Turkey's political turmoil is only superficially about secularism and Islam, writes NICHOLAS BIRCH
"THIS IS not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." The ringing phrases are Churchill's, speaking after the defeat of Erwin Rommel at El-Alamein in 1942. He could have been referring to today's Turkey.
The country heaved a collective sigh of relief last week after a court narrowly voted down a call for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to be closed for anti-secular activities. Politicians of all stripes found something to celebrate in the judges' carefully calibrated decision.
Unnerved by months of political uncertainty, foreign investors began to flock back to one of the region's most promising economies. European politicians who had warned that a ban could end Turkey's European Union accession bid applauded like misty-eyed soccer mums from the sidelines.
But the constitutional court's ruling was not, as some have claimed, a victory for democracy. At best, it was a welcome step forward from an establishment that has had no compunction in shutting down 24 parties in the past half century.
At worst, it was a sign of the difficulties Turkey faces in ridding itself of its authoritarian demons.
Turkish secularists' fear of rising religiosity under AKP is not entirely unjustified. But the country's turmoil is only superficially about secularism and Islam. The war being fought here is like the struggle for existence of a hermit crab that has outgrown its old shell but not found a new one yet.
Until recently, Turkey was what Turks call a "guardianship democracy", shared between elected civilians and the army. "Politicians hold the drum, somebody else holds the sticks", five-time prime minister Suleyman Demirel once quipped. He should know: the military removed him from power not once but twice.
It was an unorthodox set-up that began to bulge around the seams in the 1980s, as the country opened its economy to the world. Reforms passed to ensure a start to Turkey's European Union accession bid in 2004 weakened it further. A secularist equivalent of Iran's powerful Council of Guardians, Turkey's National Security Council - consulted for all major political decisions - used to be chaired by a general. A diplomat now bosses it, and military seats have been reduced.
Perhaps more importantly, and unlike their predecessors, Turkey's new generation of politicians no longer seem willing to play political second fiddle. In what appeared to supporters of the old system the height of arrogance, prime minister Tayyip Erdogan last year described the chief of staff as "a civil servant who answers to me".
This is all good stuff for those who want to see the Turkish military's long shadow shortened. But Turkey has yet to replace the old set of checks and balances with ones found in western democracies.
Hamstrung by a party law that enables political leaders to behave like feudal barons, local democracy is almost non-existent. In their affection for banning demonstrations and beating those brave enough to venture out, Turkish authorities - and politicians - show a continued contempt for that foundation of liberal democracy: freedom of assembly.
As a recent report by an Ankara-based law expert showed, the view that law is there to defend the state, not its citizens, is still profoundly anchored in the minds of many prosecutors and judges. An old law, meanwhile, puts the power to appoint senior judges firmly in the hands of the government. So much for Montesquieu's separation of powers.
"The old consensus based on state coercion is dead," says Hakan Yilmaz, a political scientist at Istanbul's prestigious Bogazici University. "What the country now needs is a new concordat, like the ones signed in the old days between kings and the pope."
Like most liberals, he thinks the new model has to be based on two fundamental premises.
First, Turkey has to start seeing itself as a multi-ethnic state, with (among others) Kurds as well as Turks. Second, while the majority of Turkish citizens are Sunni Muslims, the state must desist from imposing Sunni Islam on everybody, via compulsory religious classes in schools and a department of religious affairs whose budget rivals that of education.
Put bluntly, this means a new constitution to replace the one drafted by a military junta in 1982. Late last year, it looked as though the government was planning just that.
Called in by the AKP, legal experts even got as far as bringing out a new draft. Government promises of a national debate came to nothing, though. Instead, AKP launched the clumsy effort to end a ban on headscarves that nearly brought its downfall.
Reprieved, it now has huge responsibility on its shoulders. Will it continue to pander to the minority of its supporters who see freedom for headscarf-wearing girls as Turkey's sole issue, or will it - as Erdogan promised when he won a landslide electoral victory last July - reach out to all Turks?
The past few days have seen encouraging noises come from inside the party. Yet Yilmaz, for one, can't help feeling it still lacks political maturity.
"Nobody can deny the AKP's capacity to learn from its mistakes," he says. "It has all the pragmatism of a small shopkeeper. But small shopkeepers are opportunists too: when they finally see a customer, they jump on them," just as AKP did with headscarves.
Some liberal commentators have compared last week's court decision to deprive AKP of half its state funding to a yellow card in a football match.
For Emre Akoz, a columnist for the mass-market daily Sabah, it was a signal that Turkey's "guardianship democracy marches on unchanged".
"The sword of Damocles hangs over AKP's head," he wrote. "Its message? You look after the economy and municipal services, but leave affairs of state well alone."
• Nicholas Birch is a freelance journalist based in Turkey