Turkey, Pakistan and Secularism
As the Turkish Supreme Court prepares to decide on a petition to ban AKP, the ruling party in Turkey, is it reasonable to compare the secular zeal in Turkey with the religious zeal in Pakistan? It probably is. However, the situation in Pakistan is the mirror image of that in Turkey. Just as the religious orthodoxy in Pakistan is strong but limited to a small but vocal, radical minority of Pakistanis, it seems that the secular orthodoxy in Turkey is just as powerful but shared by a small, radical and vociferous minority of Turks.
While Turkish military and the Ataturk Thought Association act as zealous guardians of the secular creed that guides Turkey, the majority of the Turks have long been voting for AKP party, and its predecessors, with "Islamist" leanings. I am using the word "Islamist" rather loosely here, because AKP would be considered a very moderate middle-of-the-road party, like the Muslim League, in a country like Pakistan.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Ataturk's Thought Association's chairman, a retired four-star general, is now in jail. Its offices -- plastered with portraits of modern Turkey's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk -- have been raided by police. Several of its computer hard drives have been seized by investigators. They're hunting for evidence of plots by hard-line secularists to topple Turkey's mildly Islamic government, according to the Journal.
The hard core secularists in Turkey have been concerned about the demise of Ataturk's legacy almost since he died 70 years ago. A relentless modernizer, big drinker and fan of the fox trot, Mustapha Kemal Pasha, the father of the Turkish Republic had issues with Islam. He closed Islamic schools, banned Islamic dress and opened a German brewery in his new capital, Ankara. It was obviously not the path of least resistance in a country that is 99% Muslim, once ruled Mecca and was for centuries home to the Islamic Caliphate. Yet Ataturk's legacy prevailed for decades.
Pakistan's founder, Quaid-e-Azam Mohamed Ali Jinnah, was also of secular persuasion. However, he was not hostile to religion. His idea of secularism was very different from that of the Ataturk.
While Ataturk subordinated Islam under the state, Quaid-e-Azam believed in separation of state and religion. Here is an excerpt from Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's most important speech laying out his vision for Pakistan: "You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State." Quaid-e-Azam M.A. Jinnah in address to first constituent assembly, Aug 11, 1947
The Quaid-e-Azam was not just secular, he was a secular democrat who believed in freedom of religion and personal choice. For example, he never advocated either requiring or banning the wearing of the headscarf by women, which seems to be where the battle lines are drawn today between Islamists and Secularists in Turkey.
Unlike the Ataturk Thought Association and the Turkish military who are strong defenders of Ataturk's legacy in Turkey, however inflexible and flawed it may be, there has not been a similar effort in Pakistan to defend the legacy of the Quaid-e-Azam. Not only has Quaid-e-Azam's idea of separation of mosque and state been set aside, there have been active attempts by the religeous parties to hijack the national agenda and the country's constitution in favor of a theocratic state based on their extreme interpretation of the Shariah laws. The efforts of the religious parties, a minority in parliament, began with forcing the adoption of the 22-point objectives resolution just a few years after the death of Quaid-e-Azam. The religious elements completely whitewashed the vision of the father of the nation and declared Islam as the ideology of Pakistan. Fortunately, though, the recent Pakistani elections have shown that the vast majority of Pakistanis reject the extreme agenda of the religious parties in Pakistan.
For the Ataturk Thought Association, a bastion of Turkey's secularism, the key Ataturk speech is a 230-word address to Turkish youth. It warns against "malevolent people at home and abroad," and urges ceaseless struggle against any "traitors" who worm themselves into power. According to the secularists, that dark fear has taken shape in the form of the AK Party.
Ataturk's secularism is not a simple formula. Unlike America's founding fathers, who separated church and state, Ataturk did not so much separate Islam from the state as make it subservient to the state. He abolished the position of the Caliph and put all mosques and imams under a government ministry. At the same time, he purged religious influences from other state agencies.
If, as expected, the anti-Islamist Turkish constitutional court rules to ban AKP, it will not mean the end of its government. The AKP legislators will most likely reconstitute themselves into a new party by a different name that would easily win the vote of confidence in Turkish parliament. Turkey will continue to move in the direction of a moderate Muslim state with modern ideas of democracy and personal freedoms that it shares with its European neighbors. Based on the results of recent elections in Turkey, the vast majority of Turks clearly endorses this direction and rejects the Ataturk version of secularism which is incompatible with democracy.
