Report Tries to Reconcile State Sponsored Religion in Turkey
A government actively catering to the religious life of its citizens may seem anachronistic in the secular Turkish Republic, but the way to resolve this contradiction is to make the state even more active in religious affairs, according to a report published yesterday by an influential Istanbul think tank.
The important proviso is that this role "be transparent, democratic and in accordance with the values of civil society," according to Irfan Bozan, a well-known broadcaster and the study's author. He was speaking at the launch of "Between State and Society: A School, the Vocational Religious High Schools; An Institution, the Executive Directorate of Religious Affairs," a report published by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV). The publication calls for greater realism about the role of institutionalized religion in Turkish society and the public demand which it satisfies as a necessary step in its reform.
Bozan conceded that a religious establishment funded by taxpayers did not sit well with Turkey's commitments either to the European Union or to a constitutional separation of mosque and state. However, the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) is so woven into the religious life of the country that to rip it out would only result in chaos. Many secularist themselves demanded a pubic role for religion if only to prevent the untutored extremism that has in the past resulted in violence.
If anything, the TESEV research revealed that a majority wanted to see the role of the Directorate of Religious Affairs strengthened further still to monitor religious communities like those civil society groups associated with the prominent scholar, Fethullah Gülen, or the underground Caferi Brotherhood, which appeared to have aims and objectives that elicited suspicion more than understanding. Ordinary people were confused by the concept of competing religious truths, Bozan said.
The recommendations endorsed by TESEV, however, are to recognize a public demand for state-sponsored mosques and religious education without pandering to religious intolerance. It acknowledged that the directorate had made important strides, for example, in at least recognizing the existence of Turkey's substantial Alevi community -- a branch of Islam that differs on many important doctrinal issues with the Sunni-Hanafi majority. Parents and child guardians should be free to opt out of the current compulsory religious education in schools or to insist on religious education that conforms to their own beliefs.
That education currently very much caters to the Sunni-Hanafi school of thought. Bozan conceded that in an ideal world educators would have a comparative religion classes, but that at the moment graduates of theology faculties were ill-equipped to teach about other people's faiths or even about Turkish Aleviism. In many ways, the current Justice and Development Party's attitude towards Alevis is the acid test of their intentions not to abandon secularism, he said.
Representing Alevis at a panel discussion accompanying the publication launch, Ercan Geçmez, leader of the Haci Bektaş Veli Anatolian Cultural Association, said his community saw no point in paying taxes to support a ministry that treated their faith as religiously heterodox. He said the government built mosques in Alevi communities which local people did not want and funded proselytizing activities outside of Turkey. Foreign missionaries trying to do the same thing inside the country would not be tolerated for a moment, Geçmez said.
The report also addressed the vexing issue of vocational religious high schools, known as imam-hatip schools. It confirmed an earlier TESEV study that refuted the public perception that these schools were breeding grounds for religious fundamentalism. The graduates of these schools were as imbued with national values as in any other school. The main problem was that the schools occupied a slot in the educational system as vocational colleges for producing imams. This meant that graduates who did well in the regular academic curriculum in these schools, nonetheless, stood a poor chance, due to their marks being discounted, of pursuing higher education in other fields.
People sent their children to these schools to have them learn religion, not to have their children become practicing clergy. This should be recognized, the report said. It would be far better to call them "religious and cultural colleges" and allow students equal opportunities to enter university. The religious vocational high schools had in recent years lost much of their appeal, particularly for boys who were now sent to private schools. They still attracted girls from religious families who might otherwise be reluctant to see them continue studying past the statutory eight years. (Andrew Finkel, Istanbul)
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