Starting from the Soviet military campaign on Afghanistan there is a surge in radical and militant Islamic ideologies and groups. After more than a decade long battle between the Western powers and radical Islamist groups there is no sign of weakening on the latter side.
On contrary, invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and, Western backed Arab Spring seems to create an environment that is much more desired by radical groups in the Middle East. In 1980's they were bunch of bandits that no one took serious. Today they control 60% of Syria, around 20% of US Invaded Iraq. They are active in Afghanistan and are still controlling certain cities. They are also destabilizing Pakistan. Groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria are controlling around 10% of the country and destabilizing the neighbouring countries. They have a wide network of terror cells in Europe and US. They can find human resource from anywhere around the globe by radicalizing Muslims.
They are printing their own money. They are organized like a state. They make trade with neighbouring countries by means of smuggling. They are an organization that can continue armed insurgency in two different continents (Asia and Africa) and can make terror attacks on 3 different continents (Europe, North America and Australia). I think this is an unprecedented type of rogue power that the World has ever seen in the history of mankind.
We might also look at this from an geopolitical context, like you provide examples in your text. There has always been radical Islamic terrorism but it was just that, sporadic and more or less contained. The problem was manageable. I guess the Arab Spring opened the Pandora's box. Take Libya for example. Bringing down Gaddafi was a terrible idea as was voiced by many at the time. All the said terrorist groups including Bako Haram and al-Shabab turned war lords upon the spoils of Libyan Army. And the examples can be multiplied.
But, as you pointed out, there might be very local, historical root causes of the whole problem in the Middle East, and in particular, with respect to politicized Islam.
Also it's clear that, this level of civilization was impossible to achieve if Turkey was not a constitutionally secular country.
Definitely agreed.
Today Turkey is struggling a lot for trying to keep it's secular foundations. Some scholars even speculate that secularism in Turkey is somewhat too damaged to be restored again.
I am curious about your own assessment? Do you think, with now AKP having almost half of the popular support, it is possible to restore secularism in its true sense?
That's why I think Western political philosophers should give legitimacy to certain types of authoritarian government reflexes. We all know that authoritarianism failed heavily in Europe. However in Muslim majority countries authoritarianism opened the way for huge reforms that wouldn't have been done in any other way. In China authoritarianism also made a huge success in terms of unifying the entire population and forming an economic system that lifted hundereds of millions of people above poverty line. Authoriterian, progressive, secular and rational type of governments can be a key to saving Muslim majority countries. Turkish government in pre-AKP period was also a good model in which there were elections but the state, judicial system and bureaucracy was very assertive against political Islamist movements.
I guess secularism is a virtue by itself, not conditioned to authoritarian rule. Secular lifestyle/governance predates democracy. But, as you pointed out, in the Middle East, secularism appears to be a byproduct of authoritarianism, that's as true for Ataturk's Turkey as Hafez Assad's Syria.
The problem I see in Islamic states is that secularism has never been innate in those cultures. In this case, once the national environment becomes tolerant of competitive politics, then, the hibernating Islamic movements (which prove to be extremely resilient) take control of the state incrementally. Then, I agree with your proposition, that a mild form of secular authoritarianism is imperative until secular lifestyle becomes a cultural norm.
This would not rule out an open political environment, but, a supervision of the secular constitution by a high body. In Turkey, that was supposed to be the military and high court. For some (again in the global context) reason, the army in Turkey, which was seen as the guardian of the secular republic, has been brutally purged and tamed.
A democratically elected party coming to power in a liberal democracy can also cause huge problems.
I guess, in the context of Islamic nations, the root cause for this tendency is a lack of secular lifestyle. Political governance can be carried out under various models, be it Scandinavian, bicameral, parliamentarian, or meritocratic if the public life is secular. If secularism is missing, then, even pure democracy will lead to oppression. In the specific case of Turkey, then, again, I would be in favor of good governance regardless of the name of the system that paid authoritarian attention to the restoration, protection and advancement of secular thinking. Ataturk started the enlightenment project but it seems it fell short. Somebody, some group has to pick it up from he left off.
