In Turkey, the military and the government are engaged in an all-out struggle for power. The country is deeply divided, and decidedly unstable. Turkish writer Ahmet Altan describes his country’s paradoxes and warns of the potentially dire consequences. Turkey is moving toward a great — and possibly final — settling of accounts. But it is not the feared divisions of race or religion which are at play here. The country is crippled by a more fundamental and dangerous divide. The ‘cultural divide’ reigning throughout the Republican years has become very deep indeed. The future of Turkey is in the balance: Secularists and Islamicists are battling for influence in Asia Minor. Currently in Turkey, there is, on the one hand, a great mass of people who leave their shoes at the door before entering the house; whose women cover their heads; whose men go out in the street in pajamas; whose teenage boys frequent coffeehouses while girls live under a completely repressive rule; people whose homes are lit with cheap florescent bulbs; who enjoy a type of music somewhere between folk and arabesque; who have perhaps never read a book, never danced, never been to a restaurant as […]