The Old Turks' Revolt

When Radical Secularism Endangers Democracy

Ömer Taspinar

From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2007

Article preview: first 500 of 5,574 words total.

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).

The AKP, a conservative populist movement with Islamic roots, had announced its decision to nominate Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül, a well-respected, jovial politician and the architect of the AKP's ambitious drive to get Turkey into the EU, to the largely ceremonial but prestigious post of president. The media and the business community welcomed the choice as a conciliatory sign; they were relieved that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the more mercurial and polarizing prime minister, would not be running. But the staunchly secularist military and the Republican People's Party (known as the CHP), a center-left opposition party, were not happy. To them, the presidency was the last bastion of secularism, and Gül, who once flirted with political Islam and whose wife wears a headscarf, posed an existential threat to the republic.

The CHP, along with other parties, boycotted the first round of the parliamentary election, held on April 27, and the vote proved inconclusive. There was little doubt that the AKP would eventually prevail, however, since in a third round, if it came to that, a simple majority would do. But that day, the CHP also challenged the whole process before the constitutional court, asking that the election be annulled on the dubious grounds that the legislature had lacked the necessary two-thirds quorum to vote. That night, all eyes were therefore on the court. And just as television pundits were debating how long it would take to issue a decision, sudden news from the military struck the country like lightning.

The generals had just staged the country's first "e-coup," as a dumbfounded Turkish press called it, by posting on the Turkish military's official Web site a warning that "if necessary, the Turkish Armed Forces will not hesitate to make their position and stance abundantly clear as the absolute defenders of secularism." Given Turkey's history -- the country has known four military interventions since 1960 -- the note was a thinly veiled threat that a more conventional coup might be in the offing.

The next day, the AKP condemned the military's attempt to influence the judiciary, but within 48 hours, the constitutional court decided that parliament did lack the quorum needed to hold elections for president. A coup was avoided, and a semblance of democracy maintained. With parliament now unable to select anyone at all, early general elections were called for July 22. Turkey was on edge during the following three months. Political polarization over the country's deeply rooted identity problems worsened amid concerns that the military might once again step in. Millions took to the streets in anti-AKP demonstrations, some orchestrated by retired generals. But Prime Minister Erdogan refused to be intimidated. During his campaign, he appealed to ...

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