Islamic inroads to Europe*

[Aiman]

Asalaamu Caleykum Waraxmatullaahi Wabarakaatuh my dear respected brothers & sisters in Islam

Bacadu Salaam,


Islamic inroads to Europe
Article from: The Daily Telegraph

June 29, 2007 12:00am

If you thought Turkey was no threat to the West, think again. A new generation of politicians is aiming to Islamise the state by stealth.

The AKP - Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, or Justice and Development Party - has a stranglehold on Turkey for the foreseeable future.

The AKP was founded to replace a previous Islamic party banned for extremism.

It benefited hugely from the corruption scandals that dragged down the previous government, taking two-thirds of parliament in the 2002 general election (on a third of the vote).

On Friday, its ex-foreign secretary Abdullah Gul narrowly failed to win a victory in the first round of presidential elections.

The result was close enough to prompt public demonstrations by secularists ahead of the second round voting on May 2, and a statement from the military - long the guardians of Turkey's secular traditions - warning against a pro-Islam political agenda.

Since coming to power, the AKP has done nothing revolutionary, but it does have a revolutionary agenda.

For all their suavity, its leaders seek to transform the country into a Sunni Muslim republic.

This collides with institutions and laws strictly limiting Islam's role in public life, and with a long-standing security alliance with Israel.

It also collides with democracy itself, for no Koranic state can have a sovereign parliament free to legalise such abominations as equal rights for women and homosexuals or the drinking of alcohol.

A sinister slogan attributed to the AKP is that democracy is 'a bus we can ride until we reach our station'.

Under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his foreign secretary Abdullah Gul, the party has been cautious until now.

But abroad the AKP has been more strident. Turkey has stepped up relations with Muslim countries and cooled them with Israel.

They have capitalised on public suspicion of the Western war on terror and yet have pursued Turkey's application to join the EU. There is no inconsistency.

The AKP's apparent ambitions in Europe are its most strategic deceptions.

Ostensibly, the aim is simply to accelerate Turkey's climb to prosperity. However, a key condition imposed by the EU is the army's abrogation of political authority - which suits the AKP just fine, for the military is the greatest barrier to Islamisation.

Moreover, the party shares the Islamist belief that Europe will inevitably be conquered by the high birthrates of its Muslim inhabitants - and Turkey's entry would immediately add some 70 million.

Then there's the media. There are three major groups in Turkey, compared to which any Islamist operations are small.

However, the government now has a hold over all of them because of contested tax liabilities, and because the government-controlled Savings Deposits Insurance Fund can seize their associated banks at any time without even having to go to court.

The results are manifest in coverage that mostly reflects the AKP agenda - and duly affects public opinion.

Why else would Valley of the Wolves, whose cast includes US actors Billy Zane and Gary Busey, become the most successful Turkish film ever?

The story includes American army officers selling body parts from captured Iraqis - with Jewish surgeons removing them! No wonder the AKP cabinet took their wives to the opening gala.

The party has also done its best to Islamise the bureaucracy. Even in Istanbul, post-office employees now stop work for Friday prayers, and civil servants are no longer expected to work a full day during Ramadan.

And just to make sure, the AKP has literally bought public opinion in poor urban areas by distributing food packages, paid for by contributions from big business.

Although the wind is blowing their way, I doubt if more than 15 per cent of the population really want a full-blown Sunni republic.

But the AKP is being patient. Gul and Erdogan are clearly willing to defer Turkey's Islamisation if they can advance Europe's.

World News
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It is very disturbing hurt to see once a group use to carry the honor on behalf of Muslim in the world now turn into such a gutless and controlled by a a sissified secularist group and they have no say; it is really angers me to my stomach. But insha'Allah soon we shall prevail against the odds if I don't witness it now hopefully my offspring will witness it and I shall here it from the graveyard.

[Padishah]

Firstly, someone needs to tell this guy that Turkey has been a Sunni Muslim Republic since Ataturk kicked the bucket. To suggest otherwise sets up a false dichotomy with which to flog a twisted ideology.

The jist of the article is that the 'Democratic' choice of the Turkish people in bringing the 'Islamist' AKP to power is bad. Forget that these 'Islamists' are staunch capitalists, abhor corruption and cronyism, act pragmatically with regards to the economy, follow the letter of the law, in constrast to the authoritarian Statist control freak Kemalist demagogues bent on promoting their 'Secularism' at the cost of everything else, progress in the country be damned.

Democratic Diplomstic Free Market 'Islamists' and psuedo-Fascist authoritarian trigger happy 'Secularists'; is there even an inkling of competition?

[*Arabman]

The majority of Turks elected AKP because they were sick of the corruption and inefficiency of secular parties. Turkey is a country controlled by a secular military, otherwise, it would have become an Islamic state. Most Turks know there's no future in secularism. They know the future lies in Shariica.

[gurey25]

the secular minority of turkey do have a stanglehold.
i found it interesting that they are not only the products of Kemal ataturks forced westernization since the 1920's.

they have a powerfull base in the country's large minority of alevis.

The Alevis in Turkey make up 10% of the population and are divided into 3 main sects,
only one of them can be considered muslim.
the other 2 which are the vast majority of alevis are for all intents and purposes an entirley new and different religion to Islam.

they are the strongest advocates of a secular state becuase it saves them from oppression.

less than 20% of the population has full control over the entire population.

someone should let the author of the article know that the vast majority of turks have the same values and beliefs as the rest of muslims, and they are the ones that vote for AKP.

[gurey25]

I really admire the AKP.

they are the most advanced, and well edcuated islamic party on earth.
they are also level headed and are an example of patience and self control.(it comes from growing up in a hostile environment)

maashallah,

may all islamic parties take thier example.

[fagash_killer]

[quote="gurey25"]the secular minority of turkey do have a stanglehold.
i found it interesting that they are not only the products of Kemal ataturks forced westernization since the 1920's.

they have a powerfull base in the country's large minority of alevis.

The Alevis in Turkey make up 10% of the population and are divided into 3 main sects,
only one of them can be considered muslim.
the other 2 which are the vast majority of alevis are for all intents and purposes an entirley new and different religion to Islam.

they are the strongest advocates of a secular state becuase it saves them from oppression.

less than 20% of the population has full control over the entire population.

someone should let the author of the article know that the vast majority of turks have the same values and beliefs as the rest of muslims, and they are the ones that vote for AKP.[/quote]


Turkey is still an overwhelmingly Muslim country, and outside the elites, substantial numbers of Turks are mosque-going, practicing Muslims. With the exception of the late President Türgut Özal, and Erbakan when he was Prime Minister, Turkish leaders usually do not publicly attend religious events or otherwise acknowledge the role of Islam in the lives of most Turks. This is a far cry from the public, if essentially civic and ceremonial, religious practice of most American leaders. The ban on headscarves and other indications of Islamic practice is seen as extreme by many Turks. The fact that Erdogan’s wife wears a headscarf makes many in the establishment uncomfortable, but echoes with a great many more traditional Turks.

But this is a far cry from, say, the MMA in Pakistan, which recently won in North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan. The MMA is a genuinely radical Islamist movement with an anti-Western and at least some degree jihadi ideology. The AKP is virtually the opposite: It does not seek to impose the headscarf; it seeks to remove the ban on headscarves.

[gurey25]

the MMA is not popular outside of Balochistan or NWFP.
infact they have serious competition in those two provinces they hold.

the majority of pakistans popualtion is in Punjab and Sind.
and the MMA is considered a joke in those provinces.

by comparing the AKP to the MMA you insult the AKP.