I for one welcome our new European Overlords

[Berkut]

Damn those "hardcore" secularists!

Yeah.  They're the ones who support the army trying to overthrow a democratically elected government because they nominate a President whose wife wears a headscarf. 

Really?!?!?!

Wow, that is pretty hardcore. Tell me more about the army trying to stage a coup because of a headscarf.

[Sheilbh]

I don't understand Berk

[The Brain]

I don't understand Berk

His irrational rage makes him rage irrationally.

[Siege]

I don't understand Berk

Secular dudes that are not afraid of the islamotards?

We could be friends.

[Berkut]

I don't understand Berk

What isn't to understand? I am asking for more information about this coup over someone wearing a headscarf, which you cited as evidence of the hardcoredness of the "secularists". If they were willing to have a coup over that, it would certainly be a great example of them being incredibly hardcore.

[Sheilbh]

These are all from the Economist.  I won't link because I'm getting access through my uni's library site so no-one else would be able to read them. 
31st of March, 07:

Meanwhile, the bold domestic and judicial reforms enacted by the Erdogan government secured Turkey the prized start of EU membership talks in October 2005. The economy is doing nicely, with annual growth running at 5% or more. Recent opinion polls show that the AK Party continues to have a big lead over its rivals.

Some say that the army's real reason for opposing Mr Erdogan is its fear of a further erosion of military power once the compliant Mr Sezer is gone. What can the army do to stop Mr Erdogan? Short of a military coup, precious little. As Umit Boyner, a prominent woman industrialist, says, "The days of coups are over." This is not to say the generals won't do their utmost to make life miserable for Mr Erdogan if he becomes president. Besides keeping up their anti-government rhetoric, they may shun presidential functions or National Security Council meetings. So Turkey could become more tense, which may be why, despite the AK Party's popularity, most Turks are against Mr Erdogan's presidency. It also explains why, with two weeks left for candidates to register, Mr Erdogan has not yet declared. "Will he or won't he?" is the hottest question on the Ankara cocktail circuit.

Even his supporters see plenty of reasons why he should not. Mr Erdogan has unrivalled charisma and could lead the AK Party to another big victory in November. Many businessmen fret that without him the party, a loose coalition of nationalists, Islamists and liberals, could fall apart, plunging Turkey back into instability. As president, Mr Erdogan's autocratic instinct might spoil relations with Abdullah Gul, the foreign minister, who is his most likely successor and is no poodle.

Indeed, a growing number of voices say that the statesmanlike Mr Gul would make a better president. Determinedly pro-European and unsullied by corruption charges, Mr Gul has moral authority as the man who led the rebellion against a former Islamist prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, to found the AK Party. Unlike Mr Erdogan he speaks fluent English and has spent time abroad. The only hitch is that his wife, too, covers her head. But so do over half of Turkish women.

[/B]
These two are from the 5th of May of that year:

On April 27th the army suggested that it might do the same again. Just before midnight, after a day of inconclusive parliamentary voting for a new president, the army's general staff posted a declaration on its website that attacked the nomination of Abdullah Gul, the foreign minister, for the presidency, and hinted none too subtly at a possible coup against the mildly Islamist Justice and Development (AK) government led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister who nominated Mr Gul. On May 1st the constitutional court annulled the first round of parliamentary voting for the president, saying not enough members were present. Mr Erdogan promptly said he would call a snap parliamentary election. Street protests, first in Ankara and then in Istanbul, have heightened tension. The cities' coffee houses are buzzing with conspiracy theories.

Given the fractious state of the main opposition parties, and his government's record over the past four years, pollsters expect Mr Erdogan to win another thumping majority. He may then choose to stick with Mr Gul for the presidency, or he may look for another candidate. But he is unlikely to pick one who meets the objections of the army and the secularists.

Turkey's secularists have always mistrusted the AK Party, which has Islamist roots and in government has sometimes toyed with moderate Islamist measures. They especially dislike Mr Gul and Mr Erdogan because their wives sport the Muslim headscarf, which in Ataturk's republic is banned in public buildings. They fret at the prospect of such people controlling not only the government and parliament, as now, but the presidency as well. They fear that once the AK Party has got that triple crown, it will show its true colours--and that they will be rather greener. Given that a fundamental reading of Islamic texts sees no distinction between religion and the state, and that fundamentalism is spreading in the Muslim world, it is understandable that people should entertain such fears.

Yet they do not justify a military intervention such as that of April 27th. However desirable it may be to preserve Ataturk's secular legacy, that cannot come at the expense of overriding the normal process of democracy--even if that process produces bad, ineffective, corrupt or mildly Islamist governments. Algeria, where 150,000 people died in a civil war after an election which Islamists won was annulled in 1992, holds a sharp lesson about what can happen when soldiers suppress popular will. Of course, Turkey is not Algeria; but armies everywhere should beware of subverting elections. It is up to voters, not soldiers, to punish governments--and they will now have the opportunity to do so in Turkey.

They may not want to. Mr Erdogan's government has been Turkey's most successful in half a century. After years of macroeconomic instability, growth has been steady and strong, inflation has been controlled and foreign investment has shot up. Even more impressive are the judicial and constitutional reforms that the AK government has pushed through. Corruption remains a blemish, but there is no sign of the government trying to overturn Turkey's secular order. The record amply justifies Mr Erdogan's biggest achievement: to persuade the EU to open membership talks, over 40 years after a much less impressive Turkey first expressed its wish to join.

[/B]

A military coup was avoided, but an early election looms. Turkey's problems are postponed, not solved

ITS prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said it was "a shot fired at democracy." Others labelled it an "e-coup". Whatever you call it, a threat to intervene against Turkey's mildly Islamist government posted on the general staff's website on April 27th has hurt democracy and deepened the chasm between the secular and the pious. A defiant Mr Erdogan has called for an early general election. It may take place in July, instead of the scheduled date, November 4th. Opinion polls suggest that his AK Party will again beat its secular rivals.

How would the army respond to that? Seasoned Turkey-watchers who once scoffed at the notion of another coup say that it now can't be ruled out. Many admit that the European Union is partly to blame. EU dithering over Turkish membership has dented enthusiasm: when Olli Rehn, the enlargement commissioner, scolded the army for its meddling, few paid attention.

The row began when Mr Erdogan nominated his foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, to replace President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who steps down on May 16th. Mr Gul once flirted with political Islam; his wife wears a headscarf (as do 55% of Turkish women). That was deemed to pose an existential threat to the secular republic. Deniz Baykal, the leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), succeeded in blocking Mr Gul's election in a first parliamentary vote on April 27th, claiming, dubiously, to the constitutional court that parliament lacked a quorum.

It was up to the court to decide if Mr Baykal was right. But the generals were taking no chances. In their ultimatum, delivered before the 11 judges gave their verdict on May 1st, the army listed examples of how the government was supposedly allowing the country to drift towards an Islamic theocracy. When the court then ruled in favour of the opposition, nobody was surprised .

Nearly a million secularist Turks gathered in Istanbul on April 29th, to stage their second mass protest against the government in a fortnight. That makes it hard for Mr Erdogan and his AK Party to dismiss the crisis as a brazen attempt by the army to reassert its influence. Chanting "no to coups" and "no to sharia" the demonstrators said their free-wheeling lifestyles were under threat. Many were women who say they are the most vulnerable of all. Some cited attempts by the AK to create "alcohol-free zones", others a bid to outlaw adultery. Many declared that an AK president, prime minister and parliamentary speaker was more than they could bear.

Yet none was able to name a single law promoted by the party that directly challenged the secular tenets of the constitution--because there is none.

The deeper malaise felt by these urban secular "white Turks" is really rooted in the millions-strong migration from rural Anatolia to the big cities in past decades. Assertively pious and aggressively entrepreneurial, this new class, championed by Mr Erdogan, has been steadily chipping away at the economic and political power of the secular elite. "The white Turks see women with headscarves walking dogs [and] jogging in their neighbourhoods and it drives them mad," says Baskin Oran, a liberal academic in Ankara. That shock may fade; in time it will become more difficult for the generals to turn secular hostility to Anatolian carpetbaggers into paranoia about creeping Islam, he reckons.

The secularists have weaknesses too. The CHP, founded by Turkey's republican hero, Kemal Ataturk, has been out of power for more than a decade. Kemalism once transformed Turkey, but has now failed to transform itself, says Mr Oran.

While the cocky Mr Baykal shows no signs of self-reproach, an unprecedented bout of soul-searching prompted by the cyber-coup is beginning to grip the AK. During four and a half years it has failed to assuage secular suspicions and to reach out to the opposition. The party should have realised that the country was not ready to have an AK president, a party chief concedes. The present rumpus could have been averted had Mr Erdogan picked a presidential candidate outside his party. Now the prime minister suggests changing the constitution to let the people choose the head of state themselves.

That might be a step forward, but sceptical liberals say Mr Erdogan's views on democracy are selective. "Where was he when Kurdish politicians were being arrested and beaten and Nokta [a dissident magazine] raided by police?" asks one.

The government's response to the army's ultimatum was unusually crisp. Cemil Cicek, the justice minister called it "unacceptable" and reminded the generals that they were constitutionally bound to take their orders from the prime minister, not vice versa.

It is not just the army's taste for politics that is worrying. The top general recently said a military attack on Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq was "necessary" and "useful". Though he agreed that the constitution gave parliament authority over the armed forces, many fear that the army may decide to attack all the same. "They are itching to," whispers a westerner who observes Turkish security. This may explain why America's response to the political crisis has been so lame. "The last thing they want is a quarrel with the Turkish military," a European official observes. The nightmare for America is Turkish and American soldiers exchanging fire in Iraq. Based on the past week's events, nothing can be ruled out.

Of course the attempts to ban adultery and to create alcohol free zones were shot down, by opposition within his own party as much as opposition from outside it.

From the 12th of May:

The trouble escalated on April 27th, when the army general staff posted a dramatic statement on its website sketching out the dangers posed by "Islamic fanatics" to Ataturk's secular republic, and vowing to intervene if need be. The army has booted out four governments since 1960. Yet its latest outburst took even the savviest politicians by surprise.

A bigger surprise followed. Rather than roll over like its predecessors, the government is taking the generals head on. First came a statement reminding the brass-hats that they were answerable to the government and not vice-versa. Then Mr Erdogan's AK Party tried once again to elect Mr Gul as president, even though the army had made clear that it did not want a man whose wife wears the Islamic headscarf--as Mr Gul's wife does

[/B]
From the 9th of June:

The question echoes around the Ankara cocktail circuit, but it raises a host of others. Was the ultimatum delivered under pressure from hot-headed junior officers threatening to take matters into their own hands? Does the army really believe that the AK government is steering Turkey away from Ataturk's revered secular republic towards religious rule? Was it all a crude stab at wrecking Turkey's chances of joining the European Union? And, again, will the army invade northern Iraq?

The diary of Ozden Ornek, a retired naval chief, leaked in late March to Nokta, a Turkish weekly, suggests several factors may have been involved. Excerpts include details of two separate planned coups concocted in 2004 that were quashed by the then chief of the general staff, Hilmi Ozkok. Conversations between the plotters show suspicions of both AK and General Ozkok. Indeed, his enthusiasm for democracy and the EU leads them to conclude that he is an "Islamist" too.

Mr Ornek insists the diary is fake and is suing Nokta for libel. But General Ozkok has hinted otherwise, saying that the claims "needed to be investigated". Meanwhile, military prosecutors have filed separate charges against Lale Sariibrahimoglu, a respected military analyst, for her comments to Nokta (which has since been closed down). She could spend two years in jail if convicted on charges of "insulting members of the military".

The notion that "the army knows what is best for the people and that they cannot be trusted to govern themselves lies at the heart of their continued meddling in politics," observes Umit Kardas, a retired military prosecutor. It was such thinking (drilled into young officers early on) that led the generals to enshrine a right to intervene in the regulations that they drafted for themselves in the 1980s.

The EU insists that any such right must be scrapped if Turkey is ever to join its club. So must the system of military courts, which shield soldiers from prosecution by civilians. The chief of the general staff should be answerable to the defence minister, not the other way round. Not surprisingly, the generals' feelings towards the EU are now mixed. Joining the EU would crown Ataturk's dream of cementing Turkey's place in the West. Yet they want this "only if it can be on their own terms--and that means retaining all their privileges," according to Ali Bayramoglu, a long-time observer of the army.

Mr Erdogan became the first political leader to have trimmed the army's powers, when his government reduced the National Security Council (through which the army barks orders) to an advisory role. This and other dramatic reforms helped to persuade the EU to open membership talks with Turkey in 2005.

Fears that their influence might be watered down even more have transformed some generals into the EU's fiercest critics. None more so than Yasar Buyukanit, who took over from General Ozkok last year. His salvoes against creeping Islamisation are often accompanied by veiled claims that the EU is trying to dismember Turkey by supporting Kurds and other minorities.

The army's sense of vulnerability has been heightened by a deepening rift with America over Iraq. During the cold war, the generals (in charge of NATO's second-biggest army) were America's chief interlocutors, which bolstered their influence at home. Anti-American feelings exploded among Turks in 2003, when American soldiers arrested 11 Turkish special-force troops in northern Iraq, on suspicion of plotting to murder a Kurdish politician. Most Turks saw the move as punishment for Turkey's refusal earlier that year to let American troops cross its territory to open a second front in Iraq. Trust between the two armies has yet to be restored. Tuncer Kilinc, the last general to head the National Security Council, told an audience in London recently that Turkey should pull out of NATO and make friends with Russia, Iran, China and India instead.

The army's anti-Western stance resonates well with ordinary Turks, who are disgusted by America's behaviour behaviour in Iraq and by the EU's dithering over Turkish membership. The army is still rated as the country's most popular institution. To the millions of urban middle-class Turks who staged anti-government protests last month, the army remains the best guarantor of Ataturk's secular republic.

Yet, as Mr Ornek reportedly noted in his diary, the deliberate isolation of officers from civilian life has confined them to an artificial world in which civilians are "unpatriotic, lazy and venal" and the armed forces are "industrious, selfless and worthy". As he then mused, "What can we achieve with such thoughts?" Yet if the army is to continue to command the affection of its citizens it needs to change with the times. The generals could not have missed the many placards during last month's protests that read "No to sharia, No to coups." A drive to weed out corrupt officers launched under General Ozkok is an encouraging sign that the army is prepared to be more self-critical. But respecting the election result, no matter what it is, remains the biggest challenge of all.

[Sheilbh]

I'll link to these because I think they're free on the Economist's website:
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11745570

Most observers expect it to go against the AKP. Turkey has banned no fewer than 24 parties in the past 50 years, including the AKP's two forerunners. In 23 of these cases, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the bans violated its charter.[/B]

Yet Mr Yalcinkaya's indictment lacks hard evidence to show that the AKP is working to reverse secular rule. Much of his case rests on the words, not the actions, of Mr Erdogan and his lieutenants. Among Mr Erdogan's listed "crimes" is his opinion that "Turkey as a modern Muslim nation can serve as an example for the harmony of civilisations." That is hardly a call for jihad. The AKP has promoted Islamic values, but it has never attempted to pass laws inspired by the Koran.

None of this seems to impress Turkey's meddlesome generals, who are widely believed to be the driving force behind the "judicial coup" against the AKP. This follows the "e-coup" they threatened last year by issuing a warning on the internet against making Mr Gul president. Some renegade generals are also involved in the so-called Ergenekon group; 86 members were charged this week with plotting a coup (see article).

The generals and their allies believe that nothing less than the future of Ataturk's secular republic is at stake. Similar rumblings were heard when the now defunct pro-Islamic Welfare party first came to power in 1996. It was ejected a year later in a bloodless "velvet coup" and banned on similar charges to those now levelled at the AKP. But with each intervention the Islamists come back stronger.

Unlike their pro-secular rivals, Islamists have been able to reinvent themselves to appeal to a growing base of voters. Nobody has done this more successfully than Mr Erdogan with the AKP. An Islamic cleric by training, Mr Erdogan became Istanbul's mayor when Welfare won a municipal election in 1994. He was booted out in 1997, and jailed briefly a year later for reciting a nationalist poem in public that was deemed to incite "religious hatred".

It was a turning-point. Mr Erdogan defected from Welfare with fellow moderates to found the AKP in 2001. He and his friends said that they no longer believed in mixing religion with politics and that Turkish membership of the European Union was the AKP's chief goal. And when the AKP won the general election of November 2002, it formed a single-party government that did something unusual for Turkey: it kept its word.

The death penalty was abolished; the army's powers were trimmed; women were given more rights than at any time since Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the secular Turkish state, made both sexes equal before the law. Despite Mr Erdogan's calls for women to have "at least three children", abortion remains legal and easy. This silent revolution eventually shamed the EU into opening formal membership talks with Turkey in 2005, an achievement that had eluded all the AKP's predecessors in government.

The government's economic record was impressive, too. The economy bounced back from its nadir in 2001, growing by a steady average annual rate of 6% or more. Inflation was tamed (though it has crept back up recently). Above all, foreign direct investment, previously paltry, hit record levels. For a while, Turkey seemed to have become a stable and prosperous sort of place. That is surely why 47% of voters backed the AKP in July 2007, a big jump from only 34% in 2002.

[/B]

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11848685

The verdict should help to end the political upheaval that has gripped Turkey since March, when the country's chief prosecutor asked the court to bar the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan; the president, Abdullah Gul; and scores of other named officials from politics for five years. They were accused of undermining the secular republic created by Kemal Ataturk 85 years ago out of the ruins of the Ottoman empire.

To many, the prosecution was an attempt at "a judicial coup"—arguably the most serious assault on Turkey's turbulent democracy since the army seized power from elected politicians in 1980. Despite the subsequent restoration of democracy, the army demanded, and obtained, the resignation of the Islamist-tinged prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, in 1997.

The army's hand has been apparent in the latest manoeuvring against AK. But this time Turkey's meddlesome generals have been humiliated. Despite their displeasure AK was re-elected with an enhanced majority in 2007. The army failed to block the appointment of Mr Gul as president, despite an internet message that appeared to threaten military intervention. Short of such a hard coup, the army has no cards left to play.

That said, the court's decision is not an outright victory for AK, despite its supporters' excited chants of "we will continue". Ten of the constitutional court's judges agreed that the party was guilty of anti-secular activity; they disagreed only on the punishment.

The verdict should be seen as a stern warning to the party not to push its divisive religious agenda. Earlier this year the party forced through a law allowing girls to wear the Islamic headscarf at university, which was later struck down by the constitutional court.

[/B]
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11632799

ON THE evening of March 4th, a black Mercedes swept into the Ankara headquarters of Turkey's land-forces command. It was carrying Osman Paksut, the second-highest judge on the constitutional court. His assignation with the land-forces commander, General Ilker Basbug, was meant to be secret—all the security cameras were cut off as he entered and left the building—for it came at a highly delicate moment. The secular opposition had just petitioned the court to overturn a law passed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to allow women to wear the Islamic-style headscarf at universities.

Less than four weeks later, on March 31st, the court said that it would take a case brought by the chief prosecutor to ban the AKP and 71 named officials, including the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the president, Abdullah Gul. The case rests on the claim that the defendants are trying to impose sharia law in Turkey.

This decision makes the meeting between Mr Paksut and General Basbug, who is tipped to replace Yasar Buyukanit as chief of the general staff when he retires in August, all the more suspicious. Indeed, it reinforces the view of many Turks that lying behind the case is an attempt by the generals to use the courts to overthrow Turkey's mildly Islamist government in a "judicial coup". This follows the generals' threatened "e-coup" of April 2007, when they tried unsuccessfully to stop Mr Gul becoming president.

Few Turks would have known of the meeting had news of it not been broken by a small daily newspaper, Taraf. Since its launch last November under the motto "to think is to take sides", Taraf (which means side in Turkish) has published a string of stories exposing the army's efforts to undermine the AKP government. It has thus become even bigger than "the most honest and prestigious newspaper" that was the dream of its 39-year-old owner, Basar Arslan. Amid speculation that the army may be preparing a direct coup, Taraf has become a standard-bearer for the rising numbers of young and increasingly vocal Turks who say the people, not the generals, should determine the country's future. Last week 7,000 of them gathered in central Istanbul in a rally against coups, many of them brandishing Taraf.

The paper, whose news coverage remains spotty, made its biggest splash so far when it recently published a document detailing alleged plans by the general staff to mobilise public opinion against the government and its sympathisers. The blueprint was drawn up after the AKP was returned to power for a second five-year term in July 2007. In a limp rebuttal, the top brass said it had "not approved" any such document, but stopped short of denying its existence. Indeed, much of the paper's information comes straight from disgruntled "deep throats" within the army.

Such leaks have dented the army's image and fuelled debate over a possible rift within the high command. Internal divisions surfaced last year when Nokta, a weekly, published excerpts from the diary of a former navy commander in which he described two abortive coup attempts in 2004. Soon afterwards, the magazine was forced to close and its editor prosecuted for libel. Might Taraf suffer a similar fate?

Taraf is already a stronger institution than Nokta. "We are changing the rules the mainstream media work by in this country," declares Yasemin Congar, its combative deputy managing editor. Circulation, now at an average 24,000 copies every day, is growing. And this comes in the teeth of a smear campaign accusing Taraf of being financed by a powerful Islamist fraternity close to the AKP and of taking its orders from the United States.

Yet it would be easy to overstate the influence of Taraf, as indeed of civil society as a whole. "Turkish civil society barely has the strength to redirect major roads, let alone stop the generals from acting if they see it as in the national interest," argues Howard Eissenstat, a New York-based historian. "Moreover, the high regard for the military and the particular tone of Turkish nationalism suggest that public reaction to a hard coup would be more of a ripple than a wave." Then again, as Ms Congar noted in a recent column, "there are a few good men" in the army, whose view of Turkey's national interest tends to favour democracy, and who will keep leaking information to Taraf.

I think that the hard-core secularists, and the hard core of secularists is far more dangerous to Turkey's future EU membership than the Islamists, whose most divisive acts seem to have involved headscarves.

As a government the AK Party's been very impressive.  They seem to have lost a lot of steam over the last two years.  Which is why the EU needs to reassure them that continued reform will lead to membership and I'm less fond of Erdogan than Gul but I think to describe the Islamists in Turkey as the source of anti-EU and utterly bizarre anti-Western views isn't accurate.

[Sheilbh]

Part of the problem could be English terminology.  Secularists I think should mean something like what exists in the US, were government is generally disinterested in religion.  I think what many Turks are is closer to the laicite of French history which is different from secularism.  I think the US separates church and state by not being interested in church, necessarily, while some French leaders and Turkish 'secularists' believe the opposition means the state must oppose religion and its expression.

Edit:  And it's worth saying the army's intervention totally blindsided the EU.  They understood secularists weren't happy with Gul's nomination but as far as they were concerned he was a very successful foreign secretary, he was cosmopolitan, urbane, a good negotiator, fluent in several languages.  They couldn't understand how people could oppose him and were stunned that the army felt strongly enough to threaten a coup.

[Berkut]

So where is the part where they supported a coup only because of a headscarf?

Seems to me that absent some dubious semantics trying to make the issue as ridiculous as possible, the "hardcore secularists" might have had some reasons for their positions beyond headscarves.

Seems like a more honest and nuanced approach might be to recognize that the issue is rather complex and headscarves are rather clearly just a symbol of the underlying ideological conflicts. Given that in fact Islamism is growing and is generally rather hostile to Western democracy, is it entirely unreasonable to think that their position might be more fairly served than by simply dismissing them as hardcore "secularists" intent on overthrowing the government because of headscarves?

Indeed, the articles you linked largely do that - other than some choice stupidity about headscarfs, which they rather gleefully bleat on and on about.

[Berkut]

Part of the problem could be English terminology.

Yeah, I think that might be "part" of the problem, with those "hardcore secualrists". Although - that is your term, and I think you are a pretty good speaker of English, so I am unsure why you would use that term if you meant something else, like nationalist, or even reflexively despised mean military people.

[ulmont]

or even reflexively despised mean military people.

The military does have a long tradition of political interference in Turkey, with a coup about once a generation.  The most recent one was described as a "post-modern coup" by the CIA factbook, but still, "engineer[ing] the ouster" of the government isn't the role of the military in most systems.

[Berkut]

or even reflexively despised mean military people.

The military does have a long tradition of political interference in Turkey, with a coup about once a generation.  The most recent one was described as a "post-modern coup" by the CIA factbook, but still, "engineer[ing] the ouster" of the government isn't the role of the military in most systems.

True enough. Of course, as a nominal democracy largely populated by Islamists, they are in a rather precarious position.

In other words, they don't have anything reflecting "most" systems to work with.

Which isn't to say that they are right to toss out government they find to be too islamist, but I think it is unfair to simply demand that they pretend like Turkey is a perfectly normal Western Democracy, if by doing so Turkey will become not a democracy. It is an interesting question - what does a democracy do if the people vote in a not-democracy?

[Sheilbh]

Well first of all when discussing Islamism's opposition to democracy in relation to Turkey I think it's worth remembering that it's the Islamists who've won two elections and support direct elections for the Presidency while the secularists in the army threatened to make their opposition to Mr. Gul lead to a coup. 

What do you think their argument is?  That Americans and Europeans and Islamists have got together to dismember Turkey and threaten their secular republic?  That the most liberalising government and arguably the most successful in decades is actually a Hamas front? 

But you're right, it was overly glib of me to say it was all about the headscarf.  But it was a particular focus of opposition.  I mean read this article and tell me who seems the more fanatical:

Turkish army warns of 'centres of evil' over Gul

By Donald Macintyre

Turkey's parliament is on the point of infuriating the country's powerful military and much of its secular public this afternoon by electing Abdullah Gul, the Foreign Minister and a practising Muslim, as President.

The army signalled its displeasure yesterday by choosing the eve of the vote to publish a declaration by its Chief-of-Staff Yasar Buyukanit, that "our nation has been watching the behaviour of centres of evil who systematically try to corrode the secular nature of the Turkish Republic".

The election of Mr Gul, a 56-year-old economist who has a similar Islamic background to his close ally, the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will mark a further advance for their ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) which last month secured a second term with almost 47 per cent of the national vote.

Mr Gul is seen in most of Europe as a democrat of moderate inclinations who strongly supports Turkey's accession to the EU and whose election as head of state - an office with substantial veto powers - is likely to advance the slow process of meeting the conditions set for entry.

But his candidacy has stirred up strong opposition from the army, which sees itself as the guardian of the unequivocally non-religious constitution enshrined more than 80 years ago by the country's founding father, Kemal Ataturk.

"Nefarious plans to ruin Turkey's secular and democratic nature emerge in different forms every day," General Buyukanit, said in his statement to mark the annual Victory Day on Thursday. "The military will, just as it has so far, keep its determination to guard social, democratic and secular Turkey."

The tone was similar to that of a statement issued by the general staff at the end of April after Mr Gul triggered mass protests by secular Turks by originally announcing his intention to run as President.

Since the general election - which was called by Mr Erdogan after the opposition Republican People's Party (BHP) created deadlock by blocking Mr Gul's election as President - the army, while not resiling from its earlier statements, had largely refrained from intervening publicly until yesterday. The AKP's victory was partly attributed to the rapid growth - at annual levels of around seven per cent - in an economy which was on the brink of collapse in the late Nineties.

Diplomats here have tended to discount fears of a coup by the army - which has dislodged four governments since the 1960s - but expect Mr Gul's election to be a source of continuing friction with the military, which has already seen a few of its powers to intervene in civilian life curtailed by the government - for example by the reduction of its presence on the National Security Council.

Much of the focus of popular secular discontent has been the fact that Mr Gul's wife, Hayrunisa, wears a headscarf in public, long a key symbol for religious women which is officially banned in schools, universities and public offices. She is already under near-irresistible pressure to avoid creating a flashpoint by staying away from Thursday's Victory Day ceremony, which commemorates the decisive defeat of the Greek army at the Battle of Dumlupinar in 1922.

Mrs Gul, who like her husband speaks good English and Arabic, took a case to the European Court of Human Rights in 2002 after being denied admission to university while wearing a headscarf but abandoned it when Mr Gul became Foreign Minister because the Foreign Ministry was defending the case.

The army's last warning statement in April was strongly condemned by the EU as an unwarranted interference in the civil democratic process but the US administration remained conspicuously silent. It is less than clear whether this was because of doubts about even a democratic and moderate Islamic regime in Ankara, or because of lively fears that alienating the Turkish military could threaten yet more conflict in Iraq.

Although - that is your term, and I think you are a pretty good speaker of English, so I am unsure why you would use that term if you meant something else, like nationalist, or even reflexively despised mean military people.

They use secularism as the fig-leaf for the military's intervention in politics, including coups and threatened coups.

[Jacob]

I think a common analysis is that the government that the Turks voted in has, surprisingly given its Islamist leanings, been the most democratic government Turkey has ever had.

[Sheilbh]

To take an example of the women's rights that the articles have mentioned the AK Party made women legally equal to men, in 2002.  Until then, apparently, women in both civil and criminal law were inferior to the males in their family, especially whoever was recognised as the 'head of the household'.  In 2004 they reformed the Penal Code by removing all references to chastity, morality, shame and customs.  They started to treat sexual crimes against women as violations of that woman's rights not as a crime against her family.  It banned marital rape, increased sentences for honour killings and said women had as much of a right to sexual autonomy (from their family/society) as men.

Now if thats the face of un-democratic Islamism, I think I can deal with it.

The sad thing about Erdogan's recent failures has been that he's actually appeasing the secularist nationalists.  He's started taking an increasinly anti-Kurdish line, despite earlier suggestions that he might try to enhance free speech he seems to be happy with not talking about Armenia or disrespect to the Republic or any of that.  Though Turkey does seem to be at the point of normalising relationships with Armenia which could help move things forward on that point.  They do seem to have run out of steam lately, but I think the EU's partly to blame for the recent turn to nationalism (I think we've toyed with Turkey too much).

And, interestingly, the opposition seems to be getting its act together.  The CHP party leader allowed a woman in a headscarf into a party celebrating the CHP's founding.  Though he was promptly attacked for abandoning Ataturk's principles by the parties ultras.