Battle for the Soul of Turkey

"I could have been starting my career," he says with a wry smile. "Instead, I am doing this."

The reason for his conversion to political activism, he says, is that his country is facing the gravest threat to its secularist identity in more than 50 years.

(I know the feeling)

**

TIME: Only a few months ago, Utku Koseoglu would spend his evenings playing football or maybe downing an Efes beer or two with friends at a waterside nightclub in one of the trendier parts of Istanbul. His reading ran to thrillers like The Da Vinci Code. But these days, the 27-year-old lawyer is more likely to be found hunched over a conference table in a cramped and sweaty office in Istanbul's hectic Kadikoy district, toiling late into the summer night writing blogs, collecting Web clippings and organizing marches. When he finds time for a book, it's the writings of Turkey's revered founder Kemal Ataturk, not Dan Brown...

http://librabunda.blogspot.com/2007/07/battle-for-soul-of-turkey-painting.html