E. Haldun Solmazturk
At the heart of the political debate in Turkey lies the tension between Islam and secularism. Is the former democratic and the latter, at least in Turkey, autocratic? Ömer Taşpinar, a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institute, recently argued this case in Foreign Affairs ("The Old Turks' Revolt," November/December 2007). His thesis is trendy in certain circles, but it is dishonest. He bases his argument on false assumptions, cherry-picks data, and ignores context. What results is not so much scholarship as propaganda.
Taşpinar paints Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as a progressive, committed democrat, and enthusiastic about embracing Europe. The reality is more ambivalent. On September 2, 2004, for example, Erdoğan proposed making adultery a crime. When the European Union criticized this move, Erdoğan told them "to mind their own business," for they were not qualified to opine on such issues. On November 15, 2005, after the European Court of Human Rights decided against permitting head scarves in Turkish universities, he declared that "only ulama [Islamic religious scholars] could" make this decision. These episodes dismissing European consensus and institutions are well-known in Turkey and were featured on the front pages of major newspapers. Turkish commentators and editorialists discussed whether the prime minister's statements suggested that religious law guided Erdoğan as much if not more than secular law. Read more ...
At the heart of the political debate in Turkey lies the tension between Islam and secularism. Is the former democratic and the latter, at least in Turkey, autocratic? Ömer Taşpinar, a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institute, recently argued this case in Foreign Affairs ("The Old Turks' Revolt," November/December 2007). His thesis is trendy in certain circles, but it is dishonest. He bases his argument on false assumptions, cherry-picks data, and ignores context. What results is not so much scholarship as propaganda.
Taşpinar paints Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as a progressive, committed democrat, and enthusiastic about embracing Europe. The reality is more ambivalent. On September 2, 2004, for example, Erdoğan proposed making adultery a crime. When the European Union criticized this move, Erdoğan told them "to mind their own business," for they were not qualified to opine on such issues. On November 15, 2005, after the European Court of Human Rights decided against permitting head scarves in Turkish universities, he declared that "only ulama [Islamic religious scholars] could" make this decision. These episodes dismissing European consensus and institutions are well-known in Turkey and were featured on the front pages of major newspapers. Turkish commentators and editorialists discussed whether the prime minister's statements suggested that religious law guided Erdoğan as much if not more than secular law. Read more ...
Source: The Middle East Quarterly
Posts
