How do you evaluate the Libyan Revolution and Current Situation of Libya?

Birol Akgün: Libyan revolution is part of the great Arab revolution that has started at the beginning of 2011. It was considered to be a new domino stone in the Arab Spring. Now the authoritarian regimes will understand that they will not be able to resist the legitimate demands of people such as freedom, democracy, justice and participation to power. This way that people demanded their rights is so strong that neither Libyan forty-two-years dictator Gaddafi nor Syrian leader Bashar Assad can resist these revolutions. The difference between the revolutionary cases in Syria and Libya and those in Tunisia and Egypt is that in the latter cases the revolutions came about in a less-bloody atmosphere or relatively in a softer manner. Of course tens of people died in Tunisia and six hundred people died in Egypt, but when it comes to Libya there was some kind of an internal war there. We do not exactly know how many people died but it seems that thousands of people were killed, injured and lost. However, despite all these, the capital city of Libya, Tripoli, is now occupied by the revolutionists. This can be a successful story of revolution for the rebellious people.  From now on we should look at the future not to the past. Thus we can say that there is a long way to go for Libyan people.

Can we consider this revolution as a success of NATO and how do you evaluate the NATO operations on Libya?
Birol Akgün: There is something I always say, regardless of place, in revolutionary events whether in France or that in Libya, it is the perseverance of the people to bring down the dictatorships and their strong belief in the revolution they take, really has a meaning. Also intervention like NATO airstrikes, imposition of a no-fly zone and the UN Security Council Resolution giving legitimacy to the NATO and other allies to provide supports to the rebels should be considered as a secondary and supportive factor. Of course without the NATO operations, no-fly zone resolution and international support, it would take a longer time for the revolutionists to accomplish the revolution process. I do neither overestimate nor underestimate NATO’s position in this success but we don’t really give so much credit to NATO because first and foremost it is the Libyan people which really matters in this context. They started, and they sacrificed their lives and they put their endeavor and showed their resistance to Gaddafi regime which was not that easy, and they succeeded.

NATO operations were criticized drastically at the beginning of the revolt; people claimed that NATO slowed down the operations and brought Libyan people with the Gaddafi forces face to face and brought about some kind of a civil war by destroying the infrastructure of Libya. Now we see that NATO gave way to the revolutionists to go over their revolution bring it to an end, and to the opposition forces to take over the country. That was why I asked this question.   

Birol Akgün: International intervention whether for humanitarian causes or for any other reasons is not so much acceptable and legitimate in the existing international system with certain exceptions.  Even UN Security Council gave legitimacy to the intervention based on humanitarian concerns, in this case the air strikes that we witnessed brought about many collateral damage and death of many civilians there. So intervention is not risk-free or cost-free for the local people either. Secondly, as much as international law is concerned and an international relations custom and moral value in international relations literature intervention on a sovereign state is not legitimate as long as the survival of people on the site of the operations is on stake. That is why Turkey kept the distance from the NATO operations at the beginning. After some regional organizations such as African Union and Gulf Cooperation Council openly declared their support the operations, then Turkey agreed to take a part in the NATO operations. Thus we should take the whole picture into consideration to read the story correctly.

Turkey was on the stage from the very beginning of the revolts in Libya, not only in the NATO operations but also in the negotiations with Gaddafi and with the opposition. How can we evaluate Turkey’s role in NATO operations in Libya?  

Birol Akgün: On principle, the main focus of Turkey’s position was to prevent the loss of civilians. This is a humanitarian concern of Turkish Foreign Policy even towards Syria, Libya, Egypt or Iraq.  Turkey stands with the people of these countries not with their regimes. Turkey always stood with the demands of people for freedom, democracy and human rights. But in the mean time Turkey wants this transition process to pass smoothly, regularly and peacefully as far as possible. However it may sometimes create some dilemmas and from time to time as we have already discussed Turkey’s position vis-à-vis her good relations for a long time with Gaddafi regime and then a critical time came and Turkey changed position to giving full support to the revolutionary the National Transitional Council of Libya in the eastern part of the country.  When the revolution ended Turkey took on a minister to visit Benghazi. It was an important point because still the main concern is that we have to protect the rise of the people and protect the authority in this country and we have to commit ourselves to the integrity of Libya. We are not either siding with Abdul Jalil or with Gaddafi but with the peace, security, freedom and democratic rights of the people. Without such a clarification I think it might be just easy to criticize why Turkey maintained such a long time its good relations with Gaddafi not with the revolution. This is a state revolution of Turkey indeed and a historical revolution as well. Without the creation of an alternative sound authority to provide peace and security for the people you cannot give up your support to already existing authority. I know it is a kind of Sunni-Islamic tradition as well as Turkey’s foreign policy tradition. We should not create a chaos before they establish their authority. It is a kind of dilemma but this is the way how we should understand the Turkish position with respect to freedom and democracy, but we also have to consider security aspect of the situation on the ground.

In the Middle East, with its new foreign policy vision, as you know, Turkey is an active player in the region so I want to ask you your future predictions. What will be the influence of Turkey on the future political structure of Libya?

Birol Akgün: Even Turkey does anything but just staying away from Libya, Turkey has already been playing an inspirational role for the people of the Middle East, simply because what we have achieved during the past 50 to 100 years. Our modernization, our political revolution, our democratization even our military coups have always attracted the attention of the Arab intellectuals, especially with regard to recent revolutionary elites certainly who follow closely the political system of Turkey, examine our historical steps of development in order to avoid doing the same mistakes that Turkey had already done in the past half century in its democratization process. However Turkey is doing more than that by means of following a proactive foreign policy in the region in the last ten years. Turkey tried to engage with the Arab states or the Middle Eastern States whether they are authoritarian regimes or democracies. Without constructing an engagement with these nations one cannot create exchanges between the political elites so Turkey’s policy was kind of creating an atmosphere of change among the political elites in the Middle East but it was a kind of strategy for gradual change. But this Arab Spring came too early just before, I think, Turkey’s expectations. Now, after the revolutionary steps in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, Turkey is ready to play a major role in restructuring of these societies and setting political regimes of these countries. What can Turkey do depends on economic, political and social capacities and wills but certainly from now on Turkey will try to facilitate this transition period to be more peaceful, and hopefully create new intentional platforms for discussion. Turkey’s experience in the past will help how it can be implemented to the Middle Eastern countries when creating new regimes. What I am trying to say here is that Turkey is a model and Turkish experience as a Muslim country with a secular political system is certainly instructive and very much important for the Arab countries. If Turkey provides some political support from the point of view of Turkish foreign policy with regards to these specific countries, hopefully that will help and provide much more incentives and inspiration to the Arabic people and the new political elites of the Arabic countries to help them avoid mistakes and make the transition more peaceful.

Many people, as you know, made some kind of analyses at actor level. When it comes to the systemic level of analysis, changing power relations especially the regional and global power changes, can we say that the policy Turkey pursues is a part of these changes as a part of a search for hegemony?

Birol Akgün: To some extent I agree that systemic changes certainly help projecting the power of Turkey in the region and, as a matter of fact, are the reasons that triggered the revolution in the Arab countries. Let me expand this a little bit. In the post colonial period, political structure or security structure of the Middle East depends on a close collaboration or an unholy coalition between the local political elites and the Western so-called democratic governments which provide a hegemonic position in the world and in the Middle East. Now as the Western hegemony is declining or weakening, these states will not be able to maintain this unholy coalition anymore. In some ways,  it should be breaking away whether naturally or otherwise; so when this hegemonic relationship between the Western and the Middle Eastern power holders is loosen, people will encounter with a kind of political arena to maneuver  around to demonstrate their political will within this system. Without this kind of Western hegemony it could not be easy to change these regimes. As the West withdraws from this region not totally but somehow politically and economically due to the weakening relations, Turkey, as a regional economic and political power center, certainly is ready to fill the vacuum that seems to be created. It does not mean the Turkey and the West will compete for power and control. As a matter of fact, since Turkey has good relations with the Western power centers, we can see more constructive relations with the West and Turkey with regard to the new power structuring process in the Middle East. So I would see here more cooperative relations rather than competition or conflict in between together. Somehow that is also a way of balancing the penetration or infiltration of the other external powers, like China and India, into the Middle East. So this international system- shake- up certainly creates new coalition opportunities as well as some collusion in the future but the  West will certainly find itself more closer to Turkish position rather than China or others, so this is how I see the future.

At that point I have a question. As you know, human rights, rule of law and democracy are known as Western values, so do you think that a country can be a full democracy at the same time when it is a Muslim country?

Birol Akgün: Well, it has always been discussed in the literature academically or on the street or by intellectuals in the Islamic countries whether Islam is compatible with democracy which is a Western-originated political system based on some values and traditions. From my experience, from my readings about the Arab Spring and of the intellectuals of the Arab countries, people are so fed up with so-called Islamic monarchies or Islamic leaders or Gaddafi’s Kitab al-Ahdar or the Green Book etc. Now the only way they can live their religion in the way that they want to live as well as to develop economically and politically is somehow, but not exactly, a kind of Western type of democracy. I do not mean in a few years we will see more established democracies in the region but certainly we will have some kind of democracies whether they are in the control of some politic elites for a few. Nevertheless the process itself will be in a way to become more democratic and it will certainly create some internal conflicts and discussions. The major trend in the Arabic and Islamic world from now on will be in a democratic not authoritarian way.  People are fed up with all the system of governing, corruption, oppression, killing, every kind of authoritarian application. So I think there will be a constructive discussion regarding the compatibility of Islam and democracy in the country which certainly will carry out its own colors, I mean, local traditions, Islamic values, history will precisely help for a new definition of the democracy but basic for such a democracy to survive.

It is generally believed that Islam is culturally and socially constructed in the region by Muslim communities, so can we say that in the future Arab countries may create their own Islamic democracies?

Birol Akgün: That is what I am trying to imply somehow. Because there is a discussion whether there is only one democracy or are several democracies, like an Islamic version, or democracy that will emerge over time as a product of the internal discussions among the political elites and Islamic scholars. It is really interesting to follow what will happen, but those of Al Azhar in Egypt or other Islamic scholars, from now on, may not resist or even may not criticize democracy itself as we have already seen in the Tahrir Square. We hear from some leaders like Ghannouchi from Tunisia which is really important in terms of understanding Islam as a point of view in the modern political system. Gaddafi or other ulama or scholars from Islamic countries have already declared their support for political process in Egypt and in their own countries. Even a certain majority of the strongest Islamic groups like Islamic Brotherhood in Egypt and other countries support the basic creeds and institutions of the democracy. But certainly there will be some differences that they may not have a Turkish type of secular democracy in a few years, but over time the express of the people will create somehow a working democratic structure in the world.  I am optimistic about the Middle East on this way.

Again my question is concerning Turkey, you said that we would expect that Turkey and the West will compete for the Middle East in the future. Perhaps the West will get into cooperation with Turkey against Chinese or other entrance to the Middle East. So there are some conspiracies circulating this as well. As you know in the political post-colonial literature, we have a concept called mimicry, in other words, the local leaders or the local people imitated the Western or colonial powers and bring the colonial values to their societies. And now Turkey is said that it carries these values from the West, firstly experiences all of them and then tries to mark them to the Middle Eastern societies.

Birol Akgün: No, I totally disagree with this. Turkish democracy or Turkish political and revolutionary elites in the 20th century also were criticized because of this democratic face. That was somehow true, but as I try to mention before, democracy may not be imposed from the above to the down, rather it is a way that political elites, groups, social actors learn how democracy works. It is a social learning experiment for societies. Saying that, in the past 150 years since the time of the Tanzimat, Turkey gained a lot of experience about the Western values, democracy, human rights even the military coups. At the end of the day, today, in the last 10-years period, Turkey’s democracy become more and more consolidated, has already created its own synthesis between the historical, religious and national values of Turkey and those of the West. Now we have reached a new synthesis that Turkish democracy is not equal to the British democracy or U.S democracy or Russian democracy. Of course there are some differences; I mean, we may talk about Turkish version of democracy which has been created by the experiences of Turkey. So what I am trying to say is that democracy is a Western- originated political system, it has its own values but the Arab people or the Middle Eastern people will learn from the Turkish experience not taking them as the model but Turkey must and will help or open the way to these societies to learn from the Western experience or Turkish experience in order to facilitate to reach their own syntheses. A democracy in Egypt in ten years from now will not be a democracy similar to that in Turkey or in France but certainly this society will be more democratic. It will evolve over time to a more established democracy hopefully.

So we can say that democratic experience of Turkey is not something comes from the top to the down but from the bottom to the top. Is this what we say about the Turkish experience?  

Birol Akgün: Yes. From its mistakes and corrections, we now reached a new understanding of how democracy should and can work. These countries may learn from Turkey and certainly they are willing to learn, and we are ready to share our experiences. We do not exaggerate our democracy; we criticize our constitution which is still one of a military production.  We do not say that Turkey’s democracy is an exactly finalized democracy; it is still an evolving product. Certainly the political elites of these countries will try to create their own version of democracy sharing some basing values with the democracies of other countries.

Thank you for your time...

Interviewed by Özlem Pınar ORAN & Kasım İLERİ