Are Turks in Somalia for the hajj or to sell beads?

Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist and author now heading Al Arab News Channel, penned this think piece in Arabic for today’s al-Hayat

Erdogan and his wife Emine in Somalia in August 2011 

Next to us, we Saudis, and within our strategic security sphere, lies a country biting the dust for more than two decades.

Its collapse began when its last “effective” government, which was neither successful nor popularly elected, fell.

Even if that government had survived to this day, it surely would have been swept away by the Arab Spring.

Together with our neighbors in the region, we looked after it on one or two occasions, and then moved away.

Even the Americans ran out on it after a solitary attempt to save it in the wake of the war to liberate Kuwait. At the time, George Bush Sr. may have wanted to show his country was also ready to intervene and help a poverty-stricken Muslim country, unlike oil-rich Kuwait. It turned out to be a bitter American experience.

I am referring to Somalia.

Who wants to help Somalia? Its people are unruly, plagued by differences and internecine strife, and ruled by warlords. Al-Qaeda infested many of its citizens’ minds, adding to miseries and divisions even in single households.

In the end, Somalia became the hotbed of high sea piracy. The world came to shun both the state and its people. Somalis got to be a source of concern for Saudi Arabia and its Gulf partners after a rise in their illegal immigration across Yemen through a transnational network of organized crime in the smuggling of migrants.

Everyone lost hope in Somalia and no one believed the failed state would recover anytime soon.

Or so it seemed.

There is now a glimmer of hope looming on the horizon.

International organizations now say Somalia is on the mend. Its markets are beginning to recover, together with trade and construction activities. People who visited Somalia of late say there is money moving around in the impoverished country.

So, what happened?

The answer is Turkey and its Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is now the most popular leader there, with Somali mothers and fathers eager to name their newborns “Recep,” “Tayyip” and “Erdogan.”

So what is Turkey doing in Somalia and why? Is it on “a pilgrimage or selling beads” there -- which is a common expression used by Mecca residents well grounded in combining godliness and moneymaking?

One school of thought worth monitoring is known as “Turkey’s moderate Islam,” which combines advocacy with spreading the teachings of religion, economic development and trade.

It is capitalized on by dynamic Turkish businesses in carving out new markets.

There is a Turkish scholar, author and educator named Fethullah Gülen, who founded the Gülen movement that is believed to have 1,000 schools around the world and more than 10 million followers in Turkey alone. He currently lives in self-exile in Pennsylvania.

I was in Turkey some 25 years ago, trying to cover the rise of political Islam, when I first heard his name. But I didn’t get to meet him as he always shunned publicity and the media.

He had left Turkey for the United States when he was committed for trial in 2000 after the leaking of a video urging his followers to “move within the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers. You must wait until such time as you have got all the state power.”

Originally charged with trying to undermine the secularity of the Turkish state, Gülen was acquitted in 2008 but continues to live in seclusion in Pennsylvania.

The Gülen movement is operating in Somalia through aid relief and development agencies, offering young Somali men and women scholarships for religious studies in Turkey. They would eventually replace Somali graduates of hard-line religious schools funded by Gulf charities.

By the time he flew to Somalia in August 2011, Erdogan had arranged for more than 1,200 Somali students to arrive in Turkey on full scholarship to study sciences, engineering, medicine and law at a cost of $70 million.

He then raised from Turkey’s private sector more than $365 in donations to Somalia, over and above his government’s $49 million contribution.

Today, Turkish traders and aid workers move freely across Somalia without needing to worry about being killed or kidnapped.

In contrast, UN and international aid workers remain holed up in their Somali offices or hotel rooms.

Is this happening because Turks, being Muslims, are familiar with the Somali people’s character and norms?

Julia Harte raises the question in her recent article, “Turkey Shocks Africa,” on which I relied to pen this think piece and which I strongly urge you to read.

Or does Turkey have a comprehensive plan – denied by the government – to marry advocacy and trade, thus help Turkish entrepreneurs and businesses gain favor among Somalis?

Or is energy-starved Turkey eyeing opportunities offered by the prospective find of 10 billion barrels of crude oil in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland province?

Alternatively, is Turkey mounting a smart charm offensive to increase its overall exports to Africa, which rose to $10.3 billion last year from $2.1 billion in 2003?

Turkey is now challenging China on African markets, but with a more humane face than the alienating method favored by the Chinese.

Regardless of Turkey’s motives, what happened benefited both the Turks and the Somalis.

And what about us?

It’s wrong to portray the Turks as competitors. They are friends who did what we should have done. It’s therefore good to catch up with them and participate in this benefaction. After all, we spearheaded the concept, “The Hajj…and the sale of beads.”

Islamist movements keep seeking their own demise

From L. clockwise: King Abdulaziz, Saladin, Imadaddin Zengi and Abu Hamed al-Ghazali

This think piece was penned in Arabic for al-Hayat daily by Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist now heading Saudi billionaire Prince Walid bin Talal’s Arabic news channel Al Arab launching at year’s end:

Why do many present-day Islamist movements always seek their own demise?

Why do they consistently insist on “all or nothing”?

Salafist jihadism today matches India’s Deobandi movement.

Salafis today are not even one.

It was King Abdulaziz, founder of the Saudi state that celebrated its 82^nd National Day recently, who revived contemporary Salafism. He was a true Salafi, but he was also a politician who cajoled the big shots and cultivated the minnows but always came out on top.

Before the distortion of Salafism and jihad through abuse by ultraconservatives of these two noble traits of Muslims, every Muslim activist sought to reconcile Salafism, or faith advocacy, and jihad.

Salaheddin el-Ayyoubi, better known in the Western world as Saladin, and Imadaddin Zengi before him, were like that – Salafi jihadists. Both used beyond measure tactics of modern-day Islamist movements to mobilize the faithful for jihad.

They propagated jihad through preachers and orators -- not only in mosques on Fridays but at all times and on all occasions.

They built efficient local administrations in Damascus, Aleppo and Cairo. They were merciful to people and gracious in their sermons.

They were benign in their promotion of virtue and prevention of vice.

They were also ruthless when they needed to.

Imadaddin Zengi was hard-hearted when fighting local leaders.

Saladin was not, by today’s standards, a democrat or believer in freedom of opinion and expression. Once he prevailed in Egypt (after overthrowing the Shiite Fatamids), he restored Sunnite orthodoxy in the country and stamped out Shiite jurisprudence in al-Azhar. (That’s why Saladin is more of a hero in the Arab world than in Iran). His strategic move bore a resemblance to the Islamist movements of the day, particularly the line of theologian Abu Hamed al-Ghazali as expressed in his writings, specifically his book “The Revival of Religious Sciences.”

In the end, Imadeddin Zengi and Saladin succeeded in building two nation-states that outlived them by years.

They laid the foundations for an Islamic revival movement. In addition to introducing administrative reform, they handed down a plethora of schools, hospitals, markets, castles and public facilities that are still standing today. (Some of these are currently being pulverized by the Syrian regime’s tanks and warplanes).

In other words, Zengi and Saladin did not simply lead a fleeting protest movement such as al-Qaeda and the likes that always seek their own demise.

In modern history, Abdulaziz al-Saud emulated Zengi and Saladin.

He surrounded himself with local leaders who outmatched him in wealth, political maneuver and international connections.

He was fenced in by a Great Power when turning east, south, north or even west to look across the sea to Egypt.

He also had to put up with a group seeking it own demise. His valiant military commander Faisal al-Dwaish kept striving to challenge the British, who were then protectors of the Gulf, Iraq and Transjordan.

Dwaish ultimately defied his leader and ended up dying in jail with history remembering his insubordination more than his military heroics.

I remembered King Abdulaziz when hearing the leader of Somalia’s al-Shabab pledge that his militiamen won’t stop their advance before reaching Nairobi and Addis Ababa, having overcome Ethiopian forces in their country in 2006.

Al-Shabab could have instead focused on building Somalia and sinking their roots deeper at home. Had they done that, they would probably have been ruling a stable and secure Somalia. The leader in question might have been negotiating with the Dubai Port Authority to build a port in Kismayo followed by a franchise fishing deal with a Japanese company.

Instead, he said last week his Islamist militants were abandoning their last major bastion, Kismayo.

This makes me wonder again: Why do many modern-day Islamist groups always seek their own demise?

They antagonize everyone far and near as soon as they score a victory.

In Libya, they trumped their opponents by joining the revolution. They then proceeded to desecrate graves at (Commonwealth) war cemeteries and attack the U.S. embassy.

By so doing they turned people against them, eventually losing their reputation, their weapons and their camps.

In Tunisia, they were released from jail, had a taste of freedom and enjoyed it, then abused it and decided that Tunisians, as apprentices in modernity, needed guidance. Those were the same Tunisians who a month earlier had voted into power a moderate Islamist party. They ended antagonizing Tunisians and their government who subsequently demanded their eradication.

In Yemen, they absented themselves from the transition process that removed the tyrant they were fighting. They failed to appreciate that the sea change taking place in the country presented them with an opportunity to end their cocooning. Instead, they want their jihad to last for all eternity. Their latest reaction was a suicide bombing in Abyan.

In Egypt, they stand out as first class debaters. They joined the constitution-drafting body (otherwise known as the Constituent Assembly). Instead of leaving their imprint on a historic legacy, they focused on such trivialities, as “girls can be married as soon as they reach puberty.” They will surely pay the price of their idiocy at the next elections.

I can go on recounting innumerable telltales from Mali, Afghanistan, Iraq and my own homeland Saudi Arabia. The self-interest of present-day Islamist movements invariably takes priority over the interests of the public.

In truth, these militant movements mandate acts of suicide in combat but take their own life in politics.