From Persia to Iran ••• 235challenge took the form of the Justice Party, which won enough votes in
the first election to enter into a coalition with the RPP and later was able
to gain complete control of the government. The army intervened in 1971
to check what it deemed the excesses of the Justice Party. The RPP made a
comeback, but small Marxist and neo-Muslim parties also grew up during
the 1970s. Soon every Turkish cabinet was a coalition of several diverse
parties, making government impossible. In 1980, after recurrent clashes
between left-wing and right-wing extremists killed hundreds of Turks, the
army again took control of the government. General Kenan Evren banned
all political parties, detained their leaders, and set up a caretaker cabinet.
For the next three years, it looked as if the Turks had traded their liberties
for security. The caretaker cabinet convoked a consultative assembly that
drew up a constitution giving vast powers to the president and curtailing
the rights of academics, labor unions, journalists, and anyone who had
been active in party politics before 1980. Nevertheless, a nationwide refer¬
endum approved the new document in 1982 and general elections were
held in 1983. Turgut Ozal, who as deputy prime minister for economic af¬
fairs had taken heroic measures to stop inflation, led the new Motherland
Party to an electoral victory, becoming Turkey's first prime minister under
its new constitution. Pressed by the Western European governments,
Turkey hesitantly lifted its ban on political freedoms, and the Ozal admin¬
istration helped the country achieve greater political stability and eco¬
nomic growth. Ozal himself moved from being prime minister to president
in 1989, just as new economic problems beset the country, and died in
1993, to be replaced by Suleyman Demirel. Tansu Ciller became Turkey's
first woman prime minister in the same year.
The resurgence of Islam (discussed in Chapter 19) has not spared Tur¬
key. An Islamist group, the Welfare Party, won a slight plurality in the 1995
election and briefly headed the government (until the army intervened to
remove its prime minister and bring back the secularists). An Islamist gov¬
ernment was elected again in 2002, and the country remains divided on
religious issues. Ataturk's westernizing reforms split the mind of Turkey be¬
tween acceptance of secular values and a desire to restore Muslim princi¬
ples and institutions.
FROM PERSIA TO IRANPersia is unique among the countries or culture areas we have studied so
far. Deserts and mountains give the land distinct boundaries, yet it has
been invaded many times. Usually it has absorbed its invaders, but the