Jenny White of Kamil Pasha (and of The Immanent Frame) links to “an insightful and provocative article” by Kerem Oktem in The New Humanist:
As it appears now, the two large blocs vying for hegemony are not secularists and moderate Islamists, but isolationalists and nationalists—ranging from the military to the Republican People’s Party—on the one side and authoritarian Islamists on the other. Both blocs are determined to impose their ideological straitjacket on society, both are ready to use religion for their political ends, both base their politics on the vilification of others and both are happy to exclude the two large minority groups, the Kurds and the Alevis, without whose enfranchisement Turkish democracy will remain incomplete. Yet both blocs are also Machiavellian enough to drop almost any ideological commitment, if this would bring them closer to power.
Read the full article here.