Modes of secularism

Abstract

Modern Turkish history could be viewed as a “conflict between two Turkeys,” that is, a division between secularists and Islamic groups. In the case of Turkey, secularism, commonly known as laiklik , is the identity of “progressive” people, the state project of modernization, a model of creating an enlightened Islam, and also a strategy of criminalizing religious opposition. It is therefore important to study secularism and Islamism as mutually constitutive and interactive concepts, since secularism is a way of redefining the meaning and the role of religion in society. Secularism thus becomes a “political settlement” of controlling and reconstituting Islam in accordance with the needs of the state and the political elites who have historically controlled the Turkish state. However, the economic and political opportunity spaces that have greatly expanded in recent decades have caused the constitutionally protected settlement to undergo renewal, revision and even rejection. Thus, the emergence of a new Turkey depends on the nature of this new settlement between religion and politics that must be negotiated through democratic processes. In this chapter, I examine the key debate over the realignment of the boundary between religion and politics by focusing on the AKP's understanding of secularism within the framework of the Kemalist legacy and changed market conditions. First I examine the contemporary theoretical debate by focusing on the analytical and causal connections between secularism, democracy and Islam.

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