If the result of Turkish modernization is reaching a “level of contemporary civilization,” which according to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk it is, then the secularism viewpoint in question makes the contemporary civilization ideal invalid and makes the crucial institutions of contemporary civilization almost ineffective. When we say contemporary civilization today, we don’t mean industrial development, soccer stadiums, big airports, sea ports, highways and expressways. We mean human rights, freedom of conscience and religion, the protection of individual rights and freedom, minority rights, recognizing differences, pluralistic democracy, participation, the influence the governed have on the decision process and the rule of law. But the state’s evaluation of secularism within this conceptual framework causes a huge chasm between these ideals and the state.The state’s adoption of an anti-religion stance is the result of its exalting a particular ideology. “Laicism” is a concept that expresses the Turkish elites’ understanding of secularism.
The first person to express this was Şükrü Kaya, who served as interior minister in 1937. Malatya Deputy İsmet İnönü and his three friends made a legislative proposal to incorporate laicism into the constitution. Speaking on behalf of the government when the bill was being discussed in Parliament, Kaya said:
“This country has suffered great harm because the consciences of oracles and irresponsible people were effective and because they were involved in state and national affairs. Since we were determinists in history and since we are materialists when it comes to action, we must prepare our own laws. With the kind of freedom and secularism we plan, we want to ensure that religion is not effective and in charge in state affairs. This is our framework and limit for laicism. We want religion to stay in the consciences and houses of worship. We don’t want it to interfere in material life and worldly affairs. Furthermore, we will not allow it to.”
In 1937 the Ministry of Interior spoke about being “determinist” and “materialist.” He was trying to impose determinism and materialism on the people and “laicism” on the state.
Without any doubt, this is an anachronistic situation at least from the perspective of the current valid viewpoint. It is a very striking situation for a state which has assumed responsibility of public affairs to identify itself as determinist, positivist and materialist and adopt an anti-religion stance because of a modernization understanding it formulized due to perhaps historical reasons. This situation is one of the main causes of tension experienced during the 20th century and it continues today.
Of course this situation also led to the intervention in and definition of religion. One of the leading causes of religion and Islam becoming politicized is the state’s interference in religion and attempt to decide what people should believe in and how they should live their lives. On the one hand, the state tried to teach citizens the kind of religion they should believe in while on the other it tried to remove religion from individual, social and public life because of its ideological modernization mission.
This fact gave the state an “eternal” authoritarian and totalitarian-strained attribute that above all was in conflict with religion and religious people. It was said that this concept could “last for a thousand years” if necessary. It is for this reason that the problem today is not a problem between religion and the state. Religious people do not have any objection to “secularism where the state is fair to all religions.” The state is supposed to protect the freedom of religion and conscience through laws by adopting a neutral stance. It must treat beliefs and sects equally; it must prevent one religion or sect from oppressing other religions or religious groups. But it must not inhibit any religion from being visible in the public sphere nor inhibit it from coexisting in line with the “unity in plurality” principle. Religious people in Turkey desire secularism within this kind of framework. Just like the state, secularism needs to be democratized as well.
