M. Elisabeth Özdalga
The road democracy is long and conflict-ridden. Although crises are inevitable in this process, nations differ with and find paths out of political deadlock. Since modern democracy is built on urban mass society, the problems of democracy often are closely connected to those of integrating an increasingly complex and diversified society. An essential part of the democratic process is the growth of a public sphere. Recently in Turkey, a Muslim country with a long tradition of democratic rule, a question that has become especially focused: Who rules over the public sphere? During its 50-year long experience of parliamentary democracy Turkey has faced several deep and on-going crises, including three military interventions. At a time when its membership in the European Union (EU) is being discussed seriously, open military intervention is no longer a feasible alternative to social and political disorder. Therefore, to maintain control over society increasingly has come to mean controlling the public sphere. The effect of this urge to keep society under control by means of monitoring the public arena has meant that the military-and the state-have become more involved than over before in the affairs of civil society. Refraining from the use of arms and acting in accordance with what the late Commander in Chief of the Naval Forces, Guven Erkaya, called the "non-armed forces" [silahsiz kuvvetler [1]] does not imply democratic improvement. On the contrary, this kind of indirect interference, due to its manipulative character, may have even more detrimental effects than direct intervention in the building of civil society.
read entire article at http://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2011/05/worldly-asceticism-in-islamic-casting.html
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