Turkey, too, sees gains by Islamists

For 80 years, the leaders of Turkey – a Muslim majority nation – have built walls between mosque and state.

On Sunday, voters here ousted the ruling parties, and swept into power a new political party with Islamic roots, leaving many unsure of whether those walls are still welcome by most Turks.

Turkey's election – coming on the heels of gains by Islamic parties in Pakistan in October and in Morocco in September – is seen by some analysts as a sign that more Muslims worldwide are turning to religion-based political movements.

Domestic factors – from frustration with government corruption to resentment toward oppressive regimes – are fueling this trend. But, in some places, there's a perception of a post-Sept. 11 polarization between Islam and the West. Voters also are being drawn to a better vision than the one they've heard from secular politicians.

"At the level of ideology, these organizations seem to be more coherent, more exact their program, than what they hear from anyone else," says Dr. Emad Shahin, an expert on Islamic political movements at The American University in Cairo, Egypt.

"One reason for the success of Islamic parties is good organization. They have the neighborhood infrastructure, the continuity of seeing people at the mosque every week or every day – and at the same time, there is an inability of the nation-state to provide basic services and to fulfill basic needs of the people," he says. Shahin points out that Islamists often provide assistance that the government does not.

"These groups also address the issue of their identity and the outside threat. The incentive for these movements was there before Sept. 11," he says. "But after Sept 11, there is an increasing level of polarization between the West and Islam. Westerners for obvious reasons are feeling threatened by an outside force, which in this case is Al Qaeda, and unfortunately making Islam associated with their entire camp.

"And on the other hand," he adds. "Muslims feel threatened by what they see as Western designs for them for their future."

In many ways, the Islamic world is so diverse that some here say it is hard to draw parallels between Turkey, which has one of the most feisty democracies in its region, and a Gulf Arab country like Bahrain, which also recently held elections for the first time in 30 years. In that vote, the Islamist candidates gained almost half the seats available.

And unlike the parties in Morocco and in Pakistan, which openly support the implementation of sharia, or Islamic law, Turkey's AK Party politicians have avoided the fiery rhetoric of the Islamic parties closed down by Turkish authorities in the past decade, and have pledged to uphold Turkey's secular, pro-Western stance.

But some of the parallels do hold true. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of the AK (Justice and Development) Party, gained widespread popularity when he was the mayor of Istanbul – and tended to hard scrabble neighborhoods that were neglected by the municipality for years. He infused this image of clean, altruistic governance with Islamic principles, banning alcohol from cafes on government property. "In many countries, the record of the Islamists is not that bad," says Shahin, "Many of them emphasize issues of fairness, justice and discipline, and that has appeal."

Moreover, though he's already been in government, Mr. Erdogan maintained his image as an outsider fighting the system, bolstered by the fact that the system is fighting back. Just last week, an election court brought a new case against the AK Party for violating electoral laws in a new attempt to keep Erdogan from power. The case is to resume in the next two weeks, after AK Party has a chance to prepare its defense.

Some analysts in Turkey say the AK Party's rise to power is more of a rejection of failed leaders than it is a vote for an Islamist agenda. "This is a civilian coup d'etat. It's an earthquake," says Mehmet Ali Birant, a newspaper columnist in Istanbul.

"But it would be a big mistake to say that Turkey is being taken over by an Islamic party," he says. "It's a revolt of the people in the outlying areas, the poor and the needy. Only 20 percent of the people who voted are Islamist. The rest of them are issuing a protest vote: 'I hate the corruption. I hate the system.' "

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