PDF Dosyası - Ankara Üniversitesi Kitaplar Veritabanı

civil society and representative institutions continue the democratic modernization,in articulation with a Rechtsstaat.Laiklik, Secularization and Islamism: Laiklik, the separation of theState and the religion, the core principle of the Republic, introduced intothe Constitution in 1937, has undoubtedly been a factor favourable toTurkey's transition to democracy. However, this Turkish version of theFrench concept of laicite, from which it differs in many respects, doesalso create problems for democracy. In France, laicite involved a strictseparation of the State and the Church. In Turkey, religion was expelledfrom the State, but it was brought back in the political arena, after thepassage to competitive party politics. Hovvever, the dissociation was notcomplete, since the State has kept control över religion. The Directoratefor Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı), situated within thePrime Minister's office and managed by a Sunnite Müftü, controls cultmatters; the imams are paid by the State. Ali this is the continuation ofthe Ottoman practice of State control över religion 15 . In France, laicitemeans the strict neutrality of the State vis-â-vis ali religions. The religiousadministration in the Ministry of the Interior is managed by secular bureaucrats.The Turkish Republic is not neutral vis-â-vis religion. The religiousadministration represents Sunnite islam. The three minorities recognizedunder the Lausanne Treaty —the Greeks, Armenians and Jevvs—have their own religious authorities, also controlled by the Turkish State.Only recently has the Republic realized that the Alevis (a heterodox religionof Shiite origin), who are an estimated 20% of the population, havenot been treated as fairly as they should have been. The identity cards ofTurkish citizens carry the mention of their religion, vvhich is not consistentvvith the republican principle oef the privacy of religious belief. Tosum up, religion is not altogether pushed out of the public sphere.Laiklik is to be compared to secularism, vvhich is a broader notion.Secularism may or may not include the constitutional separation of theState and religion, but, de facto, in secularized societies, the plurality ofreligions and their equal treatment are accepted vvithout restriction. Thisis the case, for instance, in Norway, where the King is the Chief of theLutheran Church, and yet this country is secular. The reason I chose theexample of a Protestant nation is that the configuration of State-religionrelations in Müslim societies is comparable to those existing in the Reformcountries: unlike the French laicite in vvhich tvvo povverful, centralizedinstitutions —the State and the Catholic Church— have confrontedeach other for centuries and ended up vvith a negotiated separation in1905, in Protestant and Müslim societies, the State is facing a multiplicityof confessions, such as the Lutherans, Calvinists and a vvhole range ofother denominations in the first case, and the Sunnites, Shiites, legalschools such as Hanefıtes, and a host of tarikats in the second case.15. The Ottoman practice in this respect vvas close to the Byzantine ceasoro-papism, as Iargued in: Kazancıgil, Ali (1991), op-cit.240