Secularism for Arabs and Turks

Will the Arab Spring countries embrace secularism as described by the Turkish prime minister?

It is certainly odd to hear Recep Tayyip Erdoğan preaching about secularism in Egypt and Tunisia given that he comes from a political tradition that was constantly suppressed in the name of secularism and that his party, described as the center of anti-secular activities, was threatened with closure by the Constitutional Court only three years ago.

Now Erdoğan is advising the Arabs not to be afraid of secularism. What he has in mind, however, is of course not the secularism of the Kemalists or the Nasserites or the Baathists. He, in fact, is putting forward a notion of reformed secularism, the kind that is emancipatory and non-interventionist.

This is a departure from the one implemented in Turkey by the Kemalists. Turkey's experience with secularism is not a happy one. From its inception during the republican era, secularism was conceived as a “device” to exclude and oppress religious groups. Exclusion on the grounds of secularism served to delegitimize social and political actors and their demands while elevating the Kemalist elite as the legitimate vanguard of the system. Secularism was thus a shield behind which the Kemalists conducted a struggle for power vis-à-vis the conservative periphery.

It was not a model in which the state and religion were separated, with each commanding its own realm free of intervention from the other side. In the Turkish secular model the state-controlled religion -- the way in which it was organized, believed in and taught. Thus, while the state, in the name of secularism, kept religion at bay and even controlled it, religion was not supposed to define rules or norms of the state's affairs. As a result, Turkish secularism created its own institution of religion within the state apparatus so it could rule and regulate religious activities. Even in this, the state was not impartial since the institution was only in charge of Islam, and only one interpretation of it. So Sunni Islam became the “official religion,” in practice excluding non-Muslims and Alevis. Moreover, this notion of Islam became compulsory in schools reinforcing the state's monopoly over Islam, its interpretation and teaching.

While regulating the relationship with religion in such a way, on the other hand, Turkish secularism has also attempted to erode paradoxically public displays of Islam. This was conducted through an understanding of secularism as a “way of life.” So, on one hand, the state ran religious institutions, published religious books, employed preachers and taught Islam, but on the other religion/Islam was to be kept to one's self not appearing in social or political life.

To achieve secularism with democracy and social will result in removing the built-in authoritarian political content of radical secularism. There are two important aspects of secularism: impartiality and the equal treatment of all religions by the state. Secularism involves an institutional attitude and method that ensures that the state remains impartial and equidistant to all religions and thoughts, whereby secularism is essentially regarded as the freedom of religion and conscience. On the other hand, secularism guarantees emancipation for different beliefs and lifestyles.

This is an important ground on which secularists and Muslims can reach a consensus in Islamic communities.