Blame game among Turkey's Islamists

A ?blame game? has started after political scientist and columnist Mümtazer Türköne wrote an article in daily Zaman 10 days ago with the title ?Is Islamism finished?? referring to the Islamist movement in Turkey.

In the same paper, Ali Bulaç followed up with a provocative article titled ?Why I didn?t become a state Islamist?? Bulaç?s piece had nothing to do with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), but he told a story from the 1970s, when he was a university student approached by the police and asked to work as an agent within Islamist groups for the Turkish state. ?I resisted the pressure and said no,? he wrote. ?But I know who may have accepted and who now holds powerful positions in the media and politics.?

Bulaç did not give any names, but Altan Tan, who has moved in similar circles since the early 1970s and is now an MP for the Kurdish problem-focused Peoples? Democratic Party (HDP), backed Bulaç up, also mentioning a number of names. In his statement, Tan mentioned the radical Islamist columnist Abdurrahman Dilipak of daily Yeni Akit, Deputy Prime Minister Yalç?n Akdo?an, the head of Turkey?s radio and TV watchdog (RTÜK) Davut Dursun, and Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) deputy Mehmet Metiner, who was on the editorial board of an Islamist magazine ?Yeni Zemin? with Bulaç and Tan back in 1992-95.  

Of course, it would be wrong to label anyone who wrote for the magazine or visited its office as a militant Islamist or an undercover state agent, but these articles and statements have led to a blame game in the Islamist media, speculating about who was actually involved in the deep Turkish state while at the same time present in Islamist organizations and publications.

As a former writer for ?Yeni Zemin? and...