Conflict over Turkey’s national identity has simmered since Ataturk, an army officer in World War I, founded the republic and abolished the Caliphate. He gave the vote to women, restricted Islamic dress and replaced the Arabic script with the Roman alphabet, but Islam remains a potent force.
Since taking power in 2002, Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted party has repeatedly denied that it is trying to impose religion on politics and society. However, secularists view its attempts to permit Islamic style head scarves at universities and a past push to criminalize adultery as alarming.
The military’s self-declared mission to protect the secular regime has pitted it in a bitter fight with Erdogan’s government. His July 2007 re-election with 46.6 percent of the votes buoyed the pragmatic leader to investigate people accused of secret military plots, when the first of a series surfaced in 2008.
So far, prosecutors have jailed more than 400 people, including soldiers, academics, journalists and politicians. No one has yet been convicted.
In 2008, Turkey’s top court narrowly voted against disbanding Erdogan’s ruling party over accusations it is plotting to impose Islamic rule, but in a warning the judges cut off millions of dollars in state aid to the ruling Justice and Development Party.
Nihat Ali Ozcan, an analyst at the Economic Policy Research Institute in Ankara, said that despite the arrests, military influence is not likely to disappear…
