No!

Submitted by SULTAN (Turkey), Sep 22, 2005 at 15:30

İn Turkey there are 10% radical islamists.the rest 90% is normal muslims who dont see islam politically at all. You can see these ratios from the election results. yes Mr erdoğan was a radical islamist in the past. Himself and his family are still practicing islam in maximum conservative ways. But as a prime minister, he does not show any signs of radicalism. He will be a president in three years and his party will be selected one more time in the next elections since they dont have strong opponents. Then He will be able to get the states complete power. We will see if he is trying to bring radicalism to Turkey or not when the time comes. Probably he is changed and he is smart enough to see the Turkish peoples realities.Turks are very religious people no less, probably even more than arabs or İranians in general.But it is also a fact that the way we understand and practice İslam is rather different.

Our islamic beliefs are also not uniform throughout the country.some 20 % called alevis which ı dont belong into are practicing islam in a very humanistic way. ı dont think this sect is followed in any other country in the world. Also the other sects except %10 radicals are very tolerant to other beliefs. Even if our leaders encourage or force us to islamism they will be faced with an extremely strong resistance because after 80 years of freedom it is impossible for us to live like iranians. so I am very confident that turks can not go into islamizm.but protecting secularism with the force of military and kemalism is an obstacle for Turkey. we can be proud of being unique and respectable muslims and not a trade mark as islamic terrorists. but on the other hand we are no more developed than the other muslim countries. Because this way of administration is something like hidden communism and also causing corruptions and stopping Turkey to be a developed country. Turkey was bankrupting before Mr erdoğan. so I think we must take the risks about secularism and stop strict state controls.

West has no reason to be scared of Turks that they are muslims.There are 2,5 millions living in Germany for 40 years now.There is no state control about the way they practice islam there.may be they dont easily assimilate to german culture but there are no indications of terrorism or radicalism about them.

We are very well aware that west is far civilised and far infront of us in every way. we want to catch up. we want to join to EU. But even if they reject us we must respect to EU. But I cant say the same things about USA. USA did a great job in Bosnia. After 9.11 may be Afghanistan occupation was right also. But Irak was a great mistake.There are too many things that destroyed our good feelings about America. We are deeply hurt.although our governments seem to be cooparating, people just cant forget the bags on our soldiers heads and the poor Turks who are massacred in Kerkuk and Telafer and other cities.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".