Insane idea, if you're a secularist person, like me.

Given that the fight against the common enemy, the secularist old guard, has been decisively won, an eventual break between Erdoğan and the Gülenists is perhaps inevitable. Unfortunately, regardless of which side emerges victorious, the outcome will not be good news for Turkish democracy.

In a much criticized speech in Rome at the end of 2007, Sarkozy acknowledged the Christian roots of France, the eldest daughter of the Church he also praised Islam during a visit to Saudi Arabia. Now he wants state subsidies for faith based organizations a policy proposal that upsets his many secularist critics.

In response, various religious groups, including the Gülen movement, encouraged their followers to take positions in the bureaucracy and the military. In the 1990 s, military backed secularist governments struck back, attempting to purge religious bureaucrats and military leaders those who did not consume alcohol, or whose family members wore headscarves, were immediately suspected.

What does not help and in fact backfires is for outsiders to view the political crisis of Middle Eastern societies as the result of an Islamist secularist divide. This perspective plays directly into the hands of authoritarian rulers like Erdoğan, who can leverage the perceived Islamophobia of foreign powers to mobilize their political base.

But the issue of justice for the crimes of 1971 has brought the divide into sharp relief. The Shahbag protesters reject Islamic extremists influence in Bangladesh, and even call for organizations like Jamaat e Islami to be banned, while Hifazat e Islam and its supporters want the country s liberal forces repressed, secularist bloggers arrested, and strict Islamism imposed on Bangladeshi society.

When Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan s Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002, it not only lacked a democratic culture, but also had much to fear about how the secularist military old guard might react. So it behaved exactly according to its fear, launching a series of show trials targeting senior military officials and other perceived opponents.