If you read their comments you get the impression that they have been suffering at the hands of a “Shariah state” and that they are now concerned that people in another country are about to fall into the same trap. Their Islamophobia is so strong that they cannot see that there is a huge gap between Turkey and Egypt in terms of level of democracy and that after all these long years of oppression a country can really fall into the trap of any extremism, that this has nothing to do with religion and so on.
In my Friday column I tried to explain how so-called “radical Islamists” have been softened since the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) came to power in Turkey. No matter what is actually happening in Turkey, some “secular circles” tend to read everything as a signal of the Islamization of this country. These segments of Turkish society are so allergic to devout Muslims that they cannot see anything good in something if it has been done by devout Muslims.
Why and how did some people in Turkish society build up such strong negative feelings toward devout Muslims? How did otherwise intelligent people become myopic when it comes to Islam and Muslims in Turkey? How can we explain individuals’ fear, dislike, abhorrence or hatred for something in which they have been raised? In my view, Islamophobia in Turkey represents a kind of self-hatred, or at least self-dissatisfaction.
When our “secular elites” see a woman swimming in the sea in a head-to-toe swimsuit or a crowded group of women with headscarves, they become very angry. This is a predominantly Muslim society, so why are our elites so irritated by individuals of the society in which they were raised? Do these people remind them that they are not Western enough and that they have strong roots in the East? Or maybe it’s something closer, more private? Do they tap into their emotional baggage they still carry from the struggle with parents who were devout, whereas they became atheists or non-practicing Muslims? Are they “latent Muslims” who could not resolve their intellectual and emotional struggle with Islam? Do these people represent their repressed side?
I think we must ask ourselves these and other similar questions. When I read some comments by certain “secular” intellectuals in Turkey, I help but think that for them the only solution is that all devout Muslims become secular and that Muslim women relinquish their headscarves, or there will be no peace in Turkey. People have the right to believe what we think is total nonsense and to do things we find nonsensical as well. In my opinion, freedom of religion is one of the key freedoms necessary for Turkey to be completely democratic because in this way we will accept that people who, in our opinion believe in nonsense and lead their lives accordingly, are also adults, and no one has the right to force them to live a certain way. I can hear the objections -- “We are not against the devout Muslims or any religion, but we are against political Islam!” But the problem is that in Turkey, people’s attempts to lead their lives in a manner compatible with their beliefs are being seen and labeled as a manifestation of political Islam.
The question remains, do we really, objectively see any danger that a religious state will be established in Turkey, or is it our very strong dislike of the Muslim lifestyle that leads us to smell danger in the wind in order to justify hatred of ourselves, perhaps?
