http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0606536.htm
Secularism in Turkey means government controls all religions
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) -- Turkey's unique brand of secularism is not separation of religion
and state, but rather government control of religion, impacting both the Muslim
majority and religious minorities.
The government builds and funds mosques, employs Muslim prayer leaders,
controls religious education and bans Muslim women and men from wearing certain
head coverings in public offices and universities.
The Turkish Constitution guarantees the religious freedom of all the country's
residents, and a 1923 treaty guarantees that religious minorities will be
allowed to found and operate religious and charitable institutions. Secularists
in Turkey see control of religion as the only way to guarantee Islam will not
overpower the secularism of the state and its institutions.
However, the fact that the constitution and Turkish law do not recognize
minority religious communities as legal entities has severely limited their
ability to own property, and laws restricting private religious higher
education have made it almost impossible for them to operate seminaries and
schools of theology.
Pope Benedict XVI is expected to address the need for a broader understanding
of the religious freedom guarantees during his Nov. 28-Dec. 1 visit to Turkey.
Otmar Oehring, head of the human rights office of Missio, the German Catholic
aid and development agency, said that when the Republic of Turkey was founded
in 1923 the Department of Religious Affairs was established "to crush Islam and
replace it with Turkish nationalism, which was seen as the only way to promote
the modernization and development of Turkey."
"But it is clear that you cannot take religion away from a religious country,"
Oehring said in a Nov. 15 telephone interview from Aachen, Germany. "Turks are
not fundamentalists and radicals, but they are pious." Oehring lived in Turkey
until he was 16, and he wrote his doctoral thesis on ideological tensions
within the country.
Once multiparty democracy was established in Turkey in the 1950s, he said, the
Religious Affairs Department started opening more mosques and training and
hiring more imams. Although the effort to crush Islam was set aside, a
conviction that religion had to be controlled was not, he said.
"The state controls and organizes a state brand of Islam," he said.
Particularly as Turkey's human rights record is examined as part of its bid to
enter the European Union, "many say religious freedom in Turkey would be
dangerous" because of a perceived threat of Islamic fundamentalism, Oehring
said.
"However, I argue that under international human rights agreements people must
be given full religious freedom, but the state can take action against those
who pose a danger for public safety or the state," he said.
As far as religious rights go, "in Turkey they first say 'no,' then try to see
how they can make it work. We say 'yes,' then work to prevent abuses," Oehring
said.
While Turkish Muslims live their faith under government control, minority
religious communities operate under government restrictions, and minorities
often face discrimination in education and employment, he said.
"If you are a Turkish citizen of Turkish origin, with a Turkish name and you
are a Sunni Muslim, you will have no problems," Oehring said. "But if you are
Catholic -- or worse, Greek Orthodox with a Greek name -- you are considered a
foreigner, even if you are a Turkish citizen."
One of the most difficult issues Christians, Jews and other religious
minorities are facing is their lack of recognition under Turkish law,
particularly as it applies to their ability to acquire and own property for
churches or synagogues, schools and hospitals, he said.
Running seminaries is evening more difficult, Oehring said.
"In 1971, the government decided there would be no more private religious
schools offering higher education," so the Greek and Armenian Orthodox
seminaries were closed, he said. The Jewish community already was sending its
rabbinical students abroad, and the Latin-rite Catholic seminary remained open
since it was housed in the compound of the French consulate in Istanbul.
"The Muslim schools had already been closed in 1924 and were reopened as
government-run high schools or faculties of divinity in Turkish universities,"
so the state controlled what the students learned, he said.
While many people recognize the continued closure of the seminaries as a
problem, he said, "the Kemalists and secularists say if you give Christians the
possibility of opening schools, Islamic schools not under state control also
would have a right to open."
In early November, under pressure from the European Union, the Turkish
Parliament passed a "religious foundations law" ordering the state to return
property it owns that had been confiscated from religious communities. As of
Nov. 15, the legislation had not been signed into law.
"A lot of church people prefer that this not become law because then the
government can say it did what it was asked to do and nothing will change for
another 20 years," Oehring said.
The biggest problem with the law, he said, is that it applies only to
confiscated property still owned by the state, but it does not address the
issue of compensation for confiscated property subsequently sold by the
government.
END
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