Turkey is facing a major crisis between its history of secular (non-religious) government, and the aspirations of the current ruling political party. Many urban Turks support the continuation of the secular political culture, while many rural Turks, who are generally more religious, favor laws and policies that reflect a religious outlook on life and politics. Many nations deal with similar issues through debates and elections, but Turkey is unique: a Muslim, pro-Western democracy which belongs to NATO and is currently seeking admission to the European Union (EU). It also has a history of the military stepping in to preserve the status quo.
Four times since the founding of the Turkish Republic in the 1920s, the military has stepped in to effect a change in government. Now, in the spring of 2007, tensions in Turkey are mounting as military leaders are once again issuing warnings to the government of the ruling conservative Justice and Development Party (AK Party) . Massive street protests by hundreds of thousands of urban secular Turks protesting the perceived religious bias of the ruling party, but also hoping that a new coup does not occur.
A leftist May Day protest turned violent this year, with hundreds of protesters injured and hundreds arrested. The violence of the police response is indicative of the tensions in Turkey. The ruling AK party is also trying to change the constitution to allow for a more powerful, popularly elected president. The president is currently elected by the parliament. Secularists fear that this change would make it easier for a religious Islamist candidate to become president, and would also give him more authority to change laws and policies related to education and other issues that secularists and religious conservatives differ on.
Turkey is a member of NATO, and is a steadfast ally of the United States, (and, oddly, for a Muslim country, an ally of Israel). A military coup could lead to violence, or even to a civil war. A similar situation existed in Algeria in the early 1990s, when the military there overturned the results of an election won by an Islamist party. The result of that coup was a long civil war that claimed at least 200,000 lives. With the current war in neighboring Iraq, it is not hard to see a very bad situation if al-Qaida or other radical Islamist groups were to gain a foothold in a Turkey racked by civil war or some other sort of underground Islamist resistance to military rule.
A coup in Turkey, in the current political climate in the Middle East, could lead to a disastrous situation for the entire region. And, don’t forget, when we talk about "the entire region" in relation to this country, part of Turkey is also located in the Balkan region of Europe.
The History Guy: Military Coups in Turkey (1960-1997)
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2007/05/02/turkish_violence_marks_may_day/
Yikes
August 29, 2007 at 12:46 am
Man that’s weird.. the army steps in, makes some changes, and then steps out? What keeps it from taking over completely? And how does it maintain its secular desires?