Turkish secularism

The Turkish version of secularism is problematic. It is both authoritarian and undemocratic, demonstrating once again that secularism is only a precondition for democracy and does not assure it. Furthermore, the secularism of the Turkish state is not religiously neutral, for it is aimed at co-opting Sunni Islam, the religion of more than three quarters of the Turkish population as a bulwark against fragmentation along religious (Alevi) or ethnic (Kurdish) lines.