Cairo looks to Ankara as a possible model, reports Doaa El-Bey The Governor of Cairo Abdel-Qawi Khalifa announced this week that Cairo had followed the Turkish model by recycling 70 per cent of its garbage. Khalifa added that there are plans to follow Turkey's experience in resolving the parking problem in crowded places in downtown Cairo. At the political level, the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS) this week organised a symposium entitled "Dramatic transformations in Turkey and Egypt: comparisons and lessons" in collaboration with the Ankara-based Institute for Strategic Thinking (SDE). Participants from both think tanks looked at the similarities and differences between the two countries as well as lessons to be learnt. El-Sayed Yassin of the ACPSS acknowledged that a comparison between states was not easy, and that there were differences between the two. Turkey underwent a democratic transformation under which the society opened the door for balanced polices. Egypt failed to undergo any political transformation because the previous regime circumvented and refused to make any changes towards democracy, respect for human rights and a rotation of power. Instead, it focussed on presidential inheritance and put conditions that made it impossible for any candidate to make a genuine run in presidential elections. The 25 January Revolution, Yassin said, was a declaration of that failure. It showed that a transformation to democracy would not take place except via a revolution. Samir Samir of Kocaeli University warned about regarding the Turkish experience as a model because it is still incomplete. "The use of the term Turkish model or the Turkish experience in general or that of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) is premature as we did not reach results that could be used as a model for Arab or Islamic countries," Samir told participants. The Turkish experience, he explained, has not yet settled basic issues like whether veiled women should join parliament. It still faces domestic as well as outside problems like the fate of the Kurdish minority and the relationship between the political elite and the military institution. The military is ready to return to power any time if there are moves away from secularism. Samir said that throughout the ages Turkey had managed to persuade the armed institution to gradually give up its authority to the political power. "That was not done overnight but took sacrifices and several coups." He questioned whether the Egyptian military institution is ready to play the same role. However, the fact that the army is not willing to end the emergency law sent a message that it is still the main player in the game. Thus, whether it is willing to give up its authority to political powers is still a big question. Samir concluded by stating that Turkey was looking forward to the re-emergence of Egypt as a democratic power, because strategic coordination between the two states could "re-organise traffic in the region within the next five years." He expected that the cooperation between the two states would be mainly in economy and trade. Diaa Rashwan of the ACPSS said there were major differences between the two countries. First, Egypt lacked the continuity that marked the Turkish experience. "The 1952 Revolution represented an interruption in the transformation to democracy. We will see whether the 25 January Revolution is an interruption or a continuation of pre- revolution policies," he said. Second, there are no political parties in Egypt in the full sense of the word. These parties are trying to build themselves up after the revolution and not the other way round, whereas political Islam in Turkey found its way to power through strong political parties rather than through Islamic groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt witnessed a revolution whereas Turkey did not, Rashwan stated. The Egyptian revolution is at a crossroads and its present phase will not be the last, he predicted. "We may witness another revolution or a second revolution as some prefer to call it, which could force the ruling military council to stay in power. And that phase would witness real regression from democracy and a move away from the Turkish experience. Ahmet Uysal of the SDE said the failure of the armed institution to rule in Turkey paved the way for the AKP. He said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan learned from the mistakes of the army and that of his predecessors. Thus, he focussed on democracy rather than religion. The importance of an active role of civil organisations and dialogue and tolerance between the various political parties were other factors that Uysal pointed to. Uysal said democracy passes through two stages: an introduction and rooting it. Turkey is in the second phase and Egypt in the first. Amr El-Shobaki of the ACPSS said that the transformation in Turkey came via political practice governed by the state of law and the institutions that managed to reach agreement between political trends and put an end to the polarisation between secularist and Islamist trends. In his comparison, El-Shobaki said the Turkish experience enjoyed continuity in its quest for change whereas it was absent in Egypt. "After the disbanding of the Refah Party, the Fadila [Virtue] Party was formed and then came the AKP. In Egypt the dissension among the young generation in the Muslim Brotherhood was in 1995. However, they failed to form the Wasat [Centre] Party until two months after the revolution," he said. During the last 30 years, he added, Egypt did not have a leader like Turgut Ozal who opened the door to internal reform and allowed Islamic movement to work freely. In Egypt, the Mubarak era did not seek any political change. It only sought to pave the way for political inheritance. The third difference according to El-Shobaki was that Turkey was not always a democratic state. Nevertheless, it showed constant respect for the law. The Mubarak regime was used to passing laws then breaking them. Yassin Aktay, SDE director, said the main target of the AKP and Erdogan was to develop Turkish society and create better relations with Islamic communities and states. The same Turkish group attended another symposium organised by the independent daily newspaper Al-Youm Al-Sabei which discussed democratisation and legal constitutions in Egypt and Turkey. The American University also arranged a one-day conference early this month entitled "Turkish- Egyptian conversations on contemporary democratic and political transformations". It drew a comparison between the political scene, the army and the civil state in Egypt and Turkey.
