CIAO DATE: 02/05/08
Foreign Affairs
The Old Turks' Revolt: When Radical Secularism Endangers Democracy
Ömer Taspinar
Abstract
Summary: The ruckus over the election of a religious conservative as Turkey's president has exposed the illiberal nature of Turkish secularism -- as well as the pragmatism of the country's reformed Islamists. Preserving democracy in Turkey by keeping the military out of politics will be a tall order, but the future of the Muslim world's most promising democratic experiment is at stake.ÖMER TASPINAR is Professor of National Security Strategy at the U.S. National War College and a Fellow at the Brookings Institution. The views expressed here are his own.
Countries eyeing membership in the European Union do not usually come to the brink of a military coup. Yet that is precisely where Turkey found itself on April 27 of this year, after weeks of a pitched battle between the country's generals and the ruling Justice and Development Party (known as the AKP)....