Can Erdogan contain the movement of the street and the changes of society, or is the Turkish model headed towards its end? This question poses itself in Istanbul's Taksim Square and in Western decision-making circles. It is becoming more insistent as the popular movement develops, especially since Erdogan behaves like the Grand Vizier when dealing with those who object to his domestic and foreign policies, and refuses to back down on the decisions that were behind the wave of protests. The protestors, who rejected changing the features of Istanbul's Taksim Square by building a mall, military barracks, and a mosque there, have moved beyond this phase and have raised demands that are completely at odds with the policies of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Among their demands, as per the manifesto they presented to the government: ceasing to restrict freedom of expression, reversing the government's anti-women's rights policies, accommodating the sensitivities of the Alevi community, pulling Turkey out of all regional wars, and dismissing the security officials who confronted the protestors with excessive force. Each of these demands has its own story with the AKP government, ever since it came to power ten years ago. Restricting the freedom of expression is a practice that has been aimed at dozens of journalists and writers who were thrown in jail, in addition to the pressure placed on institutions to fire any journalists who would oppose the government. Opposition to women's rights appears plainly in the party's etiquette and the practice of expelling any unveiled woman from the many institutions it manages. As for dismissing the security officials responsible for repressing the protests, it is connected to the process of ‘Brotherhoodizing' the government. Erdogan has, throughout the past years, worked to dwarf the role of the army in politics, and this is an issue of the utmost importance in a country that was ruled by the military since its establishment in 1923. He thus threw dozens of officers of the General Staff in jail, and appointed the Commander of the Gendarmerie, a man loyal to him, as Commander of the Army. He strengthened the police and gendarmerie with weapons and equipment, in order to turn them into a parallel army that he can use internally against the opposition. There remains the demand of accommodating Alevi sensitivities and withdrawing from regional wars. Erdogan's culture, which has brought him back to Ottomanism, is not at all one that is characterized by a spirit of tolerance for other confessions and faiths: one either submits to the orders of the Sultan, or they are exiled or killed. Moreover, Erdogan getting implicated in wars strengthens Ottoman fanaticism around him in the face of the secular interior and the minorities that have been harmed by his policies. The method of rule of the AKP was sought to spread in the Middle East. Indeed, the majority of the region's inhabitants are Muslim, and it should therefore be ruled by Islamists. This is the conclusion reached by the US administration and European countries, after long and destructive wars through which they failed to spread their democracy and political values in the region. And Turkey had proven over ten year of AKP rule that its model was fit to be spread, especially as it clings to its alliance with the West and seeks to engage in it further. It also continues to represent the spearhead of the struggle against Russia, exactly as it had been during the Cold War in the days of the Soviet Union, when its army represented military force and its Islamists, along with those of the Arabs, represented the spiritual force that supported it and defended religious values in the face of Communist atheism and secular nationalist movements. Furthermore, the Islamists ruled in Ankara within a free market system and have proven their aptitudes in this regard. Yet everyone, from Erdogan's party to the United States, including the Arab and Kurdish intellectuals who promoted this, forgot something of the utmost importance that can be summed up by saying that the peoples of the Middle East have evolved in different directions, and that a large part of them does not consist of Islamists. This is what the experiences of Tunisia and Egypt have proven. Indeed, the Muslim Brotherhood in those two countries faces numerous difficulties, because they do not care as much about managing the country politically as they do about disciplining society and making it submit to their interests. That is where their rule in Turkey is headed as well. Disciplining people by force or through repression is a form of tyranny that ancient Ottomans were famous for, and one which the Neo-Ottomans seek today to consecrate. The protests in Taksim Square, Ankara and Izmir have proven that the policies of the Grand Vizier were not sacrosanct, and that the final word belongs to the people.
