[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
A few weeks ago, the cultural bureau of the municipality of Sakarya, a mid-size city to the east of Istanbul, invited me to give a public talk on secularism. They said they also invited another columnist, Yıldıray Oğur from daily Taraf, to speak on the same topic. I accepted the invitation, and thus went to Sakarya last Monday to speak at the central conference hall.
There were about 300 people in the audience, who listened to us carefully and calmly. In my speech, I criticized the Turkish version of secularism, for its lack of emphasis on religious freedom, and contrasted it with the First Amendment of the United States constitution. I also said the definition of secularism should be made by the Turkish Parliament, preferably in a new constitution, rather than being imposed by an ideologically hyper-secularist constitutional court.
In his speech, Yıldıray Oğur took a similar line. He also criticized the official version of nationalism, pointing out that it has some racist tones.
In the Q&A session, a university student asked me why Muslims should not ask for an “Islamic state,” rather than a secular one, even if the latter becomes as liberal as I wish. In return, I said that Islam really doesn’t demand or define an “Islamic state,” and the efforts to create such a thing have resulted in tyrannies that were bad for both Muslims and others. Many in the audience, including the fashionably veiled young women, seemed to be convinced.
But then came the tense moment which would make the panel national, breaking news. A student, who had raised his hand to ask a question, stood up and began to make a heated comment.
“This is the city that gave so many martyrs in the war of liberation,” he said, and accused us of defiling that glorious heritage. He was mostly angry with daily Taraf for its anti-militaristic line. But he was no fan of me either.
Then a few other students who sat next to this guy stood up and opened a Turkish flag and a flag of HEPAR, a marginal ultra-nationalist party founded by retired general Orhan Pamukoğlu. They started to yell at us, calling us “traitors,” while the security personnel in the hall dragged them outside. Then I saw some unexpected object flying in the air toward me: a hangman’s noose. I also heard the words, “hainlere idam!” which means “execution to traitors.”
That night, I had imagined that this show must be the work of a bunch of angry, and creative, university students. But the next day, the head of the Sakarya branch of HEPAR gave a press conference giving full support to the noose-show.
“The punishment to high treason is indeed execution,” the man said, and heralded that they will indeed execute “those who sell the homeland” when they come to power. He also said that me and Oğur should be wary of the “fate of Ali Kemal,” a journalist who was lynched in İzmit in 1922 for being a “British spy.”
But what exactly made me such a “traitor”? Well, the fact that I was daring to criticize the official ideology was probably enough. But there was also a particular piece of mine which seemed to further enrage the traitor-hunters. This was an article I wrote a few months ago in Turkish titled, “That place is not ‘England’.” I had explained that we Turks keep calling the United Kingdom “İngiltere” (England), wrongfully dismissing Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Then I inferred that the existence of self-governing regions in a country doesn’t necessarily “divide” it. I also I added that I am not in favor of replicating such federal regionalism in Turkey; I just wanted to remind fellow Turks that “our concept of a monolithic nation is not the only way.”
Apparently, that reminder did not go well with the HEPAR folks. Two days before the conference, a likeminded local website ran a comment which presumed that I wanted to “divide” Turkey with my article on the U.K. After some vulgar insults, the commentator also argued that I was an agent of “the imperialist Great Britain.” Hence comes, I guess, the analogy with Ali Kemal.
So, this is the whole story. I am thankful to all the kind people, including opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who condemned the noose-show, and voiced their support. But I am a little sad to see that there are many people on the other side as well, who keep sending messages or writing online comments saying that “traitors” like me indeed “deserve” such death threats.
Why, I keep asking myself, so much hate?
The answer is not that hard to find. Turkey’s official ideology has long defined all opposing ideologies as treacherous deviations with evil intentions. So, when you criticize the official ideology, what you often get back is not a counter-criticism. You are rather vilified as an enemy within – a “divider,” a wild-eyed Islamist, a “British spy,” or something equally bad.
The only good news is that this is an ideology on the retreat. In the past, its advocates were really using hangman’s nooses to execute their political opponents. Today, thank God, they only can throw them at speakers.
Thank you for introducing us to Ali Kemal. I didn’t know about him, and he seems like a man worth knowing about. I invite all your readers to look him up and read his story. I hope you write a collunm about him sometime.
as a Brit living in Istanbul, when people ask me where I’m from I reply ‘Istanbul’ or ‘Turkey’, which tends to result in questions like ‘But you’re not Turkish are you?’, to which I reply I’m British, to which Turks might reply ‘Ah you’re from England’, to which I reply (in my best children’s Turkish) no, I’m from Britain… there is (let’s say) no British ethnicity, there is (very arguably) and English one, so I’m happy to be able to not have to identify with any ethnicity, just (if pushed) a state of origin; my dream for Turkey is that in some enlightened future the country changes its name to Anatolia so that all its constituent ethnicities (and religions) can feel equally at home
Turkey’s Justice and Development Party AKP and mr Erdogan’s regressive
Mohammedan policies have been bringing Turkey into darkness and
backwardness.
Unfortunatelly AKP and mr Erdogan has been doing this by using the
soft bellies of universal democracy, human rights, and liberty. They
have been using liberal concepts to bring and implement illiberal
practices in Turkey.
The support for mr Erdogan has been coming from mainly western liberal
sources believing or hoping he is bringing democracy to Turkey.
Unfortunatelly this is a big mistake.
Hopefully mr Kilicdaroglu will address this misunderstanding and he
and his party will be an alternative to mr Erdogan and Akp which are
on the path of theocratic totalitarian monarchy and state.
The only hope for Turkey is mr Kilcdaroglu and his party to challenge
mr Erdogan. And challenging mr Erdogan’s policies cannot be
successfully done without seriously questioning mr Erdogan and Akp’s
policies by the liberal, social democrat and democrat individuals and
organizations of the west.
Let’s stop supporting darkness,backwardness, regresiveness and slavery
and start supporting progress democracy human rifts equality
citizenship and responsibility under the leadership of mr
KIlicdaroglu.
There are millions of good people in both United States and Turkey who are not happy with secularism. Criticizing secularism does not make someone a traitor. They simply want to impose their faith on others. Almost all religions require believers to impose their outdated dogma on others.
Seculars should not get upset when faced with someone who argues against secularism. They should simply remind them that both Turkey and US are secular states and they should expect opposition if they try to impose their religion on people through governments’ resources (schools, courts, municipalities, etc).
Religious-based arguments against secularism is as old as secularism itself.