First SECULARISM....

Submitted by Tijen (United States), May 24, 2007 at 15:58

AKP has been in power for four years. It will take a lot more time to topple the secular system of 80 years but I know it is in the works. That's why the Turkish secular elite and the middle class are protesting. It is NOT only the elite as the protests have proven! Remember, only ONE person out of four voted for the AKP in the last elections.

You have a naive view of assuming that a democratically selected government backed by religious masses with a carte-blanche would respect liberties. The freedom of the non-believers and mild-believers would perish.

I tolerate the women with head scarves as they pass me on the street. I don't pull their scarves away. Do you think under such a regime these women will treat me in the same manner? I will be forced to wear a head scarf and a ridicilous space alien like outfit when I go swimming, to say the least. How civilized would this be?

If this is democracy then I don't want it. I prefer a dictatorship that will allow me to live like a descent human being. It would be a dictatorship of civilization, science, tolerence much better than a religion powered "democracy" with superstition, ignorence and intolerence. This secular dictatorship does not have to be a brute dictatorship, as you are referring, if it allows people to worship in their homes, mosques, synagogues, churches, etc. and dress, eat and drink whatever they want in civil life. What more do the religious people want? Isn't this enough to serve God?

I say secularism comes first and must be the foundation for a civilized nation. The democratically selected governments must honor its principles.

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