Part 5: the Turkish Ultra Secularist Experiment - Kemalism - (and its recent relaxation?)

Turkey was of course the central land of the Ottoman Empire as discussed in earlier posts. The Empire participated to an extent in the European state system and European secularist, modernist and nationalist ideas also had a significant impact in the Turkish centre of the Empire (as they did in its Arab territories). The revered father of modern Turkey was, of course, the extreme secularist, Ataturk (Father of the Turks). I want now to outline how the state of Turkey developed from its Ottoman roots under his political model and the latest moves to relax the extreme secularism insisted upon under its aegis until quite recently.

The role of the 'ulema class in Ottoman Turkey (and in the rest of the Empire) was typically to give legitimacy to the basically secular Ottoman rulers. They were a class of state officials as has frequently been the case in the greatest Islamic empires (and also clergy have historically played a similar role in many Christian polities). The state also controlled religious endowments and built great Mosques and in return rulers were permitted occasionally to claim the legitimacy afforded by the title, Caliph. This relationship with a secular power permitted a secular power interested in modernisation of law to manipulate the law determined by the religious officials that were thus ‘in their pockets’ and importantly also alienated from their flocks. I mentioned in recent posts that various muftis had no problem with modernisation. The major modernised ‘Code of Legal Rules (Majallat-i Akham-i Adliyyah)’ conceived largely by Midhat Pasha (1822 – 1883) was already more secularist in nature than had been usual in Muslim lands.

Ataturk’s military coup led to the end of the sultanate (and then the alleged caliphate in 1924). Turkey was specifically declared a 'laic' jumhurriya (secular republic). No other system in the world is as specifically secular as this one is. Sufi orders were abolished, the Turkish script was Latinised, many Arabic loan-words were removed from the Turkish language (although many remained) and ‘Islamic’ dress (such as the fez although it actually has a European origin) in public was officially discouraged. Veiling in various public places was (and remains, I believe) actually banned and the Islamic 'call-to-prayer' was required for some time to be called in Turkish (although it returned to Arabic after a few decades). The modernised Islamic laws were essentially replaced by a completely new code based on Swiss law and the French Code Napoleon.

This total secularisation came to be called Kemalism (after Ataturk whose less honorary name was Mustapha Kemal) and successfully isolated religion from Turkish politics. MPs were nevertheless still practicing Muslims who despite the repression involved were prepared to go along with Kemalism as a nationalist movement (much as many German Christians were simultaneously going along with Hitlerism). Ataturk formally allowed multi-party democracy but secularisation was non-negotiable and supported by a Kemalist military which saw itself as the protector of secularisation. Its commitment was evident in the mid 1950s when it instituted a coup to protect early moves to remove some restrictions upon religion.

The political class has long been attached to the West. Turkey was a signatory to the ill-fated Baghdad Pact, has joined NATO and continues to seek to join the EU. Coups also occurred in 1979 and 1981 against anti-Western religiously inspired governments. From the early 90s, however, the support for religious parties continued to grow and the Refah (Welfare) Party, another Islamist party, was elected in 1995 (but was forced by the military to resign in 1997). By this time, however, the main issue was the anti-Western (the party was critical of Israel, Europe and, importantly, NATO) rather than the pro-religion flavour. The party was banned and its members soon joined the Virtue Party (the FP) which was, in turn, forced to close in 2001.

Today the AK Party (also religiously based) has now been in government led by Recip Erdogan since 2002. Having learned the lessons of earlier incarnations of Turkish political Islam, it is no longer formally anti-Western and continues the liberalising political reforms required for entry to the EU. It has been a reasonably secularist party and a good economic manager. In the long term it hopes, however, to somewhat reverse what it sees as the excesses of Kemalism. How far this will be allowed to go remains uncertain.