# Question about Turkey, secularism **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 30, 2007, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-turkey-secularism/402215 "2007-04-30T21:29:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-turkey-secularism/402215/1 "2007-04-30T21:29:55Z")
There is apparently considerable protest and controversy going on in Turkey right now, sparked by upcoming presidential elections that may be won by an individual described as an “obervant Muslim”. Turks are alarmed that this would precipitate a move toward making Turkey an Islamic state, and Turks value their secularism quite highly. Without getting into a debate over secularism per se, and church/state relations in Turkey, here’s my question: aren’t most Turks obervant Muslims? If so, how have they managed to find all presidents since Ataturk who weren’t? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-turkey-secularism/402215/2 "2007-04-30T21:50:32Z")
I think the real issue here is not whether the candidate in question, Abdullah Gul, is an “observant Muslim” in his personal beliefs—as you note, the majority of Turks count as “observant Muslims”, at least by somebody’s definition of “observant”. Rather, it’s about Gul’s former membership in the (now banned) Islamist Virtue Party. It’s also about antagonism between political Islamism and the Turkish military, which espouses rigid secularism. [But most Turks apparently don’t feel that Gul’s candidacy threatens Turkish secular society:](http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/04/BA34E394-713A-442E-B837-D2E53B987728.html) > [@](#): > > Supporters of Turkey’s secular establishment, led by the powerful military, don’t want the next head of state to come from the ruling AK Party, which has roots in political Islam. They accused the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of planning an Islamist state and demanded the AK Party withdraw its presidential candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. […] > > Gul is seen as threatening to secularists because his wife wears the Islamic headscarf and he was once a member of a party outlawed for Islamist activities, the Virtue Party, which was banned in 2001. […] > > Analyst [Fadi] Hakura, moreover, says polls show that most Turks are confident that secularism and Islam can live together peacefully – even under a president from the AK Party. ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-turkey-secularism/402215/3 "2007-04-30T22:01:40Z")
There’s nothing to prevent anyone from being an observant Muslim. The issue is the separation of church and state, although there are some rules unique to Turkey (such as women can’t wear a headscarf at a government job, etc.). ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-turkey-secularism/402215/4 "2007-04-30T22:03:28Z")
Thanks for the replies. As I suspected, it’s a bit more complex than “no observant Muslim can be president”. That would be a bit like saying no Christian could be president of the US, which would be baffling, to say the least. ---
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-turkey-secularism/402215/5 "2007-04-30T22:51:05Z")
If you want to get some basic understanding of the problem of secular vs. Islamic governments read “\*\*Terror and Liberalism” \*\*by Paul Berman. There are fundamental Islamists that have never accepted the fact that Turkey established a secular government. Just like there is a movement in America that feels that American government should not be secular. To an Islamic fundamentalist, a secular government is an abomination. To them, government and religion should be the same. What we are seeing in Turkey is a long simmering clash of ideologies. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-turkey-secularism/402215/6 "2007-05-01T02:13:32Z")
[QUOTE=Spartydog] There are fundamental Islamists that have never accepted the fact that Turkey established a secular government. … To an Islamic fundamentalist, a secular government is an abomination. To them, government and religion should be the same. [/QUOTE] To be clear, the AKP, the party to which the presidential candidate and the prime minister belong, is NOT a party of Islamic fundamentalists. Although there is a lot of concern about a hidden AKP agenda, a good number of the mosque-state reforms they have advocated really wouldn’t raise an eyebrow here in the US, although they are quite controversial in Turkey. ---
**Author:** ![Eurograff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Eurograff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eurograff)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-turkey-secularism/402215/7 "2007-05-01T23:00:27Z")
I’d say, as my entirely uninformed opinion, that this question might be partly explained by the difference between US concept of secularism and others. The separation of church and state in United States wasn’t directed towards any religious organization. Contrast this to the way how the same separation was gained in many Catholic countries. Often it was preceded by decades of political battle and was received by secularists as a liberation of oppressive and controlling rule of the church, especially with the French law of laïcité in 1905, and for example in Chile in the 1920s. Turkish secularism is perhaps much closer to this European, and Latin American, concept than to the US one. Of course in Turkey the disestablished institution is the religion of Islam. During Kemal Atatürk’s regime was secularism put in place. The time when Islam had been in control was seen as backwards, and secularism and modernization as synonymous to each other. In a way there’s a great deal of symbolism in this. Atatürk is to current Turkey a father figure, Kemalism a state ideology and his policy’s major themes, especially the focus on modernization, nationalism and secularism, are in Turkey’s constitution and as high valued as US constitution is to Americans. Furthermore, as he held the position of president, it’s expected that any further presidents follow his guidelines. So parliament and prime minister can do curious stuff but president’s job is to ensure it doesn’t violate kemalist ways. Now, if Gül is elected, he could start whatever his party likes to re-islamize the country, as his main theme has been the stand of religion. What’s worse, Gül’s wife has made headscarf a big issue and continues to demand it to be allowed in govt offices and universities. Headscarf wearing in those places being banned by Atatürk himself. No one would mind if the Güls were just observant muslims, certainly, but with that campaign they go against pretty much the whole idea on which modern Turkey is based. Some fear that if the ruling party now gets their man as president and then gets a victory in parliamentary elections, they’ve got themselves a popular mandate to make Turkey some sort of Iran, or maybe Saudi Arabia, and that they might even do it. Of course that’s something the secular military would never allow, and it results in a military coup or somesuch. It’s doubtful though, especially as Erdogan has tried to make closer ties with European Union and knows that EU would never allow a potential islamic theocracy to join. As of today, it also looks like the AKP candidate can’t win. But still, many of Turkey’s west-oriented people are very upset over the possibility of an islamicist president, and it doesn’t sound good for Turkish democracy that the only thing preventing the victory of islamist forces is an actual threat of military’s intervention.