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Sign of maturity in Turkey
Turks are prepared to have a government of pious Muslims provided secularism is not compromised.
- By Amir Taheri, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:38 April 8, 2008
- Image Credit: Illustration: Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News
Even the best writers of political fiction could not have imagined it. But we may soon witness the highest echelon of the Turkish government leadership, president, the prime minister and almost all members of the Cabinet, banned from politics for at least five years.
Others targeted for the ban include the speaker of the parliament and 52 other parliamentarians. Their crime? According to a suit filed at the Constitutional Court, they are guilty of trying "to undermine the secular foundations of the Turkish Republic".
Earlier this month, the court decided unanimously to hear the case against the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) that the public prosecutor wants banned. The prosecutor's dossier against the AKP runs to 162 pages and includes a long list of its alleged misdeeds against the constitution.
This is the latest duel between Turkey's secularist establishment, backed by the armed forces and the judiciary, and Islamist segments of society of which AKP is the latest political expression.
In 1960, the army staged a coup to stop what it saw as an "Islamist drift" encouraged by the Democrat Party of prime minister Adnan Menderes. The president Celal Bayar, a retired general, was deposed and exiled to an island where he lived until his death in 1986.
Menderes was put through a military tribunal and hanged along with several of his ministers. In 1971, it was the turn of the governing Justice (Adalat) Party to be banned with its leadership, including prime minister Suleiman Demirel, banned from politics for 10 years.
In the 1980s the court banned two other major parties, Rifah (Welfare) and Fazilat (Virtue) on similar charges and deposed one prime minister, Necmettin Erbacan.
Between 1960 and 1990 the court used the charge of "undermining the secular nature" of the republic as an excuse to ban 23 smaller political parties, including some that formed part of various coalition governments.
In the mid 1990s, the younger cadres of Rifah and Fazilat came together to form the AKP. This time, partly thanks to the tactical genius of their leader Recep Tayyib Erdogan, they took extra care not to give their new party an Islamic colouring.
By presenting itself as a right-of-centre conservative party with no religious agenda, the AKP has managed to win two general elections in the past six years, first with 43 per cent of the popular vote (in 2001) and then with 47 per cent (in 2007).
Is the AKP really undermining the secular nature of the Turkish republic? There is no easy answer.
To start with, the Turkish republic is not secular in the sense that the American and French counterpart are, for example.
In the case of the United States and France secularism means a separation of church and state with the former having no official religion and guaranteeing freedom of conscience for followers of all faiths.
In Turkey, however, the state controls the main religion, Islam, by owning virtually all mosques, administering religious endowments, appointing preachers, dictating what is to be preached and regulating pilgrimages.
At the same time, the state does not allow Islam to be taught at public schools and bans outward signs of Islamic piety, such as beards for men and headscarves for women in government buildings.
The AKP has always fought the headscarf ban. Refusing to shed their headscarves, the daughters of both Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul have been forced to travel to the United States to attend university.
Last month, however, the AKP, using its majority in the parliament and its control of the presidency, amended the constitution to allow the wearing of headscarves at universities.
To the secularist establishment, this was the last straw. However, the secularists would be wrong to single out this issue. There is no doubt that the AKP is trying to re-Islamicise the Turkish society while maintaining a secularist façade.
It is also trying to distance Turkey from its traditional Nato allies, especially the United States, cultivating closer ties with Iran, Syria and even Russia.
The AKP rejects the Turkish definition of secularism - that is to say control of Islam by the state - in favour of the Western one, that is to say a separation of religion and state.
Such a separation could alter the balance of forces within Turkish society.
The AKP wants to hand control of some 80,000 mosques, now owned by the state, to private religious association that would also gain the right of appointing preachers and deciding what is preached.
It wants the state to give up its control of religious endowments, including thousands of businesses, banks, insurance companies, hotels, farms and real estate, to private boards of trustees, composed of the faithful, who could then use the profits for furthering Islamic educational, cultural and charitable causes.
Power bloc
If these schemes succeed, Turkey could become more of a secularist state in European terms. But it would also witness the emergence of an Islamic economic and social power bloc to counterbalance the state.
It would be no surprise if the AKP appointed its own supporters to key positions in the mosques and endowments taken away from the state.
With such a powerful base, the AKP would be in a better position to continue winning elections and remaining in power or, if forced out in an election, to use its economic and social base to challenge the state.
The AKP has been active on other fronts as well.
Over the past five years it has replaced some 3,000 secularist judges and judicial officials with individuals known for their Islamic sentiments and links to the party. Thousands of secularist teachers have also been forced into early retirement.
In the past two years the party has also started to promote its sympathisers within the armed forces and the police, thus threatening the principal bastion of secularism Turkish-style.
To many outsiders, all this might appear natural. After all the political " spoils system" exists in most democracies, allowing election victors to distribute the best jobs among their supporters. In Turkey, however, such a system could undermine the consensus that has shaped the national identity for over eight decades.
The overwhelming majority of Turks feel comfortable in a Muslim society with a secular state. By giving AKP a plurality on two successive occasions, they showed that they are even prepared to have a government of pious Muslims, provided the secular nature of the state is not undermined.
The AKP's mandate is to manage the system, not to redefine it.
The fact that the issue is to be settled through the court, rather than with a military coup d'etat is sign of maturity for Turkish democracy.
Amir Taheri is an Iranian writer based in Europe.
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