The mosques are our barracks

The domes our helmets

The minarets our bayonets

The faithful our soldiers

This sacred army guards our religion

Allahu Akbar… Allahu Akbar

Imagine a leader standing in front of the crowds, reciting these lines for them, and they scream in support at what he said. Not a scene we are used to in the Arab world. Leaders who dare to speak something similar might be over-thrown by coup d’états as in Egypt or simply put under siege as in Gaza. Ironically enough, the Arab world is the heart of the Islamic world, but we have leaders who are nothing close to Islam.

The lines at the beginning were from a poem written by Turkish poet Ziya Gökalp and recited by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in December 1997 when he was mayor of Istanbul. As a result of that, Erdoğan was detained for four months for ‘threatening’ the secular system.

Probably many Turks wonder, what is the secret behind Erdoğan’s popularity in the Arab World? What did Arabs see in him that they did not see in their leaders? Since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Arabs have suffered from instability and tutelage of imperial powers. First came colonization, then military coup d’états, then authoritarian ruling and, finally, revolutions and civil wars. Yet one cannot deny that there was a number of charismatic leaders Arabs have witnessed, such as Jamal Abdul Nasser and King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. However, the image of a leader has been tainted in the minds of Arabs. But, we saw in Erdoğan the leader who served his people, and the leader who brought prosperity to his country. During his days, the IMF announced that Turkey had completely paid its debt, and that the IMF could borrow from Turkey. While the Arab leaders’ sole role in their countries was to spread ignorance and make their people run after their daily bread. Erdoğan successfully managed to minimize the military role and strengthen the civil role; while in our Arab world, we still see the military conducting coup d’états and seizing power. All in all, Turkey did what we could not do, and Erdoğan was the leader we never had. A scene we will never forget, and probably never witness an Arab leader doing, was when Erdoğan left the Davos World Economic Forum platform in 2009 after the mediator refused to give him time to face the then Israeli President Shimon Peres about the Israeli crimes against the innocent Palestinians. Erdoğan’s stances against Israel made him a hero in the eyes of Arabs, something they don’t usually see in their leaders.

It is quite ironic how the Arab dictatorships reacted to the results of the June 7 Turkish General Elections. Pro-Assad, Pro-Iran and Pro-Coup media outlets were calling President Erdoğan ‘the one commander’, referring to him as a tyrant who was ruling Turkey for the past thirteen years. But I’d like to ask them: if Erdoğan is a tyrant, then what is Abdel Fattah El Sisi? They are rejoicing over the success of the Turkish elections, after they spent weeks before that warning about how rigged the elections would be. Excuse me, did we ever hear of elections in Syria? I’m not quite sure that those, who are thrilled about what they call ‘the loss’ of President Erdoğan, even know what democracy is.

As soon as the election results came out, waves of joy started flowing throughout tyrant media in Damascus, Beirut and Cairo. But now I understand why they are claiming that President Erdoğan lost. These regimes are used to getting what even exceeds the 90% as election results. Even after the Syrian revolution started, Bashar Al Assad managed to get 88.7% of the Syrian people votes. In post-Coup Egypt, Sisi won the elections with a percentage of 96.94%.

Subhan Allah…

After all, it is worth noting that Arabs do not view Erdoğan as an Islamist leader as much as they view him as a Muslim leader. Only those who know the difference between the two words will understand Erdoğan’s popularity in the Arab World.

SOURCE:    http://english.yenisafak.com/news/erdogan-and-the-arab-street-2197764