A secular/liberal dictator sitting at the helm of affairs in Turkey was acceptable to the West. An elected popular strongman with the reputation of being a practising Muslim who harbours dreams of Islamic re-emergence, is as good as a nightmare in most capitals of the West.
The rise of Erdogan has been phenomenal in Turkey. He won the 2003 elections virtually from prison, and once in power he started transforming the face and character of Ataturk’s Turkey. Mustafa Kamal had de-Islamised his country in a manner that in the decades that followed, owing any political allegiance to Islam was regarded as an act of sabotage and a crime against the state. Adnan Menders paid a heavy price for this sin.
His popularly elected government was disbanded, his Justice party banned and he himself hanged. Suleiman Demirel survived that fate but for decades the re-emergence of Islam was regarded as a fallacy in Turkey. Erdogan has proved it wrong. He has single-handedly fought the Secular Judiciary and Secular Military of Turkey— also the Kemalists—and the Kurdish separatists.
And he survived a coup last year. Now he has won a crucial referendum. People of Turkey have given Erdogan 51% vote to replace the decadent and counter-productive parliamentary system with a strong Presidential setup in which he will have sweeping powers to make modern Turkey a worthy successor to the Ottoman Empire of Salim and Suleiman.
Whereas the Ottomans had abandoned Islam in practice, Erdogan has declared dreams of making Turkish heart, throb with Islamic longings.
As Mayor of Istanbul in 1999 he had recited a poem in a Public gathering the crux of which was a couplet.
The Call to Allah has dimmed in my Land.
But tomorrow belongs to the Crescent.
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