The electoral success of the Islamist AKP since 2002 has changed the Turkey dramatically. For the first time in Turkish history, an elected government with strong support from the people, is trying to push the military and bureaucracy out of the political sphere and diminish their political power over the judicial-administrative system.

What is the significance of the AKP? Islam and modernization were like the blades of a pair of scissors in Turkey that separated as it was opened. Are the AKP trying to close the opening gap between Islam and modernization or do they have a secret plan to create an Islamic regime with  its cultural and political values? What is the role of history and Armenian Genocide in this picture?

Historian and sociologist Taner Akçam received his doctorate in 1995 from the University of Hanover, with a dissertation on The Turkish National Movement and the Armenian Genocide Against the Background of the Military Tribunals in Istanbul Between 1919 and 1922. He is currently an Associate Professor, Department of History at Clark University.

As the editor-in-chief of a student political journal, he was arrested in 1976 and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. Amnesty International adopted him as a prisoner of conscience. A year later, he escaped to Germany, where he received political asylum.