Scary article published this morning in Turkey

All citizens except non-Muslims - Turkish Daily News Aug 02, 2008

While the substance of the nation is Islam, it is forbidden right from the start to speak up about it. And that is certainly the origin of our chronic schizophrenia vis-a-vis secularism

As the central feature of the nation-building process, the Islamic religion excludes the followers of other beliefs and thus considers them anti-nationals. In this sense, the Armenian, the Greek and the Jew are the innate "others" of the nation, its natural adversaries. Since the creation of the Turkish nation, non-Muslims had no place in citizenship, but non-Turkish Muslims have theirs as long as they turn Turkish and overlook their identities of origin.

The religious root of the nation does not disturb the secular individual, quite the contrary. In this context, the Christian missionary is a common enemy. He/she is dangerous for the Muslim's religion and the secular's nation. The conversion of a Muslim fatally hurts the nation as much as the Muslim congregation. Although there is no problem in the country with Muslim missionary activity that converts others into Islam and hence "Turkifies" them, the Christian missionary presents a clear lethal threat.

Let's take the assassination of Father Santoro or the Zirve publishing house massacre in the city of Malatya. Didn't one of the perpetrators involved in the Malatya case answer, "They are Christians, we are Turks," to the attorney's question of what he meant by "they" while he was talking about protestant missionaries? All these people, including the murder suspect of the slain Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, disclose an arrogant tranquility after the completion of a noble religious/national duty. Ali Koç, one of the attorneys involved in the Malatya case, says, "The office of the prosecutor is trying to legitimize the case more than they are trying to unveil it." That is to say, to eliminate a missionary is almost an obligation for a Muslim in order to save the religion and the nation.