PrintJuly 25, 2007
Turkey Betrayed Again
Turkey is one great theater in the war between modernity and Islamist reaction. In Istanbul one can see radical imams stalking through the Grand Bazaar with fanatical expressions on their faces. Many more women and girls are wearing long coats and scarves in the summer heat, the Turkish version of the burqah. Early Turkish election results now show a forty percent vote for the Islamist AKP, five percent more than last time.It seems that the modernist movement that began with Kemal Ataturk in 1922 may be crumbling before our eyes. Because Turkey is the most democratic country in the Islamic world, that fact may signal where the war on Islamist fascism is going. The Turkish electoral system is stacked in favor of plurality governments. Tony Blair's British Labour Party, with only forty percent of the vote, was able to control Britain for a decade, and drive the country to sacrifice more and more sovereignty to Brussels. Similarly, with only 35 percent of the vote the AKP was able...(Read Full Article)
