“Some Muslims Are Too Conservative. So What?”
Some excerpts from Mustafa Akyol’s column are below. My response to it is to say, “In an ideal world, we’d all be tolerant even of behavior of which we disapprove.” But I keep thinking about the governor closing down Lambda and all the sneaky legal restrictions on alcohol and pork (in the name of hygiene and public safety, of course).
Excerpts from Mustafa Akyol’s column:
… There is a huge difference in believing that women should ideally cover their bodies, and forcing them to do so. The former is an opinion that can exist in a democracy, while the latter is an assault on human freedom. But is it really possible to make that distinction in practice? Would ultra-conservatives agree to keep their moral standards to themselves, and not to impose it on the rest? The answer is, yes…
I concede that there is some justification to be alarmist in the face Islamic conservatism. “Islamic” regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Iran follow a policy of forcing their citizens, and even the visitors who come to their country, to abide by what they consider as moral. In other words, they don’t just hold the idea that women should cover their heads, they also force them to do so. This is, of course, tyranny. And I understand when Turkish secularists look at these horrible cases and infer that the conservatives in this country must be the same.
But that’s where they are wrong. Turkey has its own unique Islamic tradition, which is quite free from the tribal and arid harshness of Saudi Wahhabism, and the politicized Shiite totalitarianism of Iran. Polls show that the majority of Turkish Muslims are concerned about preserving their values, not imposing them on others. They might not like to have a bar in the neighborhood, but they don’t care about the watering holes of “white Turks.” Actually it has become a generally accepted dictum among them that “all life styles should be respected.”
What the secularists should do is not to bash, mock, and politically attack the conservatives, including the ultra-orthodox, but to try to engage in dialogue. We don’t have to agree on what is sinful or immoral in order to live in the same society. We just need to agree to disagree….
Polls show that the majority of Turkish Muslims are concerned about preserving their values, not imposing them on others. They might not like to have a bar in the neighborhood, but they don’t care about the watering holes of “white Turks.”
Much of this “drinking white Turk” rhetoric is mere propaganda. It isn’t only ‘white’ Turks who drink here. Now that I am at it I’ll point out that this use of “Muslim” label is also divisive. What polls show is almost all of the Turks consider themselves Muslim. I quote from an entry in this blog:
37.3 percent said they were “traditionally religious”.
62.7 percent said they were “modern religious”.
This adds to 100% and, I assure you, they do not have Buddhism in mind when they say ‘religious.’ What Akyol actually means (as did our FM when he complained to the EU about the difficulties of ‘Muslims’ here) implies that only those observant in a particular way are to be considered Muslims and the rest are something else. The factual thing to say would be that many Turkish Muslims drink.
Hit the nail on the head, Bulent. Add to your observation the content and nature of the ire ‘moderate Muslim’ description draws from PM Erdogan. Actually, I think it was Abdullah Gul himself who muttered something to the same effect as your observation after one of the party closures they suffered. It was a realization on his part that Islam/Muslim-based politics had a divisive effect. Alas the realization didn’t stick.
I personally feel this effect quite strongly. I see myself as Muslim only culturally or nominally, don’t practice, never did, etc. Yet I don’t reject my roots, that I grew up in a Muslim society, within a family of people with varying degrees of adherence to Islam. However, if this Islamist rhetoric gains further ground, I feel, I will have to stop dancing around qualifiers, and say, I am not a Muslim simply, instead of saying Muslim by birth, culturally Muslim or the like.
Nihat, Gulen’s people — as far as I can tell from my contact with them through the net — also reject this ‘moderate’ label. On the other hand, they market themselves to the outside as ‘moderates’ and I have noticed that Zaman is using ‘mutedil Islam’ as opposed to ‘ilimli Islam’ when they advertise how much praise and validation they get from the English-speaking West.
These organizations are not monolithic entities really. Especially the AKP is a coalition of sorts. That’s also why they swing from position to position on freedoms, religion, minorities, economy and such. They do maintain their organizational integrity and discipline but in the process they turn their people into hypocrites by forcing them to support inconsistent positions taken by the other factions or the leaders. If there were a sane and viable opposition, perhaps we’d see this more clearly.
I cannot tell you what to do, obviously, but if you are not an atheist, I believe, theologically, it is quite safe for you to hold on to the Muslim label. If the politicians and their clowns can assert it despite their despicable behaviour and the dishonest exploitation of the label, just holding on to something you were born into seems pretty harmless.
This is a tension that has existed here for a long time in different guises. Perhaps you’d enjoy a poem (it turns out somebody made a song out of it now, and it is getting to be better known). Now that I’m at it, here’s Muzeyyen Senar having fun using Melami poetry. (If someone more popular among the youth did that, I’m sure the Turkish version of Zaman would carry it to the headlines as an ‘insult to the religion.’)