The apologists are wrong, dead wrong about Turkey

Here is an interresting essay from the Turkish Daily News.

Ambassador (ret.) Ö. Faruk Loğoğlu, Ph.D* "The success of Turkish democracy lies, not in the fusion of democracy and Islam, but in the fusion of democracy and secularism on the one hand and the simultaneous separation of state and religion on the other. The effort to drive a wedge between secularism and democracy in Turkey is a dangerous trap."

[...]

"Monotheistic religions such as Islam and Christianity are all encompassing in their answers to human needs. No area of life, including the political, is outside their claimed domain. The commandments of faith, which in Islam are incredibly detailed, must be obeyed. Those who fail to obey are sinners and cannot be tolerated. And this is exactly what lies beneath the headscarf issue in Turkey. The women, who expose their hair and bodies, can never be truly accepted by those following the strict interpretation of Islamic standards. To the ‘uncovered' women, their headscarf-wearing sisters are equals. But to the women who wear the headscarf, aren‘t the ‘uncovered' women at best misguided sinners?"

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