The right time to debate secularism and secularization

Secularism is one of the most important developments and subjects of debate of our age. It is certain that, along with modernization, a secularization has been, and is being, experienced to an advanced degree in the world.

There have been, and are, serious debates about how secularism developed in the countries at the forefront of modernization and what kinds of consequences it produces in society.

In these countries secularization is not merely a way of life imposed on society by the state or a set of repressive practices.

There, secularization has a socio-cultural dimension produced by the urbanization, multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism that developed along with industrial society, and it came to the fore and drew attention through this dimension before its dimension as a political arrangement.

With urbanization, as encounters between different cultures became the dominant way of life, the basic problematic of how we perceive others or how we are perceived by others constitutes one of the most important conditions of Western secularism debates. The rise of secularism to prominence as a political model took place in parallel with sociological developments in which trust was lost in religious truth claims and, as a result, relativism became the dominant culture.

It was not very surprising that secularism gained strength as a political model out of this process called secularization. Moreover, in the West this political model ultimately portrayed a point where religious institutions, communities or beliefs and politics met in a compromise. That is why secularism would come into play not as a name for fighting with religion but as a religious-peace insurance against the possibility of fighting among religions themselves. Even in the perception and adoption of secularism in France, where it at times took the form of a fanatical religious belief and attachment, this dimension was never entirely neglected.

In Turkey, however, secularism was not a model that emerged as the result of a social need. In Turkey there was no tension among religions that required putting such an insurance into effect.

On the contrary, secularism itself came into play in Turkey as an element that disturbed social peace, always threatened it and drove it into tension. A concept or practice that could very well be discussed as a function of religious neutrality and peace on the part of the state could never, for precisely this reason, be thought together with this positive function.

Instead of working as a state function establishing peace among religious beliefs and philosophies, secularism itself was put onto the field as an alternative religion to all religions. In place of religiosities whose visibility was completely destroyed, an alternative religion called secularism, with only its own symbols and rituals, was substituted in the field. This religion worked like a terminator to destroy all other religions. Naturally, its first target in Turkey was Islam, which constituted the majority, and especially Sunni Islam. Because apparently it was its strongest rival.

What the Muslim people of Turkey understood from secularism was therefore nothing other than a hostility that targeted their beliefs, values, symbols, dress and freedoms. I do not know how aware those who now complain about the pressures on Kurdish are, but in Turkey Arabic too was officially and openly banned for years in the name of that secularism, despite the call to prayer, and despite being the language and alphabet of the Qur'an. The headscarf, an inseparable emblem of the Muslim woman, was likewise banned in universities and in working life in the name of that secularism.

Secularism was sought to be imposed not as a function of the state but as an individual's creed. In this direction, let us admit that a significant mass was created that had adopted secularism almost like a religion. By the very manner in which that mass adopted secularism, it actually has no probability or chance of being secular. Because the manner of its attachment to secularism is a thoroughly devout manner.

Discussing secularism in such an environment was truly very difficult.

Let us admit that even if secularism did not enter Turkey in response to a social need, it is also impossible today to uproot it from society.

Turkey has by now developed a dispute, a cultural diversification, that necessitates a function of arbitration between seculars and different religiosities, even between different understandings of secularism. Let us admit that our society is not homogeneous, neither in our ethnic, religious, sectarian nor philosophical approaches.

On the other hand, it must be noted that today we have become able to discuss secularism in precisely this essential function without entering a serious tension, compared with before.

The debate set in motion by a comment of our Speaker of Parliament İsmail Kahraman should not be found too strange within this context.

After all, in Turkey secularism, as it should be, is fulfilling its role not as a pressure upon religions but as a state function that guarantees religious freedom.

There is an environment of cultural pluralism that also absorbs the beliefs or attitudes of those who have adopted secularism like a religion, but secularism has ceased, as it was before, to be an element of pressure especially upon majority beliefs.

That is why the latest secularism debates are taking place at a level at which more useful and necessary discussions can also be recalled, about the social function of religion in the country and where religions are heading in the face of urbanization, modernization, social stratification and worldliness. This level undoubtedly points to a fertile environment that should make us very hopeful for this debate.

Indeed, we can now discuss secularization together with its effects on religions. Or we can set about foreseeing what the ever more influential presence of religions, in spite of secularization theses, holds for the world of the future.

If the claim that secularization is a culture that will eventually prevail has some validity, what do the anxieties on the secular wing signify? We can begin the debate from here too, for example.