Word: secularizing
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...emboldened secularists, a great many young conservatives have precisely the same goal. Indeed, supporters of the AKP, which has dominated the Turkish parliament for the past five years, have been invigorated by the secularists' opposition. After the Turkish army, a stalwart (if frequently undemocratic) defender of the country's secular heritage, intervened in April to block the party's choice for President, the AKP vowed to leave the decision to the people by calling for early elections. (If the party wins a majority in the parliament, it aims to change the constitution to allow a direct presidential vote.) Hundreds...
...years, young secularists like Utku Koseoglu took their power for granted. They saw themselves as the rightful heirs to Ataturk, the West-leaning founder of modern Turkey in 1923 who decreed a secular state and exhorted subsequent generations to defend it. Ataturk's "secular establishment," rooted in the military and judiciary, became a kind of ruling class. When political parties strayed too far from secularist principles, the army stepped in - for example, to force an Islamist-led government from power in 1997. Few young Turks felt compelled to vote, the more so after the military banned political parties from campuses...
...standards. The ostensible aim has been to boost Turkish prosperity and to bring the nation into Europe. A side effect has been to weaken the role of the military in Turkey's political life and to strengthen religious and minority rights. The result: a de facto challenge to the secular establishment that has dominated Turkish society since the country's foundation...
...Both leaders were members of the Welfare Party that was banned in 1997 for undermining Turkey's secular regime. Erdogan was imprisoned a few months later for reading, while mayor of Istanbul, a poem that likened minarets to bayonets. "Democracy is like a street car," Erdogan is alleged to have said in one mailing. "You only ride it to get to your destination." The Kemalists' blogs remind skeptics of the Islamic notion of takiye, according to which it is permissible for devout Muslims to dissimulate in order to achieve their goal. The fact that the party has not yet pursued...
...farm boy from the state of Uttar Pradesh in northeast India who grew up to be Prime Minister. Chandra Shekhar was known by both supporters and detractors as a political firebrand, an idealistic, secular nationalist who could be blunt to a fault. Indira Gandhi jailed him, along with many other of her outspoken political opponents, during a tumultuous period in the mid-1970s. Shekhar became Prime Minister in 1990, but holding only a slim majority in a fractious coalition, he served just seven months before resigning amid charges that his government was spying on political rival Rajiv Gandhi. Shekhar died...