How will secularism be protected from the secularists?

The secularism debates that have resurfaced in recent days over the Head of the Presidency of Religious Affairs, Prof. Dr. Ali Erbaş, reciting a prayer "in his robe" at the opening of the Court of Cassation building have once again reminded us what kind of understanding of secularism we have left behind.

We speak of having "left behind," but in fact one also sees how a primitive, disrespectful, morbid and aggressive attitude in the name of secularism stands in a place from which it can relapse at any moment, waiting for an opportunity to revive.

Is it the Head of Religious Affairs reciting a prayer? Is it his doing so in a robe? Is it his having done so at the opening of the Court of Cassation? Which of them, from which understanding of secularism, can be seen as a problem?

Frankly, the seeing of any of these as a problem has nothing to do with secularism, but is entirely about hostility to Islam. Secularism is like a sacred word put forward for some people to display their hostility to Islam. Precisely at this point we arrive once again at the place where secularism has nothing to do with secularism, where secularism turns not into freedom of religion but into a phobia or hatred against religion, especially against Islam, which is exactly the secularism that was left behind and should have been. That is, a secularism that has nothing to do with secularism.

In fact the secularism debates had long dropped off the agenda. Moreover this dropping off the agenda was achieved not by destroying secularism but by putting it in its proper place, by making it more functional.

The function of ensuring freedom of religion and conscience, that is, that there is no compulsion in religion and that no religious pressure is put on anyone. That the state provides its own citizens with equal service without religious or philosophical distinction, and that no one is prevented from living their faith, expressing it and transmitting it to their future generations through education. Whatever the faith. It is plain as day that the practices of the past had nothing to do with a secularism in this sense.

Secularism in Türkiye was far from a framework in which it is neutral toward all religions and the state is a guarantor of freedom of religion. On the contrary, as a bad interpretation even of the French laicist understanding, it was like a different philosophy, almost a different religion, in which religion in general was seen as superstition. The understanding of secularism based on seeing religions, especially Islam, as superstition worked to erase Islam entirely from social and political life. Secularism was also far from being a regulating principle that prevents different religions from exerting pressure on one another and realizes freedom of religion at the social level.

In fact, in the political history of Europe, secularism had developed as a social peace project to ensure that religions at odds with one another could live together without destroying, crushing or persecuting one another, and perhaps with the exception of France, it worked in accordance with this historicity in all other European countries, in the US and in Australia. That is why secularism, working as a guarantor of peace among the different elements of society, requires the state and religion to be in cooperation, not at odds.

Today in no country of Europe would the image of a priest praying at the opening of a judicial institution ever be made a subject of debate in the name of secularism. Those who make it a subject of debate in the name of secularism are mocked for their intelligence. Since the aim of both the state and religion is to form a just, happy, peaceful society, the state's being in cooperation with religions is accepted as a requirement of secularism. Leaving aside England, which is itself a religious state attached to the Anglican church, in Germany, which has adopted secularism more nominally and institutionally, this state-church cooperation is very clearly seen in a society divided almost equally between Protestant and Catholic churches. We do not even come to the US, which has a constitutional provision barring the state from making laws that would restrict any religious freedom.

In fact, it was precisely because Türkiye had only newly arrived at this line of secularism that secularism had long ceased to be a subject of debate.

Yet in the past secularism was not a principle regulating social peace; it was in a format and content that itself continually threatened social peace. It was almost like an external intervention against the people's beliefs and values, because it acted like a colonial ideology by belittling the people's beliefs and values, that is, Islam and all its manifestations, as reactionary.

Far from a position of neutrality that would adjudicate among religions, it was itself like a religion. It had its sacred things.

Look, if you will, at how the concept of secularism is perceived and uttered by some laicists. It is no different from a discourse of a religion against religion. There is almost no difference between the meaning of those who say "I am secular!" and the meaning a person expresses when saying "I am Muslim!", "I am Christian!", "I am Jewish!" Secularism had been conceived as a safeguard against the pressures of religions on one another, but under the administration of people with this perception, a need for a real approach to protect secularism from the secularists had arisen.

In recent years this need was met, the dimensions of secularism harmful to society and threatening it were eliminated. It was brought to its real function and, in this form, in fact taken off the table as a subject of debate. But, whatever happened, once a robe and a prayer stirred up some people's nostalgia, what happened happened.