Developments since Ataturk
All these reforms were imposed by Ataturk and a band of enthusiastic supporters in what they believed to be the best interests of the people. But many devout Muslims deeply resented these measures, although they rarely dared to express their opinions openly.
After the Second World War, however, with the introduction of multi-party politics they had at last an opportunity to make their views felt. In 1950 they voted out of office the Republican People’s Party, the champions of Kemalist reforms, and elected the Democratic Party, which they believed would be responsive to the public will. The Republican People’s Party had itself come to realise the unpopularity of some of the anti-religious legislation and in 1949 it had allowed religious education again in primary schools and had set up a Theology Faculty in Ankara University.During their decade of power the Democratic Party repealed the ban on the Arabic call to prayer and showed themselves to be generally sympathetic to Muslim sentiments. The proliferation of Qur’an courses for children and of schools to train preachers and other Muslim functionaries bore witness to this party’s greater tolerance towards religion.
But, to the disappointment of certain fervent groups, the Democrats did not dare to revoke the more fundamental Kemalist reforms. These fervent groups included members of the Ticani tarikat, who achieved notoriety by smashing statues of Ataturk, and movements such as Nurculuk and Suleymancihk that called for the restoration of Islam as the foundation of the state. Said Nursi (1873-1960), the founder of the Nurcu movement, claimed to be the miicedded (divinely appointed reformer of Islam) for the twentieth century, and the fact that he had been one of Ataturk’s boldest critics and frequently in trouble with the authorities enhanced his prestige and increased his following among those Muslims who yearned for a return to what they regarded as the glorious era of Islamic rule.
The Süleymanas—a secretive group founded by Süleyman Hilmi Tunahan, who died in 1959, and now led by Kemal Kafar—also made vigorous attempts to win new members. Like the Nurcus, they have set up student hostels in university towns to aid their recruitment drive.On 27 May 1960 the armed forces, in their role as ‘guardians of Kemalism’, ousted the Democratic Party, which had developed dictatorial tendencies. The struggle to determine the place of Islam in the state has continued and proved to be long, bitter and occasionally bloody. The forces engaged represent the full spectrum of political opinion and a wide range of Muslim views. The extreme right-wing Nationalist Action Party sought to mobilise ultra-nationalists and keen Sunnis in a campaign against the Left. Another party, the National Salvation Party, founded in October 1972, defied the constitutional ban on exploiting religion for political purposes and expressed a desire for an Islamic state based on the principles of the $eriat. Some of its instant success was attributed to links with the Nakjibendi order, one of the many tarikats that had cautiously started to re-emerge decades after Atatürk’s 1925 suppression of all such movements. Some of the tarikats now studiously avoided political involvement; after all, they were still prohibited by law. Others became associated with the political struggle. The Left, seeing that the Right was making an open bid for Sunni support, sought to enlist the Shi‘a to its ranks. Clashes, mainly of a political nature but often with religious ingredients, proliferated. One attack, in December 1978, upon the population of the largely Alevi town of Kahramanmaraj in southeast Anatolia left 117 dead and over 1,000 wounded. The combination of the Left and the Shi‘a clearly saw themselves as maintaining the long tradition, going right back to the Babai rebellion of1240, of championing the victims of Sunni oppression.
Right-wingers in Turkey had for many years labelled their opponents as Communists, a smear intended to imply treacherous allegiance to the godless regime of the traditional enemy, Russia.
While this epithet deterred some conservative Muslim voters from drifting leftwards, it was so overused that almost any proposal for social reform became branded as Communist with the result that many people began to think that ‘Communism’—whatever that might be—was perhaps their only way to a better life. This all contributed to the increasingly bitter division of Turkish society in the 1970s.Most Turks welcomed the military coup on 12 September 1980, convinced that it was the only alternative to a full-scale civil war enflamed by both political and religious passions. The new rulers reaffirmed Kemalist principles, enshrined them in the constitution and tried to make them the basis for national unity. The preamble to the 1982 Constitution states: ‘as required by the principle of secularism, there shall be no interference whatsoever of sacred religious feelings in state affairs and politics’. Article 24 grants freedom of religion and conscience, and Article 136 says the Department of Religious Affairs is to exercise its duties ‘in accordance with the principles of secularism, removed from all political views and ideas, and aiming at national solidarity and integrity’. Thus the authorities still considered religion should serve the interests of the state rather than the other way round.
This view is exemplified in the religious instruction made compulsory again by Article 24 of the same constitution. The official textbooks, emphasising the virtue of national unity, give Sunni teaching without any reference to Shi* a views and are at pains to reconcile the Kemalist interpretation of secularism with the teachings of Islam. The lessons are intended to instil a sense of patriotism and civic responsibility as well as basic religious knowledge. But just as religion is called in aid of the Kemalist state, so too are selected sayings of Ataturk quoted to claim his seal of approval for belief in Islam and to predispose pupils accordingly.
By no means all Turkish Muslims support the stance of the Religious Affairs Department.
The Department gives no aid or encouragement to the Shi*a, to tarikats or to any of the new Sunni movements that have appeared in recent years. Many of these people deprecate the Department’s activities, particularly its promulgation of state secularism. As we have noted, some of these groups, such as the Nurcus and the Siiley- manas, want a return to a state governed according to the $eriat. But, as a state organisation, the Department has to do as it is told by its government masters, though by the mid-1980s its officials were generally content with the government’s attitude.The shortage of religious leaders with a respectable level of learning has posed acute problems. In 1961, for example, of over 60,000 religious leaders in the country only 5,191 had completed even elementary education. The Religious Affairs Department has taken this matter seriously and as well as offering more education in Turkey is sending the best students abroad to acquire advanced qualifications. The fact that money for their training comes from a Religious Affairs charitable foundation to which Turkish Muslims at home and also those working abroad have donated generously that it has become an immensely wealthy institution indicates the solid support for Islam that still persists among very many Turks. Similar deeply-held convictions are evident among the thousands who still flock to the tombs of saints and celebrate festivals peculiar to their own religious group.
At the international level, Turks have endeavoured to capitalise on the fact that some 98 per cent of their population is Muslim. In an attempt to obtain economic aid and political support from the Muslim world Turkey joined the Islamic Conference—a move which some Turks condemned as being at odds with Turkey’s secular status, in disregard of
Ataturk’s principles, and harmful to Turkey’s chances of gaining admission to the European Economic Community. In trade, the fact that Turks are Muslims gives them some advantages in Arab markets, for example as suppliers of halal meat. It has also made it easier for their numerous contract workers to adapt to conditions in the Arab world, but by the same token it makes it more difficult for the far greater number of Turks in Europe to adjust.