Turk With Islamic Ties Is Elected President
August 29, 2007 10:27 am Nonviolent Islamist Movements, TurkeyTurk With Islamic Ties Is Elected President - New York Times, 8/29/2007
Ali Murat Yel, chairman of the sociology department at Fatih University in Istanbul, said the selection of Mr. Gul was comparable in significance to an African-American being elected president in the United States.
“It’s a very important turning point,” Mr. Yel said. “Those people who are the peasants and farmers and petty bourgeoisie always had republican values imposed on them. Now they are rising against it. They are saying, ‘Hey, we are here, and we want our own way.’ ”
Though Turkey’s secular establishment has taken pains to portray Mr. Gul and his close ally, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as inseparable from their Islamic pasts, their supporters argue they have changed dramatically since the early 1990s, when they were members of the overtly Islamic Welfare Party.
“They can sit on the same table as some people who drink alcohol and they drink their Coke, and they would be able to talk to them,” Mr. Yel said. “They have come to terms with the reality of this country.”