So much for the Turkish model?

The Turkish model could still be saved, but only if Erdogan realises that it's about more than just a park.

By Mark LeVine

Al-Jazeera

Unless Erdogan takes action quickly to resolve the situation, it could completely discredit using a "Turkish" model as a template for budding democracies in Tunisia and Egypt

 

"Just as no one could predict on December 17, 2010, or on January 25, 2011, that protests in Tunis and Cairo would topple governments and change the course of Arab - and world - history, it's still too early to make predictions about what, if any, real political change the present protests in Turkey might produce.

Turkey under Tayyip Erdogan is not Tunis under Ben Ali, Egypt under Mubarak, or Libya under Gaddafi. Yet it is undeniable that, despite the unprecedented level of formal democracy and freedoms that have grown under AKP rule in the past decade, Erdogan has in fact moved towards more conservative - even authoritarian - rule in the past few years, just at the time the Arab uprisings showed the moral and political bankruptcy of such policies.........

However, Erdogan could yet surprise everyone. The Turkish model can still be saved. But only if Erdogan quickly understands that this is about far more than a park or local politics. It's about citizens losing faith in the state to serve and represent their most fundamental interests. It might still be a minority of Turks who support the protests, but if they succeed in forcing the government to become even more regressive and repressive - and Erdogan's speech in which he declared the government would push ahead with the proposed construction despite the protests betrayed precisely the arrogance against which protesters took to the streets - the movement will spread, and even Turks who have heretofore supported the AKP will begin to lose faith in its ability to maintain a civil government.

If that happens, Turkey could in fact have a very hot spring and summer. Regardless of what happens, citizens and rulers across the Arab world will be watching with interest and concern, to see if there is in fact a hope for a religiously grounded liberal body politic, or whether, as with most other types of politics today, power breeds arrogance, violence and corruption regardless of its ideological underpinnings. That might be the most important lesson of the still uncertain Turkish uprising."