Iconoclasm: A century of Turkish secularism

This week, the Turkish election crisis went to streets as at least 700,000 Turks supported their secular principles of Turkish rule for about a century.

In a turn around from western assumptions, the military in Turkey is attempting to intervene in democratic institutions to prevent what many there see as a backslide into pre-Ataturk Caliphate Turkish religious rule.

Many groups in the west immediately jump to a conclusion when they see the Turkish army threatening to intervene in democratic elections -- but there is more relativism involved in the history of this situation.

Turkey, while not perfect in its history, has been a relatively benign neighbor to Europe since Ataturk adopted many of the forms of modern western governance in the French secular model in the period between WWI and WWII.  Ataturk was a military hero, and his rise to power through the secular meritocracy of Turkey's military, though a hybrid ottoman and western education, was a model for the original "young turks" of his day.

Today, both the military and engineering elites in Turkey hold the position that secular intelligentsia do in many other countries.  As institutionalized meritocracies (at least by reputation) the engineering schools and military academies produce the most liberal, modern, and western leaders in a country that has prided itself for nearly a century on its western ties.  Turkey is applying for admission to the European Union, a relationship that would almost certainly benefit the country economically.

One of the best ways to scuttle these plans might be to elect a president whose wife wears a head scarf.  One of Ataturk's most public controversial acts was to forbid the wearing of the fez, the tapered pillbox hat with a tassel familiar to more Americans from Aladdin's genii in Disney movies, perhaps, than in it's symbol of Ottoman Islam. 

So, if we heard "the technical secular intelligentsia are speaking out against the election of a conservative Islamic president in Turkey" -- we might cheer.  But without a sense of history, a literacy in Turkey's place as the portal from east to west, the Turkish army speaking out about an election seems like a different animal indeed! 

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Shava Nerad, News and Opinion Correspondent:

Shava’s column, Iconoclasm, published several times a week to Gather Essentials: Newsis an examination of the provocative ideas emerging in media and world culture behind the news.

Shava Nerad has been working on the Internet for twenty-five years, at the boundaries of Internet and social issues.  She is executive director of The Tor Project as her day job.  She lives in Somerville, MA with her teenage son, her fiance (a professional magician and fundraising coach), and a corgi/dachshund mutt named George.

Opinions here have nothing to do with Tor. 

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