The test of a commitment to democratic values is a willingness to tolerate both the expression of views one finds obnoxious and the freedom of their proponents.
The ability of the Turkish military and legal establishments to do just that in the weeks ahead will be a measure, closely observed in the European Union, of the genuineness of their commitment to the sort of political freedom they have promised but not yet delivered in full. On their reaction may well hang the decision of the EU in Copenhagen next month on whether to set a date for the opening of accession negotiations.
Ironically, courtesy of an electoral system rigged to prevent the emergence of extremism, the overwhelming parliamentary victory of the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) - albeit with only 34 per cent of the popular vote - has raised the prospect of a single-party religious government for the first time since the foundation of the explicitly secular state in 1923.
Or does it? Both the AKP and its leader, the popular former mayor of Istanbul, Mr Recep Tayyip Erdogan, maintain that their party is only Islamic in the sense that European Christian Democrats are Christian. Mr Erdogan insists it is not his intention to change the "lifestyle" of Turkey's 98 per cent Muslim population. His party, he says, has been elected to tackle the country's economic woes. It is economically conservative and willing to work with the hairshirt IMF programme. It is pro-EU accession, pro-NATO, and pro-US. He even admits that on Iraq, Turkey must be bound by any decision the UN makes. He has already committed himself to visit Greece.
But Mr Erdogan, who would have been the natural choice for prime minister, is banned from holding office because of a conviction for "inciting religious hatred". A prosecutor is still trying to get the AKP itself banned, like its more explicitly religious precursors .
If he is successful, either the courts or the 10 per cent electoral threshold for seats will have disenfranchised 80 per cent of the electorate. That would be dangerous. Turkey's voters must not get the message that voting is an optional extra. The EU's latest report on Turkey's accession describes the Erdogan ban as not "in the spirit of the reforms". His party must be given the chance to demonstrate its democratic, modernising credentials. Ataturk's Turkey is strong enough. Its people no longer need to be protected from themselves.