Although Egyptians are bearing the brunt of the latest bloody events in Egypt, Turkey appears to be the only country reacting to these events as if it were all happening within its own borders. The Turkish reaction is driven, however, by a self-righteous political narrative that clearly has much more to do with developments in Turkey than in Egypt.

The inevitable buzzword in all this is “Western hypocrisy,” and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the principle cheerleader again. It is noteworthy, however, that Erdogan and his supporters rarely, if at all, mention Islamic powers whose inaction in the face of events in Egypt matches that of the West. There is hardly any open condemnation by government circles of Saudi Arabia or Iran’s stance in this regard, for example.

Putting his arguments in favor of democracy aside here, though — since democracy is still generally alien to the Arab world — the inaction of the Islamic world should be far more significant for Erdogan given that it is Muslims killing Muslims in the end. It appears, however, that pointing an accusing finger at the West again is the easiest alternative to questioning why the Islamic world continues to fail all its democracy and human rights tests so miserably.

This is a historic fact that Erdogan and Turkish Islamists will nevertheless have to face up to eventually, given that their hackneyed anti-Western rhetoric provides no real answers to this seminal question. In many respects, this question has a bearing on Turkey, too, despite that we are talking about the only real democracy to speak of in the Islamic world.