‘Military laicism quite different from Atatürk's laicism'

Turkey's only Nobel laureate, author Orhan Pamuk, has stated that the understanding of laicism held by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, was very different from that of the military today.

Speaking to the Russian periodical Timeout Moscow ahead of a visit to the Russian capital planned for Aug. 27, Pamuk shared his opinion on various issues in Turkey. In an interview published under the headline “I am trying to explain Turkey to Turks,” Pamuk emphasized that his main target is the Turkish audience and not foreigners.

Read the whole story on Today's Zamam

Will the commander resign?

Well, that's what I call a piece of news!

After the attack on the Aktütün military outpost on Oct. 3, killing 17 soldiers, something new has happened; for the first time people are openly starting to question the General Staff.

See the full story on Today's Zaman.

Fulya Atacan: “The military say the State should not use religion, but they did it first"

(Published also on GroundReport)

Black, long hair and an open smile that often turns ironic. I meet Fulya Atacan on a hot summer day, at the beginning of August, in the Cihangir branch of the famous Kaktüs Café. The music is quite loud, and her voice is not, but my dictaphone luckily succeeds in recording it without too much back noise.

Fulya Atacan is Professor at the Department of Social Science and International Relations at Yildiz Technical University. I have contacted her because I was told she is “an expert of Islam”. She denies it, and explains: “I have worked with Islamic groups since the end of the 1980s. I did my PhD about one of the Sufi orders in Istanbul and then I worked with one of the radical Islamic groups in Germany. I also worked with a Sufi order, the Nakshibendi order in the Eastern part of Anatolia. I studied Political Science and then I did my PhD on Sociology, so I studied social sciences through different sources, but I'm not an expert of Islam”.

She's evidently expert enough, and she has that peculiar social insight I just need. I'm surely not interested in the theological aspects of Islam. She isn't either, anyway.

How do you interpret what's happening now in Turkey?

I'm sure that Turkey is a more secular State compared to 20 years ago. If you see secularism as a kind of process in which the effect of religion is decreasing in respect to economics, in respect to social life, in respect to science, it's true that Turkey is more secular than 20 years ago. But – you know – secularism means also changes of the main components of society. Turkey was a kind of agricultural society at the beginning of the 20^th century. And only less than 20 percent of the population were living in big cities. Today 30 percent of the population is living in the agricultural area and 70 percent of the population is living in the big cities. This means that people are earning their lives not from agriculture but from industry, services, and so on. So this main change in society has also an effect on religion. Of course we cannot expect to see religion to remain unchanged. It has also changed. But we are witnessing today that religion is earning a new place in a new society.

So we are trying to get used to this new situation, and that's why some people are very upset to see how religion is getting organized. But it's normal. You know, if society is getting “evolved”, let's say, well organised, religion also will get its organization: associations, political parties... now we have all these things, and that's why people are getting a bit anxious about this change. But I don't think this change is making society more religious.

In the past they claimed that the human being cannot be represented. That's why we don't have the art of painting in Islamic society, and that's why there was a big debate at the beginning of the 20^th century. But today even the most religious Muslim has no trouble with taking pictures. It's out of question now.

Letting women have secular education, or even religious education, was unthinkable at the beginning of the century. Today all religious women want to have better education in science, engineering, arts. And nobody discusses that.

So in that sense Turkey is more secular than at the beginning of the 20^th century. But it's a new kind of existence of religion, so we are trying to get used to it, that's why it will take some time.

The issue of AKP is a little different question, because AKP is a political party. Yes, it's based on Islamic groups, no doubt about that; yes, it comes from Islamic tradition, no doubt about that; and many people are very religious in the party. But it's also a very modern organization. They want to stay in power, so they don't discuss certain issues which would be totally against the existence of the Turkish republic. AKP never thinks of changing the political system. Nobody in Turkey thinks that AKP would dissolve the parliament. Do we have this kind of fear? No. We know that AKP is a political party, it's acting according to the rules of the Turkish Republic...

Some people think they have a second-hidden agenda...

They are in power. Since 2002. So, that makes six years. No doubt that they are religious. They have faith in Islam, they want to see more conservative ways of life. But any conservative party in Turkey tries to do that. These are more conservative than them, but it doesn't mean they want to change the system, or that they want to run the country according to sharia. Because they have also changed. You know who was Recep Tayyip Erdogan? He came from a rural background, and moved to Istanbul, close to Taksim, he grew up there. He went to a religious school, and then he graduated and he became part of this political movement. Now, what about his sons and daughters? They got their education in Turkey first, and then they went to the United States. They got secular education, not religious education... I mean, they had religious education, and then they went to United States, do you expect them to become really fundamentalists like Bin Laden? They are becoming part of the ruling elite, although they have some problems. In two or three generations they will definitely be part of it, so what do you expect of him? To go against this system? To be part of – let's say – Saudi Arabia? Unthinkable. OK, some secular people do not like their style, but what don't they like? Their headscarves. They are religious images. OK, you may not like it, but it doesn't necessarily mean that these people are trying to establish a sharia State in Turkey.

On the other hand, right now in parliament, except for Kurds, in a way or another they are all conservatives...

I agree. That's why I think there is no need really to blame this party to try to establish a sharia State in Turkey. But behind all these discussions it's clear that there is a kind of tension and conflict between this conservative or religious ruling elite and the old establishment. You know, the army always considered itself as a kind of guardian of the Republican values. That's history. And the army establishment has big doubts about AKP. They believe that they are so religious that they are trying to undermine the secular State. And AKP failed to develop good relationships with the army.

On the other hand they have some problems with big industrialists. You know, these industrialists are very powerful, and they supported AKP, because these industrialists want to be part of the European Union, because they want to be part of the global market, so they believe this is the best situation for Turkey, so they supported AKP as long as AKP followed these rules, but it doesn't mean that they like AKP. Because these two “friends” or these two segments of society do not have many things in common. They did not go to the same schools, they did not get the same type of education, they did not grow up in the same environment. They are different. And the AKP government is mainly based on medium-size and small-size company owners, who support AKP. And these entrepreneurs see the European Union as a kind of way ahead of their economic improvement. They also support AKP. These new aggressive entrepreneurs want to be part of an elite. So AKP is representing more than Islam.

It seems in Turkey more and more women are wearing the Muslim headscarf. How do you interpret this tendency? Is it more religious or more political?

Maybe we should look at two different levels. The first level is very closely related with social change. As I said before, people in the agricultural, rural areas arrived in the big cities after the 1960s, then they maintained here things like covering their heads. But the people of the second generation did not like this traditional headscarf, because it shows your rural background. A new style of covering your head shows you belong to the city. So people are not very religious. They want to cover their heads, but they don't prefer this old style, which shows your rural background. They preferred headscarves, that we call türban. So in that sense it has nothing to do with religion.

On the second level, the political one, particularly after the 1980s, in universities some young female students intentionally decided to wear headscarves as a declaration of their identity. They said they were religious, they were Islamists and they wanted to use headscarves as a symbol of their identity. That's understandable. I mean, identity politics has its kind of symbols. We had some female students but the number was small. In the '90s the Islamic movement, as a political movement, becomes important and the number of the female students has grown. And today there are some female students who say: this is my identity, so I will cover my head and I must have the right to get into public places with my headscarf. That's understandable as well. Because it's partly political, because it's identity politics, but partly it's because of social change.

Actually we have now about the same number of covered female people as – say – 20 years ago. But they were not in Taksim, that's why we didn't see them. They were living in the slums. Then they got better education, they grew up in social life, so they don't want to go back, they want to sit in the cafés in Beyoğlu. We believed that this had something to do with slums and we never thought that a covered woman could sit in a café like this, so when we saw a covered woman in a place like this we were surprised. But, you know, they earn the same money as we do, they want to enjoy life as we do, but they prefer a kind of Islamic lifestyle.

What frightens people most seems to be just the fact that the headscarf is used as a symbol.

If we talk about identity politics you cannot ignore symbols. Let's look at the Kurdish movement: don't they have symbols? Of course they have. Because it's also a kind of personal identity, to show other people that I am Kurdish. This is exactly the same. I am religious, but it doesn't necessarily mean that this identity politics will create a deadly conflict.

Things are changing every day. We didn't have this kind of discussions – let's say – in the 1960s or 80s, but in 2000 we have different discussions. Nobody imagined we would have an Islamic party in power in Turkey. Since 2002 we have one. Do we have a big trouble with that? No. Okay, some segments of society have a big trouble with this government, like any governments. But mostly, no. We know that if there is an election, if there is a good opposition, then they will lose the elections. So it was unimaginable 15 years ago, it is imaginable and it is not a big deal now. In the coming years we will see what will happen. But I don't think that Turkey will become more sharia-based.

Another aspect of the problem is that many people in the West see the headscarf as a sign of oppression.

Not necessarily. In one respect it's true. You know, if you grow up in a very religious family, you don't have a right to choose. You grow up with headscarves, and that's your way of living. So, as long as you don't have a right to choose, it is oppression. But on the other hand, there are some religious women with headscarves, they use their headscarf as a kind of way out. You know, they go out of the house because they have Islamic duties to do, they are out of the house for eight hours a day, they are writing on Islamic newspapers, they are organising women non governmental organisations, they develop their skills in politics... So they also use the headscarf or the Islamic identity as a kind of means to emancipate from traditional female roles. It happens in the same quarter, let's say. On the one hand people are using the headscarf because they don't have another choice, but on the other hand some people use headscarves to become part of the public field, to try to find their way out of home, to be professional, to develop their political skills, to be political leaders... So, I cannot say that the headscarf is necessarily oppressive. In some cases, it is, but not always.

So, nothing is black and white, it's more complicated than it seems.

Islam has also been used as a tool in order to excite nationalist feelings...

That's true. I think that's the main problem. Particularly after 1980 and the coup d'etat, military governments saw that Turkey was divided and was heading towards a communist system, so it was better to keep society consolidated using religion as a kind of glue. Of course Islam has always been used by politicians, but for the first time they officially adopted a kind of State ideology called Turkish-Islamic Synthesis. They believed that Islam could be used as a kind of glue in this divided society, and Islam is also against communism. But this Islam had to be in the framework of the Turkish nation, they institutionalised it. They used it as a State ideology. Of course, it was established by the military. And there have been politicians - Motherland Party, True Path Party... - who also supported this ideology.

They believe that Kurdish separatism and Islamic fundamentalism are the main threats against the Turkish republic. So, what does it mean, once again? The military has stated that Islam should not be used by the State, but it's not easy to change it in a minute, and now nobody has a right to be surprised that AKP is using Islam in a nationalist framework.

You know, 90 percent of the population is being raised in it, because they changed the rules in primary and secondary schools after the 1980 military coup d'etat, and they taught this young generation the Turkish ideology called Turkish-Islamic Synthesis: we are good Muslims, but we are Turks, they made nationalism kind of supported by religion. So what do you expect? And nobody is trying to change it. No, of course there are some who are trying to change it, but they are a minority. That's the main problem, I believe. More important than AKP.

Now with the European Union secularists are really happy with that, they say “You cannot teach religion at school”, and the Islamists and the more conservatives say “Yes, let's make it optional”. But the problem is that it's the military government that made religious education compulsory in primary and secondary schools after 1980. Before that, it was optional in Turkey. And now nobody wants to change it. And the Erdoğan government once said that this will be compulsory but it will talk of history of religious faiths, and then another course, which is optional, will talk about Islam. And I think it's crazy, because nobody is teaching history of faiths on earth in these classes. They'll teach Islam, no doubt about that. So we will have not one, but two courses!

Actually they do not want to change this compulsory course. You know, Alevis went to the European Court of Human Rights saying that the State make them learn Sunni Islam. They are completely right. So they are against it, they don't want their children to attend these courses. And of course, they won the case, so they'll have to change the system. But nobody's doing anything.

During my education this course was optional. The State had to provide you with that course, but it was optional. And I had no trouble to say “No, I do not want it”. And after 1980 it has become compulsory. But who's going now to blame for that AKP? They did it. That's the problem, that's why we have this problem. We didn't have it 50 years ago. But now we have it.

So can we say that Turkey is a secular country? Even if religion is used by the State?

It is. I mean, if we look at the history of Italy, you know how religion is used. If you consider secularism as a kind of change in the main orientation of society, it is secular. In the political round it's a different case. You know it has begun to be used as a tool in politics. But this tool is not the base of politics. It's just a tool. The military government definitely didn't define itself as Islamist. There is no intention, it was one of the tools that can be used, so is it against secularism? It is politics. Of course it makes society more conservative. Of course they were successful in curbing the power of the leftist groups, no doubt about that. But it was a tool. They did not envision a kind of more sharia-based State.

Even for tolerant people, there are disturbing aspects in some Muslim practices, such as women separated from men during the prayer...

Of course. You know, that's a big problem. If you are a very committed Muslim, you accept certain rules in Islam which make you a second-class citizen, no doubt about that. And it's the problem these Islamist women are facing now: they realize that they have education, they have better skills than men, they can be part of this society, so they do not have to accept the authority of men, and they have started questioning Islamic tradition in respect to women's position in society, in family, all these things. Of course this is not a kind of mass movement, but it's clear that it's a process, and many Islamist women won't say openly they are feminists, because you know, feminism is a kind of “bad word”. But in private they will say: I must admit that feminists have a good point in that.

All these women have to question, this is the most important process. We might have a kind of liberation theology or feminist theology in Islam, but it's in the process. It has just started, we don't know, it might be developed, they're questioning the traditional role of women in classical Islamic writings, and in that tradition it's a big step for these women, and it's reality now. You can find some Islamist female writers: they won't accept any male authority! They are very self-confident, they know what they want, they want to question it, so it's a kind of start. We cannot assume that everything is changing and only religion remains unchanged. It is also changing. You cannot expect these female lawyers, engineers, doctors or writers to remain quiet against patriarchy. We cannot imagine - let's say - 50 years ago an Islamist woman using the concept of patriarchy. But today it's part of their vocabulary.

So, yes, women are treated as second-class in that tradition, but it doesn't mean that it is remaining like that. It is changing. And most of the women in Turkey, because they grow up in a secular State, in a secular law, they don't accept second wives very easily. Traditionally we have second wives, you know, in the Eastern part of Anatolia men are married and then they can have a second wife. It's not legal, but they may have them. But most of the educated Islamist women never experienced Islamic law in Turkey, and they say: why do I have to accept a second wife? Yes, Quran says they may have it, tradition says they may have it, but there are very difficult conditions which cannot be fulfilled by any man. So, they are questioning their experiences with men. This is the most important opening point for these women. I think Islamist men will have big troubles with this kind of women in the next future.

How are men reacting to this?

They don't like it. But once they started questioning, there's no way back. You know, Islamist men supported women to go to demonstrations, to work for Islam, to sell newspapers, they had women to be out of their houses, and once they are out, it's very difficult to put them back in. It's a kind of irony that they forced women to go out to propagandate Islam, but they want women to stay at home.

See also:

• Who's afraid of Islam? Not youth! (Turkish Daily News)
• Religiosity in decline (Today's Zaman)
  
• Boğaziçi is Turkey (Today's Zaman)
  

Turkey appoints new military chief

From Al Jazeera:

Turkey has selected a secularist general and strong advocate of Nato as the country's next military commander.

General Ilker Basbug, 65, will replace the current army chief, General Yasar Buyukanit at the end of August, the army announced in a statement on Monday.

(...)

Seen by Turks to be a hawkish general who is likely to avoid open confrontation with the governing AK party, Basbug's approach differs from that of his predecessor, who often clashed publicly with the government.

"Unlike the often impulsive incumbent ... Buyukanit, Basbug is known for his cool and calculating nature," Wolfango Piccoli, an analyst at political risk think-tank Eurasia Group, said.

"The result will be less likelihood of abrupt escalations in civil-military tension, but at the same time more effective political pressure from the military."

Basbug is regarded as one of the most outstanding officers of his generation, combining a strong intellect with a deep commitment to Turkish secularist, Piccoli said.

"He will occupy the post for the next two years, and is likely to prove a formidable opponent for the AK party," he said.

See the rest of it on Al Jazeera

See also the Herald Tribune

Turkey crisis: Hopes of democracy are hanging in the balance

From the Observer

It is too soon to know how the battle between the AKP and the secular establishment will play itself out, but, while we wait, spare a thought for Turkey's beleaguered democrats.

They include the scholars who have questioned the very foundations of official history, the lawyers who have challenged its infamous penal code, the writers, journalists, translators and publishers who have refused to be intimidated by that code, the nationwide alliances of feminist and human rights activists, and the musicians and memoirists who defy official ideology by celebrating their multicultural roots.

I could go on. These are loose-knit networks: though many go back several decades, it was when EU accession began to look like a real possibility, in the mid to late 1990s, that they came into their own. What they saw in the EU bid was a chance for a bloodless revolution - a measured reform of its repressive state bureaucracies, a democratic resolution of the Kurdish problem, and an end to what polite political scientists call tutelary democracy.

In the Turkish context, they mean a democracy in which the army has the last word, involving itself in the day-to-day running of government and stepping in to shut it down whenever it deems it to have strayed from the righteous path.

Read the full story

US refuses engine production in Turkey for attack choppers

The US administration has turned down an Italian request for the transfer of technology for US T800 engines to pave the way for their production in Turkey and to be mounted on Turkish attack helicopters intended to be co-produced with Italian Agusta Westland.

Unlike an earlier statement made by Undersecretary Murad Bayar of the Undersecretariat for the Defense Industry (SSM) to daily Hürriyet that the Italians had ensured that an export license for production of T800 engines in Turkey at Tusas Engine Industries Inc. (TEI) facilities, local sources close to the project told Today's Zaman that the US has only agreed to extend technical assistance support for the engines, not their production in Turkey.

The engines to be mounted on Turkey’s attack helicopter play an important role in the project since it would increase the efficiency of the helicopters in line with the request made by the Turkish Land Forces Command.

The US refused to sign a manufacturing license agreement (MLA) with Italy for the LH Tech T800 engines but agreed to sign a technical assistance agreement (TAA) that envisages technical support to be given for the engines to be fitted on Turkish attack helicopters, said the same sources.

The SSM and Italian manufacturer Agusta Westland signed an agreement in September of last year for the co-production of 51 A129 attack and tactical reconnaissance helicopters at the Tusaş Aerospace Industries (TAI) facilities in Ankara. The project, worth around $2.7 billion, is codenamed T-129.

The project involves local production of software source codes and hardware as well as the integration of high-technology avionics on the helicopters. But due to delays in both export license approval by the US, as well as the Italian government’s late approval of its company transferring the necessary technology for the production of helicopters in Turkey, the project has not yet begun.

The SSM, believing that the latest technical hurdles have been overcome, plans to make the project effective in the first half of April, soon after the planned meeting of the SSM Executive Committee on April 9, during which the procurement of some arms projects will be decided.

More on Today's Zaman

What's really happening in Turkey?

The recent events in Turkey seem to have stirred many people's curiosity. Friends and colleagues keep asking me questions such as: "Are all these demonstrations real or is it just the media?" or "Is AKP really an Islamist party?" or "Why is the current president opposing the constitutional reform?" and so on.

So, I think it's time for me to give you some insight, with a selection of articles and analyses I have found on the web.

Concerning the cohabitation between secularism and Islam in Turkey, I find this article most illuminating:

KONYA, Turkey: In the not too distant past here in Turkey's religious heartland, women would not appear in public unless they were modestly dressed; a single woman was not able to rent an apartment on her own, and the mayor proposed restoring a segregation of the city's buses by sex.

Fears of those kinds of restrictions have led thousands of Turks to march in many cities over the past month, inflamed by secularist politicians. A political party with a past in Islamic politics, led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has tried to capture the country's highest secular post. Once it succeeds, their argument goes, Turkey will be dragged back to an earlier era when Islam ran the state.

But here in Konya, a leafy city on the plains of central Turkey, the rule of Erdogan's party has done no such thing. In the paradox of modern Turkey, the party here has had a moderating influence, helping to open a guarded society and make it more flexible.

Full article (Source: Herald Tribune)

And what is going on between the government and the military? A "war of nerves" according to the Lebanese Daily Star, which explains:

(...) these tensions have heightened as a result of changes in the top echelons of the Turkish armed forces, particularly the replacement last August of General Hilmi Ozkok as chief of the Turkish General Staff. Ozkok was a moderate who maintained a low profile and sought to develop good working relations with Erdogan. By contrast, his successor, General Yasar Buyukanit, is a strong secularist who has been far more outspoken in asserting the military's views.

Full article

As for the constitutional reform, even the judiciary, whose independence from the power has been reasserted by the decision to invalidate the first presidential vote, does not consider it a threat:

Tülay Tuğcu, Chief Justice of the Turkish Supreme Court, said that parliament-approved changes to the constitution that would allow Turks to elect their president by popular vote do not mean a “regime change in Turkey.”

Full article (Source: Hürriyet)

But there is a category of people who see themselves threatened by one of the reforms: the Kurds, as explains in detail France Presse:

The bill, which needs the approval of President Ahmet Necdet Sezer to come into force, amends a constitutional provision relating to independent candidates.

It was passed a day after the DTP decided to field independents rather than run as a party in the July 22 election to bypass the 10-percent national threshold that allows parties access to parliament.

Once they are voted in as independents, the Kurdish deputies can regroup under the DTP banner.

Under the bill, the names of independent candidates will figure on the same ballot paper as all the parties in the running, contrary to current practice under which their names appear on separate voting slips.

The measure is widely seen as a bid to obstruct voters in the mainly Kurdish southeast, where many are illiterate or do not speak Turkish, and are likely to have trouble picking their candidate's name from the long list of parties and other independents.

Many Kurds have become legislators in Turkey as members of mainstream parties, but pro-Kurdish movements failed to overcome the 10-percent national threshold despite usually dominating in the southeast, where they traditionally win the local elections.

Full article (Source: Kurdish Aspect)

But why do secularists oppose the reform? The answer is in Southeast European Times:

Outgoing President Ahmet Necdet Sezer is a staunch secularist. Over the past five years, he has played an important role in striking a balance between the country's fiercely secular military and the Islamic-rooted government. Sezer vetoed several bills on the grounds that they violated the principle of secularism, and he also vetoed the appointments of at least 350 Islamist-leaning officials to key positions.

Turkey's political system is a parliamentary democracy, with power vested mainly in the government. But the president can veto laws after their initial adoption by Parliament, and then has the right to file an appeal to the Constitutional Court against legislation he opposes. He also appoints governors, ambassadors, police chiefs, ministry department heads and their deputies, senior judges, members of Higher Education Board, university rectors, and the head of the central bank. He is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Turkey's military, courts and universities are traditional bastions of secularism.

Given this significant role of the president, the reaction to Gul's candidacy is not surprising. The AKP already controls parliament and the government. If it won the presidency, the party would hold all the key branches of power. Turkey would, practically speaking, be under one-party rule. Secularists have not welcomed the idea of directly electing the president, seeing the AKP's move as another threat to checks and balances. The influential business association TUSIAD warns that such changes should only be introduced following general elections, after comprehensive discussion and consensus among all the parties.

Full article

Finally, if you are interested in the Arab perspective of the issue, I suggest you to have a look at the Financial Times.

In Turkey, Fear About Religious Lifestyle

From the New York Times:

When hundreds of thousands of protesters filled the streets of Istanbul on Sunday, it may have looked like a protest of government policy.

It was not.

Behind the slogans and signs of marchers in Istanbul on Sunday and in Ankara two weeks ago was something much more basic: a fear of the lifestyles of their more religious compatriots.

Some concerns were snobbish: religious Turks were uneducated and poor, their pesky prayer rugs got underfoot in hospital halls.

Others were less elitist and had more personal worries: how much tolerance for our secular lifestyles will an emerging class of religious Turks have?

“These people are from poor areas; they just don’t know what the government stands for,” said Aysel Tuikman, 39, a civil servant wearing a skirt, a sweater, beige pumps and pearls. “They’re only being manipulated. We are here for their good also.”

“People here are the real Turkey,” she said, waving a flag high above her head.

It is an emotional reaction to a relatively new layering of society that began 20 years ago but has accelerated recently. A massive migration from rural areas to Turkey’s cities and a large-scale economic boom have drawn an entirely new class of religious Turks from the country’s heartland into the life of its secular cities.

The class is represented by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is challenging the secular elite, forcing a presidential candidate upon them whom they find completely distasteful.

On Friday, the military gave him a warning. It has ousted four elected governments since 1960, and seemed to be considering whether to make Mr. Erdogan’s the fifth. On Sunday, Mr. Erdogan gave a warning of his own: He will continue to push his candidate, an action that will probably lead to early national elections.

Secular Turks fear that Mr. Erdogan has a secret agenda to impose Islamic law on Turkey and that his party’s move to secure the presidency, the highest seat of secularism in Turkey, is one of the final steps needed to start that process.

Mr. Erdogan, for his part, came from Turkey’s political Islamic movements of the 1990s, but he broke with them and formed his own, which swept national elections in 2002. He has said that he would keep religion out of policy decisions, and for the most part, he has.

But for the protesters on Sunday, that was not enough.

Full story

See also:

• Constitution Court discusses the report (Sabah)
  
• Civil initiatives protest military’s statement, remember past coups (Today's Zaman)
• Turkey faces a democracy test (Turkish Daily News)
• Turkey seeks a way out of crisis in the generals' shadow (m&c)
• US urges Turk reconciliation on basis of democracy, secularism, constitution (Turkish Daily News)
• Dialogue with 'Opportunists' (Dar Al-Hayat)
• Turkey will be just fine (Turkish Daily News)
• The post-April 27 -- the Emergence of a Two-Turkey (Turkish Daily News)
• The Turkish military intervenes: Will the West lose Turkey? (The Journal of Turkish Weekly)