What started in Taksim Square as an environmental uprising, as it was described by some, turned rapidly into an uprising of a different nature, of a more serious one. What we are witnessing in Turkey today is a power struggle between the 13-year-old Islamist regime in power and the anti-Islamist constituency.
Various factors have affected the Turkish role; among them are the policy of gradual and soft Islamization of society and the state, mainly the moralization of many laws — though it creates a lot of constraints on individual freedoms — and the newly built legitimacy of economic success. The neutralization of the army’s role in politics, the dynamic and active foreign policy of “zero problems with neighbors” and the relative success of settling the Kurdish problem at home — some would say containing — were all important pillars in the strong reemergence of a neo-Ottoman Turkish regional role.
