Interns at Arab-West Report met with Amr el-Masry, MENA Bureau Chief in Turkey between 2013 and 2016 about the  July 15 coup d'état attempt in Turkey. El-Masry had just ended his assignment in Turkey before this attempt took place and is thus well informed about the developments in the country. The attempt was preceded by several terrorist attacks and political instability.

El-Masry made comparisons between Egypt and Turkey. Both countries are deeply polarized between Islamists and non-Islamists.

The Turkish Justice and Development Party of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is like the Egyptian Freedom and Justice Party of the Muslim Brotherhood. They have come through democratic elections to power but once in power they try to sideline their opponents in not such a democratic fashion. Both countries have a strong military with     secular values. In Turkey Islamists were able to strengthen their grip on the country while in Egypt they were ousted in 2013 after massive demonstrations and army intervention.

El-Masry has a wealth of knowledge about both countries and thus was     able to provide a very interesting analysis of how political Islam crept its way into the two societies; Egypt and Turkey. 

 The Al Ahram Weekly (20-07-2016) published an interesting analysis of former assistant to the Foreign Minister of Egypt,           Hussein Haridy which matches the analysis of el-Masry. Haridy writes that, "Erdoğan’s party came to power through the ballot box in free and fair elections, and it seems that those very boxes would never allow a rival political party to win general elections in a peaceful transfer of power."

The Muslim Brotherhood has tried for 80 years to come to power in Egypt. When they finally achieved to do so through general elections on June 30, 2012 many ordinary Egyptian people soon realized that this, too, was not what they wanted. The presidency of Morsi was characterized by much unrest, warnings of the army that Egypt needed to remain united and ultimately demonstrations of millions of civilians that made the army remove President Morsi one year later. The difference between Egypt's Morsi and Turkey's Erdoğan is in the popular support of the people. Morsi had tremendously lost in popularity while the attempted coup in Turkey was obviously carried out without popular support. 

For the full report of the meeting with Amr el-Masry please click here.

The meetings that are organized by the Center for Arab-West Understanding are very interesting and make internships here an excellent learning experience.

Romana Mostafa Moussa,

Intern at the Center for Arab-West Understanding

August 14, 2016