From revitalizing Ottoman traditions, encouraging Islamic teaching in schools, and denying help from the West to even encouraging women to wear the headdress again, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Justice and Development party (or the AKP party) have done a lot to change Turkey. All of these changes are helping Erdogan construct a "New Turkey," but the only issue is that this Turkey is becoming an Islamist state as opposed the secular one it currently is.

Ismail Kahraman, the speaker of the Turkish parliament and a close friend of Erdogan, announced the other day that secularism should be omitted from the Turkish constitution.

This cause turmoil within Turkey's politics. The rigidly secular People Republican Party cried out against such a thought. A large group of secularists calling themselves “United Movement of June" (aa reference to the Taksim-Gezi riots) gathered in front of the parliament building, canting slogans and shouting out "we will not let you to write a constitution of Sharia and caliphate!"

Ever since Turkey was founded as a nation, there has been conflict between the Islamists and the Kemalist secularists. The Turkish government (especially its military) have always done its best to follow a strict, secular code, ever since Kemal Mustafa Ataturk founded the new parliament. Though pro-Islamic presidents have been democratically elected in the past, the secularist military have been able to overthrow them in a coup to return the country back to the status quo. Now since Erdogan and the AKP made it so that the military cannot intervene, the Islamists have had free reign to rid Turkey of its secularists principles. Though they claim to have no Islamist agenda, the changes that Erdogan and the AKP party have made to Turkey suggest otherwise.

So what does this mean for Turkey? Some Turks half hope for another coup to occur. Others expect a civil war to erupt soon. All in all, it means the end of the Republic of Turkey.

The Republic was founded in 1923 on the principle that they had to overthrow the authoritarian Ottoman Empire so they can be a progressive nation which strives for advancement and industrialization. During this time, Atatürk increased Turkey's literacy rate, disposed the caliphate, shut down religious institutions, nationalized the Turkish language, and gave women the right to vote. His changes advanced Turkey to modern standards and set it as an example for other Middle Eastern countries to follow.

What Erdogan and his party are doing is completely undermining all of what Atatürk accomplished. By bringing back Ottoman traditions and reinstating religious schools, Erdogan is bringing the nation back its Ottoman roots which Atatürk and so many other Turks died to overthrow.

Erdogan is no Kemalist. He is already on the path to Islamize Turkey. One can look at what he is doing to the nation and pity it, for Erdogan is only serving his own agenda, and not serving the country he was elected to lead.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/04/...