I have a couple of things to say to these wheeler-dealers: I know how you were disappointed when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did not make his first foreign visit to Iran and did not make the inadvertent mistake of sitting in the tent of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and did not run after the fancy of establishing the D-8, as had been done by former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan.
It would have been a valuable opportunity for you if the AK Party had, as you claim, dispensed with the goal of obtaining full membership in the European Union or if it did not have a good record in democratic reforms or if it had nurtured a pro-statist economic policy and a xenophobic world perception instead of promoting a market economy and greater integration with the world. It would have been easier for you to isolate the AK Party and render it ineffective in Turkey.
You still cannot accept the fact that the AK Party continues to be regarded as the most reformist and most progressive party by domestic and foreign circles that you yourselves respect, particularly when it is compared with other political parties, especially the Republican People's Party (CHP). Please admit that you still find it hard to accept that Abdullah Gül and Erdoğan, who come from a conservative background, are acting as the pioneers of modernization, Europeanization and development. What's worse, you feel utterly offended when your mask of false modernity or pro-Western mentality is removed.
It's not easy to go against the historical tide. You are aware of this, as you have some form of intellectual training. When you go abroad and meet with foreigners, you hear that the AK Party's reforms, EU vision and the integration policies are praised -- this must be very frustrating for you. In addition, you frequently have to hear criticism of the CHP and Kemalism, thus deepening your wounds.
If you every wonder how you lost the leadership of modernism to other people, let me tell you:
This is not a matter related solely to the AK Party. The entire conservative democratic community has started to understand the world better than you. They have implemented a smartly designed political strategy to marginalize you both inside and outside the country. First, they understood that the most effective move to end the oligarchy of elites is to demand more democracy. Second, since they know that this oligarchy would not be willing to transfer their power to the nation, they realized that they will need the force of an external dynamic. So they lent support to the EU process. Third, they prefer the market economy model where everyone can freely compete with one another instead of a pro-statist policy in which the bureaucratic oligarchy used to create groups of rich people affiliated with them.
In short, the conservative and democratic community has managed to break from the shackles of state control and official ideology with moves toward democracy in politics and a free market model in the economy. You try to destroy democracy, stop the EU process and oppose globalization in a desperate attempt to go against the tide of history, but it is too late. You have lagged far behind the conservative democrats, who have become the carriers of change and modernity.
Do not try in vain to place the AK Party on the "other" side in order to harp on this together with the West. For the first time in history, the demands and position of the conservative and democratic community have overlapped with the dynamics and direction of history, and this is about to purge the age-long bureaucratic oligarchy. So the West will not act naively and cooperate with you. The bureaucratic oligarchy will be sandwiched by democratization and globalization, and you cannot resist the tide of history.
I also have a message for the conservative and democratic community: If you do not fall into the traps of the "state-ization" of your will and vision with regard to the Cyprus, Armenian and Kurdish issues, full-fledged democracy is not very far away.
