The contemporary Arab world resembles the Ottoman empire on the brink of its collapse, writes Mustafa El-Feki The legacy of the "sick man" continued to interest Europe and the world for more than a century. Then the Ottoman empire collapsed and put an end to the last state of the Islamic caliphate. There have been numerous explanations for its fall, the conspiracy theory of history linking the fall to the decline of the Ottoman family. Many Muslim historians hold that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the son of a Jewish woman they claim, who came from the Selanik (Thessaloniki) region, played a major role in ending the Islamic empire, exploiting its poor shape to drive the final nail into its coffin and transform it into a semi-Western European state, ignoring its Asian geography and Islamic history. His movement had a major effect on the future of the Middle East and the Balkans, particularly after he adopted the Latin alphabet for writing Turkish, did away with the fez as a head covering, and applied the principles of secularism as a basis for the Turkish constitution. He made the military a guard loyal to and protective of these principles. In my visits to Istanbul and Ankara, I have noticed that people there can criticise the government and differ with the president. However, if talk turns to Ataturk, which means "father of the Turks", or the philosophical principles upon which his movement was based, you will immediately confront sternness. Anything can be criticised except the man they consider the creator of modern Turkey, to the degree that the hands of the enormous clock in the state's largest palace remain standing at the moment of Ataturk's death. Until today, at that exact time every year, Turks stand for a minute to mourn his death. With this introduction, I want to raise the question as to whether the deteriorating Arab situation and national weakness has reached a status similar to the final decades of the Ottoman Empire. There is, of course, the major difference that it was a united empire, at least in form, while the Arab nation consists of different states and various regimes, and even sometime conflicting philosophies. And yet the question remains: Are we in need of someone to take the nation by the hand and lead it towards modernity, and to break the strong connection between religion and politics in most of its states? Do we need a new Mohamed Ali, who put an end to the Mamelukes in Egypt and established in it a modern state? Are we in need of a philosophical transformation in the Arab region, even without a figure such as Ataturk? Is secularism an expression that calls belief to account and conflicts with nationalism? In order to answer all these questions, we will review the entire issue through the following points. First, secularism is a hated word in the Arabic dictionary, perhaps unjustly. In the mind of the general public, it is connected to distancing religion from the politics of governance. In the minds of some simple people, it may be connected to that which is more severe and serious, for they connect it to atheism as well. Yet the word in its correct meaning indicates nothing of the sort. It only has the sense of distancing political decisions from a religious colouring, something that does not conflict with religions. It does not indicate atheism or rejection of the spiritual side of the Semitic faiths. There are Muslim peoples who are sincere in their belief in Islam and who are faithful to their creed, but who, at the same time, distinguish between religion and politics and who believe that "What belongs to God belongs to God, and what belongs to Caesar belongs to Caesar." Secularism is a political tradition that was produced by the modern heritage of Europe following the appearance of the nation-state and separation between spiritual and temporal powers, meaning between the pope, on the one hand, and the authority of the emperor, on the other. Second, the similar circumstances of the Arab situation now and the Turkish situation before Ataturk appeared raises the issue of the nature of circumstances surrounding the birth of the nation-state and an exit from the mantle of the religious state, even as we are certain of the nature of the differences distinguishing each from the other. The Turks ruled expansive areas and numerous states mainly connected by the thread of Islam and its strong influence on surrounding peoples. And yet there remain the contradictions of backwardness and progress, authenticity and modernity, and heritage and contemporary life. Naturally, these concepts apply to contradictory circumstances in both Ottoman Turkey and the Arab nation in recent years. Third, while the official bond in the caliphate state was religious, current Arab endeavours also seem Islamic. Nationalist thought is in regression while religious interpretations advance. More than one state is in danger of entering into a circle of violence, whether of an intellectual, political or cultural nature. We must not forget that the fall of the Ottoman caliphate state at the hands of Ataturk led to the birth of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the establishment of the Islamist movement as an alternative to the collapsed caliphate state. Fourth, in both Ottoman Turkey and the current Arab world the use of religious principles in governance and the extent to which secularism is suitable as a philosophy separating the religious from the temporal stands debated. Division in the two cases has been reflected in the image of Turkish and Arab society in the international community. Recently I read an article in a Western newspaper mourning the Ottoman state. Its author said that it had brought together the reaches of the Islamic East and taken from the West responsibility for overseeing all matters, imposing order in its societies, and ensuring the well-being of relations between Islam and the West. There may be some truth in this, yet the author needs a better methodology, for he assumes the stability of all other factors. Fifth, the collapse of the Ottoman state meant for the Turks a disengagement of religion and politics (and I did not say here between religion and the state). The difference between the two cases is clear, for Turkey remains, and will remain, a shining fortress of moderate Islam on the border of Europe and Asia. It is also a NATO member state and has obvious influence on policies in the Middle East and relations between the West and Russia, in addition to influence on the newly independent Asian republics that are still seeking a model of governance and that find Turkey the closest to them for geographic and cultural reasons. Arabs today undoubtedly face the same predicament of choosing between a civil state they are struggling to achieve and a religious state, whose proponents are trying, through it, to slip into power. Sixth, while Turkey, a "sick man" who expired over the entire 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, felt that its main challenge came from Europe, contemporary Arabs feel that there is an impending danger befalling them due to the aspirations of the Hebrew state, Israel, which is a state established on a religious basis, even if its Western backers attempt to place its image within an acceptable modern frame, regardless of its racist orientation, aggressive goals and security problems. The international conditions for Turkey following World War I were, to a large degree, similar to current Arab conditions. Seventh, the process of cultural collapse and political dissolution that Ottoman Turkey underwent does not seem far removed from the state of some Arab countries, where science is in decline and superstition is advancing in most areas of life in an unprecedented manner. There is an attempt to bring Islam into all the problems of daily life, while it should be an intellectual and spiritual warehouse that we take pride in and draw from to push us forward, not pull us back -- especially as Islam has made thinking a religious duty. Despite his political goals and aspirations of power, Ataturk's awakening remains a model for the birth of the modern from the womb of the desolated. Eighth, the spread of political corruption and chaos in many Arab societies undergoing a stage of transition is similar to the situation of the states of the Ottoman Empire and the capital of the caliphate, as well as the influence that had on foreign policies in the region. The term "constructive chaos" coined by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice could easily apply to the history of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Its end was connected to the chaos that gave birth to independence struggles such as that waged by Mohamed Ali Pasha. Ninth, a lack of leadership awareness and clarity in political vision is a sign of a nation's stagnation or the evaporation of a regime's influence. The Arab region has undergone this many times, suffering from foggy periods when the nation has lived off its history and fragments of memory while not moving forwards. Tenth, secularism in itself is not a demand, but rather an attempt to refuse the marriage of religion and politics, just as there is a rejection of the marriage of wealth and power. Both of these kinds of marriages dominate the Arab arena and, together, form a contemporary barrier preventing progress and opening the door to corruption of all kinds. They blur political vision, place restrictions on freedoms, and allow for intellectual terrorism to control people in the absence of the rule of law and of justice. I have offered these 10 observations as the current Arab project is being overrun by religious propositions. The time has come to bravely confront possibilities for region's future, where religious currents are on the rise and the basis on which the modern, civil state was established in most countries is in decline. We are entering a state of intellectual chaos. While we may not be in need of an Arab Ataturk, we need a new vision to rescue the region from the state it is in, to take Arabs by the hand into the current age, and to refresh our thought, action, politics and approach. The writer is chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee at the People's Assembly.
