Mediolana 1, The New York Times 0

This weekend, the venerable New York Times carried a piece positing that Turkey – with its burgeoning economy, increasing democratisation and secular-religious equilibrium – could be a model for Egypt, a country with which it shares many cultural and demographic attributes.

On 18th January 2011, Mediolana posed the question: Is Turkey the new blueprint for the Middle East? After all, with its stellar economic performance and a new constitution in the works…

While it would be presumptuous to pen an item asking if material at mediolana.wordpress.com is the new blueprint for certain articles in the NYT, it is an honour to be in such distinguished company when it comes to the identification of paradigms…ッ

Is Turkey the new blueprint for the Middle East?

With the world’s attention focused on the spectacular crumbling of autocracy in Tunisia, it may be difficult for many to believe that a process of potentially even greater long-term significance for the advance of democracy is well underway in the Middle East, and without a bullet being fired: the writing of a new constitution in Turkey.

Turkey has emerged seemingly from nowhere in the last decade to  become, in the words of British Prime Minister David Cameron, ‘Europe’s BRIC‘; Cameron’s words seem prescient as Jim O’Neill, the chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management who coined the ‘BRIC’ acronym, considers Turkey a member of the ‘growth markets‘ group of countries which is superseding his original neologism. The World Bank estimates that the Turkish economy grew by a stunning 8.1% in recession-soaked 2010, and with impressive infrastructural improvements in evidence in and between major cities throughout Turkey – including the mushrooming of new universities from Istanbul to Erzincan – it is clear that the country is undergoing some kind of transformation.

The Turkish Republic has also undertaken some significant democratic reforms under the ruling Justice and Development Party since the latter swept to office in 2002. These changes have not always proceeded consistently or speedily, but in 2011 the drafting of a new constitution will assume centre stage. Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently stated that constitution would be authored by a broad spectrum of society and that it would be characterised by brevity, accessibility and substantiveness: ‘I envision a short text that targets advanced democracy, that ensures freedoms and fundamental rights and that is understandable.’ Umit Boyner, the charismatic leader of TUSIAD, the main Turkish industrialists’ association, has stated that her organisation will release a report on the deficiencies of Turkish democracy on 1st March; this publication is likely to be highly influential.

These developments are potentially of extraordinary significance. For a variety of cultural and diplomatic reasons, EU candidate Turkey presently possesses tremendous clout in much of the Middle East; if it can adopt a new constitution which is in keeping with democratic best practice, this could well spur publics throughout the region to ask why they are not being afforded the same rights.