On secularism/Islamism:
It's not a question of Islamist vs secularist because there is significant 'secular' support for the (soft) Islamist government - most importantly from the business sector - but also from the traditional 'secular' centre-right.
The terms of the debate have changed however - the discriminations faced by the Islamic sector have basically been ended - in practice in nearly all areas under AKP control it has become the norm to have turban-wearing teachers and civil servants - officially the ban remains, it has been kept on hold as a tool to play with for about 5 years ever since the President also became pro-government in 2007 it could have been solved in a flash but it is like a problem kept on purpose to keep the base angry.
Remember that most AKP supporters feel this is all the work of provocateur militarists and/or athiest-communists, they feel the government is the weaker party, the underdog under attack from Kemalists in cahoots with communists, who can't bear to see an Islamist party successful, doing good things.
The government comes out with non-issues all the time to scratch the media and divert any attention - the PM went to the UN and called for Zionism to be treated like fascism, debates about alcohol and alcohol consumption, concern about Christian prayer houses acting as unlicensed churches, missionaries operating as agents, MPs making statements on the unacceptable shortness of female schoolchildren's skirts at graduation ceremonies, promises to make adultery a legal offence, promises to investigate whether aspects of mosque and DIB (Religious Affairs Ministry) mediation could work in civil disputes ... things to keep its Islamist base alert.
The main focus of the protests appears to be to call for the resignation of the prime minister and the government just as after the 1996 Susurluk case. I sense a general wish for more democracy and for more social rights - the plans for the park would have been rejected had they been taken at the sub-city local level - but this is expressed in a call for the ouster of the government.
Had the government been 'secular' (ie traditional centre-right or centre-left) and done the things it had done, increased cases seen by Special Authority Laws from 8,000 in 2002 to over 69,000 - massive stays in prison and then no charge done again on the same people sometimes, near-monopolised the media, massively increased imprisonment rates 2002- 59,400 now something like 140,000, and restricted the rights of civil servants to go on strike, deepened privatisation schemes so that vast tracts of forest and water reserves and publicly-built dams are given to private companies for 100+ year leases - the response against it would have been much swifter.
To those out on the streets from all sorts of persuasions (hard leftist, liberal, the non-Sunnis, centre-left trade unionist, leftist Muslim*, the dissident Kurdish nationalists (who aren't listening to the leaderships call to stay out of it not to damage the peace process), some radical corporatist neo-fascist MHP, hard nationalist 'Kemalist') the feeling is if you support the government and its policies you get all the advantages; if you raise a critical question you are squeezed, silenced or blacklisted - in workplaces, in universities and even schools, in the professional bodies, in the arts, in the military, when facing the police, in the media.
All of them experience their marginalisation in different ways being removed from posts; some are kept back and not allowed promotion in the army, in the medical system, in the universities; some are arrested, some are imprisoned, some have their right to consume what they like curtailed, some have their forests chopped up, some have their homes destroyed and no compensation given, having police inspect them for all sorts of nonsense using anti-terror laws or investigating tax on spurious grounds,.
It's incoherent and loose and wide so it can't be focused like protests in Tunisia and Egypt against the reigning dictator's family. Like I said earlier it's better to see Putin's Russia to understand what's going on (anyone remember the heavy participation in post-election rallies for what was probably fairly minor vote rigging? but you had KPRF, anarchists, liberals, centre-left plus the ultra-right and assorted people all taking part in the anti-Putin rallies, eventually Putin held out) rather than look to Turkey being Pakistan or Iran or Egypt.
For certain reasons the BBC seems utterly unable to connect the dots, it's as if it doesn't want to see that Turkey is like Russia.
In both countries western business interests can do well if they collaborate with the government, but one has been NATO loyal and unwavering, the other one still a strategic adversary - BBC World Service/Worldwide has cut its services and reporters in Eastern Europe, Balkans and Turkey, but increased them to the Middle East and Russia.
* the small but growing 'Anti-Kapitalist Musluman Blok' which features dissidents from the Islamist movement veering into the left but very determined to pronounce themselves religious and hold onto headscarves but some slightly dodgy thinking about the duties of the sexes.
