Local Actions Add Up to a National Crisis in Turkey

As Turkey prepares for early elections in July, a large number of Turks have turned out in recent days for a series of massive pro-secularism rallies held in different cities around the country. Many protesters express concern that the country's government, headed by the liberal Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), is making barely noticed changes on the local level that are eroding the country's secular foundations.

It's a sentiment that also appears to be shared by Turkey's powerful military, which stepped into the country's political crisis by releasing a terse statement on April 27 voicing alarm over the AKP government's track record on secularism. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Rather than mentioning anything the government itself had done, the military's statement listed several examples of local events, such as a Koran reading contest during a public holiday in Ankara, that it found troubling.

True or not, the claim that the AKP is carrying out a "quiet revolution" on the grassroots level is one that is being heard with more frequency in Turkey. That the allegation continues to linger also illustrates how -- despite four years in government which have brought record economic growth and the country closer than ever to its long-hold dream of European Union membership -- many secular Turks remain deeply suspicious of the AKP's intentions.

"I think what [the military is] saying is that on a national level Turkey's secular system has not changed.