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Secularism Gone Crazy

April 4th, 2008
By JEB KOOGLER

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In Turkey, the battle continues between secularists and Islamists. This week, the country’s highest court agreed to consider banning the Islamist-leaning “Justice and Development Party” (AKP) and bar 71 of its leading members – including the current prime minister and president – from participation in political life. This wouldn’t be the first time that the avowedly secular court (8 of its 11 judges are secularists) has weighed in on such controversial political matters. Under stipulations in the 1982 Turkish constitution, the high court is granted broad discretion to ban political parties – a privilege that the court has exercised several dozen times. Under this latest court case, brought by the state prosecutor, the AKP is being tried for its “anti-secular” outlook and its alleged efforts to force Islamic law down the throat of the Turkish state.

But, contrary to popular perception, it is not the secularists who are in the right. Backed by an interventionist military, the secular establishment is profoundly anti-democratic. Under the banner of the country’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, they have repeatedly intervened in the country’s political process to suppress dissent, ban legitimate political parties, and stifle religious freedoms for Turkish citizens. In contrast, the mainstream and popular Islamists actually represent a more forward-looking path for Turkey. Although religiously-tinged, the AKP has advocated for closer ties to the EU, pursued a mainstream domestic agenda (focusing primarily on economic growth and social reform), and largely stayed away from divisive religious issues. They are moderate enough, in fact, that their most divisive “religious” reform – falsely labeled, however, given that it has everything to do with social freedom and little to do with religion – has been an effort to overturn a ban on the wearing of headscarves in public institutions.

Not Exactly the Taliban
Since first coming to power in 2002, the AKP has pursued a broad platform of liberal reform. Their efforts include an ongoing attempt to overturn the freedom-gutting censorship law enshrined in the constitution’s Article 301, passing the greatest expansion of women’s rights since Ataturk, reaching out to the nation’s oppressed Kurdish minority, abolishing capital punishment, cracking down on torture, and allowing greater freedom to criticize the military. Interestingly, it’s the Islamist AKP government that has consistently pushed for liberal reform and democratic consolidation; the secularist CHP party, for its part, has often opposed these changes.

Turkish secularists do have their supporters, however. Michael Van Der Galien, a blogging colleague at Poligazette, is quick to defend the latest efforts to dethrone the AKP. He writes that there is certainly ground for trying to ban the party, given that the AKP has “tried to destroy secularism from within for months and even years now.” It is not clear what evidence there is to back up such an assertion, and none is provided. Indeed, contrary to the fears of many secularists, there is virtually no popular support for undercutting secularism and instituting Islamic law in Turkey, a goal that critics like Van Der Galien would attribute to the AKP. Between 1996 and 2007, the Turkish public’s desire for shari’a went from 19% to a pitiful 8%. Given that the Islamist government was elected by a democratic plurality, it would be nearly impossible for them to institute shari’a reforms.

In fact, the AKP appears to be working towards a very tolerable middle ground between liberal democracy and secularism. While continuing to respect the country’s historical division between mosque and state, the Islamist party is also committed to undercutting the state’s antipathy towards organized religion and broadening social and religious freedoms. (Under the legacy of secular rule, for example, private religious schools are illegal, women are highly restricted in their ability to wear the hijab, Turkish imams must also be civil servants, and getting authorization to build a new church or synagogue, or establish a religiously-affiliated foundation is almost impossible.) Efforts by the AKP to reduce these restrictions are not attempts to install shari’a law or establish an Islamic state. Nor could they be read as a stepping stone towards undercutting the country’s secular foundation. Instead, with a few exceptions, they appear to largely be an attempt to expand the scope of religious freedoms to the level that we see in most European and Western countries. None of this is to say that the AKP hasn’t supported its share of questionable policies. But, by and large, they are quite moderate and actually represent the type of mainstream, constitutionalist Islamist party that could serve as a model for the region at-large.



This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 11:13 am and is filed under Turkey. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 7 Comments

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    It seems to me that the best way to foment extremism iis to destroy moderates.

    I understand the fears of the secalirsts, though, They suspect that the cloak of medartion will be dropped once Islamists are in full blown power. That's a genuine risk whenever any religion and governmental powers are mixed. . That the current party leadership is moderate is no guarantee that tomorrow's leadership will be so also.

    Nevertheless, It's a bigger rish, IMO, to ban them. Repression is far more likely to induce extremism.
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    Runasim said: "I understand the fears of the secalirsts, though, They suspect that the cloak of medartion will be dropped once Islamists are in full blown power. "

    I would agree. JebK is ignoring the critical fact that the ONE reason Turkey is not Syria, or Iraq, or Egypt is the secular legacy of Ataturk and the Turkish military.

    In contrast to, for example, the Pakistani military...the Turkish military has a reputation for restraint in intervening in the political sphere. It has tended to do so only when it believes the fundamental principles of Turkey are under threat.

    Why risk decades of comparative success - to any other Muslim nation of equivalent size - to allow Islamists to push the door open. If Islamists get the headscarf victory...then there will be a new moderate Islamist proposal...and a new moderate Islamist proposal....

    Turkey will one day wake up an Islamist autocracy. Give Turkey's secularists some credit. They have been fighting radical Islam longer than anyone.
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    Im sorry to say your all fundimentaly wrong in that you give too much credit to the secularist "elite" this small group of rich "Tofs" as the british would label them have been and by the recent actions of the constaturional court are degrading Turkey and weakining it all becous of an ideology that Attaturk dint realy represent. By that i mean socialism,

    For one thing Attaturk wanted to create industries, develope them then privatise them and from the proceeds built bigger better industries and continue to do so untill Turkey became a major financial player in the world. But instead after he died these Socialists ran the country and the industries like a joke. The steel industry for one thing was pittyfull, the socialists would set the price for steel lower than the market value and sell them off to there friends and they would inturn sell it at market value thus making them instant millionares inturn robbing the country for there own financial gain.

    It got so bad that new highly trained university graduates would be left alone becouse they couldnt afford to pay there salarys as they were paying half the minimum price. And these new highly trained graduates would go abroad and elsewere. All this becouse they wanted to grip onto control of the industries wich made Turkey suffer and them richer.

    The AKP started privatising some industrys and made considirable gain and they increased Turkeys exports and imports and to date they have raised turkeys income over 70%. In moneytorie values thats just under $70 billion ($70,000 million) Not to mention considirably improving the image of Turkey around the world and Turkeys first ever nuclear power plant, also they increased Turkeys "Research and development" fund from $34 million to $3.5 billion and introduced new tax credits to attract the scientists who fleed becouse of poor salarys and funds.

    i mean you guys make me cring when you start telling people they havent done anything. They have worked so dam hard for the country and elevated it to a place it never saw in the modern world, all this in little over 5 years! now that is some achievement.

    I apsolutely urge you to tell us what has the secularists done for the country apart from robbing the country and depriving it the right to financial development all the while hiding behind Attaturks great and patriotic image? Note: they have had well over 50 years.

    And do not be mistaken, this closure case "is" doing considirable harm to Turkey and will not serve Turkey at all not even one bit, it will only benifit the secular elite who are using the last form of defence they have left.
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    I do not understand why people think that every rule of western justice will be exactly applicable in any part of the world. Why not consider cultural and contextual requirements while talking about or exercising politics?

    It has been the Turkish military that has prevented Turkiye from being a country like Iran. People have always trusted the military in Turkey, and we will keep on doing that. The reason why western people have not understood Turkish people is that they have always approached or evaluated Turkish people with an orientalist perspective. Never take a pure western, or a pure oriental perspective to Turkey, because it is a country of contrevarsies and multiculturalism. Think about a country, in which more than 90%of the population is Muslim, but in which the traditional and national drink is Turkish Raki (with 45%alcohol!!)...

    Turkey is experiencing hard times nowadays... Terrorism has hit U.S once, and you know its following effects...Terrorism has hit Turkey thousands of times since 1980s; more than 35000 Turkish citizens were killed. Meanwhile, the radical islamists have threatened secularism in Turkey by attracting votes of poor people only. The reason for the majority of the people voting for them are as follows;
    (1) They distributed free food, coal and clothes in poor districts.
    (2) They attracted the votes of feodal landlords (agas) in the east, who use poor villagers...These villagers have to vote for the party which the agha wants.
    (3) They had the financial back up of Feytullah Gulen, who is being protected by the U.S now.

    Sorry, I am lost in problems. The reason why I believe the AKP party may be a threat is that I've seen the rapid change under their governence in Turkey. The budgets to islamic schools were doubled, almost all the staff in ministry buildings were changed to AKP-origined ones, more cencorship has been observed in T.V, and terrorism started again after some years. The party uses democracy as a tool to theocracy...

    Turkish lands have always been attacked throughout the history, but anatolia can never be invaded, due to the existance of a magical brotherhood among races there... No religion, no 1 ethnic origin, or no world power will be in force there, because it is a different land. U.S should forget about Turkish part of his MIDDLE EAST PROJECT .
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    Sorry my friend, but I believe that you have not lived in Turkey for a long time... All the claims for developing economy and welfare has been only valid for rich people in Turkey during AKP time. The rich became richer, the poor poorer... As a teacher, I became poorer every month. If there is so much gain only because their economic exellence, why did the external dept of Turkey has gone crazy? It has never been this much in the history...?
    I am not paranoiac... I have seen the officials of AKP in the government and misnistry buildings, in universities...I have talked to them, contacted them... What I have seen and experienced make me believe that may be not me, but my children are in danger...
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    Marlowecan said:
    "...the Turkish military has a reputation for restraint in intervening in the political sphere. "

    True, but this is the flip side of the coin.
    One side asks for trust that the military will continue to show restraint, even when those in power and conditions change, atnd the Islamists ask for trust that they will continue to be moderate even when conditions change. It's a question of who does one trust, then.

    To this moment, the Islamist party and the PM have done nothing extreme.
    An action of banning them now could upset a very delicate apple cart
    The timing is very dangerous, a powder keg, IMO.
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    Come on man, do you honestly think its worth ruining the gains that Turkey has made? and do you seriously think for even a second that baykal will manuver the country back if the AKP is closed? Do you seriously think his capable of doing that? He cant even win a simple ellection and what his going to take charge of a nation? I bet he cant even run his own house hold.

    The secularist establishment have had considrible time to conduct Turkey into the 21 centuary economicaly, they had the capabilitys to be a fundimental player in the world but the people in charge waisted it all away into there pokets.

    I hate it when i see people like you making such comments, they have elivated Turkeys image so much. Gul when he took office within 30 days he had visited 5 nations... how many nations did his prediseser visit?

    AKP have raised the national income to $104 billion, previously it was something like $34 billion?

    And just becouse its leaders have said some realy stupid things they and Turkey face an uncertain future. You think it worth it? Your not very patriotic if you do.

    People are laughing at us for pittys sake.... what is wrong with people, il tell you why people are poor becouse the world is going into a resetion. The people in power will always have money, i seriously cant see parliment being run buy a bunch of poor guys who cant even find food to eat. can you?

    Both sides are guilty then, however AKP have gained an un imaginable ground in the past 5 years and dont you stand there and dinie it ok, think of your country for pittys sake.
 
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