THE INEVITABLE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Hurriyet
Oct 4 2011
Turkey
“With his triumphant tour of the countries of the Arab Spring this
month, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has managed to set up
Turkey on the international stage as a role model for a secular
democracy in a Muslim country – a secular state where all religions
are equal.” This is how a recent article in the New York Times opened,
and went on to comment that, “The only trouble is that he has yet
to make that happen for Turkey,” (“Turkey’s Elephant in the Room:
Religious Freedom,” the New York Times, Sept. 28, 2011).
No doubt, Mr. Erdogan’s government deserves praise for what his
predecessors thought were too dangerous taboos, like returning the
confiscated properties of Christian Orthodox foundations and allowing
services at previously “sealed” Greek and Armenian churches. His
rhetoric that makes a clear distinction between a “hostile Israeli
government” and non-hostile Jews of Israel and Turkey is no less
promising.
But sadly, Mr. Erdogan’s Turkey is moving toward a mental zone that is
in total contrast with his rhetoric on secularism. The New York Times
was right: The prime minister has yet to make Turkey a place where
all religions (including no religion) are equal. And that word “equal”
should not come with a prefix, suffix, an “if” or a “but.” Equal means
equal, regardless of numbers – numbers of adherents to a faith or no
faith, or to ideologies/political parties.
Mr. Erdogan – and probably a majority of Turks – thinks that Turkey
needs a new definition of secularism. Although atheist/secular/less
pious/more pious/Islamist Turks often draw swords over one of the
most conscientious issues of Turkey’s modern political history,
they surprisingly agree on one definition, and that’s how Mr. Erdogan
says he views secularism: the state should be at an equal distance to
every faith (or no faith). Why, then, is there a never-ending civil
cold war over secularism? Simple.
A majority of Turks, Sunni Muslims, overtly or covertly believe that
they should be “more equal” than the others because they constitute
the majority. They think that it is their natural right to enjoy
preferential treatment in terms of governance and law enforcement.
Remember how the crowds in Istanbul last year, trying to attack the
Israeli consulate, shouted at the police who were trying to prevent
bloodshed? “Leave the Jews to us! What kind of Muslims are you?” A
simple search will produce thousands of examples of this nature
unveiling the conscious or subconscious desire of the Sunni Turk for
preferential treatment in public administration.
Most recently, the Istanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office charged a
cartoonist with “insulting the religious [Muslim] values adopted by a
part of the population [Muslim],” demanding that the artist receive
up to a year in prison in its indictment. That cartoon may or may
not insult part of the population. And yes, blasphemy laws are not
exclusively Turkish. But a state, or in this case, law enforcement,
that is equal to all faiths should ensure that similar cases are
opened against, say, the Sunni majority when they insult, say,
other monotheistic or atheist parts of the population. Can anyone
imagine a Muslim Turk having to stand trial for writing a book that
insults atheists?
The trouble is that a paradigm that cannot remain at an equal
distance to a different sect of the same religion, or to less pious
practitioners of the same sect of the same faith, cannot be at an
equal distance to other faiths or to atheists. Mr. Erdogan can start
by not discriminating against the less pious if he wants a Turkey
where all religions are equal.
Author’s note: CNN has issued a correction for the mistranslation
of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s remarks that “hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians had been killed by Israelis,” a line that
made the main theme of this column last Friday. I apologize for any
inconvenience CNN’s mistranslation and my comments on the misstated
text may have caused.