Turkey: a success story of tripartite coexistence
Imtiyaz Yusuf
Special to The Nation May 4, 2012 1:00 am
It is generally thought that Islam, secularism and democracy are incompatible.
Such a biased view is based on hearsay rather than study of political history in the Muslim world. Muslim societies have been engaging in the debate about the relationship between politics and religion since their early history.
The history of Turkey since the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1923 is a good illustration of a Muslim country grappling with such issues as republicanism, the power of the military, secularism and the role of religion in socio-political space. The current Turkish political scenario where an Islamist party leads the government in a secular state presents a good example for other Muslim countries.
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