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The Kamelist and secularist in Turkey are once again up-in-arms warning about the constantly impeding but never fulfilled Islamist threat to the secularist, not to say secular, republic.
Turkey is not a secular nation, but a secularist nation in that the state does not not involve itself in religion, but, rather, seeks to control religion.
A true secularism would have a clear line between state and mosque or church, but Turkey's Kamelist founders were heavily influenced by the French ideal of lacite - controlling religion with the state. This is different than America's noble separation of church and state.
And a reflection of this in Turkey is that there is a state-run,quasi-independent body which oversees national mosques. The Diyanet oversees and manages Turkey's imans and their mosques. It's female head, Ayse Sucu, was recently dismissed. This prompted secularists and opponents of the ruling mildly Islamist AK party to cry that this was an example of the hidden tendencies of the AK. Despite the fact that Sucu has been head of Diyanet for awhile now under the AK government and that her policies dovetail with the policies of the AK to promote women's rights - which have advanced markedly under the AK -, the secularists - even keen to find a bogeyman - claimed that it was a sudden dismissal as AK gets emboldened and its real colors show. An Islamist coup they claimed to drive out a liberal women and replace her with an ayatollah wannabe. Is this really what happened?
"As ever in Turkey’s mix of official secularism and popular piety, the truth is more complex. For one, Mr [Mehmet] Gormez [who has replaced Sucu] is the brains behind an ambitious project to reinterpret the Hadith, the most sacred text in Islam after the Koran. A collection of thousands of utterances said to have been pronounced by the Prophet Muhammad, the Hadith is the main guide for Muslims in interpreting the Koran. Mr Gormez’s goal is to weed out those unsavoury texts (on restricting women’s freedoms, for instance) that, in Mr Gormez’s words, obscure the original values of Islam. Outraged purists have accused him of “degenerating” Islam and fought to block his promotion. Sources close to Mr Gormez say that the row shows the idea that he engineered Mrs Sucu’s removal because of her views is ridiculous. He has even, they add, been known to prepare his wife’s breakfast."
Turkey does have some vulgar Islamist, but the AK is a mainstream, pro-free market party and Diyanat - which ideally should not even exist - is in safe and liberal hands in the form of Mr. Gormez.
This is all much ado about nothing. Turkey remains a liberal nation with a honest and peaceful Islam.
