AKP and its connection to religious sects won't help “mild Islam”

[Prof. Dr. Mukerrem Hic]

I have always maintained, as in my book, that AKP encourages and
depends on religiosity much more intensely than many Western writers
and politicians are happy to believe. Their wrong beliefs seem
reinforced with strong denials that they hear from AKP authorities
that they are anti-laicist. In fact, however, AKP is already more than
“mildly Islamic”, and hence, pose a real threat for the future of
Turkey.

Their encouragement of religious sects, anti-laicist dogmas, with
which students of religious schools and of Koran courses are fed, plus
active, concrete encouragement and spoils coming from the AKP
government in power could, in the long-run, lead the way to the
fanatical Islamic stance, which has become over time undemocratic and
anti-Western, hence incompatible with EU membership. Unreserved,
uncritical support of AKP coming from the US and the EU also
accelerates Turkey's drift to anti-laicism, hence to an anti-western
world, and not help to maintain her at the “mildly Islamic” level.

Democracy and laicism is not in the nature of Islamic religious sects
that operate presently; they are undemocratic, anti-laicist
organizations exercising political give-and-take, and also operate as
business compounds. They support AKP in the elections and are, in
turn, supported by the AKP government and AKP-held municipalities for
spoils.

With the recent Deniz Feneri incident, it became clear how tightly
such organizations support and are supported by AKP. In crude terms,
Erdogan's stance in this incident was: “My religious comrades are good
and I don't want to hurt them even if they are thieves. But if a
laicist does the same mistake and theft I will immediately clamp on
them.” That's neither laicist nor democratic!

The above also defines Erdogan's stand concerning corruption.
Recently, four concrete and important corruption news appeared in the
free press; one was Deniz Feneri, another involved an AKP M.P., and
there were two cases in AKP municipalities. Erdogan, again, defended
all accused as facing unproven charges by the “antagonist” press.
Under some pressure, he let the AKP M.P. resign from his post in the
Parliamentary Commission, but he would not remove the M.P. immunity of
the accused and have him prove his “innocence” in the court.