PDF Dosyası - Ankara Üniversitesi Kitaplar Veritabanı

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON İSLAM ANDSECULARISM IN TURKEYProf. Dr. David KUSHNER*Much has been said and written about the position of islam in Turkeywith a variety of interesting approaches and interpretations. Thispaper attempts to deal with the subject solely from the point of view ofsecularist political leaders and public figures who belong to the Turkishmainstream, ignoring for the moment spokesmen of extremes eitheramong Islamists or pious secularists. It is suggested that a characterizationof their views would give us an idea of what the common notions onislam and secularism in the Turkish public are. To a great extent these politicalleaders reflect in their discourse the views of the Turkish elite, ifnot the vast majority of the people generally, while at the same time they,in turn, make an impact of their own on Turkish public opinion. Thepaper is based on the speeches and statements of different Turkish leaders.On the danger of fundamentalism or reaction in Turkey, politicalleaders can be said to have displayed a mixture of self confıdenceand apprehension. Confıdence in the survival of the secular order hasbeen typically expressed by those who were criticized by their politicalopponents for tolerating manifestations of reaction or cooperatingwith Islamist groups. It has also been typically expressed when talkingto concerned vvesterners worried about the fortunes of secularism inTurkey. Virtually every political leader has, at one time or another,shared this confıdence with several reasons mentioned: the constitutionwas a sufficient guarantee against reaction and would simply not allow areturn to the old order; the secularist politicians and parties themselveswere alert to the dangers and would not allow a return to the past; and thefact that secularism, in the eyes of many of these leaders, has had time toestablish itself in Turkey and that the principle of secularism has been internalizedby the new generations which rose after the Kemalist revolution.* University of Haifa.197