If I stroll to the shoreline, I see on the distant horizon two domes separated by 1,000 years of history -- the Church of the Divine Wisdom (Aya Sofia) and the Blue Mosque, all part of a harmonious skyline. What better vantage point, you might think, to look down my nose at the decision by a handsome majority of voters in far away Switzerland to revel in intolerance and forbid the future building of minarets. And yet I am feeling far from smug. Condemnation of the Swiss referendum has been near universal. From the Vatican to the United Nations, from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to the Swedish presidency of the European Union, from the editorial columns of The New York Times to the Euro-phobic headlines of Vakit, statements of horror and incredulity have been swift. “An example of growing anti-Islamic incitement in Europe by the extremist, anti-immigrant, xenophobic, racist, scare-mongering ultra-right politicians who reign over common sense, wisdom and universal values,” said Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, secretary-general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), managing to hit pretty much all the stops. Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, the Swiss justice minister, described the ban as contravening the European Convention on Human Rights but also an attempt to stir up trouble. Although she did not use the word “Ergenekon,” she portrayed it as a malicious provocation, an attempt to stage a “proxy war” between native Swiss and Muslim immigrants.
Adding my own reedy voice to this vast international chorus of dismay is, I admit, a low priority. Instead, I have been asking myself “What if…” It is, of course, most unlikely that Turkey would imitate the Swiss habit of direct democracy and hold a referendum on whether there should be a freeze on building new churches on Turkish soil or whether they regard missionary activities as a form of militant Christianity. However, there are enough recent opinion polls to give Turkey pause for thought and to ask if what is happening in Switzerland is not simply a reflection of what has long been the case in its own backyard.
A recent study published by Ali Çarkoğlu and Ersin Kalaycıoğlu of Sabancı University records that 59 percent of those surveyed believed those from different religions should not be allowed to propagate their beliefs in public and 54 percent should not be allowed to do so in print -- levels roughly comparable to 57 percent of the Swiss who voted to ban the minaret. In his column yesterday Orhan Kemal Cengiz makes the all too obvious point that minority religious communities in Turkey -- not immigrants but people whose ancestors were born on Turkish soil -- have experienced all too real difficulties in repairing their own places of worship and preventing their land and property from being taken over by the forestry commission or simple seizure. The Radikal newspaper recently (Sept. 30) splashed a public survey which suggested that sizeable portions of the Turkish public wanted no contact with people who did not believe in the exact same God as themselves and certainly did not want them living in the house next door.
Some of the worst manifestations of intolerance in Turkey as in Switzerland have been calculated provocations. In Turkey the stakes have been higher and more violent, including, one suspects, the murder of the Armenian editor Hrant Dink or the brutal killings of three Christians in Malatya in 2007. The latest round of newspaper accusations point to a conspiracy within the military to stage a series of violent incidents intended to terrorize Turkey’s non-Muslim communities as part of an attempt to discredit the current government.
However, the government does itself no favors by being cowardly about addressing discrimination at home. If Turkish officialdom is openly critical of what has happened in Switzerland (Minister for EU Affairs Egemen Bağış suggested with perhaps a touch of facetiousness that Islamic petrol wealth should flee the bankers of Zurich for the gnomes of İstanbul), then it should wage war on racism in Turkey itself.
To take one horrendous example after the murders in Malatya, according to the US State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report: “The governor of Malatya was initially hesitant to permit the burial of the German victim in Malatya. He told the German victim’s widow that no Christian should be buried in the country’s soil. After negotiations between German and Turkish government officials, the victim was buried in a private Armenian cemetery in Malatya.” It is one thing to blame Ergenekon for the country’s woes, and another for the country to serve at Ergenekon’s beck and call.
