SO, WHO WILL PROTECT SECULARISM NOW?
Hurriyet
Aug 9, 2011
Turkey
The question in my headline is asked by many these days, especially in
light of the gradual decline of the Turkish military as an intruder
into Turkish politics. But the question itself is questionable,
for it seems to overlook a few crucial facts.
First of all, the self-styled secularism that Turkey’s generals (and
likeminded judges) used to impose was nothing like that seen in the
democratic West. Inspired by the radical French Enlightenment, and
the German “vulgar materialism” of the 19th century, it was based
on zeal against, not neutrality toward, traditional religion. On
the other hand, it sponsored the same religion with the sole aim of
manipulating it for state purposes. So, it had bizarre consequences,
such as the bans on headscarves and Sufi orders, and Ankara-issued
mosque sermons that preached “martyrdom” in the ranks of the Turkish
military for the sake of the national homeland.
Creating enemies
In other words, the self-styled secularism that Turkey’s generals
(and likeminded judges) used to impose was inconsistent, undemocratic,
and illiberal. It violated the rights of not just Turkish Muslims,
but also Turkish Christians, whose churches and missions were also
severely limited. (The closure of the Halki Seminary of the Greek
Orthodox Patriarchate in 1971, for example, was the work of a military
junta.) So, it is only good news that the enforcers of this illiberal
laïcite are getting out of the way.
But what about the Islamists, who reject even the most liberal forms
of the secular state, and rather insist for an “Islamic state”? Who
will protect Turkey from them now?
Yet this question also needs to be scrutinized a bit, for it fails to
ask where Islamism came from in the first place: Was it always there?
Or was it a reaction to something? If you try to answer this question
in the context of Turkey, you will see that Islamism in this country
emerged mainly as a response to the military-imposed secularism that
we are talking about.
In the final decades of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey had become a
constitutional monarchy, and most of its Islamic opinion leaders
were in favor of more democratization. This emerging tide of
Islamic liberalism was crushed, and its evolution was cut short,
by the ultra-secular Kemalist regime of the second quarter of the
20th century. Yet still, when the “multi-party” era began in 1950,
pious Muslims did nothing other than support the center-right Democrat
Party, which not only brought religious freedom, but also created an
economic boom and joined NATO.
Thugs in uniform
However, the thugs in uniform did not tolerate even the Democrat
Party and launched a bloody coup against it in 1960, imprisoning
all of its deputies, executing three of its ministers, including the
all-popular Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. Only after this frontal
attack on the center-right did Islamism emerge as a political force in
the late 1960s under the banner of Necmettin Erbakan, who promised an
“Islamic NATO,” and, ultimately, an Islamic state.
So, when Turkey’s generals attacked the Erbakan government in 1997
with their “post-modern coup,” they were only eliminating a “threat”
that their forbearers helped to create.
The same dynamic can be seen also in the other bete noir of Turkey’s
generals, Kurdish separatism. Since the mid-1980s, Turkey’s generals
have led a massive counter-insurgency against Kurdish separatists
while disallowing any political reform on the “Kurdish question.”
Little have they realized that it was the very strict Turkish
nationalism that they imposed on all citizens, including humiliating
bans on the Kurdish language, and the very violence they inflicted
on even peaceful Kurdish activists, that created the trouble in the
first place and perpetuated it.
Only with the removal of the military from the scene, have we been able
to begin discussing the interpretations of secularism, the remedies
to the Kurdish question and even taboos such as the tragic fate of
Ottoman Armenians. So far, we have not fallen prey to any of the
“domestic and foreign enemies,” which our generals claimed to have
been saving us form. With them in their barracks, actually, we seem
to be doing just fine.
*For Mustafa Akyol’s complete works, including his recent book on
Islamic liberalism, visit his blog, TheWhitePath.com.