For the past few years, in particular since the arrival of the Justice and Development Party (known as AKP, the acronym of its Turkish name) to power in November 2002, Turkey has performed as a model to refute the long-held Western theory that Islam and democracy are incompatible. That model seems to be crumbling now. Oddly enough, nonetheless, is that the party, which seeks to abort Turkey's democratic process, is the secular, Western-oriented elite.
On Tuesday, Turkish authorities detained at least 24 ultra-nationalists, including two prominent retired generals, in a widening police investigation into a coup plot against the ruling Islamic-oriented party.
According to Turkish media, the alleged plotters are suspected of planning bombings and assassinations calculated to trigger a military takeover. The attempt to topple the government was foiled shortly before the Constitutional Court began hearing a legal case in which the governing AKP is charged with trying to establish an Islamic state.
Secular principles
During the hearing, Turkey's chief prosecutor urged the country's top court to disband the AKP for undermining secular principles. He also demanded that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and 70 other party members be barred from politics for five years.
These developments threaten the newly established democratic process and would eventually throw the country into turmoil. The court case and the foiled coup attempt reflect a power struggle between two rival elites. It also symbolises a decades-old conflict over the role of Islam in state and society. Moreover, the showdown between the government and its opponents is seen as the last stand by Turkey's secular old guard, desperately trying to hang on to power. With its control of the presidency, the Parliament and the government, the AKP has come further than any other party in modern Turkey in breaking the grip of the secular establishment on power.
The Turkish military used to respond to these challenges by interfering in politics and deposing elected government. Over the past 50 years, Turkey has had four military coups; two of them involved armed force. The most recent was a 1997 'soft coup', when the generals edged from power a government it considered Islamist using a combination of public and behind the scenes pressure.
Public support
This time the military does not seem to have much public support. Last week several thousands Turks marched in central Istanbul in support of democracy. For many the military is no longer in a position to make coups, hence, resorting to the constitutional court.
Turkey is on the verge of a titanic power struggle between the AKP, armed with popular legitimacy, constitutional prerogatives and democratic mandate, and a powerful coterie of generals and judges who steered the country from behind the scenes for years. They exerted influence through a series of unelected institutions that imposed vetoes in education, the judiciary and security matters.
Over the past decade, the military used Turkish courts to ban more than 20 parties for alleged Islamist or Kurdish separatist activities.
In 2001 a predecessor to the AKP was banned. Many fear that the AKP might face similar fate, especially since the Constitutional Court last month overturned a government-led move to allow students to wear the Islamic headscarf at university.
Western analysts tend to see Turkey's current arm-twisting as another chapter in a historic struggle that began in the 1920s, when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk turned West, destroying all links to the East and Islam.
In fact, the ongoing struggle is much more than that. It is a major showdown between Islamic democracy and secular authoritarianism. This makes it deterministic not only for Turkey but for the future of democracy in the entire Islamic world.
Dr Marwan Kabalan is a lecturer in media and international relations, Faculty of Political Science and Media, Damascus University, Syria.
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