny–and pushback from concerned Americans–that it deserves.

The principals and school board members of GM charter schools are primarily Turkish men. Hundreds of Turkish teachers have been admitted to the United States using H-1B visas, because the schools claim qualified Americans cannot be found. Moreover, an examination of federal tax forms and school documents reveals that GM charter schools tend to purchase a substantial portion of their goods and services from Gülenist businesses.

This symbiotic relationship is occurring in many areas around the nation. For example, a trio of GM schools in Georgia are currently in the spotlight because they defaulted on a $19 million bond issue. An audit revealed the schools improperly granted hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts for purchases like T-shirts, teacher training, and video production services from organizations with connections to school officials, or Gülen followers, or to businesses and groups with ties to the Gülen Movement. In some cases, bidding requirements were ignored. “I would just question how those vendors were selected when price in many instances wasn’t part of the decision making,” said Fulton County superintendent Robert Avossa.

In Texas, similar allegations have been aimed at the Cosmos Foundation, a charter school operator founded a decade ago by a group of professors and businessmen from Turkey. The group, currently using the name Harmony Schools, has become the biggest charter operation in the state, and while its primary mission is educating schoolchildren, it has forged ongoing relationships with a close-knit network of businesses and organizations run by Turkish immigrants. Some of those founders, as well as school operators, and many of their business suppliers, are followers of Fethullah Gülen.

Harmony receives more than $100 million a year in taxpayer funds. When questioned how that money was spent with regards to awarding contracts, Harmony produced a list showing that local American companies had been awarded only 13 construction and renovation jobs over several years. On the other hand, a New York Times review of contracts since January 2009, totaling 35 contracts and $82 million worth of work, revealed that all but 3 jobs worth about $1.5 million went to Turkish-owned businesses. Such contracts included an $8.2 million deal awarded to TDM Contracting to build the Harmony School of Innovation during the company’s very first month in business. Such “good fortune” is in direct contrast to established local companies that claimed they weren’t awarded contracts, despite bidding several hundred thousand dollars lower.

One of those companies is Atlas Texas Construction and Trading, a Houston-based contractor with offices in Texas and Turkey. Atlas was awarded two contracts by Cosmos in Texas, the fairness of which was questioned by local contractors, who wondered why the company got both jobs when it was underbid by one company on one job, and four on the other.  Atlas showed up on a list of Gülen-affiliated companies in a 2006 cable from the American Consul General in Istanbul, released by WikiLeaks. In Louisiana, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that the Abramson Science & Technology Charter School in eastern New Orleans is linked to a bribe offer allegedly made by Inci Akpinar — the vice president of Atlas.

Other possible sources of income for the GM movement were revealed in a 2011 report by the Philadelphia Inquirer. They revealed that the FBI is investigating a GM charter school employee kickback scheme, aimed at funding the larger GM movement.

Operators of Gülen-based charter schools stress over and over that their charters hew to state-mandated curriculums. Yet in Inver Grove Heights, MN, a substitute teacher named Amanda Getz claims the Tarek Ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) maintained no separation between academics studied during school and Islamic studies afterward. She also claims she was instructed to take students in fours to the bathroom for “ritual washing” before lunch on Fridays (the Muslim holy day), after which, “teachers led the kids into the gym, where a man dressed in white with a white cap” led the students in Muslim prayers. She further revealed that while religious instruction is not part of the “school day,” most students stay after — perhaps because school buses don’t leave until the Islamic studies are over.

Concerned Americans have begun to push back. In Austin, Texas, a protest rally was organized in August 2011 against the Harmony School of Political Science in that city. Rally organizer Donna Garner cited Fethullah Gülen’s influence in changing Turkey from pro- to anti-American, the link between Cosmos/Harmony/Atlas Construction in Texas and Louisiana’s Pelican schools, as well as concerns regarding how “teachers who can hardly speak English and are fresh from Turkey will present such historically significant elements as the Holocaust, the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.”

In Tennessee last May, Gov. Bill Haslam allowed a bill that limits the number of foreign workers at charter schools to become law without his signature. According to the bill, if a school wants 3.5 percent or more of its staff to be hired from among the foreign workers in the H1B or J-1 visa programs (with an exception for language teachers), it can now be refused a charter to operate by chartering authorities. American Muslim Advisory Council board member Sabina Mohyuddin from Tullahoma, labeled it “an anti-Muslim bill shrouded in anti-immigrant language.”

Last month in Loudoun, VA, applicants behind the proposed Loudoun Math and IT Academy in that city were peppered with questions from residents who were concerned that the proposed charter has ties to the Gülen Movement. Access Point Public Affairs’ Mindy Williams, who serves as the spokeswoman for the charter school applicants, along with School Board Vice Chairman Jill Turgeon and Board of Supervisors Vice Chairman Janet Clarke, were met with a great amount of skepticism when they said they believed the school was not tied to Gülen or his movement. “I do think it’s very important that we’re absolutely sure there is no connection,” Clarke said, “but in all fairness, we can’t draw that connection when we don’t know quite yet.”

Perhaps they’re not looking hard enough. At an earlier meeting, it was pointed out that Ali Bicak is one of the founding members of Chesapeake Science Point in Maryland, which has alleged ties to the Gülen Movement and is ostensibly the school after which the Loudoun Math and IT Academy is modeled. Fatih Kandil, listed as an applicant for the Loudoun charter school, is a former principal of Chesapeake Science Point and was the director of the Horizon Science Academy in Ohio, which has also been accused of ties with Gülen. “There’s a trend here I’m hoping you see,” said meeting attendee Rachel Sargent.

Read more at Front Page

Stunner: Turkey Infiltrating Native American Tribes — and May Get Congressional Help

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by Marc J. Fink:

Recently, Native American Congressman Tom Cole (R-OK, member of the Chickasaw Nation) introduced H.R. 2362, the Indian Trade and Investment Demonstration Project. The bill singles out Turkish-owned companies for exclusive investment preferences and special rights in Native American tribal area projects.

Congressman Cole freely admitted the following on the House floor:

There’s no question that I was approached by the Turkish American Coalition (properly the Turkish Coalition of America), who have a deep interest in Turkey and American Indians.

“Deep interest” indeed. The bill was the culmination of a multi-year effort by Turkey to ingratiate itself with Native American tribes: tribal students now study in Turkey with full scholarships; Turkish officials regularly appear at Native American economic summits; and dozens of tribal leaders have gone to Turkey on lavish all-expense-paid trips.

Why the intense interest in business and cultural ties with Native American tribes now, when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist Justice and Development party (AKP) have taken Turkey down a path of aggressive and dangerous Islamism?

Evidence from Uzbekistan points to a possible motive: infiltration and Islamization. The government of Uzbekistan is claiming that private Turkish business interests in the Central Asian country have been acting as a front for banned Islamist extremists. According to Agence France-Presse:

[The Uzbek government has accused] Turkish companies of creating a shadow economy, using double accounting and propagating nationalistic and extremist ideology. … Long wary of the influence of Islamic fundamentalism … secular authorities appear to be linking Turkish private business to the activities of the Nurcus, an Islamic group that is banned in the country.

Nurcus is also banned in Russia.

Is it in America’s national security interests to have Turkish contractors and their families flooding into America’s heartland and settling in semi-autonomous zones out of the reach of American authorities? Especially if their intent is to form intimate business and social ties with a long-aggrieved minority group?

H.R. 2362 was narrowly defeated on July 23, when a “suspension of the rules” vote (usually reserved for non-controversial votes with limited debate) failed to attain the required two-thirds majority. But troublingly, 220 representatives voted in favor — representing both parties and all ideological strains — with 160 opposed and 49 abstaining.

The bill could come up for a vote again at any time.

In the original version of H.R. 2362, the stated purpose was:

[To] encourage increased levels of commerce and economic investment [with Native American tribes] by private entities incorporated in or emanating from the Republic of Turkey.

It allowed for select Native American tribes to lease land held in trust by the United States:

… [for] a project or activity … in furtherance of a commercial partnership involving one or more private entities incorporated in or emanating from the Republic of Turkey.

When the bill came up for a vote, its backers were forced to offer an amended version. The phrase “or other World Trade Organization (WTO) member nations” was placed after “Republic of Turkey” in the passages above. The amended version still maintains:

[Congress] finds that the public and private sectors in the Republic of Turkey have demonstrated a unique interest in bolstering cultural, political, and economic relationships with Indian tribes and tribal members.

Also: removing “barriers” and encouraging a “more robust relationship” between “Turkish and Indian tribal communities” is “in the interest” of “the United States-Turkey relationship.” The “interest” is not defined.

The bill, in both its forms, severely limits federal oversight of the investment projects, and does not even require the Department of the Interior to approve the leases. The term of the leases could stretch 75 years, effectively tying the hands of future administrations: presidents would come and go, but Turkey would have a semi-permanent foothold in America’s heartland.

The amended version of H.R. 2362 continues to single out Turkey for special treatment, and if passed would serve as an official U.S. government endorsement of Ankara.

In the past, special considerations by the U.S. for Turkey were well-deserved. Hill staffers grew accustomed to doing favors for a secular, pro-Western Ankara that was a key strategic ally to Washington and its allies in the region. But all that changed with the ascension of Erdogan’s AKP party in 2002. A small sampling of recent events:

  • Turkey refused to allow U.S. troops to reach Iraq via Turkish territory in 2003.
  • Turkey refused to back UN sanctions on Iran, meant to halt its nuclear weapons program.
  • Prime Minister Erdogan has said “Iran is our friend,” and “I do not think that Hamas is a terrorist organization.”
  • Erdogan invited the Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite warload Muqtada al-Sadr to Turkey for “political discussions.” Sadr, whose militia is believed to be responsible for the deaths of countless American soldiers in Iraq, stopped in Iran on his way to Turkey.
  • The Turkish government supported a flotilla of ships that violently attempted to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, ruled by the terrorist group Hamas. Israel’s blockade was declared legal by the United Nations.
  • Erdogan halted trade with Israel and threatened to invade Cyprus after an American-based company partnered with Israel to begin gas exploration in Cypriot territorial waters, which is adjacent to Israeli gas fields. Turkey then initiated military exercises aimed at threatening both Israel and Cyprus.
  • Erdogan defended Sudanese President Bashir, who faced worldwide condemnation for the genocide in Darfur. Erdogan’s rationale: “A Muslim can never commit genocide. It’s not possible.”
  • According to Middle East expert Barry Rubin, the “AKP has repressed opposition in Turkey, arrested hundreds of critics, bought up 40 percent of the media, and installed its people in the bureaucracy.” Very recently, 326 military officers were convicted of conspiracy to overthrow Erdogan’s Islamist government.

Perhaps most troubling — even if other WTO member nations have the same rights in the amended version of H.R. 2362 — Turkey is poised to infiltrate Native American tribal areas immediately upon passage due to the Islamist country’s intense cultivation of ties with Native American tribes through the Turkish Coalition of America. John Berrey, chairman of the Quapaw Tribe (Oklahoma), claims:

The Turkish and Native American peoples are beginning to come together under their own momentum to develop broader and deeper economic and cultural ties.

But the “momentum” is coming from only one direction: Turkey, through the TCA. Indeed, according to the Indian Country Today Media Network:

  • In November 2010, the TCA organized and led the first Native American Business Cooperation Trip to Turkey, attracting 20 leaders from 17 Native American tribes. The tribal leaders met with Turkish high officials, including Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. “The meeting in Turkey marked the tribal leaders’ first significant overseas trade meeting,” reported the Associated Press.
  • In March 2011, the TCA engineered the appearance of the Turkish deputy minister for foreign trade at the Reservation Economic Summit (RES) and American Indian Business Trade Fair in Las Vegas. The Turkish minister was the “first foreign government official to ever deliver remarks” in the event’s history.
  • In February 2012, the Turkish deputy economy minister and the Turkish ambassador to Washington joined the TCA at the RES.
  • Since 2008, the TCA has offered scholarships to Native American students interested in studying abroad in Turkey. The TCA also co-sponsored two Native American conferences at a Turkish university.

Read more at PJMedia

The Islamist Tsunami and Arab Society

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by Najat Fawzy AlSaied

Whenever the Muslim Brotherhood are asked if Sharia law will be imposed, the response is that their intention is to build “a democratic and civil state” that guarantees freedom of religion and the right to peaceful protest. But anyone who traces the actions of the Muslim Brotherhood — in Egypt, Tunisia or anywhere else in the Arab world, will see that their intention is to further Islamize their societies, not to create civil alternatives.

When the news came that Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) had been declared Egypt’s President, the immediate concern was about what kind of society the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists would want to create, and how this election would affect society in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world. Would they want to establish a robust civil society or a pious Islamic one, and would it be tolerant and respectful towards women and religious minority rights?

Whenever the Muslim Brotherhood are asked if Sharia law will be imposed, the response is that their intention is to build a “democratic and civil state” that guarantees freedom of religion and the right to peaceful protest, as has been stated by Mursi himself on several occasions. But anyone who traces the actions of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists over the past decades — in Egypt, Tunisia or anywhere else in the Arab world — will see that their intention is to further Islamize their societies, not to create civil alternatives. Before they gained power, their approach was from the bottom up, but now that they have the reins of power; they might instead approach their task from the top down.

If the MB’s intention is to build a democratic and civil state, what explains Tunisian MB mentor Rachid Ghannouchi’s obsessive criticism of Habib Bourguiba, the father of modern Tunisia? If Ghannouchi were scathing toward the corrupt regime of the overthrown Zine El Abedine Ben Ali, that would be understandable; but why against Bourguiba, who was the liberator of women and cultivator of modernism in Tunisia? Ghannouchi always rejects parallels drawn with Khomeini, insisting that he is more like Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey and that the Tunisian MB party, known as Ennahda or Rebirth, is closer to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey.

But, unlike the AKP, Ennahda has neither an obvious economic program nor a political program — omissions which suggest that Ennahda will instead pursue a social agenda of rapidly Islamizing Tunisian society, as revealed in Ghannouchi’s writing about the history of women in the Arab world: “Before the emergence of the Islamist movement, woman found herself in an unstable and decaying society whose liberation was purely superficial: nudity, eroticism, leaving the house and the intermingling of the sexes.”

Ghannouchi has also highlighted the importance of “tradition” in art: “Art is linked to the values and traditions of society, and no one should take away freedom of expression through art, as long as it reflects those traditions.” According to these comments Ennahda’s true goal is not, as the title of his party would suggest, a Rebirth or a program of development, but rather the fuller Islamization of society, making it more “traditional;” that is, backward-looking. In mid-June, during Tunisia’s annual spring art fair, Tunisian Islamists threw rocks and petrol bombs at modernist works they deemed offensive to religious sensibilities. One person was killed, hundreds of people were injured and arrested, and riots lasted for two days This is the extremism that Ghannouchi’s “tradition” defends.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, established in 1928 with the aim of Islamizing Egyptian society from the bottom up, saw, under Mubarak’s corrupt regime, a social decay set in that strongly increased the Islamists’ appeal. The Brotherhood, with its battle cry of “Islam is the Solution,” greatly benefitted from this erosion; it was not surprising that they were able to and gain the support of the majority and win elections.

In the short run, the Mubarak Government also benefited – in addition to marginalizing liberals and pro-democracy forces, it could also present the rise of Islamists as an implicit threat to the West as “It is either us or the Islamists” – but eventually, primarily with Mubarak’s insistence that his son, Gamal, succeed him, that strategy failed.

Although Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood claims a likeness to the Turkish AKP, when Erdogan suggested, perhaps ambiguously, that Egypt guarantee a secular state in its new constitution, the MB became angry with him. The MB will campaign against any secular party that seeks to revise Article 2 of Egypt’s constitution, which states that “the principle source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence [Sharia law].” The MB also claims that anyone who challenges Article 2 is somehow facilitating an American and Israeli plot against Egypt.

The main difference between the constitution in Turkey and the one in Egypt is that in Turkey, the constitution was protected historically by the military which defended the secular state against Islamization – until recently it has been undermined by pseudo-judicial persecution – while the Egyptian military has no guiding political or religious principles. The Egyptian military will accept whatever deal allows them to maintain their rule. It matters little to them whether women’s faces are covered or not; whether Christians will enjoy full citizenship or not, or whether liberals are free to express themselves or not – without the restrictions that all Islamists long to impose.

Islamists’ supporters in the Arab revolution should learn from history and particularly from that of the Iranian Revolution, in which the liberals similarly formed an alliance with the Islamists, only to be slaughtered by them afterward. Once the Iranian clerics came to power; they focused on Islamizing society, not on building democracy and striving for social justice – both of which had been promised during the revolution.

Within months of the founding of the Islamic Republic, female government workers were forced to wear head coverings, women were barred from becoming judges, gender segregation laws were promulgated, and the age of marriage for girls was lowered to 13.

Read more at Gatestone Institute

Read Najat AlSaied is a Saudi PhD researcher in media and development at University of Westminster in London. She can be reached at: najwasaied@hotmail.com