Muslim Democrats in Turkey and Egypt: Participatory ... - Insight Turkey

Muslim Democrats in Turkey

and Egypt: Participatory Politics as a Catalyst İHSAN YILMAZ*

ABSTRACT Partial and limited opening of authoritarian political systems in Turkey and Egypt created new democratic opportunities for Islamists to participate in public life. It also fostered democratic learning by permitting Islamists to compete for power and popular legitimacy. In the process of democratic opening, Islamists have had to address and represent the interests of a group much larger than their own ideological constituency. They have also had to endure repression and party closures in a semi-democratic political framework. However, the democratic learning process coupled with the establishment’s constraints has paved the way for the transformation of Islamists to Muslim democrats. While the process in Turkey is almost complete, in Egypt there are still heated debates on the transformation among the Islamists. This study highlights the importance of the democratic opportunities given to Turkish Islamists and argues that if given similar opportunities, Egyptian Islamism will also transform to a post-Islamist phase. Insight Turkey Vol. 11 / No. 2 / 2009

pp. 93-112

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ven though there is no simple causal relationship between the lack of democracy and political extremism, it has been argued that institutional exclusion from the political process and indiscriminate repression make extremist groups inclined to adopt revolutionary1 or even worse terrorist methods. Conversely, political participation (even in semi-democratic autocracies) encourages radical groups to pursue their objectives through peaceful means. Political pluralism, albeit in a limited form, can induce radical and even anti-systemic parties to moderate their political discourses.2 This paper analyses how and to what extent the processes of exclusion and/or inclusion policies of the regimes, general framework of political and legal structures, politico-legal constraints and opportunities in Turkey and Egypt have influenced the transformation and moderation of Islamisms toward a pluralist discourse in these two countries. Instead of fo* Assist. Prof., Public Administration Department, Fatih Univer sity, [email protected]

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cusing only on the Islamist discourse, the interaction of discourse, context, structure and practice will be examined.3 Islamist parties in Turkey were successively banned from politics, but reemerged after reframing their discourse in response to their perceived opportunities and constraints. The current Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has gone a step further than its Islamist predecessors, dramatically highlighting a process of institutional change and ideological moderation. The increasing moderation of the Islamist movement is the result of several institutional factors.4 The Turkish Islamists have been given the political freedom in a liberalized autocracy5 to make strategic choices in a political system that rewards political participation with credible opportunities for power, while at the same time, the state and civil society have imposed public institutional constraints on the Islamists in addition to the interactions taking place between Islamists, their constituency and the state.6 Similar developments have also been taking place in a different context, Egypt. After analyzing the evolution of Turkish Islamists to Muslim democrats, the paper will look at the same issue in the Egyptian context.

Evolution of Islamism in Turkey When the Turkish Republic decided to close down all Sufi brotherhoods and lodges, as a result of the Sunni Hanafi understanding of preferring the worst state to anarchy, chaos and revolution they did not challenge the state. Nevertheless, they continued their existence invisibly and unofficially, without claiming any public or official role. In return, the officials turned a blind eye to their existence. Among them, the Nakhsbandi order has played an important role, for all prominent Turkish Islamist parties have originated in the Nakhsbandi brotherhood.7 The Khalidi branch of the Nakhsbandi has been the most politically active brotherhood. Its sheikh, Mehmed Zahid Kotku (1897–1980), preached that it was the duty of observant Muslims to take an active interest in national affairs.8 He did not perceive the secular state as an absolute enemy. He created a new “operational code” of the brotherhood, synchronized with the political code promoted by the secular state, that of constitutional legitimacy. By the 1970s, Kotku started promoting a second layer of legitimacy, working in tandem with Islamic legitimacy, which was that of political institution building.9 Kotku’s disciple Professor Necmettin Erbakan and his followers have successively established the National Order (Jan. 26, 1970 to Jan. 14, 1971), National Salvation (Oct. 11, 1972 to Sept. 12, 1980), Welfare (July 19, 1983 to Jan. 16, 1998), Virtue (Dec. 17, 1997 to June 22, 2001) and Felicity parties (July 20, 2001 to pres94

Muslim Democrats in Turkey and Egypt: Participatory Politics as a Catalyst

ent). With the exception of the existing The political attitude of Felicity Party (SP), all the others were religious groups demonstrates shut down by the establishment. The first that they are willing to take prominent Islamist party in republican part in the system rather than Turkey, the National Order Party (MNP) and the National Salvation Party (MSP) striving for its total conversion were established through Sheikh Kotku’s promotion and support, and he had supervised their activities.10 Most of the founders were also disciples of Kotku.11 Erbakan espoused a discourse of new economic and social order based on “national” as opposed to Western principles. The basic program of this party was based on the demand to disseminate traditional religious values and to achieve the unity of Muslim societies. The party was shut down after a military intervention in 1971 on the ground that it was against the secularism. The MSP was founded in October 1972 after the generals called Erbakan back from voluntary exile in Switzerland. The MSP ideology was almost the same as that of the closed MNP. The MSP “is usually remembered with its rigorous resistance against Turkey’s membership of the EU together with Greece in the mid-1970s”.12 The NSP won 11.8 percent of the vote in the national elections of 1973. It participated in a series of three coalition governments in the 1970s. After the military coup in 1980, the NSP was also closed down, together with all other political parties. When the army returned to its barracks in 1983, Erbakan founded a new party under a new name -- the Welfare Party (RP). The RP ideology was not different from that of the MSP. But, in the early 1990s, the RP realized “the need for turning the party into a mass political movement, adopting an agenda that put stress on social problems rather than on religious themes, using modern propaganda methods. It particularly tried to mobilize the urban poor, who suffered from the liberalization policies of the 1980s”.13 The RP had steadily increased its share of the vote, and after the 1994 general local elections mayors of several major cities such as Ankara and Istanbul (current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became the mayor of Istanbul at that date) were RP members. In 1996, as the bigger partner of a coalition government (Refah-Yol) with the True Path Party (DYP), Erbakan became Turkey’s first Islamist prime minister. The Erbakan government’s “policies, in particularly those designed to link Turkey more closely with Islamic countries and to widen the scope of religious freedoms, upset the civil and military bureaucracy.”14 The establishment also pressurized Islamist and Islamic groups, companies and institutions. Several “briefings, joined by judicial personnel, journalists and other professionals were organized by the General Staff of the Armed Forces on the 95

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danger of Islamic fundamentalism in which the ruling party was identified as a reactionary Islamic threat.” 15 With “the support of dominant media groups and unions, chief businessmen clubs, and of the labor unions, the opposition led by the military managed to overthrow the Refah-Yol government”.16 In January 1998, the Constitutional Court closed down the RP and banned Erbakan from politics for five years. Being aware of history’s repetition, this time Erbakan’s new party was already ready before the closure decision. The Virtue Party (FP) continued operating under the leadership of Erbakan’s close friend, Recai Kutan, until it too was shut down by the Constitutional Court in June 2001. After the RP was ousted from power, many younger members of the Islamists also began thinking that the only way they could succeed was to avoid confrontation with the Kemalist establishment and to stay away from the instrumentalist use of religious rhetoric in politics. This started an internal debate among the Islamists. Thus, a cleavage emerged within the movement between two different groups. The “traditionalists” (Gelenekçiler), centered on Erbakan and party leader Kutan, opposed any serious change in approach or policy, while the younger group of “renewalists” (Yenilikçiler), led by Erdoğan, Abdullah Gül and Bülent Arınç, argued that the party needed to revise and renew its approach to a number of fundamental issues, especially democracy, human rights and relations with the West. The influence of this internal debate was reflected in the platform of the FP. The FP embraced Western political values, and anti-Westernism was not on its agenda. Its slogans included “pluralist society,” “basic rights and liberties,” “more democracy,” “privatization,” “decentralization” and “globalization.” 17 After the Constitutional Court closed down the FP, the old guard went on to establish the Felicity Party (SP), but the renewalists did not join them and instead formed the AKP, adhering to their renewalist discourse, frequently asserting universal values and value-based discourses such as human rights, democracy and free market principles.18 They have learned to avoid confrontational rhetoric. The emergence of the AK Party has shown that Muslim politics in Turkey is evolving from an instrumentalist usage of Islam to a new understanding of practicing Muslims who deal with daily politics.19 While acknowledging the importance of religion as personal belief, they accommodated themselves within the secular constitutional framework.20 After this brief historical overview of the evolution of Islamism in Turkey we now turn our attention to analyzing the factors that brought about the above96


summarized transformation of younger generation Islamists into Muslim democrats of the AKP. Doing this will help us to see if and to what extent the Turkish case bears similarities to the Egyptian one. In the Turkish domestic context, there are several major factors that contributed to the transformation of Islamists. As can be understood from our historical summary above, the first is the ever-present existence of de jure and de facto constraints imposed upon the Islamist political parties by the Kemalist establishment.21 Erbakan had been naively hoping in his every new attempt that the establishment would let him run the country. As opposed to Erbakan, the younger generations realized that they had to avoid confrontation with the aggressively laicist establishment as this would prevent their staying in power even if they reached it, as the RP government’s experience showed. But realizing the Kemalist constraints is only one of the causes of transformation. As experienced politicians, the founders of the AKP knew that in order to come to power they needed the public’s support, and especially its votes. Thus it is obvious that they had to take into account what had been happening at the grassroots level. They first had to gauge their voters and potential voters’ reaction to the RP experience in power, its overthrow by the generals and, in particular, Erbakan’s record. They did not have to wait too long. At the first election in which the FP took part in 1999, its voters penalized the Islamists and their votes decreased to 15.1 percent from 21.38 of ante-power RP. Traditionally, Turkish voters act in almost direct opposition to the wishes of the generals, but this time they indicated that they were not happy with Erbakan’s record in power. They would penalize the generals and penalize them harshly later in November 2002. In addition to election results, because the younger Islamist politicians had been in contact with the man in the street, grassroots, Anatolian heartlands and periphery, they also became aware of the fact that the new middle classes would no longer vote for an Islamist party after the failure in power of the RP. Moreover, they established a think tank and The AK Party is a successful social research institution. Before the example showing that establishment of the AK Party, current Interior Minister professor Beşir Atalay, political participation and the known to be close to the current presiopportunities available for the dent, Gül, established and directed this Islamist parties can generate institution, the Ankara Social Studies political change, resulting in Center (ANAR), that regularly surveyed socio-political trends in society and ac- the transformation of Islamism 97

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tual demands of ordinary people. Gül is also known to have frequented the offices of this institution before establishing the AK Party. This scientific, as it were, awareness of reality should have helped the younger generation of Islamists to develop a down-to-earth and realistic political discourse and party program when establishing the AK Party. Moreover, the younger generation Islamists knew that even though Erbakan had employed a religious rhetoric, his parties had “never been able to gain the support of dominant religious communities nor did it gain the support of some prominent Sufi orders in Turkey. The dominant religious communities such as Suleymancıs (the follower of Sufi leader Süleyman Hilmi Tunahan) and Nurcus (the follower of Said Nursi, a commentator of Quran) and some brands of the Sufi orders always gave support to the center-right parties. The political attitude of religious groups demonstrates that they are willing to take part in the system rather than striving for its total conversion”.22 Several of the remaining Islamic groups that had been supporting Erbakan had also joined other non-supportive Islamic groups, questioning both the feasibility of Islam as a political project and the conformity of Islamism to Islam itself. Noticing that the social and economic networks of Islam had been damaged most when Islamism was at its peak in the late 1990s, these Islamic groups and businessmen started to withdraw their support from Erbakan and the idea of a “social” rather than “political” Islam -- which has been advocated by non-Islamist groups such as the Gülen movement for a long time -- gained ground, opening up the way for the transformation of Islamism.23 In addition to Kemalist constraints, voters’ negative reaction to Erbakan’s record in power and realization of socio-political and economical demands of voters, another factor that influenced younger Islamists’ transformation is their realization that “the existing system -- that is, the current tacit or implicit social contract -- indeed did include sufficient possibilities for others than the political elite to represent the national body politic of Turkey. From the Islamists’ point of view, this realization presented some peace with the existing political apparatus that had been injurious to them since the 1920s.”24

Erdoğan’s experiences as mayor of Istanbul had also influenced the transformation of the AK Party leaders from “Islamist vanguards” into pragmatic politicians 98

Erdoğan’s experiences as mayor of Istanbul had also influenced the transformation of the AK Party leaders from “Islamist vanguards” into pragmatic politicians, “where public service provision easily trumped ideology. Local voters want efficient road and sewer repair and


trash collection, not utopian endeavors to transform society. The chief executive officer of Turkey’s largest city learned this lesson well.”25 The AK Party is a successful example showing that political participation and the opportunities available for the Islamist parties can generate political change, resulting in the transformation of Islamism to non-Islamism in the Turkish context. The AK Party has successfully analyzed, understood and responded to the real concerns of ordinary people as it had to compete in elections to run the country. The result of the transformation and the party’s efforts were prized by the people in the very first election in which the party competed, Nov. 3, 2002, and the AK Party won 34 percent of the vote, enabling it to control almost two-thirds of the parliament.26 Scholars have noted that the victory of the AKP “was the endorsement of Erdoğan who, during the campaign, ran on the issues of human rights, liberties, economic development and integration into the EU.”27 The AKP increased its share of the vote to 47 percent in the July 22, 2007, elections, the main opposition party receiving only 21 percent.28 This election was primarily shaped by evaluations of performance (economic or otherwise) rather than by ideological cleavages.29 As a matter of fact, a survey by a polling firm, which predicted the outcome of the 2007 election with precision, “has found that the top two concerns leading people to cast a ballot for the AKP that year were not religious sentiments, but rather the party’s economic-policy performance and the attempts of the military and the judiciary to prevent the AKP from electing its candidate for the presidency.”30 In the 2007 elections, even many TurkishArmenians reportedly voted for the AKP Party. This is a crucial fact showing how successfully formerly intolerant and exclusivist Islamists transformed their vision and political ideology, became Muslim democrats and were able to convince even non-Muslim citizens of the country of the fact. The successful transformation of the AKP has been noted in Middle East circles.

Liberalized Autocracy and Islamism in Egypt An authoritarian state and strong Islamist groups, among other oppositional forces, coexist in Egypt. The communication channels between the Egyptian regime and the opposition are well-established and they are never totally closed, even for the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood (MB).31 Egyptian autocracy has survived by implementing a system of autocratic power sharing and state-managed pluralism that gave secular, Islamist and ethnic groups opportunity to express their views in the public sphere and even in elected, state-controlled assemblies, but that did not allow these voices to be translated into a unified anti-systemic 99

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or even systemic but oppositional movement capable of threatening the incumbents.32 The liberalized autocracy in Egypt implies far more political freedoms than exist in Syria, the former Iraq, the oil-rich Gulf countries or even in Tunisia.33 Egypt has a multi-party political system with several political parties, periodic elections, opposition newspapers, popular criticism of the government and an independent judiciary.34 But, the state has been employing pluralist policies not as catalysts for pluralist political participation and demand making, but as valuable instruments of social control.35 By allowing some public space to the Islamist opposition, the regime has also been able to uphold fears of the “Islamist threat,” by which coercive measures can be legitimized and thereby prolong the state of emergency and control elections.36 By arguing that democratization would enable Islamists to overturn the regime and ultimately abolish democracy -- however limited it is -- itself, these movements were used by the regime to justify the continuation of its repressive policies.37 The persistence of Islamist groups also comes with some advantages for the regime: Islamists are an important player in a juggling act by which opposition forces are pitted against one another and struggles occur between secularist, leftist, rightist and Islamist groups probably even more often than between regime and opposition.38 As far as the opposition groups are concerned, liberalized autocracy provides them with two major benefits. First, it gave them space to criticize the regime and mobilize public support, something that Islamists were particularly good at, because they control mosques and other religious institutions through which they attract a mass following -- in contrast to their secular rivals. Second, the powersharing arrangement enforces a measure of peaceful coexistence by providing state-controlled legislatures under whose roofs competing groups can raise their respective political and cultural agendas.39 Islamism in Perspective The Islamist revival in Egypt began in the 1920s but spread rapidly after the early 1970s, reaching its peak in the early 1990s. It consists of several groups from violent militants to non-violent and gradualist Islamic coalition, and from the individualist Sufi orders to the state’s Al-Azhar, the Ministry of Awqaf and the Supreme Islamic Council.40 Islamism emerged as a reaction to the perceived causes of such a state of deprivation-economic dependency, cultural sellout, and national humiliation and 100


in view of all the failed ideologies and of Conforming to its strategy the western cultural, political and ecoof working within the official nomic onslaught, Islam was seen as the institutions, the MB made use only doctrine that could bring about a of the professional syndicates change.41 The MB emerged in 1928 when the secular-nationalist Wafdist Party and as a ground to expand its ranks the royal family ruled the country. The and develop a white-collar base MB was founded by Hassan al-Banna, in whose view the MB had to be organized as a “movement” rather than a “party” as Al-Banna espoused a bottom-up approach and did not believe in the forceful transformation of society using state power. Al-Banna’s explicit rejection of the notion of party appealed in part to the unattractive experience of party politics in Egypt during the decades following World War I. Al-Banna’s rejection ran deeper, however, for in fact he condemned not only parties but the modern nation-state and all its institutions as fundamentally un-Islamic. The nation-state was a Western innovation that contradicted the transnational character of the umma by breaking it up into smaller units. In addition, parties as political organizations were, in al-Banna’s opinion, nothing but forms of institutionalized disunity, disrupting by their very nature the inner harmony which was an essential feature of any Islamic polity.42 In addition to Al-Banna’s advice not to establish a political party, maybe a more crucial factor was the regime’s harsh treatment of the MB. An MB political party would never been allowed by the regime as it would be a credible oppositional force in the political arena against the autocratic establishment’s parties. It is only in recent years that opposition to the notion of a legitimate Islamist party has been overcome among the MB circles and they even prepared a political party program.43 Al-Banna was assassinated by the state in 1949 and was replaced by Hassan alHudaybi as the spiritual guide. Despite its close connection with the state, the MB faced harsh suppression after the 1952 revolution by secular nationalist Gamal Abdel Nasser. MB figures such as Sayyed Qutb were sent to jail and executed, and the state outlawed the organization. After Nasser, a split divided the movement between revolutionary views like those of Qutb and the gradualist views of al-Hudaybi. Both sides agreed that Egyptian society and polity was one of Jahili, which was characterized by the worship of man by man, and the sovereignty of man over man. While both strived for an alternative Islamic state and society, they differed on the ways to achieve such order. Hudaybi called for preaching for the Islamic cause. Both wings shared an opposition to Zionism, crusaders, communism, secularism and Nasserism.44 The MB did not publicly denounce the state as an enemy to Islam and did not call for a 101

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political revolt against it.45 Several pro-violence individuals and groups split from the MB, as the MB remained loyal to its non-violent and bottom-up approach. The pro-violent militants declare society to be jahiliyya (the state of ignorance before Islam) and consider the state as infidel. The moderates and conservatives like MB followers and members avoid blanket condemnation, while being critical of the state for not implementing Islamic laws.46 Moderate groups like the MB work within institutional channels, such as running candidates within the professional syndicates and in parliamentary elections.47 Conforming to its strategy of working within the official institutions, the MB made use of the professional syndicates as a ground to expand its ranks and develop a white-collar base.48 Moreover, private charity and aid organizations, usually connected to mosques, were established by both the MB and other Islamist groups.49 At the same time, the MB engaged in political mobilization.50 As a result, the MB established a very powerful social base, with important ramifications in the political sphere. Participating at the Elections and the Emergence of Muslim Democrats Since the MB did (could) not establish its own party, because of both state repression and al-Banna’s advice, it entered into electoral alliances with secular parties. The MB guaranteed support from its religious social base, presenting voting as a religious obligation, and these secular opposition parties, in return, supplied the MB a legal venue for participating in elections and running its own candidates. The first of these alliances was between the MB and the liberal al-Wafd in the 1984 elections. Despite al-Wafd’s strong secular roots, the MB insisted that it declare its commitment to considering Shari‘a in legislative activities. The MB negotiated a similar deal with the socialist party al-‘Amal in the 1987 elections, but instead of a temporary alliance, al-‘Amal agreed to an MB takeover. This alliance attracted another party: the liberal al-Ahrar. This new alliance won 17 percent of the vote and 60 seats and led opposition in the parliament.51 In the meantime, the pro-violence groups directed their harshest criticism against the MB for its participation in the democratic process as a means to advance their own political agenda.52 Even its alliances with the secular parties shows that the MB could work with secular groups and institutions. Since the early 1990s, Egypt has experienced a substantial degree of political deliberalization. Repressive amendments to the penal code and to legislation governing professional syndicates and trade unions, as well as unprecedented electoral fraud are only some of the indicators.53 Since 1998, the Political Parties Committee (PPC) has closed seven of the 16 legal opposition parties. The government is not only preventing group and party development, but also preventing prominent 102

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The emergence of the AK Party has shown that Muslim politics in Turkey is evolving from an instrumen talist usage of Islam to a new understanding of practicing Muslims who deal with daily politics.

independent individuals from using already existing parties to run in the parliamentary elections.54 The parliamentary elections of 1990 were marked by fraud, intimidation and a previously unseen level of violence.55 In the 1995 elections, Islamist candidates were detained so that they could not participate in the elections. The Islamists’ main collaborator, Al-‘Amal, was suspended from operating.56 In June 1995 the government started a series of detentions and military trials of leading MB members. The organization’s headquarters and over 5,000 offices were shut down. From 1993 to 1995 more than 1,000 MB activists were detained.57 In the 2000 elections, they ran as independents and won 17 seats -- more than the total number of seats won by all opposition parties combined -- again becoming the largest opposition block in parliament.58 A more striking victory occurred in the 2005 elections, when the MB secured 88 seats, more seats than those won by any opposition party since the 1952 revolution. But this success gave way to a regime clampdown on Islamists. The MB’s countermove was to use its presence in parliament to draw public attention to the regime’s use of suppression and intimidation in a bid to make a national cause out of the matter. Members of parliament from the MB (they sit as nominal independents) raised questions about transparency, corruption, the role of Shari‘a in public life, and democratic reform -- all issues that were and are of great significance to the Islamists’ popular base.59 103

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The younger generation MB members’ involvement in syndicates, along with participation in municipal and national elections, has been influential in the transformation and moderation of the MB

In December 2006, Mubarak prompted parliament to amend the Constitution to ban any reference to religion in political activity, revoking judicial supervision over any elections, and replacing Emergency Laws with a harsher Anti-Terrorism Law, which gives security officers carte blanche in dealing with the Islamists.60 This was followed by a state-led campaign aimed at eradicating the MB. For the first time, the MB’s assets were confiscated, and its deputy supreme guide, along with 40 of its leadership cadres, was referred to a military court in the summer of 2007.61

It should be noted that despite this almost constant repression and the fact that the MB had never been legally recognized, the democratic learning experience of electoral alliances broadened the political basis of the movement, both by attracting more urbanite white-collar professionals and by providing opportunities for experimentation with new approaches toward social reform and democracy, as a result of physically and discursively interacting with secular, leftist and liberal parties.62 The younger generation MB members’ involvement in syndicates, along with participation in municipal and national elections, has been influential in the transformation and moderation of the MB. These younger generations represent a secular-leaning and pluralist Islamic approach towards politics and have been influential in changing the MB along these lines.63 Thus, for instance, in 1995 the MB stated that Islam endorses political pluralism.64 Even though the use of religious ideology in the discourse of the younger generations is still central to mobilizing grassroots, it plays only a minimal role in their discourse, in contrast to the elders of the MB. It seems that the younger generations of the MB, while fighting for legality and trying to demonstrate their commitment to secular politics, are likely to go further.65 As a matter of fact, in 1996 some of these younger generation MB members led by a rising member, Abu al-‘Ila Madi, left the MB to form an independent political party (al-Wasat or the Center Party).66 Al Wasat has been repeatedly denied legal status by the regime of President Hosni Mubarak. The regime and the MB share the objective of preventing al-Wasat from legally entering the legal political arena, for it has the potential to challenge both the regime and the MB’s dominant role among opposition formations.67 Al-Wasat is a centrist party that does not insist on qualifying the existing state as un-Islamic.68 Unlike Islamists, 104


these Muslim democrats view political The Muslim democrats of life with a pragmatic eye and their main al-Wasat reinterpret the goal tends to be more mundane, such as message of Islam in tune with “crafting viable electoral platforms and the notions of democracy and stable governing coalitions to serve indipolitical pluralism vidual and collective interests -- Islamic as well as secular --within a democratic arena whose bounds they respect, win or lose.”69 The Muslim democrats of alWasat reinterpret the message of Islam in tune with the notions of democracy and political pluralism. They distinguish between the concept of democracy as a process that they see as potentially compatible with “Islam, and the concept of democracy as Westernization about which they hold reservations.”70 They clearly renounce the idea that Islamists have a monopoly on the absolute truth. They see different interpretations of tradition as efforts at human understanding. Questioning or opposing an Islamist claim does not constitute rejection of Islam. They favor political participation within the constitutional and legal framework.71 For instance, Article 3 of the party program reads: “Citizenship determines the rights and duties of all Egyptians and is the basis of the relations between all Egyptians. There should be no discrimination between citizens on the basis of religion, gender, color or ethnicity in terms of their rights, including the right to hold public office.” Article 6 reads: “Complete equality between men and women in terms of political and civil rights. Competency, professional background and the ability to undertake the responsibility should be the criteria for holding of public office, for example in the judiciary, or for the presidency,” and Article 8, “A respect for human dignity and all human rights -- whether civil, political, social, economic or cultural -- which are stipulated by revealed religions and international conventions.”72 Three arguments explain the transformation of al-Wasat founders. First, Islamist ideological moderation was driven in part by strategic calculation, but was also a result of a political learning process, that is, of change in core values and beliefs. Second, value change was facilitated by the interaction of Islamists and secular opposition leaders in pursuit of common goals, including reforming the authoritarian state. The state’s repression contributed to democratic learning by creating incentives for sustained interaction and cooperation between Islamist and secular opposition. Over time, Egyptian Marxists, Nasserists, independents and Islamists, none of whom had previously accorded a high priority to democracy, gravitated toward a democratic agenda, in part to assume the moral high ground vis-à-vis the autocratic establishment and in part because, as victims of 105

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The state’s repression contributed to democratic learning by creating incentives for sustained interaction and cooperation between Islamist and secular opposition

repression, they had come to value democracy more than in the past, paving the way for the emergence of a shared democratic agenda and a more active cross-partisan campaign for political reform.73 Third, the institutional opportunities and incentives for such interaction were created by a mix of regime accommodation and repression of the country’s Islamist opposition groups.74 With the passing of the old generation of leaders, the policies of the MB would seem to be moving ever closer to the al-Wasat platform. It is significant that the new general guide of the MB from January 2004, Muhammad Mahdi Akif, although now in his 70s, has always been close to the younger generation, and reportedly played a prominent role in encouraging the al-Wasat initiative of 1996 against the opposition of the top MB leadership of the time. A reform initiative announced by Akif in the spring of 2004 places the MB very close to the principles propounded by al-Wasat.75 These experiences influenced the MB to seriously consider the possibility of forming their own party as a way of pursuing political participation, and the movement prepared a draft party platform. Discussions inside the MB on the formation of a political party go back to the 1980s and 1990s when members started debating the importance and utility of a party, resulting in some initiatives in that direction, such as the proposals to found a “Consultation Party” in 1986 and a “Reform Party” in the early 1990s, even though these initiatives did not progress as far as forming a party, thus the efforts faded quickly, partly because of the expectation that any attempt to gain legal recognition would be futile. 76 In the 2000s, the MB wanted to reassure the broader public about its intentions, and several MB leading figures strove during the period of political dynamism in 2004 and 2005 to suggest that the organization, while legally unrecognized, wished to transform itself into a civil political party with a fully legal status. Thus, in late summer 2007, the MB distributed its first draft of a party platform to a group of intellectuals and analysts. The platform was not to serve as a document for an existing political party or even one about to be founded, as the MB remains without legal recognition in Egypt. Yet the MB leaders wanted to signal what sort of party they would found if allowed to do so. The most important point that the new program underscores that the movement has changed its focus from “implementation of the Shari‘a” to “Shari‘a as an Islamic frame of reference (marja‘iyya).”77 The program endeavors to signal that the MB’s prospective party would be no

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different from a European Christian democratic party, in that it will only use its religious understanding to guide its policy choices. Younger members of the MB also advocate a functional separation between a political party and broader religious movement, with the former focused mainly on political participation and the latter on religious activism.78

Younger members of the MB also advocate a functional separation between a political party and broader religious movement, with the former focused mainly on political participation and the latter on religious activism

The emergence of the Egyptian Muslim democrats both in al-Wasat and MB circles shows that even limited political participation opportunities in a liberalized autocratic system can induce radical opposition to moderate its discourse and goals. The Muslim democrats “appear to have thought that their reorganization as an open, transparent, and democratic party would enable them to evade state repression, expand their visibility and influence, and reduce their isolation from other groups in Egyptian civil society.”79 The transformation of Egyptian Islamism is attributable not only to the regime’s often repressive counterattacks through legislation or in the streets, but also, similar to the Turkish case, a decline in its popular support: the partial success of the Islamist MB movement in “Islamizing” Egyptian society allowed many people to believe that things could change for the better within the context of the existing legal arrangements, without changing the constitutional framework.80

Conclusion The Egyptian case suggests that democratic learning in nondemocratic settings is also possible as a result of factors such as regime accommodation and repression. This case has several similarities to the Turkish case. In both, the partial and The emergence of the limited opening of these countries’ auEgyptian Muslim democrats thoritarian political systems created new both in al-Wasat and MB democratic opportunities for Islamists to circles shows that even participate in public life and politics, fostering democratic learning by permitting limited political participation Islamists to compete for power and mass opportunities in a liberalized support. In the process as elected or proautocratic system can induce spective officials and ruling politicians, they have had to address and represent radical opposition to moderate its discourse and goals the interests of a group much larger than 107

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their own ideological constituency. Hence the limited practice of democracy -- regularly interrupted by the establishment, in Turkey the army and in Egypt the Mubarak regime being the main actors -- contributed to democratic learning even within liberalized autocratic regimes. Islamists in both countries have had to endure state repression, party closures and regime meddling with daily democratic life (in the Turkish case actual military coups d’etat every 10 years and in the Egyptian case a continuous ban on the MB) and in the semi-democratic process, their opposition to the regime’s restrictions and interference paved the way for the Islamists’ metamorphosis into a principled opposition to autocratic restraints on freedoms. Islamists’ similar transformations in both countries suggest also that these post-Islamist transformations are not accidental. These two -- the AK Party of Turkey and Hizb al-Wasat, and also younger generation MB members in Egypt -- post-Islamist experiences have of a lot to tell to other countries and autocratic and/or authoritarian regimes in the greater Middle East. On a last note, while in Turkey a Nakhshi (an outlawed religious brotherhood) sheikh (Mehmet Zahid Kotku) developed a systemic operational code for Islamists to form Islamist parties to compete within the constitutional limits back in the late 1960s, in Egypt the MB’s ambiguous position toward being systemic or anti-systemic, its refusal to establish a political party but at the same time being a political movement and the regime’s almost constant repression of the movement and never legalizing it have delayed the post-Islamist development’s taking place as it did in Turkey. By looking at the Turkish experience, one cannot help but think that, if the MB could develop such an operational code allowing Egyptian Islamists to establish an Islamist party with a pro-systemic program as opposed to its anti-systemic discourse, the Egyptian regime would presumably find it much more difficult to suppress the MB, possibly resulting in the post-Islamization of the MB much earlier, and that helping the long-term stability of the country for political integration of the socially deep-rooted and well-grounded MB would mean the removal of a source of domestic conflict and enhance the long-term stability of the Egyptian political system.

Endnotes 1. In Pahlavi Iran, for example, all possible channels for political expression and participation and Islamism represented the only opening left for protest, and it was used by different groups and powers seeking probably completely different goals, Nazih N. M. Ayubi, “The Political Revival of Islam: The Case of Egypt”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 12, No. 4, (Winter, 1980), p. 487.

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2. Carrie Wickham “The Path to Moderation. Strategy and Learning in the Formation of Egypt’s Wasat Party”, Comparative Politics, Vol. 36, No. 2, (Spring 2004), p. 223. See also Sheri Berman, “Taming Extremist Parties: Lessons from Europe,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 19 (January, 2008), pp. 5-18. 3. Asef Bayat, ‘Islamism and Social Movement Theory’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 6 (2005), p. 906. 4. R. Quinn Mecham, “From the Ashes of Virtue, A Promise of Light: The Transformation of Political Islam in Turkey”, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 2, (2004), p. 339. 5. There are both de jure and de facto constraints in the name of Kemalism limiting a fully functioning democracy in Turkey. The 1982 constitution, which was prepared after the Sept. 12, 1980 military coup, severely limits the democratic power of parliament and elected government compared to Western democracies. Until very recently, through the National Security Council the military had direct influence on the government. A parallel military court structure with even a Supreme Court of Appeals which has no equivalent in the West makes even a black-letter civilian control of the military impossible. In addition to these de jure factors, it is well known that the military has always influenced daily politics either with almost periodical coups d’état or with a threat of new coup’s occurrence. In the name of Kemalist principles, national security or protection of secularism the generals interfere with many issues which in the West would normally be considered civilian concerns. But the opposite has not been possible. Civilians who question the army’s motives, its dealings or budget have been accused of being people with bad intentions, to say the least. Even today, very few dare to question the military. It is also a fact that there have always been civilian supporters of such a Kemalist autocracy among elite circles such as the media, politics, business and even judiciary. The reason I call this an autocracy is to highlight that the Turkish military justifies its actions by constantly referring to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and sees itself as the embodiment of his perceived ideals and vision. It is usual to hear statements from the generals and other elite like, “What would Ataturk do in this situation?”, “Ataturk would be upset with this”, “Ataturk would beat (or chase after) them with a stick” and so on. Thus, in a sense, Turkey is still a Kemalist autocracy, as if he were still alive, thanks to his grand embodiment, the Turkish military. 6. Mecham, “From the Ashes of Virtue, A Promise of Light: The Transformation of Political Islam in Turkey”, p. 339. 7. Serif Mardin, “Turkish Islamic Exceptionalism Yesterday and Today: Continuity, Rupture and Reconstruction in Operational Codes”, Turkish Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2, (2005), p. 152. 8. Thomas W. Smith, “Between Allah and Ataturk: Liberal Islam in Turkey”, The International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 9, No. 3 (2005), p. 316. 9. Mardin “Turkish Islamic Exceptionalism Yesterday and Today: Continuity, Rupture and Reconstruction in Operational Codes”, p. 158. 10. Rusen Çakır, Ne Seriat Ne Demokrasi: Refah Partisini Anlamak (Neither the Shari’a Nor Democracy: To Understand the Welfare Party), (Istanbul: Metis Yayınları, 1994), cited in Mardin, “Turkish Islamic Exceptionalism Yesterday and Today: Continuity, Rupture and Reconstruction in Operational Codes”, p. 157. 11. Ergun Yildirim et al, “A Sociological Representation of the Justice and Development Party: Is It a Political Design or a Political Becoming?”, Turkish Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1 (2007), p. 6. 12. Omer Caha, “Turkish Election of November 2002 and the Rise of “Moderate” Political Islam”, Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2003), pp. 103-104. 13. Ihsan Dagi, “Transformation of Islamic Political Identity in Turkey: Rethinking the West and Westernization”, Turkish Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2005), p. 25.

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14. Caha, “Turkish Election of November 2002 and the Rise of “Moderate” Political Islam”, p. 104. 15. Dagi, “Transformation of Islamic Political Identity in Turkey: Rethinking the West and Westernization”, p. 27. 16. Caha, “Turkish Election of November 2002 and the Rise of “Moderate” Political Islam”, p. 104. 17. Ihsan Yilmaz, “State, Law, Civil Society and Islam in Contemporary Turkey”, The Muslim World, Vol. 95, No. 3 (2005), p. 402. 18. Yildirim et al, “A Sociological Representation of the Justice and Development Party: Is It a Political Design or a Political Becoming?”, p. 17. 19. Ihsan Yilmaz, “Ijtihad and Tadjid by Conduct: The Gülen Movement”, in M. Hakan Yavuz and John Esposito, Turkish Islam and the Secular State: The Gülen Movement, (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2003), p. 227. 20. Mecham, “From the Ashes of Virtue, A Promise of Light: The Transformation of Political Islam in Turkey”, p. 350. 21. Gamze Cavdar, “Islamist New Thinking in Turkey: A Model for Political Learning?”, Politi cal Science Quarterly, Vol. 121, No. 3 (2006), p. 480. 22. Caha, “Turkish Election of November 2002 and the Rise of “Moderate” Political Islam”, p. 112. 23. Ihsan Dagi, “Turkey’s AKP in Power”, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 19, No. 3 (2008), p. 27. 24. Yasin Aktay, “Diaspora and Stability: Constitutive Elements in a Body of Knowledge”, in M. Hakan Yavuz and John Esposito, Turkish Islam and the Secular State: The Gülen Movement, (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2003), p. 139. 25. Dagi, “Turkey’s AKP in Power”, p. 28. 26. See in detail, Ali Carkoglu, “Turkey’s November Elections: A New Beginning?”, Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 4 (2002), pp. 30-41; Soli Özel “Turkey at the Polls: After the Tsunami”, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 14, No. 2 (2003), pp. 80-94; Ziya Onis and E. Fuat Keyman “Turkey at the Polls: A New Path Emerges”, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 14, No.2 (2003), pp. 95-108. 27. Caha, “Turkish Election of November 2002 and the Rise of “Moderate” Political Islam”, p. 102. 28. See in detail, Ali Carkoglu, “A New Electoral Victory for the ‘Pro-Islamists’ or the ‘New Centre-Right’? The Justice and Development Party Phenomenon in the July 2007 Parliamentary Elections in Turkey”, South European Society and Politics, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2007), pp. 501-519. 29. Carkoglu, “A New Electoral Victory for the ‘Pro-Islamists’ or the ‘New Centre-Right’? The Justice and Development Party Phenomenon in the July 2007 Parliamentary Elections in Turkey”, p. 518. 30. Dagi, “Turkey’s AKP in Power”, pp. 29-30. 31. Holger Albrecht, “How can Opposition Support Authoritarianism? Lessons from Egypt”, Democratization, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2005), p. 393. 32. Daniel Brumberg, “Islam is Not the Solution (or the Problem)”, The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2005), p. 106. 33. Albrecht, “How can Opposition Support Authoritarianism? Lessons from Egypt”, p. 389. 34. Asef Bayat, “Revolution without Movement, Movement without Revolution: Comparing Islamic Activism in Iran and Egypt”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 40, No. 1 (1998), p. 168.

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35. R. Bianchi, Unruly Corporatism: Associational Life in Twentieth-Century Egypt, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 23. 36. Albrecht, “How can Opposition Support Authoritarianism? Lessons from Egypt”, p. 390. 37. Albrecht, “How can Opposition Support Authoritarianism? Lessons from Egypt”, p. 383. 38. Holger Albrecht and Eva Wegner, “Autocrats and Islamists: Contenders and Containment in Egypt and Morocco”, The Journal of North African Studies, Vol. 11 No. 2 (2006), p. 136. 39. Brumberg, “Islam is Not the Solution (or the Problem)”, p. 107. 40. Bayat, “Revolution without Movement, Movement without Revolution: Comparing Islamic Activism in Iran and Egypt”, p. 155. 41. Bayat, “Revolution without Movement, Movement without Revolution: Comparing Islamic Activism in Iran and Egypt”, p. 158. 42. Husain Haqqani and Hillel Fradkin, “Islamist Parties and Democracy: Going back to the Origins”, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 19, No. 3 (July, 2008), pp. 14-15. 43. See Nathan J. Brown and Amr Hamzawy, “The Draft Party Platform of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood: Foray Into Political Integration or Retreat Into Old Positions?”, CSID 9th Annual Con ference, Political Islam and Democracy - What do Islamists and Islamic Movements want?, Washington, D.C., 2008, (CSID: Conference Proceedings, 2008), pp. 40-59. 44. Bayat, “Revolution without Movement, Movement without Revolution: Comparing Islamic Activism in Iran and Egypt”, p. 160. 45. Hazem Kandil, “Islamization of the Egyptian Intelligentsia: Discourse and Structure in Socialization Strategies”, Symposium: Democracy and Its Development, University of California Irvine, 2008, (Irvine, CA: Center for the Study of Democracy, 2008), p. 3. 46. Salwa Ismail, “Religious “Orthodoxy” as Public Morality: The State, Islamism and Cultural Politics in Egypt”, Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 8, No. 14 (1999), p. 25. 47. Ismail, “Religious “Orthodoxy” as Public Morality: The State, Islamism and Cultural Politics in Egypt”, p. 25. 48. Salwa Ismail, “Confronting the Other: Identity, Culture, Politics, and Conservative Islamism in Egypt”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (1998), p. 200. 49. Ismail, “Confronting the Other: Identity, Culture, Politics, and Conservative Islamism in Egypt”, p. 201. 50. Salwa Ismail, “The Paradox of Islamist Politics”, Middle East Report, No. 221 (Winter, 2001), p. 37. 51. Augustus Richard Norton, “Thwarted Politics: The Case of Egypt’s Hizb al-Wasat”, in Robert W. Hefner, Remaking Muslim Politics: Pluralism, Contestation, Democratization, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), p. 136. 52. Nelly Lahoud, “Why Jihad and not Democracy”, CSID 9th Annual Conference, Political Islam and Democracy - What do Islamists and Islamic Movements want?, Washington, D.C., 2008, (CSID: Conference Proceedings, 2008), p. 6. 53. Eberhard Kienle, “More than a Response to Islamism: The Political Deliberalization of Egypt in the 1990s”, Middle East Journal, Vol. 52, No. 2 (Spring, 1998), p. 219. 54. Joshua A. Stacher, “Parties Over: The Demise of Egypt’s Opposition Parties”, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2004), p. 215. 55. Norton, “Thwarted Politics: The Case of Egypt’s Hizb al-Wasat”, pp. 136-141. 56. Asef Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), p. 144.

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57. Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn, p. 171. 58. Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn, p. 138. 59. Brown and Hamzawy, “The Draft Party Platform of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood: Foray into Political Integration or Retreat into Old Positions?”, p. 53. 60. Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), Prisoners of Faith Campaign Pack: Muslim Brotherhood, (London, UK: 2007), retrieved March 5, 2009, from http://www.ihrc.org.uk/file/ PF070515KhairatAlShaterFinal.pdf 61. IHRC, Prisoners of Faith Campaign Pack: Muslim Brotherhood. 62. Jan Stark, “Beyond ‘Terrorism’ and ‘State Hegemony’: Assessing the Islamist Mainstream in Egypt and Malaysia”, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2005), p. 312. 63. Mohammed Zahid and Michael Medley, “Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Sudan”, Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 33, No. 110 (2006), p. 705. 64. Norton, “Thwarted Politics: The Case of Egypt’s Hizb al-Wasat”, p. 140. 65. Zahid and Medley, “Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Sudan”, p. 705. 66. Brown and Hamzawy, “The Draft Party Platform of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood: Foray into Political Integration or Retreat into Old Positions?”, p. 46. See al-Wasat’s party program in English on http://www.alwasatparty.com/htmltonuke.php?filnavn=files/Eng-program.htm 67. Muhammed Ayoob, “The Many Faces of Political Islam”, CSID 9th Annual Conference, Po litical Islam and Democracy - What do Islamists and Islamic Movements want? ?, Washington, D.C., 2008, (CSID: Conference Proceedings, 2008), pp. 294-295. 68. Ismail, “The Paradox of Islamist Politics”, p. 36. 69. Vali Nasr, “The Rise of “Muslim Democracy”, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 16, No. 2 (April, 2005), p. 13. 70. James G. Mellon, “Pan-Arabism, Pan-Islamism and Inter-State Relations in the Arab World”, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 8, No. 4 (2002), pp. 12-13. 71. Ismail, “The Paradox of Islamist Politics”, p. 36. 72. Al-Wasat Party, Al-Wasat Al-Jadeed’s Party Program, retrieved on March 5, 2009, from http://www.alwasatparty.com/htmltonuke.php?filnavn=files/Eng-program.htm 73. Wickham, “The Path to Moderation. Strategy and Learning in the Formation of Egypt’s Wasat Party”, p. 225. 74. Wickham, “The Path to Moderation. Strategy and Learning in the Formation of Egypt’s Wasat Party”, p. 207. 75. Bjørn Olav Utvik, “Hizb al-Wasat and the Potential for Change in Egyptian Islamism”, Cri tique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Fall, 2005), p. 305. 76. Brown and Hamzawy, “The Draft Party Platform of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood: Foray into Political Integration or Retreat into Old Positions?”, p. 50. 77. Brown and Hamzawy, “The Draft Party Platform of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood: Foray into Political Integration or Retreat into Old Positions?”, p. 55. 78. Brown and Hamzawy, “The Draft Party Platform of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood: Foray into Political Integration or Retreat into Old Positions?”, p. 41. 79. Wickham, “The Path to Moderation. Strategy and Learning in the Formation of Egypt’s Wasat Party”, p. 223. 80. Bayat, “Islamism and Social Movement Theory”, p. 898.

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