This is a very interesting article on the Turkish "Islamists", where they're getting glowing tributes. Maybe the "Islamists" in this country could learn something from them... with their practical, down-to-earth approach, preferring action rather than rhetorics.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turkish Islamists Hope to Ride Competence to Victory By SABRINA TAVERNISE New York Times Published: May 4, 2007 ISTANBUL, May 3 - In the course of a single week, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken on Turkey's Parliament, its highest court, even its military. Then he called for early national elections. As Mr. Erdogan confronts Turkey's secular establishment, demanding an early popular vote, he is relying on a vast grass-roots network built by his constituents, whose boundless energy has driven recent economic growth. That energy is flowing into living rooms across Turkey in the form of campaign pitches. To Turkey's secular elite, Mr. Erdogan and his crowd want to drag the country back to the past. But it is precisely his party's local approach that makes it likely to that he will prevail. If he does, power would shift to the devout middle class he represents and away from the secular elite, which has controlled the state since its founding in 1923. Kenan Danisman, 43, a soy oil exporter, was using his selling skills in a middle-class living room shortly before 10 p.m. on a recent Friday. >From a family of 11 in eastern Turkey, he volunteers as the coordinator for >Mr. Erdogan's party in Buyukcekmece, a sprawling suburb that bristles with >high-rises built for Turks who came in the 1980s to find work. Such districts >are strongholds for Mr. Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, known by its >Turkish initials, A.K. "We can't put out the fire by talking," he said, sweating in a dark suit. "I need each of you to carry a bucket. I also want your neighbor's. Your uncle's." He expertly sketched the campaign strategy. In all, Buyukcekmece has 1,100 ballot boxes, and the party is looking for nine volunteers per box. The area is divided into 45 neighborhoods, each with a party representative. Citywide, 450 groups of volunteers conduct house visits. The intensive approach, unique in Turkey to Mr. Erdogan's party and pioneered by the pro-Islamic party he used to belong to, has proved tremendously successful. The party was new when it was elected in 2002 with 34 percent of the vote, almost double the number of votes garnered by the main secular opposition party. That secular party, the Republican People's Party, has built its platform almost completely around distrust of Mr. Erdogan and his party. Asked about the party's philosophy, Bayram Acar, 44, a party official, speaks only about its rivals. "There are still people in Parliament, like the A.K. party, who have not digested the republican principles," he said, with two tiny figures of the country's founder, Ataturk, standing on his tidy desk and Turkish flags and portraits of Ataturk as decoration. His party's message, he said, has "always been loyal to the principles of republicanism," with no major change since Ataturk founded the party more than 80 years ago. "We've never been hypocrites like A.K. We've been what we've been from the very beginning." House visits are the work of women, he said. Once a month, he meets with elected officials; once every two months, he has a broader audience. Now, the party is working on printing brochures and training ballot box volunteers. Mr. Acar later paid a house call, but it seemed to be aimed more at convincing visiting journalists than the 10 women sitting in an airy room with lettuce-colored walls. The approach has not served them well, said Ali Carkoglu, a professor of political science at Sabanci University. The party "is very judgmental," he said. "They don't want to talk to people they don't approve of." "You talk to the A.K. people, and they try to sell to you, they try to persuade you," he added. Seher Oksar, a lawyer who is head of the women's branch at Mr. Acar's Republican People's Party headquarters, said she tried to meet with new women several times a week. Mr. Erdogan's party is helped by an army of municipal mayors elected in 2004, when it swept local elections. Party members occupy the mayoral posts in 24 of 32 of Istanbul's boroughs and do not hesitate to use the posts to promote the party. Ahmet Demircan, a city official and member of Mr. Erdogan's party, was already winning admirers before 7 a.m. one day last month, talking about potholes and parking. His audience, in the basement of a city administration building, was about 100 men brought on buses after finishing prayers at a local mosque. "If you can't reach me, that's my chief of staff," he said, pointing to a man in the back. The men listened over dishes of olives, hard-boiled eggs and cheese. Omer F. Karatas, a leader of the A.K. party's youth branch in Istanbul, said: "Before you had a condescending approach to citizenry. The state was up here and the people down there. Now, there's a harmonization of these two groups." Later that day, Mr. Demircan visited a women's literacy center, a nursery school, and a youth center, all built by the municipality. The party prides itself on energetic municipal administration, but that is also a cause of complaint from others, who say the A.K. favors its own. Levant Sicim, a 42-year-old construction contractor who was part of a large protest of secular Turks in Istanbul on Sunday, said his work had dried up since the party came to power. "It's not difficult, it's impossible," to win contracts, he said. Mr. Erdogan was Istanbul's mayor before he became prime minister, and the party points out that during his tenure, the city's garbage was finally picked up, and the city got a subway and a tram line, and natural gas that made the air much cleaner. It was running water that won over Yavuz Demirce, 29, an architect who came to Istanbul from eastern Turkey when he was 15. He spent his childhood carrying buckets, because his apartment did not have a tap. "They are helping people," he said in the kitchen as his A.K. party meeting went on loudly in the next room. "The country supports them." Previous governments, he said, were corrupt and ineffective. "We are a young, rich country," he said. "We just need a good driver." Young voters are the largest part of the electorate in Turkey, said Mr. Carkoglu, the political science professor, and they tend to vote for the A.K. party. Anyone under 35 spent their formative years under coalition governments that fumbled the response to a devastating earthquake and siphoned money. "When people look back, A.K. shines like a star," he said. Of the 2.5 million first-time voters in the last election, two-thirds voted for A.K., he said. The party's major shortcoming has been that it failed to listen to secular Turks or to take their concerns seriously, political analysts said. It remains to be seen whether younger supporters like Mr. Demirce will find better ways to build bridges. In Buyukcekmece, it was almost 11 p.m. and Mr. Danisman was tired. A woman angry about nut prices had been tough. A man refused to relent about Koran classes. But the meeting to recruit ballot box volunteers was not in vain. "I think I got one," his assistant said, smiling broadly.
