Turkey: A Complicated Story

Descendant of a great empire, this country has long been struggling to build its identity after the foundation of the Republic. The question of how to build a brand-new Turkish civilization, at the beginning, was well determined in the minds of the people who dominated the government: Adopting the Western civilization was the only way to survive; therefore, it was necessary to create a brand-new Turkish man and woman. That is, a major metamorphosis was on the way. The foundations of the new state were set to carry the country towards being a part of the Western World. The civilization was there, they said, so the new state had to be a part of it in order to reach the "level of contemporary civilization." Revolutions were carried out to create the new Turkish men and women. From daily attire of the citizens to the legal system, from alphabet to calendar, from government to education system, everything was changed to make the country look a like a member of the European family.

In order to strengthen the new regime, everything inherited from the Ottoman era was rejected. The transformation was supposed to replace the monarchy with democracy and establish self-determination of the people instead of the obedience to the will of the Sultan. Yet the process in all these transformations had all the characteristics of a totalitarian regime: It was not a movement led by the civil initiative, but a dictation by the state. There are still justifications for the rejection of the legacy of the Ottoman era and this totalitarian approach in the earlier periods of the Republic: Any such newly established regimes, they say, may have to take such an approach in order to strengthen the regime and to prevent any potential uprisings. According to this logic, if the new state claimed to adopt the legacy of the ex-regime, this meant the admission of the virtue of it and then this would have led a major obstacle against believing the necessity of the new regime. Therefore, by the time the new regime had been well settled, a totalitarian approach was necessary rather than an objective approach, especially in education of history.

This may be justified in terms of pragmatic results, yet means nothing valuable to those who can think of and search the truths of this life and beyond. Of course, it is much easier for you to convince the people to accept what you bring with you if you can erase their memories. Because, what you bring may be less valuable or less preferable compared to the old phenomena. But don't worry! If you erase the memories, then nobody can make the comparison. Simply, there is no alternative! (Those readers who want better understanding of this issue are strongly recommended to read Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four)

A more in-depth philosophical analysis of the process that followed in the foundation of the new regime would lead to more serious questions. Was it really the only, or the best way for the country to follow such a path to survive? Was it really the only or best way to achieve the original Turkish modernization? Was there a philosophical movement behind this movement? Was it, at least, a result of a consensus or a clash of the intellectuals of the country?

The Ottoman State was obviously approaching its end. It was a fact of the historical cycle, and may have been inevitable. However, I would like to draw your attention to an important fact: It was the Ottoman state weakening, as a governing body with its usual functions, not the Ottoman Civilization! In most history readings, there is a mistake commonly made: The late Ottoman era as a whole is portrayed as a sick man. The reason behind this approach is either negative intentions or ignorance.

In fact, the science, art, social, cultural, economic and even daily life of an ordinary man in the Ottoman Empire were still representing a great civilization even in the late period. However, the society faced new challenging dynamics: The industrial revolution, nationalist movements and other phenomena caused by modern times changed the rules of the game. The Ottoman Empire was no longer the only superpower in its region, so every aspect of life needed to be redefined: Government, legal system, education, economy and even the army, the most powerful and well-established institution of the Ottomans.

 Many transformations and reforms were made in the late Ottoman period, as a result of changing world order. From a certain point of view, the Turkish revolution began not with the Republic, but with the reforms in this late period of the Empire. While this opinion can be accepted to some extent, there is an obvious difference between the reforms of two periods: the reforms made in the Ottoman period reflect a step-by step harmonization of the existing regime with the changing conditions without rejecting the legacy, while there is an obvious rejection of the legacy in those of the latter. What was done in the Ottoman period was an attempt to rehabilitate the system in the changing, new world order.

The Republic, on the other hand, saw the fundamentals of the Ottoman system itself as the problem. Its focus was not finding answers to the questions like how to rehabilitate certain aspects of the system. Thus, one can easily infer, if not stated explicitly by the founders, that the founders never believed Islam as the best project for the human being.

What, then, should have been done after the collapse of the Empire? There was a wide enough consensus among the army, representatives and the intellectuals towards abandoning the monarchy and founding a new parliamentary regime. Islam was not an obstacle against a Republic, as it never dictates a certain regime. It only emphasises the principles for a just regime. The question, though, was how to shape the profile of the new Republic? What would be the place of Islam in this new picture? The question of secularism, then, happened to be the key factor in the discussions.

The dominant power chose a unique practice of secularism. It established a unit within the state to control the religious affairs in order to keep it in accordance with the regime. Meanwhile, the religious education and practices diminished. Islam was never promoted among the elite. Most of those well-educated businessmen, representatives, high-level bureaucrats, artists and sportsmen consisted of secularist people. The new order took Islam out of life, defaming all ideas and practices that resemble Islam. Secularism has been used as a tool of oppression against those who want to practice Islam. The motives behind these can be summarised into two: One, all such approaches lie in the belief that Islam constitutes an obstacle to progress and development. And second, the secularism, beyond all the ideological reasons, serves as a tool to protect the interest and positions of certain groups such as the big industrialists, top level officials both in the state and military, certain academicians, and so on. Recent cases have proven that the second reason is the dominating motive.

Meanwhile, Islamic thoughts, education and practices continued to spread among those less-educated, even illiterate, the poor, villagers, workers, lower-level bureaucrats and small-businessmen. This picture led to an obvious segregation in the society. The national identity problem became more chaotic as a result of the attitude against religious practices, followed by ethnic issues.

It was the mid-80's when this segregation problem seemed to doom. The Ozal era brought new concepts into both the state and society. The country re-discovered the possibility for the different lifestyles to live together. Practicing religion for a well-educated bureaucrat or businessman was no longer a shame. The core of the government consisted of religious, hard-working technocrats. A new class of entrepreneurs emerged: They were dynamic, smart, hardworking and religious as well. The developing aspect of the country dominated by those who at least feel sympathy to the religion. Actually, similar phenomena were experienced right after the Democrat Party's victory in the 50's and lasted for a decade.

However, some fundamental problems occurred in both terms, which eventually weakened the positive atmosphere brought into the country. In the Ozal era, there was a swift transformation in the economy and technology. Turkey experienced a fast change in several years which Western countries spent decades to live the same process. This caused some problems in the moral structure of the society. Another problem was that Ozal could not rehabilitate the system, or more precisely, the statuesque did not allow him to take further steps. He rather brought pragmatic, stand-by solutions to work out his projects.

Well, there seems to be a paradox: The Ozal era, we said at the beginning, brought a tolerance to religious education and practice. Then, how come the society ends up with diluted or even polluted moral values? Weren't the rising Islamic values supposed to bring more ethics to the life?

Although the Islamic thoughts and practices were much more tolerated, even promoted in the Ozal era, the philosophy of its development and modernization project was mainly based on the fundamentals of capitalizm. It was not a movement led by Islamic scholars and intellectuals. It was not a product of Islamic Philosophy.

What happened in Turkey beginning from late 80's? Unfortunately, the society became more capitalistic. People became consumption-addicts. They began to spend more than they earned, and to earn without any effort. People invested their savings to bankers who promised abnormally high interest income and eventually most of them went bankrupt. Bribery became more common. However, these could not be sins of Ozal administration solely. They were, in a way, the manifestations of accumulated problems and delayed solutions: for more than four decades, the country had been governed under a closed regime; Foreign currency was prohibited for Turkish citizens to carry, Turkish Lira was not convertible, inefficient domestic industry was protected by the government with the high tariffs and even with ban on import, export was not encouraged and so on.

Now, the key question: Is there a proven development project led by Islamic Thought in the twenty-first century? The term proven development here means the development of a country as a whole, with its science, technology, economy, legal system, culture, art, government and society based on pure Islamic thought.

I am one of those who believe that Muslims should focus more on the internal factors that caused the problems of the Muslim World today, rather than discussing the external factors. Muslims should stop putting all the blame on the non-Muslim World, producing conspiracy theories, and misusing the concept of "Jihad." Societies are usually governed by the regimes that the society itself deserves, not only in democracies but also any type of regime as well. If the regimes of today's Muslim world are far behind what the Divine Message suggests, this is the responsibility of the Muslim societies. The existence of Satan will not save the human being from the questioning on the Day of Judgement. There is no way to survive for today's Muslim World other than rebuilding the knowledge and redefining all aspects of life in accordance with the Divine Message. To do so, in the first place, Islamic education has to produce those Ulama who are really the "heirs of the Prophets."