Time to Bid Farewell To Turkey’s 'Muslim Democracy'
Taksim resistance inflicted an ideological loss on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the AKP, making it impossible to continue labeling Turkey as a "Muslim democracy."
The social explosion caused by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarian policies and narratives is not only a political defeat for him. This uprising also shows that he finally suffered an unequivocal and major ideological defeat. This defeat is a historic one whose effects will be felt in the region and across the world.
If we try to summarize this defeat in a few words, what we are experiencing now is the collapse of the "Muslim democracy paradigm." The ambition of AKP [Justice and Development Party] Turkey to be a model for the Middle East has been invalidated by the social explosion. The collapse should be partly attributed to this phenomenon.
We have already lived through issues as outlawing abortions and banning alcohol or religious influence on education before the Gezi Park uprising. The crucial question whether "moderate political Islam" is compatible with "democracy" has already been answered in the negative.
On May 31, the day when police attacked with tear gas and pepper spray a few hundred civil society activists who were opposing removal of the trees from Gezi Park and building of a concrete replica of an Ottoman military barracks in their place, the topic of my article in Al-Monitor was about anti-freedom alcohol bans under the title "Moderate Political Islam is Steering Turkey to Moderate Shariyah."
