Turkey’s Secularists and Conservatives Are Both Happy

As a sociologist and a witness to the colorfulness of daily life in the country as someone who lives here, I never thought the discourse of “secular lifestyle is under threat in Turkey” had actual societal resonance. The real issue here is that a group of people who had thought themselves to be the administration for the better part of 80 years feel that they have been defeated and that they have lost their privileges. This group consistently puts forward the discourse that their lifestyle is under threat in Turkey and does this in a coordinated manner with the Islamophobic wave rising even higher in the West.

After the attack carried out on New Year’s at a nightclub in Istanbul, the “lifestyle under threat in Turkey” discourse came to the fore again. The political opposition in Turkey and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s enemies in the West circulated this in coordination with each other. Above all else, this discourse does not reflect the reality. Supposedly there is a large sector of society who objects to celebrating the new year in Turkey and the administration supports them, and this attack was carried out by way of the encouragement received from such a societal situation. First of all, this is not true. A type of cultural reaction against celebrating New Year’s is present in a limited part of Turkey’s society, but these types of cultural reactions can be found in myriad societies. And this reaction is nothing new. Moreover, this reaction has never been taken over to the political arena in any way.

Secondly, this discourse is aimed at weakening Turkey’s – and if present, the international coalition’s – fight against Daesh. Daesh clearly regards Turkey as an enemy and repeatedly declares that it will engage in attacks against Turkey. Turkey’s security forces have collapsed many domestic Daesh cells. On the other hand, Turkey is also conducting a very effective challenge against Daesh in Syria. The terror organization against which Turkey is currently fighting in Al-Bab is Daesh. Forgetting all of this and regarding a bloody terror attack as “political opportunity” is to participate in the purpose of the terrorism.

The “Secular Citizens Never Felt So Alone” article that was published two days ago in the Washington Post serves just this perception. Unfortunately, there is an attempt to activate the fault lines present within Turkey’s society and thus to create a transformation in political management. Those who fully disregard Turkey’s democracy and who cannot accept Turkey’s political reality and constantly engage in manipulation are investing in neither peace or stability.

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In the 2000s, the relations between religion and state were painful in Turkey. For nearly 80 years, Turkey witnessed a Jacobean period of modernization where the Kemalist state enacted resolutions to remove all vestiges of Islamic symbols from the public arena, imposed an official understanding of religion on the people, and where the religious sector of society were constantly pushed out of politics. This caused a feeling of alienation among a large part of society toward the state.

In the first period between 2000-2007 when the AK Party came to power, it leaned toward the arena of economic growth and development. Following 2007, it also began taking steps toward the rehabilitation of the relations between religion and state and took a dozen important steps here as well. Rather than the French version of a stiff and exclusionary secularism (laicite), the course taken was toward a more Anglo-Saxon understanding of secularism where laicite was not the method by which religion was brought to heel but rather a way of ensuring that government would continue without coming under the influence of any particular religious ideology.

There was serious resonance in society for such a political transformation and, in fact, this situation removed – to a large extent – the alienation that had appeared toward the state. However, the actualization of this transformation and the adoption of a new understanding of secularism set in motion a group who conduct politics and opposition over lifestyle in Turkey. The Republican People’s Party (CHP), the main opposition party, brought the discourse of “the Republican regime and secular lifestyle are under threat” to the center of its politics.

However, this discourse had no real resonance with the socio-political reality within Turkey. It did not exist then, and it does not exist now. In fact, when there was management change in the CHP, the new leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu emphasized that conducting politics over this discourse was no longer sufficient. However, the CHP did not leave this discourse behind – a discourse that is not useful for Turkey, but is quite handy for the West. During the Gezi protests, the “secular lifestyle is under threat in Turkey” discourse was once again put into circulation.

The political developments we have experienced throughout 2016, with the U.S. foremost among them, demonstrated just how meaningless it is to conduct politics while attempting to suppress sociological realities to the whole world. Sociological reality cannot be suppressed, or manipulated.

[Daily Sabah, January 6, 2017]