From: TEX5HAD@CMS1.LEEDS.AC.UK (Haluk DEMIRBAG)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: ISLAM AND THE TURKISH STATE
Date: 1 Oct 1992 20:31:35 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
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ISLAM AND THE TURKISH STATE

Several academics have suggested that  Turkey is in the throes of
an  identity  crisis in  which  the  debate about  the  country's
direction, which  in the 1970s  was between the  pro-western camp
and  those   pressing  for  a   return  to  Islam.  This   is  to
misunderstand the nature of what is happening in Turkey today.

The real  sense of panic -  not too strong  a word - felt  by the
secularist heirs  of the  Ataturk legacy  at the  reappearance of
religion as a force to be  reckoned with in modern Turkey has led
to the  distortion. The debate  today is essentially  between the
Kemalists (nicknamed the statukocu or "status quo-niks") and what
may  be described  as the  "new  urban elites"  led by  President
Turgut Ozal,  which are challenging  the numerous sacred  cows of
Kemalism  and opening  up  Turkish society  to  forces from  both
without and within. Among those is Islam.

Yet  it was  the army,  the foremost  bastion of  Kemalism, which
during the  period of military  rule that followed the  1980 coup
gave the green  light to Islam as a means  of combatting the left
after the  turbulence of the  late 1970s.  It was the  army which
introduced  compulsory   religious  education  into   the  school
curriculum - a reform denounced  by the Kemalist establishment as
the most retrograde of steps after half a century of secularism.

The army also oversaw an  increase in schools for preachers (Imam
Hatip  Lisesi) to  which poor  families were  able to  send their
brightest  children  as  a  means of  providing  them  with  free
education. The  secularists view with  horror the fact  that some
250,000 of the products of  these schools are now inside Turkey's
technical universities and  are on the point of  making their way
into the country's administrative posts.

The advent  of the Islamic  headcover onto the  university campus
has left  the Kemalists in  a similar state  of shock. As  far as
they are  concerned, this is a  return to the dark  ages. But for
the  women  concerned,  mostly  the products  of  the  provincial
Anatolian towns, the  headscarf is an assertion  of their Islamic
identity.

Turkey has been witnessing an upsurge of conservative Islam since
the start of  the 1980s. The reasons are not  hard to fathom. The
Islamic  wave  which  swept  the region  following  the  Khomeini
revolution  coincided in  Turkey with  the 1980  army coup.  This
removed the political parties from  the scene, forcing to retreat
of the left and leaving Islam as the only tolerated force.

Of  equal, if  not grater,  importance is  the fact  that Turkish
society has, over the years, been subject to the dislocation of a
massive labour migration from the  towns and villages of Anatolia
to  the mushrooming  cities of  Istanbul, Ankara  and Izmir.  The
transition  to  the  anonymity  of   the  big  city,  plagued  by
increasing unemployment and inflation  has led to frustration and
a crisis of identity, in which  religion has appeared as a beacon
of light to a deeply conservative segment of society.

But religion in the private sphere has not so far translated into
the type of Islamicism seen  elsewhere in the Muslim world. Islam
remains  firmly  under  the   control  of  the  state.  Religious
officials  such  as preachers  are  all  state employees.  Ozal's
liberalising reforms of  last April abolished Article  163 of the
penal code,  which banned  calls for a  state based  on religious
principles. But the checks remain in place, still embodied in the
constitution.

There  is,  however,  a  religious party  -  Necmettin  Erbakan's
Welfare (Refah) party, some factions within which have cautiously
started  to call  for the  introduction of  Islamic law  (Sharia)
since the  lifting of  Article 163. However  the Refah  party won
only 7.2% support at the  last elections, insufficient to give it
any parliamentary representation.

Turkey's Islamists are also distinguished from their counterparts
elsewhere by their eclecticism  and individualism. While they are
generally anti-West, some of  them support Turkey's membership of
the  EC.  Others call  themselves  Islamic  anarchists. Many  are
strong  on Green  issues. Abdurrahman  Dilipak, a  star performer
within Refah ad  author of several books, claims that  Islam is a
"utopian democracy within which all, including the Armenians, can
live according to their own laws".

Radical Islam  on the  Khomeini model has  lost support  with the
wane  of the  Iranian revolution  and  is now  in disarray.  Some
former radicals  are to  be found inside  the Refah  party, while
others reintegrated into secular politics through ANAP.

There is a last movement to  fall within this Islamic inventory -
one which  worries even those  who can contemplate  the headscarf
with equanimity. This is the so-called "Turco-Islamic synthesis":
a meeting  of religious  conservatives, whose discourse  has been
imbued with a  nationalist tone by their  positions of authority,
and former followers of  Alparslan Turkes's fascistic pan-Turkish
party, many  of whom  adopted the  more popular  Islamic rhetoric
while imprisoned in the early 1980s.

There is concern  in Turkey that this shadowy  alliance is deeply
embedded inside  the army, the security  services, the Ministries
of Education and even apparently within Ozal's ANAP. Many believe
that the movement was active within  the army in the early 1980s,
responsible for the introduction of Islam into the schoolroom.

But the power  of this hidden force should  not be overestimated.
Insofar  as Turkey's  Islamic  dimension is  concerned, Ozal  has
successfully defused  the areas of potential  conflict. He stands
for the new  urban elites in which the current  wave of religious
conservatism is rooted. And his  motherland party has provided an
effective  vehicle  through  which   to  channel  the  forces  of
political  Islam  into  the   thriving  parliamentary  system  of
present-day republican Turkey. For this, the Kemalists have cause
to thank him.

THE MIDDLE EAST, (Cover Story) July 1991
            _
|-| /-\ |_ |_| |< {"Ozal: Statesman who made Turkey a crucial
                   player." Jonathan Eyal, The Guardian}