Filiz Otucu, PhD

October, 2013

Interview with Plymouth Magazine

Excerpts

Plymouth Magazine (PM):  If you would want us to pay attention to one thing about our understanding of the Middle East, what would that be?

Filiz Otucu (FO):     We need to pay attention to our misperceptions, be open-minded and understand where the other person is coming from. A big part of understanding is becoming aware of our stereotypes—not to put them aside, which is very difficult—but to be aware of our biases and start questioning. A simple example: many of us think “jihad” means “holy war.” But for 99.9 percent of Muslims jihad is an inner struggle to be a good Muslim, to be a good person.

     We get most of what we know from the media, but for them it is about rating points. If they focus on what moderates are talking about and what Islam is about, how many people will listen?  But if the story is about a bombing, we watch. Media is a part of our culture, and we fall prey to that influence (this is what we demand from media though). 

PM: How can we deal with anti-American rhetoric?

FO: It is true, there is an anti-American rhetoric. However, we need to make this distinction: with the exception of a very small group of extremists, the big majority of Middle Easterners are not against Americans. They are only critical of American foreign policy decisions because they pay the price for them. When the West gets involved militarily, even if it is not intentional, civilians often die. Collateral damage happens, but the majority of these civilians are innocent people and somebody’s loved one. “Oops, I’m sorry” does not cut it.

            If you travel to these countries you will feel comfortable. You can talk to people and they will open their homes to you. I condemn any type of violence, I definitely condemn all forms of terrorism. But when your loved ones suffers or die because of sanctions or military attacks and your life becomes so desperate, you are more inclined to listen to the extremists and be manipulated. We have to be careful about what we are doing and how it affects people’s lives—the consequences of our actions. We should not give extremist leaders reason to get better at their propaganda and win people over.      

PM: How can the U.S. promote democracy in the Middle East?

FO: There is a debate about whether Islam is compatible with democracy. Increasingly, Muslims themselves are saying “yes” and Islamic political movements and parties are deciding to take part in elections whenever possible. Terminology matters. You cannot sell Western liberal democracy to many Muslims because Muslims associate it with Western colonialism. But some are embracing essentials like human rights, elections and the rule of law. Actually, these and citizens’ control over the executive are consistent with the Islamic concepts of ijma (consensus) and shura (consultation).

The Islamic democratic movement is a work in progress, slowly taking place. Indigenous calls for democratic reforms are being heard in almost every part of the Muslim world. Civil society leaders and human rights groups in these societies are challenging the autocratic status quo. Young Muslims, in particular, want to be in charge of their lives and see that democracy can shield the Islamic community from autocrats.

True, many of these countries have been ruled by dictators, and don’t have democratic histories. Unfortunately, pro-Western Arab and Muslim dictators, not necessarily Islamic activists, have been blocking any real democratic opening. Saying that, transition requires much more than just elections. There are no strong constitutions, no checks and balances, no freedom of speech, or assembly, so, how in these circumstances can the opposition get strong enough to challenge the leadership meaningfully? After the election, the government controls everything, and they don’t allow the opposition to flourish. We can help civil society to develop.  However, whatever type of democracy they are going to attain should come from the people.

     We also must look at the history. Middle Easterners are quite critical of us saying, “look, we didn’t transition to democracy partially because of you. You kept supporting our dictators so every time signs of the development of a civil society appeared, it was crushed.” The bottom line is, we protect our own national interests. When Islamists win an election, and we don’t like that, we end up supporting the existing regime. We can’t have it both ways. Let’s briefly look at the democratization experience in that region:

The first major steps towards democratization occurred in Iran in 1953 when Mosaddegh was elected. He started talking about the nationalization of oil, and the West got scared. The CIA got involved and Mosaddegh was kicked out and a brutal regime of Shah Reza Pahlavi came back and we supported his regime. Now, when we say, “we want democracy in the Middle East,” they respond, “We had it and you destroyed it. You took it away as soon as it got started because it didn’t work out for you.”

     The next happened in Algeria in the early 1990s.  They had a democratic election. There were supposed to be two rounds of elections. During the first round it became very clear that the Islamists were going to win, so they cancelled the second round and the military took control and the West was supportive of this. The result was civil war.

     In 2006 we wanted democracy in Palestine. They held fair democratic elections and Hamas won. We cut funding. The result was a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Now we see it in Egypt. Morsi was elected democratically (what he did afterward is another story). If we accept/support regimes that suppress democratic Islamist movements, block these movements’ nonviolent participation in the system, I am very worried that they will see violence as the only option to be heard.

      Supporting democratization is not about elections, but rather how we can help liberalization of these societies. The West can play a role by not supporting dictatorships, and by pressuring authoritarian regimes when they attack their own people. We can exert pressure for gradual reforms. The Middle Eastern countries need a strong civil society to produce leaders and mobilize the public around democratic movement. Democratization should come from both above and below. We can help civil society organizations to gain strength, making it bottom up, people demanding those liberties. We can pressure the leadership to allow civil liberties, to include them in the constitution and to guard them very dearly. Then, real democracy can flourish in the Middle East. 

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Kristine Levan, PhD

September 2013

On Monday, September 16, 2013, Aaron Alexis opened fire at the Washington Navy Yard, killing twelve people and injuring many others. It has become an all too familiar scene for us: mass gun shootings, including incidents in the past several years at Newtown, CT, Minneapolis, MN, Oak Creek, WI, Tulsa, OK, Fort Hood, TX, and many others. Although these incidents comprise only a fraction of our total murder rate, the American public has become so inundated with the stories and images of these horrific crimes that we can’t help but feel scared and outraged.
    This post is not about gun control. Though many mass killings do involve firearms , that is not the point of discussion here. Like many, as the events have unfolded in this, and the other, mass murders, I received the media messages as updates occurred. They “speculate” on this or report that “authorities currently believe”. But, just as with the other tragedies, before the details of who committed the terrible acts, or how, or how many, I knew one thing for certain:
    Whoever did this was a terribly troubled person.
    Please don’t misread this as an “excuse”, as there is no excuse for taking innocent lives. What Alexis and others like him have done is, in fact, inexcusable. But, it seems that every time an incident such as this occurs, the policymakers, media, and public have the immediate reaction to discuss gun control legislation and whether we need more or less gun control.
    History tells us that many of our mass murderers suffer from some form of mental illness. Although some are killed or commit suicide at the scene, others are captured alive and sanctioned by the justice system. We often hear accounts from family and friends that they “knew something was wrong” (although these sometimes may be retrospective and skewed accounts). Sometimes, the offenders had actually been diagnosed with a mental illness, or exhibited symptoms of a mental illness prior to their crime.
    In the case of Aaron Alexis, news accounts indicate that he was having difficulty sleeping, seemed troubled, was hearing voices, and had reported to police that he was being followed by three people. His family, and the families of his victims, are left with many unanswered questions, and a sense of lives being taken too soon.
    As a society, we have to be more vigilant in providing mental health care to those who need it. As individuals, we have to have to be more caring for one another and try to recognize when someone we know is suffering so they can get the help they need in order to heal and be whole. We have to be willing to acknowledge that there are some major issues missing from our current discussions, and address these issues accordingly.