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S.Yasir

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is believed to have once famously remarked, that "A nation which makes the final sacrifice for life and freedom does not get beaten." The sprit of the Turks remained but not Atatürk's. Atatürk will be fondly remembered for many (at the time good-meaning, but which would consequently become landmark and path-breaking) initiatives, which he espoused for Turkish society, amongst them, the spirit of tolerance, accommodation and secularism, ideas which remain on high appraisal. For some, Atatürk continues and will remain a towering national icon, but for others, he embodies the traits of a state, that is availing and instrumentalising his memory, for its own oppressive purposes.


Then, is Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's Secular Turkey, dying a slow and silent Death?



Last weeks events in Istanbul, brought back the memory of prophesies by many western analysts, who had predicted the fall of secular credentials of Turkey, when the Justice and Development Party (AKP) assumed power back in 2002. The argument that was genuinely put forth by several policy wonks was that, never in the past had any political party ascended to power with its "roots in Islam" as had been the case in Turkey. With some pessimism, several in the west, highlighted the fact of the spouses of many ministers donning headscarves, which were forbidden under Turkey's secular Constitution. Many within mainstream society and beyond, vended suspicions, that the AKP bore a clandestine 'religious' or 'theocratic' agenda, underpinned by Islamic tenets, which could serve to rupture the much vaunted and long sustained secular fabric of the moderate Muslim nation, located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia.



The perception seemed to come to some fruition last week, when the Court precluded a move, which would have permitted, wearing of headscarves at Universities. In rendering their...