What started as a local outcry against a governmental move to build a shopping mall in an Istanbul park, has transformed into a national crisis for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and a personality crisis for Turkey itself.
The creeping authoritarianism of the ruling party, its open-armed embrace of neoliberal capitalism and a feeling that secular groups are being marginalised at the expense of Islamist interests, are recurring themes of conversation, and chanting, on Turkish streets.
Riding out the protests must be the Turkish government’s short-term goal. But in the long run, the country faces a greater challenge to reconcile democracy, secularism and Islam, a test whose outcome will be critical for the whole region.
