Rage in Turkey pits old elites against rising 'peasant' class Protests spread: An anti-government demonstrator waves a flag bearing the portrait of Ataturk in Ankara, Turkey's capital. Across this vast city, at different times a capital for three empires, cranes dangle over construction sites, tin walls barricade old slums, and skyscrapers outstrip the minarets that have dominated the skyline for centuries - all a vanguard for more audacious projects already in the works. For many Turks, though, the development is not so much progress as a reflection of growing autocratic ambitions by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government. A long struggle over urban spaces is erupting as a broader fight over Turkish identity, where difficult issues of religion, social class and politics intersect. And while most here acknowledge that every Turkish ruling class has sought to put its stamp on Istanbul, there is a growing sense that none has done so as insistently as the current government, led by Mr Erdogan's Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), despite growing resistance. On Sunday, Mr Erdogan rejected accusations of dictatorial behaviour while flatly discounting the protesters' legitimacy. "We would not yield to a few looters coming to that square and provoking our people, our nation, based on their misinformation," he said, as protesters returned to Taksim Square and the streets of Ankara, the capital, and several other cities. Edhem Eldem, a historian at Bogazici University in Istanbul, has criticised the government for undertaking large developments without seeking recommendations from the public. "In a sense, they are drunk with power," he said. They lost their democratic reflexes and are returning to what is the essence of Turkish politics: authoritarianism. The swiftly changing physical landscape of Istanbul symbolises the competing themes that undergird modern Turkey: Islam versus secularism, rural versus urban. Mr Erdogan's decade-long rule has dramatically reshaped Turkey's culture by establishing civilian control of the military. It has broken down rules of the old secular order that now permit the wide public expression of religion, seen in the proliferation of women wearing headscarves, by the conservative masses who comprise the Prime Minister's constituency. His rule has also nurtured a pious capitalist class, whose members have moved in large numbers from rural Anatolia to cities like Istanbul, deepening class divisions. The old secular elite, who consider themselves the inheritors of the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey's founder, have chafed under these transformations. So too have liberals, who do not label themselves Kemalists and are tolerant of public displays of religion. They object to Mr Erdogan's leadership style, which they describe as dictatorial, and are put off by many of the development projects on grounds of bad taste. Long-time residents, urban intellectuals and many members of the underclass are being pushed from their homes so that upscale housing complexes and shopping malls can be built. And there is much more on the drawing board that evokes greater controversies: the world's largest airport, the country's biggest mosque, and a proposed canal that would split Istanbul's European side and is so audacious that even the project's most vocal supporter, Mr Erdogan, has called it "crazy." Ground has already been broken on a third bridge over the Bosporus, named for a contentious Ottoman sultan who was accused of massacring Alevi Muslims, a large minority in Turkey. "I was born and raised here, and there is nothing from my youth that I can connect to any more in this city," said Ersin Kalaycioglu, a professor of international relations at Sabanci University. Reflecting an elitism widely shared by secular Turks in Istanbul, he complained that the city had "been invaded by Anatolian peasants" who were "uncultured." Ara Guler, who is 84 and Turkey's most famous photographer, having produced volumes of black-and-white photographs of Istanbul, said there was only one neighbourhood left that reminded him of his city: Eyup, a waterside district that is home to a famous mosque and many conservative Muslim families. "The Istanbul that we grew up with is lost," he said. Where is my Istanbul? It's all about the money. A government plan to convert Taksim Square into a replica Ottoman-era army barracks and shopping mall - what Dr Eldem called "a Las Vegas of Ottoman splendour" - is what incited the demonstrations. But there are many other contentious projects that have drawn public outrage. The city's oldest movie theatre was recently demolished for another mall, raising howls of protests, including an objection from Turkey's first lady, Hayrunnisa Gul, the wife of Turkish President Abdullah Gul. In ghettos across the city, the urban poor are being paid to leave their homes so that contractors - many with ties to government officials - can build gated communities. "One day we just got a notice, and bam, before we could put up a proper fight, 300 to 400 police came and held us back from intervening with the bulldozers that knocked down our restaurant," said Coskun Turan, who owned a fish restaurant. They said we didn't have deeds for the property, but we do. We showed them. They argued that we only had a deed for part of the property, so they knocked the rest down. At 87, Dogan Kuban is perhaps Istanbul's foremost urban historian. He has worked with the UN on preservation issues in Turkey. He complained that he has never been consulted by the government, and criticised it for ignoring the country's pre-Islamic history. "The only things being preserved are mosques," he said. With Mr Erdogan still able to count on the support of religious conservatives, few believe that his hold on power is in jeopardy. But allowing tens of thousands of protesters to demonstrate in Taksim Square at the weekend was seen by some as a sign of his weakness. But on Sunday, Mr Erdogan struck a defiant note, and while he said no shopping mall would be built in Taksim, he vowed to build another mosque in the square.