Zeynep is not talking about the AKP. She is talking about the Welfare Party which was overthrown by the Military in 1997 in a "post-modern" coup, similar to the "virtual" coup of a few weeks ago. I do not know if you know it but the Military sent its recent warning to the AKP through a letter they published on their web site.
After the "post-modern" coup of 1997, the Welfare was replaced with the Virtue Party (these Islamists are wonderful at finding original party names). The Virtue party never did as well as the Welfare Party. It is still in existence but is not doing well in these days. And the AKP is an offspring of the Virtue Party. The Welfare party and its successor the Virtue were more "radical" than the AKP or, put differently, the AKP is "milder" than the Welfare/Virtue, whatever this means. But what Zeynep says for the Welfare Party applies to the AKP as well. There is nothing new under the sun, in other words, except the rhetoric and new faces as leaders who were members of the Virtue they departed and blessed by the Bush administration. From a decade earlier Zeynep is confirming what I have already said here, except that she and I differ in that I do not view the Republic of Turkey a secular country while she does since she interprets the state control of religion as a peculiar form of secularism, a minor disagreement. Best, Sabri ____________________________________________________________________________________Be a better Globetrotter. Get better travel answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545469
