Turkey, the EU and religion
Faith in Europe
Dec 16th 2004
The Economist print edition
The Turkish republic is not as secular as it seems. To become
European, it will have to change
AN EVER closer partnership between Turkey and the European Union,
culminating in full Turkish membership, can only be good for relations
between Islam and the West. It will show that western nations have no
insuperable prejudice against Islam-and it will confirm Turkey’s role
as a nation whose Muslim heritage is fully compatible with democracy.
Those are the main reasons why European leaders were expected on
December 17th to endorse the opening of talks to make Turkey the EU’s
first mainly Muslim member. The Turks have worked hard to groom
themselves for Europe. But the negotiators from Brussels and Ankara
will be deceiving themselves, and perhaps riding for a fall, if they
underestimate the amount of ground they still need to travel. Among
the trickiest issues is the existence in Turkey of a relationship
between religion and the state that differs from the varied, and often
bizarre, arrangements of western Europe.
Paradoxically, the aspect of Turkey’s system that Europeans find
strangest is the curb it places on its own prevailing religion. Turkey
is often called a secular state, whose citizens happen to be
Muslim. In fact, Turkey is far from secular, if that implies an
arm’s-length relationship between faith and politics. The masters of
Turkey’s 81-year-old republic have always felt that religion is too
sensitive to leave to clerics alone. A vast state bureaucracy oversees
spiritual life; it hires imams, tells them what to preach, and runs
religious schools.
 One size fits all The effect is to steer most Turks down a narrow
religious path; they are taught to be devout Muslims, but they may not
push their piety further thanthe state allows. By banning headscarves
in universities as well as all government premises, the state imposes
a far harsher restriction on devout Muslim women than the ban on
scarves (and other obvious signs of faith) in French schools. As a
result, some Turkish women get no higher education. Nor is life easy
for millions of Turks who follow the liberal Alevi form of the Muslim
faith, not the Sunni Islam taught in schools. For the state, all
Muslims are the same; too bad for Alevis who want to opt out of Sunni
education.
What about Turkey’s tiny non-Muslim communities? Here again, history
weighs heavily. As Turks learn at school, the avoidance of any special
status for religious minorities was a master-stroke by their state’s
founders: the western powers wanted such privileges, but the republic
resisted their wiles. Those negotiations ended in the 1923 Treaty of
Lausanne, which promises limited cultural and religious rights for the
Greek Orthodox, the Armenians and Jewsâ=80’with the result that
Turkish policy still distinguishes `Lausanne minorities’ from
others. When some Turks argued recently that the treaty, properly
read, implied fair treatment of all minorities, this triggered a
furious row-and dark murmurings from the military.
In any case, joining the EU will oblige Turkey to be far more decent
in its treatment of religious minorities than the Lausanne treaty
ordains. As evidence for a lack of decency, witness Turkey’s de facto
ban on training for Christian clergy; and the recent Turkish-American
row over the Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul. As Turkey’s government
reaffirmed, it disputes the right not just of its own citizens, but of
Christians in America, to accord the patriarch his `primacy of honour’
in the Orthodox world: this is a curious act of discourtesy to a
religious leader who warmly backs Turkey’s European hopes.
Whatever Turkey’s failings, do Europeans have any right to lecture the
Turks? Europe’s religious scene is full of weird anachronisms. The
British prime minister still chooses the senior prelate of the
Anglican Church. In one part of Greece, Muslim muftis exercise
judicial powers, while in Athens, Muslims cannot get official
recognition for a single mosque. Denmark is one of Europe’s most
secular societies, but its Lutheran church enjoys huge
privileges. Allthese arrangements are likely to be challenged as
Europe grows more diverse.
Where does that leave Turkey? It would be nice, but naive, to regard
its system as simply one small variation in a colourful religious
scene. It is one thing for a state to give privileges to a particular
church, which then governs itself; quite another for a state to
micro-manage the whole of religious life.
Given its own diversity, it would be silly for the EU to impose on
Turkey some precise model for religious affairs. But Turkey won’t be a
liberal democracy in the European sense until state interference in
the world of faith becomes the exception, not the rule-and unless all
religious communities can worship, own property and form associations
freely.