The Imam And The Teacher
From Mustafa Akyol’s column:
[Serif Mardin] argued that, in the past decades, the official ideology of the Republic (i.e., Kemalism) has been overshadowed by the teachings of Islam. Using the “imam” and the “teacher” as symbols for religious morality and secular ethics respectively, he flatly proclaimed: “The imam has won over the teacher.” …
The reason why traditional religious teachings ascended over the official secular doctrine, he said, was simply that the latter has remained very superficial. While European societies have built a deep secular philosophy on “what is good, right, and virtuous,” he reminded, Kemalism remained very dry on these matters…. “Their literature is rather shallow.”…
Personally speaking, I very much agree with Professor Mardin that Kemalism has more brawns than brains — or, to put it factually, more officers and judges than intellectuals. Moreover, I would love to see more refined secular thought in Turkey. It will be good not just for the secularist themselves, and the country in general, but for Islam as well. “Secular intellect will always be necessary,” as Pope Benedict XVI. once said when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, “to curb and to correct some of the toxic temptations of religion.”…
Yet I wasn’t totally persuaded by Professor Mardin’s stark dichotomy between the “imam” and the “teacher.” Was it really that black-and-white? … [The sociologist] Nilüfer Göle … disagreed with what Professor Mardin said: “The Islamic camp has outgrown itself quite remarkably,” she noted. “And, look, now the sons of the imams are becoming teachers.”
“And, look, now the sons of the imams are becoming teachers.”
If the implication is that children of imams started going into secular fields very recently, then we’d need to see some data on it. The obvious counter-example to this is Kenan Evren (his dad was an imam). I also happen to know the family of an Ottoman mufti, and much of the second generation are/were university educated in fields that had nothing to do with theology. Perhaps part of the Ottoman religious establishment rapidly secularized within a generation and the vaccuum their secularization created was filled by other people of a different bent. At least I have anectodal data for the hypothesis I just made up.
I am sure these — apparently — big names in social sciences do have valuable insights, but by the time the work gets coverage on national TV and filters through newspaper columns what remains doesn’t seem all that insightful or even factually correct.
Oh BTW, Akyol misrepresents Mardin’s concept to mean something utterly trivial with that mini-skirt example. He also excludes one of Mardin’s original points that the ‘neighbourhood pressure’ might affect the AKP. Caveat lector. Here’s a link in Turkish that shows Mardin is after something far more nuanced that he himself cannot quite pin down. His original article does not appear to be online. I find it hard to believe, though, that the concept would be as difficult to research and crystallize as he implies. There does appear to be a sizeable amount of literature on oppressive environments, afterall.
Hmm. It appears I was right about insights getting corrupted as they filter through. See this comment:
http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2008/06/imam_vs_teacher_who_really_won.php#comments
The commenter is correct. I have dug up the interview (in Turkish):
http://www.cnnturk.com/METINLER/index.asp?metid=55