Ali Bulaç
Modernization and development programs that the West imposes on countries like Turkey are not simply harmless projects intended to address our needs. They are also the outcome of the West's desire to maintain its prosperity and military-political hegemony and assimilate the entire world.
" The struggle in Turkey to drive Islam out of the political and social sphere has a century-long past "Governments, nongovernmental organizations and elites that highlight these policies benefit from the West's patronage and financial support. Aysel Ekşi, a co-founder of the Support for Modern Life Association (ÇYDD), wrote that the objective of the association was to have headscarves and long beards banned across the country.
"Surely, we have all seen mosques and Quran courses mushrooming everywhere, the countless number of religious books in stores, the abundance of covered women and bearded men on the streets and covered women being educated under the name of ‘sohbet.' I called my friends who are sensitive like myself and for a while we discussed what we could do.
We decided the best option was to unite under the umbrella of an association and we set up the Support for Modern Life Association in 1989. This was followed by the ‘Walk for Secularism' at Çağlayan Square in which thousands of women from academia and the business world participated.
Any time we had the opportunity, we invited speakers and organized meetings, we visited Anıtkabir and tried to attract the public's attention to the concept of secularism and the politicization of religion" (Yeni Şafak daily, July 23, 2010).
The struggle in Turkey to drive Islam out of the political and social sphere has a century-long past. In the first decade of the last century, the first task of the Committee of Union and Progress, which seized control of the country in a bloody coup, was to alienate Islam both politically and culturally and isolate religious people from social life by making them the "other" on the grounds that they were "elements that would cause society to regress (reactionaryism)."
" When we study the nature of the attacks and pressure that Muslim societies face, many people become confused "This cruel process continues today. Just this month, the wife of a military officer attacked a teacher who wanted to go swimming in an outfit that covered her body. "You are polluting the sea and the country," the wife of the military officer yelled, adding, "Let's drown these [women]."
When we study the nature of the attacks and pressure that Muslim societies face, many people become confused.
Certainly there have been severe political and military forms of pressure in history, but almost all forms of pressure that have existed after the first four caliphs have been militaristic and political. The essence of the policies of the Umayyad dynasty's first caliph, Muawiyah I, who chose former Damascus Governor Servilyanus as his adviser, introduced Byzantine political and administrative life to Islam and turned the caliphate into a sultanate, was this: "Everyone can do as they wish as long as no one uses a sword or takes to the pulpit."
By the sword Muawiyah meant military rebellion and by the pulpit he meant political opposition. Socio-cultural difference and diversity -- in other words, a kind of pluralism -- was possible as long as there was no rebellion or opposition. Certainly that was not enough and was not Islam's will. Yet compared to modern countries it was not that bad an idea for those who wanted to live their daily lives according to religion.
This system lasted until the mid-19th century. The Umayyad, Abbasid, Seljuk, Safavid and Ottoman administrations were "centralized" in terms of politics, but "decentralized" in terms of socio-cultural life. In other words, they were pluralist. The state began restraining society and changing and transforming civilian life in a totalitarian way once it decided to modernize and become more Western. The example the state took was the modern nation-state and the inspiration for this model was the West.
It is for this reason that there has always been a historical and intellectual alliance between Western forces and ruling elites who want to change the Muslim world. They have always met each other with understanding. This is the reason why Western states do no object to rights violations and legal violations in the Muslim world. Turkish Muslims have been suffering because of this for 100 years.
In the Middle East, since the historical Ottoman model is partially still in effect, the administrations are authoritarian but society is based on pluralism and diversity. That is why it's not a problem if women wear a headscarf or do not wear a headscarf. But as Middle East countries move to the West, they are going to want to extend their rigid administrative-political centralism to social life and deepen the pressure socio-culturally. We see the first signs of this in the bans on face-covering veils that are being implemented in Damascus and Cairo, where, according to Ridwan al-Sayyid's figures, 90 percent of women wear a headscarf and of them 20 percent also wear face-covering veils.
*Published by the Turkey-based TODAY'S ZAMAN on Aug. 17, 2010
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