c. 1997 Religion News Service

(Ugur Akinci is the Washington-based, U.S. bureau chief for the Turkish Daily News.)

UNDATED _ The rising tension in Turkey between Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan’s Islamist Welfare Party and the nation’s secular, pro-Western, military-led establishment over the issue of religious education is serious enough for some to raise the possibility of a coup.

But as grave as that sounds, the current dispute is still just the tip of the iceberg. What is truly at stake is nothing less than Turkey’s core identity.

Will Turkey continue to follow the path laid out three-quarters of a century ago by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the nation’s founding father who crafted the modern secular state that Turkey has become?

Or will Turkey revert to its Ottoman past, becoming once again a nation that sees its salvation in Islamic solidarity?

The immediate answer lies with the fate of Erbakan and his party, the senior partner in Turkey’s ruling coalition. That could become clear as soon as Monday (May 26), when the Turkish Supreme Military Council meets in extraordinary session. Five days later (May 31), the military-dominated National Security Council will tackle the question.

Welfare emerged as the top party in the December 1995 elections when it received 21 percent of the vote, allowing it to enter into a ruling coalition with the center-right True Path Party the following June.

Since then, things have gone from bad to worse between the Islamists and the secular camp.

The military _ Turkey’s most popular institution _ has come to so distrust Welfare that it now identifies Islamic fundamentalism as the nation’s number one security threat, replacing the separatist Kurdish Workers Party, the current Turkish incursion into Iraq to destroy rebel bases notwithstanding.

Since its inception in the 1960s as the National Order Party, and its participation in coalition governments in the 1970s under the name National Salvation Party, Welfare has played the political game according to the rules of Turkey’s electoral democracy.

That’s the good news.

The bad news for the secularists is how well Welfare learned the lesson of democratic, grassroots networking, allowing it to tap into the resentment of Turkey’s poor huddled in shantytowns encircling the nation’s large cities.

The shocking wake-up call for the pro-Western elite came in the March 1994 elections, when Welfare won the mayoralties of Turkey’s two largest cities, Istanbul and Ankara.

Welfare, with its well-established base, is probably here to stay as a fixture of Turkish politics. It’s the short-term that is dicey.

Since coming to power, Welfare has backtracked on many of its anti-Western campaign promises. These include pulling out of NATO, refusing to join the European Union and adopting an Islamic banking system. To the horror of hardline Islamists, Turkey is also preparing to hold its first-ever joint naval exercise with Israel and the United States.

However, Welfare has, as it promised, pushed an Islamist social agenda.

Islamic headgear and attire are back, despite officially being against the law. Illegal Koran courses have mushroomed and ministries have been staffed by Welfare loyalists.

None of this has escaped the attention of the military, which considers itself the guardian of Ataturk’s secular ideals.

Moreover, the government is also accused of covering-up a number of scandals, including corruption charges leveled at True Path leader Tansu Ciller, Erbakan’s coalition partner.

Welfare’s foreign policy agenda _ the stated goal of which is closer ties with other Islamic states _ also has not sat well with the army, which has warned Erbakan about the support Iran and Syria have given the Kurdish Workers Party.

Despite that, Erbakan’s first trip abroad as prime minister was to Iran, where he signed a $23 billion natural gas deal. Further angering the military was a speech by the Iranian ambassador to Turkey _ speaking in Sincan at an event sponsored by the city’s Welfare mayor _ urging Turks to adopt Islamic law.

Things came to a head Feb. 28, when the National Security Council handed Erbakan a list of 18 anti-fundamentalist measures to implement, the sooner the better.

Among these was the adoption of eight years of mandatory secular education, which would effectively prevent Turkish youngsters from attending religious grammar schools, the training ground for future Koranic scholars and imams, or prayer leaders. This was correctly interpreted by the Islamists as an effort to undercut Welfare’s future growth.

Erbakan so far has managed to stall the military’s demands. If he implements the security council’s”recommendations,”he’ll be branded a sell-out by his own rank-and-file. If he doesn’t, his defiance may trigger an escalated response from the military.

Either way, he’ll pay a political price, which could clear the way for a more radical Islamist leader to replace him even as Erbakan’s own governmental reign ends.

But pressure is mounting to oust Welfare without an actual coup, since that would probably end for now Turkey’s dream of joining the European Union as a full member.

Wednesday (May 21), Turkey’s top prosecutor sought to outlaw the Welfare Party on the grounds it has endangered the basic tenets of Turkey’s secular state. The previous day, a parliamentary bid to topple Erbakan fell short by just a half-dozen votes.

The upcoming meetings of the military and security councils could be Erbakan’s last chance to implement the Feb. 28 recommendations. If Erbakan continues to stall, and parliamentary and legal efforts to dislodge him fail, the coming summer may bring a confrontation between secularist and Islamist Turks, each bent on controlling the nation’s future.

END RNS