SECULAR TRENDS AND TURKISH IDENTITY

Year 1997, Volume: 2 Issue: 4, 0 - 0, 01.12.1997

Bozkurt Güvenç

Abstract

Exploring "Beyond the Green Menace", Espesito 1994 presents a candid picture of contemporary Islam. "Political Islam" as a western attribution, however, is not a well defined concept in the Muslim ethos. For Islam --besides being a world civilisation comprising several cultures-- is politics par excellence. Although many observations in the Espesito essay are relevant for the Muslim world at large, there are no direct references to Turkey, "the only Muslim Democracy" Lewis 1994 . Turkey's omission in this review may appear to be due to the secular history of the young republic. Secularism or laïcité, which has been the main pillar of the Turkish Republic and democracy, may also be treated as the core of ongoing controversies, such as "anti-laïc versus laïc", "sacred versus secular" and more significantly perhaps, as "Muslim versus Turkish -- nationalism." The laïcité principle of the Republic that has so far kept Turkey out of the "Green Menace", may be seen as a tributary -- if not the main-stream - of problems facing Turkish nationhood or identity such as the Turkish Muslim, Muslim Turk and the "Turk-Islam Synthesis" Güvenç et al. 1991 . While Islamism and laïcism have been competing for the top prize, the Turkish notion of laïcism has gradually transformed itself to a religion like, political ideology. Two cosmologies are hereby treated in a historical-cultural perspective: first, an overview of highlights from the Empire to the Republic; second, a review of secular trends from the Republic to the present. The conclusion is that, as regards the quest for national identity, laïcité may well be an arbiter for the peaceful co-existence of contenders like the Turk and Islam. Hence the key words of the essay are 1 Turk Turkish, Turkey 2 Identity personal, cultural, national , and 3 Secular ism or laïc ism . A brief annotation of these basic concepts may aid the brevity of discussions that follow.