Could be 1923

The Egyptian revolution has become like a Rorschach test. Every commentator is able to see into it their own imagined visions and describe it with their own expectations and fears. The “butterflies mating” Egyptian inkblots have become: the 1979 Iranian Islamist revolution, the 2004–2005 Ukrainian uprising or, according to Nikolai Grozni in the New York Times, it’s the Bulgarian rebellion of 1989. We have even heard serious comparisons to the Malaysian revolt that forced out Sukarno in 1967. Then of course we have the Web social networkers telling us it’s a Twittter/Facebook revolution. Nicholas Kristof even mentioned 1776, as I did on 1/31/11 in “A Light Unto Nations.”

The best place to look, however, is Ataturk’s revolution of 1923 in Turkey. There the aging, incompetent and corrupt sultan ruled much like Mubarak: answerable to no one and prone to stealing the countries riches for his own and his family’s personal benefit. Shaken by the modernizations of the European countries after World War I, Ataturk and his band of secularists looked in the mirror and saw a weak and backward Turkey. A Turkey falling further and further behind the rest of the world. Think Egypt vs. Asia and Latin America.

What he needed to do was de-Islamisize the state. He abolished the sultanate and disabused anyone of the notion that the caliphate would survive. These two Islamic institutions, it must be remembered, were the very pillars of the Ottoman Empire. That was change you could not believe. Ataturk looked West, and his government started studying the democratic institutions of England and France. He even incorporated Swiss laws about women into the civil code. He completely reformed the educational system, eliminating the Koran-focused madrasahs and inviting Western educator John Dewey to advise.

Every aspect of the civil system was strengthened—the governing system, the court system, the civil service. In short, he dragged Turkey into the modern era and freed it from the yoke of medieval Islam. Turkey today remains the most open and successful of all the large Islamic countries.

Of course, this did not sit well with the disenfranchised religious leaders, and there was an ongoing series of counterrevolts and an attempted assassination of Ataturk. The Islamists fought him at every turn. Yet he prevailed, and in 1926, for the first time in history, secular law ruled an Islamic land.

This is the revolution that the Egyptians may be aiming for. Freedom to modernize and chart a course for real economic progress. Freedom to join the club of countries that do not imprison bloggers and torture dissenters. Freedom to be entrepreneurs and not rely on access to Mubarak and his family as a path to success.

Ataturk was from the military. In fact, he was a great general and hero, so to dismiss Egyptian governors with a military background is too simplistic. Reform and modernization can come from these institutions too. Will Facebook and Twitter make any possible reform and modernization happen faster? Who knows? What took Ataturk decades may take Egyptian reformers hours. Decrees and new laws can be instantly disseminated, rumors squashed and clarity magnified. We will see. I don’t have fear or hope at this point. I am just looking to the past as a guide to the future, and I see 1923 and the Turkish revolution as a real hope for Egypt.

That hope is the nightmare that Iran and Hezbollah face. Sunnis are often more open to progress than Shi’ites (except Wahabi Sunnis), and the Iranian ability to influence Sunni countries is based on the hatred of Israel. Without that club there is not much appeal for the Iranian and Hezbollah lifestyle. This fear is what is behind the silly and clumsy efforts of Iran and Hezbollah to identify with the Egyptian revolution. They are fooling no one, certainly not the Iranian youth now looking enviously at Egypt.