With the abolition of the Ottoman Empire, a country was born whose best patent was its deep state, commonly referred to in Turkish as ‘derin devlet’.

Though its red flag survived the sea change the nation had to withstand, the republic defined its citizens as secular and Europeans, with any sign of centuries’ old Muslim-Arab heritage facing the axe.

Palatial palaces with immaculate interiors were turned into stables or at best barracks and guesthouses. The Blue Mosque was desecrated to be used a stable too. The entire nation became illiterate and libraries stored irrelevant heaps of printed papers after the masters replaced the Arabic script of Turkçe with Latin besides adding some indigenous letters and borrowings others from German script.

Yet the state was called modern Turkey.

Mustafa Kemal-led Turkey was undoubtedly a security state where establishment or deep state controlled the real policies through a shadow government and disseminated propaganda to inspire agitation and roll heads. Clandestine network of military officers and their civilian proxies’ exercised utmost ‘legitimacy’ in suppressing and eliminating dissidents of any sorts i.e. Islamists, Christian missionaries, Communists, journalists and other independent thinkers.

Biased textbooks brainwashed children that Arabs in the Middle East were the enemies while US and European nations were Turkey’s friends. Yet, those considered allies best described Turkey as the ‘sick man of Europe’.

Came a military ruler, more loyal than the king (Atatürk) and decreed all religious worship including the Adhan, Salat and the Qur’an be in Turkish language. The highly praetorian military ruled the country with civilian faces on the front, when a martial law could have provoked international and domestic backlash.

Even in the early 90s when Soviet Union fell apart and the Eastern Europe shunned Communism; Turks were facing the worst target killings at the hands of ‘derin devlet’. Opinion leaders such as media figures, academics and religious thinkers subjected to harassment. Kurds were considered as second class citizens while non-Muslims, especially the Armenian minority were strongly censured.

Pakistanis, for sure, know little about this Turkey where freedom and dignity barely existed from 1923 till 2002. Though military’s pride seasoned with Atatürk nationalism soared high, economic growth in 2002 was merely 2 per cent and an OECD-funded study ‘Economic Survey of Turkey’ then had predicted a growth rate of 3 per cent of 2003. Besides a cosmetic ‘ultra-secular nationalism’, inflation skyrocketed to 40 per cent and Turkish lira reminisced Afghani currency notes of the Taliban days.

Just a decade later, Turkey ranks 15th in the international economy with growth rate being one of the highest in Europe while lacking massive mineral reserves such as oil or gold. Today’s haven for international investment, Turkey has paid of much of $31 billion IMF loan sought during the 2002 financial crisis. Notwithstanding generous emergency humanitarian assistance in Asia and Africa, the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA) funds projects in 37 countries, including Pakistan.

Last year, the Turkish government re-assessed its ambitious growth targets as Euro zone curse spreads like an epidemic, from Greece all the way to Spain and Portugal. Some proud members of European bloc today struggle against bankruptcy while the rest resort to fiscal belt-tightening. Barring Germany, political upheavals are a sure forecast for 2013. Much celebrated European solidarity is in tatters amid mounting pressure for greater austerity measures.

Steadily failing on the economic front since ultra-secularists took the reins in 1923, Turkey has become an exceptional success despite Euro zone crisis in the western neighborhood and Arab uprising on the eastern and the southern.

All of this glory comes when the Atatürk’s sacred legacy – the deep state – state is in array. The courts are supreme and parliament rules on issues that it never ventured to deliberate upon tacitly. Mustafa Kemal’s portraits still hangs in almost each office and questioning his actions is blasphemous, literally. Ankara follows a two-pronged strategy to address the Kurdish alienation. On the one hand, Kurdish language is receiving unprecedented state attention while on the other foreign-aided PKK terrorists face a losing battle.

Forgiving but not forgetting the excesses of the ‘deep state’, the elected leadership has incorporated fundamental reforms in the outdated and cosmetic system tailored to suit the erstwhile elite, the White Turks.

The downtrodden Turks did not let go their culture and heritage while an alien was imposed through the barrel of the gun. Today’s prosperous and democratic Turkey took birth due to tireless and selfless efforts by hundreds of thousands of people forming a civil society, inspired by the thoughts of Ustad Badi'uzzaman Said Nursi (1873-1960). While Professor Dr Necmettin Erbakan challenged the deep state through political means, social conservative educationist Fethullah Gülen adopted apolitical and non-confrontationist approach to rekindle the real spirit of Turkey.

Dr Erbakan’s frontal assault on the deep state proved counter-productive and further strengthened the illicit hold of military on the Turkish republic. He lost power and his deputies ended up in the jails.

The story did not end there.

A tall, athletic-looking man of forty-seven, with thin hairline and a mustache, took the same course but with a smarter strategy. Exactly on August 14, 2001, this charismatic man, commonly known as Erdoğan (pronounced as er-do-ghan), announced to form a new political party Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP or Justice and Development Party).

Technocrats, civil society workers and politicians pledged to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s leadership. The AKP won landslide victory on November 3, 2002 but after two later elections, the last being in 2011, the number of votes cast for Erdoğan leadership has more than doubled.

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