Turkey

by hilzoy

Turkey has recently been in the throes of a constitutional crisis. The basics are fairly straightforward: Turkey is led by an Islamist party (the AK party.) The Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan nominated his foreign minister, Abdullah Gül, to be Turkey's next President. (The Turkish Presidency is largely ceremonial.) On April 27, the Turkish army responded by posting a communique on its web site that read, in part:

"Arguments over secularism are becoming a focus during the presidential election process and the Turkish armed forces are following the situation with concern. It must not be forgotten that the armed forces are the determined defenders of secularism."

This was posted the day before the Turkish constitutional court was set to rule on the first round of parliamentary voting for the Presidency. The court ruled that not enough people had been present (the secularist parties had boycotted the vote), so the vote wasn't valid. Meanwhile, there were large demonstrations against the AK party and in favor of secularism. Gül then withdrew as a candidate for President. However, the AK Party is moving to change Turkey's constitution to allow the President to be elected by popular vote, which would allow it to bypass the secularists in the Parliament and the Courts.

***

By far the most serious part of this is the army's none-too-subtle warning that it might mount a coup. This is not an idle threat. The Turkish military has staged four coups since 1945. The one I'm most familiar with took place in 1980 (with US support), and military rule lasted until 1983, when Turgut Özal, who had been Deputy Prime Minister under the junta. won an election in which many political parties were not allowed to compete. If you count this as the continuation of military rule by other means, it lasted for another decade.

During the three years of military rule, a lot of people were tortured. (Wikipedia cites Amnesty International as saying that "over a quarter of a million people were arrested in Turkey after the coup and that almost all of them were tortured.") When I was in Turkey, in 1988, every Kurdish man I knew had been tortured, and the clear consensus was that while the government in power in 1988 was not exactly friendly to Kurds, the military government had been orders of magnitude worse.

The general point is: threats of coups by the Turkish military are nothing to sneeze at.

I think we should oppose these threats with all the means we have at our disposal. (And those means are considerable: we sell a lot of weapons to the Turkish army, and we give Turkey a lot of military assistance.) For one thing, Turkey is a democracy, and we should oppose the overthrow of democratically elected governments, absent some extraordinary circumstance that would have to involve at least that government's suspension of its democratic institutions. For another, as I said, the Turkish army has a pretty dreadful track record when it comes to running the country.

Besides ...

I think we should be absolutely thrilled that Turkey is run by a genuinely moderate and democratic Islamic party. The more Muslims who are moderate and democratic appear in politics, the less plausible it will be for radical Islamists to maintain that there is some sort of opposition between Islam and democracy, or that being a Muslim somehow requires supporting terror. And that, I would have thought, is a genuinely wonderful thing.

Besides that, if we care at all about democracy in the Middle East, it makes no sense whatsoever not to support this one. In a lot of Middle Eastern countries (think Saudi Arabia), the results of holding an election would be that some genuinely awful group would come to power, a group that had no commitment to democracy and a genuine commitment to supporting terror outside its borders. In such cases I can really see the case for saying: sure, I support democracy, but is this really the best time to act on that concern and hold elections?

The problem with this line of thought, of course, is that in a country like Saudi Arabia, it will probably never be a good time to hold elections, if by "a good time" one means: a time when those elections will probably result in a government led by people who are not a threat to their own people and the region around them. Repressive dictatorships tend to make people very angry, and very extreme. The longer a country remains a repressive dictatorship, the less likely it is that its people will support a moderate, tolerant government once they are allowed to vote.

In most of the Middle East, we would absolutely die of joy if we could support free and fair elections and have some confidence that those elections would result in the election of a moderate Islamic party like the Turkish AK party, rather than, say, Hezbollah or some party allied with al Qaeda. Moreover, in most of the Middle East, we ought to be kicking ourselves for not supporting such elections earlier, before things had gotten as bad as they are now. All the more reason, then, to support democracy in Turkey.

But besides all that, there are reasons for welcoming the advent of the AK party that have to do with the lingering influence of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Turkey, and with what secularism means there.

***

Atatürk founded the modern Turkish state at a time of crisis for Turkey. The Ottoman Empire had fallen, Turkey was on the losing side of World War I, and the Middle East was in chaos. Atatürk thought that one problem was that Turks had no real sense of Turkey as a state, rather than as the center of the Ottoman universe. So (to oversimplify) he decided to try to create a distinct Turkish identity, one that was founded on two principles: the glorification of ethnic Turkishness and the embrace of modernity.

Atatürk pursued the latter objective not just by (for instance) extolling the scientific method, but by trying to obliterate various 'backward' aspects of Turkish life. For instance, he outlawed traditional Turkish dress and replaced the Arabic script with a modified version of the Latin alphabet. More to the point, he decided that one of the main sources of Turkey's backwardness was Islam, and so he set out to replace Islam, which had been one of the main unifying forces under the Ottomans, with secularism, which was one of his "six principles". Among other things, Atatürk abolished the Caliphate, closed dervish orders, closed religious schools, banned religious forms of clothing, replaced Shari'a with secular law, and so on and so forth.

These reforms were not just about separating church from state. They were about eliminating large chunks of Islam's social influence in Turkey. There's a good summary of their effects on modern Turkey here:

"Ben Wattenberg: Tell us something of the symbolic fights that Atatürk engendered that continue today. I had no idea of the head scarves, the fez, the western alphabet, that sort of thing. What is that all about?

Stephen Kinzer: Atatürk decided that religion was what was holding Turkey back, and he wanted to break his society away from the clutches of religious power. However, as that ideology is interpreted today, in Turkey it’s considered very suspicious when a woman wears a head scarf. A military officer who prays is likely to be cashiered from the Army. Expressions of religious devotion are considered very suspect. Even the imams in the mosques are supposed to read, in most cases, sermons that are prepared by a central religious directorate in Ankara. This has led many Turks to turn to their state and ask, “Why can’t we feel ourselves full members of the Turkish society and still practice a level of religious devotion as we would be able to practice in, for example, the United States?” And the Turkish State is wrestling with this problem. How do you crush fundamentalism? Do you do it by stamping out every sign of religious belief? Or do you do it by trying to embrace peaceful religious believers, give them a place in your society and not make them choose between their role as citizens of Turkey and believers in the Islamic faith?"

And from the Financial Times:

"Of all the principles that animated the Kemalist revolution, the most enduring, important and misunderstood is the notion of secularism. “Secularism is the most defining element of the establishment of the republic,” says Omer Faruk Genckaya, professor of politics at Bilkent University. “It is a kind of religion in Turkey that is as important as Islam.”

The idea of secularism as religion is a paradox, but it helps to explain the singular notion of what Turkish secularism actually means. In mature democratic countries, the secular system means a strict separation of religion and the state, but absolute freedom to worship and hold religious beliefs. In Turkey, secularism goes further and embraces the French idea of laicism (in Turkish, laiklik). Turks are free to worship; even many senior military officers, who often come from humble rural backgrounds, have more or less complete freedom to be devout Muslims so long as they keep it private.

But for the several million Turks who attend mosque every Friday, the sermons they hear are written and vetted by the Department of Religious Affairs, a state institution. The result is that the Turkish state adopts both a hands-off policy towards religious worship, as would a modern liberal democracy, and a suffocating hands-on policy, fuelled by abiding suspicions of imams as obscurantists and counter-revolutionaries, to keep religion out of the political arena.

Omer Taspinar, an academic and commentator, argued in a newspaper column on Monday that the military’s “midnight declaration” reflects this Jacobin view. The military sees itself as the ultimate guardian of the secular ideal and has never hesitated to intervene when it felt things were going wrong, overthrowing four elected governments since 1960. Mr Taspinar compared the army’s attitude towards imams to the anti-clericalism of the French Third Republic. “In many ways, what France went through then is similar to what the Turkish Republic is going through today,” he wrote."

Any version of secularism that requires that sermons be vetted by a government agency, or that is threatened by women wearing head scarves, is not secularism as Americans would understand that term. It is much closer to the French understanding of that term, the one that gives us endless controversies about whether girls should be allowed to wear head scarves to school. (Of course they should.) In Turkey, one of the most often cited problems with Mr. Gül becoming President is that his wife wears a head scarf. (The Economist wryly adds: "That was deemed to pose an existential threat to the secular republic.")

***

Whatever the merits of Atatürk's views as a solution to Turkey's problems in the 1920s, by now Turkey's continuing worship of him and his views are hindering the country's development. Residual Kemalism is responsible for such things as the laws against insulting Turkishness, under which some of Turkey's best writers and intellectuals have been prosecuted; not to mention such idiocies as Turkey's recent court decision to ban access to YouTube because it has videos that are allegedly insulting to Atatürk. My favorite example of Atatürk-worship run amok is this one from 1997:

"When the publishers of Time magazine decided to name the "100 People of the Century" with a little help from their readers, they could never have guessed the response they've been getting. It seems a quarter million letter, postcard, fax and e-mail submissions a day have been flooding the offices of Time--all in support of one man. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk may not be a household name, but he was the first president of Turkey. Although he died in 1938, he is currently tops in every single one of Time magazine's categories, including: statesmen, adventurers, scientists, entertainers and, of course, Person of the Century. Sadly, the publishers have disallowed ballot-stuffing and have eliminated Ataturk from the running."

Kemal Atatürk: the twentieth century's best scientist, best entertainer, best everything. Who knew?

Atatürk's attempts to make people proud of being Turkish are also responsible for many of Turkey's more idiotic policies towards the Kurds. Turkey denied that it so much as had Kurds for a very long time: the alleged Kurds, according to the government, were just Turks who had gone off into the mountains and gone weird, while their language was just a sort of hillbilly Turkish dialect. (This was funny, since Kurdish, unlike Turkish, is an Indo-European language.) The Kurdish language was banned, leading to such delightful situations as mothers visiting their children in prison but being unable to speak to them without breaking the law. Great big signs saying "Happy Is He Who Can Say: I Am A Turk!" were put up at the entrance to Kurdish cities (and, in that context, 'Turk' is an ethnic term. It's like up putting signs saying: Happy is he who can say: I am white! at the entrance to predominantly black neighborhoods and towns.)

Those are the merely idiotic policies, as opposed to the brutally repressive ones, for which Kemalism also bears responsibility.

It is long past time for Turkey to stop regarding Atatürk as some sort of omniscient mythical hero whose views cannot be questioned, and start regarding him as the person who founded their country, but who was capable of getting things wrong. And part of that is rethinking his views on secularism. The fact that the wife of someone who wants to be President wears a head scarf is her business; it's certainly not grounds for a coup.

The operative question for Turkey should not be: does the AK party challenge any aspect of Atatürk's vision of secularism? It does, but that's not necessarily a problem. It should be: does the AK party seem likely to challenge Turks' freedom of religion or to undermine its democracy? And here the answer seems to be: no. The AK party has been in power for several years. It has done a pretty good job of governing. Here's the Economist's take on their record:

"Mr Erdogan's government has been Turkey's most successful in half a century. After years of macroeconomic instability, growth has been steady and strong, inflation has been controlled and foreign investment has shot up. Even more impressive are the judicial and constitutional reforms that the AK government has pushed through. Corruption remains a blemish, but there is no sign of the government trying to overturn Turkey's secular order. The record amply justifies Mr Erdogan's biggest achievement: to persuade the EU to open membership talks, over 40 years after a much less impressive Turkey first expressed its wish to join"

Here's a column in the Financial Times:

"If the AKP has a hidden agenda, some observers say, it is remarkably well concealed after four years of intense scrutiny. Most of its attempts to promote Islamist causes in parliament have been inept failures, most spectacularly Mr Erdogan’s foolish attempt to introduce legislation that would have made adultery a crime. On each occasion, Turkey’s existing institutions, from the presidency to the constitutional court to parliament to the press, have been strong enough to see off the threats to secularism."

And one in the Washington Post:

"The AKP's opponents say they don't want Turkey turned into another Iran. But it is not clear that the AKP has any intention of doing that. What is clear is that it poses a threat to the power, bureaucratic privileges and economic interests of the secular ruling class, of which a dismaying number are authoritarian ultra-nationalists.

This is not to diminish their concerns about the AKP, whose origins in radical Islam are not a matter of dispute. Erdogan's political mentor was former prime minister Necmettin Erbakan, who came to power promising to "rescue Turkey from the unbelievers of Europe," wrest power from "imperialists and Zionists," and launch a jihad to recapture Jerusalem. But the AKP says it has outgrown these sentiments and is now fully committed to democracy and a looser version of secularism. It swears it does not seek to impose a fundamentalist tyranny.

I would not have believed them before. But I have lived here for the past two years. There have been no public floggings, no amputations of limbs in the public square, no jihad against Zionists and American imperialists. The government has confined its enthusiasm for Islamic law to the most modest of sops to its Islamic base; its most egregious offense has been a desultory attempt to criminalize adultery that was quickly abandoned.

Meanwhile, Istanbul has become visibly more prosperous. In the past year, three Starbucks stores have opened on Istanbul's largest boulevard, which hardly suggests a curtailment of Satan's Western influence, although it does suggest how many Turks can now afford to spend $5 on a cup of coffee. The billboards still feature half-naked women; the transvestites still swish down the streets. New construction is everywhere. Roads have been repaired. Decaying neighborhoods have been gentrified.

The AKP has thrown Turkey open to foreign investment. Last year almost $20 billion rolled in, twice the amount of the previous year. It has deregulated the economy; since the AKP took power, it has grown by a third. It has tamed inflation, stabilized the currency and presided over a jump in per-capita income from $2,598 in 2002 to $5,477 today. The state sector, controlled by the secular bureaucracy, has been reduced. Margaret Thatcher would not have disapproved.

The AKP was in fact elected in large part because previous secular governments had for so long, and so badly, mismanaged the economy -- before the last election, a huge banking scandal wiped out Turkish savings and sparked a complete economic collapse."

If the Turkish military overthrows this government, it will be a tragedy for Turkey, and for the cause of moderate Islam more generally. We should do whatever we can to prevent that from happening.

[UPDATE: G'Kar, in comments, writes: "I disagree with doing 'whatever we can' since that encompasses more than I believe you intended, but I agree that we should do everything in our power in the diplomatic and information spheres to discourage the Turkish military from conducting such a coup, and following through with a severing of most ties should they execute a coup." He's right. That's what I meant. I certainly did not mean that we should, e.g., be prepared to invade if the military has a coup.]

Comments

[G'Kar]

I disagree with doing 'whatever we can' since that encompasses more than I believe you intended, but I agree that we should do everything in our power in the diplomatic and information spheres to discourage the Turkish military from conducting such a coup, and following through with a severing of most ties should they execute a coup.

It's about time the U.S. realized that it has no business telling the rest of the world what governments are or are not acceptable. With the sole exception of governments which actively attack the U.S., the rest of the time the U.S. ought to accept other countries' choices without comment.

[hilzoy]

G'Kar: right you are, and thanks. I will update accordingly.

To me, it's not just that we have no business telling the rest of the world what governments are and are not acceptable (I would leave open the possibility of thinking that some non-democratic governments are not acceptable here -- e.g., Pol Pot.) It's that this particular government is not one we should find unacceptable at all. The development of moderate, democratic Islamic governments that we had nothing to do with is a wonderful thing.

[G'Kar]

hilzoy,

Your main point is dead on. It's just a pet peeve of mine that the U.S. seems to think that we have some kind of right to tell the rest of the world what is or is not acceptable behavior. Granted, governments that egregiously oppress their people should be censured, and we ought to avoid doing business with such governments as much as is reasonably possible, but that kind of thing should be the exception rather than the norm. The U.S. shouldn't be putting itself out as the arbiter of what is or is not 'acceptable' for other nations beyond some very basic points.

[hilzoy]

G'Kar: I completely agree. You'd think we hadn't learned anything from our petite intervention in Iran.

[Steve]

The problem is that taking sides in these internal disputes seems to be counterproductive in most cases. The US has Cheney-like approval ratings in Turkey, and that might be understating the case. If we made statements against the idea of a military coup, we'd probably accomplish nothing other than making the notion more popular.

When we throw our weight around in clumsy ways it invariably comes back to bite us, whether we're talking military action or something else. No one is willing to grant us the moral authority to take this position at this particular moment in time.

[Francis]

I think the headscarf in French schools issue is a little more complicated than you let on.

Things to consider:

1. France has been a virulently racist country in recent memory, largely attributable to the loss of Algiers. While this is slowly changing, the influx of dark-skinned immigrants has led to a flareup of racism. Witness the success of Le Pen.

2. Skin color strongly tends to reflect religion. White people are Catholics (but only weakly so); everyone else is Muslim.

3. The French govt wants to use the schools as a secular melting pot.

4. There is a belief that Muslims are acculturating poorly. A collateral belief is that Muslim families are strongly patriarchal and are suppressing the rights of young women to reject their religious tradition.

5. There is no First Amendment in the French constitution, and ever since the Sun King said "I am the State" the French have believed in a strong central government that is far more intrusive into personal lives than any US equivalent.

6. Many American schools are requiring students to wear a standard uniform, in order to avoid racial, wealth and gang tensions.

In sum, Hilzoy, I think you were way too quick to assert that French schoolgirls have the right to wear headscarves in school.

[spartikus]

Given that membership has been a long sought policy of multiple Turkish governments, the European Union seems to have the most ability to influence Turkey, though they too shouldn't meddle directly.

[hilzoy]

Francis: I don't think they have the right under current law (French law is above my pay grade.) I do think that the government should not be in the business of telling them not to wear headscarves. I know the history of French secularism; I just don't like this particular manifestation of it.

[farmgirl]

Hilzoy -- a sincere question -- I believe the French government forbids other visible manifestations of religion in school, like crosses (on necklaces) and yarmulkes. Do you feel the prohibition on headscarves is in a different category, or do you think the government should stop telling people of ALL religions what not to wear at school?

[tequila]

Farmgirl - The bans on crosses and yarmulkes went into effect at the same time as the ban on headscarves. Everyone knew it for what it was: a transparent "equalizer" slapped onto a bill which was aimed 100% at Muslim girls. If not for the headscarf ban, no one would even have discussed a yarmulke/cross ban.

[farmgirl]

tequila -- ah. I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for clarifying.

[John]

2. Skin color strongly tends to reflect religion. White people are Catholics (but only weakly so); everyone else is Muslim.

Firstly, there's the occasional Jew in France - I believe it has the world's fourth largest Jewish population, about 1% of the total. Secondly, aren't there some Catholic West Africans? Thirdly, there's Christian Arabs - Lebanese, primarily. Fourthly, Arabs aren't usually all that clearly racially distinct from "white people".

As to Turkey, I think part of the issue here is a deeply flawed electoral system in Turkey, where there is a) proportional representation; and b) a very very high threshold to qualify to be represented in parliament. The AK got only 35% of the vote, but they have 65% of the seats in parliament, because only one other party reached the 15% minimum threshold to get seats in parliament. The system is deeply flawed, and it's simply not true that the Islamists represent anywhere near the "popular will" in Turkey.

Not to say that a military coup would be a good thing, of course - it would obviously be terrible. And the whole thing seems weird, given that the issue is the election of an entirely ceremonial president. But I'm not incredibly sympathetic to the AK.

[wonkie]

Kids are not forbidden to wear religious symbols as part of the adoption of a school uniform. I'm pretty sure such a ban would be unconstitutional and I'm very sure that it would be unpopular.

My local public school requires uniforms and Muslim girls just wear scarves that fit in with the uniform (school colors).

[DIG]

Wow. You better not go back to Turkey or you will get in serious trouble for this diatribe against the Ataturk. This post is really quite presumptuous. Who are you to say what kind of system will work in Turkey? Ataturk is the reason that it is possible to have a democratic islamic state. I would trade the possibility of a military coup to support secularism for what we have now in pretty much every single other islamic state.

As for your suggesions for the Turkish people, it clearly has been a long time since you have been in Turkey.

[Anderson]

I would trade the possibility of a military coup to support secularism for what we have now in pretty much every single other islamic state.

This p.o.v., however intemperately expressed by DIG above, seems to be driving a lot of Turks. The NYT reported a bit contemptuously on a pro-secularism rally in Istanbul, whose participants seemed to be deathly afraid of letting the Islamic camel's nose in the tent.

The Turks had a ringside view of the 1979 Iranian revolution, and can be understood for being terrified of its happening to them.

That said, taking the fear too far is just the kind of brittle, inflexible policy that will tend to encourage Islamic extremism and discourage moderation.

[Step2]

Re: Ataturk as a statesman. This does not justify his overbearing tactics, but I think it is much better for countries to have a strong civic faith than a strong religious faith.

"The nation has placed its faith in the precept that all laws should be inspired by actual needs here on Earth as a basic fact of national life." His Church-State separation argument favoring the state as the best means of achieving the common good.

"Our religion does not advise our nation to be worthless, indolent, and inferior." Implicitly suggesting a productive open market society as the defense against corruption and dishonor.

"If our religion was not compatible with logic and wisdom, it would not be perfect and the last religion." An appeal to religious pride to grant science the same status as religion for discovering truth.

Quotes taken from "The Just War" by Peter Temes.

[trilobite]

I can't guess whether Turkey is authentically in danger of a fundamentalist revolution, but it doesn't seem likely that allowing Gul's appointment, or even popular election of the President, would increase the danger significantly.

What this whole mess highlights, to me, is how incredibly explosive Islam is -- without, IMO, a lot of upside. At least the Thirty Years War ended up increasing individualism, toleration, and the prerequisites for capital formation. The worldwide Moslem movement seems to be doing exactly the reverse. In that one respect, Bush has a point, it is reminiscent of the fascist and communist movements: it makes every country that adopts it worse off and more dangerous. You may be right, Anderson and Hilzoy, that repression, whether "secularist," Ba'athist, or monarchial, only makes the problem worse, but I can't much blame the repressors for being terrified.

Time to think outside the box. We need a homegrown Islamic reform movement. If I were in charge of counterterrorism efforts, I'd arrange for a 'black budget' anonymous donation of a billion dollars or so to Irshad Manji and whatever other would-be Reformers of Islam I could find -- and then get the hell out of their way.

[liberal japonicus]

We need a homegrown Islamic reform movement.

The problem is that there have been. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt initially started as a reform movement that, when blocked from legitimate power, became virulent.

Unfortunately, given the climate of fear mongering, it is difficult to imagine that a true liberal reformer type could emerge without being tarred simply for mentioning Islam. I hate to link to this, but here is a typical screed of the genre. Perhaps some of the people listed are really not moderates, though if Daniel Pipes told me the time, I would be compelled to check my watch.

The fact is that 'getting the hell out of the way' will never be an option.

[Nell]

The US "relationship" with Turkey is direct support of the military -- to the degree that they are the fundamental power in the country. If the Turkish military thought there were a chance in hell of being cut off by the U.S., they might be prevented from fomenting a coup.

As a member of NATO and Washington’s ally in the war on terrorism, Turkey is the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid, behind Israel and Egypt. Between 1994 and 2004, it received well over $1.3 billion in FMF [foreign military funding] and another $21.4 million in IMET [military training funds]. Congress granted another $33 million in FMF and $4 million in IMET in 2005. The President’s request for 2006 is more modest-- $25 million in FMF and $3 million in IMET.

[hilzoy]

farmgirl: I think what people wear is their own business, so long as it isn't e.g. nothing at all, or a headdress made of rotating knives, or something of the kind.

DIG: I purposely didn't say much about whether Atatürk was, on balance, good or bad at the time. I didn't want to make that call. I'm much more comfortable saying: by now, in 2007, laws against insulting Turkishness have outlived their usefulness. If this strikes you as a diatribe, so be it.

[novakant]

Since I believe in the idea of laicite (putting it into practice is always a rather dicey matter) rather strongly I have to disagree with hilzoy rather strongly. I do think that religion should be confined to the private sphere and while I admire the de jure separation of church and state in the US, I am appalled by the de facto transgressions that occur in political and civic life on a daily basis. And while I'm all for religious tolerance, we should never forget that it is mainly children and youths who are the target of religious indoctrination. I have read enough literary works of catholics trying to free themselves from the ghosts that have haunted them since early childhood, that I believe quite strongly that at least the schools should be be a place where religion in any shape or form has no place. And while laicite in France might not have been all that free from the hypocrisy of the dominant religion, they did indeed take significant steps to even out the situation (banning all religious symbols on the one hand, recognizing holidays of other religions on the other).

As for Turkey, the military has overreached numerous times in cruel ways, no question, but dismissing Ataturk and the whole turkish secular tradition because of that is simply unfair and dismissing the secular protests against Gul by pointing out that it's only about his wife's headscarf means simply ignoring the very real conflicts that caused them. The secular turkish people, like the 100000 who demonstrated are very much like us: they cringe at the creeping subversion of civil society by religion, they don't want to be told and don't want others to be told by religious zealots what to wear and how to conduct their personal affairs. One can only tell them to put up with this stuff, if one thinks they are in some way markedly different from the commenters on this blog, but they are not.

[jrudkis]

While Istanbul remains very secular, my understanding is that the suburbs and rural areas of Turkey have become very fundamentalist, and that as the farmers move to the city, they are no longer becoming secular, but bringing the fundamentalist views to them (more or less the reverse of the US, where as the cities spread, areas become less religiously fundamental).

[trilobite]

Unfortunately, given the climate of fear mongering, it is difficult to imagine that a true liberal reformer type could emerge without being tarred simply for mentioning Islam.

Well, tarred by whom? I don't really care if our gutter press slanders them, and I doubt they would care either. As your link suggests, there are many liberals eager to embrace a true Moslem moderate, and there must be a few conservatives who neither reflexively support police states nor want all Muslims dead. Of course it's a pipe dream that we would have the kind of long-term realpolitik thinking necessary to foster honest reform in the Muslim world. But if I can't indulge in a pipe dream on ObWi, where can I?

Actually, I can think of one Presidential candidate who might just have the imagination and background to try this idea -- Barack Obama.

[liberal japonicus]

Well, as long as people like Pipes have the ear of the admin, it gives them reason to believe whatever Bandar tells them. There are probably a lot of people more knowledgeable on this than me, but it seems to me that there have been numerous reformist movements within Islam that have ended up threatening the power base of secular strongmen and have been shut down, leading them to be taken over by more and more radical elements. I hasten to add that this is not something unique to Islam, there have been similar patterns with any number of groups.

As for dropping a billion or two on some reformist group, I dunno, as soon as you start back channelling money, some bright spark is going to think quid pro quo.

[nabalzbbfr]

This should serve as an object lesson for democrats and liberals in this country.

[hilzoy]

trilobite: "What this whole mess highlights, to me, is how incredibly explosive Islam is -- without, IMO, a lot of upside."

The thing is, the AK has not actually done anything explosive in Turkey. It has actually been quite moderate.

[grackel]

The Turkish military's interferences in Turkey's governance, referred to above, resulted each time in high inflation and general destabilization of the economy. The military adventurism ended each time just short of collapse. All Turks are aware of this, as is the military; which might mean that there is at least a subtle restraint preventing direct military action (this has been the case for several years). Meanwhile, the recent secularity demonstrations have an aura of the contrived about them and it is difficult to judge anything about the proportion of the poulation that they represent.

[grackel]

The Turkish military's interferences in Turkey's governance, referred to above, resulted each time in high inflation and general destabilization of the economy. The military adventurism ended each time just short of collapse. All Turks are aware of this, as is the military; which might mean that there is at least a subtle restraint preventing direct military action (this has been the case for several years). Meanwhile, the recent secularity demonstrations have an aura of the contrived about them and it is difficult to judge anything about the proportion of the population that they represent.

[Hartmut]

Paradoxically it could even help a moderate Islam reform movement, if it is vilified by the usual suspects (esp. from the right). Open support from the West is usually pure poison to the credibility of any group out there, so maybe the opposite would work.

[novakant]

it is difficult to judge anything about the proportion of the population that they represent

get a grip, please, there were 1 million people demonstrating on the streets, that's a pretty good indication that a sizeable part of the population has a bit of a problem - when was the last time 1 million people took to the strrets in your country?

an aura of the contrived

there's nothing contrived about it at all: they simply don't want to live in a country led by an islamic party, moderate or not, they want a secular state, just as most of us do

[Ara]

A Turkish military coup almost certainly signals an escalation with Kurdish Iraq.

I imagine Turkish minorities don't know which to fear more: the military or the Islamic right.

[Katerina]

When Turkey stops viewing Ataturk as some kind of demi God then we can talk about how modern and forward the country is! Do all of you forget that in the areas of basic human rights and democratic freedoms Turkey is still severely behind the rest of the Western world? Turkey has a long long ways to go because reforms must actually be implemented rather then just having them on paper!