Turkey's descent into darkness

Major media outlets continue to tout Turkey as major example of how representative democracy can work in the Muslim world.  Readers of this blog know better -- that representative democracy is slowly but surely dying, as Claire Berlinski, a columnist operating out of Istanbul, explains:

It’s easy and tempting to think that a 99% Muslim country is going to turn toward Islamism. Yet this may be happening in Turkey despite the fact that less than 10% of Turks describe themselves as “fully devout” (KONDA’s “Religion, Secularism and the Veil in Daily Life” Survey). For tens of millions of Turks, religiosity is a private matter, an attitude parallel to that in the United States.

The problem is that there is a minority of pro-Islamists who have been allowed to take control of Turkey’s ruling party, the AKP, although at the ballot box, the party represents nearly half of the Turkish people due to a combination of the ineptitude of the opposition, the AKP’s  far superior organization, and its exploitation of state power.

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