Word: secularistic
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...looking out my window at Kings College chapel [the iconic building at Cambridge University, which Rushdie attended]," he says. "And its hard not to believe in the capacity of religion to create beauty" with that sight in his memory. He then expressed wonder that, as a non-Christian secularist, he was invited in 1993 to preach a sermon in that same chapel and did. "There are moments in your life that surprise you," he said...
...case has paralyzed Turkey since March, when chief prosecutor Abdurrahman Sarikaya filed an indictment urging that the AKP be banned for anti-secularist activities. The main item of evidence he used to back the claim was a government move earlier this year to lift the ban on female students wearing headscarves at universities. The headscarf issue is almost irrationally divisive - for the pious, it's a matter of religious freedom; for the secularists, it symbolizes a political movement they insist threatens their lifestyle. The government's approach to the issue - introducing the change overnight, with no public debate - was widely...
...trial had been widely seen as the final chapter in an ongoing showdown between the AKP and the secularist establishment, particularly in the military and the courts. A military attempt to stare down Erdogan last year over the nomination of his own party's Abdullah Gul for President backfired: Erdogan called snap elections and was returned to power with 47% of the vote, an even greater margin than from when he was first elected. This time, it was the turn of the judiciary to lead the charge for secularism...
...Turkey can ill afford a repeat of the court saga or continued and potentially explosive polarization; it would seem that Erdogan has little other option. Building broad social consensus may also be his only real guarantee against the secularist old guard, who have stepped in with military coups and judicial decisions against elected governments in the past, and may yet do so again. So while today's verdict was a victory for the government, it was also a warning...
...puzzle may never be solved. Critics of the Ergenekon investigation say that while aspects of the indictment may be relevant, the government is using it to avenge a bid by the secularist establishment - namely the courts and military - to close them down for alleged Islamism. Meanwhile, many supporters of the investigation argue that the case could finally rein in ultra-nationalist elements, which have long seen themselves as beyond the law's reach, and thus mark a crucial juncture in Turkey's democratization...