TURKISH VOTE PITS SECULAR VALUES AGAINST RETURN TO ISLAMIC ROOTS
by Matthew Fisher, CanWest News Service

The Halifax Daily News (Nova Scotia)
July 22, 2007 Sunday

Turks voting in parliamentary elections today are focused on issues
such as how to keep the vibrant economy racing ahead, preventing the
rise of Kurdish power in northern Iraq from spilling over into Turkey’s
Kurdish areas, and whether to continue trying to win membership in
the European Union.

But the most emotive issue by far is whether this country of 70
million, which forms a bridge between the Middle East and Europe,
should remain secular and western-oriented, as it has been since Kemal
Ataturk founded the republic on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire more
than 80 years ago, or draw closer to its Islamist roots.

And if Turkey decides to turn towards Islam, will the staunchly
secular Turkish military launch another coup?

Didem Mercan plans to vote for the Republican People’s Party, which
was founded by Ataturk, because she fears the Islamist connections
of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

She worries that, if the AKP wins a second majority in parliament,
it could force women to wear headscarves. Clad in blue jeans and a
summery blouse, her fingernails painted bright red, the 23-year old
communications student is a walking advertisement for her belief that
"religion should have no place in my personal life, and I am prepared
to fight for that right."

Mesut Topcu, on the other hand, said he intends to vote for the AKP
because, since it won power in November 2002, the authorities have
stopped hassling men in the deeply conservative Istanbul suburb of
Fatih about wearing the skullcaps, baggy trousers and long beards of
pious Muslims.

Topcu, an electrical engineer, was unequivocal about the value of
headscarves, which remain banned in schools and government offices
but are commonly worn by women in Fatih.

The public expression of such sharp differences in opinion is
relatively new in Turkey, but the debate is actually many centuries
old.

The country’s population is about 98 per cent Muslim, but its history
has been profoundly influenced by geography. In the northwest and
northeast, Turkey is bordered by Christian Greece, Bulgaria, Georgia
and Armenia, while in the east and south, it sits alongside Muslim
Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city
with a population of 12 million, has always felt the pull of east
and west particularly keenly. Constantinople, as it was called until
77 years ago, is home to spectacular mosques and minarets as well as
the Orthodox Church’s oldest patriarchate.

Although he was Muslim, Ataturk replaced sharia law with a Swiss-style
legal system. Women were given the vote, veils were banned and drinking
alcohol was permitted. Many secularists are convinced some of those
changes are now at risk if the government of Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan wins another parliamentary majority.

Egeman Bargis, an AKP deputy and Erdogan’s chief foreign policy
adviser, did not hide his contempt for such views. "This is not a
difference of opinion between Islamists and secularists," he said.

"It is a difference of opinion between those who want more democracy
or less. The opposition has tried at every chance to create tension."

Although some of the AKP’s most prominent members have Islamist ties,
the party has not spoken much about religion since it emerged as a
grassroots movement a few years ago. It has positioned itself on the
centre-right and concentrated, with considerable success, on pursuing
internationalist economic policies. Turkey’s GDP has risen more than
seven per cent per year since 2003, per-capita income has more than
doubled, and inflation has been reduced to single digits for the
first time in decades.

But the AKP crossed a line with the military when it proposed Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul, a practising Muslim whose wife covers her head,
as its choice for president. The military derailed the plan last
April by posting on its website a warning about a "growing threat"
to Turkey’s secular practices. Erdogan’s response was to seek a new
mandate by calling early elections.

There are indications that the military may have misjudged the public
mood. Polls suggest that the AKP’s share of the vote will increase to
more than 40 per cent from 34, largely because of a backlash against
the military’s stance.

Paradoxically, though, although the prime minister’s party is more
popular than ever in religiously conservative rural areas, and is
gaining support in urban areas because of its economic policies,
the AKP may actually win fewer seats. That’s because of an awkward
electoral system that only allows parties with more than 10 per cent
of the vote to have representation in the 550-seat parliament.