Turkish Conviction

On April 27, the army’s general staff posted a memo on its website hinting it might step in, as it has four times in the past, to make sure that religion and politics are kept at arm’s length. “It should not be forgotten that the Turkish armed forces takes sides in these debates and is the absolute defender of secularism,” the memo read. “When necessary they will display their attitudes and actions very clearly.” Critics of the military have called that a “cyber coup.”

A few days later, Turkey’s constitutional court annulled the first round of parliamentary voting for the president on procedural grounds. Turkey’s judges worry that an increasingly Islamist government would threaten judicial independence, and would seek to replace civil law with sharia, Islamic law.

Erdogan has called for new parliamentary elections in July. The mass demonstrations of recent days have highlighted the intensity of those who oppose him and the AKP. The demonstrators have been peaceful — and courageous. A bomb set off in Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city, killed one person and injured more than a dozen. But more than a million people were in the streets the following day, including at least as many women as men.

Surprisingly — or perhaps not — much elite European and American opinion has sided with the Islamists and against the secularists. The Economist magazine, for example, recently ran an editorial saying that “if Turks have to choose, democracy is more important than secularism.”

A thought experiment: If a majority of Americans voted for Christian fundamentalist politicians determined to dismantle the wall between church and state, would the Economist be equally supportive of their democratic mandate? If not, why the very different standard when the religion intruding into the political sphere is Islam?


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