Background:
ʿAmru al-Miṣrī is an Egyptian journalist who works for the Middle East News Agency (MENA), the official Egyptian news agency. He was the agency’s correspondent in Ankara between 2013 and 2016. He arrived in Cairo a week before this interview (17.07.2016) that was conducted two days after the failed military coup by Turkish army officers on July 15, 2016. He visited the Arab-West Report’s office for an informal meeting with Cornelis Hulsman along with a group of interns. Al-Miṣrī, agreed to record and publish the discussion and spoke about the structure of the Turkish political parties and the failed military coup. This resulted in an analysis of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s rule and sparked a discussion about the Turkish-Egyptian relations in the current era. Moreover, al-Miṣrī expressed clear views about dispersing the Muslim Brotherhood’s sit-in in Egypt in 2013.
Recording:
The ruling party in Turkey is currently, the Justice and Development Party (AKP). It has an Islamic background although it only claims to be conservative. Both President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and former Turkish President Abdullah Gül allegedly have strong ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. They were raised under the father of Islamists in Turkey Najm al-Din Erbakan. They set up an Islamist party called the Fadhilat Party. Turkish courts dissolved this party. They then, however, set up the AKP Party and surprisingly won the 2002 elections by more than 50% of the votes. This gave them, according to the Turkish Constitution, the right to set up a government depending only on their party. They were the majority for many years until the 15 June 2015 elections when they obtained only 41% of the votes. This, according to ʿAmru al-Miṣrī, was not accepted by Erdoğan and his party as this meant they had to set up a coalition government which was not in their favor. Thus, it was reported that they conspired to repeat the elections six months later. They won 49% of the votes in the second elections with a 9% increase in turnout. Al-Miṣrī explained that the Kurds were behind their failure in the first elections as they voted for the People’s Democratic Party which is pro-Kurdish. In the second elections, they obtained 6% out of the 9% increase from the National Movement Party known as the “Grey Wolves”. According to al-Miṣrī, in Turkey, they are widely-known to be militant and have already provoked violence multiple times in the past.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) is the largest of the political parties in Turkey followed by the secular party (Republican People's Party) and then the Kurdish party. The Republican People's Party that was created by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk always won about 25% of the votes, hence, it was never able to compete with the AKP. Even if they would make a coalition with the Nationalist Party they still would not be able to compete with the Justice and Development Party. Thus al-Miṣrī predicts that the AKP will be controlling Turkey for quite a while as they cannot be defeated neither by elections nor by military coups. Al-Miṣrī describes Erdoğan as a person who has a lot of popularity in the streets, both from the local population as well as the Syrian refugees whom he allegedly treats differently from other refugees.
Al-Miṣrī then explains pro- Erdoğan Turkish media. He believes that there is a lot of propaganda around him. Some prestigious newspapers became the mouthpieces of the ruling party. Al-Miṣrī says Erdoğan developed the country economically, but not legally as he received money from some Gulf States such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia. His economic policy is always praised by the Turkish media although Turkey’s foreign debt is 300 billion dollars. There is no space for criticism or freedom of speech. Al-Miṣrī further condemns Erdoğan, by referring to an associated corruption scandal that took place in 2013.Several leaked audio files highlighted Erdoğan telling his son Bilal to remove money from one apartment to another. This money, apparently, was not his.
Furthermore, al-Miṣrī said that Erdoğan along with his party, were siding with the Muslim Brotherhood, calling what happened in Egypt during the 30 June mass protests, a military coup. The millions of Egyptians protesting in the streets against the Muslim Brotherhood were neglected completely by the Turkish party. Al-Miṣrī mentioned that what happened in Turkey is a real military coup because it is a movement that started from within the military.
Erdoğan, al-Miṣrī believes, is a strong supporter of ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) as he benefits from it financially as well as politically. He uses ISIS to resist the Kurds in northern Syria to prevent them from leading control over parts of his country. Also, they help Erdoğan in his efforts to bring President Bashār al-ʾAssad down who, unlike Erdoğan, is an Alawite. Moreover, ISIS allegedly provides Erdoğan with a lot of petroleum they get from rich wells in Syria and Iraq. It has been reported that they sell it to him for a very cheap price which Erdoğan later sends to Israel. Al-Miṣrī mentioned that these were claims of prominent political leaders and ministers in Turkey. Al-Miṣrī believes that seeing black flags of ISIS on the streets of Turkey is an evidence for Erdoğan’s support for ISIS. Rūmānā Muṣṭafā Mūsā, one of the interns, argued that this could not be accepted as strong evidence for Erdoğan’s support for ISIS. Another intern, MuḥammadʿAbd al-Salām Raḍwān supported Al-Miṣrī’s claim of Erdoğan’s support for ISIS and added that the Russian T.V released a video showing ISIS moving oil tanks from Syria to Turkey and this, he believes, could be considered evidence of Erdoğan’s support for ISIS. Additionally, al-Miṣrī added, that two journalists from Cumhuriyet Newspaper in Turkey were put in jail because they published video clips showing Turkish weapons put in cars that belong to the Turkish army and were moved to Syria. The Turkish Government neither confirmed nor denied this, however, the journalists were put in jail for leaking this information. Al-Miṣrī claimed explicitly that Erdoğan is not a political leader but a gang leader.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is viewed by al-Miṣrī as a great political and military leader as he was the one who built the Turkish state by getting rid of the Caliphate system. Lukas Behrenbeck, one of the interns, mentioned that Atatürk has been very violent against the Kurds while simultaneously Islamizing the country. Al-Miṣrī responded that this is true; however, we should be very general when evaluating Atatürk and focus on this incident specifically while neglecting others. He added that the Kurds were not only minorities but they were trying to secede with part of the country. He justified what Atatürk did by saying that this is what any country would do if they were in the position of Atatürk.
Then, al-Miṣrī moved to how the Turkish media reported the dispersion of the Muslim Brotherhood sit-in in Rābʿā al-ʿAdawiyā as they mentioned that thousands were killed and failed to report that the first person who was killed in the sit-in, according to him, was a policeman. The government waited for 45 days to disperse it. The Turkish media claimed that it was a peaceful march and unarmed which, according to al-Miṣrī, was not true. He mentioned that all the people who died in Rābʿā were armed. Those who were peaceful were granted a safe exit. Some of the interns argued that the government should not have dissolved the sit-in in that way; saying that it was similar to the one in Tahrir Square which was called a revolution. Al-Miṣrī responded by saying that it was not a revolution because it was an event that included merely Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Egypt whereas during the January 25 Revolution, their opposition was everywhere all over Egypt. Raḍwān says he was at Rābʿā on the first day of the sit-in and saw people who were taking the sit-in as a matter of life or death because they wanted Mursī back to power. He mentioned that lots of people there were brainwashed and that people there did not represent the Egyptian population. Cornelis Hulsman, Editor-in-Chief of Arab-West Report, says he visited the sit-in too, along with several interns but after first consulting some Muslim Brotherhood leaders there. Both Hulsman and Raḍwān reported that they did not witness any violence, however the speeches several leaders gave provoked a lot of violence as they threatened with violence if Muslim Brotherhood President, Muḥammad Mursī would not return to power. Mūsā, argued that their acts are a reaction to years and years of oppression. Raḍwān, the intern, responded that many leaders were part of the 2005 parliament and were not completely muted.
Al- Misrī criticizes the way Erdoğan humiliated the soldiers who were part of the military coup attempt. He believes that by means of this act, they are humiliating the military institution as a whole and humiliating the honor of the entire nation. He should punish them legally by putting them in jail, but not by torturing them al- Misrī says. The repercussions of the actions of Erdoğan, al-Misrī predicts, will be huge nationally and internationally. He thinks that this would spark a potential second coup.
Romana Mūsā's Comments:
As a Communication and Media Student at Erasmus University, The Netherlands, I have learnt to be critical of media; including the agency’s political, financial, cultural and sometimes even personal stances on issues. These are sometimes difficult to detect, especially when the news is followed blindly by a passive audience. Regardless of the cries for news having to be “objective”, true objectivity is nothing more than an ideal and to be fair; rather unachievable. There is a difference between credibility and objectivity, which people often fail to distinguish between. There are some news outlets which may be more credible than others because they truly try, as much as possible, to be neutral regarding the reported issues to inform people. Then there are others, which have the tendency of exaggerating, centralizing and sometimes even omitting crucial information. The point here is that I did not entirely disagree with every single claim ʿAmru al-Miṣrī made, but it was rather the way he put forth his ideas which bothered me. I am aware that this was an informal meeting and he expressed his personal views. However, objectivity, as aforementioned is rather an ideal than it is tangible, in my personal view, there was little objectivity in al-Miṣrī’s statements in the meeting we had with him.
