“Between Fact And Fantasy: Turkey’s Ergenekon Investigation” is a Silk Road Paper published by the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and the Silk Road Studies Program.
Preface
Contemporary Turkish politics is striking for many reasons, not least the
fundamentally opposing and mutually exclusive narratives by which
domestic as well as foreign observers describe its major fault lines. Hence the
irreconcilable descriptions of the ruling Justice and Development Party
(AKP) government, in power since 2002: its supporters describe it as a the
Muslim world’s equivalent of Christian Democracy, the political force that is
ridding Turkey of its authoritarian past and making it a European
democracy. Its detractors, however, accuse it of seeking to Islamicize the
country’s state and society, muzzling independent media and criticism,
moving it in the direction of authoritarianism, and in the process driving
Turkey away from Europe. Descriptions of the mainly nationalist opposition
to the AKP are equally divided, ranging from seeing these forces as wellintentioned
supporters of Turkey’s secular republic to being authoritarianminded,
fascistoid groups that clamor for a return to military rule.
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