Turkish Experience with Political Islam
President, Metin Camcigil's lecture at Manhattan Marymount College
November 2, 2004

Political Islam
Turkish Experience with Political Islam
The US Policy in the ME
Conclusion

Political Islam

Ray Takeyh, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy wrote in the November 2001 edition of Foreign Policy: “Islamist moderates, while conceding that there are in fact certain ‘universal’ democratic values, maintain that different civilizations must be able to express these values in a context that is acceptable and appropriate to their particular region. Moderate Islamists, therefore…are much more comfortable with a multipolar, multicivilizational international system”. This observation may have gone unnoticed. But it is very important for a thorough understanding of Islam. This characterization means that Islam does not accept a single universal civilization, it does not want to be part of it. One can only conclude from this attitude that Islamic radicals have no other choice but to be in a continuous tug of war with the rest of the world. As it currently stands Islamic philosophy did not go beyond the 16th century Machiavellian or 17th century Hobbesian theories that there is no equality among people, there is always a condition of war in which the stronger will survive.

Islam intrinsically regulates the social and political life of the society as a whole. Collectivity instead of individualism, subservience instead of freedom, dogmatism instead of inquisitiveness are the building blocks of Islam. As such it is not amenable to change. It did not benefit from the European Enlightenment, which brought secularism, democracy, rationalism and individualism to the West. One other reason for Islam not to have embraced the European Enlightenment may be that the Europeans had minorities, their churches, other religious institutions, private companies, and even some officials within the Ottoman system, which helped them to learn a lot about the Ottomans. Ottoman Empire, which covered most of the Muslim world at the time, on the other hand did not have such establishments in the European countries. Therefore, they did not learn about and from the Enlightenment. Nevertheless as the Empire was decaying they saw the need for change. They enacted some civil laws and opened civil courts, but Sharia law remained supreme over civil laws. Hence they tried to run a dual system of some Western practices within the Muslim principles. It was seemingly a Western style secularism of compromise between the civil and religious authority. There was no victory of civil authority over the religious authority. The Empire could not survive the European advancement. This failed modernization experience of the Ottoman Empire throughout the 19th century is the perfect example of unfitness of the Western style secularist system in a country ruled with Muslim values.

A historical contributing factor to Islam’s exclusion from the contemporary modernity may be Britain’s Middle Eastern policy before and after the end of the Ottoman Empire. Many researchers observed that Britain tried hard in the Muslim world to silence or to defame Turkish reforms because it did not want to lose its grip on its colonies. F. Georgeon, for example, wrote in Kemalisme et Monde Musulman, after a new constitution was declared by the Ottomans in 1908, England, perceived as the cradle of constitutional rule, launched a propaganda campaign in the Arab lands of the Ottoman Empire and in other Muslim countries, to the effect that constitutional rule was a Jewish and Masonic practice and it would not be religiously acceptable. Such British policies must bear part of the responsibility for Arab countries not to have followed the Turkish example of secular democracy. If Arabs had been wiser to follow Turkey’s path instead of seeking comfort under British protection, and if the British had not provoked Arabs against Turks instead of encouraging them to follow suit, today’s deep rift between Islam and the West may not have been as deep.

During the alienation and internalization of the Arab world in the last century a dogmatic teaching of fundamentalism spread. The radical Islam emerged as an ideology. Disappointed Muslims around the world are waging terror under the banner of al-Quaida, allegedly against the American domination of their region, their natural resources, their culture, and their traditional values. What fuels their terrorism is in fact the success of Western culture, the example of Turkish betrayal of Islam, and the military dominance of Israel in the region. Humiliation for Muslims is worse than dying under the enemy sword. They are aware that Germany’s GNP is twice the total of 47 Islamic countries. They are also angry about the excesses of five thousand Saudi sheiks in western luxuries. Arabs in particular feel powerless against Israel’s success and power. Arabs who want a change are disheartened by the US support of their autocratic rulers. They do not have a democratic platform to form a political front against the theocratic rule. They have no choice but to resort to the radical side of the religion. They also know better than we do that they cannot fight Islamic autocracy with any concept foreign to the religion. Accordingly, they take up arms in the name of the religion, for the religion and within the bounds of the religion. Ultimate and absolute sovereignty can only belong to God, not to the people who are only servants of God; the state and the society must be governed in a manner consistent with Islamic values and principles.

Turkey’s Experience with Political Islam

The new Turkish Republic dealt with that issue very successfully. The success of Turkish modernization at a dizzying pace and ease within a few decades has to be credited to the laicization of the system (as distinct from secularization) concomitantly with democratization. Turkey did not modernize the religion; neither did it adopt the Western style secularism. It isolated religion from the public domain, it did not ban it. Turkey did democratize the state and at the same time modernized the people through education. Turkey introduced rationalist education to the exclusion of religious education. The genius who accurately diagnosed the ills of the past and discovered the right remedy was Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. The tactical key to Ataturk’s success was to place the issue of religion in the private domain, to isolate the public affairs from religious influence, and to lead the people to modernity. He also ascribed the modernization process to the people. He was aware that for a social development to be well rooted it must be adopted by the people, it must belong to the people. Like any social development, if modernity and democracy were to be brought about by force it would create a counterforce.

A sine qua non for democracy to succeed in Muslim societies is that secularism, democracy, human rights, and supremacy of civil law must become national values. At least the majority of the nation must absorb these basics by education. Kemal Ataturk had an extensive program for education. The late Prof. Leslie Lipson stated in a panel discussion in 1998, “The numbers participating in an election are all important. But equally important is the wisdom that guides the vote. Democracy can be self-destructive if electorate is ill-informed or manipulated by one-sided propaganda. For popular sovereignty to work well in practice everything depends on the level of education of the mass of the people. The quality of every democracy is the quality pervading the mass of its citizens……When sovereignty is lodged with the people everything must depend on the standards and the extent of public education.”

After WWII, however, this forward leap in Turkey stalled with party politics. It was easy early on in the Turkish modernization period to exclude religion from the state administration and laws, but it was not an easy task to separate religion from an individual’s way of life. Changes in life-style required public education. It was the duty of the administration, the scholars, and the politicians to take the need for systemic change to the people. Instead, most of those responsible people in the country made concessions from the reforms for the sake of some political advantage. Merely ten years after the death of the reformist Ataturk, concessions started to be made in the most important reforms, such as in secularism and in education. Reforms could not be fully absorbed by the population and sustained. Consequently, even before the changes could become common practice, the old Islamic culture began to be exploited for political purposes.

There is no question that there is now a great effort in Turkey to undermine “Turkish style secularism”, i.e. laicism, by redefining “laicism” as “secularism” as it is understood in the West, and by replacing the modern education system with a religious education system. The strategy is to have the Islamic culture and philosophy accepted within the republican system under the disguise of moderate Islam, and under the protection of democracy, freedom, and human rights. All the mental gymnastics to reinterpret laicism as Western style secularism is nothing else than sneaking the powerful authority of Islam into public and political domain through the backdoor.

In addition to the unfortunate developments in the internal politics of Turkey there is also an external infiltration of radical Islamic forces into the country. These activities emanate from two different sources. One from Saudi Arabia as part of their international support for the spread of strict Wahabi version of Islamic religion, the other from Iran as a Shiite effort to counter the Saudi expansion. The former activity consists mostly of financial assistance for building mosques and affiliated Madrassas to teach the strict Wahabi version of the religion. The latter activity is mostly in the form of assassination of prominent intellectuals carried out by Hizbullah groups. Both the Turkish public and the authorities feel the pressure of these intruders, and are adversely effected by the consequences.

The lesson to be drawn from the Turkish experience is that the question should not be the moderation of Islam or whether Islam can embrace modernization and democracy, but whether Muslims as individuals can embrace liberty and modernity. And the answer to this question lies in laicism and replacing the religious teaching with a rationalist educational system.

Needless to say educating the masses to the level that will bring about democracy, and to isolate religion from interference in public life will take generations. But had the West helped promoting Turkish democracy and modernization in the ME since its inception eighty years ago, democratization in those countries would have grown roots by now after three generations. Instead the West unaware of the idiosyncrasies of Islam supported religiosity, democracy, and Western style secularism in Muslim countries.

The US Policy in the ME

We must be careful therefore in promoting democracy without secularism; and we must be careful also with the kind of secularism to be introduced in a Muslim country. The fact that secularism brought about the supremacy of public authority and civil law in the Western world does not mean that it will necessarily produce the same result in Muslim countries. Christian religion was amenable to that compromise, but Islamic religion is not. Successes we derive from our own experiences do not necessarily replicate in different circumstances. Applying our own standards and values to other societies without the full and accurate knowledge of idiosyncrasies of those societies confirms the perception that we are arrogantly seeking the dominance of our own values without respect for those of others.

We cannot deduce from US actions and rhetoric whether the US even gives priority to democracy and freedom over economic interests. We still stand by theocratic Saudi Arabia because of our ties deep-rooted in common financial interests. The most obvious examples are the oil industry’s heavy investments in Arab deserts, and 750 billion dollar Arab investments in the US. During the Cold War, we encouraged the full production of Gulf oil for blocking the Soviet oil from entering the market. Saudis established with their petro-dollars a Muslim International called “Rabitat-ul Alem-ul Islam”, Muslim World Cooperation in English, something like the Communist International (the Comintern). This organization, among others, built and continues to operate thousands of mosques and Koran schools that nestle and teach fundamentalist ideas all over the world. These mosques and schools exist in Turkey as well as in the US. Thus we end up encouraging the influence of Saudi style radical Islam in politics. We must have learned our lesson from the Green Crescent Project of 1970s designed to curb the spread of communism in the countries flanking the southern border of Russia. We need to wake up to the reality that the wars we are waging today are the consequences of that misconceived project.

There is a general understanding in the current US administration that a solution to Islamic militancy is the democratization of Muslim countries. The theory goes that democracy will allow participation of radical Islamists in the decision making process as a function of the democratic process, and absorb rather than alienate the radicals. After all, why couldn’t there be an Islamic Democratic Party like a Christian Democratic Party? As we have observed in Afghanistan and Iraq, after having gotten rid off a brutal theocratic rule in the former and a secular despot in the latter their new constitutions require the conformity of civil law with religious principles. In other words the outlook is an Ottoman style dualism. If you bring democracy in a Muslim society without securing also the separation of church and state church will ultimately overtake the state. As one can see from Turkey’s recent developments even an early success in freedom and democracy can be in danger if an absolute separation of church and state is not maintained in the long run.

The newest US strategy against the militant Islam is the GMEI. Although this Initiative has not yet been clearly defined, for all intent and purposes, its objective seems to bring to Muslim countries democracy and freedom through a moderate Islam. And, Turkey is showcased as such a country. The policy of amalgamating Turkey with the Muslim or ME block does not take into account that Turkey is not welcome by the Arab world. One Arab diplomat expressed this sentiment as “Turkey is the west of east and the east of west”. As far as Arabs are concerned Turkey betrayed the Muslim world. Prof. B. Lewis wrote in his recent publication What Went Wrong: “In the literature of the Muslim radicals and militants the enemy has been variously defined. Sometimes he is the Jew or Zionist, sometimes the Christian or missionary, sometimes the Western imperialist, sometimes –less frequently- the Russian or other communist. But their primary enemies, and the most immediate object of their campaigns and attacks, are the native secularizers –those who have tried to weaken or modify the Islamic basis of the state by introducing secular schools and universities, secular laws and courts, and thus excluding Islam and its professional exponents from the two major areas of education and justice. The arch enemy for most of them is Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic and the first great secularizing reformer in the Muslim world”.

Conclusion

Having assumed the responsibility of leadership in the world, we have to tread the international waters responsibly, and with the knowledge of the idiosyncrasies and the interests of the people of the regions concerned.

Rhetoric on modernization of Islam as well as promoting Turkey’s role as modern and democratic Islam and siding Turkey with the ME Muslim countries will not take us anywhere.

We need to bring to the Islamic world democracy together with laicism. No matter how long or difficult it may be, we need to aim at modernizing people, not religion, through a rationalist education campaign. This must be a vigorous international policy, similar to the international human rights campaign.

No matter how painful we need to wean ourselves from Saudi partnership.
Turkey’s Role in the Stability of the Middle East
President’s address at Manhattan Marymount College
November 4, 2003
In order to discuss any role Turkey may or may not be able to play in the Middle East we have to consider first the problems of the Middle East, and what Turkey has to offer. Then we will see whether Turkey can contribute to the stabilization of the ME.

The Middle Eastern Backdrop

The Middle East is ethnically Semitic, but not necessarily homogeneous because of religious differences:
• -Wahabi theocratic sheikdoms in the South, which are closed societies without much state experience, therefore subject to exploitation by oil companies and foreign governments.
• Large Shiite Farsi state in the North, comparatively more liberal society, and with long state experience.
• Right in the geographical middle of Arabs relatively newcomer to the region a small but modern Jewish state striving to assert its existence.

The problems of the region can be summarized: 1-Internally, religious backwardness, which obstructs public sovereignty and individual initiative, and creates contempt against the advanced world.

2-Externally, -British colonial policies, which invited the Soviet Union’s strategic appetite, and created a long lasting instability and distrust of the West;

-Exploitation and greed of western oil conglomerates, because of the structuring of world industry around oil;

-Late insertion of the state of Israel in the region by fiat, rather than by prior negotiation.

What does the Middle East need for stability?
1 Internally, to shake off the grip of Islam on the society, and to modernize so that the people will learn to live with the rest of the world, in particular with Jews;
2 Externally, stop foreign interventions and disregard of local interests, thus the creation of an air of contempt for foreign cultures.

What does Turkey have to offer?
• Turks are ethnically Turkic, and homogeneous religiously and more importantly linguistically. They have a distinct language 5th most widely spoken according to UNESCO;
• They are state builders (~20) from 500 AD to the current Turkish Republic, and were rulers of the region most of that time;

They are readily mixed and adaptable, even the religion was acquired at a later point in their history; they were able to adapt to modernity.

Hence Turks are much different then their Middle Eastern neighbors. Turkey’s modernization was subtler than most foreigners and even scholars seem to have understood. The success was in not tackling the impossible task of modernizing Islam, but in modernizing the people. Modernizing people is easier than modernizing a religion. Once people are modernized reformation of religion may come from the people, without the bloodshed that happened during the Reformation in the West. However, modernization needs two ingredients to succeed: a genius of a leader, and adaptable people.

1-The genius who found that formula and also knew how to apply it in Turkey was Ataturk, the man who established the Turkish Republic on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, from which about 20 others have emerged. The key to his success was to isolate the issue of religion, and to lead the people to modernity, rationality, and education.

2-His other success was to ascribe the modernization process to the people themselves. Modernity and democracy cannot be brought about by brute force, but by leadership. He was cognizant of the fact that social progress must be a public process in order to minimize reactionary actions.

Can Turkey be a model to modernize and democratize Muslim countries?

1-Turkey’s foreign policy is defensive and non-active for security reasons.

2-Turkey turned its back to the East and faced the West for the sake of modernization process.

3-Middle Eastern countries suspect Turkey of being part of the West, therefore part of their problem. Worst of all, they perceive Turkey as the traditional protector of Islam having betrayed Islam in favor of copying the West by dicta.

4-Nor today’s Turkish administration can be a good model for the Middle East, for all Turkish governments that succeeded Ataturk steadily made concessions from modernity for the sake of election politics and drifted away from the principles of modernity.

Some "Instant experts" view Turkey as a model for a "modern Muslim state" and advise using this model for "modernization of Islam" and "democratization of Muslim states". This is thinking purely in Western terms and standards.
• Turkey is not a Muslim state. Turkey is laic, more than secular, state. If this claim means that the Turkish population is Muslim, it is true that they practice Islam, but a watered down Islam, as the case is in the Far East. The practice is adapted to local cultures. A modernization of Islam, if at all, can succeed in countries like these, inhabited by adaptable people. You don’t have this ingredient in the Middle East. The model is not applicable.

Turkey did not modernize the religion. There cannot be such thing as democratic Muslim state. True belief and application of Islam and democracy is an oxymoron. Islam is both the spiritual and earthly authority. Religion and social order are one; there is no compromise to share sovereignty, much less to relinquish it to the public. In the West religion and state negotiated a separation, and compromised. For a successful democracy to be introduced into Muslim societies the religion has to undergo a reformation first. Turkey did democratize the state and modernize the people by neutralizing the religion.

For all these reasons Turkey cannot be an instrument for modernizing Islam, or establishing a modern Muslim state, under the current circumstances.

Ataturk’s reforms as model

Turkey however can be a model if:

1-Turkey stays the course of modernization, i.e. maintains the dynamism of Ataturk reforms. In other words, it is not the current state of Turkey but the Turkish experience of Ataturk reforms and modernization can be a model for the Middle East;

2-Turkish foreign policy is involved in the future of the Middle East because the Middle East is Turkey’s backyard, and it actively asserts its strategic, political and economic interests in the regional;

3-The US helps bolster Turkey’s stature in the region; and

4-An international policy is followed to neutralize the influence of religion on people and to modernize the people all over the world.

Conclusion

If therefore we are sincere in improving conditions in the Middle East, and in particular in having Turkey involved in improving the conditions in the region the following are the actions we need to take:

1-To stop religious rhetoric. Relating terrorism and the war against it to religion is wrong. We have to stop promoting Turkey’s role as modern and democratic Islam, talking about modernization or moderation of Islam.

Instead to modernize people, not religion, through an internationally supported rational education campaign like it was done in Turkey. Rational education campaign must not be an American or Turkish campaign. It must be a vigorous and equal application of an international policy similar to requiring human rights for any political and trade relations in exchange. We must be aware that we allow 400 Koran schools to operate in the US alone. These schools may be eligible even for public funds under the recent Executive Order to provide assistance to religious establishments. We need not guess what these schools produce.

Another lesson to be drawn from the Ataturk modernization experience is not to introduce modernity and democracy to the people by force, but to ascribe it to the people.

This is the model that Turkey, or the West for that matter, can and must provide to the Middle East and to the world. Had this been done in the Middle East in the last 50 years instead of or together with the economic and military assistance we would not have had to face the terrorism problems of today. Economic and military assistance alone helped create instead jealousy, hatred, terrorism, and dictators.

2-To stop US’ unilateral involvement in the Middle East and playing the role of defending the US or Western interests. The US is perceived as following the path of 200 years of British imperialism. (e.g. 1953 coup in Iran to protect Anglo-Iranian Oil Co., 1956 intervention at Suez Canal crisis against its nationalization. Also financial partnership with and acquiescence of Saudi theocracy.) The old British policies are in fact the cause of today’s Islamic fundamentalism. The objectives of Iraq war were not clearly understood here at home. How can we expect the Iraqis and Middle East to understand it? Any ambiguities will cause distrust and whatever the objectives they cannot be achieved.

Instead, to give Turkey the role of regional power, in order to ensure stability, trust and peace required for implementing an unambiguous and firm modernization and education campaign. Recognizing regional power status for Turkey means bolstering Turkey’s prestige in the region, not only providing military and economic assistance. Turkey’s foreign policy is traditionally "non-involvement and passive "; because its main concern is security that would provide stability required for its development. Its security concern arises from incessant claims by its neighbors. Turkey’s involvement in the Middle East must be seen in the overall equation of Turkey’s concerns and interests also in contiguous regions. Turkey has more security and trade interests in the Balkans and the Caucasus than in the Middle East, regions just as volatile as the Middle East:

a) In the Balkans, the protection of the rights of the Turkish minority oppressed by Yugoslavs, Bulgarians and Greeks, the constant Greek irredentism (Megalo Idea over Anatolia), and claim over Cyprus which the EU uses as a stick against the membership carrot for Turkey.

b) In the east Turkey’s cultural and trade interests in Turkic countries faces Russian and Iranian (which has 10 mil. Azeris and exports fundamentalism) obstacles. It also faces relentless Armenian terrorism.

c) Security concerns in the South are the spread of Islamic fundamentalism into Turkey, and the Kurdish insurgency.

d) US does not give Turkey full support in these issues, for fear of antagonizing the Europeans and the Russians. Turkey cannot fully rely on NATO support either. (since 1964 Johnson letter & recently confirmed by Germany in the Gulf war). When Turkey’s own security interests come into question the interests of NATO’s bigger partners prevail. What worries Turkey the most is inconsistent or bad policies in its region. After the demise of the Soviet Union many were quick to suggest that Turkey’s place is in the East. Alienation of Turkey is motivated by the same old mentality that made Briton establish Israel away from Europe.

e) The only other country in the Middle East that binds it to Turkey for reasons of security is Israel. Therefore alliance between the two is crucial to the stability of the Middle East. This alliance must be encouraged with due fervor.