The Chief Prosecutor's understanding of secularism and the Alevi Workshop

The words uttered in a speech by the Chief Public Prosecutor of the Court of Cassation actually make it hard to write about another subject today. But we must not leave unresolved the question raised in our last piece by what Prof. İzzettin Doğan said on the occasion of the Alevism Workshop. Still, we must proceed seeing that the contradiction between the chief prosecutor's words and the new horizon set out at the Alevi Workshop completes the picture of "strange, but Turkey."

The chief prosecutor says the government is trying to make secularism forgotten by keeping the economy constantly on the agenda. It is in fact a statement of the "where do we even begin to fix it" type that makes one exclaim "la havle." Instead of finding and criticizing the contradictions of this statement, perhaps we should grieve that we live in a country where this statement can be uttered by a member of the high judiciary.

Evidently, the chief prosecutor does not even know that the economy being predominantly on the agenda is itself an expression of secularism actually being lived. He does not at all see that a secularism that is constantly remembered, to which feelings of gratitude, appreciation and sanctification are expressed, has long since turned into a hard-to-bear fetish peculiar to the European Middle Ages.

In fact, the chief prosecutor's expressions are like a confession of the role secularism has long played in Turkey. This understanding of secularism has turned into a "medieval religion" from which society must be protected by a secularism that would function properly. A religion that has its temples, its rituals, its beliefs and feelings. This cult of secularism, this devout attachment to secularism, spoils, first of all, secularism itself, to say nothing of other things. It turns precisely into a blind bigotry that obstructs progress.

If you like, without prolonging the word on this subject, let us come to the Alevi question. For the new situations we are encountering in this matter seem to have opened a brand-new horizon that will allow us to move forward precisely on the question of what should be understood by secularism. And this is a fruitful horizon secured by speaking with one another and by not remaining indifferent to one another.

At the Alevi Workshop, held under the patronage of State Minister Faruk Çelik, it was stated by the parties at the end of the sessions that the Alevi segments who came together, and who for years had spoken, let alone with the state, even with one another only from a distance and through accusations in the press, perhaps for the first time began to speak with one another and tried to understand one another.

The issue of abolishing the Diyanet, voiced for years as if it were an unchanging Alevi demand, for example, was brought onto a reasonable course by İzzettin Doğan with very right questions. Doğan said that the addressee of this demand could ultimately be politicians. While pointing out, in very realistic language, that politics is not something done in the air, and that it is impossible for any politician in Turkey even to enter such a subject, he also invited reflection on what kind of contribution the demands to be made in the name of Alevis could really make to the solution of the Alevi question. Such demands can be seen as a good example of how, as long as people live in isolated communities, they fall far from the reasonable in both their demands and their discourse; and, on the contrary, coming together can be seen as an example of how much good-faith dialogues strengthen common reason and the common sense in it.

A similar development appears to have occurred on the question of "turning Madımak into a museum." The debate on how the event that took place at Madımak should be remembered, and what kind of consciousness this remembering should serve, has to be conducted on a healthy basis.

That Madımak continues as a kebab restaurant is undoubtedly a shame on behalf of the whole country. One must be cleansed of this shame as soon as possible. But afterward, in the use of that space, it must absolutely be ensured that it is not turned from producing respect in memory of those who died there into an occasion for producing hatred against this or that segment.

Everyone must be sensitive to the presence of those who see an atmosphere of lasting division and hatred, especially between Alevis and Sunnis, as a continuous field of political profit for their own intrigues. The most clearly known fact is that these segments are neither Alevi nor Sunni. If, in the manner in which Madımak is put to use, an emphasis reminding of such acts of sabotage against social peace in Turkey gains weight, there is no problem; but a simple error of emphasis could, on the contrary, make it serve to feed and spread this division and hatred.

"Right is neither met with demographic tables nor bestowed as favor and benevolence from the power of those who hold authority."

I underlined these words, which Minister Faruk Çelik said in his closing speech, as an expression of the healthiest stance to be adopted on behalf of the government when approaching the Alevi question. But right away, along with a reader comment under the news item on the Alevi Workshop on an internet site:

"We wonder when the government will extend this opening, which it is pursuing toward the problems of Kurds, Alevis and minorities, to the majority devout segments. While the AK Parti conducts contacts with these segments on behalf of the state, who will conduct contacts with the devout segments on behalf of the state and put their problems on the table?"