By Andrew Wander
Daily Star staff
Friday, October 24, 2008
BEIRUT: Despite the two-year power struggle between Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the secular elite, basic democratic freedoms in the country are developing, the founder of a European think tank said during a visit to Beirut on Wednesday.
Gerald Knaus, who heads the European Stability Initiative, told delegates at a seminar hosted by the Carnegie Center that although the opposition’s fears about the party’s Islamic identity often grabs the headlines, the AKP has in fact ushered in a period of increasing freedom in the country.
“Everything in Russia that has gone backward over the past five years has gone forward in Turkey,” Knaus said.
Under the AKP, newspapers have become more comfortable in criticizing the government and despite more people considering themselves “quite religious” or “very religious” in Turkey, support for the implementation of Sharia law – which the secular opposition claims is the AKP’s hidden agenda – has dropped by more than half.
Knaus compared the Muslim democrats who support the AKP to the Christian Calvinist movement in the way they embrace both faith and business, pointing out that the AKP is supported by many successful provincial businessmen whose religion remains central to their lives.
But he warned that while the benefits of rapid industrialization in Turkey have reached many of the population, others are missing out.
“Changes reach the heartland, but bypass the southeast,” he said.
Source : Daily Star