SECULARISTS' LAMENT

Sep 27th 2007 ANKARA AND ISTANBUL
From The Economist print edition

Time to pray? Or to despair?

A BUS travelling from Samsun to Istanbul on September 2nd stopped at a mosque when passengers insisted on saying their daily prayers. Similar demands are heard all over Turkey, says Milliyet, a daily that was bombarded with hate mail from religious hotheads for reporting the Samsun case. In another incident, Gulcan Kose, a 28-year-old divorcee who was wearing a knee-length tunic and leggings, was detained by Istanbul police for "indecent exposure" as she stood with a fellow fisherman on the Galata bridge; she faces charges of resisting the authorities. Many restaurants that once served customers during the Ramadan fast no longer do so.

Corbis

In search of the right message

Turkey's secularists feel cornered. Ataturk's republic, some say, is becoming "another Iran". Their fears have grown since the Justice and Development (AK) party's election victory in July and the subsequent elevation to the presidency, over the army's objections, of Abdullah Gul, a former AK foreign minister. Mr Gul's wife wears the Muslim headscarf, banned in government offices and schools.

Now Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, has said that the headscarf ban should be scrapped in universities. A new constitution planned by the AK to replace one written after the military coup of 1980 includes this change. Many fret that pressure on women to wear the veil, particularly in conservative areas, will intensify if it is allowed on campuses.

Is Turkey turning an Islamic shade of green? AK's first five years in office suggest not. Mr Erdogan did once try to outlaw adultery, and some AK mayors attempted to create alcohol-free zones. But faced with an outcry, such efforts were soon dropped. Even feminists concede that some of the most radical improvements in the lot of women since Ataturk were introduced by AK. And many agree that to deny a woman an education because she is veiled contradicts Ataturk's vision for women.

AK's supporters say the real reason for the secularists' despair is not a fear of Islamism, but because their own power is fading. A new and pious Anatolian bourgeoisie is rising up. The generals are losing their grip. "They are using the headscarf to create an atmosphere of panic in which they [the secular elite] can regain lost ground," argues a senior AK man. If the constitution is adopted in its current form, the army will lose more influence - and Turkey will be a more democratic place.

Yet even liberal intellectuals now sound nervous. Yesim Arat, a political scientist at Bosporus University who dislikes the headscarf ban, laments the use of the new constitution to repeal it. The headscarf is worn in keeping with Islam. "By inserting it into the constitution you are forming law based on religious dictates," Ms Arat says. "This is very problematic."

Some women are similarly spooked by the removal of a clause saying that the state is responsible for ensuring equality between the sexes. There is only one woman in Mr Erdogan's cabinet. AK women, who played a big role in wooing voters, are now being sidelined: one of them, Ayse Bohurler, who opposed Mr Gul's presidency, complained of being labelled "a bitch" by male colleagues. And instead of trying to allay secular fears, Mr Erdogan has told critics to "shut up and mind your own business."

Mr Erdogan says he has no immediate plans to get rid of article 301 of the penal code, which was used to prosecute various writers, including Orhan Pamuk, for "insulting Turkishness". But keeping article 301, say opponents, just confirms that AK is interested only in promoting Islam and defanging the army. The government remains "selective about democracy", claims Umit Kardas, a former army prosecutor and critic of the generals.

When Festus Okey, a Nigerian refugee, was shot dead in an Istanbul police station, no official rebuke was uttered. Mr Kardas blames a law restoring the police's ability to act with impunity for other alleged abuses. None of this augurs well for Turkey's hopes of joining the European Union. It may fall to Mr Gul, a Europhile and undoubted democrat, to restore calm and bolster the AK's secular credentials.