ISLAMIC CASE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN TURKEY
By Mustafa Akyol
THE KOREA HERALD
February 16, 2010 Tuesday
ANKARA – Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of the Orthodox Church
recently said on American TV that he feels "crucified" in Turkey,
upsetting many Turks. Sadly, his Holiness is right. Yet his complaint
is not with Islam but with the secular Turkish Republic.
The Turkish state has kept the Halki Seminary, the only institution
able to train Orthodox priests, closed since 1971. Even the Patriarch’s
title "ecumenical" is lashed out at by some Turkish authorities and
their nationalist supporters. Every year, international reports on
religious freedom point to such pressures on the Patriarchate with
concern, and they are right to do so. But why does Turkey do all
this? What is the source of the problem?
Things were better long ago. The first Turkish ruler to reign over
the Ecumenical Patriarchate was Mehmed II, the Ottoman Sultan who
conquered Constantinople in 1453. In line with the Islamic tradition of
accepting the "People of the Book," the young sultan granted amnesty
to the patriarchate. He also gave the institution many privileges
and authorities, no less than that which existed under the Byzantine
emperors. Armenians and Jews later enjoyed the same autonomies.
In the 19th century, the non-Muslim peoples of the empire also
achieved the rights of equal citizenship with Muslims. That’s why
the late Ottoman bureaucracy and the Ottoman Parliament included a
great number of Greeks, Armenians and Jews – something you never see
in republican Turkey. The Halki Seminary, opened in 1844, is a relic
from that bygone age of pluralism.
Nationalism is what destroyed this Pax Ottomana. It affected the
peoples of the empire one by one, including, towards the end, the
Turks. Many conflicts took place between the latter and the rest,
and the great empire’s colossal collapse left a bitter taste in the
mouths of all. The Armenians, who suffered the worst tragedy in 1915,
never forgot nor forgave.
What the Turks remember, however, was the perceived "treason" of the
other components of the empire, especially that of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate. The latter had cheered the Greek armies when they
invaded western Anatolia in 1919. From that point on, the Patriarchate,
in the eyes of many Turks, became a "fifth column."
When Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded the Republic in 1923, he defined
the Patriarchate as "a center of perfidy." As an alternative, he
promoted a rival "Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate," which became a
bastion of ultra-nationalist ideology. (Some members of this artificial
"Patriarchate" are currently on trial in the so-called Ergenekon case,
a covert network of officers and civilians accused at conspiring to
stage a military coup against the current Turkish government.)
Over the years, Ataturk’s ideas evolved into an official ideology
called "Kemalism," which had two main pillars: A self-styled
secularism that bans anything but "the secular way of life," and a
fierce nationalism that defies anything it deems "non-Turkish."
The Ecumenical Patriarchate, as both a religious and "non-Turkish"
institution, fits in neither category. Hence, throughout the
Republican regime, and especially at times of military dominance,
it faced official pressure and confiscation of property, as did all
other non-Muslim and Muslim religious institutions.
So part of the problem is the curse of history. But you can either trap
yourself inside history or take lessons from it and move on. To date,
unfortunately, Turkey’s nationalists, within both state and society,
have opted for the former option.
If one cause of the repression of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is
nationalism, though, the other one is the other pillar of the Kemalist
ideology: secularism. Turkey’ draconian laws on "national education"
ban any sort of religious education unless it is strictly controlled
by the state. The real motive behind this is the regime’s distaste for
Islam. The Ecumenical Patriarchate, as a foreign observer observes,
only receives "collateral damage."
A telling manifestation of this was seen recently in a live discussion
on CNNTurk, the Turkish counterpart of the international news channel.
A deputy from the CHP, the staunchly Kemalist People’s Republican
Party, Muharrem Ince, who opposed the reopening of the Halki Seminary
became angry. "Do you know who most wants to open the seminary in
this country?" he loudly asked. "The Islamists! They want this,
because they want to open Islamic schools as well."
Yes, this is indeed the position increasingly adopted by Turkey’s
Islamic opinion leaders – who are striving not for jihad or an
"Islamic state," but just a modest preservation of tradition. They
realize that religious freedom must be championed for all. And they
have a good frame of reference in the pluralism of the Ottomans.
This more liberal approach to non-Muslims can be observed in today’s
AKP (Justice and Development Party) government, in power since 2002.
Although labeled as "Islamist" by its opponents, the AKP has been
much more willing to liberalize Turkey than its secular counterparts,
most of which are zealously nationalist. The Annual Report of the U.S.
Commission on International Religious Freedom makes this point nicely:
"In November 2006, the (AKP dominated) Turkish parliament, as part
of the reforms related to possible EU accession, passed a new law
governing Lausanne religious minority foundations, easing procedures to
establish foundations and allowing non-Turkish citizens in Turkey to
open them. Then President Ahmet Necdet Sezer (a staunch Kemalist),
however, vetoed the legislation. In February 2008, the parliament
passed a similar law on the return of property confiscated from
non-Muslim minorities … President Gul signed the legislation, which
was also supported by Prime Minister Erdogan, but was vehemently
opposed by Turkish nationalists on the grounds that the law granted
too many rights to minority communities."
The Ecumenical Patriarch himself acknowledged in a recent interview
that the AKP has shown goodwill on this issue. His All Holiness also
said that the real obstacle is probably "the deep state" – a reference
to Turkey’s Kemalist state establishment that considers itself above
any elected government and democratic law.
Mustafa Akyol is an Istanbul-based political commentator and the
author of the forthcoming "The Islamic Case for Liberty." – Ed.