Die Welt, 9 May

Secular and liberal Turks are being given a rude awakening. Ataturk’s legacy is in danger of being destroyed. Not by an external power, but from within, by people yearning for an Islamic state, warns Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Since the days of Kemal Ataturk Turkey has been split between those who want to govern the state according to Islamic principles and those who want to keep Allah out of public life. The advocates of Islam in the government of Tayyip Erdogan, Abdullah Gul and their Justice and Development Party have been remarkably successful. Unlike the secular liberals they have grasped that democracy can be undermined by democratic means. Their powerful strategy is based on this insight. Three pillars of this strategy deserve close examination.

The first is "dawa", a tactic inspired by Mohammed, the founder of Islam. Dawa simply means the preaching of Islam with conviction as a way of life, including as a way of government. All converts are obliged to go out into the world and to preach to others. In this way a popular movement emerges which wins the hearts and minds of the electorate.

Islamists are winning the battle for hearts and minds.

The secularists have underestimated this aspect and have therefore neglected the battle for hearts and minds. Now they are shocked by opinion polls which reveal that 70 per cent of the electorate could vote for Gul as President should Erdogan succeed in pushing through his constitutional amendment to provide for the President to be directly elected. Every protest of the secularists against these clear expressions of the popular will seems unreasonable and undemocratic.

The second pillar is the improvement of the condition of the economy. When the secular parties were in power the Turkish economy was indisputably in a shambles. Since Erdogan came to power economic growth and rates of investment have been high and inflation has been low.

The third pillar is control of the two key democratic institutions: information (education and media) and security (police, judiciary and secret services). In other words, the Islamists control what information you get and have the power to silence you.

The military could frustrate the Islamisation of Turkey.

After the Islamist revolution of 1997 failed at the first attempt Erdogan and his party grasped that gradualism could bring them to power, and for longer. It is clear to them beyond question that they could succeed in carrying through the complete Islamisation of Turkey only if they brought the military and the Constitutional Court under their control. Both have carried out Ataturk’s determination to create for a secular Turkey - until now.

The current decision of the Constitutional Court to annul Gul’s nomination after a warning from the military is only a temporary setback for the Islamists. Erdogan and Gull have another card up their sleeve. If they show the same restraint and patience they have shown up to now, they could attain their goal by continuing to woo the European Union for membership. To that end naive but well-meaning European leaders have been manipulated into calling for civilian control over the Turkish army as it is in all other member states. In those terms Erdogan and his party have won a victory. To condemn them for it would be narrow-minded and certainly not the way to prevent them from seizing total power in Turkey.

In retrospect the secular liberals have only themselves to blame. They have underestimated the power of "dawa", their economic policies have failed, and they have failed to recognise the manipulation of the members of the European Union for the tactic it is for gaining control of the army and the Constitutional Court.

Turkey must protect individual liberty.

An important feature of liberalism is, however, that it can learn from its mistakes. That the Turkish liberals have made mistakes doesn’t mean they can’t try again to safeguard Ataturk’s legacy and to enable Turkey to aspire to a future based on Western values.

As soon as they get home from their demonstrations they must develop a plan for a popular movement wit a message of individual freedom. They must restore the trust of the Turks in liberal economic policy and regain control of the means of education and information, the police and the judiciary. In the same way they must convince the leaders of the European Union that the Turkish army and the Constitutional Court not only defend the country, but also protect Turkish democracy from Islam.

True secularism in Turkey is not any old secularism. It is a secularism which protects the freedom and rights of the individual, and has nothing to do with the ultra-nationalists among whom Hitler’s Mein Kampf is a best-seller, who deny the Armenian Genocide and persecute minorities. Those were the nationalists who murdered Armenian editor Hrant Dink. It’s this mixture of malevolent nationalism and predatory Islam which today present the secular liberals with a greater challenge than has been faced by any other liberal movement.

Other liberal democrats in the West have to stand with the liberals in Turkey in this difficult time. It is only apparently a paradox that this support must begin with the recognition that the Turkish army is not like any other. It has a unique mission as the guarantor of Turkey’s secular character.