January 19, 2014

You cannot fool all the people all the time

Şahin Alpay

I did not vote for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in any of the general elections. I refused to call it the “AK” (clean) Party, believing that the acronym just stated an ideal which had to be lived up to. But, as evident in my columns, I was generally supportive of the AKP government in its first two terms in power despite critical stances over several issues. Roughly since the referendum for constitutional amendments in September 2010, however, I have been growing critical of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government, which has increasingly assumed an arbitrary and authoritarian style of governance, and is polarizing society, thus leading the country into a severe political crisis.

Plan to finish off the Hizmet movement

Erhan Başyurt, Bugün

It seems that some groups have planned to finish off the Hizmet movement, which was inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, and start a conflict between the movement and the ruling AK Party.

[Caliphate in sight] What to expect in 2014 Turkey

Doğa Sacit*

Turks are used to their state persecuting Islamic groups and even individual apolitical Muslims. The past century is full of examples of such groups being banned, their leaders being summarily executed or jailed without fair trial and individual Muslims being purged from either the military or other state institutions. All were done in the name of “protecting the state's secular regime.”

Erdogan vs. Gulen: Who has God on his side?

Mustafa Akyol

In today's Turkey, a single issue dominates the public agenda: the political battle between the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the religious community of Fethullah Gulen. Every recent dispute — the corruption probe against the government, an investigation of an alleged arms-carrying truck crossing the Syrian border, the raid on al-Qaeda — is interpreted as being a part of that big war. Many seem to agree — but not able to prove — that the prosecutors who play an active role in these probes are motivated by their membership in the Gulen movement. They passionately disagree, though, on whether this political motivation should delegitimize the investigations as “coup attempts,” or whether the evidence for corruption and other misdeeds should be the real focus.