Abstract
Secularism and laicism are concepts
covering a broad area in socio-economy, culture and sociology. In this respect,
the definition of secularism, its historical development in Europe, and the
mainstream thoughts that had given its origins are the primary focus of this
study. Most significant one of these thoughts is positivism, which rejects all
the metaphysical information and proposes that the truth can only be found by
experimentation and observation. Materialism, evolutionism and liberalism
together with positivism, had significant influence on the development of
secular thought/laicism as well. Besides the process in Europe, the study also
looks into the development of secular thought in The Ottoman State and makes an
emphasis on the fact that this process had begun during the recession era of
the State. In order to save the State, the
governors of the time had begun to try the Western system and had made some
reforms, which in some respects, caused the secular thought and laicism to be
influential in Ottoman State. This influence, a new generation of people had also grown who
adopted secularism deeply and perceived it to be the only way to save the State
from its weak position. With the help of the press and the support of western
states, these people had the chance to explain their thoughts in some
newspapers and journals of the time. One of the significant ones of those
journals was Ulûm-i İktisâdiye ve İçtimâiye Journal, which
had been published between 1908 and 1911. The main subject of this study is to
show what thoughts had been re-addressed from the secular/laicism point of view
in this journal.
Laicism and secularism concepts are
broadly used in socio-economic, cultural and sociological domains. In this
study these two concepts were defined and their development process were
investigated together with the mainstream ideologies in Europe. These two terms
are used interchangeably most of the time. While secularism insists on leaving
metaphysics and focusing on material world, laicism refers to a system, thought
or a person without religious influence. Laicism is mostly used to indicate the
separation of religion and politics in government.
In the early times, religious
thoughts had significant influence on the government decisions and actions.
However, during the 15th and 16th centuries this situation began to change. The
enlightenment, renaissance and reform movement had paved the way for a new
world order. The late 18th century ideologies started to question the
legitimacy of the states and proposed that the authority should not come from
the God but from the very earth and the people. During this era the ideological
infrastructure of Europe evolved to question the theological and monarchical
basis of the political system. One of these ideologies was the Doctrine of
Natural Law, which is well-known for its thoughts about the birth of the states.
In this thought, people were living happily before state institutions were
created. Later on though, due to the requirements for security and division of
labor, they had made a contract and created the government. Therefore, the
origin of the state authority was not the God but people. In 18th century,
encyclopedists and enlightenment supporters published the book named
"Encyclopedia" and hence influenced the laicist thought in France.
They were apparently criticizing the religious subjects and the current
state structure.Moreover, they were also proposing that only natural laws were
valid in universe, not the laws of God.
Positivism was of the most
significant basis of the secular/laicist thought. Positivism believed that the
observation and explanation of natural phenomena is the only and the most
useful means for humanity. In this thought the fact was solely the senses and
the perceptions. According to August Comte who is one of the founders of
positivism, humanity had evolved eventually to positivism going through
theological and metaphysical stages and the specialty of this stage was that it
was the ultimate stage humanity could reach, in which phenomena were explained
by observation and experimentation, not by theological or metaphysical forces.
Materialist philosophy denied
metaphysics as well and accepted only the conclusions of positive sciences.
Their reasoning proposed that since everything in universe is of material
nature, no other metaphysical entity or phenomena could exist. Karl Marks and
Friedrich Engels were the most significant defenders of materialism.
Meanwhile, the theory of French
naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck, which stated that living things had developed
through a kind of evolutionary process was conflicting with the religious idea
that the species were constant and not changing in any way. According to this
theory, living things had emerged from non-living things and they had elevated
to more complex forms from primitive ones. Charles Darwin improved Lamarck's
theory proposing that this evolutionary process was based on adaptation,
inheritance and natural selection. Herbert Spencer on the other hand, thought
that such an evolution was the fundamental law in every field.
Another ideology which was in
parallel with secularism/laicism was liberalism. Liberalism was an ideology
that presented liberty and independence to individuals in every aspect of life.
This thought assumed that the overall good of the whole society was nothing but
the sum of the individuals' self interests and therefore they should be freed
from any constraints. The implied liberty concept was a rather individualistic
comprehension. An English Economist, Adam Smith was the one who systematically
investigated this liberal approach which was based on individual liberty and
independence.
Besides Europe, Ottoman State had
also been influenced by these ideologies. This study investigates in which
circumstances and to what extent Ottomans had been influenced by these
thoughts. For the regression of the Ottoman State various solutions were being
sought during this stage. As a result, systems of some of the European States
were taken as examples and some reforms were made accordingly. At the same time
a new generation had grown up who believed that the only solution for the
decline of the State was nothing but adopting secularism/laicism. They
published their thoughts in various newspapers and journals with the help of
their European counterparts.
In 1908, after the
announcement of 2nd constitutional monarchy, elections were made
and İttihat and Terakki Party took the control. They made significant
changes towards becoming a secular/laicist government until 1918. This can also
be observed in the media publications of the time. One of the media
channels İttihat ve Terakki Party was influenced by was Ulûm-i
İktisâdiye ve İçtimâiye Mecmuası, which was published in İstanbul in
1908-1911.This journal was almost the spokesperson of positivism in Ottoman
borders. The authors of the journal were significantly influenced by August Comte
and Herbert Spencer. They were writing especially about evolutionary and
organics society ideologies. Since these authors were important people in both
politics and public, their publications were mostly inline with the ideology of
the ruling party. Below given the brief summaries of their backgrounds, their
thoughts forming the basis of their secular/laicist approach, and their
interpretations of these ideas.
In the journal, secularism and
laicism were interpreted from the "government" and "religion"
perspectives of the Western ideology. These thoughts were defended against all
the other ideologies and practices adopted to that date and provoked for
change. They were investigated in detail from education to human relations,
covering all of the public domains. This study shows that there are four
pillars all of these publications had based on: positivism, materialism,
evolution-ism and liberalism.
Since one of the pillars,
positivism, rejects anything other than scientific information and provable propositions,
it also questions the religions. Therefore, according to positivism religion
should be removed from individual and public lives.
In the journal,
laicist ideology was investigated in the "government" subject and it
was described in terms of the consequence of the formation of the government,
individuals' security and division of labor among the society. Hence, it was
especially stressed that the government had no theological or metaphysical
meaning at all. As a consequence, the leader of the state did not have any
divine meanings, either. According to the authors of the journal, states and
societies also evolve by "natural laws" similar to organisms. As a
result, the government should operate based on rules determined by sociology
and should be secular.
The journal took role in the
adoption of fundamental ideologies in Ottoman State that paved the way for a
new democratic, liberal and secular state, in which only the society had
control over. The journal not only influenced the structure of politics and
public life during İttihat ve Terakki Party, but also contributed to the
foundational ideologies of modern Republic of Turkey.
