Turkish society will become more Islamic under AKP

Subject

The future of secularism in of Turkey.

Significance

The speaker of the Grand National Assembly, Ismail Kahraman, provoked uproar on April 25 when he called for secularism to be dropped from the proposed (but as yet unpublished) new constitution. There were instant protests and demonstrations by middle-class opponents and, perhaps more surprisingly, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Both rejected the idea that secularism -- which has featured in the Turkish constitution since 1928 -- should be discarded.

Impacts

• Society's pro-Western orientation is being slowly eroded, and latent hostility to the United States and United Kingdom is growing.
• Turkey's main secular universities -- Bosphorus (Bogazici) and Middle East Technical -- are under increasing pressure to change.
• Government preference for Middle Eastern, especially Saudi and Qatari, business partners and investors will continue.