ANOTHER SIGN THAT KEMALISM AND A SECULAR TURKEY ARE DYING: ADMIRAL OF THE TURKISH NAVY ARRESTED

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD:

'Excuse us, admiral, but we must arrest you now." With these words, Turkey this year crossed a threshold into a new era. Since General Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded modern Turkey in 1923, the military considered itself the untouchable guardian of the secular state.

But with the polite intrusion of the police upon the breakfast of the revered former commander-in-chief of the navy, Ozden Ornek, on February 22, that became history: "The untouchables have been touched!" declared the daily newspaper Zaman.

Turkey has the biggest military of any NATO country other than the US. In defence of the secular principles established by Ataturk, it staged four coups since 1960.

On news Ornek and other officers had been arrested on charges of plotting a coup, top military leaders called a hasty meeting. Instead of overthrowing the government, they produced a statement. "The days when the army would stage a coup are gone," the army chief-of-staff, General Ilker Basbug, later confirmed.

Is this the welcome arrival of liberal democracy in a key pivot country between east and west, and an encouraging sign for democracy in a Muslim-majority country? Or is it troubling that Turkey is discarding Ataturk's vision and turning unstoppably into an Islamic republic?

IT'S THE LATTER.

ONE REASON FOR ISLAM'S ASCENDANCY IS DEMOGRAPHIC: SECULAR TURKS AREN'T HAVING KIDS, BUT THE ISLAMIST TURKS IN THE BOONIES ARE - AND THEY'RE TAKING OVER.

STEYN:

... in the 80-year history of modern Turkey, the population has increased from 14 million in 1923 to some 70 million today. The vast majority of that demographic surge comes from Anatolian Turkey - ie, eastern, Asian, traditional, Islamic Turkey, which never accepted Ataturk's reforms and whose sons and daughters have spilled out of their rural hinterland and populated the cities. Rumelian Turkey - ie, western, European, secular, Kemalist Turkey - is in steep demographic decline. In every election, there will be fewer Kemalists.

Many of us English-speakers use the phrase "young Turks" without pondering the origin of the expression: The original "young Turks" were the youthful activists agitating for reform in the last decades of the Ottoman Empire. The phrase itself recognizes a connection between political energy and demography. As yesterday confirmed, today's young Turks are Islamist. The Kemalists are old Turks.

TURKEY - A SUPPORTER OF HAMAS AND HIZBALLAH AND SYRIA AND IRAN - SHOULD BE THROWN OUT OF NATO.

AND HAVE NO SPECIAL STATUS - LET ALONE MEMBERSHIP - IN THE EU.

THEY MUST PAY THE PRICE FOR THEIR DECISION TO ALLY THEMSELVES WITH IRAN AND THE ISLAMISTS.

IF WE DON'T MAKE THEM PAY A PRICE, THEN MORE ISLAMIC NATIONS ON THE CUSP WILL SWING IN THE SAME DIRECTION.