Why Turkey is the only Muslim Democracy

Bernard Lewis, a famous British-American historian & scholar in Oriental studies, wrote the famous article of “Why Turkey is the only Muslim Democracy” in Middle East Quarterly, March 1994. Briefly Lewis listed three major reasons to explain “the relative success of democracy in Turkey”: (1) Turkey was never colonized, never subject to imperial rule or domination, as were almost all the Islamic lands of Asia and Africa. And democratic institutions were neither imposed by the victors, as happened in the defeated Axis countries, nor bequeathed by departing imperialists, as happened in the former British and French dependencies, but were introduced by the free choice of the Turks themselves. (2) Turkey, of all the Muslim countries, has had the longest and closest contact with the West, dating back almost to the beginnings of the Ottoman state, and, for long the sword and buckler of Islam against the West, made a deliberate choice for westernization, and for a Westward political orientation. (3) Turkey is the only Muslim country having Civil Society as a base of democracy within a definition of civil society by Hegel which includes “those institutions, organizations, loyalties, and associations that exist above the level of the family, and below the level of the state”.

Without forgetting the famous Turkish idiom of “why my brother-in-law kissed me?” I especially would like to emphasize the last statement on having a civil society. It can be easily listed a lot of opposite opinions on this by stating the ineffectiveness and weakness of NGOs in Turkey. However it would not be about the mentioned reason in which the meaning of civil society was limited with Hegel’s definition. As I understood the emphasized issue is the power of an additional social layer added to family and state, which means a value system and practice limiting the behaviors and forcing the compromise. Interestingly Kemal Tahir, a famous Turkish novelist, was defining the Ottoman society, so the Turkish one, as a classless society in a comparison with Western societies. If we can combine these two statements it may be possible to say that: “The values in Turkish society blocks or prohibits or obstructs family, tribe, clan etc. based privileges and discriminations, and makes socio-economic class transitions possible. It is one of the competitive advantages of Turkey when comparing with the other countries in the region.”

Lastly do you know that Turkey was defined as a feminine country in Hofstede’s Power Distance Index which means consensus and sympathy for the underdog are valued and encouraged?