East versus West, Native versus Universal, Religious versus Secular: Debates over Secularism in the Middle East and the Arab Spring

Year 2019, , 1 - 41, 15.04.2019

Selin Dingiloğlu

https://doi.org/10.17752/guvenlikstrtj.554015

Abstract

This article examines the debates about the relationship between the secular/ism and religion in the Middle East in terms of the binaries of local versus universal or Orient versus Occident, and how these sets of concept are revisited or revised in the analyses of Arab Spring. The first part of the work offers a comprehensive and critical review of the culturalist and essentialist fundamentals of these binaries and challenges against them in the academic literature. What follows is an evaluation of the Arab Spring in light of the main arguments about Middle Eastern secularism. It questions particularly the arguments that the sociocultural characteristics of the large segment of the protesting masses and their primary demands and slogans resemble those in the recent uprisings in the Western societies and therefore, indicate the death of essentialist East-West dichotomy. On the other hand, it problematizes the way secularity and religiosity is stripped off any political content, by transforming especially the former into a merely “cultural gesture”. 

Keywords

Secularism, Middle East, Arab Spring, Culturalism, Postcolonialism

Doğu-Batı, Yerel-Evrensel, Dinsel-Seküler: Orta Doğu’da Sekülerizm Tartışmaları ve Arap Baharı

Abstract

Makale Orta Doğu siyasetinde seküler/izm ve dinsellik ilişkisinin yerel-evrensel ya da Doğu-Batı ikiliği bağlamında nasıl ele alındığına ve Arap Baharı’na ilişkin analizlerde bu kavramsal setlere dair ne tür değişimler ya da süreklilikler gözlendiğine bakmaktadır. İlk bölümde söz konusu ikiliklerin kültürelci ve özcü kaynakları ve bunlara dönük itirazları içeren literatürdeki temel tartışmalar kapsamlı bir eleştirel incelemeden geçirildikten sonra, Arap Baharı Orta Doğu sekülerizmine dair bu tartışmalara referansla değerlendirilmektedir. Özellikle sokağa dökülen kitlelerin önemli bir kesitinin sosyokültürel özellikleri ve öne çıkan yoksulluk, adaletsizlik, otoriterlik gibi temaların Batı’da son yıllardaki protesto hareketlerine benzetilmesi ve bu bağlamda Doğu-Batı özcü ikiliğinin aşılması tezleri incelenmektedir. Öte yandan, bu ikilikle birlikte dinsellik ve sekülerliğin siyasal içeriğinin görünmezleşerek, kimi örneklerde özellikle sekülerliğin tümüyle “kültürel jeste” indirgenmesi tartışılmaktadır.

Keywords

Sekülerizm, Orta Doğu, Arap Baharı, Kültürelcilik, Postkolonyalizm

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