It is no secret that the Turkish people have an enormous reverence for Mahomed Ali Jinnah or Cinnah as written in Turkish, honoring him with Cinnah Avenue, a major artery in Ankara. It should not be surprising as both Jinnah and the founder of modern-day Turkey, Ataturk, were modernist Muslims educated and tailored in the western traditions. Both dedicated their lives to uplift the economic and political cause of their people. The similarities between the two men also include both being members of minority communities within the religion of Islam. Jinnah was an Ismaili-Shia, a community following Imam Agha Khan while Ataturk, born in Salonika, was a Muslim of Albanian-Macedonian parents. Their roots outside of mainstream Islam were significant in determining their modernist, secular ideology which was accutely aware of the 'tyranny of the majority' and desiring of equal rights for those whom demographics did not favor.
But more than this, it was the economic degradation of their communities that encouraged them to lead their people.
In pre-1947 India, the Muslim population was primarily illiterate with little or no significant role in commerce, which was almost exclusively owned by a non-Muslim majority. Jinnah however, was part of the coastal Ismaili Muslim community which unlike most Muslims, was more interested in enterprise and bourgeoise professions and thus could grasp the need to set up a state - be it within the Indian union or without - whereby the members of his Muslim community could have opportunities allowing them to gain a stake and representation in the economic system.
In similar respects, the Young Turk movement, of which Ataturk was a member, also aimed to establish a state where the Muslims held economic power. Due to the abhorent decadence of the Khilafat-e-Usmania, the Muslim community had become the equivalent of 'white trash' of the Khilafat while the minority communities like the Armenians and Greeks prospered as they opted to adopt western legal codes. The biographies of Ataturk and the early 20th century indicate how the non-Muslim Ottoman neighborhoods were well lit with paved roads and had the best schools and hospitals. It was Ataturk's desire to see the majority Muslim community achieve the same modern life style denied to them - a denial he and many of the Young Turk movement linked to the Khilafat's archaic legal codes and traditions.
Unfortunately, while Turkey has stuck to the ideals of Ataturk, Pakistan has quickly forgotten Jinnah's almost single-handed struggle to build a prosperous nation. While the Islamic-bent AKP party of Turkey today ferociously supports Turkey's union with the European Union as part of Ataturk's modernist legacy, Pakistan is fraught with internecine civil war, religious bigotry, a self-destructive obesession against India, and whose Army is now wrecking havoc against its own people in the FATA region, for a war fought on someone else's behalf. Whereas Turkey has always stood up for its national interests and been the only country to militarily attack Europe since WW II (through a military assault it forcefully occupied 40% of Cyprus in the 1970's) and refused $25 billion in aid from the United States to assist in the war against Iraq, Pakistan has capitulated in a dramatically tragic manner to the whims of foreign powers.
While Jinnah and Ataturk had many similarities and would not mind enjoying a glass of Turkish wine if they met, there is a massive gulf between the leadership of Pakistan and Turkey today. What can Pakistan learn from the successful model adopted by Turkey? What does modern day Turkey have to teach us?
Prime Minister Erdogan's AKP party started its journey assisting the poor members of the urban Turkish landscape. One of the projects was to offer bread at break-even cost to the poor who were severely effected by hyper inflation. The scheme became so successful, that private bakeries went out of business. More importantly it catapulted the AKP party (then known as Welfare Party) into the mainstream of Turkish politics.
In a similar attempt, Chairman Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf is also attempting to find resonance amongst the urban poor of Pakistan who are the suffering from exorbitant food inflation. Thus the Sasta Tanduur project has been set up in much the same fashion as the Turkish party's. However, the Sasta Tanduur project goes a step further by offering subsidized roti which results in each tanduur incurring a daily loss. This loss is expected to be fulfilled by the appeal for donations voiced by Chairman Khan.
Aside from aggressively reaching out to those bruised by faulty economic policies, the other major example to learn from the Turkish Republic is to stand up to foreign powers. Completely redefining the war we are currently fighting is critical as persisting with policies in which our military is massacring our own people will lead us down the path of self-destruction.
Finally and most importantly, the fact that Turkey has pursued a pro-development economic policy beneficially tied to the West without forfeiting its sovereignty is worth emulating. Today, Turkish consumer electronics firms rank among the top three in terms of sales in many of the household product lines.
Standing up for the poor and against foreign powers are the hallmarks of good leadership which Chairman Khan has shown and which our nation needs to adopt. While we cannot be a replica copy of the Turkish Republic, the fundamentals of standing up to western powers and focusing on the have-nots of our society deserve to be copied so that one day, Pakistan too will mirror the glorious image of its founder, Mahomed Ali Jinnah.
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