generalspeaking

Islamist Proaction

Turkey has long enjoyed being a secular state, with a state religion, each separate from the other. It has long been so, thanks to a revolutionary thinker held as the modern state's visionary champion of a different kind of Islam-dominated culture and society. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded the modern-day Republic of Turkey and became its first president.

With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Ataturk fought in the Turkish war of independence. His campaign achieving liberation of the country, he brought a program of political, economic and cultural reforms into play. It was his intention, as an adherent of the age of enlightenment to transform what had formerly been an Islamic-style state into a modern, democratic, secular nation-state.

Turkey's military, in his memory, has traditionally defended his vision against any attempts, since his death before mid-20th Century, to turn the country back into an Islamic state.
A number of governments were overthrown since 1960 by the country's military which viewed itself as the keeper of the trust bestowed upon them by their former commander.

Turkey's military has a proud tradition of defending the democratic, secular ideal, fully supported by most ordinary Turks. Until, as though by stealth, the current government-led Islamist AK Party was able to have one of its own elected, purporting to be from the 'moderate' wing of the party.

In 2001 Tayyip Erdogan established the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), and was elected its founding chairman. First elected the country's prime minister in 2003, Instanbul's former mayor took over the government with a solid two-thirds of the seats in Turkey's parliament during the 2002 general elections. Finally a 2007 election saw 48-million Turks vote 41% in favour of the Justice & Development Party.

Under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country has turned its back on its traditional allies, no longer interested particularly in joining the EU. 9Which had its own issues of permitting an Islamic country into what is essentially a western-based European, democratic and largely Christian collective.) And has managed to turn Turkey slowly back into an Islamist state.

Instead Turkey has relentlessly moved closer to other Islamist states, Arab countries like Iran, Syria and Qatar, while its long-time ally in the Middle East, Israel, has been left behind like yesterday's spoiled meal. Turkey, through its current Islamist-led government has supported Iran against the accusations of the West, while still claiming a working relationship with Israel, a country Iran plans to eliminate.

Currently, the civilian court in Istanbul has remanded four admirals, along with an army general and two staff colonels pending trial on accusations of planning to overthrow Turkey's government. More arrests are anticipated, including that of the former armed forces chief who had led a coup as recently as 1980. Over 50 former officers, including a deputy chief of the armed forces, the former heads of the air force and navy are being held in connection with an alleged plot.

That plot is said to represent a traditional-style Turkish-military coup to unseat the government of Prime Minister Erdogan. The military has never been comfortable with the election of an Islamist party, practising an Islamist agenda for the country. Even while the government encourages a tide of anti-Semitism in the country and has severed the close ties enjoyed for generations with Israel, the Turkish military retains its ties with the Jewish state.

There is a well-founded fear in the military that the AK party, while still portraying itself as a modernizing element in Turkish politics has its true, hidden agenda which will restore Islamist control to the country, transforming modern Turkey into yet another Islamic state, and by that process utterly defeating the vision of its founder to advance Turkey into the modern world of democratic states.

In the last presidential election that brought Prime Minister Erdogan and the AK to full power in 2007, the country's former chief of staff had undertaken to remind politicians of the military's commitment to a secular Turkey. A quiet, but meaningful message that the country's military would not stand idly by as Islamist forces transformed the country.

The government now claims that as far back as 2003 when the AK first ascended to power, a coup plot was drawn up. Involving plans to bomb mosques and to bring Greece into the picture to promote a sense of national tension, hoping to provoke Greece into a military action that would result in discrediting the Islamist government.

In fact the AK party was already discredited with allegations of ongoing, corrosive corruption. The retired general who stands accused of being the plot leader is in custody and has led with his own allegations, that the plot he and other military figures of high rank are accused of is an issue of the government's very own plan to apprehend a presumptive coup.

A plot that the Islamist government itself has diabolically designed for the purpose of arresting key figures in the Turkish military, to destabilize its chain of command, and to slander the military in a counter-coup of their own to ensure their longevity by removing their adversaries.

Labels: Political Realities, Religion, Traditions, Troublespots

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, February 25, 2010