Making Sense: Protests in Turkey and Comparisons to Arab Spring

For about the past week, there have been protests going on in Instanbul, not Constantinople.  Originally, these protests began over plan to redevelop a park.  Gezi Park to be precise.  But it has turned into something quite different. 

Basically, the protestors right now are worried, worried for their freedoms, worried that secular Turkey, which is constituitionally secular, might be changed to an Islamist state in a new constitution.  It wouldn't be the first time that Turkey has had a new constitution.  The first one was back in 1873, then 1921, 1924, 1961, and finally, 1982, which is the current constitution of Turkey, which enshirnes into law, the fact that Tirkey is a secular and democratic republic which derives it's power from the people.

The constitution was the subject of a referendum in 2010, after Parliament failed to give constitutional amendments the necessary two thirds majority, although they did vote in favour.  The amendments were passed by the referendum.  Some people in Turkey have started to feel that Turkey's three time Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, of the conservative AKP party, may be moving towards turning Turkey into an Islamic state, and an authoritarian one, despite his denials.

That's what is really driving the current wave of protests in Istanbul, Ankara and other Turkish cities right now.  There have been calls for the Prime Minister to resign, which he has dismissed, but it is clear that the Prime Minister and the AKP has lost the confidence of at least some of the people. 

Some have compared this to the Arab Spring uprisings that happened back in 2011.  Whilst those comparisons are understamdable, I believe those comparisons are a little bit far fetched to be honest.  Those were protests in Islamic countries with autocratic governments.  As I stated earlier, Turkey is democratic, and secular.  It is so polar opposite, that the simialrities are literally only superficial ones.  Protestors taking over a local square and promising to stay there until their demands are met.  Sounds more like the Occupy movement. 

Undoubtedly though, this is a local problem within Turkey, and the AKP and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have got to listen to their own people.  Otherwise, they will be regarded as elitist and out of touch with the electorate that gave them their mandate, and that is a situation that few politicians ever recover from.