The Well of the Past:

Reinterpreting Secularism after 9/11

Lailufar Yasmin

MA (Georgia State University)

MSocSci (University of Dhaka)

BSocSci (Hons) (University of Dhaka)

This thesis is presented in the fulfillment of the requirements for the

Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Modern History, Politics and International

Relations

Faculty of Arts

Macquarie University

Sydney

August 2015

Table of Contents

Table of Contents .................................................................................................... iii

List of Tables ........................................................................................................ vii

Abstract ................................................................................................................... ix

Declaration .............................................................................................................. xi

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................... xiii

Dedication ............................................................................................................ xvii

Introduction: The Well of the Past and 9/11 ........................................ 1

The Central Argument ............................................................................................. 9

Secularism as a Standard of Civilization ............................................................... 11

The Securitization of Religion and the Construction of Threat ............................ 17

Conceptual Framework: Who is International Relations For? ............................. 25

Thesis Outline........................................................................................................ 27

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ ............... 33

The Beginning of Religion-based Politics .............................................................. 39

Secularism as the Accommodation of Religious Differences ............................... 42

Secularity as an Areligious Concept ...................................................................... 46

Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ ..................................................... 49

The invention of secularism: accommodating religious difference .............. 50

Secularity as a Christian Concept? ........................................................................ 53

Secularity: an Islamic invention? ................................................................... 55

Contemporary Expressions of Secularism in the West ......................................... 59

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of

Misrecognition .......................................................................................... 63

The Construction of Turkish Identity as the Bearer of Ottoman Heritage ........... 66

The Ottoman Empire as a Ghazi state ........................................................... 67

Transformation in the Ottoman Empire: external pressure or internal

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development? ................................................................................................ 69

Ottomanism and the Consolidation of the Identity of a ‘Turk’ ............................ 72

Creating a ‘civilized identity’—Turkey in the European Jacket ............................ 76

Kemalism—a rupture from or continuation of the Ottoman past? .............. 79

The Philosophical Roots of Turkish Nationalism: Ziya Gokalp and Yusuf

Akcura ............................................................................................................. 81

The Idea of ‘Europe’ and the Ottoman Empire .................................................... 85

Turkey’s Drive for EU Membership ....................................................................... 91

Turkey as Europe’s Other ...................................................................................... 94

Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 100

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis: Turkey’s Quest for a

New Identity in the Post 9/11 Era....................................................... 103

Kemalist Ideology and the Birth of Turkey ......................................................... 105

State Reforms and Women’s Liberation as a New Identity Creation ................. 110

Turkish Identity and Secularism .......................................................................... 113

The Turkish-Islamic Synthesis ............................................................................. 116

Democracy and the Rise of Islamic Elements in Turkish Politics ........................ 118

The Rise of the AK Parti....................................................................................... 124

Imperial Memories and the Identity of Turkey................................................... 127

Turkish Assertion of Identity and the Foreign Policy of the AK Parti ................. 130

Turkey’s relationship with Israel ................................................................... 132

Between Modernity and Islam—the Dilemma of Turkish Identity .................... 135

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History ................ 139

Who are the Bengal Muslims? ............................................................................ 142

The Indian Independence Movement and the Construction of Hindu-Muslim

Separateness in Bengal .................................................................................. 145

The Bengal Divide of 1905 and the Rise in Political Consciousness of the

Muslims of Bengal ......................................................................................... 148

The State of Pakistan and the Issue of Religion .................................................. 159

The unequal relationship between East and West ............................................. 161

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The question of regional autonomy .............................................................. 164

The 1965 Indo-Pakistan War and a further isolation of East Pakistan .......... 165

The tumultuous politics of the 1960s ............................................................ 166

The Creation of Identity during the Pakistani Era: the Emergence of the Myth

of Golden Bengal ........................................................................................... 167

Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 172

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for

Bengali Muslims: Secularism as a Self-Serving Ideology

for Bangladesh ............................................................................................... 175

The Constitutional Creation of a Secular and Bengali Identity ........................... 177

The Practice of Secularism: Importing Religion in the Guise of Secularism ....... 180

The Rise of Overt Religiosity: the Regimes of Zia and Ershad ............................ 185

The Return to Democracy and the Beginning of Confrontational Politics ......... 190

The Return to a Secular Bengali Identity ............................................................ 194

The Trial of War Criminals and the Politicization of Identity .............................. 198

Conclusion: Secularism as a Political Weapon of Identity Creation ................... 200

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options

for Turkey and Bangladesh ....................................................................... 205

What is Secularism: The Contradiction between the State and Political Elites

in Turkey ...................................................................................................... 207

The AK Parti and the rise of passive secularism .......................................... 207

The headscarf issue and the AK Parti .......................................................... 211

Secularists versus Islamists in Turkey ................................................................. 213

Bangladesh: the Rise of Islam-based Political Parties and Islamic Extremism ... 214

Changes in the social fabric of Bangladesh ................................................. 216

The Growth of Islam-based Political Parties and Intolerance ............................ 220

Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 224

Chapter 7: Rethinking Secularism .......................................................... 227

Revisiting the Secularization Thesis: Post-Secularism ........................................ 228

From Post-Secularism to Multiple Secularisms ................................................... 232

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Multiple Secularisms: Islam as a Marker of Identity ........................................... 234

Sharia Law and the West: a model for secularism? ..................................... 235

Identity Claims and Islamism .............................................................................. 237

Conclusion ............................................................................................... 245

The Conformation of Sovereignty and Secularism as Areligious Concepts ........ 246

The Struggle for Recognition and its Impact on Politics in the Islamic World .... 252

The Lessons from Turkey and Bangladesh .......................................................... 255

Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 261

Appendix 1: List of Interviews ................................................................. 325

Appendix 2: Sample Questionnaires ...................................................... 327

Appendix 3: Ethics Approval/Consent Letter ..................................... 329

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List of Tables

Table 4.1: Relative Financial Arrangements West/East ...................................... 162

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Abstract

The ‘9/11’ bombing of the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001 ushered in a

new era in international relations in ways that are yet to be fully analyzed. Described

as the first ‘world-historical event’ by Jürgen Habermas, it focused attention on

Islamic involvement in international terrorism and promoted images of a unified

‘Islamic World’ at loggerheads with an equally unified ‘West’. Although such images

have served conservative interests on both sides, neither the Islamic World nor the

West is a unified category. More importantly, 9/11 has reinvigorated debates about

what constitutes modernity and ‘civility’. Increasingly, both are being measured in

terms of the role of religion in the public sphere: to be a modern, civilized state is to

be a secular state. However, in examining problems with the interpretation of

secularism as a concept, the thesis argues that there is a need to concentrate on the

accommodation of religious difference within and between states and on

maintaining state neutrality on issues of religious difference rather than insisting on

secularism as a marker of civility per se. The thesis critically examines the adoption

of a rigidly rationalist conception of secularism by two Muslim majority countries in

their efforts to be recognized as civilized and modern members of the international

system that has resulted in certain tensions in these countries between secularism

and a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. These studies illustrate that the

discourse of civilized versus uncivilized attached to the concept of secularism needs

to be addressed so that Muslim majority countries can realize their aspiration to

recognition as modern and civilized as well as Islamic.

x

xi

Declaration

I certify that the work in this thesis entitled The Well of the Past: Reinterpreting

Secularism After 9/11 has not previously been submitted for a degree nor has it been

submitted as part of the requirements for a degree to any other university or

institution other than Macquarie University.

I also certify that the thesis is an original piece of research and that it has been

written by me and subjected to professional editing. Any help or assistance that I

have received in my research work and in the preparation of this thesis itself has

been appropriately acknowledged.

In addition, I certify that all information sources and literature used are indicated

and acknowledged in the thesis.

..................................................................

Lailufar Yasmin

Student Number: 41598792

Date: 20 August 2015

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Acknowledgements

I started this journey officially on February 14, 2009. Looking back in time, I cannot

even comprehend the many friends, family and mentors, who have helped me to

come this far and I am finally struggling not to consolidate an argument but

undertaking the toughest job of thanking them! I am very sure that I would be

missing some of them, but being human, we tend to make mistakes! So, I begin with

my apologies in advance to those whose names I have missed here.

This thesis would not have materialized, in all senses of the word, had it not been for

Professor Stephanie Lawson’s guidance. When I came first to Macquarie, I used to

look at Stephanie with awe as some of my fellow PhD buddies forewarned me saying

that she was the toughest Professor in the Department and I was advised to ‘know

my stuffs’ before even thinking of striking a conversation with her. After having the

opportunity of working under her guidance, I would say that very few have noticed

how kind and generous Stephanie is and more importantly, how affectionately she

would correct one’s mistakes and generously give her time to guide one to the right

direction. I am thoroughly blessed to have Stephanie as my supervisor. She has

always helped me to hold myself together, stay calm, and dared me to dream big.

I do not know what I would have done without Dr. Sandey Fitzgerald! English being

my second language, I did not make sense a lot of times. Having great ideas aren’t

enough and this is where Sandey mattered the most! She helped me to give shape

and meaning to the thesis despite her own heavy work commitment being the

official editor of this thesis.

The Head of the Department Dr. Geoffrey Hawker has always lent me his support in

so many ways. Taking care of official as well as unofficial hurdles so easily wouldn’t

have been possible without Geoff always being there for me with a nice smile. Same

goes for Dr. Lavina Lee, who has always taken special interest so that my project

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could be completed on time. My special thanks also go to all the faculties of my

department as well as Kellie Lee-Drake and Nancy Guevara. I specially thank Dr.

Lloyd Cox for showing me the way forward from my first day here at Macquarie. It is

in this connection, I also thank IPRS for honoring me for their prestigious scholarship.

I also thank all the library staffs, whose ready assistance has helped me to find

materials on time.

I state my heart-felt gratitude to Dr. Shamsul Islam Khan of the University of South

Australia and my former teacher at the University of Dhaka. On a cold morning of

January 2007, he made a long distance call to Dhaka and said, ‘Lailufar, wake up!’

Had it not been for him, perhaps, I would still remain hidden away in my world of

sorrow.

My special thanks go to Rashed Uz Zaman and Sohela Nazneen, for keeping a

continuous tab on me. And thank you Rashed bhai for always asking me the

question: ‘What have you read today?’ His question left me with no other choice but

to go back to my desk and finish the thesis sooner than would have been possible

otherwise! I do not know what I would have done without Rashed bhai’s and

Sohela’s words of encouragement coming my way every single day from thousands

of miles away despite their tremendous busyness: ‘Thank you!’

My friends Mohammad Tanzimuddin Khan, Afsana Binte Amin, Abdul Mannan,

Marufa Akter and Niloy Ranjan Biswas, deserve special attention. Over the years,

they have become a good part of my life. My special thanks to Mannan and Niloy,

who I called and e-mailed quite often for references that were difficult to find. I must

also thank Tahmina Rahman, who let me use her library card to borrow books. Same

goes for my friend Roksana Hossain for her continuous support in my journey.

Here in Australia, special thanks go to my flatmate Claire Hainey. She has always lent

me a shoulder to cry on, during my most difficult times and encouraged me to move

xv

on. At the dead of the night after returning back home, she is the one person who I

would start explaining International Relations theory to. She would endure the pain

with the nicest smile one can ever have and ask: ‘Would you like a cuppa?’

My Sydney friends Kamrul Tuhin and his wife Tasmeen Tiba were equally helpful

especially during the time when I fell sick. Same goes for both Jakerul Abedin and

Shima Zaman who always had enough time for me amidst their own studies.

Last but not the least, my eternal gratitude goes to my family, my father

Shahiduzzaman and my mother Dolly Zaman. My mother always wanted me to

achieve things that she could not and taught me the importance of education, and

what it means to be independent. I hope I lived up to her expectation. My mother-

in-law, Dr. Nepisha Begum, here also demands a special attention. She wanted me to

realize her son’s unfulfilled dreams. I want to tell her, ‘Ma, as much as this work is

for me, it is also for your son, Syed Imtiaz Ahmed!’

My thanks go to my brother Rokib and his wife Shamim, especially for blessing us

with their daughter Ariana Samara Zaman. My special thanks to my uncles, Rear

Admiral (Retd.) Harunur Rashid and Colonel Saifullah Ansary, and my aunts, Mrs.

Dilara Harun and Mrs. Monira Khatun for holding the fort back home! They are not a

part of my extended family—they are my family! Same goes for my cousins who are

like my own sisters and brothers—Sanjida Rashid Sarika, Sahmida Rashid Anika,

Mumnoon Ansary and Musnoon Ansary.

I also thank my niece Mehzabin Ahmed Muhu, her husband Fuad Uz Zaman and

nephew Arefeen Ahmed—all have generously helped me from time to time during

my stay in Sydney that can never be forgotten. It is here that I also thank my sister-

in-law Khaleda Nasrin and my cousin Shormin Aktar, who from Dhaka and Cape

Town respectively, have always encouraged me and helped in any way that was

possible for them.

xvi

This acknowledgement would remain incomplete without the mentioning of my

niece Syeda Karin Ahmed. She has always made me smile during the most difficult of

times and suggested what to do to stay calm and carry on. The onus is upon her to

fulfill her uncle Imtiaz’s dreams, now that I am off the hook.

At the very end, I want to thank everything in the universe—humans and non-

humans, animate and inanimate objects—for we all are connected—always!

Without the song of a kookaburra or the Building W6A providing me with a very

spacious room that I simply got access to due to being at the right place at right

time, this seemingly impossible journey wouldn’t have come into reality. I thank you

all!

xvii

For

Syed Imtiaz Ahmed

I have done it for both of us!

Introduction

The Well of the Past and 9/11

The eminent sociologist Robert Bellah cautions that ‘nothing is ever lost’, reminding

us, in the words of Thomas Mann, that ‘very deep is the well of past’.1 Yet the past as

the repository of values (cultural, religious, etc.) is what we are expected to escape

from in the modern world. Religion in particular was widely expected to disappear

into the past with the spread of modernity and the idea of secularism. The

September 11, 2001, bombing of the World Trade Center and Pentagon (9/11),

however, forcefully recalled to the modern world a past in which religion had

enjoyed a public role. In addition to ushering in a new era in international politics by

signaling the end of the search for a new enemy for the West at a global level, the

events of 9/11 also brought religion back into focus. This has led to an eruption over

the idea of modernity in a ‘West versus the Rest’ debate. In the wake of 9/11, a

tendency has arisen in the West to brand Islamic countries not just as bearers of

terrorism, but also as challenges to the specifically modern Western ideals of liberty

and freedom. The ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis originally presented by Samuel P.

Huntington in 1993 has received renewed attention, with many now affirming its

general hypothesis.2 More than anything else, 9/11 signaled Islam as a final frontier

that the West must encounter and defeat in order to achieve a fully modern world.

The West-Islam relationship has thus assumed a new meaning and importance,

bringing with it an added emphasis on the role of religion in international affairs.

1Robert Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution: from Paleolithic to Axial Age, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011, p. ix. 2 Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3, Summer 1993.

Introduction 2

Termed the first ‘world-historical event’ by Jürgen Habermas,3 9/11 has turned out

to be catalytic for West-Islam relationships.

This thesis looks at the changed nature of the relationship between the West and

countries with Muslim majorities in the wake of 9/11. In doing so, it focuses on the

issues of identity and recognition for Muslim majority countries in relation to

secularism. As there is no precise translation of the term secularism in Arabic or in

Bengali, confusion remains as to the actual meaning of the term. Naser

Ghobadzadeh points out that due to such confusion, secularism is often interpreted

as ‘anti-religious’ both conceptually and empirically, as well as being seen as an

imported and top-down ideology in Muslim majority states.4 On the other hand,

since 9/11, the question of the role of religion in the internal politics of a state has

arisen as a critically defining issue for such countries because secularism has become

a major marker of a state’s modern, civilized identity. The thesis looks at how two

Muslim majority countries, Turkey and Bangladesh, have attempted to negotiate

their identity as modern civilized states within this discourse of secularism, only to

be faced with rising popular demands from within to acknowledge religion as a

fundamental and defining aspect of the state’s identity. It shows that while the

concept of secularism has been a driving force in creating a specifically modern

identity for these Muslim majority countries, as these countries have moved towards

democratization, secularism has become the battleground over the degree to which

religion should be formally recognized in their political life both internally, and by

other states. Secularism, it turns out, is more than just a marker of a state’s civility or

modernity to other states.5 It lies at the heart of the interface between a state’s

internal cultural and historical constitution and its external, international identity.

3Jürgen Habermas, The Divided West, edited and translated by Ciaran Cronin, Polity Press, 2007, p. 7. 4 Naser Ghobadzadeh, “Religious secularity”: A vision for revisionist political Islam”, Philosophy and Social Criticism, Vol. 39, No. 10, 2013, p. 1008. 5 See Elizabeth Shankman Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, Princeton University Press, 2007, p. 1.

Introduction 3

In International Relations theory (IR), although it was thought that the issue of

religion had been settled, the recent resurgence of religion has brought back the

issue of secularism strongly for theorists as well. The investigation of the changing

nature of religiosity in Turkey and Bangladesh reveals that the present formulation

of secularization in the study of International Relations fails to take into account the

rising importance of religion as a marker of identity. This raises some intriguing

questions regarding the shaping of inter-state relationships at the global level, such

as can a state be secular in relation to other states but maintain religion as a central

part of its internal identity? Does secularism have to be restrictive? In attempting to

answer these questions, this thesis will challenge the neo-realist approach to the

study of IR. This approach, which at least until recently has been the dominant

approach in IR, tends to ignore a state’s drive to secure self-esteem. Its interest is in

state-to-state relationships from a security perspective. Yet the drive for self-esteem

may not only be a strong motivating factor in determining a state’s external policies,

it may also be propelled by the promotion of theoretical positions that ignore it.

While neo-realism simply ignores culture as an issue, liberal political theory

(including liberal international theory), while purporting to ignore culture, implicitly

promotes certain values, including those associated with secularism, as markers of

‘civilization’. Such markers stand out in the debate precipitated by Huntington over

who is civilized and who is not. They are therefore deeply implicated in the

misrecognition of identity that is currently undermining attempts by non-Western

states to appear as ‘modern’.

Modernity generally refers in the West to the period after the Renaissance and the

Enlightenment, the period of emancipation from the authority of the medieval

Church. It generally refers to the rise of a new social condition in which traditional

authorities no longer controlled human actions and in which the authority of human

Introduction 4

rationality was promoted over religious authorities.6 This is also the period from

which the ‘future becomes more important than the past’.7

To achieve modernity, the West, of course, went through centuries of struggle.

Nevertheless, an important characteristic of modernity was the endorsement of

secularism ‘as a basic principle of political organization’,8 with states as the modern

form of political organization. The thesis therefore addresses the entwinement of

identity and religiosity within the Western developed nation-state framework and

argues that this secular nation-state system is problematic when applied to non-

Western societies. The emulation of Western notions of modernity when non-

Western/Islamic particularities are not taken into account aggravates and even fuels

the rise of religious backlash in non-Western societies.

Countries with Muslim majorities can roughly be divided into two categories in terms

of the treatment of religion in their domestic politics: either religion is employed in

their legal system (Islamic states), or they officially proclaim to be secular (despite

having Muslim majorities). Turkey and Bangladesh have both embraced secularism

as they have set modernity as their goal in their project of building a nation-state.

Bangladesh is constitutionally secular yet Islam is the state religion. Turkey is a

secular state with a Muslim majority population. These two countries are of

particular importance for this thesis because both have tried to define their

identities within a Western-style modernist and secularist framework. While these

countries have their differences, in endorsing this framework in an effort to reinvent

themselves as modern states within the international system, both have attempted

to ignore some of their own significant historical particularities. In both cases, this

has led to the rise of Islamist political movements that are not only much more

6 Stephanie Lawson, International Relations, Polity Press, 2012, pp 3-4. 7 Erik Ringmar, Why Europe Was First: Social Change and Economic Growth in Europe and East Asia 1500-2050, Anthem Press, 2007, p. 4. 8 Stephanie Lawson, International Relations, p. 3.

Introduction 5

vigorous than anything previously experienced, but are attempting to combine

religion with their political life.

This is not to say that developments in Turkey and Bangladesh have come about as a

direct result of the 9/11 recreation of the civilized versus uncivilized dichotomy.

Although recent developments in Turkey and Bangladesh can be linked to post 9/11

political developments, the more general undertaking to develop a modern nation-

state within the framework of Western modernity had begun in both countries well

before 9/11. Developments in both states can thus also be linked with the

conceptualization within the study of IR of the modern nation-state as secular, and

the reification of the concepts of secularism and sovereignty as areligious concepts.

However, the desire to be recognized as a modern state within the framework of

modernity has been reinforced and made more acute by the strengthening of the

civilized versus uncivilized discourse precipitated by 9/11, because this discourse has

suggested that the level of religiosity in a state’s public sphere determines which

side of the dichotomy a state is to be placed on in the international community.

The existing critical literature on secularism points out how secularism predicates an

anti-religious modernist stance when it proposes to expel religion from the public

sphere. This not only promotes the limited conception of secularism that has

become universalized as Western secularism, but also makes secularism a major part

of the standard of being civilized within the framework of Western modernity. It is

true that this view has recently been challenged by both Western and non-Western

scholars from multiple perspectives. Most notable among these include the

Habermasian effort to redefine the public sphere as a liberal space of

accommodation of differences, the concept of multiple modernities proposed by

Eisenstadt, the idea of post-secularism proposed principally by Habermas and

Charles Taylor to make the public sphere open especially to religion, and last but not

least, propositions by scholars on the commensurability of Islam and modernity.

These latter scholars, unlike those who hold a rigid view of secularism or who seek to

find ways to enforce secularism within Islamic states, argue that countries with a

Introduction 6

Muslim majority can create a modern civilized identity despite the public presence of

Islam.

This thesis argues, however, that all of these propositions are flawed because they

do not question the concept of secularism per se. Most contemporary studies on

secularism simply accept the current understanding of secularism as a means of

securitizing religion, as theorized by some Enlightenment authors, and have set

about differentiating the different ways that secularism is practiced in America or in

Europe. However, secularism originally emerged as a method of accommodating

religious differences in a given society. It has gradually been transformed into the

idea of containing religion within a modernist framework, but both the coinage of

the term in English and the context in which it emerged have remained largely

unexplored. An examination of the historical evolution of both term and concept

indicates that what may be required is not so much a reinterpretation of current

understandings of secularism or its contexts, as the propositions outlined above set

out to do, but a restoration of its original intention. Another view of secularism other

than the current restricted one is therefore possible: secularism as a way of

accommodating religious differences by maintaining state neutrality on the religious

choices and practices of citizens. This understanding of secularism carries no hidden

link between being modern and being civilized, and has the potential to resolve

some of the dilemmas posed by the need of modern Islamic states to include religion

in the public sphere.

The apparent resurgence of Islamism in the wake of 9/11 has significant implications

for countries with Muslim majorities that wish to be recognized as both civilized and

modern. Islamism is however not a new phenomenon and has been popularized in

the academia since the 1970s, especially in the wake of the subsequent Arab-Israeli

wars. Nonetheless, just as the period of decolonization saw a frenzied emulation of

Westernization in the form of industrialization and development more generally,

9/11 has created an equally frenzied atmosphere in which religion has come to be

seen as a basic impediment to modernity. This is demonstrated in claims made by

Introduction 7

academics and political commentators alike about the ‘global resurgence of religion’

as an ‘unsecularization of the world’.9 However, there are wider implications that

require a review of the concept of secularism for the West as well, as localized

conflicts in relation to Muslim integration in Western countries indicate.10 These

conflicts raise questions not just regarding ‘the efficacy of … the ‘Muslim’ state, but

[about] the ‘European liberal/social democratic’, secular state’ too,11 particularly as

an ideal state model for others to emulate.

In the face of such challenges, some countries with Muslim majorities have insisted

on their identity as not only modern but as also based on non-Western values. For

example, the projection of Malaysian identity in the wake of 9/11 by Dr Mahathir

Mohammad is as ‘a powerful, disciplined and learned nation that could defend itself

and Islam’.12 Moreover, Malaysia’s active promotion of so-called ‘Asian values’,

which began before 9/11, also illustrates the aspiration of postcolonial countries in

general to project their cultural distinctiveness vis-à-vis the West. As Stephanie

Lawson has pointed out, the promotion of Asian values ‘operates to produce a

unified, nationalistic rallying point—and it differentiates the unified ‘us’ from the

external ‘them’‘.13 These projections have until now taken place within the

framework of modernity for the creation of an internal identity. This is demonstrated

in the transformation of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim from a

‘charismatic fundamentalist’ in the 1980s to a ‘globalist liberal advocating reformasi

9 Jeffrey Haynes, “Religion and International Relations after ‘9/11’”, Review Article, Democratization, Vol. 12, No. 3, June 2005, p. 398-99. 10 Samina Yasmeen, “Muslim Minorities in the West: Spatially distant Trauma”, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, Vol. 35, Issue 4, 2011, p. 316. 11 J.A. Camilleri, “Europe between Islam and the United States: interests, identity and geopolitics”, Global Change, Peace & Security, Vol. 20. No. 1, February 2008, p. 14; emphasis added. 12 Shanti Nair, Islam in Malaysia’s Foreign Policy, Routledge, 2002, p. 92. 13 Stephanie Lawson, “Cultural Relativism and Democracy: Political Myths about ‘Asia’ and the ‘West’”, Richard Robison (ed), Pathways to Asia: Politics of Engagement, Allen and Unwin, 1996, p. 121.

Introduction 8

(reform)’ in the late 1990s.14 However, the responses that have emerged in the wake

of 9/11, especially from Southeast countries with Muslim majority populations, now

promote commensurability between modernity and Islam, an important feature of

which is embodied in a commitment to ‘the equal treatment of all religions by the

state and freedom of religion and conscience’.15 Such views reject Orientalist

perspectives that see Islam as a hindrance to modern development. Rather, they are

precisely about creating a modern state that is imbued with Islamic values and

culture.16 However, elites in Turkey and Bangladesh have continued to promote a

dyadic understanding of the secular versus the religious. Secularism here is viewed

through a particularly narrow prism that predicates a public sphere free of religion,

even though this kind of secularism is rarely followed so rigidly in the West itself. It is

this that is creating the significant tensions around identity in both countries in the

wake of 9/11.

Neo-realist IR focuses on states’ actions to the exclusion of identity issues and

moreover provides a hegemonic understanding of global affairs from a Western

point of view. More nuanced studies of non-Western political developments are

therefore needed to better understand these kinds of dilemmas in international

politics. It has, therefore, been necessary to build the argument of the thesis on the

research of the constructivist school in IR, which argues on sociological grounds for

the recognition that identity and self-esteem can be driving forces of a state’s

policies. A broad-based approach to IR is required so that events such as 9/11 and

the resurgence of religion are not just seen (and ignored or misunderstood) through

the prism of realism and liberalism. Constructivism’s view is that socially constructed

interests have significance. Despite being also Western in origin, constructivism is

14 John L. Esposito and John O. Voll, “Islam and the West: Muslim Voices of Dialogue”, Pavlos Hatzopoulos and Fabio Petito (eds.), Religion in International Relations: The Return from Exile, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, p. 243. 15 Lily Zubaidah Rahim, “Introduction: The Spirit of Wasatiyyah Democracy”, Lily Zubaidah Rahim (ed), Muslim Secular Democracy: Voices from Within, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, p. 11. 16 For details, see, John L. Esposito and John O. Voll, “Islam and the West.”

Introduction 9

therefore able to address questions relating to state identity as the basis of a state’s

actions because it recognizes culture as a significant motivating force. This approach

provides a means of understanding the process of internal identity construction that

has been occurring in Turkey and Bangladesh, but also allows consideration of the

impact on these states of the securitization of religious identity and the construction

of Islam as ‘other’ within the West whereby Islam is considered an impediment to

the development of a modern nation-state.

It is, of course, problematic to categorize either Islam or the West as a singular

formation. However, it is also impossible to avoid all generalizations. The ‘Islamic

World’ generally refers to countries with Muslim majority populations. ‘The West’

generally refers to the countries of North America, Europe, Australia and New

Zealand. It is also commonly accepted that the West is dominated by the United

States.17 This thesis takes these understandings as a working definition.

The Central Argument

The argument of the thesis is that secularism has emerged as a new standard of

civilization since 9/11. This has left a critical imprint on the identities of Muslim

majority countries. Islamic countries are now seen by many in the West, especially

conservatives, not just as rejecting (Western) modernity through their association

with terrorism but as remaining resolutely barbaric. The challenge to Islamic

countries, according to this view, is to mount a claim to be reconsidered as part of

what R.P. Anand has described as the ‘family of civilized states’.18 Furthermore, they

must do this by taking into account the Western normative discourse of what

constitutes modernity because it has been this discourse that has set the terms of

the debate. Although standards of civilization are subjective in nature, 9/11 has

17Jan A. Ali, Islamic Revivalism Encounters the Modern World: A Study of the Tabligh Jamaat, Sterling Publishers Private Limited, 2012, p. 266. 18 R.P. Anand, “Family of “Civilized” States and Japan: A Story of Humiliation, Assimilation, Defiance and Confrontation”,Journal of the History of International Law, Vol. 5. 2003.

Introduction 10

brought about an aggressive reassertion of the hegemonic symbols of Western

modernity. This has come to limit the possibilities for Islamic countries to express

alternative modern identities by essentializing the civilizational dimensions of

Western modernity. This discourse has gone beyond the question of religion’s

compatibility with modernity to depict an anti-civilizational image of collective and

even individual religious identities, primarily by linking them with terrorism. At the

same time, the discourse of modernity is itself perceived as having a civilizational

character, so that in order to be recognized as a modern, civilized polity by the West,

a state must also appear to be areligious.

However, within that discourse, the concept of secularism is not comprehensively

defined and in any case is practiced in different manners and to different degrees in

different Western countries. As a result, some countries with Muslim majorities,

under the influence of Western-educated elites, have borrowed a restrictive and

assertive definition of secularism that is essentially areligious or anti-religious in

nature. These countries have specifically developed a religiophobia in their quest to

become modern. Both Turkey and Bangladesh show that when secularism is

considered a marker of a modern state, religion necessarily becomes a ‘problem’

regardless of its place in the everyday life of the population. However, they also

show that this position cannot be sustained. Popular demands for the recognition of

a country’s fundamental Islamic roots cannot be ignored even within the rhetoric of

Western modernization because freedom and democratic rights are part of that

rhetoric.

The thesis explores the historical context of the rise of secularism and compares this

original conception with the restricted understanding of secularism asserted by both

Turkey and Bangladesh—two non-Western countries that have most explicitly

embraced the areligious conception of secularism that is currently taken to be the

ideal. It asks whether a secularism capable of accommodating religion would address

the divisions that are appearing in these two countries as democratization, itself a

modern Western ideal to be strived for by modernizing states, produces a popular

Introduction 11

demand for the incorporation of Islam into the political lives of these states. It goes

on to consider whether a revised understanding of secularism could also perhaps

address the divisions that are beginning to appear in Western states grappling with

the influx of Muslim immigrants and a growing religious adherence to Islam amongst

their homegrown populations. It adds that some Islamic concepts, such as Islamic

fundamentalism, shariah or hijab, are widely misunderstood in the Western media

and that this has contributed to the birth of a distinct kind of Islamophobia. The

thesis argues that the solution to these dilemmas is to embrace a more expansive

conception of secularism, one that entails tolerance and the accommodation of

religious difference. However, this is an understanding of secularism that is largely

absent in theory and sometimes in practice, despite the actual practice of secularism

in Western states being more of a quasi-secularism than the dichotomized version

that has been embraced as Western by both Turkey and Bangladesh.

Secularism as a Standard of Civilization

In his seminal work on the ‘standard of civilization’, Gerrit W. Gong points out how

the adoption by non-European states of European political systems has always

required them to adopt certain European values as a precondition of being

recognized as a civilized state.19 These values have been far from areligious. They

have been developed on the basis of international customary law since the middle of

the nineteenth century and are rooted in the mores of Christendom. They required

that, internally, a state is to guarantee basic freedoms to its citizens, and externally,

it is to act in a ‘civilized’ manner towards other actors in the international system.

Gong argues that while there were some basic defining characteristics constituting

standards of civilization that all might agree on, it was a subjective understanding of

the concept that included the idea of ‘equal rights for all civilized men’.20 However,

this particular construction became conflicted in relation to colonialism. The more

19 Gerrit W. Gong, The Standard of Civilization in International Society, Clarendon Press, 1984. 20 Ibid, p. 52.

Introduction 12

that Europeans encountered people different from themselves, the more they were

convinced of their own cultural distinctiveness and superiority.21 This gave rise to the

idea that other nations needed to achieve certain European standards prior to their

admission to the family of civilized nations. Embedded within the concept of

civilization therefore was a nineteenth century understanding of the political and

cultural superiority of (Christian) Europe vis-à-vis others. As Andrew Linklater has

pointed out, this meant that cultural differentiation per se became the marker for

indicating whether one was civilized or the opposite—barbaric and savage,22 with

‘[f]ew in the West ever fully appreciat[ing] the deep-seated humiliation which

resulted when individuals and societies, highly cultured according to their own

standards of ‘civilization’, were ridiculed as ‘uncivilized’‘.23 To be a modern, civilized

state in these terms included having a separation between religion and the state

since that was a distinguishing feature of European identity at the time. Although

this requirement to be secular was almost incidental to the conception of being

civilized in this regard, it explains why 9/11 has had such an impact on the civilization

discourse: it dramatically brought religion back as an issue for states aspiring to

modernity.24

This has had a significant impact not just on relationships between Islamic states and

the West, but on Islamic countries themselves because it has brought about a

resurgence of the long-standing belief both in academia and by policy-makers alike

21 This view has been exemplified in the works of many authors. Some notables would be: Norbert Elias, The Civilising Process: the History of Manners and State Formation and Civilization, translated by Edmund Jephcott, Blackwell Publishers, 1994; Emile Benveniste, Problems in General Linguistics, translated by Elizabeth Meek, University of Miami Press, 1971; Emile Durkheim, M. Mauss and Benjamin Nelson, “Note on the Notion of Civilization”, Social Research: Critical Perspectives on the Social Sciences, Vol. 38, No. 4, Winter 1971; Jurgen Habermas and E.B. Ashton, “Why more Philosophy?”, Social Research: Critical Perspectives on the Social Sciences, Vol. 38, No. 4, Winter 1971. 22 Andrew Linklater, “Civilizations and International Society”, located at <http://www.e-ir.info/2013/05/03/civilizations-and-international-society/>, accessed on October 11, 2013. 23 Gerrit Gong, The Standard of Civilization in International Society, p. 13. 24 Habibul Haque Khondker,”The Curious Case of Secularism in Bangladesh: What is the Relevance For The Muslim Majority Democracies?”, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2010, p. 187.

Introduction 13

in the West that Islam and Islamic countries are both pre-modern and barbaric,

especially in the wake of 9/11. This outlook has primitivized modern Islamic identity,

as Francis Fukuyama’s statement illustrates:

[T]here does seem to be something about Islam, or at least the

fundamentalist versions of Islam that have been dominant in recent

years, that makes Muslim societies particularly resistant to

modernity… We remain at the end of history because there is only

one system that will continue to dominate world politics, that of the

liberal-democratic west.25

This primitivization suggests that Islamic majority countries will have difficulty re-

entering the broad category of ‘civilized countries’ unless they repudiate what is

essential to their identity. To remain Islamic, they must find a way of blending Islamic

values with modernity in order to project an identity that is acceptable to them.

One Muslim majority country that has taken up this challenging project in a way that

does not appear to truncate its identity is Indonesia. Article 29 of its 1945

Constitution states:

The state is based on one God and the state guarantees the freedom

of each citizen to adhere to his/her own religion and pray based on

his/her religion or belief.

Thus, there has been a coexistence of religion and secularism institutionalized in the

Indonesian constitution. This way of meeting the challenge of blending religious

values with modernity has been successful for Indonesia because it is rooted in

upholding its ethnic ideals and blending them with its religious ideals. Indonesian

Islam thus upholds a unique Southeast Asian brand of the syncretistic tradition,

25 Francis Fukuyama, “The West has Won?” The Guardian, October 11, 2001, located at <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/11/afghanistan.terrorism30>, accessed on October 22, 2013.

Introduction 14

which makes this blending possible.26 Clifford Geertz has termed this ‘abangan’ Islam

– the embedding of ethnic values into religious practices.27 Although there has been

a growing tendency towards Islamization in the society, Indonesia has managed to

remain a unique society in which religious political parties have not been able to

draw popular support.28 Indonesia’s example is vital here because the state has not

taken up secularism as a defining tool of its modern identity. As the case studies in

this thesis will show, imposing secularism as such a defining tool, especially when it

is an emaciated form of secularism, can cause great damage. Although Bangladesh

also indigenized Islam, the state’s overemphasis on a limited version of secularism

has created continued cleavages in its society.

Malaysia, too, has embraced the challenge of blending Islamic values with a

modernizing project. Here, Islamization has been primarily a state-led development.

The major political party UMNO (United Malays National Organisation) has blended

Islam with modernization in a manner that has allowed Malaysia to stand as a

successful case of being a Muslim majority country ‘defined in terms of progress,

development and civilized practices’.29 Other Muslim-majority states, however, have

not been so successful. Once again in the case of Bangladesh and Turkey, it will be

shown that countries that have embraced a conception of modernization that

includes a restrictive understanding of secularism have had this embrace backfire on

them.

The framework of modernity in which postcolonial states operated provided room

for a critique of that framework because the Western discourse of modernity itself

26 Sadanand Dhume, “Indonesian lessons for secular India”, Times of India, November 22, 2009, located at <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-times/all-that-matters/Indonesian-lessons-for-secular-India/articleshow/5256318.cms>, accessed on July 12, 2015. 27 Clifford Geertz, The Religion of Java, Glencoe, Illinoise: Free Press, 1960. 28Andreas Ufen, “Mobilising Political Islam: Indonesia andMalaysia Compared”, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, Vol. 47, No. 3, 2009. 29 Syed Imtiaz Ahmed, “Modernity, Identity and Recognition: Malaysia in the Post 9/11 World Politics”, located at <www.asianscholarship.org/asf/AnnualFellows/July3_4/SYEDIM~1.DOC>, accessed on July 12, 2015.

Introduction 15

opens the door to challenges to its own projects. This meant that the logic of

postcolonial resistance did not require a complete rejection of Western values and

ideas. Rather, it was able to represent them in innovative ways, as a blend of the

model of modernity provided by the colonizer, the ‘mother’ country, and the

postcolonial country’s own distinct features. This is not to say that constructing a

nation has not been challenging when the national liberation struggle has had to be

carried out against a former colonial power. National projects of constructing

‘otherness’ have also had to emphasize the distinctiveness of native culture as

opposed to that of the colonizer. However, these projects were already underway

during the pre-independence era, when they were consciously employed against the

territorial administrative unit of the old colony to demand a liberated space in the

community of states. Once liberation was achieved, the ‘imagining’ of a unique

community was already in place to justify a separate and independent identity. It

needed only to come into action across a wider spectrum—sometimes as a broad

cultural project—to create a distinctive state identity. Once an ‘equal’ member of

the community of states, the imagined community that championed modernity as

well as distinctive national characteristics in order to distinguish itself from the

mother country justified the new state’s existence as a separate national entity while

creating a sense of belonging and attachment for its people.

Islamic countries face many of the same identity challenges as post-colonial states as

they grapple with the influence of modernity, but post-9/11 international political

rhetoric has imposed an additional unique challenge for identity creation in Islamic

countries because it has separated/excluded Islam from modern civilization in a way

that depicts Islam as essentially evil. The War on Terror, for instance, was not just

declared as being between the modern world and the pre-modern world. It was

declared by figures such as George W. Bush to be a war between good and evil in

which ‘the good’ was composed of modern nation-states that were once again

struggling to defend the values of modern civilization against ‘the bad’, anti-

civilizational forces of religious extremism. This discourse has created the concept of

Introduction 16

an ‘international other’ in which Islamic countries are faced with international

alienation and a loss of esteem in the eyes of other members of the community of

states, including postcolonial states that have also had to struggle to establish a

modern identity, on the basis of morality.

The events of 9/11 have also been coupled with the rise of Islamophobia in the

West, so that Muslim ‘fundamentalism’ has become the principle threat to present-

day global peace and security, equated to the threats that had emanated from

Nazism and fascism in the 1930s and from communism in the 1950s.30 In Western

Europe, Islamophobia and xenophobia have grown hand in hand in response to a

growth in the migration of Muslims from all around the world. Although research

shows that Islamophobia existed in the West prior to 9/11, the attacks have

exacerbated the situation.31 A fresh look at Islamism therefore is needed to redefine

a secular space where religion is capable of co-existing with secular ideals.

Like postcolonial countries before them, in order to attain their objective of

recognition and to resist and deflect misrecognition, some Islamic societies are

attempting to formulate a ‘resistance identity’ that seeks to change or at least

modify the global discourse of modernity by reinventing and adding local elements.32

However, this means that when aspects of Islamic identity are incorporated into the

negotiation process of reinventing a specifically modern identity, religion must also

necessarily be incorporated. The creation of a resistance identity for an Islamic

country can be achieved in multiple ways. For instance, it can be achieved through

the rejection of the stigmatization of alternative modern identities, or by negotiating

the country’s position as a modern state within a framework of global modernity in a

30 John L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 235. 31 Ariane Chebel D’Appollonia and Simon Reich, “Quandaries of Integration in America and Europe: An Introduction”, Ariane Chebel D’Appollonia and Simon Reich (eds.), Managing Ethnic Diversity after 9/11: Integration, Security, and Civil Liberties in Transatlantic Perspective, Rutgers University Press, 2010, p. 4. 32 The concept of ‘resistance identity’ is popularly attributed to Manuel Castells. See, Manuel Castells, The Power of Identity, Blackwell Publishers, 1997.

Introduction 17

way that reconstructs modernity as a synthesis of both eastern and western norms

and values. However, it cannot eliminate religion. Yet one of the stumbling blocks to

achieving a modern image for such societies appears to be precisely the inability or

unwillingness to institute secularism.

Turkey has recently proposed that secularism be interpreted less rigidly – as neither

anti-religious nor areligious. Rather, secularism could mean the accommodation of

religion. Bangladesh, on the other hand, maintains secularism in its areligious

meaning due to its value in helping to achieve a specific Bengali identity in the 1950s

and 1960s against the Islamic identity imposed by Pakistan. Nevertheless, religion is

regularly used for political ends in Bangladesh’s internal politics, which questions the

very concept of secularism. Neither country is proposing to dispense with

secularism. Nor do they appear to be trying to move towards an Indonesian or

Malaysian solution to the problem. The reason for this is that the tussle between the

seculars and the religious has created permanent damage in the conception of

modernity and secularism itself. The struggle to redefine secularism therefore has to

address the root cause of why secularism has been used strategically or politically

since these strategic or political uses have required Turkey and Bangladesh to

embrace the securitization of religion that an idealized understanding of secularism

offers. However, this means that religion is perceived as a ‘problem’. It is this issue

that needs to be revisited, as this thesis argues.

The Securitization of Religion and the Construction of Threat

As the nation-state system originally emerged in relation to religious feuds in

Europe, the general understanding in Western political theory has been that the

political sphere should be kept free of the influence of religion. In other words, there

should be clear and designated spheres for politics and religion so that state

institutions can operate free of religious ideologies. This arrangement is referred to

as secularism. This technical separation between politics and religion is not always

practiced even in its place of origin, the West. Religion is often implicitly and

Introduction 18

sometimes even explicitly, embedded in state practices in Western countries.

Nevertheless, secularism has come to stand as a principal criterion for determining

which countries are modern and which are not. As a consequence, elites in many

non-Western countries have, in their aspirations to create a modern state identity,

tried to impose secularism, often in a very crude form and without considering their

own geo-historical and cultural specificities. As Elizabeth Shakman Hurd has

observed, ‘[s]ecularism is taken as given’ in efforts to achieve a modern state.33

The revisiting of secularism in IR theory in particular is also necessary because it is

not just modernity that has been interpreted as areligious because of its

entwinement with secularity. As the concept of the sovereign state emerged out of

the altercation with religious authority in the West, political sovereignty too has

been predicated as secular for both Western and non-Western nation-states alike.

The concept of sovereignty therefore has become so entwined with secularity that it

too has come to be seen in IR as an areligious concept and subsequently become

reified. That is, as the European practice of keeping political power out of religious

control gradually succeeded, the idea that sovereign power must remain out of

religious control was translated into a concrete idea to be emulated to create the

state system. The secularity of sovereignty, therefore, has come to be considered as

beyond contestation: it is an axiomatic truth applicable to the supreme political

organization, the state. This has implications for how impervious to interference the

sovereignty of a state can be if that state comes to be considered as neither secular

nor modern. As will be seen from the two case studies, the stakes are high for

disentangling these powerful concepts and re-establishing secularity as a separate

concept that could be drawn on specifically for managing the place of religion within

a sovereign state, regardless of questions of modernity. Since 9/11, they have

become even higher, with some Western states intervening in non-Western states

with Muslim majorities under highly contentious circumstances. In this context,

33 Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, p. 16.

Introduction 19

Acharya points out how the concept of ‘selective sovereignty’ has been employed

under the US War on Terror strategy especially against countries with Muslim

majorities on the grounds of fighting Islamic terrorism.34 Thus, ‘promoting a well-

ordered world of sovereign states’ stands out as a pretext to intervene in countries

that are supposed to be harboring Islamic terrorism.35 It also reinforces the belief

that the public role of religion can be harmful for the Westphalian system.

An examination of the history of secularism’s emergence as a political project aimed

at securitizing religion, however, indicates that secularism, or at least this view of it,

should not be taken as given, for it reveals that secularism need not require the

eradication of religion from the public sphere as the price of a modern, civilized

identity. The idea of the secular originally emerged as a means of creating a distance

between the government of a state and religion in order to accommodate the

religious differences of its citizenry rather than to eliminate religion from politics, as

the research shows in Chapter One. However, certain Enlightenment thinkers, with

their varied ideological orientations, extended their interest in the development of

reason and science to identify religion as a problem for modernity. They therefore

anticipated that modernity would usher in an era in which religion would eventually

disappear. For them, the secular thus entailed the eventual absence of religion, more

or less by default. The term secularism itself was coined much later. Recognition of

this history has led some recent theorists to challenge the Enlightenment view of the

secular as the absence of religion by insisting that secularism is essentially Christian

in nature because it emerged within Christian society as a means of managing

conflicts within Christianity. This revision of secularism seems to either allow for

religion in the public sphere, or suggest that secularism is simply not appropriate for

non-Christian societies. However, while secularism clearly did emerge from a

Christian experience, neither it nor secularity need be considered Christian principles.

34 Amitav Acharya, “State Sovereignty After 9/11: Disorganised Hypocrisy”, Political Studies, Vol. 55, 2007. 35 Ibid, p. 281.

Introduction 20

Regardless of its actual origins, though, what is evident is that the concept of

secularism has become both ideologically secularized and associated with

Christianity. As an ideology, secularism as the securitization of religion now stands as

a symbol of modernity for the ‘Rest’ because of its claims to have a civilizing

capacity. More importantly, since the secular was interpreted by key Enlightenment

figures as a means of securitizing religion when that religion was Christianity,

secularism has come to be seen as both associated with Christianity and as

containing an implicit assumption that religion itself is an impediment to the

development of modern reason and science and therefore to the development of a

modern political system, and must be therefore be securitized.36 This makes

secularism virtually impossible for Islamic societies to embrace. In this connection, it

can be pointed out that this dilemma is present in other non-Western countries as

well, especially in India. Indeed, a prominent Indian scholar has declared, ‘Secularism

is dead’.37 While some in the Indian context have argued that secularism in the

Indian political system is practicable by maintaining a principled distance by the state

from the religious practices of its citizenry, others insist that Western secularism

cannot be applicable in the Indian context due mainly to its top-down approach.38

Similarly, in the context of Bangladesh, some argue that the practice of secularism is

not possible in a country where people are overtly religious, despite Bangladesh’s

continuing insistence on its identity as a secular state.39

In looking at this history of secularism, the thesis will argue that although current

understandings of secularism cannot address the rising tensions over religion at both

36 The concept of securitization originally emerged in IR in the works of the Copenhagen School in the 1980s. The term relates to the way certain issues can be transformed into security problems, thereby justifying a security-oriented response. The Copenhagen School applied it to the way a threat could be constructed through speech acts and the dissemination of ideas. 37 Quoted in Shabnum Tejani, Indian Secularism: A Social and Intellectual History, 1890-1950, Indiana University Press, 2008, p. 1. 38 Ibid, pp. 8-9. 39 Amena Mohsin, “Don’t Politicise the Shah Bag Protest”, Tehelka.com, Issue. 11, Vol. 10, March 16, 2013, located at <http://www.tehelka.com/dont-politicise-the-shahbag-protest/>, accessed on July 24, 2013.

Introduction 21

intra-state and inter-state level in contemporary societies, understanding secularism

as a means of managing religious difference in a society as opposed to eradicating

religion from the public sphere may well enable secularism to play a part in

addressing these tensions, particularly as it would make secularism more palatable

to Muslims.

Such a reinterpretation is not only possible butbut also urgent. The events of 9/11

were not just catalytic for Islamic countries, but for Muslims in general. The crisis

over the Muslim image applies not just to Muslim majority countries but also to the

accommodation of Muslims within Western countries. With the increasing

deterritorialization of Muslims worldwide, a term that seems to have been made

popular by Olivier Roy in this context,40 Muslims have come to be considered as the

enemy within.41 The missing perspective here is the ability to understand how most

deterritorialized Muslims pursue a ‘construction of “rootedness”’ while living in

Western countries.42 That is, they reterritorialize their culture and religion in their

identity in the context of the new culture where they relocate themselves.

Reterritorialization is also not an Islamic phenomenon only. A number of examples

exist of how diaspora communities create a sense of rootedness in a new land that

they resettle, like Taiwanization, Japanization, or in the establishment of Chinatown.

The reterritorialization of Islam, therefore, is not the problem. The problem is how a

restricted understanding of secularism leads to religion being seen as a problem in

itself.

Moreover, additional questions can be raised for both the theory and practice of

International Relations. For instance, are democratically elected Islamist political

40 Olivier Roy, Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah, Hurst & Company, London, 2004, p. 304. 41 Bryan S. Turner, “New and Old Xenophobia: The Crisis of Liberal Multiculturalism”, Shahram Akbarzadeh and Fethi Mansouri (eds.), Islam and Political Violence: Muslim Diaspora and Radicalism in the West, Tauris Academic Studies, 2007. 42 Allaine Cerwonka, Native to the Nation: Disciplining Landscapes and Bodies in Australia, University of Minnesota Press, 2004, p. 2.

Introduction 22

actors in Muslim majority countries bringing Islam into politics? This question arises

because in a modern state, secularism specifically aims to prevent any particular

religion from influencing politics, however, religion may be so embedded culturally

that it cannot be separated from the political sphere. This is obviously true in Islamic

countries, but is also true in some Western countries. The masses in Islamic

countries are increasingly supporting Islamists politically because they not only

appear to offer better solutions to their problems, but they are also able to mix their

policies with key elements of the culture, thereby giving them a distinct identity vis-

à-vis others. However, the persistent embrace of a narrow understanding of

secularism in the name of modernity has led elites in some Islamic countries to ban

Islamists from politics because they bring religion into the public sphere. Yet

Islamists may be offering a moderated political choice to voters. This has certainly

been the case in Turkey and in Egypt where Islamists have been keen to show that

Islam and democracy are compatible. On the other hand, a rigid interpretation of

secularism aimed at eliminating religion from the public sphere can also be exploited

by Islamists, as was seen in Egypt when its Muslim Brotherhood circulated photos of

Osama bin Laden after its political wing was ousted from power.

The projection of a very narrow view of secularism and its forceful imposition on

Islamic societies by those pursuing modernity creates irreconcilable identity-based

conflicts in Muslim-majority countries that are increasingly dividing and

dichotomizing into secularists and religious groups. Bellah’s point about the power of

the past therefore makes it vital to revisit the way secularism has been

conceptualized in these countries, as well as how it has been politicized such that it

has come to be seen as opposed to religion:

Those moments which the spirit appears to have outgrown still

belong to it in the depths of its present. Just as it has passed through

Introduction 23

all its moments in history, so also must it pass through them again in

the present.43

This is where this thesis offers an original contribution to International Relations

theory. It analyzes how and why the concept of secularism and its creation of

religion as the essential ‘other’ of modernity needs to be revisited. Moreover,

drawing on examples from Turkey and Bangladesh, it shows how pervasive identity

politics is in the international sphere and how far state elites may go in the pursuit of

state esteem. Although approaches are varied, the desire for recognition as modern

has become a central priority, as the case studies on Turkey and Bangladesh

demonstrate. Moreover, the idea that states do prioritize identity over interests also

shows how international relations cannot be explained simply through the lenses of

realism or liberalism. Constructivist theory offers a better explanation because it

sees states as agents that work to achieve self-esteem in the eyes of other states. It

also suggests that this desire to achieve self-esteem is no minor wish: it is tied to a

state’s drive to ensure its ontological security vis-à-vis others. Ontological security is

about survival in a known and secured environment as per a state’s understanding of

that environment. Therefore, matters relating to identity politics are of utmost

importance for a state.

Taking two Muslim-majority countries as case studies, the thesis will show that

negative perceptions of Islam have been reinforced by the construction of Islam

from an Orientalist perspective by both the West and by some Islamic states. Both

Turkey and Bangladesh have adopted an official policy of secularism that has created

significant tensions in their respective societies. Although each has done it

differently, both countries have effectively securitized Islam. Turkey has securitized

Islam through a self-Orientalist lens in which it has adopted a Western view of Islam.

This perspective has been most clearly manifested in relation to the unveiling of

43 Robert Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution, p. ix.

Introduction 24

Muslim women as a way of projecting Western modernity and secularism. The

veiling of women is not just an Islamic religious practice but is part of Turkish culture

more generally, but the state has responded to a Western view of the practice. The

continued refusal by state elites to allow the expression of this local cultural practice

has, as a consequence, created a sharply divided society along the line of the

religious versus the secular—a ‘black versus white’ Turkey.44 The beginning of

identity construction in East Pakistan, which culminated in the establishment of the

state of Bangladesh, also securitized religion by deemphasizing religious identity in

order to promote the ethno-linguistic identity of Muslim Bengalis. In both cases, the

downgrading of religion has either been rejected by the masses or led to the

reincorporation of religion in a novel manner.

The thesis argues that instead of clinging to a notion of secularism as the creation of

a public sphere devoid of religion, both Turkey and Bangladesh would be better

served by adopting a conception of secularism that features the accommodation of

religious differences within a sphere of state neutrality—as Erdogan’s Turkey is

proposing to do so. While the new Turkey wants to accommodate women veiling

themselves as a ‘choice’, the rise of hijab in Bangladesh, especially among the elites,

is creating a continuous social tension that has been wrongfully marked as a rise of

Islamic extremism. The thesis argues that, seen as an accommodation of religious

differences within a sphere of state neutrality—Holyoake’s original definition of

secularism—secularism has the capacity to reduce tension within Muslim majority

countries while at the same time addressing the debate on what constitutes being

civilized, because it would allow Islam to coexist within the framework of modernity

in Muslim majority countries in the form of a ‘religious secularity’, a concept first

proposed by Naser Ghobadzadeh.45 In this understanding, religion and state stay in

44 In Turkey, state elites are considered to be the military and the bureaucracy, and a separate category to political elites. 45 Naser Ghobadzadeh, Religious Secularity: A Theological Challenge to the Islamic State, Oxford University Press, 2013.

Introduction 25

separate sphere yet Islam need not to be securitized. Ghobadzadeh particularly

contends that Islam can be included into the democratic principles of a state.46 The

thesis argues that this is the crucial starting point for any productive discussion on

secularism. While Ghobadzadeh has pointed out that Islamic fundamentalism and

secularism are not to be regarded as mutually exclusive categories,

analyznganalyzing the case studies, this thesis adds that this would only be possible

when religion is not securitized as a threat. It is, nevertheless, a step that recent

work on secularism in IR has overlooked.

Conceptual Framework: Who is International Relations For?

The task of social science is to understand human behaviour in all its social settings.

Nevertheless, IR as an academic field has primarily aimed at providing a better

understanding of relationships between states. Established to study ways to prevent

the outbreak of inter-state war and to lessen human misery after the end of World

War I, the study of IR has taken the centrality of the state and especially sovereignty

as key characteristics of the international system and of international society. This is

evident in the traditional theories of the discipline—realism and liberalism—

although the liberal school accepts non-state actors as relevant too. On the question

of sovereignty and the state-system, however, there is no compromise.

This raises the question of who international relations is for? This question has arisen

through the attempt to use critical theories of IR to understand why countries with

Muslim majority populations would seek to renegotiate their identity as ‘civilized’.

The critical school questions the assumptions of neo-realism for their heavy reliance

on structure as the determining factor for understanding state actions. Constructivist

approaches point out that we live in a world of shared understanding.47 That is,

‘everyday, local place making is connected to, and indeed produces, the nation and

46 Naser Ghobadzadeh, “Religious secularity”. 47 Nicholas Greenwood Onuf, World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations, University of South Carolina Press, 1989.

Introduction 26

the international order’.48 This means that structure alone cannot compel a state to

take a certain decision. Instead, it is the multiplicity of actors within a state as well as

in the international sphere that can dominate a state’s decisions. Therefore, values,

norms and identities are driving factors that will contribute to a state’s decision-

making processes.

Within the broader spectrum of critical theories, both constructivism and

securitization theories have provided ways of approaching the issues that engage

this study. Constructivism offers the most valuable framework in explaining who

international relations is for because it focuses on ideational rather than just

material perspectives, and it explains the importance of identity, esteem, etc. in

international politics.49 Broadly, constructivism argues that ideas create reality. The

reality of international relations is therefore what states make of it, the ideas that

they have about it. That is, the international is a socially constructed rather than a

given phenomenon. This means that what constitutes a threat in international

relations, for instance, will be whatever other states decide it is, through a shared

understanding of ideas and actions. This is where the securitization approach is

48 Allaine Cerwonka, Native to the Nation: Disciplining Landscapes and Bodies in Australia, University of Minnesota Press, 2004, p. 47. 49 For key texts on constructivism, see, Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1999; Vendulka Kubalkova, Nicholas Onuf and Paul Kowert (eds.), International Relations in a Constructed World, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, New York, 1998; Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, “Taking Stock: The Constructivist Research Program in International Relations and Comparative Politics”, Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2001; Alexander Wendt, “Constructing International Politics”, International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1, Summer 1995; Wendt, Alexander, “Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power politics”, International Organisation, Vol. 46, No. 2, Spring 1992; Erik Ringmar, Identity, Interest and Action: A Cultural Explanation of Sweden’s Intervention in the Thirty Years War; Cambridge University Press, 2008; Nicholas Greenwood Onuf, World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations, University of South Carolina Press, 1989; J. G. Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity: Essays on International Institutionalization, Routledge, 1998; Jutta Weldes, Constructing National Interests: The United States and the Cuban Missile Crisis, University of Minnesota Press, 1999; Karen Fierke, Critical Approaches to International Security, Polity Press, 2007; Yosef Lapid and Fruedrich Kratochil (eds.), The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory, Lynne Reiner Publishers Inc., 1996.

Introduction 27

useful: ideas are reinforced through the material happenings around them.50

Merging the conceptual frameworks of securitization with constructivism,

international politics can be seen as a process of construction that uses both material

and ideational elements to generate security-oriented responses to phenomena that

have come to be perceived as threats. These two perspectives allow the processes of

modernization in Bangladesh and Turkey to be considered as forms of identity

construction in response to ideas about the ‘proper’ identity of states in a modern

world. The point is that the ideas of both the state and the international community

play a critical role in determining what kinds of interests a state comes to see as

critical not just to its physical security but to its security as that particular, unique

‘personality’.

Thesis Outline

The thesis has seven substantive chapters. Chapter One focuses on the historical

emergence of the concept of secularism. It argues that the term has been highly

politicized first by a number of Enlightenment thinkers ideologically committed to

the promotion of reason and science and later by contemporary theorists and

political figures alike. As a result, secularism has come to stand as an anti-religious

and Western concept associated with societies with a Christian heritage that is used

to reinforce Western superiority vis-à-vis the ‘Rest’. This understanding can and

should be contested, based on the history of the evolution of the concept.

The following four chapters deal with the two case studies—Turkey and Bangladesh.

Chapter Two looks at Turkey’s national as well as international identity construction

and its effort to ‘become European’. It investigates how the identity of ‘Turk’ was

created through the imposition of European ideals on a traditional Muslim society.

While Turkey struggles internally to blend its Ottoman-Muslim heritage with its

50 Barry Buzan, Ole Waever, Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998; Columba Peoples and Nick Vaughan-Williams, Critical Security Studies: An Introduction, Routledge, 2010;

Introduction 28

European identities (elaborated in Chapter Four), its external identity projection

remains essentially European/Western. However, European responses, especially by

conservatives, to Turkey’s bid to join the EU have essentially created Turkey as

Europe’s other. These responses highlight one of the central themes of this thesis:

that Islam as a binary creation of the West reinforces the West’s own created

identity and vice versa.

Chapter Three deals with the rise of Islamist elements in Turkey’s internal politics. It

traces the recent debate on the rise of the pro-Islamic AK Party and its consolidation

of power through popular mandate. Islamic elements were suppressed through the

Kemalist reformist ideology. Nonetheless, the persistence of the AK Party shows that

Islam and modernity can co-exist within a democratic framework. The chapter once

again raises the debate over the secular-religious binary to argue that secularism

does not necessarily mean the absence of religion. Rather, a democratic plurality

can, and should, provide freedom of religious expression. This may necessitate a

move towards the creation of a post-secular society for Turkey.

Chapter Four traces the development of Bangladesh’s troubled identity from an

historical perspective. The construction of identity in Bangladesh is fundamentally

linked with the division of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. The transformation of a

Pakistani identity into a distinct Bengali identity reflects how identity was, at first,

conceived from a secular perspective in Bangladesh specifically in denial of the

Partition of 1947. The driving force of secular Bengali nationalism in the 1960s

ultimately provided the momentum for the War of Independence in 1971. While the

division of the sub-continent was based on religion, religion lost its appeal due to the

manner of its implementation by the West Pakistani elite in East Pakistan, forcing

independence fighters into endorsing secularism by default.

Chapter Five explores how religion re-entered Bangladeshi politics immediately after

independence in 1971, and how it has since been used politically by different

political parties. Secularism continues to be used in political jargon in Bangladesh.

Introduction 29

However, underneath this jargon, the state has been transformed into a multi-

theocracy in which the state actively promotes the expression of religion, especially

Islam. At the same time, secularism has benefited Islamic parties, which portray it as

an attempt to de-Islamize the country. De-Islamization has come to be perceived as

a threat by the popular masses. In the light of recent political events in Bangladesh,

this chapter argues that religion has repeatedly been used as a political tool by that

state, even as it vacillates between a secular Bengali identity and an Islamic

Bangladeshi identity. This dichotomy, while present since the birth of Bangladesh as

an independent country, has been especially reinforced in the wake of 9/11 when it

was termed as a ‘moderate’ Muslim country by the United Nations.

Chapter Six provides a comparative analysis of the two case studies, informed by the

addition of primary material gathered through interview.51 It shows how the AK Parti

has been successful in providing a post-secular option for the people of Turkey. In

this case, post-secularism means the accommodation of religion in the public sphere.

However, the AK Parti is still not trusted in Turkish politics due to its pro-Islamic

background. There remains a lack of faith in any political party with a religious

background. On the other hand, the inability to provide a post-secular option in

Bangladesh has led to the rise of extremist Islam-based political parties. With the rise

of these parties, the proponents of secularism have indiscriminately used religion

too. Here, the inner contradiction about ‘what secularism entails’ has led to the

political misuse of religion itself.

Chapter Seven considers Jürgen Habermas’ and Charles Taylor’s propositions on

post-secularism, along with Rajeev Bhargava’s concept of multiple secularisms. On

the basis of these considerations, the chapter goes on to explore existing attempts

by Islamic scholars to blend Islam and modernity. Citing examples from other

51 In Bangladesh, eight experts were interviewed. A further five experts were interviewed in Turkey. The interviews were based on a set of open-ended questions. (See Appendices 1 to 3 for details). Unfortunately, the material on Turkey was lost in Istanbul and there was insufficient time to redo the interviews so this material could not be used as specifically as the Bangladeshi interview material.

Introduction 30

countries with Muslim majorities, and on the basis of the findings of the two case

studies, the chapter then proposes a reconceptualization of secularism so that it can

accommodate religion in its body politic. However, this new understanding of

religion requires the modern fear of religion to be challenged so that Muslim

majority countries who seek to use Islam as an essential component of their identity

are not automatically seen as expressing religious extremism.

The thesis concludes by pointing out that the reification of both secularism and

sovereignty as areligious concepts has led post-colonial states and some countries

with Muslim majorities to avow secularism in its idealized sense, in which religion is

perceived as a threat to pluralism. This understanding of secularism denies the role

of culture that is embedded within religious practices in these societies. A continual

tension is therefore created between the modern and the non-modern in these

states. This tension is increased in countries with Muslim majorities that have yet to

embrace the idea of multiple modernities. Their attempts to suppress their religious

identity in the name of a singular modernity have led to the rise of Islamism in their

countries.

Method: in making this argument, the thesis has made use of both primary and

secondary materials. Key expert interviews have been used to gain an insight into

contemporary views on secularism and its application in both countries. Qualitative

research based on textual analysis has been used in order to provide an original

interpretation of the historical understanding of secularism. A comparative analysis

of the two case studies in which ‘secularism’ was the explanatory element has

allowed generalizations to be made about the specific way secularism has been dealt

with in non-Western countries, especially those with Muslim majorities. While on

the surface there would seem to be very few similarities between Turkey and

Bangladesh other than both having a Muslim majority population, focusing on the

way secularism has been practiced in both these countries has enabled a broader

understanding of the relationship between society and politics. In this way, the

thesis makes an original contribution to the production of knowledge in

Introduction 31

International Relations theory in at least two ways. First, it points out how an

assertive conception of secularism promotes an understanding of secularism as

being anti-religious. It demonstrates that because of modernity’s entwinement with

secularism, modernity too has come to be considered as anti-religious in nature.

Moreover, since secularism as anti-religious is being increasingly used as a

determinant of civilization, the ‘Rest’ is being constructed as uncivilized in relation to

the West. To paraphrase a Bangladeshi commentator, 9/11 has brought back the old

question of ‘whether religion has a place in modern life or not’, a phenomenon he

terms the ‘curious case of secularism’.52

Second, the thesis reveals that secularism originated as a way to accommodate

religious differences and to contain the politicized use of religion. This in no way

requires the complete removal of religion from public life. This means that recent

scholarship that has sought to drop the concept altogether on the grounds that it

promotes a dyadic construction of the secular and the religious as mutually exclusive

concepts is mistaken. The mistake lies in the unquestioning acceptance of the

understanding of the concept as it has become reified in both the theory and

practice of international relations. By regarding this understanding as a constructed

and politicized conception open to contestation, the thesis opens the door to a

different understanding of secularism. As Nietzche is said to have observed: ‘[a]ll

things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time

is a function of power not truth’.53 There is nothing fixed and eternal in the

contemporary interpretation of secularism as an areligious concept aimed at

securitizing religion in the name of modernity and civilization, and it is time for it to

change.

52 Habibul Haque Khondker,”The Curious Case of Secularism in Bangladesh”. 53 Friedrich Nietzche, quoted in Andrea Cornwall, “Buzzwords and Fuzzwords: Deconstructing Development Discourse”, Development in Practice, Vol. 17, No. 4-5, August, 2007, p. 471.

Chapter 1

Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’

As Christianity first travelled from Jerusalem towards its western frontier, multiple

varieties of the religion emerged. Attempts to construct a ‘true religion’ were made

at different times, eventually culminating in the Protestant Reformation and the

Thirty Years’ War in Europe. While these events primarily involved Catholics and

Protestants, different denominations emerged from among the Protestants, each

asserting their own interpretation of Christianity. The subsequent problems of

intolerance and the desire to find a way out of religious wars in Europe gave rise to

the idea that with modernity’s advance there would or should be a ‘disenchantment'

of the world that would bring about religion’s retreat. The concept of the secular

was seen as crucial to instigating this retreat. Religion was thus explicitly identified as

a ‘problem’ for the development of a modern polity, a contention that will be

challenged in this thesis.

Initially the conception of the secular espoused by some Enlightenment thinkers, in

accordance with their concept of liberty, involved the accommodation of religious

choices. This understanding was gradually replaced by a conception in which religion

came to be identified as an impediment to the development of modernity and

therefore needed to be contained rather than accommodated. Consequently,

conventional secularization theories now argue for the elimination of religion from

the public sphere. Secularity in its present application is assumed to require not just

a separation between the state and religion, but a relegation of religion to private

life.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 34

The present scholarship on disenchantment now takes it for granted that religious

battles were eliminated by this ‘seal[ing] public life from religious doctrines’.1 This

assumption is grounded in theories of modernity that asserted that the rise of

science and reason would inevitably contain and ultimately replace religion.2 While

now regarded by some as a flawed understanding of modernity,3 this assumption

was applied to attempts to find a way out of the religious intolerance that emerged

during the Reformation. While the ideas of humanism and Enlightenment

themselves give rise to the belief that there should be a toleration of difference,

secularization theory has continued to envisage a world where religion would

ultimately have ‘no place’.4

Studies of secularization have since challenged the assumption that Enlightenment

thinkers were anti-religious5 and solely responsible for creating the idea of a secular

sphere characterized by a reductionist view of religion,6 but the history of the

concept of secularity and its gradual transformation into a conception of secularism

that is anti-religious in nature has been left largely unexplored in International

Relations theory (IR). While the development of politics in some European countries

was certainly accompanied by a belief that religion played a negative role in politics,

and this promoted the emergence of a secular sphere in the West, the assumptions

of anti-religiosity currently embedded in the contemporary understanding of

secularism need to be challenged.

Existing critical literature on secularism has pointed out how contemporary

understandings of secularism predicate an anti-religious modernist stance when they

1 William E. Connolly, Why I am not a Secularist, University of Minnesota Press, 1999, p. 5. 2 Harvey Cox, The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspectives, Macmillan, 1966. 3 Rajeev Bhargava, The Promise of India’s Secular Democracy, Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 63. 4 Fred H. Blum, “Harvey Cox on The Secular City”, Ethics, Vol. 78, No. 1, October 1967, p. 44. 5 T.N. Madan, Modern Myths, Locked Minds: Secularism and Fundamentalism in India, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 11. 6 Richard H. Popkin, The Third Force in Seventeenth Century Thought, E.J. Brill, 1992.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 35

propose to expel religion from the public sphere. This view has recently been

challenged by both Western and non-Western scholars from multiple perspectives,

most notably by Habermas, Charles Taylor and Eisenstadt, as well as scholars of the

commensurability of Islam and modernity. Habermas has attempted to redefine the

public sphere as a liberal space for the accommodation of differences. Habermas and

Taylor have proposed the idea of post-secularism to make the public sphere open

especially to religion. Eisenstadt has proposed the concept of multiple modernities,

while the scholars of Islam have argued that countries with a Muslim majority can

create a modern civilized identity despite the public presence of Islam. All of these

propositions are flawed, however, because they do not question the concept of

secularism per se. Rather, they accept the current understanding and try to find ways

to work around it.

An exploration of the history of the concept of secularism provides insight into how

the contemporary understanding of secularism has developed, and perhaps opens

the door to different understandings. This chapter therefore re-examines the history

of secularism in much greater depth than is usual in IR theory. It explores not only

the original proposition invested in the term secularism, but also the crux of the

ideas proposed by Enlightenment thinkers on both sides of the debate over the

secular. Although the views of only one side came to prevail, there were those who

proposed the accommodation of religious thought in the public sphere and the

thesis aims to bring their arguments back into the light in support of an argument for

an understanding of secularism more suited to contemporary religious challenges.

This historical exploration of secularism shows that a fundamental fear of religion

trumped ideas of toleration and the accommodation of religious difference so that

the secular came to acquire an areligious, even anti-religious connotation. This

history is especially pertinent for IR as the development of the sovereign state

system has been so closely associated with the development of ideas relating to the

secular, first through the idea of non-interference by an external power despite a

Prince’s religious choice, and second, through the separation of religion from the

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 36

affairs of the state. As non-European countries have taken up the European model of

the sovereign state as the standard political unit, the ideational creation of both

sovereignty and secularity as areligious principles has become an important standard

for recognition as a modern, civilized state.

However, one clarification must be made before proceeding that relates to the issue

of the separation of state and religion, and religion and politics, as manifested in the

principle of secularity. The idea of the secular aimed at creating a separation

between state institutions and religion, not necessarily between politics and religion,

and it certainly did not entail the eradication of religion. However, the analysis

provided here shows that some Enlightenment thinkers securitized religion, and that

this had an impact on how the secular came to be conceived. That is, these thinkers

saw religion as a problem, although they generally assumed that with the

development of modern science and reason, it would eventually die out. Indeed, the

withering away of religion was projected to be the ultimate signifier of a modern

society.

This assumption now affects attitudes towards countries with Muslim majorities that

continue to advocate an Islamic identity. It therefore impacts on the claims of these

countries to be modern. The two case studies addressed in this thesis highlight how

the internal historical and cultural make-up and identity of a state can be sacrificed

for the sake of creating an international identity of being modern when the principle

of secularity stands as the key to creating such a desirable identity. Turkey, in its

effort to separate itself from a Muslim Ottoman identity, has forcefully employed an

assertive version of secularism, safeguarded by its constitution.7 Bangladesh,

similarly, has embodied secularism as one of its four state principles, in order to

create an identity distinct from Islamic Pakistan.8 However, it is becoming

increasingly apparent that the embrace of this kind of secularity has come at a cost

7See Chapter 4. 8 See Chapter 6.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 37

for each of these states. It is because of this cost that the conception of secularism

needs to be revisited.

This chapter therefore begins with a consideration of the way in which the concept

of the secular arose to become an indispensable element of state practice in the

West and how this has meant that secularity and its connection with understandings

of what constituted a modern identity for a state have come to be incorporated into

International Relations theory. Thus, since the understanding of secularism that won

out was the one that conceived of secularism as an absence of religion, the

conventional understanding of modernity in IR now also simply assumes that it too

involves a strict separation between religion and politics.9 This has occurred even

though this separation is not fully practiced in most Western countries that are

considered both modern and secular.10

On the other hand, as secularism in the West emerged out of Christian experiences,

there is also a tendency to consider secularity as both Western and Christian in

nature, which automatically creates a binary between the West and the non-West.

However, since the concept of the secular first emerged in the West as part of a

policy of non-intervention in another sovereign state’s religious affairs, its Christian

origins need not be fatal to an expansion of the concept or its adoption or

modification by non-Christian states. While it emerged in its commonly understood

form from Christian experiences that recognized the need to separate religious and

political power, this does not require it to be Christian as such. In any case, as the

research in this thesis shows, the idea of a regime accommodating and tolerating

religious differences in an understanding akin to secularity actually first emerged in

Islam. This certainly does not require secularism to be Islamic in nature either.

Rather, when secularism is considered as the proposition that a state should

9 Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, Princeton University Press, 2008, p. 5 10 Jonathan Fox, “World Separation of Religion and State Into the 21st Century”, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 39, No. 5, June 2006.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 38

maintain neutrality towards the religious choices of its citizenry and accommodate

religious differences in return for non-intervention in religious affairs, secularism

'fits' irrespective of geographical location, i.e. in Western and non-Western countries

alike. The more problematic issue is how states that are publicly religious can

accommodate an inevitable involvement of the religious in public life since what

makes secularism appear areligious lies in the relegation of religion to private life.

Therefore, a way needs to be found to reinterpret secularism in a manner that does

not identify religion as a ‘problem’ and lets religion co-exist with secular ideals in a

religious country.

The chapter starts with a discussion of the rise of religion-based politics. It then

moves on to a contextual analysis of the specific term of secularism and a

consideration of what it originally entailed. This analysis shows that the term was

coined as late as 1851, well after the Treaty of Westphalia introduced sovereignty

and the development of a form of secularity that included seeing the religion of a

state as the internal affair of that state. Secularism was specifically defined at this

later date in opposition to atheism in order to provide a space for the practice of

religious beliefs of any kind within the private sphere, although George Jacob

Holyoake, who coined the term, has been routinely misinterpreted by contemporary

writers as positing the term in such a way as to create a binary between the secular

and the religious.

Nevertheless, while some Enlightenment authors had also embraced the need for

religious tolerance and the maintenance of state neutrality regarding religious

beliefs, as did Holyoake, others had clearly identified religion as a problem in the

development of modernity. The result has been a redefinition of secularism along

reductionist, areligious lines.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 39

The Beginning of Religion-based Politics

Christianity received imperial support and started to flourish officially in the Roman

Empire under Constantine the Great (272-337AD).11 The Empire converted to

Christianity during his rule (324-337AD) and later, under Theodosius’ rule (379-395

AD), Catholic Christianity was declared the official religion of the Empire.12 Before

official patronage, Christianity had spread extensively among the masses. However,

it was explicitly favoured by the elite when Constantine officially converted to

Christianity. This initiated an era of religio regionis religio regis in which the ruler

embraced the religion favored by the majority in the land, either because of religious

sincerity or due to political prerogatives.13

Imperial patronage allowed Christianity to spread into Europe. In doing so, it

adapted itself to the local culture so that by the Middle Ages, the political legitimacy

of ecclesiastical authority throughout the continent had been established mainly by

the practices of Roman and Germanic versions of Christianity. The Catholic Church

became powerful enough to declare its independence from political authority by the

late eleventh century.14 Rulers found themselves required to seek the blessings and

active support of papal authority in order to hold their thrones and by the fifteenth

century, Christianity had become fully integrated with the European social and

political system.15

The Reformation, which began with Martin Luther and other sixteenth century

reformers challenging the political power of religious authority, called for a

separation of the religious and political spheres. However, what began as a reform

11Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order: from Prehuman Times to the French Revolution, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011, p. 263. 12Peter G. Wallace, The Long European Reformation: Religion, Political Conflict, and the Search for Conformity, 1350-1750, Palgrave MacMillan, 2004, p. 12. 13 Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, Oxford University Press, 1962, p. 494. 14 Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order, p. 264. 15 Peter G. Wallace, The Long European Reformation, p. 52.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 40

within Christianity to delimit papal authority soon gave birth to the concept of

political sovereignty as an areligious concept aimed at establishing the rule of the

Prince as the sole authority in a given land. Luther’s reinterpretation of the Roman

verses regarding authority in the Bible was crucial to this move for it asserted the

sovereignty of conscience ‘against all the ‘higher powers’, temporal or spiritual’.16

This reinterpretation is considered to have been a key step in the birth of political

sovereignty. Although the concept of state sovereignty had been in existence since

the end of the thirteenth century, developed from a legal viewpoint by Bartolous of

Sassoferrato,17 it was Luther’s burning of the Corpus Juris Canonici that not only

symbolized the abolition of the religious claims made by the papacy but also

emphasized the temporal claim of Princes by negating the ‘inherent jurisdiction in

the Church’.18

What ensued from this challenge to papal power was a Europe plagued by religious

wars, culminating in 1555 in the Peace of Augsburg, which sowed the seeds of

secularity for the first time through the adoption of the principle of cuius region, eius

religio (‘whose realm, his religion’), thereby stipulating non-intervention in the

religious affairs of a designated territory.19 The result was that Europe divided along

religious lines into Catholic and Lutheran territories. This arrangement proved to be

unstable and further wars broke out. It was not until the Treaty of Westphalia in

1648 that the principle of cuius region, eius religio was finally applied throughout

Europe, and the right of rulers to enforce their own religious choices on their

citizenry was fully recognized. Political stability was thus achieved on the basis of

allowing religious uniformity within a territory, although the aim of the principle was

16 Quoted in Javaid Saeed, Islam and Modernization: A Comparative Analysis of Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey, Praeger, 1994, p. 34. 17 Anthony Black, Political Thought in Europe: 1250-1450, Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 115. 18 John Neville Figgs, Studies of Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius: 1414-1625, Cambridge at the University Press, 1931, p. 73. 19 For a succinct analysis of the Peace of Augsburg and its political implication, see, Allyson F. Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order in reformation Germany, 1517-1648, ‘Printed Poison & Evil Talk’, Ashgate, 2012.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 41

actually to accommodate religious differences between territories within Europe so

that religion could not be an excuse to attack another power. The principle did not in

fact cover the accommodation of religious differences within a territory and thus

established only external secularity.

However, also for the first time in international law, the Treaty of Westphalia

ensured that its resolutions would be binding upon signatories and non-signatories

alike, providing it with a truly international character.20 It therefore established the

external dimension of political sovereignty as well. In other words, the Thirty Years’

War resulted in a mechanism for the prevention of religious wars in Europe that

divided Europe territorially.21 This meant that the division between domestic and

international realms was recognized for the first time, establishing the primacy of

sovereign power internally as well.22 The establishment of secularity as an absence

of religion in the international sphere thus occurred largely by default.

However, the accommodation of religious differences within a defined geographic

boundary was to be determined by the ruler of the region and therefore, religious

intolerance within a sovereign state remained a problem. An exit clause became

necessary for citizens who could not accept the ruler’s religion. This was reflected in

Emperor Joseph II’s assertion in 1777 that ‘the issue was only one of toleration, not

of approval of heresy’.23

20 Stephane Beaulac, “The Westphalian Model in Defining International Law: Challenging the Myth”, Australian Journal of Legal History, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2004, p. 185. 21 Franz Mehring, “The Marxist View: Economic Causation”, Theodore K. Rabb (ed), The Thirty Years’ War: Problems of Motive, Extent, and Effect, D.C. Heath and Company, 1964. 22 Jens Bartelson, A Genealogy of Sovereignty, Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 25. 23 Richard H. Popkin and Mark Goldie, “Scepticism, Priestcraft, and Toleration”, Mark Goldie and Robert Wolker (eds.), The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought, 2006, p. 100; italics in original.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 42

Secularism as the Accommodation of Religious Differences

As peace was established in the international sphere, political thinkers grappled with

the meaning of religious adherence and its implications for politics within the

internal sphere of a state. In the immediate aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War,

Samuel Pufendorf was one of the first to explain the need for both religious

toleration and a separation between religion and politics as a way of accommodating

religious difference. In defence of religious tolerance, Pufendorf pointed out that

‘force and human punishment will not lead to illumination of the mind and to a truly

inner assent to dogma, but can only yield hypocritical obedience’.24 He also

identified the dangers involved in creating a territory identified with one religion:

there would always be the capacity to deny religious diversity or the accommodation

of different ideas within that territory.25 What was required was some law or

principle equivalent to a duty of tolerance between individuals, since ‘states, upon

being constituted, take on the personal properties of men, the law, which we call

natural when speaking of the duty of individual men, on being applied to whole

states and nations or peoples, is called the law of nations’.26

Kant also asserted the need to accommodate religious diversity. He argued that

when we rely on a transcendent God to justify our actions, we commit ‘heteronomy

that violates our autonomy and freedom’.27 Therefore, he insisted on a clear

boundary between private and public (state institutions) spheres. He pointed out

that making the public sphere secular did not indicate the end of religion, and he

certainly did not disapprove of the practice of religion in the private sphere.

24Ibid, p. 102. 25 Samuel Pufendorf, The Divine Feudal Law, Or, Covenants with Mankind, Represented, translated by Theophilus Dorrington, edited by Simone Zurbuchen, Liberty Fund, 2002, p. 12. 26 Samuel Pufendorf, quoted in Tetsuya Toyoda, Theory and Politics of the Law of Nations: Political Bias in International Law Discourse of Seven German Court Councilors in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Volume II, Brill, 2011, p. 35. 27 Richard J. Bernstein, “The Secular-Religious Divide: Kant’s Legacy”, Social Research, The Religious-Secular Divide: The U.S. Case, Vol. 76, No. 4, Winter 2009, p. 1038.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 43

Nevertheless, his much cited statement on the Enlightenment indicates that he saw

the particular goal of Enlightenment to be the establishment of human reason and

progress free of the domination of religious thought: ‘Enlightenment is man’s release

from his self-incurred tutelage…Sapere aude! “Have courage to use your own

reason!”—that is the motto of Enlightenment’.28

Largely because of this statement, Kant has also been identified as a forerunner in

creating the dichotomous and mutually exclusive categories of the secular and the

religious.29 However, according to Pera, far from this being the case, the Kantian

formulation of the secular actually specified that:

1) Political rulers must not meddle with their citizens’ religious faiths;

as a consequence: 2) Political rulers must not favour any religious

faith; therefore: 3) Political rulers must impartially respect the

pluralism of religious faiths present in any given society.30

There is nothing in this formulation that requires a ‘death’ of religion. Rather it

enumerates how religious choices can be accommodated in a given society.

British thinkers also contributed to the issue of accommodating religion in society

while keeping it separate from the state. John Locke, for instance, convincingly

argued for religious tolerance as opposed to identifying religion as a problem in

itself. Although in several of his writings Locke constructed Christianity as the ‘true

religion’, he argued that a reformation of Christianity would necessarily lead to the

28Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals and What Is Enlightenment, translated by Lewis White Beck, Bobbs Merrill, 1959, p. 85. 29 William E. Connolly, Why I am not a Secularist; Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations. 30 Marcello Pera, “Kant on Politics, Religion, and Secularism”, Universal Rights in a World of Diversity. The Case of Religious Freedom Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Acta 12, 2012; located at <www.pass.va/content/dam/scienzesociali/pdf/acta17/acta17-pera.pdf>, accessed on May 14, 2013, p. 547. There is, however, much debate on Kantian secularism. A good critique of this can be found in William E. Connolly, Why I am not a Secularist. Nevertheless, I argue here that the essential argument that Kant makes does not prescribe a total banishment of religion from society; rather he suggests political neutrality towards religion.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 44

accommodation of different denominations since the underlying message of

Christianity was one of toleration and reason.31 In constructing an intellectual basis

for a ‘good Christian’ however, Locke insisted on the need to separate state

institutions from the influence of religious authorities. More importantly for the

concerns of this thesis, although Locke’s writings pertained to Christianity, they were

not explicitly Christian in principle. Rather they addressed the category of religion in

general.32 In other words, religions should accommodate each other despite their

particular variations.

Such ideas on toleration have been connected to the British desire to establish itself

as the best nation on earth, especially after the French Revolution.33 Whether or not

British thinkers were satisfying a nationalistic need to promote religious toleration in

an effort to establish British superiority and distinctiveness after the English

Revolution of 1688,34 European thinkers were also promoting religious toleration.

One of the earliest of these was the Dutch philosopher, Dirck Coornhert. Although a

Catholic himself, Coornhert supported the right of religious difference as well as the

rights of non-believers during the sixteenth century.35 A similar argument for

religious toleration using a parable of unity among three monotheistic religions

(Islam, Christianity and Judaism) during the twelfth century Crusade can also be

found in the writings of German thinker Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.36

The principle of toleration, although not part of the thinking of the earlier reformers

of Christianity, thus began to take shape through the work of Enlightenment

31 John Locke’s argument is summed up in A Letter Concerning Toleration, J. Crowder, Warwick-Square, for J. Johnson, in St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1800; Two Treatise of Government, J. Whiston, W. Strahan, J. and F. Rivington, L. Davies, W. Owen, 1772; andThe Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in the Scriptures, edited by John Higgins-Biddle, Clarendon Press, 1999. 32 J.R.Milton and Philip Milton, John Locke, p. 37. 33 Richard Price, Britain’s happiness, and its full possession of civil and religious liberty, briefly stated and proved, J.F. and C. Rivington, 1791, p. 14. 34 Thomas Paine, Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution, I. Thomas and E.T. Andrews, 1895, p. 5. 35 Henry Kamen, The Rise of Toleration, p. 152. 36 D. A. Carson, The Intolerance of Tolerance, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012, p. 7-9.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 45

thinkers. Again, this group of thinkers stressed secularity as a means of achieving

liberty with regard to religious beliefs rather than as a means of denying religious

practices. In the US, first President George Washington insisted that:

The Citizens of the United States of America…possess alike liberty of

conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that

toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of

people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural

rights.37

The principal goal of the Enlightenment was release from the ‘self-incurred tutelage’

of religion, rather than the eradication of religion. Some Enlightenment thinkers also

promoted the idea of ‘natural religion’, which would be free of ecclesiastical

authorities but provide a moral code for the guidance of humanity.38 The gist of

natural religion, as it emerged during this period, was summarized in the works of

David Martin, an eighteenth century pastor in France, who asserted that submitting

to reason did not mean being irreligious.39 The works of these thinkers, therefore,

neither promoted one religion over another nor denied the claims of religion as a

category. Rather, they attempted to ‘demolish…the Heavenly City of St Augustine

only to rebuild it with more up-to-date materials’.40 They aimed to rebuild religion in

a different manner so that it would not be available for political use or as a means of

exerting control over people by exploiting the divine through a fear of the afterlife.

For them, this was where the true meaning of secularity lay.

This understanding of secularity, however, was soon overshadowed by the work of

other Enlightenment thinkers who sought to create a fusion between the ideas

generated by the Protestant Reformation and the development of reason as part of

37 Quoted in Warren Mathews, World Religions, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013, p. 267. 38 Daniel L. Pals, “Introduction”, Daniel L. Pals (ed), Seven Theories of Religion, Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 6. 39 David Martin, A Discourse of Natural Religion, London, 1720, p. VI. 40 Carl Becker, quoted in T.N. Madan, Modern Myths, Locked Minds, p. 11.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 46

the project of modernity. It was this work that eventually led to the

misinterpretation of secularity, and subsequently secularism, as areligious or anti-

religious concepts, irrevocably associated with modernity.

Secularity as an Areligious Concept

The crux of the Protestant Reformation was to curb the power of the papacy over

everyday life and replace this authority with the ‘faith’ claim: faith alone was the

pathway to salvation, which could be achieved without ecclesiastical blessings or

control. However, the rise in the concept of a work ethic, moral individualism and

industrialization eroded the value of the ‘virtue ethic’ promoted by the Protestant

Reformers and, coupled with reductionist ideologies on religion expressed by some

Enlightenment thinkers, eventually led to an ‘unintended Reformation’ of the

concept of secularity (and hence, by later association, secularism) as ‘areligious’ or

without religion, so that religion came to be seen as incompatible with modern life.41

The process of secularization ‘ordinarily refers to socio-cultural processes that

enlarge the areas of life—material, institutional and intellectual—in which the role of

the sacred is progressively limited’.42 This move towards secularity is evident in the

theories of Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Voltaire, and Karl Marx and Friedrich

Engels, to name a few.43 In one way or another, all argued that religion was a private

matter for citizens. Although few said so explicitly, the implication was that religion

would eventually disappear, as secularization was essentially progressive.44 This idea

came to be embodied as a ‘fact’ in the development of the state system, and later in

41 Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society, Belknap Press, 2012. 42 T.N. Madan, Modern Myths, Locked Minds, p. 5. 43 R.S. Appleby, Religious Fundamentalisms and Global Conflict, Foreign Policy Association, 1994; Bryan S. Turner, Religion and Social Theory, Sage Publications, 1991; Jonathan Fox, Religion, Civilization, and Civil War: 1945 through the Millennium, Lexington Books, 2004. 44 Jose Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World, The University of Chicago Press, 1994; Erin K. Wilson, After Secularism: Rethinking Religion in Global Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 47

the discipline of IR.45 This particular development of the state system and IR took

religion as an internal issue, not to be reflected in inter-state relations. It simply

assumed that religion had been taken care of. In other words, as secularity had

already been installed as standard practice in the European state system, IR took it

for granted that the state system to be followed in non-Western countries would

deal with religion in the same manner.

Nevertheless, the understanding that religion was incompatible with modern life and

therefore a problem had developed as a result of the Reformation and it is this that

has led to the belief that the securitization of religion is a marker for being modern.

The famous Weberian dictum on the ‘disenchantment of the world’ demands special

attention in this respect as the process of secularization is often seen as denying the

role of the sacred in the modern world and replacing it with ethical rationalism.46 In

arguing for science ‘as a vocation’, Weber declared that:

[P]rincipally there are no mysterious incalculable forces that come

into play, but rather…one can, in principle, master all things by

calculation…The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization

and intellectualization and above all, the ‘disenchantment of the

world’.47

While Weber was talking about disenchantment from religious practices imbued

with magic and charisma, the Weberian idea of disenchantment has been applied to

describe the predictions of Enlightenment thinkers in relation to prophetic religions

45 Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations; Scott M. Thomas, The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations: the Struggle for the Soul of the Twenty-First Century, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 46 Max Weber, Sociology of Religion, Beacon Press, 1963. 47 Max Weber, “Science as a Vocation”, Daedalus, Science and the Modern World View, Vol. 87, No. 1, Winter 1958, pp-117 and 133 respectively.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 48

since they too believed that a modern rational world would come to reject religion

as a form of enchantment.48

Although these Enlightenment authors constructed religion as irrational and

therefore a hindrance to the development of modernity, such thinking on secularity

remained confined within an analysis of European history and its struggle to

overcome the dominance of Christianity. This is evident in Karl Marx’s analysis of the

role of religion in society.49 While scholars have argued that Marxism itself turned

into a religious discourse (Albert Camus termed it a ‘Utopian Messianism’),50 Marx

insisted that ‘the criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism’.51 For Marx,

secular industrialization, industrialization devoid of Christianity, was the prerequisite

for the development of a genuine proletarian consciousness. Marx believed that it

had been proven that man had made religion. Nevertheless it had become the

‘opium of the masses’—a method exploited by capitalists to keep the oppressed

enchanted with the illusion of God.

Another influential writer whose philosophy guided thinkers working either on

secularism as religious accommodation or secularity as the eradication of religion

was Auguste Comte. J.S. Mill was highly influenced by Comte’s philosophy regarding

the power and freedom of the human mind to realize the best interests of the

human race.52 Emile Durkheim, too, was influenced by Comte, although in the

opposite direction to Mill. Durkheim took up Comte’s ideas regarding the ‘human

need for communal ties and a deep commitment to scientific analysis of social

phenomena’.53 While Durkheim’s thinking on religion was derived from his analysis

48 T.N. Madan, Modern Myths, Locked Minds, p. 19. 49 T.N. Madan, Modern Myths, Locked Minds, p. 19. 50Albert Camus, The Rebel: An Essay of Man in Revolt, translated by Anthony Bowen, Penguin in association with H. Hamilton, 1971, p. 188. 51Robert C. Tucker (ed), Marx-Engels Reader, Norton, 1978, p. 53. 52 Richard Vernon, “J.S. Mill and the Religion of Humanity”, James E. Crimmins (ed), Religion, Secularization and Political Thought: Thomas Hobbes to J.S. Mill, Routledge, 1990, p. 269. 53Daniel L. Pals, Seven Theories of Religion, p. 92.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 49

of religion as practiced by primitive peoples, he contended that the findings were

applicable to the category of religion in general.54 His views, however, were

reductionist, and shaped his assumption that humanity was on a journey towards a

time when religion would ultimately disappear in favour of secularity.

Nevertheless, the main thrust of this array of thinkers was to politically contain the

Christian religion. Although Rousseau identified the Church and Christianity as

particular impediments to the development of modern political authority since the

Church ‘taught extra ecclesia nulla salus (outside the Church there is no salvation)’,55

his ideas were not taken to be a condemnation of religion per se. Indeed, British

philosopher David Hume dismissed them as revealing ‘a hankering after the Bible

[which was] little better than [being] a Christian in a way of his own’.56

Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’

Regardless of the genealogy of secularity, the modern West has made itself distinct

from the rest of the world by separating the temporal and spiritual worlds. The

Reformations in Europe throughout the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries in Europe

paved the way for the rise of humanism, and a distinctively new way of

understanding of the world that was considered ‘modern’ (just now). To be modern

involved the privileging of reason in a way that emphasized the separation of

knowledge from the influence of religion, and the recognition of consciousness as a

force in its own right.57 It was therefore distinctively secular:

[T]he great invention of the West was that of an immanent order in

Nature, whose working could be systematically understood and

54 W.S.F. Pickering, Durkheim on Religion: A Selection of Readings with Bibliographies, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975, p. 4. 55 Timothy Samuel Shah and Daniel Philpott, “The Fall and Rise of Religion in International Relations”, Jack Snyder (ed), Religion and International Relations Theory, Columbia University Press, 2011, p. 38. 56Richard Wollheim, Hume on Religion, Collins: The Fontana Library, 1963, p. 28. 57 John Lechte, Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers: From Structuralism to Post-Humanism, Routledge, London, 2008, p. 260.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 50

explained on its own terms, leaving open the question of whether this

whole order had a deeper significance, and whether, if it did, we

should infer a transcendent Creator beyond it.58

However, although the idea of secularity as the separation of religion from the state

developed from the Reformation and was expressed in the writings of Pufendorf,

Kant and Locke as already discussed, the concept of secularism refers specifically to

the confining of religiosity within the private domain of life. The term was officially

coined in the English language by George Jacob Holyoake in 1851 as a way of

describing the difference between adopting a secular approach to life in which

religion was relegated to one’s private life, and atheism.59 The term was in frequent

use for this purpose during the latter part of the nineteenth century.60Atheism was a

negative label used to distinguish between believers and non-believers in general.

From the latter part of the eighteenth century, however, self-proclaimed atheists

started to emerge.61 The need to distinguish between atheism and secularism

originated in the fear that endorsing a secular public sphere would be

misunderstood as also endorsing the eradication of religion.

The invention of secularism: accommodating religious differences

The very first chapter of Holyoake’s book The Origin and Nature of Secularism was

entitled ‘Open Thought The First Step to Intelligence’.62 Throughout his book,

Holyoake asserted that the concept of secularism did not cause any friction with the

58 Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, p. 15. 59John Edwin McGee, A History of the British Secular Movement, Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1948, p. 14. 60 Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 2003, p. 23. 61 Amos Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century, Princeton University Press, 1986, p. 346. 62 George Jacob Holyoake, The Origin and Nature of Secularism; Showing that Where Freethought Commonly Ends Secularism Begins, Watts and Co., 1896, p. 9.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 51

Deity. Rather, secularism was aimed at the ‘kingdom of Man’.63 Holyoake argued

that ‘[s]ecularism is a form of opinion which concerns itself only with questions the

issues of which can be tested by the experience of this life’.64 He thus attempted to

present secularism as a constructive method of understanding experience rather

than as an anti-religious creed. He believed in a life-style where freedom of thought

emanating from nature would be the guiding principle for contemporary society. In

his Owenite lectures throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century and

through the establishment of the Central Secular Society, Holyoake emphasized the

‘recognition of the Secular sphere as the providence of man’.65 He was quite clear

that secularism was not connected with the eradication of religion or religious

practices in society.

Holyoake thought it was necessary to insist on this distinction because the

proponents of humanism and secularity in his society were increasingly being seen

as atheists. Holyoake wanted a new interpretation of the secular that would be

understood as standing completely apart from the religious sphere in order to

provide a constructive understanding of human capability and its role in society.

Such an interpretation did not create a binary opposition between the religious and

the secular because, for him, it was ‘clear that the existence of Deity and the

actuality of another life are questions excluded from Secularism, which exacts no

denial of Deity or immortality, from members of Secularist societies’.66 Rather, the

new concept of secularism embodied the principles of utilitarianism—‘the rightness

or wrongness of an action can be judged by its consequences’. For Owenism, which

drew its incentives from the works of pioneer communitarian socialist Robert Owen,

secularist thinking primarily stressed the issue of human freedom in all aspects of

life—political, religious and social. It was therefore necessarily committed to

63Ibid, p. 62. 64Ibid, p. 63. 65 John Edwin McGee, A History of the British Secular Movement, p. 16. 66 George Jacob Holyoake, The Origin and Nature of Secularism, p. 63.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 52

accommodating religious variations and it questioned the logic of establishing a

single church in England.67 The works of Thomas Paine, James Mill and John Stuart

Mill, among others, influenced this thinking, the focus of which lay in ‘working for

the achievement of specific goals in various departments in life’.68 Contrary to

popular assumptions and later understandings of secularism as creating a binary

divide between the secular and the religious, the works of those initially committed

to secularism in Britain were aimed at promoting the equality of all human beings,

irrespective of religion (or any other distinction), under law. They sought to provide a

comprehensive guideline for a modern life based on freedom of thought rather than

an absence of religion.

Nonetheless, owing to the influence of Christianity, secularists needed to promote

humanism as a method of free thinking over religious thinking. Therefore, while

Holyoake did not propose secularism to stand in direct opposition to religion, other

contemporary secularists were avowed proponents of curbing the influence of

religion in their society. A specifically anti-religious group led by Charles Bradlaugh

and his disciples promoted secularism as the banishment of religion from society.

Even so, despite their political orientation or beliefs on secularism, membership of

the different secularist groups in their early years did not demand the absence of

religious beliefs. Rather, members were religious and atheist alike.69 Although it was

a period when some secularists did carry out campaigns against the Churches, they

did so principally because the Churches promoted the interests of the ruling classes

and thereby supported existing power arrangements that maintained inequality

between human beings. These secularists argued against any established state

church or state religion because they wanted equal status for all religions along with

the right to express ‘speculative’ beliefs that might or might not contradict religion.

67 J.R.Milton and Philip Milton, John Locke: An Essay Concerning Toleration and other Writings on Law and Politics, 1667-1683, Clarendon Press, 2006, p. 25. 68 John Edwin McGee, A History of the British Secular Movement, p. 23. 69 John Edwin McGee, A History of the British Secular Movement, p. 36.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 53

Holyoake’s writings do not expressly condemn religion but rather attempt to provide

a philosophical understanding of secularism as a way to accommodate freedom of

thought. Nevertheless, his work has been widely identified as promoting the binary

divide between the secular and the religious.70

It is in this context that Gong’s argument on the standards of civilization should be

considered. Gong describes how a standard of civilization based on universalistic

Christian principles began to develop in the West, but was replaced by assumptions

of scientific progress in which secularity was seen as ultimately overtaking

Christianity in particular, and religion in general.71 This replacement made it almost

inevitable that secularity would evolve into an anti-religious and anti-Christian

concept, especially as many Enlightenment authors also highlighted religion as a

particular problem for the development of modernity. ButNevertheless, it also set up

the contrary idea of secularity as a ‘Christian’ phenomenon, because it was a

standard of civilization based on a confrontation with Christianity within Christian

society.

Secularity as a Christian Concept?

As the sovereign state system evolved and came to be connected with secularity as

the only viable modern form of political organization, the historical evolution of

secularity as a direct confrontation with Christianity remained implicit. As Charles

Taylor points out, ‘“Secular” itself is a Christian term, that is, a word that finds its

original meaning in a Christian context’.72 Habermas has also pointed this out.73

Recognition of these implications has led to recent theorists identifying secularism as

a Christian phenomenon. This identification is relational. The scholarship on the

70 Linell A. Cady and Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, “Comparative Secularisms and the Politics of Modernity”, p. 5. 71 Gerrit W. Gong, The Standard of Civilization in International Society, Clarendon Press, 1984, p. 51. 72 Charles Taylor, “Modes of Secularism´in Rajeev Bhargava (ed), Secularism and Its Critics, p. 31. 73 Jurgen Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other Studies in Political Theory, translated and edited by Ciaran P. Cronin and Pablo De Greiff, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1998, p. 8.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 54

topic argues that because secularism (by which they mean secularity) originated as a

means of containing conflict among Christians in Europe, it is both a product of

Christian society and Western in nature. Secularism is thus a particularly Western

project. Notable in this scholarship are the works of Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Jose

Casanova and Talal Asad, among others.74 Drawing on the history of the Reformation

and the Enlightenment, this scholarship points out that the Western tradition of

secularity emerged as a result of the drive to recognize Christian sectarian demands.

The work on this field points out how Christianity itself inherently promotes the idea

of secularism—separating the public from the private. However, these scholars go

too far in casting secularism as a Christian concept because of this history. This is not

only because this history is more complex than they allow, but also because there is

a danger that when secularism (secularity) is branded as a Western project, a

West/non-West binary is generated through which secularity becomes a Western

yardstick to be used a standard of being modern.

The argument of these scholars, however, is not just that secularity is a Christian

concept, but that not all religions can be relegated to the private sphere as

Christianity has supposedly been in the West. They do claim that the concept of

secularism is supposed to accommodate religious differences and that the secular

and the religious should not be held as ‘fixed’ categories, but nevertheless

emphasize that the Christian underpinnings of Western civilization creates an ‘us’

versus ‘them’ categorization with the rest of the world that also applies to secularity.

Their argument therefore implies that secularism should be dismissed not merely

because it is a Christian concept, but because it is part of a project to impose

Western universalism upon the non-West.

74 Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations; Jose Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World,; Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, Stanford University Press, 2003.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 55

It is because of these implications that it has been necessary to elucidate how the

idea of secularism came to deviate from its original proposition as a liberal concept

of toleration. Asserting the Christian underpinnings of secularity doubly politicizes

the already existing negative connotations of secularism as anti-religious. In defining

secularity in this manner, these authors not only essentialize the current

understanding of secularism as areligious or anti-religious. They contribute to the

securitization of the concept, because it comes to be seen as a threat in Muslim

majority countries—a political weapon designed to establish Western superiority.

This is why it is important to point out the attempts by certain Enlightenment

thinkers to argue for both the coexistence of religions and for the accommodation of

religious differences before the term secularism came into existence, and to

establish the context in which the concept was coined on the basis of freedom of

thought. It is also important to acknowledge that the idea of secularity may have

also arisen outside Christianity.

Secularity: an Islamic Invention?

Secularism as the separation between Church and state and the maintenance of

state neutrality on religion or the accommodation of religious differences is indeed a

Western invention. It appeared at a certain point of time, and developed from the

concept of secularity that arose in the Western context of Reformation and

Enlightenment. However, secularity as a means of providing for religious tolerance

and accommodation was not a new concept in history even then. A form of

secularity that is closely akin to the Western concept of secularity was employed in

order to accommodate religious differences within the earlier Islamic Empires.75

Christians and Jews were granted protection under different Islamic Empires on the

condition that they accepted Muslim sovereignty and paid a special tax known as

75Thomas W. Lippman, Understanding Islam: An Introduction to the Muslim World, A Meridian Book, 1995, p. 121.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 56

jizya.76 It was the prophetic recognition of Abraham, Moses and Jesus in the Quran

that allowed Jews and Christians to also be recognized as ‘people of the book’—ahl

al-kitab—who were also subject to prophetic revelations.77 They were therefore

accorded dhimmi status legally. The merit of this system was that, ‘in an era when

any state was assumed to have a religious identity, and law was thought of first and

foremost as religious law, this was about as good a system for accommodating

religious difference as could be devised’.78 Indeed, Islam was seen as a ‘continuation

and rectification of Judaeo-Christian tradition’.79 Moreover, the Quran clearly states

how religious differences should be treated. In different chapters, these instructions

include:

There is no compulsion in religion (2: 256)

Those to whom We have given the Book to read it as it ought

to be read. These believe in it; and whoever disbelieves in it,

these it is that are the losers (5:48)

And if your Lord had pleased He would certainly have made

people a single nation, and they shall continue to differ

(11:118)80

While the Quran states that religious differences are unalterable facts, it similarly

does not insist on any specific law that establishes governing principles in a given

society.

During the early years of Islam, the separation of political and religious spheres was

also established. A Caliph—khalifat Allah (deputy of God) was to provide political

76 ‘AbdulHamid A. AbuSulayman, Towards an Islamic Theory of International Relations: New Directions for Methodology and Thought, The International Institute of Islamic Thought Herndon, Virginia, USA, 1993, p. 27. 77 Burton Stein, A History of India, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, p. 139. 78 Carter Vaughn Findley, The Turks in World History, Oxford University Press, 2004, Chapter Two. 79 Thomas W. Lippman, Understanding Islam, p. 5. 80 All the verses of Quran have been taken from iQuran Lite, iPhone Application.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 57

guidance whereas the Prophet, rasul Allah, was the messenger of God. Due to his

unique position, the Prophet was both a political and religious leader, which allowed

him to hold supreme power. Nevertheless, although the Prophet acted in both the

positions, his role as specifically rasul Allah, along with an attempt to differentiate

between political and religious spheres, started to emerge from 66/685f.81 Early

political rulers in particular sought to differentiate religious and political power, as

can be seen in the attempts of Abu Bakr, the first caliph who succeeded the Prophet,

to style himself as a political leader only, rather than being a religious leader too.

These attempts have often been misinterpreted in history.82 Nevertheless, Abu Bakr

insisted on using the title of khalifat rasul Allah, meaning that he was the successor

of the messenger of God, rather than the actual messenger (rasul Allah). A similar

approach was taken by Umar, one of the four caliphs of early Islamic empire.83 Later

rulers also emphasized this separation between religious and political power,

concluding that:

Khalifa and rasul were once seen as independent agents of God: this

is why they are comparable. The caliph here is given the edge over

the prophet on the ground that whereas a messenger simply delivers

a message, a deputy is authorized to act on behalf of his employer.84

Analyzing the early history of Islam, some authors have argued that due to the

particular context of the rise of Islam as both a religion and apolitical power, these

early political choices were a more authentic reflection of the practice of Islam. The

later history of Islam indicates that Islamic states under different Islamic rulers had

quite different characteristics. Islamic states have therefore never presented a

81 Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, God’s Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 25. 82 Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim, Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Sharia, Harvard University Press, 2008, p. 57. 83 Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, God’s Caliph, p. 18. 84 Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, God’s Caliph, p. 29.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 58

uniform coalescence of religion and politics, as is generally assumed.85 Moreover,

provisions for the freedom of religion and the accommodation of religious

differences also existed in the later Ottoman Empire. Indeed, the rise of the concept

of Ottomanism required the accommodation of multi-ethnic, multi-religious

identities. It has been observed that ‘[p]erhaps only under Islam, in Ottoman

Transylvania, did the Christian religions have real equality of treatment. In general,

throughout Europe, the concessions were modest, late, and resisted’.86 It took

considerable time in Europe under Christianity to develop the concept of religious

accommodation, even though this accommodation was already being applied

around the same period in the Ottoman Empire.

The idea of tolerance of religious differences is, therefore, not a new phenomenon,

even though it developed in Europe through its own political experiences. The point

here is that the question of the production of ideas and use of knowledge should not

be limited by a strict assertion of ‘whose idea it was’. Such assertions can be forms of

political manipulation. Ideas originate and are modified to accommodate different

political needs at different times. The concept of the clash of civilizations, for

instance, is conventionally attributed to Bernard Lewis,87 even though the phrase

was originally coined by a Japanese scholar in relation to the East-West divide.88 The

insistence on a monopolized understanding, such as has come about with the

current limited understanding of the concept of secularism, can be used as a means

of enforcing the superiority and control of one way of thinking over all others. This is

what has happened in the creation and perpetuation of the so-called Islam-West

divide by conservatives on both sides, a division that has been capitalized on by

85Ibid, p. 77. 86Richard H. Popkin and Mark Goldie, “Scepticism, Priestcraft, and Toleration”, p. 94. 87 Michael Dunn, “The ‘Clash of Civilizations’ and the ‘War on Terror’”, in 49th Parallel, Vol. 20, Winter 2006-2007, p. 3; Michael Elliot, “Bernard Lewis: Seeking the Roots of Muslim Rage”, in Time, 163, No. 17, 26 April, 2004. 88 Cemil Aydin, The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia: Visions of World Order in Pan-Islamic and Pan-Asian Thought, Columbia University Press, p. 152.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 59

Islamic terrorists. The idea of secularism is similarly handicapped when it is used as a

tool to determine who is civilized and who is not.

It is noteworthy that the West as it exists today has borrowed extensively from other

civilizations. It is through this exchange of ideas that it has come to be what it is

today. No civilization stands apart from others. When ideas are branded in such a

way as to limit their history, knowingly or unknowingly, the creation and separation

of cultures as incommensurable, as in Huntington’s thesis, is endorsed. It is one of

the distinct purposes of this thesis to challenge these binary understandings of the

world by showing how they are generated and perpetuated in existing scholarship.

Contemporary Expressions of Secularism in the West

When it comes to the role of religion within contemporary Western societies,

Western states have developed two models of secularism: a multicultural model,

and an assimilationist model.89 Popular mainly in English-speaking regions and

Northern Europe, the multicultural model promotes individual liberty and respects

diversity of religion. This has helped states to accommodate different varieties of

religious beliefs while maintaining a cautious distance. The assimilationist model, on

the other hand, is associated with the French model of laicite, which bans the

demonstration of religious identity in state institutions, whatever the religion. Either

way, the application of secularism within the state is considered by conventional IR

theory to be the business of the state.

However, studies show that secularism, as in the separation of church and state, is

actually practiced in very different ways in different Western countries, indicating

the influence of particular cultures and/or leaders. Religious legislation is often

89 Olivier Roy, Secularism Confronts Islam, translated by George Holoch, Columbia University Press, 2007, p. x.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 60

embodied in liberal democracies in the West.90 A review of state practices also

reveals that far from religion being subsumed under or subordinated to politics,

religion (specifically Christianity) is incorporated one way or another into the

European, and more broadly, the Western state system. Evidence for this can be

seen in the many state constitutions that refer to God, and in state practices in

relation to domestic policies on education.91

Ahmet Kuru argues that secularism can be understood as either assertive or passive:

either the state actively constrains the visibility of religion in the public sphere, or it

maintains neutrality in relation to the public expression of religion.92 This distinction

in the application of secularism shows that, in some cases, secularism entails less

state intervention in relation to the public display of religious expression than in

other cases, such as where the state has made secularism an integral part of shaping

the behavior of its population. For example, religious attires and symbols are

permitted in the US while banned in France, but only in public schools. In other

words, the separation of church and state as a basis of the political power of the

unitary state has not taken place as thoroughly as has been subsequently theorized,

even in the West. This inconsistency is the case in the non-West as well. Religious

attire is banned in all government institutions in Turkey, while in Bangladesh,

although wearing religious attire is not officially banned, it is increasingly seen as a

threat to the secular rubric of the country and people wearing it are targeted and

attacked by student wings belonging to the ruling Awami League. Kuru’s distinction

90 Jonathan Fox, “World Separation of Religion and State Into the 21st Century”, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 39, No. 5, 2006. 91 Grace Davie, for example, points out that ‘The religious strand within which such combinations [of Judaeo-Christian monotheism, Greek rationalism and Roman organisation] is self-evident, but so too are the relationships between political and religious power that have dominated so much of European history…The point to be made...is that constitutional connections between Church and State are part of Europe’s history, whether they are retained or rejected, applauded or critiqued.’ Grace Davie, Europe: The Exceptional Case. The Parameters of Faith in the Modern World, Darton, Longman and Todd, 2002, p. 3. 92 Ahmet T. Kuru, “Passive and Assertive Secularism: Historical Conditions, Ideological Struggles, and State Policies toward Religion”, World Politics, Vol. 59, No. 4, July 2007, p. 571.

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 61

suggests that it is possible for secularism to accommodate religion in a variety of

ways across a spectrum from strict enforcement to relaxed acceptance. This thesis

therefore uses this distinction as an explanatory variable in the course of its

argument.

This history of secularism needs to be acknowledged so that secularism can be

clearly seen as a reasonable and general response to the need to provide space for

the accommodation of religious differences that does not need a rigid separation

between religion and politics to work. While it is true that the ideas relating to

secularity that emerged in the aftermath of Thirty Years’ War did not specifically

borrow their understanding from Islam or any other discourses, at least as far as can

be traced, and the concept of secularism seems to have originated in the West,

these ideas have nonetheless followed a similar path. Instead of insisting on

secularism as a Western concept, the focus needs to be on the underlying message

that it conveys: that it is not only possible to conceive of the accommodation of

religious differences rather than to see religion as a problem to be eliminated, but

that there have been times when this has actually been successfully practiced by

both Christians and Muslims. This history is a challenge to the views of Asad and

Casanova, who have argued that the Western genesis of secularism is a ground of

Western triumphalism and is therefore its inherent limitation. This argument only

securitizes secularism and simply ensures that the idea will not be used in non-

Western contexts. The aim should be to re-open the concept so that it can be put to

use in new and positive ways in order to address contemporary relationships

between politics and religion. This is not to claim that this would be an easy thing to

do, but closing the door entirely by securitizing secularism is to fail. As Taylor argues,

the history of secularism can be compared to the history of multiple modernities. For

secularism as much as for modernity, we have to ‘find rather different expressions,

Chapter 1: Secularism: ‘The Great Invention of the West’ 62

and develop under the pressure of different demands and aspirations in different

civilizations’.93

93 Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, p. 21.

Chapter 2

The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition

Religion and God may be dead—but not the much more basic idea of

the sharp and value-loaded dichotomies…Modernity would reject God

and Satan but might demand a distinction between the Chosen and the

Unchosen; let us call them Self and the Other…A steep gradient is then

constructed, inflating, even exalting, the value of Self; deflating, even

debasing, the value of Other.1

Although many Western states fail to recognize this, Turkey does not conform to the

West’s idea of an Islamic state. Rather, Turkey illustrates that a modification of

Western secularism allows religion to be accommodated in the public sphere

without being the threat that the rigid and singular view of modernity claims.

However, this accommodation has not come about without a struggle in Turkey.

Indeed, Turkey set out to eliminate religion from the public sphere as part of its drive

for modernization, but efforts to construct itself as a homogeneous European nation

by introducing multi-party democracy has, ironically, enabled a culture-based

Islamist politics to emerge which is challenging the imposition of secularism in

Turkey at least in the strict form of French laicite which prohibits the expression of

religion in state institutions. At the same time, however, these groups are also

seeking to create an all-encompassing ideology that provides room for the ethnic-

based identities that were denied under the previous elite-imposed singular Turkish

identity. While Turkey is engaged in this internal redefinition of its identity along

both ethnic and religious lines, it is also engaged in generating a European identity

1 Johan Galtung, “Cultural Violence”, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 27, No. 3, August 1990, p. 298.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 64

for its external dimension. Turkey’s possible accession to the European Union (EU) is

intrinsically linked to this external dimension of ‘who is a Turk’ and Turkey is seeking

to answer this question in a multifaceted way that will satisfy both dimensions. It is,

however, being hampered in this regard by the reluctance of European states to

acknowledge Turkey as sufficiently European to join the European Union. For these

states, Turkey remains misrecognized as Europe’s other. At the same time, many

people in Turkey also reject Europe as Turkey’s ‘other’.

Modernist assumptions concerning the creation of the future essentially dictate a

‘break from the past’. The state of Turkey, after its birth in 1924 as an independent

nation-state, avowedly followed and forcefully implemented all its policies with a

European modernist agenda in mind. The achievements of the Ottoman Empire were

considered ‘backward’ and therefore nullified, uprooted or suppressed, to be

replaced with European ‘civilized’ ideas, as Europe was considered to be the epitome

of civilization at the time. However, such assertions of modernity, tied as they were

to an assimilationist policy of Europeanization, ignored Turkey’s multi-ethnic and

multi-religious identity and it is because of this that Turkey has had to rethink its

application of a particular version of Western secularism.

Turkey is still committed to secularism. However, Europe continues to refuse to

recognize the modern state of Turkey as essentially European, with religion being

the ‘trump card’ in identifying Turkey’s non-European character.2 While to be a Turk

for Turkey is to be considered a member of a multi-religious and multi-ethnic people

residing in Turkey, for many Europeans a Turk remains simply a Muslim. The

continuing widespread European perception of Turkey as a so-called Ghazi state

portrays contemporary Turkey as a typical Muslim state engaged in using Islam as a

means of expanding its international position.

2 There are two divergent groups in the EU using religion against Turkey. This is elaborated later.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 65

Turkey’s dilemma in constructing its identity is explored from two perspectives: the

historical perspective of the construction of the state of Turkey as a modern, secular

state that has recognized Europe as its ideal; and the rise of an Islam-based political

party that challenges the existing secular conception of a state that has limited the

expression of religion in the public sphere. The current chapter looks at why the

issue of Turkey’s accession to the EU is significant for completing its project of

identity construction. The next chapter (Chapter Four) shows how Islam-based

political parties are attempting to renegotiate secularism as state neutrality towards

religion instead of the more rigid form of secularism adopted in the Turkish

Constitution. A combination of these two factors explains why a country aspires to

portray and gain recognition of a positive identity at the international level.

In exploring Turkish identity construction at the domestic level and the role of

Islamists in this project, this chapter also focuses on the formidable challenges that

have faced Turkey as it has tried to gain recognition as European. These challenges

have arisen because the international community has long constructed Turkey as the

other of Europe. As such, it has been a key component in the construction of

Europe’s own view of itself. In spite of Turkey’s efforts to be seen otherwise,

Europe’s understanding of Turkey as its other, which began with the European

perception of the Ottomans as inherently Muslim rulers intent on conquering foreign

lands in order to spread Islam, continues. This Western construction of Turkey not

only depicts Islam as an essentially expansionist ideology, but also extends this

depiction to an explanation of recent political developments in Turkey, particularly

the rise of the AK Parti as a strong stakeholder in Turkish politics.3 While the rise of

the AK Parti actually occurred as a result of the failure of Kemalist ideology to

address Turkey’s internal identity issues, the chapter shows how the historical

othering of both the Ottomans and Turkey has meant that Turkey’s aspirations to be

3 The proper usage of the acronym of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi) has been an issue of much debate. Official party records provided by the party to the Ministry of Interior refer to “AK Parti” as the party’s intended acronym.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 66

recognized as both modern and a member of ‘civilized’ Europe are likely to be

frustrated. As a result, Turkey’s reimagining of European secularism to accommodate

religious expression in the public sphere, an accommodation that could prove as

useful to Europe as it may be to non-Western states, may also remain unrecognized

and inaccessible.

The chapter begins by looking at the ghazi thesis and how it influenced the creation

of a negative image of the Ottomans and subsequently the state of Turkey at odds

with fundamental characteristics of the Empire. The chapter then considers whether

the Ottomans belonged to Europe or not. The Kemalist ideology is considered in

detail, as it was this ideology that laid the foundation for and consolidation of a

European identity for Turkey. It is within the structure of this foundation of Turkey’s

Europeanized identity that Islamist political groups in Turkey are attempting to

reinterpret secularism as a separation between religion and politics that does not

entail the prohibition of religious freedom in the public sphere, but prevents religion

from usurping politics. On the other hand, while Turkey internally aims to reinterpret

secularism, its demography of a Muslim majority population encourages Europe to

construct Turkey as its other. It will be argued that Europe’s failure to recognize the

efforts by Turkey to find ways to accommodate religion harms both Turkey and

Europe by confining them both to an inward-looking and possibly contradictory

identity, since the EU accommodates the Greek state’s close relationship with the

Greek Orthodox Church. Yet, Turkey has built its secular credentials by keeping

Europe as its ideal. Therefore, gaining membership of the EU is considered a vital

marker of Turkey appearing modern in a European sense.

The Construction of Turkish Identity as the Bearer of Ottoman

Heritage

Any reference to the identity construction of the state of Turkey must start from its

Ottoman past, from which the state of Turkey has descended as an independent

nation-state. The political power of the Ottoman Empire was manifested in three

distinct phases—the early period (1300 to 1580), middle centuries (1580-1800) and

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 67

the later years as the period of decline until its final dissolution in 1922. It was during

the sixteenth century that the Ottoman Empire reached the height of its power,

controlling south-east Europe, the Caucasus, the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa and

the Levant.4

An analysis of the legacy of the Ottoman Empire to Europe is important due to

several factors. First, research shows that there has been a rise of neo-Ottomanism

in Turkish foreign policy in recent times that suggests to some that Turkey wants to

re-establish the Ottoman glory that was lost to it with its emergence as a nation-

state. A second issue linked with the first proposition is that Turkey is suffering from

an image crisis that is associated with the negative construction of the Ottomans as a

dynasty solely based on religious purposes that may have significant implications for

Europe.

The Ottoman Empire as a Ghazi State

Traditional historiography suggests two contradictory understandings regarding the

Ottoman Empire: first, that it was a ghazi state, intent on establishing Islam through

the sword; and second that the Ottoman Empire was a ‘closed system’ that needed

the influence of European modern ideas only, rather than being able to draw on

internal developments to initiate the beginning of the Tanzimat (modernization) that

was to transform the Ottoman Empire into the modern, independent and sovereign

state of Turkey. On this understanding, the Ottoman Empire was perceived as a

traditional society that was compelled to be modern by external pressure arising

especially from Europe.

The principal theorist to popularize the ghazi thesis was Paul Wittek in his 1938

publication, The Rise of the Ottoman Empire, where he argued that the Ottoman

Empire was ‘an Islamic polity, the sole raison d’etre of which… was…to undertake

4 George Friedman, The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century, Doubleday, 2009, p. 81.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 68

war for the Muslim faith against the Infidel’.5 Wittek formulated his ghazi thesis in

response to Mehmet Fuat Korpulu’s analysis of Ottoman history, in which Korpulu

showed how the Ottoman state was the inheritor of the transformation over the

previous two hundred years of the Muslim Anatolian Turkish society that had

flourished under the Ottomans. However, the essential point of both Wittek’s and

Korpulu’s arguments was similar: ‘religion played a part, perhaps an important part,

in the story of Ottoman expansion’.6

The construction of the Ottoman Empire as a ghazi state became popular in Western

academia, which viewed the advancement of the Ottoman Empire as being based

solely on religious beliefs. At the core of such beliefs was said to be one purpose: the

realization of the Islamic goal of defeating the Christians of the Byzantine Empire.

Ignoring the ethnic or any other dimension that might have contributed to the rise

and sustenance of the Ottomans, this view held that it was the ‘gaza’ or Holy War

that was the ‘important factor in the foundation and development of the Ottoman

state’.7

Not until the 1970s was this construction of religion as the one and only dictum

behind the survival and sustenance of the Ottoman Empire academically contested.

Revisionist research since the 1970s has started to challenge the view that the

Ottoman Empire was solely promoting a religious interest in its worldview. The

notable works of Lowry, Kafadar and Lindner, among others, have categorically

disproven the centrality of religion to all Ottoman actions. Lowry, for example, has

shown that the primary motivations for Ottoman success were economic

considerations—predominantly a desire for booty and slaves. Practices in the early

5 Colin Heywood, “Introduction: A Critical Essay”, Colin Heywood (ed.), Paul Wittek, The Rise of the Ottoman Empire: Studies in the History of Turkey, Thirteenth-Fifteenth Centuries, translations by Colin Heywood, Rudi Paul Lindner and Oliver Welsh, Routledge, 2012, p. 2. 6Cemal Kafadar, Between the Two World: The Construction of the Ottoman State, University of California Press, 1995, p. 35. 7 Halil Inalcik, quoted in Heath W. Lowry, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State, State University of New York Press, 2003, p. 7.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 69

Ottoman period show that, rather than religion being the primary determinant of its

policies, Islam was frequently sacrificed for ‘practical considerations’ of economy.8

Similarly, exploring the history of the Ottoman consolidation of power, Lindner has

revealed a genealogical basis for the Ottoman Empire that has substantially

challenged the sole religious root that has long been established in Western

academia.9 Lindner disproved the idea of a ‘single minded Muslim zeal’ as the

impetus for Ottoman expansion. Instead, he has argued that the actions of the

Ottoman Empire were based on the nature of the challenges that they met and the

cultural assumptions that they ‘inherited and celebrated’.10

The treatment of the Ottoman Empire is a reminder of the role Western

historiography has played in constructing its other. Kafadar points out that the

West’s accounts of early Ottoman history and state-building processes have been

created through the lens of ‘ahistorical either/or propositions’ that suited Western

historians of the 1930s.11 Goffman has argued that, contrary to Western views,

although the Ottomans were of Turkic ethnicity, the question of ethnicity was

viewed by them merely as a fact, something that they were not ‘emphatic’ about,

and in any case, their willingness to acquire new knowledge from Europe lessened

the role of religious faith as a ‘primary social identifier’ in the Empire.12

Transformation in the Ottoman Empire: external pressure or internal

development?

The subsequent assumption linked with the ghazi thesis suggests that Turkey’s

emancipation was rooted in the intrusion of modernist ideas into a rigid and anti-

Western Ottoman Empire from the nineteenth century onwards. Such views assume

that, during its declining years, ‘Ottoman society, being traditional, had no way but

8Ibid, p. 131. 9 Rudi Paul Lindner, Explorations in Ottoman Prehistory, Michigan University Press, 2007. 10Ibid, p. 119. 11 Cemal Kafadar, Between the Two World, p. 12. 12Daniel Goffman, The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 227 and 231.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 70

to become a modern or better society’13 but that it could not do this for itself. As a

result, developments that took place within the Ottoman Empire that might have led

it towards modernist reforms are overlooked. Instead, reform is wholly attributed to

a forceful European contribution, imposed from the outside.

This attribution can only be made because attempts to universalize the supremacy of

Western ideas tend to overlook local contributions to modernity that have

manifested in the evolution to modernity of multiple societies across the world.

Moreover, such an outlook also suggests that the construction of the image of

Muslims occurs within much of the Western psyche, since it occurs regardless of the

actual characteristics of the societies involved. This is demonstrated in the West’s

construction of the Turks as Muslim invaders of Christian Europe. Much cited in this

regard is the work of Herbert Gibbons, who emphasized the civilizing effects of

Europe on its Eastern frontiers, and contended that the glory of the Ottomans rested

on Byzantine institutions.14 The European perception of the Ottoman Empire was

infused with notions of the Empire as a tyrannical and despotic civilization, an

understanding aptly summarized by Francis Bacon’s observation that ‘a monarchy

where there is no nobility at all is ever pure and absolute a Tyranny as that of the

Turks’.15 The equation of the Ottomans with tyranny and despotism, especially

during the middle centuries of Ottoman rule, has played a fundamental part in

creating the belief in Europe that the Ottomans belonged outside of European

civilization.

A lacuna in research on the development of society, law and the trading system

under the Ottoman Empire during the middle centuries has led to the belief that the

modern nation-state system was an invention of Western society, and that non-

13 Rifa’at ‘Ali Abou-El-Haj, Formation of the Modern State: The Ottoman Empire, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, Syracuse University Press, 2005, p. 62. 14 Daniel Goffman, The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe, p. 28. 15 Quoted in Asli Cirakman, “From Tyranny to Despotism: the Enlightenment’s Unenlightened Image of the Turks”,International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2000, p. 51.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 71

Westerners simply yielded to the pressure of modern ideas from the West under the

OttmansOttomans. However, a careful analysis of the policies of the Ottoman

Empire during the middle centuries challenges such a view. Transformations carried

out within the Ottoman Empire itself during the middle centuries led to a silent

modernization of the society, rather than changes induced by external pressure on

the Empire. Society under the Empire had in fact already been moving towards a

separation between the public and the private, separating the state from society and

economy in the modern sense, since the eighteenth century.16 The Ottoman Empire

was not the ‘closed system’ traditional literature has claimed it to be, but had always

had contacts with Europeans and welcomed new ideas. Nevertheless, and more

importantly, this openness did not mean yielding to foreign pressure or to the

attractiveness of foreign ideals. Rather, new ideas were carefully tailored to meet

the needs of the Ottomans.17 The Empire also practiced the Roman tradition of

welcoming foreigners into the society on the basis of their expertise, and making the

best use of these naturalized foreigners to serve the Empire’s interests.18 Karpat has

argued that an overreliance on secondary sources and an exclusive focus on the

‘wholesale acceptance of Western ideas’ that began during the late Ottoman period

and which eventually culminated in the Republic, have obscured actual Ottoman

achievements and Ottoman history.19 Thus, when native Turkish scholars such as

Niyazi Berkes have looked at Ottoman history using local sources, their work has

been accused of being ‘nationalistic’.20

16Rifa’at ‘Ali Abou-El-Haj, Formation of the Modern State, p. 55. 17Ibid, p. 68. 18Arnold J. Toynbee, “The Ottoman Empire’s Place in World History”, Kemal H. Karpat (ed), The Ottoman State and Its Place in World History, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1974, p. 23. 19 Kemal H. Karpat, Studies on Ottoman Social and Political History: Selected Articles and Essays, Leiden, 2002, p. 9. 20Ibid, p. 9.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 72

Ottomanism and the Consolidation of the Identity of a ‘Turk’

The identity of ‘Turk’ began to be consolidated under the Ottoman Empire at a time

when Turks were perceived disparagingly by Europeans as ‘blockheads’ by

Europeans.21 They were ‘the uncouth, the villagers, and the undesirables’22who

spoke Turkish, adhered to a culture rooted in the Turkic tribe, and who had migrated

from the Altai mountain region in the sixth century.23 The Ottomans, on the other

hand, referred to themselves as Osmanli, a term that encompassed their dynastic

affiliation even though they used Turkish (a combination of Turkish, Arabic and

Persian) as their language.24 Thus, the Ottomans did not perceive themselves as

Turks. They were only viewed as such externally, especially by Europeans where the

term Turk was applied to people living under Ottoman rule who were Muslims. By

the eighteenth century, ‘going Turk’ was popularly equated in the West with

conversion to Islam.25 Turkey was the name given the Ottoman Empire by outsiders.

Both terms had negative connotations.26 However, influenced by European ideas on

nationalism, the Young Ottomans began to use Turkiye to refer to Turkey in a

national sense, though their initial choice had been ‘Turkistan’.27

Lewis considers that Islamization accounts for the apparent obliviousness of the

Ottomans towards their Turkish origins:

21 Erik Cornell, Turkey in the 21 Century: Opportunities, Challenges, Threats, Curzon Press, 2001, p. 30. 22 Kemal H. Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and Community on the Late Ottoman Society, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 361. 23 Zeyno Baran, Torn Country: Turkey between Secularism and Islamism, Hoover Institution Press, 2010, p. 10. 24 Norman Itzkowitz, “The Problem of Perceptions”, L. Carl Brown (ed), Imperial Legacy: The Ottoman Imprint on the Balkans and the Middle East, Columbia University Press, 1996, p. 31. 25 Reina Lewis, Rethinking Orientalism: Women, Travel and the Ottoman Harem, I.B. Tauris, 2004, p. 69. 26 Ozay Mehmet, Islamic Identity and Development: Studies of the Islamic Periphery, Routledge, 1990, p. 17. 27 Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, Oxford University Press, 1968, p. 333.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 73

The first Turkish converts to Islam…identified themselves completely

with their new faith, and seem to have forgotten their separate Turkish

past with astonishing rapidity and completeness…under the double

weight of the imperial and Islamic traditions. In the twofold struggle

against Christendom and heresy, the nascent Turkish sense of national

identity was overlaid and effaced.28

It was the sense of Turkishness as a national identity that the Young Turks hoped to

recapture when they embraced the name Turkey.

While it is often contended that Ottomanism and Turkism are mutually exclusive

concepts, the root of modern Turkism or Turkish identity can be traced to the

development of Ottomanism during the nineteenth century. Ottomanism began with

Namik Kemal (1840-1888), who introduced the nationalistic idea of a territory as a

homeland or country (vatan) to which people could relate rather than simply a place

that they occupied.29 Through his writings, particularly the patriotic play Vatan Yahut

Silistre (Fatherland), Namik Kemal promoted the idea of a ‘home’ under the Ottoman

Caliph within the Empire.30 He believed that a national literature could provide

subjects with a proper channel through which to express their patriotism.31

The West considers the Ottoman Empire to be solely Turkish in nature, referring to

its Islamic identity. However, although Ottomanism did initially include only people

of Muslim origin as Ottomans, this was later to change as the Ottomans aspired to

create a unified nation. Ottomanism in fact came to accommodate multicultural and

28Ibid, p. 332-33. 29 Sina Aksin, Turkey from Empire to Revolutionary Republic: the Emergence of the Turkish Nation from 1789 to Present, New York University Press, 2007, p. 34-35. 30 Reina Lewis, Rethinking Orientalism, p. 88. 31 Kemal H. Karpat, The Politicization of Islam, p. 332.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 74

multi-ethnic groups within the empire.32 The concepts of ‘Ottoman nationality’ and

an ‘Ottoman home’ emerged as a way of addressing the political challenges that

emanated from Europe in the post-French Revolution period.33 The French notion of

equality, derived from the French Declaration des Droits de l’homme et du Citoyen,

served as the basis for the ‘de-religionization’ of official Ottoman policy.34

Ottomanism, without the religious categorization of the population, flourished as the

Empire, wanting to be a part of the new European Order in 1815, turned itself into a

multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural political system.35 Official promotion

of Ottomanism by the Empire thus ‘foster[ed] a secular state-centric loyalty that

would theoretically foster loyalty of the Christian subjects to the empire’.36 The

Ottoman millet (religious community) system is considered to be the very first pre-

modern example of accommodating religious pluralism. The system allowed the

‘religions of the Book’ [Quran], that is, the recognition of three non-Muslim millets—

the ‘Rum’ (Greek Orthodox Christians), the Armenian (Georgians) and the Jewish

millet.37

The period between 1908 and 1918 saw the consolidation of Turkism under both the

rule of the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) and the ideas

promulgated by the Young Turks, but with a significant difference. While the CUP

generally contended that ‘Turks and Ottomans [were] the same’, the Turkism of the

32Gokhan Bacik, “Need for Ottomanism at Home”,Today’s Zaman, located at <http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist-300677-need-for-ottomanism-at-home.html>, accessed on April 19, 2013. 33 Mustafa Sahin, “Islam, Ottoman Legacy, and Politics in Turkey: An Axis Shift?”,Washington Review of Turkish and Eurasian Affairs, January, 2011, located at:<http://www.thewashingtonreview.org/articles/islam-ottoman-legacy-and-politics-in-turkey-an-axis-shift.html>, accessed on April 18, 2013. 34 M. Sukru Hanioglu, “Turkism and the Young Turks, 1889-1908”, Hand-Lukas Kieser (ed.), Turkey beyond Nationalism: Towards Post-Nationalist Identities, I.B. Tauris, 2006, p. 4. 35Kemal H. Karpat, The Politicization of Islam, p. 324. 36 M. Hakan Yavuz, “Turkish Identity and Foreign Policy in Flux: The Rise of Neo-Ottomanism”, Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 7, No. 12, Spring 1998, p. 24. 37Dimitrios Stamatopoulos, “From Millets to Minorities in the 19th-Century Ottoman Empire: an Ambiguous Modernization” in Steven G. Ellis, Guðmundur Hálfdanarson and Ann Katherine Isaacs (eds.), Citizenship in historical perspective, Lungarno Pacinotti: Pisa University Press, 2006, p. 253.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 75

Young Turks aimed to ‘break the shackles of Ottomanism once and for all’.38 A major

difference between the CUP and the Young Turks lay in their treatment and use of

religion in the society. While the CUP recommended replacing Islamic notions with

scientific notions, they were in favour of keeping Islamic jargon in order not to be

identified as anti-Islamic. They believed that putting on an ‘Islamic jacket’ would

make their ideas more palatable to the Muslim masses.39 The Young Turks, however,

rejected this approach, demanding:

The closure of medreses, tekkes and zaviyes (Sufi lodges); the ban on

the vows to the Muslim Saints; the replacement of the fez with a new

national hat; the prohibition of unmarried women’s veiling, especially

during their education; the ban on wearing the turban and cloak for

those other than the certified ulema; the reformation of the Turkish

language and alphabet; and the reconstruction of the legal system.40

The ideas of the European ‘enthusiasts’ of the mid-nineteenth century41 capitulated

to the Young Turks’ ideology of ‘Turkey for Turks’,42 which served as the basis for the

Kemalist reforms under Ataturk in the new state of Turkey. At the core of

determining Turkishness was the National Pact (Misak-I Milli) adopted on January

28, 1920, which declared that the people, the ‘Ottoman Muslim-majority’ living in

the areas within the Mudros Armistice line of October 30, 1918 (areas which had

formerly belonged to the Ottoman Empire), were an ‘indivisible whole’.43

38 M. Sukru Hanioglu, “Turkism and the Young Turks, 1889-1908”, pp. 9 & 12. 39 Ahmet T. Kuru, Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: the United State, France, and Turkey, Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 215. 40Ibid, p. 215. 41 Scott L. Malcomso, “Disco Dancing in Bulgaria”, Mae G. Henderson (ed), Borders, Boundaries, and Frames: Essays in Cultural Criticism and Cultural Studies, Routledge, 1995, p. 137. 42 Zeyno Baran, Torn Country, 2010, p. 20. 43 Soner Cagaptay, Islam, Secularism, and Nationalism in Modern Turkey, Routledge, 2006, p. 11. Cagaptay pointed out that the state of Turkey had ‘a specific, ethno-religious perspective of the nation: it defined the Turks in relation to the Ottoman Muslim millet, and the non-Turks in relation to

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 76

Creating a ‘civilized identity’—Turkey in the European Jacket

After the excruciating defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, its

eventual dismemberment and a period of political turmoil, a national resistance

appeared in 1918. The war of independence was won under the leadership of

Mustafa Kemal Pasha in September 1922, and Turkey emerged from the remnants of

the Empire as an independent state in 1923. The modern state of Turkey, with its

marked territorial demarcation, was recognized in the Lausanne Treaty of July 24,

1923. The guiding principle of the newly independent country was embodied in

Kemalism or Ataturkism, called after Kemal Pasha.44 As Feroz Ahmad has pointed

out:

Turkey did not rise phoenix-like out of the ashes of the Ottoman

Empire. It was ‘made’ in the image of the Kemalist elite which won

the national struggle against foreign invaders and the old regime.45

Kemalism is delineated according to six basic principles, often called the ‘six

arrows’,46 which are outlined in the Republican People’s Party’s program and in the

Turkish Constitution of 1924.47 These principles are republicanism, secularism,

nationalism, populism, statism [etatism—the state has a leading role in economic

development] and revolutionism.48 Aimed at the realization of a modern Turkish

society and state that specifically put aside Ottoman imperial ambitions and pan-

Turkic or pan-Islamic ideologies, Kemalism has been defined as ‘the ideological basis

the Ottoman Christians. Using this as a litmus test, Ankara granted citizenship to many aspiring persons, while banishing some of its own from this privilege’. Ibid, p. 65. 44 Mustafa Kemal Pasha was given the title of ‘Gazi’ (Soldier in a Holy War) after winning the battle of Sakarya in September, 1921. He used this title until 1934, when he assumed the name ‘Ataturk’, meaning ‘Father Turk’. He has been commonly referred to both in Turkey and in the world as ‘Ataturk’ ever since. Feroz Ahmad, Turkey: The Quest for Identity, Oneworld Publications, 2003, p. 82. 45 Feroz Ahmad, The Making of Modern Turkey, Routledge, 1993, p. 2. 46Paul Dumont, “The Origins of Kemalist Ideology”, Jacob M. Landau (ed.), Ataturk and the Modernization of Turkey, Westview Press, 1984, p. 26. 47 Suna Kili, “Kemalism in Contemporary Turkey”, International Political Science Review, Vol. 1, No. 3, July 1980, p. 387. 48Erik J. Zurcher, Turkey: A Modern History, I.B. Tauris, 1993, p. 189.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 77

of the commitment to complete modernization, and the reforms involved the

practical application of the basic principles of this [Kemalist] ideology’.49

The major thrust of Kemalism was to create a conscious break from the previous era

of Ottoman rule. This was considered essential to creating a modern future for

Turkey. The Young Turks’ idea that ‘either we modernize or we are destroyed’ was

certainly a driving principle, understood as meaning that: ‘There is no second

civilization; civilization means European civilization and it must be imported with

both its roses and thorns’.50 That is Turkish modernity saw Europe as its ideal, which

was later reflected in adopting European laws and culture. Turkish modernity was

imbued with European understanding of modernity where religion would be

incarcerated to private domain, which was not entirely true for all the European

states. These tones were echoed by the Turkish intelligentsia, which asserted:

We must learn in Europe, work like Europe and with Europe. And the

torch which we shall hold in our hand to advance on the way of

civilization can be nothing else than the method applied in Europe.51

While Ataturk was intent on building a new Turkey on the basis ofbased on this

modernization project, he himself never used the term ‘Westernization’ to refer to

the origins of such a project. InsteadInstead, he referred to ‘contemporary

civilization’ as an example from which to build Turkey as a model of modernity.52

However, Joshua Walker, echoing Lewis’s observation, claims that the ‘[t]wo

dominant beliefs of Ataturk’s life were in the Turkish nation and in progress; the

future of both lay in civilization, which for him meant the modern civilization of the

49Suna Kili, “Kemalism in Contemporary Turkey”, pp. 380 and 387. 50Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World in the 19th and early 20th Centuries, Zed Books, 1994, p. 30. 51 Henry Elisha Allen, The Turkish Transformation: A Study in Social and Religious Development, Greenwood Press, Publishers, 1968 (1935), p. 52. 52 Joshua A. Walker, “Reclaiming Turkey’s Imperial Past”, Ronald H. Linden (et al), Turkey and Its Neighbors: Foreign Relations in Transition, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2012, p. 33.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 78

West and no other’.53 This modernist aspiration is succinctly captured by Zurcher,

who states that:

The essential novelty of the Kemalist republic and its making a clean

break with the Ottoman past was the theme, not only of Kemalist

historiography but of literally dozens of books published in the

West.54

Similarly, Kinzer has argued that the essential nature of Kemalism meant a ‘break

away from its autocratic heritage’.55 In the ‘great speech’ delivered over a period of

six days to the People’s Party at Ankara in 1927, Ataturk asserted his objective of

promoting Turkey into the nation-states of the ‘civilized world’—the West, as

opposed to the backward nations of the Orient. His intention, he asserted, was ‘to

raise the nation to that position to which she [Turkey] is entitled to aspire in the

civilized world and to establish the Turkish Republic forever on firm foundations’.56

This civilizational discourse therefore:

[S]crutinized and praised the distinction between a “civilized” and an

“uncivilized” manner, the “a la franca” (European way) at the expense

and to the detriment of everything “a la turca” (the Turkish way).57

It must be noted here that even though the Turkish model of secularism (laiklik)

followed the French model of laicite, the Westernization process of Turkey was not

modeled after France only. The Turkish model borrowed from all available European

models, including the German and Swiss legal systems. It also endorsed a liberal

53 Bernard Lewis, Emergence of Modern Turkey, p. 292. 54 Erik J. Zurcher, quoted in Ahmet T. Kuru, Secularism and State Policies toward Religion, p. 203. 55 Stephen Kinzer, Crescent and Star: Turkey between Two Worlds, Farrar, Staruss and Giroux, 2008, p. 9. 56 Henry Elisha Allen, The Turkish Transformation, p. 49. 57 Nilufer Gole, “Authoritarian Secularism and Islamist Politics: The Case of Turkey, ” Augustus Richard Norton (ed), Civil Society in the Middle East, Vol. 2, E.J. Brill, 1996, p. 23.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 79

unilinear view of history, with progress to a destined goal as the end of history.58 The

republican ideology of Kemalism thus ended up being a carrier of the

Western/European civilizational debate that had constructed Islam as a political

ideology, reinforcing the Western binary narrative for Turkish society of the modern,

secular and Europe/West standing against a backward Islam and Ottoman. Thus

Kemalism itself reinforced the dominant construction of Europe vis-à-vis the other,

in which Islam, as a political ideology, was a threat to the modernization process that

needed to be controlled.59

Kemalism—a rupture from or continuation of the Ottoman past?

Debate over the construction of Turkish identity is always marked by two opposing

questions: is modern Turkey an ideational inheritor of the Ottoman Empire, or does

it represent a rupture with the past?past. In the immediate aftermath of the birth of

the Turkish Republic, as Turkey strove to move on from its Ottoman heritage in order

to create a modern identity, the rupture thesis took prominence over the continuity

argument. The rupture thesis, in essence, argues that the creation of a modern

Turkey involved the conscious creation of a future that had broken with its Ottoman

past. The idea is encapsulated in Ataturk’s declaration that ‘the war is over with our

victory, but our real struggle for independence is to begin only now—this is the

struggle to achieve Western civilization’.60

However, Turkey emerged with a ‘surplus of history’.61 There was no way that such a

past could be entirely avoided while remaking the future. While Kemalism charted a

clear break from the Ottoman past, the Kemalist movement was also a direct

beneficiary of the various reforms that had been undertaken by the Ottomans, thus

58Bobby S. Sayyid, A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism, Zed books, 2003, p. 67. 59 The promotion of women’s rights as part of Kemalist construction of a modern Turkey is highlighted in details in the next chapter. 60 Hasan Kosebalaban, Turkish Foreign Policy: Islam, Nationalism, and Globalization, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, p. 50. 61 Karem Oktem, Turkey since 1989: Angry Nation, Zed Books, 2011, p. 14.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 80

creating a continuity with the Ottoman legacy. Serif Mardin has traced the ‘echoes of

Young Ottoman ideas’ in the development of Kemalism.62 The Young Ottomans were

precursors to the birth of the ideas of constitutional liberalism, a modernist Islam

and pro-Turkism which are considered as the genesis of radical Turkish nationalism.

Both Zurcher and Metin Heper have similarly argued that the modern state of Turkey

marked an Ottoman continuity—politically, ideologically and economically:

‘[c]ontinuity rather than change characterizes Turkish political culture’.63 Heper

points out that the transition to democracy in Turkey occurred among the state elite,

not in civil society, continuing the Ottoman tradition of distrust among the state elite

of its political elite.64 The reforms of Turkey carried out through Kemalism were

therefore ‘a culmination of and moment of triumph’ of the reforms of the Ottoman

Empire that started in the nineteenth century.65 In fact, while there was a clear

dualism between secular laws and sharia laws even after the introduction of reforms

by the Ottoman Empire, there was a discernible path towards modernization and

secularization during Ottoman rule.66 Although the Islamist faction of the Young

Ottomans had considered that the secularizing policies introduced by the Empire

would lead towards the downfall of the Empire, they had had no doubt about the

question of the superiority of European methods in the sectors of administration,

science, and technology.67 Kemalism, therefore, was simply an intensification and

consolidation of such thought.

62 Serif Mardin, Religion, Society, and Modernity in Turkey, Syracuse University Press, 2006, p. 165. 63 Metin Heper, “The Ottoman Legacy and Turkish Politics”,Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 54, No. 1, Fall 2000, p. 63; also, Erik J. Zurcher,Turkey, p. 4. 64 Metin Heper, “The Ottoman Legacy and Turkish Politics”, p. 77-8. In the Turkish political system, state elite is composed of civil and military bureaucracy whereas political elite is composed of members of political parties. 65 Graham E. Fuller, The New Turkish Republic: Turkey as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World, The US Institute of Peace Press, 2008, p. 25. 66Ergun Ozbudun and Ali Kazancigil, “Introduction”, Ali Kazancigil and Ergun Ozbudun (eds.), Ataturk: Founder of a Modern State, Hurst & Company, 1997, p. 3. 67Umit Cizre Sakallioglu, “Parameters and Strategies of Islam-State Interaction in Republican Turkey”, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 28, No. 2, May 1996, p. 233.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 81

Debates over the origins of Kemalism, according to Kuru, can be resolved by taking a

middle ground that analyses the inherent character of Kemalism. While a close

observation of Kemalism shows that it had indeed inherited secular institutions like

schools, courts, and laws from the Ottoman Empire, it also pursued its own strict

view on limiting the public role of Islam in Turkish political culture.68 The issue of

Islam was sensitive in relation to Turkey’s new identity and Ataturk made a

conscious choice to break with the Empire’s legacy of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious

and multi-linguistic formation by initially insisting on the construction of a Turkish

identity based on the ethnic Turkish-speaking Muslims living in Anatolia, and then

insisting on Western secularism. However, the Turks, as inheritors of the religious

traditions of the Ottomans, while eager to embrace the new, European model, did

not want to forsake this heritage. While the Turks ‘were astride two different

cultures and civilizations, perhaps more at home in the old Ottoman Islamic world,

but definitely impelled towards the modern European world which they were daily

discovering’,69 Kemalist efforts to suppress their Ottoman-Islamic heritage would

eventually fuel the rise of Islamist elements in Turkey in later years.

The Philosophical Roots of Turkish Nationalism: Ziya Gokalp and

Yusuf Akcura

The word ‘Turk’ meant very little at the turn of the twentieth century. Ottomanism

as a political ideology was in decline and so was the role of Islam in the late

nineteenth and early twentieth century. It was against this backdrop that the idea of

elevating the status of the Anatolian Turkish peasantry as the backbone of a Turkish

nation was imagined in the work of two major philosophers: Ziya Gokalp (1876-1924)

and Yusuf Akcura (1876-1939). While modern ideas had already been making a mark

in the transition of Turkish society since the mid-nineteenth century, it was the

68 Ahmet T. Kuru, Secularism and State Policies toward Religion, p. 203. 69Osman Okyar, “Ataturk’s Quest for Modernism”, Jacob M. Landau (ed), Ataturk and the Modernization of Turkey, Westview Press, 1984, p. 47.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 82

works of Gokalp and Akcura that helped to shape a particular identity and

characteristic for the Turk. Turkish nationalism seemed to be the last hope for unity

in a rapidly dying Empire. The goal of both philosophers was similar—to lay the

foundation of a Turkish identity in the face of a changing political scenario—though

they differed on the parameters that should define a person as a Turk.

Akcura proposed a nationalism that would be territorially unlimited and expansionist

in nature. In Uc Tarz-i Siyaset (Three Policies), published in 1902 in an Egyptian

newspaper, he outlined three possible routes for a future Turkey—Ottomanism

(Osmanlicilik), Pan-Islamism (Islamcilik) and Pan-Turkism (Turkculuk).70 Akcura

believed that the Turkish future lay in Turkism,71 but given the existing expansion of

the Turks beyond their centre in Anatolia and the need to confront threats

emanating from Russia, he argued that only pan-Turkism could address the issue of

Turkey’s future. He therefore advocated a universalistic application of Turkism as a

way of creating a bond between all ethnic Turks that would not restrict the concept

of a Turk to meaning only an Ottoman Muslim. According to Akcura, while a

nationalism based on Pan-Islamism would help a possible Turkish penetration into

Asia and Africa, the ethnicity-based Pan-Turkism would better manage the challenge

presented by the growing power of Russia. Although Pan-Turkism, like Pan-Islamism,

had pitfalls, Pan-Turkism, with its expansionist ethnic orientation, also provided a

better solution to the problem of consolidating a secure Turkish future by separating

the state from religious (Islamic) influence.72

Gokalp is often considered as the ‘father of Turkish nationalism’ and had more

influence in shaping the Kemalist ideology than Akcura. Influenced by the works of

Durkheim, Gokalp believed in a strong role for religion in shaping the identity of a

70Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, Instilling Religion in Greek and Turkish Nationalism: A “Sacred” Synthesis, Palgravepivot, 2012, p. 56. 71 Hasan Kosebalaban, Turkish Foreign Policy, p. 41. 72For a concise analysis of Akcura’s thoughts, see Kemal Karpat, The Politicization of Islam, pp-388-396.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 83

society and a nation and tried to create a synthesis between Islam, nationalism and

Western civilization. Gokalp was opposed to limiting the nation to just its

geographical basis. Instead, he believed that a nation referred to ‘a community of

individuals who share the same language, religion, morals and aesthetics, who

received in other words the same education’.73 In his analysis of Turkishness, Gokalp

stressed that a kavm (ethnic group) was transformed into a nation when it acquired

a national conscience (milli vicdan). He emphasized the roots of a Turkish national

conscience in the following way:

The Turkish kavm existed before the Islamic ummet [ummah], and the

Selcuk and the Ottoman Empires. It had its own ethnic civilization

before it entered into common Iranian civilization [which along] with

the [Islamic] ummet and [Ottoman] imperial organization [all three

supranational entities] destroyed many of the [Turks’] ethnic

institutions…[but] this participation in [supranational organizations]

prepared the way for the Turks to develop into a nation.74

While the concept of culture was important in Gokalp’s view, his worldview, in

essence, can be summarized in the following assertion: ‘Everyone of us lives a

national as well as an international life’.75 His civilizational approach involved

learning from Europe. Civilizational achievements were to be found in European

techniques of modern science and administration.76 However, such civilizational

attributes were to co-exist with Turkish cultural attributes, in particular its Islamic

heritage. Gokalp thus sought to create a synthesis of Turkic, Islamic and Western

values in order to ease Turkey’s transition from an empire to a nation.

73 Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, Instilling Religion in Greek and Turkish Nationalism, p. 58. 74 Kemal Karpat, The Politicization of Islam, p. 380. 75 Gokalp in Andrew Davison, “Laiklik and Turkey’s “Cultural” Modernity: Releasing Turkey into Conceptual Space Occupied by “Europe”, E. Fuat Keyman (ed), Remaking Turkey: Globalization, Alternative Modernities, and Democracy, Lexington Books, 2007, p. 41. 76 Ibid, p. 41.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 84

Gokalp was critical of the manner of Westernization of the Tanzimat reforms

introduced by the Ottomans. He claimed that the reforms not only sacrificed the

traditional way of life but would also lead towards the eventual political and financial

dependence of the Ottomans on Europeans.77 In Gokalp’s view, a moderate version

of Islam rather than ethnic bonds should be used to forge Turkishness. He therefore,

opted for ‘keeping the Caliphate as a non-political spiritual body for all Muslims akin

to the papacy’.78 In this, however, as has been pointed out by Poulton, Gokalp was

more interested in the social value that Islam carried than its theological appeal.79

Although it has been argued that Ataturk was more influenced by Gokalp’s ideas

than by Akcura’s, Kemalism preferred a private role for religion in Turkey. It

therefore aimed to adopt European civilization in its entirety, rather than accept

Gokalp’s view that Europe was both ‘indispensable and inadequate’ in the sense that

while Europeanization was required, it needed to be synthesized with traditional

culture.80 Instead, Kemalism intended to achieve its goals by creating a new and

official identity of ‘Turk’. An entirely new Turkish identity was to be created through

reforms in the legal system and by promoting a ‘new’ role for women in society.81

The Kemalist elite thus sought to create a modern, European image for Turkey using

the model of the European nation-state. Although this did not materialize as

envisaged by the founding elites, it was within this essential Kemalist discourse that

Turkey aimed to define its external identity as part of the West and, especially, part

of Europe.

Nevertheless, Western perceptions of the Ottoman Empire as a ghazi state continue

to guide the West’s treatment of Turkey, especially in Europe where there is an open

77 Taha Parla, The Social and Political Thought of Ziya Gokalp: 1876-1924, E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1985, p. 2. 78 Hugh Poulton, Top Hat, Grey Wolf and Crescent: Turkish Nationalism and the Turkish Republic, Hurst & Company, 1997, p, 91. 79 Taha Parla, The Social and Political Thought of Ziya Gokalp, p. 38. 80 Andrew Davison, “Laiklik and Turkey’s “Cultural” Modernity”, p. 42. 81 This issue of considering women markers of creating a modern identity is dealt at length in the next chapter.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 85

reluctance to grant ‘Muslim Turkey’ member status of the EU. This negative image

has its historical roots in the Ottoman expansionism in the European mainland. The

Ottoman Empire covered a huge landmass in Asia Minor and Europe during its

heyday. Belonging neither to Asia nor to Europe, it was perceived to aspire to a Pax

Ottomanica to replace the former Roman power in Europe’s east.82 The image of the

Ottomans painted by all Christian Europe at the time was that the Turks were

‘lustful’ or ‘terrible’.83 Turks were stereotyped as people who ate children alive.84

Such cultural constructions are still manifested in common phrases directed at

children who will not behave, such as the Italian ‘Mama, i Turchi’ (‘Mamma, the

Turks are coming’).85 Although the Ottoman attempt to challenge Western prowess

by establishing an Islamic Empire has long been relinquished, Turks are still widely

perceived as intent on going ‘from the East to the West as the Westerners had gone

to the East’.86 As a result, despite Turkey’s efforts to Europeanize, Europe continues

to refuse to recognize Turkey as a European state. The reasons for this are largely

historical: Europe developed its own self-image by defining the Ottomans as their

other.

The Idea of ‘Europe’ and the Ottoman Empire

According to Pagden, the idea of Europeanness has arisen persistently whenever

Europeans have encountered an alien culture. The idea of Europe has thus emerged

as a political unit of analysis only in reference to others. Although as early as 1623

Europe’s identity was established sufficiently for Francis Bacon to assert: ‘we

82 Andrew Wheatcroft, The Ottomans: Dissolving Images, Penguin Books, 1993, p. xxi. 83 William H. McNeill, “The Ottoman Empire in World History”, Kemal H. Karpat, The Ottoman State and Its Place in World History, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1974, p. 34. 84 Andrew Wheatcroft, The Ottomans, p. 25. 85 Fred Halliday, Islam & the Myth of Confrontation, I.B. Tauris, 2003, p. 179; Phillip Jenkins, God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe’s Religious Crisis, Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 104. 86 Bernard Lewis, quoted in Andrew Wheatcroft, The Ottomans, Ibid, p. 26.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 86

Europeans’,87 rather than being a geopolitical entity, Europe stood as a set of

relationships to others and, as a result, had shifting boundaries throughout different

historical periods.88

Initially belonging more to the realm of imagination rather than to the realms of

science and politics, the idea of Europe started to emerge with the decline of Greek

civilization.89 Delanty argues that the notion of the Occident preceded the notion of

the idea of Europe. This provided continuity between Hellenism, Christendom and

the idea of Europe so that Europe saw itself as originating from Greco-Roman

civilization,90 although the construction of the European self-image initially tended to

emphasize its Christian elements. Halecki insists that Europe, defining itself in

Christian terms, saw a break in history whenever it was invaded by external powers91

so that, from 1095 until 1950, the idea of a common Europe was fragmented as

Europe was invaded by the Ottomans or Mughals and areas of Europe were cut off

from its geographic borders.92 Delanty points out that ‘[t]he Islamic invasions along

with the barbarian and Persian invasions gave a sense of a European identity to

Christendom which served as a bulwark against the non-Christian world’.93 Halecki

agrees with Delanty to the extent that he defines Europe as a collectivity which

‘accepted and developed the heritage of Greco-Roman civilization…transformed and

elevated by Christianity’,94 but he argues that as Europe constituted itself by adding

Greek, Roman and Christian elements to its definition of the ‘idea of Europe’, it also

87 Bacon cited in Anthony Pagden, “Europe: Conceptualizing a Continent”, Anthony Pagden (ed), The Idea of Europe: from Antiquity to the European Union, Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 33. Gerard Delanty has argued that when Francis Bacon used the phrase, a discourse of Europe was already evident though it did not develop into a self-conscious identity until the seventeenth century (Gerard Delanty, Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality, Macmillan Press, 1995, p. 38). 88 Margaret Heller, “Derrida and the Idea of Europe”, Dalhousie French Studies, Vol. 82, Spring 2008, p. 93. 89 Ibid, p. 17-19. 90 Gerard Delanty, Inventing Europe, p. 17. 91 Oscar Halecki, The Limits and Divisions of European History, Sheed & Ward, 1950, p. 189. 92Asli Cirakman, “From Tyranny to Despotism”, p. 18. 93Gerard Delanty, Inventing Europe, p. 26 94 Oscar Halecki, The Limits and Divisions of European History, p. 17.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 87

subtracted Arab, Mongolian and Ottoman elements. Therefore as much as Europe is

defined in terms of ‘what it is’, an important aspect of defining Europe is also in

terms of ‘what it is not’.95

In tracing the origin of the idea of Europe as a ‘collective consciousness’, Swedberg

argues that the idea of Europe has always been embedded in opposition to what it is

not.96 As a result, Europe became conscious of its own existence as a political, moral

and cultural unit before it defined itself along geographic lines. Such an

understanding can be seen in the very first work on the idea of ‘a Europe’, written in

1947 by Italian historian Federico Chabod, when he stated that: ‘[t]he concept of

Europe is formed by counterposition to all that is not Europe, and it acquires its

characteristics…through a confrontation with what is not Europe’.97 Similarly, Heikki

Mikkeli has pointed out how the construction of Europe has relied on the creation of

an external other:

Europe has, at different points of its history, been equated with

civilisation, Christianity, democracy, freedom, white skin, the

temperate zone and the Occident. Correspondingly, its opposites have

been identified as barbarism, paganism, despotism, slavery, coloured

skins, the tropics and the Orient.98

As the idea of Europe was forming when the Ottoman Empire was a strong political

power during the Middle Ages, the Empire came to stand as the non-Christian other

in the solidification of the self-image of a Christian Europe. This binary was so strong

that Erasmus, often considered ‘the first European’, called for the creation of a

95 Ibid. 96 Richard Swedberg, “The Idea of Europe and the Origin of the European Union: A Sociological Approach”, Zetischrift fur Soziologie, Vol 23, No. 5 October 1994, p. 379. 97 Federico Chabod quoted in Ibid, p. 379. 98 Heikki Mikkeli, Europe as an Idea and an Identity, St. Martin’s Press, 1998, p. 230.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 88

unified Europe to take up a crusade against the Turks.99 Delanty argues that the idea

of Europe as West also emerged through its encounters with the Turks when

Europe’s eastern border was geographically settled after the fall of the Byzantine

Empire.100

Other authors, however, contest this dichotomy. They argue that when Europe is

considered as a formation of ideas, the Ottoman Empire can be seen as a carrier of

European traditions as practiced by the Byzantines. Goffman, for example, has

highlighted the Ottoman connection to and inheritance from the Byzantine Empire

and the Italian city-states. He believes that if Europe had had a civilizational

conception of itself during the early modern period, the Ottoman Empire certainly

would have had a place in Europe as a ‘successor to Rome’.101 Even with a Turkic

ethnic lineage, an important feature of the Ottoman Empire was its remarkable

ability to learn from Europe and ‘it was Ottoman elasticity that allowed the empire

to insert itself into the European world of the sixteenth and seventeenth century’.102

Toynbee similarly argued that the Ottoman Empire, founded by the pastoral nomads

of the Eurasian steppe, was certainly heir to both the Muslim Arab Empire and the

Christian Roman Empire,103 adding that:

This is not just play on words. The Ottoman Empire was the Roman

Empire’s successor in the meaningful sense that it inherited a Roman

practice that had enabled the Romans, first to build up their empire,

and then to revive it again and again….The ’Osmalis took over this

Roman tradition [the ability to naturalize foreigners and use them to

their own advantage], and it was in virtue of this that they were able to

99 Gerard Delanty, Inventing Europe, p. 37. 100 Ibid, p. 14. 101 Daniel Goffman, The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe, p. 228. 102 Ibid, p. 231. 103 Arnold J. Toynbee, “The Ottoman Empire’s Place in World History”, p. 21.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 89

build up an empire which was truly the fifth revival of the Roman

Empire in the Near and Middle East.104

Similarly, Ottoman historian Cemal Kafadar has argued that the Ottoman Empire

emerged from:

[A] tiny outpost between the worlds of Islam and Byzantium, not only

physically but also politically and culturally beyond the pale of

established political orders in either world; [the Ottomans] upon

conquering Constantinople in 1453, represented itself as heir to the

Eastern Roman Empire and leader of the Muslim world.105

Ottoman historians have shown that the Empire was an extension of Europe in the

carrying out and implementing of ‘European’ ideas as part of the development of the

Empire. If Europe was not merely a geographic entity but also an amalgamation of

certain ideas and ideology, then the Ottoman Empire, being the inheritor of the

Byzantine Empire, was the continuation of Europe on its eastern geographic border.

However, only for a brief period of time in European political history has the

Ottoman Empire been formally recognized as part of Europe. This was when its

military might was needed to defeat the rising Russian naval power in the Black Sea

region. At the end of the Crimean War, in which Great Britain, France and the

Ottoman Empire were allies, the Empire was invited to participate in the ‘Concert of

Europe’ under the provisions of the Treaty of Paris. At least politically, it was thus

clearly considered to belong to Europe.106 Even though the admission of the

Ottoman Empire to these negotiations was contested, the preamble to the Treaty

declared that the independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire was vital for

104 Ibid, p. 23. 105 Cemal Kafadar, Between the Two World, p. xi. 106 Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, Trials of Europeanization: Turkish Political Culture and the European Union, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, p. 2.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 90

the ‘peace of Europe’.107 However, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, in 1853, is said to have

called the Ottoman Empire ‘the sick man of Europe’.108 While the Ottoman Empire

may have been a continuation of the Byzantine Empire in a political and

administrative sense, during the later heyday of anti-Turkish feeling in Europe, the

Empire was a feeble European.109 In any case, political recognition of the European

identity of the Ottoman Empire existed only for a brief period. For the most part, the

Ottoman Empire, and consequently Turkey, its modern successor, have remained, in

Ivor Neumann’s term, as the rare ‘Eastern excursion’ of Europeans in their efforts to

find their own self-image vis-à-vis the other.110

This is where the contestation over the ‘invention’ of geographic knowledge comes

into play. As the concept of Europe is a modern production, the determination of its

borders by European geographers must be an invention as well. Delanty has pointed

out how Europe constructed its eastern border vis-à-vis the Turks. The discovery of

the Americas, as well as the development of cartography, also led to the invention of

Europe as:

[A]n entity defined in space as well as in time…The advent of the map

and the coming of the book made Europe tangible [geographically], a

visible configuration: the Continent had finally arrived.111

Similarly, Lewis and Wigen have pointed out how the European landmass, which is in

fact an extension of the Asian landmass, was used to attempt to create a distinct

107 Yannis A. Stivachtis, “Europe and the ‘Turk’: An English School Approach to the Study of EU-Turkish Relations”, Yannis A. Stivachtis and Meltem Muftuler-Bac (eds.), Turkey-European Union Relations: Dilemmas, Opportunities and Constraints, Lexington Books, 2008, p. 29. 108 Arnold J. Toynbee, “The Ottoman Empire’s Place in World History”, p. 17; L. Carl Brown, “Epilogue”, L. Carl Brown (ed), Imperial Legacy, p. 304. 109 Erik Cornell, Turkey in the 21 Century, p. 172. 110 Iver Neumann, Uses of the Other: The “east” in European Identity Formation, University of Minnesota Press, 1998. 111 Gerard Delanty, Inventing Europe, p. 44.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 91

geographic identity through ‘metageography’.112 It is through metageography that

ideas regarding pre-given spatial structures are shaped that, in turn, shape ideas

regarding the world. The construction of a ‘separate’ European landmass that

emerged from the cartographers of the Enlightenment era of the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries ultimately determined that ‘what we have inherited from the

Enlightenment is a totalizing spatial framework, a ‘metastructure’ that strives to

impose its own rigid order’.113 As well as defining itself in terms of the formation of

ideas, Europe, culturally and politically, has thrived on the construction of itself as

geographically distinct from the other regions, especially Asia, through the

construction of Europe as a ‘separate’ continent.114 Creating a geographical

separateness between Europe and Asia has been a key element in the construction

of Europe as a civilized and modern identity vis-à-vis the latter.115

Turkey’s Drive for EU Membership

While Turkey’s drive to be a part of ‘civilized’ Europe has been manifest through a

number of reforms undertaken at the national level, its attempts to become a formal

part of Europe have been demonstrated over many years through its several

memberships in European/Western organizations. Turkey became a member of the

Council of Europe in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1955,

and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 1975. It

formally applied for associate membership to the then European Economic

Community (EEC) in 1959, and signed an Association Agreement with the EEC in

1963. Significant progress was also achieved when the Customs Union agreement

was signed in 1995. In October 2004, the European Commission announced that

112 Martin W. Lewis and Kern E. Wigen, The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography, University of California Press, 1997. 113Ibid, p. 11. 114 Margaret Heller comments, ‘because it was Europeans who named it so’, Margaret Heller, “Derrida and the Idea of Europe”, p. 94. 115 Allaine Cerwonka, Native to the Nation: Disciplining Landscapes and Bodies in Australia, University of Minnesota Press, 2004, p. 39.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 92

Turkey had fulfilled the criteria for recommendation for open accession negotiations.

With this declaration, Turkey-EU relations were said to have entered an era of

‘certainty’.116 Negotiations between Turkey and the EU opened on October 3, 2005,

and a number of negotiation chapters followed—13 in total since 2005.117

However, the ‘golden age of Europeanization’ of Turkey from 2001-2004, as Ziya

Onis termed it, came to a halt with the stalling of relationships after 2006.118

Observers have noted that the positive note in the Turkey/EU relationship ‘raced to

the bottom’ after France and Cyprus exercised a veto after reviewing some chapters

of the negotiations with Turkey, mainly with regard to Turkey’s dealings with

Cyprus.119 Enthusiasm on the part of Turkey has also reduced in recent years.

Debates in Turkey on how much Turkey needed Europe have arisen since French

President Sarkozy made a strong comment against Turkey’s membership by saying

that:

I want to say that Europe must give itself borders, that not all countries

have a vocation to become members of Europe, beginning with Turkey

which has no place inside the European Union.120

The backlash against this statement in Turkey led to a re-evaluation of Turkey’s goal

of joining the EU. Such reconsiderations are not new, however. Turkey’s bid to join

the EU has received considerable knockbacks in the past, forcing it to rethink its

116 E. Fuat Keyman and Ziya Onis, Turkish Politics in a Changing World: Global Dynamics and Domestic Transformations, Istanbul Bilgi University Press, 2007, p. 30. 117 “Turkey: 2012 Progress Report”,European Commission, Commission Staff Working Document, p. 5, located at <http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/key_documents/2012/package/tr_rapport_2012_en.pdf>, accessed on May 04, 2013. 118 Cigdem Nas, “Turkey and the European Union: A Stumbling Accession Process under New Conditions”, Ozden Zyenep Oktav (ed), Turkey in the 21st Century: Quest for a New Foreign Policy, Ashgate, 2011, p. 165. 119 Musataf Kutlay, “A Race to the Bottom: Turkey-EU Relations in 2012”,The Journal of Turkish Weekly, January 31, 2013, located at < http://www.turkishweekly.net/columnist/3721/a-race-to-the-bottom-turkey-eu-relations-in-2012.html>, accessed on May 04, 2013. 120 “Sarkozy launches presidential bid with anti-Turkey stance”, euobserver.com, 15.01.2007, located at <http://euobserver.com/political/23251>, accessed on May 04, 2013.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 93

‘Europe’ policy each time. One such reconsideration occurred in the mid-1970s when

Greece became a member of the EEC. While Greece’s early admission was probably

due to its religious and cultural affinity to Europe, the refusal of EEC membership for

Norway in the 1970s opened up the possibility that membership of the EEC was not

the only criterion for being considered ‘European’. Therefore, many in Turkey

contended at the time that:

This is the most opportune time to rid ourselves of the complex of

“being considered Europeans.” This complex has agitated our heads

again now that Greece has entered the EEC. We are Turks from Turkey.

Turkey is a country with one bank in Europe and the other in Asia. The

same thing can be said of our geography and culture. We must realize

and accept this as such and we must turn this embarrassment into a

sense of superiority… Turkey should not feel the need to take shelter

under the wings of Europe in order to make its future more secured.121

In the event of the recent freeze in Turkey-EU accession negotiations, the popular

mood in Turkey has once again reflected disappointment over the failure to be

acceptable to the EU. Frustration over the EU’s continual hedging was evident in

Erdogan’s insistence that ‘there is no diversion in Turkey’s foreign policy, but the EU

diverted from its path’.122 A recent survey on Turkey’s goal of joining the EU confirms

a historically low popular opinion in favour of the bid. Two-thirds of Turks are now

considered ‘Eurosceptics’.123 This tone has been echoed in the political

establishment in Turkey as well, with Prime Minister Erdogan suggesting that he

favoured Turkey joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) instead.

121 Mumtaz Soysal, Milliyet, January 2 and 3, 1981, quoted in David Kushner, “Ataturk’s Legacy: Westernism in Contemporary Turkey”, Jacob M. Landau (ed.), Ataturk and the Modernization of Turkey, p. 240. 122 Ozden Zeynep Oktav, “Introduction”, Ozden Zeyneo Oktav (ed), Turkey in the 21 Century, p. 2. 123 “Public Opinion Surveys of Turkish Foreign Policy 2013/1”, Centre for Economic and Foreign Policy Studies, EDAM, located at <http://edam.org.tr/eng/document/Edam%20Poll%202013-1.pdf>, accessed on May 04, 2013.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 94

According to Erdogan, the SCO surpassed the EU in every criterion. It also offered a

sense of ‘civilizational belonging’ more in keeping with Turkey’s history and Islamic

make-up.124 Nevertheless, Erdogan has insisted ‘that we have not yet given up on

the EU process’.125 The desire to be recognized as part of Europe by Europe remains

very strong.

France has recently withdrawn its reservations on one of the five accession chapters

that it had previously blocked unilaterally. This has opened up a new era in the

relationship between Turkey and the EU. Consequently, the Turkish Prime Minister

has also started to tone down his anti-EU and anti-French rhetoric and has

welcomed the French decision to withdraw its reservations.126 Although this latest

development is seen as a new beginning for Turkey-EU relationships, it is important

to understand that the EU’s historical reluctance to include Turkey within its

geographic border has its roots in the contours of European identity formation. To

renegotiate Turkey’s identity is to renegotiate Europe’s.

Turkey as Europe’s Other

Modern Turkey, in its vigorous attempt to create a nation-state, has emulated a

European/Western system in its entirety. From the legal to the social system, it has

attempted to eradicate its Ottoman ‘religious’ past in an effort to be modern, and

124 Ihsan Dagi, “Turkey’s Quest for a Eurasian Union”, Today’s Zaman, January 27, 2013, located at <http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist-305291-turkeys-quest-for-a-eurasian-union.html>, accessed on May 04, 2013. 125 “Erdogan: Turkey Considers Shanghai Organization as an Alternative to EU”, Today’s Zaman, January 25, 2013, located at <http://www.todayszaman.com/news-305166-erdogan-turkey-considers-shanghai-organization-an-alternative-to-eu.html>, accessed on May 04, 2013. 126 Emrullah Uslu, “Turkey-EU Relations: A New Beginning?”, Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 10, Issue, 37, The Jamestown Foundation, February 27, 2013, located at <http://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=40515&cHash=6197c536b9df57d2c3c7f4fa67b22ee3>, accessed on May 04, 2013.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 95

therefore secular. For Turkey, the bid to join the EU has been an integral part of this

assertion of its identity as part of the West.127 As Ataturk declared:

There are a variety of countries, but there is only one civilization. In

order for a nation to advance, it is necessary that it join this civilization.

If our bodies are in the East, our mentality is oriented toward the West.

We want to modernize our country. All our efforts are directed toward

the building of a modern, therefore Western, state in Turkey. What

nation is there that desires to become a part of civilization, but does

not tend toward the West?128

This drive to formalize a Western identity within Europe seemed to have been partly

recognized when Turkey joined NATO. The alliance ‘filled Turkish hearts with pride

and exaltation. They were no longer ‘outsiders’. They were at last part of the

West’.129 However, while accession to NATO was a significant step forward in the

Turkish bid to become part of the West, it was still Europe that Turkey perceived as

the ‘torchbearer’ of Western civilization, even at the height of US supremacy during

the Cold War period: ‘The “West” to which Turks feel they belong or wish to

belong…means Europe more than the United States’.130

Nonetheless, as Turkey once again pursues its attempts to become a formal member

of the EU, there are several arguments posed against it in relation to its modernity,

its religion and the issue of geographical proximity vis-à-vis Europe. The crux of these

arguments lies in the understanding of Europe as having a common Judaeo-Christian

heritage in which Turkey, a country of Muslims, simply does not fit. EU Commission

127 Nathalie Tocci, “Turkey as Transatlantic Neighbor”, Ronald H. Linden et al, Turkey and Its Neighbors, p. 195. 128 Quoted in Alev Cinar, Modernity, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey: Bodies, Places, and Time, University of Minnesota Press, 2005, p. 5. 129 Altemur Kilic, quoted in David Kushner, “Ataturk’s Legacy”, p. 243. 130 David Kushner, ibid, p. 236.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 96

President Barrosso pointed out this cultural difficulty in 2004 when he stated that

‘there are, it’s true today, in European Union member states…some big questions

about the membership of Turkey because of cultural differences and that is

something that is extremely serious’.131 Turkey’s attempt to secure a place amidst a

supposedly secular Europe has brought the question of the identity of Europe from a

religious perspective back into view. As Beck contends:

People who want to keep the Turks out have suddenly discovered that

the roots of Europe lie in its Christian heritage. Those who share our

continent, but do not share this Christian heritage, are seen as Europe’s

other.132

What has been ‘discovered’ is that religion has always existed as a latent force in the

EU and in Europe more generally, not least because the threat of the Ottomans from

the seventeenth century onward had helped to unify Europe on the basis of its

Christian principles, thereby giving Europe a ‘common faith and common

heritage’.133

The European tendency to ‘other’ the Turks was pointed out by Gokalp early in the

twentieth century. As Gokalp was laying out his foundation for Turkish nationalism,

he observed that just as there was a Turkish obsession with making a connection

with Islam, Europeans similarly tended to associate their civilization with Christianity.

Therefore, Gokalp pointed out, Europe would never be able to admit that Turkey

was able to engage in nonreligious international commonality vis-à-vis Europe. This

was evident during the Balkan wars, which ‘demonstrated to us even today the

European conscience is nothing but a Christian conscience’.134 Even at the turn of the

131 Cigdem Nas, “Turkey and the European Union”, p. 174. 132 Ulrich Beck, “Understanding the Real Europe”, Dissent, Vol. 50, No. 3, Summer 2003, p. 32. 133 Asli Cirakman, “From Tyranny to Despotism”, p. 21. 134 Andrew Davison, Secularism and Revivalism in Turkey: A Hermeneutic Reconsideration, Yale University Press, 1998, p. 147.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 97

twentieth century, Gokalp pointed out how problematic this perception was likely to

be for Turkey since it reflected a Judaeo-Christian or simply Christian versus Muslim

dichotomy.

The dream of a common Europe has often been seen as the reincarnation of the

failed Roman dream of a Pax Romana. In fact, the Christian oikoumene is considered

to have European significance for the ‘Common European House’.135 Different

studies have shown how Catholic Europeans are more prone to embrace

‘Europeanness’ than Protestant Europeans, and there exists a strong correlation

between Protestantism and strong Parliamentary scrutiny of EU actions.136

Moreover, the EU is also divided along Catholic and Protestant lines: the federalist,

Catholic European countries are generally in favour of the EU while the northern,

Protestant countries are EU ‘reluctants’.137 Therefore, the EU is often considered by

some political observers as a ‘Catholic project’, as Madeley has termed it: ‘European

integration was an act of the political imagination of Christian democracy’.138 Indeed,

although he later showed a more refined approach in his treatment of Islam, Pope

Benedict XVI also expressed his reservation on the admission of Turkey into the EU

by citing a fundamental divergence between Islamic and European culture.139 Thus,

while the European nation-state system is a product of the Enlightenment and

secularization, Casanova argues that the ‘secularist paradox’ is that Europe is

inclined to ‘forget [its] histories’:

135 John D’Arcy May, “European Union: Christian Division? Christianity’s Responsibility for Europe’s Past and Future”,An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 89, No. 354, Summer 2000, p. 118. 136 Brent F. Nelson, “Europe as a Christian Club: Religion and the Founding of the European Community, 1950-1975, The Ideological Dimension”, Draft Paper, Prepared for the Delivery at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington D.C., 1-4 September, 2005, p. 2. 137 Ibid, p. 2. 138 Claes H. de Vreese, Hajo G. Boomgarden, Michael Minkenberg, & Rens Vliegenthart, “Introduction: Religion and the European Union”,West European Politics, Vol. 32, No. 6, 2009, p. 1185. 139 Sara Silvestri, “Europe and Political Islam: Encounters of the Twentieth and Twenty-first centuries”, in Tahir Abbar (ed), Islamic Political Radicalism: A European Perspective, Edinburgh University Press, 2007, p. 63 and 68.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 98

[T]he initial project of a European Union was fundamentally a Christian

Democratic Project, sanctioned by the Vatican, at a time of a general

religious revival in post-World War Two Europe, in the geo-political

context of the Cold War when “the free world” and “Christian

civilization” had become synonymous.140

When new accession negotiations were being offered to Turkey, the debate on the

admission of Turkey into the EU thus raised questions regarding the EU’s own

secular credentials. This prompted, prompting Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan to

boldly raise the issue of religion as a challenge to the EU: ‘If you really claim that EU

is not a Christian Club, if you believe this, then you should take Turkey among

you’.141

Casanova has pointed to the increasing manifestations of Europe’s religious and

civilizational fears raised by such a challenge. As Turkey has moved closer to meeting

the political conditions set for it by EU, ‘unstated cultural conditions’ have started to

gain prominence.142 Neumann and Welsh have pointed out that these are the

manifestations of the paradox at the heart of the European self-image:

[As] the logic of raison d’etat, through diplomatic and economic

contact, extended the boundaries of the European international system

to encompass ‘the Turk’, the prevalence of the logic of culture made his

[Europe’s] status ambiguous from a societal point of view. ‘The Turk’

remained the relevant Other for the cultural community of Europe.143

140 Jose Casanova, “Religion, European Secular Identities, and European Integration,“ Timothy A. Byrnes and Peter J. Katzenstein (eds.), Religion in an Expanding Europe, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 66. 141 Jose Casanova, “The Long, Difficult, Tortuous Journey of Turkey into Europe and the Dilemmas of European Civilization”, Constellations, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2006, p. 236. 142 Ibid, p. 236. 143 Iver B. Neumann and Jennifer M. Welsh, “The Other in European Self-Definition: an Addendum to the Literature on International Society”, Review of International Studies, Vol. 17, No. 4, October 1991, p. 148.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 99

Turkey’s accession bid has been compared to the ‘siege of Vienna in 1683’ by EU

Commissioner Fritz Bolkenstein in yet another stark reminder of the EU’s Christian

heritage as well as its othering of Turkey for the purpose of its own identity

creation.144 As Grace Davie says: ‘[r]eligion in Europe is like an iceberg: most of what

is interesting is under the water and out of view’.145 She points out that a country

with a predominantly Christian population is always going to find it easier to gain

access to the EU than one that does not.146

On the question of whether Turkey belongs to Europe or should be viewed as

Europe’s other, there are two divergent European streams. Traditionally, the British,

the Spanish, and the Poles have refrained from using an exclusionary approach to

Turkey, while France, Austria, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands have been in

opposition to Turkish accession to EU.147 Among these countries, France has been

the most vocal in expressing its reservation towards Turkey. France has constructed

Turkey both as a security threat and anas both a security threat and an impediment

to a strong European external identity by drawing on the clash of civilizations

discourse to identify Turkey as an Islamic state.148 While it is debatable as to whether

the accession of Turkey would pose challenges to the political cohesion of the EU,

various political groups in France have raised the question of ‘[w]ill Europe

accommodate Turkish Islam?’149 Although there is an underlying cultural-geographic

reason for the French position, France’s outlook is also likely to be driven by the

dictates of realpolitik. The French position on Turkey’s accession that was pursued

144 Cigdem Nas, “Turkey and the European Union”, p. 174. 145 Grace Davie, “European Religious Exceptionalism”, located at <http://www.faithineurope.org.uk/davie.html>, accessed on May 06, 2013. 146 Grace Davie, “Global Civil Religion: A European perspective”, Sociology of Religion, Vol. 62, No. 4, Special Issue: religion and Globalization at the Turn of the Millennium, Winter 2001, p. 468. 147 Kemal Kirisi, “Religion as an Argument in the Debate on Turkish EU Membership”, D. Jung and C. Raudvere (eds.), Religion, Politics and Turkey’s EU Accession, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 148 Senem Aydin Duzgit, “Constructing Europe through Turkey: French Perceptions on Turkey’s Accession to the European Union”, Politique Europeenne, 2009/3, No. 29, p. 56. 149 Ibid, p. 61.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 100

under Sarkozy was often considered to be a result of identifying Turkey, with its

physical size, expanding economic capacity and demographic composition, as a

significant, if not principal challenge to the position of France within the EU and in

relation to the EU’s Near East policies.150 Moreover, Turkey’s accession to the EU will

also mean that Iraq and Iran will become Europe’s immediate neighbors, placing

Europe in closer proximity to the Middle East.151 This need not be disadvantageous

to Europe. As will be seen in the next chapter, Turkey offers much to Europe in terms

of how to bridge the divide between the Muslim and Judeo-Christian worlds, both

because of the way it is managing its secularism, and because of its generally positive

relationship with Israel.

Fuller argues that the embrace of Turkey by the EU will mean that Europe will be

increasingly challenged by the forces of globalization and multiculturalism. However,

this is already occurring in a way that is bringing religion back into focus for Europe.

There is no doubt, though, that these forces ‘increasingly reflect the deeper angst of

European society’.152 Nevertheless, since the basis of differentiating between Europe

and Turkey has always included religion, recognition of Turkey as a secular state that

is apparently successfully managing its religious character offers Europe a way of

managing this angst by renegotiating its own religious underpinnings. On the other

hand, the failure to recognize Turkey as a modern secular state, in the long term,

could damage both Europe and Turkey’s modern credentials.

Conclusion

In this chapter, the knots between identity and recognition have been tied, showing

how Turkey has sought to construct itself as a secular country along European lines.

150 Cigdem Nas, “Turkey and the European Union”, p. 173. 151 Peter Seeberg, “European Security and the “Clash of Civilizations”: Differences in the Policies of France, Germany and the UK towards the Mediterrenean and the Middle East”, Wolfgang Zank (ed), Clash or Cooperations of Civilizations? Overlapping Integration and Identities, Ashgate, 2009, p. 149. 152 Graham E. Fuller, The New Turkish Republic, p. 148.

Chapter 2: The Ottomans and Turkey: the Costs of Misrecognition 101

In its attempts to do so, it has extensively borrowed a rigid version of secularism. On

the other hand, Europe has viewed Turkey as a Muslim majority country despite

Turkey’s attempt to redefine its identity by employing secularism in its strictest

sense. Gaining admission to the EU would fulfill this construction of its identity as

European for Turkey. On the other hand, in its own construction of identity, Europe

has relied heavily upon the construction of a Turkish other, based on Turkey’s

Muslim-majority population. These contradictory constructions have exacerbated

tensions in both Europe and Turkey towards each other. Religion has thus created a

stand-off between Europe and Turkey. Endowed with an Islamic identity externally

as well as internally, Tthe next chapter will show how Turkey, endowed with an

Islamic identity externally as well as internally is, is attempting to renegotiate its

identity in a way that dispenses with its previously limited and assertive form of

secularism in favour of a form of multiple secularism in which the public expression

of religion is not identified as a ‘problem’ for a modern, civilized identity.

Chapter 3

An Islam-Modernist Synthesis: Turkey’s Quest for a New Identity

in the Post 9/11 Era

I am a Turk, I am trustworthy, I am hard working. My foremost

principle: it is to defend my minors and to respect my elders, and to

love my fatherland and my nation more than my self. My goal: it is to

rise and to progress. O Ataturk the great! I swear that I will enduringly

walk through the path you opened and to the target you showed.

May my personal being be sacrificed to the being of the Turkish

nation. How happy is the one who says: ‘I am a Turk’.1

Projecting itself as an emerging ‘soft power’ especially since the events of 9/11,

Turkey has been able to present itself as a modern country despite having a Muslim

majority population, by containing the expression of religion in its public sphere. This

accords it a special status in the Islamic World. Moreover, Turkey has been

transforming itself from pursuing a ‘reactive’ foreign policy to a ‘pro-active’ foreign

policy especially since the Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) assumed power

with victory in the parliamentary election in 2002. By taking an active part in regional

issues based on a ‘zero problems with neighbours’ policy, Turkey has been able to

emerge as a leader in its neighbourhood. With a more or less stable democracy that

is unhindered by the political crises or coups of previous times, and strong economic

development, Turkey has emerged as a power to be reckoned with in the post 9/11

era. It has done so while also emphasizing a conscious separation between religion

1 Ahmet T. Kuru, Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey, Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 166.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 104

and politics. In championing democracy and a secular model, Turkey has presented

itself as a role model for other countries that also have Muslim majorities. Similarly,

Turkey shows that religion can exist in a legalized secular environment that does not

try to push it into a corner where a backlash might lead to increased religiosity.

This chapter explores how Turkey has recreated its image as a modern secular

democracy that acknowledges its heritage. As we have seen, the Kemalist

experiment with modernity had forcefully attempted to deny Turkey’s Ottoman

heritage. However, this heritage lived on in the minds of the Turkish people even

after the institutionalization of assertive secularism. Neo-Ottomanism has since

emerged as a pluralist and pragmatic response to the need to accommodate the

issues of culture, religion and ethnicity in Turkish society that were not appropriately

addressed by the official, rigidly secular modernity of Kemalism. Neo-Ottomanism in

Turkish politics has built a bridge between Turkey’s Ottoman identity and its

modernist aspirations by modifying what it means by secularism.

This chapter reflects on the construction of identity in Turkey during the Republican

era that institutionalized an assertive form of secularism. While keeping a religious

tone intact, the Turkish state still imposed certain restrictions in order to control the

expression of religion in the public sphere, which created a contradiction in

contemporary Turkish society. A nuanced understanding of this contradiction

inherent in Kemalism is therefore discussed in detail in this chapter to demonstrate

the present dilemma. The chapter first traces the history of this development and

then comments on the political stability provided by the AK Parti and the party’s

attempt to construct Turkish identity as a form of ‘soft power’ in international

politics. This manifestation of Turkey’s domestic identity extends into its

international image and supports the contention that this is a new synthesis of Islam

and modernity, forged through a rethinking of secularism.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 105

Kemalist Ideology and the Birth of Turkey

Kemalism’s state law and ideology entailed an assertive form of nationalism and

identity creation, followed by the Westernization of society and culture. Ataturk

declared that ‘[t]he truest order is the order of civilization…We draw our strength

from civilization, scholarship and science. We do not accept anything else’.2 This

assertion was soon evident in Turkey’s open adoption of Western ideas in an

attempt to completely change traditional Turkish society into a modern, Western

one. The underlying aspiration was to build a modern state with a well-defined

Turkish identity that would ensure its entrance into the family of civilized nation-

states. The aim was to subordinate both ethno-national and religious identities

within one homogeneous ‘Turkish’ identity in an attempt to create a conscious

distance from Turkey’s Islamic past and Ottoman Islamic identity.

However, while the reforms in the legal system and the new legalized role for

women might have led an observer to believe that Islam had been relegated to a

secondary role in Turkish society, the actual picture was quite the opposite. In fact,

while Ataturk was considered to be secular himself, it is argued that he believed that

Islam had a role in forging Turkish consciousness. However, he insisted on keeping it

within a system of well-defined state control. For Ataturk, any citizen of Turkey was

to be considered as a ‘Turk’ irrespective of religious or ethnic denomination.3

Nevertheless, the role of Islam was evident in Ataturk’s declaration in defining the

treatment of the ‘non-Turkish’ people living in Turkey:

2 Andrew Mango, Turkey, Thames and Hudson Ltd, London, 1968, p. 54. 3 Zeyno Baran, Torn Country: Turkey between Secularism and Islamism, Hoover Institution Press, 2010, p. 5. Attaturk was, nonetheless, vexed by the rise of Europeans as the ‘supreme’ race vis-à-vis others. The new ‘history project’ undertaken by Ataturk’s adopted daughter Afet Inan therefore denied the European designation of Turks as belonging to a ‘yellow race’ and set out to prove the presence of Turks in the Anatolia region dating back ten millennia.Hasan Kosebalaban, Turkish Foreign Policy: Islam, Nationalism, and Globalization, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, p. 51

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 106

The people who are present here and constitute the Great Parliament

are not only Turks, Circassian, Kurdish or Laz. They are an honest

community comprised of the elements of Islam (anasir-i-Islam)…The

unity that we are determined to construct is not for Turks or

Circassians but for the entire elements of Islam.4

The basis of Turkishness, therefore, was determined by religion, and on this account,

non-ethnic Turks who embraced Islam were to be considered as Turks according to

the official definition. All non-Muslims were to be considered as minorities, and

often as foreigners too.5 The identity of a Turk thus became a conflicted

construction, as Kemalism attempted to uphold Turkey’s Muslim origins on the one

hand, while on the other it tried to privatize religion through the imposition by the

state of an assertive form of secularism.6 In an attempt to resolve this conflict, Islam

lost its official status as the state religion of Turkey in 1928.

Karpat argues, however, that the official promotion of a passive role for religion that

ignored the social reality of an Ottoman past in which Islam had played a vital role,

created two versions of nationalism in Turkey. Thus, Turkey became torn between

the official, secular version of nationalism and a ‘nation of the people’ that followed

its ‘own dialectical course and remained faithful to its past’.7 Karpat claims that by

insisting on the official, secular version, the ‘self-secluded small elite’ ignored the

fact that:

The name Turks…defines not so much a lineage group but a nation

that bears the cultural characteristics of its immediate Ottoman-

4 Ibid, p. 49. 5 Ibid, p. 50. 6 The issue of ‘assertive secularism’ is dealt later in the chapter. 7 Kemal H. Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and Community on the Late Ottoman Society, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 406.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 107

Islamic past and uses its language—that is, Turkish—as did the

Ottoman government throughout its existence.8

While the elite recognized that a Turk originally signified a Sunni Muslim living in

Anatolia, secularization demanded the creation of a common basis for Turkishness

that would not be dependent on Islam. Language therefore came to stand as a

significant determinant of legitimizing Turkishness and the ‘one state, one nation,

one people’ canon of Kemalism.9 Speaking and learning Turkish became the order of

the day in post-independent Turkey, as the drive to promote Ozturkce or ‘pure

Turkish’ stood as a major cornerstone of the drive to forge national unity. This

‘vernacularization of Turkish nationalism’10 was manifested in the declaration in

1928 that dropped the Arabic alphabet in favour of the Latin alphabet in order to

produce a modernized version of the language. Soon photos of Ataturk were

published in which he was seen teaching children the new alphabet.11 This linguistic

reorientation of Turkish society was yet another manifestation of the drive towards a

completely new Turkey, one that had made a complete break from its Ottoman past.

Apparently the creation of a ‘pure’ (ari) Turk necessitated a complete ‘cleansing’ of

Arabic and Persian roots from the language.12 This linguistic move created a

xenophobic attitude in Turkey, as is evident in the assertion made in a Turkish

newspaper in the early 1930s which stated that:

There are foreigners, in this country for many generations, who do

not know five words of Turkish. They learn every other language

except Turkish. On the train, on the bus they speak foreign languages

8 Ibid, p. 406. 9 Marlies Casier and Joost Jongerden, “Introduction”, Marlies Casier and Joost Jongerden (eds.), Nationalisms and Politics in Turkey: Political Islam, Kemalism and the Kurdish Issue, Routledge, 2011, p. 5. 10 M. Hakan Yavuz, “Cleansing Islam from the Public Sphere”, Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 54, No. 1, Fall 2000, p. 21. 11 Ali Kazancigil and Ergun Ozbudun (eds.), Ataturk: Founder of a Modern State, Hurst & Company, 1997. 12 Serif Mardin, Religion, Society, and Modernity in Turkey, Syracuse University Press, 2006, p. 324.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 108

in a loud voice and feel no shame. If by chance someone reminds

them they have to speak in Turkish or remain silent, they frown [and]

respond, ‘I’m English, I’m Italian’, etc. These messieurs should know

that if they are English or Italian, we are also Turkish.13

The ultra-nationalist expression of Turkish identity is very much in evidence. It can be

seen in the categorization of everyone but the Sunni-Muslims of Anatolia as

minorities. Turkish identity in fact rested on two conflicting principles. In the first,

Turks were members of the group of people who migrated from Central Asia and

chose to make Anatolia their home.14 In the second, Turks, defined in legal terms

according to Article 66 of the 1980 Constitution, were people who were tied to the

state of Turkey through the bond of citizenship.15 However, in viewing Turkish

identity primarily as a legal rather than an ethnic concept, as confirmed by the

Constitution, the difference between religious and ethnic minorities remained a

matter of controversy. Following the Ottoman principle, Turkey recognized only non-

Muslim religious communities as official minorities.16 The official manifestation of

the new Turkish identity thus contributed to creating a significant ‘other’ within

Turkey. Ethno-religious groups such as the Alevis (Turkish Shiite Muslims) and the

Kurdish and non-Muslim populations suddenly found themselves as non-mainstream

Turks. While the minorities, taken together, might constitute up to one-third of

Turkey’s population, Muslim Turks took pride in creating their own national

narrative, championing the acronym LAHASUMUT (Laik, Hanefi, Sunni, Mussulman,

Turk), modelled after the US WASP (White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant).17 Turkish

13 B.A. Wesley Lummus, “Turkism: An Ottoman Era Ideology in Search of a Modern State”,MA Thesis, Texas Tech University, p. 44, italics original. 14 Ibrahim Cerrah, “Ethnic Identity versus National Identity: An Analysis of PKK Terror in Relation to Identity Conflict”, Turkish Journal of Police Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1-2, 2001, p. 4. 15 Elizabeth White,“Article 301 and Turkish Stability”, Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union, Vol. 2007, Article 12, 2007, located at <http://scholarship.claremont.edu/urceu/vol2007/iss1/12>, accessed on October 31, 2013, p. 133. 16 Seyla Benhabib and Turkuler Isiksel, “Ancient Battles, New Prejudices, and Future Perspectives: Turkey and the EU”, Constellations, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2006, p. 227. 17 Karem Oktem, Turkey since 1989: Angry Nation, Zed Books, 2011, p. 6.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 109

official identity was thus defined in such a way that there was little room for the

assertion of pluralism based on ethnic identity. Rather, such an assertion was

perceived as an alien idea propagated from the outside.18

An extreme manifestation of the assertion of such a limited conception of

Turkishness is still embodied by law in Turkey in the penal code of 301, which allows

any person to be tried for ‘insulting Turkishness’.19 Famous cases of insulting

Turkishness have included Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk and Hrant Dink. In 2005-

2006 both were accused of insulting Turkishness by questioning the state’s

treatment of Armenian and Kurdish issues.20 As a result, Pamuk had to flee Turkey,

while Dink was shot to death, his killer apparently rejoicing by claiming ‘I shot the

non-Muslim’.21 Similarly, Baskin Oran and Ibrahim Kaboglu were tried under Article

301, though privately, for proposing to replace the old definition of Turkishness with

one that was more comprehensive.22 Their redefinition proposed that Turkishness

should embody the meaning of ‘being from Turkey’, so that various identities could

be included under the same umbrella of Turkishness. It was never realized.

Nevertheless, the rise to power of the AK Parti as a result of democratic processes

has opened the door to the possibility of broadening Turkish identity. This can be

seen in the appearance of a struggle around the issue of veiling and the party’s

insistence on retaining secularism, albeit redefined as passive secularism, which will

be elaborated later.

18 Ergun Ozbudun, “Turkey—Plural Society, Monolithic State”, Ahmet Kuru and Alfred Stepan (eds.), Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey, Columbia University Press, 2012, p. 79. 19 For a detailed list of what falls under the Article 301 as legally punishable acts, please see Elizabeth White, “Article 301 and Turkish Stability.” 20 Karem Oktem, Turkey since 1989, p. 147. 21 Dink’s killer was apprehended and thousands of people marched in protest at Dink’s death. During the march, while some called Dink a martyr some also called for the abolishment of Article 301. Pamuk, who faced public wrath for saying that ‘[t]hirty thousand Kurds and millions of Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it’, later highlighted the state of freedom of speech in Turkey. Ibid, p. 128-31. 22 Marlies Casier and Joost Jongerden, “Introduction”, Marlies Casier and Joost Jongerden (eds.), Nationalisms and Politics in Turkey, p. 4.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 110

State Reforms and Women’s Liberation as a New Identity Creation

The process of Turkish modernity differed from that of Europe. It had to be rapid and

more interventionist due to ‘the “time lag” between Turkey and the West in terms of

their different historical arrivals at modernity’.23 The series of reforms undertaken to

change the face of Turkey were often quite drastic. Even before the status of Islam

as the official religion was removed from the Constitution in 1928, all state

institutions relating to Islam were disbanded. In 1924, along with the declaration of

the end of the Caliphate, Islamic schools, Islamic legal courts, and the Ministries of

Seriat and Evkaf (pious foundations) were also abolished.24 The role of ulema in

Turkish society was restricted by the Unification of Education law adopted in 1924.

This opened the door to co-education for the very first time.25 Similar radical

changes took place in the legal system. The Swiss civil code, Italian penal code,26 and

German commercial codes27 replaced the old laws, thus creating a modern legal

system, which, to the astonishment of other Islamic countries observing these

changes, enhanced women’s rights and placed their legal rights on a par with men.

Although heavily influenced by Gokalp’s views on Turkish nationalism which argued

for the coexistence of Turkish cultural attributes and modernity in the adoption of

European laws, Berkes points out, ‘Kemalism deviated from the Turkish view based

on Gokalp’s theory of the dichotomy of culture and civilization’.28 One reason for this

divergence was because women’s emancipation emerged as a vital part of

23 E. Fuat Keyman and Ziya Onis, Turkish Politics in a Changing World: Global Dynamics and Domestic Transformations, Istanbul Bilgi University Press, 2007, p. 12. 24 Sencer Ayata, “Patronage, Party, and State: The Politicization of Islam in Turkey”, Middle East Journal, Vol. 50, No. 1, Winter 1996, p. 41. 25 Serif Mardin, “Religion and Secularism in Turkey”, Ali Kazancigil and Ergun Ozbudun (eds.), Ataturk: Founder of a Modern State, Hurst & Company, London, p. 216. 26 Umit Cizre Sakallioglu, “Parameters and Strategies of Islam-State Interaction in Republican Turkey”,International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 28, No. 2, May 1996, p. 234. 27 Nur Yalma, “Some observation on Secularism in Islam: The Cultural Revolution in Turkey”, Daedalus: Post-Traditional Societies, Vol. 102, No. 1, Winter 1973, p. 153. 28 Niazi Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey, Routledge, 1998, p. 468.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 111

reorienting traditional society towards modernity and was duly taken as a conscious

step towards building a new Turkey. As Ataturk said:

I see women covering their faces with head scarves or turning their

backs when a man approaches. Do you really think that the mothers

and daughters of a civilised nation would behave so oddly or be so

backward?29

Women’s emancipation thus became instrumental to the national project of

modernity.30 Harnessing the concept of the ‘new woman’ was seen as a liquidation

of the theocratic remnants of the Ottoman past that would help build a nation based

on the Enlightenment project of modernity and progress.31

In fact, debate regarding the role of women in Turkish society surfaced in 1923 as an

ideological point of departure between Gokalp and Ataturk. While drafting Family

Law in the Turkish Parliament, Gokalp opted for an accommodationist stance by

insisting on the mutual compatibility of Islam, Turkish society and civilization.

Ataturk, however, opted for a total privatization of religion and full secularisation of

social life.32 Women of this era who shared this view perceived themselves as

aydinlanmanin kadinlari (women of Enlightenment) and were passionate supporters

of the Kemalist Republican project.33 One manifestation of the freedom offered

women by the embrace of Western secularism was the organization of the first

beauty pageant ever to be held in Turkey in 1929, culminating in Keriman Halis

29 Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World in the 19th and early 20th Centuries, Zed Books, 1994, p. 25. The issue of ‘head-scarf’ is a highly controversial issue in Turkish society and politics till date. The political implication of the head-scarf issue is discussed more elaborately in relation to the rise of AK Parti in power. 30 Cagla Diner and Sule Toktas, “Waves of Feminism in Turkey: Kemalist, Islamist and Kurdish Women’s Movements in an Era of Globalization”, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, March 2010, p. 43. 31 Deniz Kandiyoti, “End of Empire: Islam, Nationalism and Women in Turkey”, Deniz Kandiyoti (ed.), Women, Islam, and the State, Temple University Press, 1991, p. 43. 32 Ibid, p. 38. 33 Berna Turam, Between Islam and the State: The Politics of Engagement, Stanford University Press, 2007, p. 112.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 112

becoming the first Turkish woman to be crowned Miss World in 1932. Halis was

presented to the Western audience as ‘the granddaughter of the last seyhulislam

(top Islamic authority)’.34 Cinar has argued that by appearing in a bathing suit in front

of a European audience—a sign of being progressive for the era—Halis was

symbolically defeating traditional Islamic authority. Secularism had liberated both

her and the state of Turkey.35 Therefore, the unveiled woman’s body came to stand

as one of the cornerstones of the national and international projection of Turkey’s

new secular, Western mindset, and was enthusiastically promoted in the national

media.

However, the Kemalist policy on women’s emancipation has been widely criticized as

only promoting women’s causes through a Western lens of liberation, not in any real

sense of emancipation. Women’s subjugation under men in the traditional

patriarchal system of men-women relationships continued in Turkey, with Ataturk’s

proclamation: ‘The most important duty of women is motherhood’.36 Zehra Arat has

called the Kemalist reforms in the sectors of women’s development as ‘symbolic

feminism’, arguing that:

[T]he Kemalist state continued to employ a traditional definition of

female roles and emphasized reproduction and child care as the

primary functions of women…women [were treated] as symbols and

as tools of modernization and Westernization, rather than as equal

and full partners of men.37

Nevertheless, Kemalist reforms did open up public space for women and provided

them with equal status to men by law in the sectors of divorce, inheritance and the

34 Alev Cinar, Modernity, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey: Bodies, Places, and Time, University of Minnesota Press, 2005, p. 71. 35 Ibid, p. 72. 36 Attaturk quoted in Zehra F. Arat, “Kemalism and Turkish Women”, Women & Politics, Vol. 14, No. 4, 1994, p. 60. 37 Ibid, p. 72.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 113

custody of children. These reforms extended to the achievement of women’s

political and civic rights in the 1930s. Whether the Kemalist approach to women’s

rights was a ‘typical’ manifestation of Western women’s liberation, or simply a by-

product of the embrace of secularism, it was surely more than merely symbolic. This

is evident in Ataturk’s conviction that:

A civilisation where one sex is supreme can be condemned, there and

then, as crippled. A people which has decided to go forward and

progress must realise this as quickly as possible. The failures in our

past are due to the fact that we remained passive to the fate of

women.38

The liberation of women, however, did constitute an essential element in the

creation of a Turkish Kulturkamph, manifested in the division of Turks into opposing

camps—Western versus Eastern, progressive versus reactionary, civilized versus

ignorant. In this context, Toprak has argued that women’s issues were used to create

a clear and conscious difference between Turkey and other Islamic countries

because, as she points out, if one were to ‘[t]ake out the issue of gender from the

Islamist project, little would remain that might be incompatible with a ‘modern way

of life’ as opposed to an “Islamic way of life”’.39

Turkish Identity and Secularism

Islam was used by the Ottoman Empire with two objectives in mind. First, it was

used to maintain a relationship with its subjects. Secondly, Islam was used to create

a buffer against the rise of an alternative polity, which had started to challenge the

official line.40 Islam thus had a political function both for the ruler and the ruled

38 Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World in the 19th and early 20th Centuries, p. 36. 39 Binnaz Toprak, “Islam and Democracy in Turkey”, Turkish Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2005, p. 169. 40 Serif Mardin, Religion, p. 198.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 114

under the Ottoman Empire. With the rise in interest in European ideals, however,

secularism came to be considered as a discernible ideological characteristic among

the Young Turks at least from 1913.41 It was therefore natural that Kemalism, being

the intellectual successor to the Young Turk movement, would promote secularist

ideals as the basis for creating a new Turkish identity.

However, the initial periods before and immediately after the establishment of the

Turkish Republic show a continuation of the political use of Islam, providing a

significant religious tilt to official policies. After the dissolution of the Ottoman

Empire and the Greco-Turkish War in which Turkey fought for its independence from

foreign occupation, Islam was used as the principle means of maintaining social

solidarity and mobilization: ‘Islam constituted the medium of communication

between the elite and the mass culture’.42 As already pointed out, Ataturk also

initially maintained Islam as a driving force for creating Turkishness in the immediate

aftermath of Turkish independence, largely under the influence of Gokalp’s ideas.

The Constitution of Turkey in 1924 included the statement that ‘The religion of the

Turkish Republic is Islam’.43 However, the drive towards Westernization saw Islam

lose its official status just four years later, and the principal of secularism was

included in the Constitution in 1937. The Minister of Interior stated in Parliament:

We are determinists in our view on history and pragmatist

materialists in our affairs…We note that religion should stay in

individuals’ consciences and temples without intervening to [sic]

material life and worldly affairs. We are not letting them intervene

and we will not let them intervene.44

41Erik J. Zurcher, Turkey: A Modern History, I.B. Tauris, 1993, p. 188. 42 Quoted inAhmet T. Kuru, Secularism and State Policies toward Religion, p. 216. 43Ibid, p. 217. 44Ibid, p. 217.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 115

The foundation of such assertive secularism lies in the work of two scholars, Niyazi

Berkes and Cetin Ozek. Both scholars emphasized the need for an assertive form of

secularism in Turkey because of its Islamic populace. They argued that Turkey had to

push through political, legal and educational reforms because it needed to be stricter

and more interventionist than European countries. The process of secularization was

welcomed by Berkes as he believed that Turkey’s journey from ‘medieval’ to modern

depended upon the codification of a singular and Western legal system in place of

the convoluted mixture of both Ottoman and Western systems that existed at the

time. Such a mixture was not welcomed as it reflected the practices of different

civilizations.45 Berkes believed that a modern economy was not an isolated piece of

technology but was tied up with the complex cultural processes of society. There

was therefore a need to root out outmoded practices before the modern

development techniques of the West could be applied. Berkes believed that

‘[w]ithout the breakdown of the traditional structure and attitudes, modern

economic and technical aid may produce little change conducive to growth’.46

This perception of Islam as anti-modern lay at the core of the formation of assertive

secularism in Turkey. Kuru has argued that the proponents of this school of

secularism identified Islam as inherently a political religion and therefore sought its

elimination from Turkish society.47 The underlying principle of this civilizational shift

was to create ‘homogenization and unity’ over ‘cultural identity, difference and

diversity’ based solely on the universalistic claims of modernity.48 Indeed, Ataturk

arrived at the idea of the ‘oneness of chief and nation’ (sef-millet birligi) as the

45Niazi Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey, p. 170. 46Ibid, p. 507. 47Ahmet T. Kuru, Secularism and State Policies toward Religion, p. 176. 48Sibel Bozdogan and Resat Kasaba, “Introduction”, Sibel Bozdogan and Resat Kasaba (eds.), Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey, University of Washington Press, 1997, p. 5.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 116

culmination of his perception of the Turkish people as ‘monolithic and [of] one

heart’.49

The Turkish-Islamic Synthesis

The Kemalist elites defined Islam from a Western/European civilizational

perspective. This perspective required them to establish political control over Islam,

as Islam was conceptualized as detrimental to modernist goals. Toprak has pointed

out that: ‘[b]ecause Islam is something more than a religious belief system, the

problem of secularization also becomes something more than formal separation

[between the state and religion]’.50 In 1928, the Turkish Parliament defined laiklik as

the ‘separation of religion and worldly concerns’. The Constitutional Court further

elaborated this principle in 1937 as:

[A] civilized way of life that forms the basis for an understanding of

freedom and democracy, for independence, national sovereignty, and

the humanist ideal, which have developed as a result of overcoming

medieval dogmatism in favor of the primacy of reason and

enlightened sciences.51

The Kemalist elites cultivated and invested in the management of Islam through

state machineries and the co-option of Islam. As a result, what emerged in Turkey

was a state-promoted Turkish-Islamic synthesis based on the three pillars of the

family, the mosque and the barrack.52 The state perpetuated this Turkish-Islamic

synthesis by creating Islam as a conforming ideology that would promote its civilized

49 Parla Taha, quoted in Berna Turam, Between Islam and the State, p. 40 and 180. 50 Binnaj Toprak, quoted in Andrew Davison, Secularism and Revivalism in Turkey: A Hermeneutic Reconsideration, Yale University Press, 1998, p. 151. 51 Quoted in Cemal Karakas, “Turkey: Islam and Laicism between the Interests of State, Politics, and Society”,Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), Report 78, 2007, p. 8. 52 Angel Rabasa and F. Stephen Larrabee, The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey, National Defense Research Institute, 2008, p. 37.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 117

and rationalized elements.53 Thus, the Kemalist elites, in their creation of what Yavuz

has termed a ‘religious anti-thesis’, eliminated the role of Islam from Turkey’s public

sphere through a range of legal measures and a carefully structured program of

indoctrination.54 Cinar has succinctly captured the dichotomies created and

perpetuated by the Turkish elites in the following manner:

The presence of one is predicated on the absence of the other.

Secularism is public, Islam private; secularism is knowledge, Islam is

belief; secularism is modern, Islam is traditional; secularism is urban,

Islam is rural; secularism is progress, Islam is reactionary (irtica);

secularism is universal, Islam is particular.55

While the preliminary motive was to prevent a rise of Islamism in the public sphere,

such a synthesis also aimed at tackling the rise of leftist ideologies. Externally, the

aim was to prevent the intrusion of Islamic thinking originating from Pakistan and

the Arab world that might have an adverse, anti-modernising impact on Turkish

Islam.56 While state elites were the principal advocates of the Turkish-Islamic

synthesis, the phrase ‘Turkish-Islamist Synthesis’ was popularized by Islamists who

were attempting to revive the ‘nativity of Turkey’ and externalize the West as the

‘other’ in the construction of a Turkish nationalism that upheld its Islamic heritage.57

The phrase was also popularly used by advocates of Pan-Turkism.

53Cemal Karakas, Turkey, p. 10. 54 M. Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey, Oxford University Press, 2003, p. vii-viii. 55 Alev Cinar, Modernity, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey: Bodies, Places, and Time, University of Minnesota Press, 2005, p. 47. 56 Angel Rabasa and F. Stephen Larrabee, The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey, p. 37. 57 Yael Navaro-Yasin, “The Historical Construction of Local Culture: Gender and Identity in the Politics of Secularism versus Islam”, Caglar Keyder (ed), Istanbul: Between the Global and the Local, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1999, p. 59-75.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 118

Democracy and the Rise of Islamic Elements in Turkish Politics

Turkish democracy opened up a multi-party system in 1946. The Republican People’s

Party (RPP), which had been in power since 1923, experienced its first loss of power

in the election of 1950. The introduction of a multi-party system brought back

people’s differing voices, especially those related to the freedom of religious

expression. While the election result indicated the rise of a new middle class,58 Dodd

has argued that one of the instrumental reasons behind the loss of the RPP in the

1950’s election was that the ‘role of the laic Ataturkist state in discouraging the

development of religion had…earned the regime wide unpopularity’.59 This has been

an area of major contestation in Turkish politics ever since because the state elite

and the political elite differ substantially with regard to the ‘protection’ of state

ideology vis-à-vis voices coming from below. According to Metin Herper:

For a long time democracy in Turkey developed as a conflict between

the state elites and political elites. The state elites tended to act

basically as the guardians of the long-term interests of the country

and held a condescending attitude toward the particularistic interest;

political elites in turn perceived themselves primarily as the

defenders of the particularistic interests. The state elites’

expectations of democracy and the consequent rift between them

and the political elites came to have critical implications for Turkish

politics.60

The military is considered as one of the twin pillars guarding the Kemalist

modernizing goals. The historical role of the military confirms that it had been an

58 Frank Tachau and Metin Heper, “The State, Politics, and the Military in Turkey”, Comparative Politics, Vol. 16, No. 1, October 1983, p. 20. 59 C.H. Dodd, The Crisis of Turkish Democracy, The Eothen Press, 1990, p. 9. 60 Metin Heper, “Conclusion—The Consolidation of Democracy versus Democratization in Turkey”, Turkish Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1.2002, p. 140.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 119

agent of modernization under the Ottoman Empire to the extent that Rustow

contends that ‘the soldier has been Turkey’s foremost modernizer’.61 In the Kemalist

state in 1935, the military was formally entrusted with the duty ‘to protect and look

after’ (korumak ve kollamak) the Republic through Paragraph 35 of the Army Internal

Service Law.62 From 1960, the military has exercizedexercised its duty as protector

by carrying out several coups d’etat against incumbent governments: these occurred

in 1960, 1971, 1980, and a ‘soft coup’ on February 28, 1997.63 The Turkish military

considers itself as a ‘neutral’ player which is ‘above’ the society, ‘identif[ying] itself in

its rhetoric and behavior as a “papa-state” (Devlet Baba)’.64

The Turkish journey to democracy can be identified as ‘procedurally functional yet

illiberal’.65 It reveals the internal paradox created by Kemalist ideology: while the

state attempted to contain the Islamic ‘other’, the Islamic ‘other’ has used the

pluralistic political space provided by democracy to break free of its marginalized

position in the society. The growth of democracy has therefore been seen as a

predicament for the preservation of Kemalist ideals. Apprehensions at the Turkish

elite level recognize that ‘the more democracy grows, the more religious resurgence

is likely to increase’.66 While the rise of Necmetin Erbakanan and Turgut Ozal, among

other influential pro-Islamic political leaders, is an obvious testament to this

development, it should nonetheless be analysed in the context of the binary creation

of identity in Turkey that rested on the creation of a Kemalist ‘West versus East’

61 D.A. Rustow, “The Military: Turkey”, R.E. Ward and D.A. Rustow (eds.), “Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey”, Conference on Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey, Gould, 1962, p. 352. 62 Ozgur Mutlu Ulus, The Army and the Radical Left in Turkey: Military Coups, Socialist Revolution and Kemalism, I.B. Tauris, 2011, p. 11. 63 For details, please see ibid. 64 Umit Cizre, “A New Politics of Engagement: The Turkish Military, Society, and the AKP”, Ahmet T. Kuru and Alfred Steppan (eds.), Democracy, Islam & Secularism in Turkey, Columbia University Press, 2012, p. 130. 65 Berna Turam, Between Islam and the State, p. 3. 66 Yasin Aktay, quoted in M. Hakan Yavuz, “Cleansing Islam from the Public Sphere”, p. 26.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 120

dichotomy.67 This dichotomy rested on the principles of Westernization as simply

‘emancipatory and anti-religious, without the critical post-Enlightenment thought on

tolerance, liberalism and democracy’.68 Cinar argues that elites in Muslim

democracies still tend to believe in the ‘submergence of Islam’ as a prerequisite for

modernization and democratization, overlooking the implication that the

‘submergence of Islam is paradoxically undemocratic and feeds back into

authoritarianism...[b]ecause modernization happened despite Islam, [a] revived

Islam [is] inevitably against modernisation’.69

However, in the case of Turkey, this observation regarding the rise of Islamism

ignores the socio-political nature of Turkish society. Although this had been

overlooked and suppressed since the birth of the Republic, the ‘self-secluded elites’

had always tried to ignore the socio-religious dimension of Turkish society and deny

its Ottoman heritage. As a result, it created a binary opposition between Turkey and

the West in which:

[T]wo competing and conflicting sources of culture, images,

institutions and practices are used selectively [to] patch together a

modern identity of Turkey, one that is hybrid and continues to evolve.

The identity of Turkey therefore is neither Ottoman/Islamic nor

European but incorporates the elements of both.70

Although the Kemalist elites treated social, cultural and political differences as

‘sources of instability and threats to national unity’ rather than understanding them

67 As a country with 97% Muslim majority, Turkey has seen its fair share of the rise in Islamism in different movements, largely as a protest against the Kemalist Westernization project. Prominent of these movements were the Naqshibandi movement, the Nurca’s movement and Gulen movement, which still holds critical implications for Turkish society. 68M. Hakan Yavuz, “Cleansing Islam from the Public Sphere”, p. 24. 69 Menderes Cinar, “From Shadow-Boxing to Critical Understanding: Some Theoretical Notes on Islamism as a ‘Political’ Question”, Totalitarian Religions and Political Movements, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2002, p. 42. 70M. Hakan Yavuz, “Cleansing Islam from the Public Sphere”, p. 27.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 121

as an integral part of democracy,71 the nature of Islamic politics and its ability to

reorient its course in Turkey is illuminating. Each time an Islamic party has been

banned from politics, it has come back with a new name but has also modified its

political ideology in an attempt to better align with democratic principles. This has

led to a toning down of its Islamic commitments.72 This willingness of Turkish Islamic

political parties to modify themselves has been widely noted in the international

media. For example, The Economist observed that:

Autocratic regimes in the Muslim world often ban religious parties,

which then go underground and turn violent. Turkey’s Islamists have

taken a different path. Despite being repeatedly outlawed and

ejected from power, pious politicians have shunned violence,

embraced democracy, and moved into the mainstream.73

These observations, however, are not shared by many in the Turkish state elite, or by

other international observers. The otherwise widespread failure to acknowledge the

social fabric of the country has led anxious state elites and most observers of Turkish

politics to call the most recent manifestation of an Islamic party, the AK Parti, a sign

that Turkey is turning towards an Islamic other in a ‘Manichean world order of

“good” versus the “evil”’.74 This concern among political observers and academics is

clearly discernible in their refusal to use the acronym of AK Parti when referring to

71Ibid, p. 27. 72 Omer Taspinar, “Turkey: The New Model?” Brookings Research Paper, located at <http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2012/04/24-turkey-new-model-taspinar>, accessed on April 27, 2013. 73The Economist, quoted in Ibid. 74Kerem Oktem, Angry Nation, p. 127. A number of journal articles on Turkey’s political future expressed the concern that the AK Parti was either proreligious, promoting Islamic interests, ‘from religion to religionism’ or promoting ‘Islamism in disguise’. A few references include: Angel Rabasa and F. Stephen Larabee, The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey, Rand Corporation, National Defense Research Institute (U.S.), 1998; Bilal Sambur, “The Great Transformation of Political Islam in Turkey: The Case of Justice and Development Party and Erdogan”, European Journal of Economic and Political Studies, Vo. 2, No. 2, 2009; Nora Fisher Onar, “Constructing Turkey Inc.: The Discursive Anatomy of a Domestic and Foreign Policy Agenda”,Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Vol. 19, No. 4, December, 2011, among many others.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 122

the party.75 The Turkish meaning of ‘ak’ is white and clean. Embracing such an

acronym highlights the party’s claim to an uncorrupted character. Although the party

appears to have been successful in merging Islam into a secular political

environment, secular elites nevertheless perceive it as a threat to Republican ideals.

AKP is the mostly commonly used acronym by academics and political opponents,

although many consider this a misnomer.76 Some commentators prefer to use JDP,

referring to AK Parti’s English name.77

Concerns have also been expressed over the rise to political power of a key figure in

the AK Parti, the current Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Since he won

the municipal elections of 1994 and became the Mayor of Istanbul, the main

concerns are that Turkey’s political future will be dominated by Islamists again.78 As

Mayor of Istanbul, Erdogan’s initiatives were praised for creating a ‘cleaner and

greener’ Istanbul. However, secularists were unhappy over laws enacted for the

75 As mentioned in the previous chapter, official party records provided by the party to the Ministry of Interior refer to ‘AK Parti’ as the party’s intended acronym. 76 See, for example, Mustafa Sahin, “Islam, Ottoman Legacy, and Politics in Turkey: An Axis Shift?” Washington Review of Turkish and Eurasian Affairs, January, 2011, located at <http://www.thewashingtonreview.org/articles/islam-ottoman-legacy-and-politics-in-turkey-an-axis-shift.html>, accessed on April 18, 2013. 77 See, for example, Lerna K. Yanik, “Constructing Turkish “Exceptionalism”: Discourses on Liminality and Hybridity in post-Cold War Turkish Foreign Policy”, Political Geography, Vol. 30, 2011, pp. 80-89. 78 Erdogan was jailed for a few months and was banned from entering into politics due to his recitation of an Islamist poem in public, which included the verses, ironically written by Ziya Gokalp: ‘The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, and the faithful our soldiers…’ When the AK Party won in the general election of November, 2002, he was still in prison. However, he took the office of Prime Minister after being elected in the Parliamentary by-election of early 2003, by a city where, ironically, he had recited the offending poem. After Abdullah Gul, the incumbent Prime Minister from the AK Party, resigned, Erdogan assumed power as the Prime Minister of Turkey on March 14, 2003. He has remained as Prime Minister ever since, as the AK Partihas continued to win in later elections as well. For details, please see, Zeyno Baran, Torn Country, p. 53; “Turkey’s Charismatic pro-Islamic Leader”, BBC News, November 4, 2002, located at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2270642.stm>, accessed on April 26, 2013; “Recep Tayyip Erdogan: Prime Minister of Turkey”, SETimes.com, The News and Views of Southeast Europe, located at <http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/infoCountryPage/setimes/resource_centre/bios/erdogan_recep?country=Turkey>, accessed on April 26, 2013; “Turkish PM Quits for Erdogan”,CNN News International, located at <http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/03/11/turkey.elections/>, accessed on April 26, 2013.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 123

public serving of alcohol in the cafes of Istanbul.79 Moreover, as Mayor of Istanbul,

Erdogan’s statements that he was a ‘servant of Shari’a’ and the ‘Imam of Istanbul’,

coinciding with his comments that democracy was not an end but a ‘tool’, have

raised suspicions regarding his true motives and the motives of his political

affiliations.80

However, with the increase in popular support for the AK Parti at the 2007 election,

a growth unprecedented in Turkish political history, Erdogan has been able to

establish himself as one of the most influential political figures in Turkey since its

founding father, Ataturk. Indeed, his walking out of the Davos Summit in 2009 after a

stormy exchange of words with Israeli President Simon Peres was seen as a

manifestation of not only Erdogan’s political power but also of Turkey’s emerging

assertiveness in international affairs, and a change from its usual response of

remaining isolationist or reactive. In the changing reality of Turkey’s domestic and

international development, Erdogan has been dubbed the ‘new Sultan’ in a new

political ideology preached by the AK Parti in the Arab and international media.81

Another perception, pointing to his Islamic roots, holds that Erdogan is an ‘infamous

Islamist wolf in democratic sheep’s clothing’.82 However, the perception regarding

Erdogan’s Islamist agenda seems to be shifting inside Turkey. This was evident in the

experience of a Turkish scholar on the nature of the rebuttal that arose when

Erdogan was termed an Islamist. The response was: ‘Why are you labelling him as an

Islamist? Is it just because his wife covers her head? Erdogan is not an Islamist. He is

our Prime Minister’.83

79 “Turkey’s Charismatic pro-Islamic Leader.” 80 Angel Rabasa and F. Stephen Larrabee, The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey, p. 55. 81 Hasan Kosebalaban, Turkish Foreign Policy, p. xi; Cinar Kiper, “Sultan Erdogan: Turkey’s Rebranding into the New, Old Ottoman Empire”, The Atlantic, April 13, 2013, located in <http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/04/sultan-erdogan-turkeys-rebranding-into-the-new-old-ottoman-empire/274724/>, accessed on April 19, 2013. 82 Joost Lagendijk, “Turkey’s Accession to the European Union and the Role of the Justice and Development Party”, Ahmet Kuru and Alfred Stepan (eds.), Democracy, p. 172. 83 Berna Turam, Between Islam and the State, p. 4.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 124

The rise of the AK Parti

While the rise of the AK Parti and the basis of its continued acceptance by voters has

been a matter of concern both inside and outside of Turkey, the changing socio-

cultural and economic setting that paved the way for such a rise can be traced to

democratization in Turkey since the 1950s. The leaders of AK Parti descended from

the former Virtue Party (FP). The ‘innovationstinnovationist’ leaders of the Virtue

Party assembled under Erdogan to form the Parti in August 14, 2001.84

A new class comprising businessmen and entrepreneurs flourished in Turkey as a

part of its economic modernization and education reform program. This class has

served the development of an alternative power-base in the country.85 The assertion

of their new, rising role has been best expressed not through the voices of the

traditional military-based elites but rather through organizations such as the

Demokrat Party that have closer connections between the masses and the new

social class.

Although Kemalist reforms were massive, they failed to penetrate every part of the

country. While Istanbul and major city areas went through the modernization drive,

the rural and pious masses of Anatolia remained largely untouched.86 Indeed

Eisenstadt points out that the ‘problem of long-term institutionalization of [the]

Kemalist regime’ reveals that ‘the revolutionary experience itself was not connected

with mass movements’.87 Support for this analysis is found in one of the Kemalist

slogans of the 1920s, which acknowledged that the Turkish government ruled ‘For

the people, despite the people’.88

84 Ergun Özbudun, “From Political Islam to Conservative Democracy: The Case of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey”, South European Society and Politics, Vol. 11, No. 3-4, 2006, 546. 85 Frank Tachau and Metin Heper, “The State”, p. 20-21. 86 Omer Taspinar, “Turkey.” 87S.N. Eisenstadt, “The Kemalist Revolution in Comparative Perspective”, Ali Kazancigil and Ergun Ozbudun (eds.), Ataturk, p. 140. 88 Omer Taspinar, “Turkey.”

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 125

Mardin has also argued that rural forces became allied to the Demokrat Party

because they had been essentially excluded from the new socio-economic

framework of the country.89 However, the demographic changes that occurred

throughout the country during the 1950s also led to the relocation of many former

peasants to shantytowns in the large cities. These shantytowns gradually became the

focus of political parties and have also served as a basis for legitimizing Islamic claims

to such parties. These gradual socio-economic changes mostly remained outside of

the awareness of the state elites, leading Mardin to ‘characterize the new globalized

Turkey, [as] a country in which old and new structures have met in a surreal

setting’.90 What has emerged in Turkey is what some authors have also termed a

‘clash of civilizations’—a situation in which there are ‘two Turkeys’, one secular and

urban vis-à-vis the other pious and rural.91 As the carefully calculated program of

top-down reform was pursued vigorously by the state elites, the stark divisions being

created in the country were largely overlooked. These have become potent over the

years, as was demonstrated as soon as it was possible for them to be expressed

through voting rights.

In more recent times, policies under the Ozal government led to the growth of a

Muslim bourgeoisie in the Anatolian heartland.92 This bourgeoisie has become

known as the Islamic Calvinists or also often as the Anatolian Tigers.93 While the rise

of this new force has been described as the rise of ‘Green Capital’ or ‘Islamic

Capital’,94 it is uncertain whether Islam is the driving force of its economic

89 Serif Mardin, Religion, p. 80. 90 Ibid, p. 82. 91 Angel Rabasa and F. Stephen Larrabee, The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey, p. 39. 92 Turgut Ozal was the first Turkish leader before Erdogan, who was successfully able to create a fusion between Westernization and Islamism. On the one hand, his economic policies were successful in creating more business opportunities in the country, thereby creating an alliance between the business community and the Islamists. In personal life, his wife maintained a secular life-style with a headscarf. Zeyno Baran, Torn Country, Chapter two. 93 “Islamic Calvinists: Changes and Conservatism in Central Anatolia”, European Stability Initiative, located at <http://www.esiweb.org/pdf/esi_document_id_69.pdf>, accessed on, April 27, 2013. 94 Omer Demir, Mustafa Acar and Metin Toprak, “Anatolian Tigers or Islamic Capital: Prospects and Challenges”, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 40, No. 6, November 2004, p. 166.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 126

aspirations or whether its economic rise has led to the embrace of Islamic ideals.95

Nonetheless, since the period of Ozal, there has been an increased political interest

expressed amongst this new group, which is pro-business and pro-free market. Its

members have emerged as important king-makers in contemporary Turkish politics,

as they form most of the support-base for the AK Parti.

One important concern for this pro-business/pro-free market class has been that the

pro-Islamic businesses that were linked with previous Islamist political parties also

experienced official discrimination when the Islamist political parties were closed

down.96 Therefore, this group, especially in cities such as Kayseri, Denizli, Gaziantep,

and Malatya, have an obvious vested interest in achieving a political environment

that does not affect either their business interests or the political stability of the

country. The 1997 military coup that led to the fall of the Islamic regime of the

Welfare Party turned out to be an important eye-opener for proponents of Islamic

politics in Turkey.97 The coup forced them to disassociate themselves from a staunch

Islamist position in favour of more moderate Islamist policies that had an economic

aim in mind. What emerged was a synthesis of Turkish Islamism and neoliberalism.98

The business concerns of this new bourgeoisie particularly require pro-Islamic

parties to be actively pro-EU in policy. This is reflected in the AK Parti’s foreign policy

objectives.99 Yavuz pointed out that the success of the AK Parti lies in explicit

rejection of an Islamic identity while opting for neo-liberal economic policies with

emphasis to join in the EU.100 This new economic policy however was guided by

95 “Islamic Calvinists: Changes and Conservatism in Central Anatolia”, p. 25. 96 See for example, M. Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey. 97 Kerem Oktem, Angry Nation, p. 126, Omer Taspinar, “Turkey’s Middle East Policies: Between Neo-Ottomanism and Kemalism”,Carnegie Paper No 10, September, 2008, p. 3, located at <http://carnegieendowment.org/files/cmec10_taspinar_final.pdf>, accessed on April 19, 2013, p. 12. 98 Mustafa Şen, “Transformation of Turkish Islamism and the Rise of the Justice and Development Party”, Turkish Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2010. 99 Ahmet T. Kuru, “Fetullah Gulen’s Search for a Middle Waybetween Modernity and Muslim Tradition”, M. Hakan Yavuz and John L. Esposito (eds.), Turkish Islam and the Secular State: The Gulen Movement, Syracuse University Press, 2003. 100 M. Hakan Yavuz, Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 127

social relations embedded with religious morality in establishing a pure market

economy.101 As has been pointed out, the continued electoral success of the AK Parti

is as likely to owe as much to economic prosperity within Turkey as it does to ‘a

vision of a strong Turkey with a global outlook…as opposed to defensive and inward-

oriented nationalistic visions’.102

Imperial Memories and the Identity of Turkey

According to Inalcik, ‘while no historian can write a “culture-free” world history we

can depict today’s world as a cumulative end-result of a long historical evolution

embracing all past human experience’.103 The rise of neo-Ottomanism within Turkish

domestic politics is tied to the construction of an identity that projects an assertive

role for Turkey in international politics. It therefore also informs Turkey’s efforts to

reconcile with its Ottoman past. Several studies on the behaviour of the successor

states of former empires reflect on how such countries find themselves caught

between the need to accept a lesser role in international politics vis-à-vis their

former prowess and their need to reforge an identity that still offers them some

pride. Turkey and Japan have been prominent in such studies, as both countries have

suffered an enormous loss of prestige at the international level and have had to

reorient themselves to a new world dominated by Western powers. Both countries

have made concrete efforts to adopt Westernization as a way of putting their

humiliating pasts behind them. Moreover, both have been successful in creating an

identity that has led them to be championed as a ‘bridge between civilizations’.

The rise of political parties that have championed Turkey’s increasing role in

international politics since the 1980s is often regarded as signalling the ‘twilight of

101 Ayse Bugra, “Labour, Capital, and Religion: Harmony and Conflict Among the Constituency of Political Islam in Turkey,” Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 38, No. 2, 2002. 102 E. Fuat Keyman and Ziya Onis, p. 3. 103 Halil Inalcik, “The Meaning of Legacy: The Ottoman Case”, L. Carl Brown (ed), Imperial Legacy: The Ottoman Imprint on the Balkans and the Middle East, Columbia University Press, 1996, p. 17.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 128

Kemalism’104 and the beginning of an era of ‘Turkish exceptionalism’.105 The start of

the latter can be politically traced to the victory of the Refah Party under the

leadership of Necmettin Erbakan in which Turkey saw the ascent of a prime minister

‘whose identity and political philosophy explicitly was based on the Ottoman-Islamic

heritage’.106 Constantinides argues that political developments in the 1990s under

President Tugut Ozal have also reflected an attempt to accommodate a ‘working

arrangement’ between Kemalism and Islamism within neo-Ottomanism.107 Departing

from the Kemalist rejection of expansionism towards Turks living outside Turkey,

Ozal challenged the ‘state-centric’ approach of Turkish identity and nationalism by

introducing a debate on Turkish identity in relation to its geostrategic setting:

When we look at this geopolitical space from the Adriatic Sea to

Central Asia under the leadership of Turkey, we realize that this space

is molded and dominated by Ottoman-Muslim and Turkic

population…The Ottoman-Muslim population shares the same

historical legacy and fate as the Turks of Anatolia and they still

regards themselves as “Turk” in religio-cultural sense. These groups

live in Bosnia, Armenia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Western Trace.108

Nevertheless, the embrace of its Ottoman past does not necessarily signal a new

period of imperial expansionism for Turkey. Rather, it can be seen as Turkey

attempting to reforge its identity among the community of states in a way that

comes to terms with both the positives and the negatives of its past history.

However, despite this apparently successful negotiation of the clash of civilizations,

Ayse Zarakol has argued that the present policies of countries with an imperial past

104Stephanos Constantinides, “Turkey”, p. 333. 105Lerna K. Yanik, “Constructing Turkish “Exceptionalism”, p. 80. 106M. Hakan Yavuz, “Cleansing Islam from the Public Sphere”, p. 20. 107 Stephanos Constantinides, “Turkey”, p. 334. 108 M. Hakan Yavuz, “Cleansing Islam from the Public Sphere”, p. 24.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 129

cannot be explained away by ignoring the impact of memories of that past.109 This is

to fall into the traditional Western bias in the making of history in which non-

Western countries are simply considered as the ‘decorative plants of modern

international society’. According to Zarakol:

The overall thrust of the discipline [IR] has thus far been to ignore the

non-West in theory formulation because non-Western states are

either assumed to be static and therefore, indistinguishable from the

environment, or assumed to be easily covered by theories

extrapolated from the Western experience.110

While the importance of imperial memories is often overlooked, they nevertheless

influence the domestic and international construction of identity for countries like

Turkey, Japan and India.111 Defining imperial memories as ‘historical memories of

former empires within metropolis successor states’, Walker has argued that

‘memories matter because they are the bedrock from which national identities,

political cultures, and states are formed’.112 Imperial memories affect the

109 Ayse Zarakol, After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West, Cambridge University Press, 2011. 110 AyseZarakol, cited in Joshua Walker, “Shadows of Empire”, p. 30. 111 India is an interesting case here. Not many studies look at India’s imperial memories as important in constructing its present identity. Instead India is said to be creating its identity in a conscious denial of its imperial past. Being colonized by the British for about two hundred years, how India consciously created its Indian identity by denying its Mughal Muslim heritage has often been a matter of much controversy in both academic and political arena. The Muslim invasion from Central Asia and the consequent Muslim rule have always been considered asforeign occupation in the mainstream Indian construction of identity. Indian identity has therefore been constructed in relation to imperial memories, one way or the other. The creation of a Hindu narrative was made against the creation of Muslim cruelty and contempt of India’s imperial past during British rule. There are countless works on this issue. One of the most recent is that of Pankaj Mishra who has shown how ‘pseudosecularism’ has helped to unify an apparent ‘factitious’ country, India, over the claim of modernity and progress. See Pankaj Mishra, Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. 112 Joshua Walker, “Shadows of Empire”, p. 25. The importance of historical memories has been a driving factor in creating Bengali nationalism in 1950s and 60s. The emphasis on ‘Sonar Bangla’ (Golden Bengal) and its reproduction in East Pakistan to create a conscious difference between Bengali nationalism and Pakistani nationalism is discussed in the next two chapters on Bangladesh.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 130

contemporary creation of identity as these creations are guided by understandings

of the past as well as present patterns of identity.113 Brown has pointed out that:

[T]he history of [the Ottoman] long-lived imperial system is

instructive not just for the understanding of those lands once under

Ottoman rule but for world history as well. The workings of the major

imperial systems East and West, ancient and modern, the institutions

and ideas they pass on to their successors, should attract the

attention of all seeking to make sense of their past and plan their

future.114

Turkey’s identity cannot be viewed in isolation from its past because its Ottoman

past has served as the basis for creating modern Turkey, albeit as a negation.

Kemalist policies were created in opposition to Ottoman policy but it is precisely

because of this that the Ottoman past figures as an important element in the

construction of Turkish identity. However, the fact that Kemalist policies turned their

back on Ottoman Muslims while setting up a modernist discourse for a future state

has produced a dilemma for Turkey. In terms of foreign policy assertion, Kemalist

elites had generally opted for an isolationist foreign policy. The reincarnation of

Ottoman glory that is starting to make its way into Turkish identity creation both at a

domestic and an international level since the period of Ozal, is aimed at making

Turkey a country to be reckoned with in international politics. This requires the

country to confront the negative aspects of its Ottoman heritage in order to reassure

both domestic and international observers of its intentions.

Turkish Assertion of Identity and the Foreign Policy of the AK Parti

Turkey’s desire to gain access to the EU requires it to project a European identity,

which it seeks to do based on the modernist claims propounded by the Kemalists.

113 Joshua Walker, “Shadows of Empire”, p. 39. 114 L. Carl Brown, “The Background: An Introduction”, L. Carl Brown (ed), Imperial Legacy, p. 12.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 131

Yet it also needs to reclaim its past and its connections to its religious identity in

order to satisfy democratic requirements internally. The AK Parti’s foreign policy

assertions and efforts at Turkish identity creation must be analysed keeping this

dilemma in mind.

The first political challenge with international implications for the AK Parti occurred

when the US wanted to use Turkish territory to mount the Iraq invasion after 9/11.

While Erdogan had not yet assumed power, mounting domestic rallies against letting

the US use Turkish soil to intervene in Iraq led the Turkish Parliament to veto the US

request.115 Known as the 1st of March Permit (1 Mart Tezkersi), the incident was the

first clear indication that a Turkish assertion of its identity in its own terms was in

process. This assertion has since manifested in the crystallization of Turkish foreign

policy into two broad-based goals: projecting itself as a soft power and emphasizing

a ‘zero problems with neighbours’ foreign policy. More importantly, the AK Parti has

sought to take advantage of ‘an international system that lacked [such] mechanisms

to bridge between powers and [has] exploited its unique geopolitics to facilitate

dialogue and international mediation’.116

The AK Parti’s foreign policy therefore stands as an example of not only taking

advantage of the international situation, but also of using international policies to

strengthen its domestic power. The party’s enthusiasm in promoting Turkey’s bid to

join the EU has turned out to be beneficial not only for the party itself but also for

other political quarters of Turkey. While secular elites see it as a realization of the

Kemalist modernization and secularization project, for minorities, especially the

Kurds, it has been seen as signalling a change in the perception of them as national

security threats and the path towards the realization of minority rights. For the AK

Parti itself, it has also provided a prime chance to weaken the role of the military in

115 Kerem Oktem, Angry Nation, p. 132-3. 116 Galip Dalay and Dov Friedman, “The AK Party and the Evolution of Turkish Political Islam’s Foreign Policy”, Insight Turkey, Vol. 15, No. 2, Spring 2003, p. 131.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 132

Turkey while also promoting a Turkish identity that recognizes Turkey’s multi-

religious and multi-ethnic character. This, in turn, promotes the AK Parti’s position

on a revised form of secularism that does not prohibit religious expression in public.

Turkey’s relationship with Israel

Turkey’s relationship with Israel has been important in defining its relations with the

West. Since the birth of Israel in 1948, Turkey has served as an important strategic

ally for Israel in the region.117 For Turkey, Israel’s path to modernization and

Westernization has echoed Turkey’s own search for a western identity. Moreover,

from a historical perspective, the treatment of Jews under the Ottoman Empire was

much more accommodative than the treatment of Jews by the Europeans or the

Arabs, and this is considered to have set the tone for the Turkey/Israel

relationship.118 But this relationship is also intrinsically linked with Turkey’s own

identity project aimed at blending a Western identity with its Turkish-Islamic

heritage.119 Lewin has pointed out that Turkish and Israeli relations are based on

mutual identities and mutual interests for which ‘Israel is Turkey’s door to the West,

while Turkey serves as Israel’s door to the Middle East’.120 Therefore, the level of

Turkish commitment towards Israel is determined by its relationships with the West

117 Turkey was the first country with a Muslim majority population to recognize Israel. It extended official recognition in 1949 and started full diplomatic relations in 1991. For details, see, Hasan Kosebalaban, “The Crisis in Turkish-Israeli Relations: What is its Strategic Significance?”, Middle East Policy Council, Vol. XVII, No. 3, Fall 2010; Jacob Abadi, Israel’s Quest for Recognition and Acceptance in Asia: Garrison State Diplomacy, Routledge, 2004, p. 19. 118 Turkey’s political establishment has promoted this idea from time to time, as can be seen in a 1996statement by Turkey’s Deputy Consul Aydin Nurhan in 1996 that “[a]s sentiments between nations are most important factors for strategic planning, Turks and the Jewish people enjoy a wonderful heritage of brotherhood, especially beginning in 1492, an era where inquisition in Europe and tolerance in the Ottoman Empire were at their peak. Jews had bad days with Europe, and had bad days with Arabs. But none with Turks…I believe this is our common strength for a lasting peace in the region if we work hand in hand.” Quoted in Yucel Bozdaglioglu, Turkish Foreign Policy and Turkish Identity: A Constructivist Approach, Routledge, 2003, p. 150. 119 M. Hakan Yavuz, “Turkish-Israeli Relations Through the Lens of the Turkish Identity Debate”, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1, Autumn, 1997. 120 Anat Lewin, “Turkey and Israel: Reciprocal and Mutual Imagery in the Media, 1994-1999”, Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 54, No. 1, Fall 2000, p. 247.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 133

and the Middle East.121 Evidence for this can also be seen in the increasing

assertiveness of Turkish foreign policy in international politics under the AK Parti,

particularly in relation to Israel’s position within the Middle East peace process,122

although bilateral relations between the two countries suffered a significant blow

with the Mavi Marmara incident in June 2010, in which a protest ship carrying

humanitarian aid to Gaza was boarded by the Israeli Navy and several protesters

were killed. The incident stalled Turkey-Israeli relations,123 Turkey recalled its

ambassador from Israel and military relations between the two countries were

halted. After three years, Israel eventually apologized to Turkey over the incident, a

move brokered by the current American administration, particularly President

Barack Obama and Foreign Secretary John Kerry.124 Analysts have argued that the

reconciliation was likely to have been guided by pragmatic concerns regarding

regional geopolitics and relations with the United States,125 since the foreign policies

of states are strongly influenced by the global forces in play at the time. Kosebalaban

has also argued that the personalities of both the Turkish and Israeli leaders

contributed to the ‘drama’ in their bilateral relations.126 Regardless, the prospect of

normalization between the two countries shows that Turkey is not yet prepared to

diverge from its overall path with regard to Israel and the West more generally, and

vice versa. On the one hand, amidst a hostile Middle East, Turkey stands as a

significant ally for Israel. On the other hand, the US brokering of the thaw between

the two countries indicates that the US does not want to alienate Turkey, especially

121 Yucel Bozdaglioglu, Turkish Foreign Policy and Turkish Identity, p. 141. 122 Galip Dalay and Dov Friedman, “The AK Party and the Evolution of Turkish Political Islam’s Foreign Policy.” 123 Daniella Huber and Nathalie Tocci, “Behind the Scenes of the Turkish-Israeli Breakthrough”, Istituto Affari Internazionali, IAI Working Papers 1315, April, 2013, located at <http://www.iai.it/pdf/DocIAI/iaiwp1315.pdf>, accessed on May 14, 2013, p. 6. 124 Harriet Sherwood and Ewen MacAskill, “Netanyahu Apologises to Turkish PM for Israeli Role in Gaza Flotilla”,The Guardian, March 22, 2013, located at <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/22/israel-apologises-turkey-gaza-flotilla-deaths>, accessed on May 14, 2013. 125 Daniella Huber and Nathalie Tocci, “Behind the Scenes of the Turkish-Israeli Breakthrough”, p. 8. 126 Hasan Kosebalaban, “The Crisis in Turkish-Israeli Relations: What is its Strategic Significance?” p. 40.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 134

given that Turkish political elites are Muslim which allows Turkey to be increasingly

accepted and involved in the Middle East.

It has been argued that Turkey’s turn to the Middle East, its ‘return of history’ as

Fuller terms it, does not so much complicate Turkey’s relationship with the West as

enrich and complement it.127 The turn was also predicted in the mid-1980s by David

Barchard who argued that Turkey’s neo-Ottoman policy indicated that the

‘[c]onsciousness of the imperial Ottoman past is a much more politically potent force

in Turkey than Islam and, as Turkey regains economic strength, it will be increasingly

tempted to assert itself in the Middle East as a leader’.128 However, this assertion, as

championed by the AK Parti, is along the lines of presenting a model of conservative

democracy to be followed in the Middle East and in the Islamic World in general.

Taspinar, providing an overall observation on Turkish foreign policy, summarizes

Turkey’s course under the AK Parti’s neo-Ottoman outlook in the following way:

Home to more than 70 million Muslims, Turkey is the most advanced

democracy in the Islamic world…A stable, Western-oriented, liberal

Turkey on a clear path toward the EU would serve as a growing

market for Western goods, a contributor to the labor force Europe

will desperately need in the coming decades, a democratic example

for the rest of the Muslim world, a stabilizing influence on Iraq, and a

partner in Afghanistan. An authoritarian, resentful, and isolated

Turkey, on the other hand, would be the opposite in every case. If its

domestic politics were to go wrong, Turkey would not only cease

127 Graham E. Fuller, The New Turkish Republic: Turkey as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World, United States Institute of Peace Press, 2008, p. 8. 128 David Barchard, Turkey and the West, p. 91.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 135

being a democratic success story but also could become a

destabilizing factor in the Middle East.129

To date, Turkey seems to be inclined to follow the former rather than the latter path.

Between Modernity and Islam—the Dilemma of Turkish Identity

These two chapters on Turkey began by demystifying the construction of the

Ottoman Empire as a theocratic state. It has also been argued that this construction

has had critical but erroneous implications for the way Turkey has long been

perceived internationally. The Kemalist project that channelled all its energy into

reengineering Turkey’s Ottoman culture and past by targeting its Islamic elements

has had a far-reaching impact on Turkey. Despite the Kemalist reforms failing to

penetrate the deepest parts of the country, especially the Anatolian heartland,

Turkey remains officially a secular country. Far from producing a return to Islam in

the public sphere, the rise of the Anatolian Tigers and their growing influence in

Turkish politics has shown that Turkish Muslims have been prepared to make a

compromise between Islam and a modernity underpinned by secularism. Indeed,

Islamic political forces, although tied deeply into Turkey’s Ottoman Islamic heritage,

have shown a remarkable willingness to move closer to democratic and modernist

ideals. As Turkey is intent on joining the European Union, economic considerations

have also come to be a cornerstone for Islamic political bases in Turkey, producing a

significantly different approach to modernity and secularism than would be expected

by proponents of the West’s clash of civilizations thesis. Yet, while Ataturk

denounced Turkey’s Ottoman Islamic past, it has been imperial memories that have

come to redefine Turkish identity as this unique blend of past and present. The

success of this development can be seen in the Turkish media’s highlighting of Daniel

Pipes’ views on Turkey and its influence on the Islamic world in which Pipes argues

that ‘Turkey should also translate secular and modern views to Arabic, Persian, and

129 Taspinar, “Turkey’s Middle East Policies”, p. 28.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 136

Urdu and disseminate them. You may not be aware of it, but the Muslim world now

looks at what Turkey is going to do’.130

The essence of Kemalism was to challenge the ‘superstructure’ of the Ottoman

ancien regime through a ‘revolution of values’. Mardin has argued that the centrality

and the ‘thickness’ of the values of the ancient regime meant that the Kemalists had

to target and destroy traditional values selectively. However, they failed to

understand that the destruction of existing values would not automatically lead

towards the acceptance of new values, no matter how rigorously they were pushed

or even legalized. The ‘Western type of polity’ that Turkey sought essentially pushed

for modernization through an imitation of an idealized West, creating a form of

‘Western feudalism—estate structures…the growth of municipal autonomy, the rise

of the bourgeoisie, and the related political mechanisms’. In doing so the radical elite

characteristically ‘brought in legislation that targeted elements of the Ottoman

“great” tradition and [gave] little thought to the “little” tradition’.131 This produced a

contemporary identity for Turkey that Gocek describes as a ‘schizophrenic

coexistence’ in which head-scarf wearing women were banned from getting an

education, while women wearing mini-skirts were denied entry to Islamic

coffeehouses.132 The creation of these two categories—the ‘White’ Turk and the

‘Black’ Turk, respectively—provides a perfect representation of the ongoing tension

between the modern and the traditional in Turkish society133 in which:

[O]ne segment of society defines itself as the epitome of the present,

in terms of modernization, civilization and Westernization, while the

130 Quoted in Bulent Aras, “Turkey, September 11, and Greater Middle East”, E. Fuat Keyman (ed), Remaking Turkey: Globalization, Alternative Modernities, and Democracy, Lexington Books, 2007, p. 242. 131 Serif Mardin, Religion, p. 203-4. 132 Fatma Muge Gocek, The Transformation of Turkey, p, 12. 133 Nilufer Gole, “Europe: A Common Dream?” Quantara.de, December 22, 2005, located at <http://en.qantara.de/Europe-A-Common-Dream/6209c159/index.html>, accessed on May 02, 2013.

Chapter 3: An Islam-Modernist Synthesis 137

other segment legitimates its lifestyle and especially attire through a

romanticized version of the Ottoman past.134

Overemphasis on suppressing the Ottoman tradition has nevertheless led to the

creation of a Turkish identity that has become a synthesis of three interrelated

concepts: Islam, ethnicity and linguistic nationalism. The relative positions of these

concepts within this Turkish-Islamist synthesis provoke constant debate in Turkey.

The synthesis has played an important role in challenging the Kemalist hegemonic

construction of identity that had denied the right of others to speak—the Alevies

(Shiites) or Kurds, for example. The rise of the AK Parti demonstrates the movement

towards the creation of a Turkey that recognizes its heterogeneous identity, based

on recognition of its multi-religious, multi-ethnic population rather than on the

Kemalist ‘one-state-one-people’ doctrine. The politics of the AK Parti are a reflection

of this recognition, mounting challenges on citizenship issues, nationalist principles

and religious freedom, promoting what can be termed as a rise of a ‘politics of

culture’ within a democratic setting.135 The re-election of the AK Parti in 2007 with

an increase in its popular support is a clear indication that the people of Turkey have

rejected the ‘meddling’ of non-elected power, that is, the state elites, in Ankara who

had tried to determine Turkey’s future by disregarding its people’s voices.136

134 Ibid, p. 12. 135Hasan Bulent Kahraman, “From Culture of Politics to Politics of Culture: Reflections on Turkish Modernity”, E. Fuat Keyman (ed), Remaking Turkey, p. 66. 136Kerem Oktem, Angry Nation, p. 156.

Chapter 4

Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History

There are some who are insularly modern, who believe that the past

is bankrupt, that it has left no assets for us but only a legacy of debts.

They refuse to believe that the army that is marching forward can be

fed from the rear. It is well to remind them that the great ages of

renaissance in history were those when men suddenly discovered the

seeds of thought in the granary of the past.1

Religion played the decisive role in the creation of the three major nation-states in

the Indian subcontinent—India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Based on the Two Nation

theory, the argument was that Hindus and Muslims living on the sub-continent

constituted separate nations, and ought thereby to have their own sovereign states.

The historic origin of such Hindu-Muslim separateness is often attributed to both the

Muslim poet Allama Iqbal and the Hindu Mahasabha leader Vinayak Damodar

Savarkar,2 but the theory was officially presented at the Lahore Summit of the All

India Muslim League in 1940 by AKM Fazlul Haque. The subsequent partition of the

sub-continent in 1947 created India, a secular country, and Pakistan, divided into

western and eastern wings, as a home for the Muslims of the sub-continent.

While India championed secularism, Pakistan struggled to create its own identity as a

modern Islamic nation-state. Religion was embedded in its very foundation, thereby

1 Rabindranath Tagore, “The Centre of Indian Culture”, Rabindranath Tagore, Towards Universal Man, Asia Publishing House, 1961, p. 224. 2 Allam Iqbal argued that a series of contended and well-organised Muslim provinces on the North-West Frontier of India would be the bulwark of India and of the British Empire against ‘the hungry generation of the Asiatic mainlands’. Iqbal quoted in Ayesha Jalal, Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam since 1850, Routledge, 2000, p. 332.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 140

negating the modernist dictum of keeping religion out of the political sphere.

Tension between the western and the eastern wings of the new state, geographically

separated by a thousand miles with India in the middle, also emerged with the

attempt of the West Pakistani elites to impose Urdu as the lingua franca on the

whole of Pakistan. This attempt, which ignored the language spoken by the majority

ethnic group—Bengali—ultimately gave birth to another Two-Nation theory, this

time within the state of Pakistan. Religion also played an important role here as

Islam, according to the West Pakistani elites, became the determinant of being a

‘true Pakistani’. This claim was vehemently rejected by East Pakistan, who opposed

this claim on basis of their linguistic ethnic identity. The result was the break-up of

Pakistan and the birth of Bangladesh as an independent, supposedly secular, nation-

state in 1971.

While the birth of Bangladesh is seen to have nullified the original claims of the Two

Nation theory that Muslims would naturally form one state, the role of religion in the

original separation between the Hindu-dominated West Bengal and Muslim-

dominated East Bengal nevertheless made the creation of Bangladesh as an

independent nation-state possible because it spearheaded the creation of another

separate state on the basis of religion. It allowed Bengali Muslims to press their

claims for separate statehood on the basis of the excessive religiosity of West

Pakistan. Identity creation in the sub-continent has therefore been traditionally

viewed within both a ‘Hindu versus Muslim’ and a ‘secularism versus religiosity’

dyadic framework. However, the use of the latter to create an independent state of

Bangladesh by trying to negate the historical role of Islam in the creation of identity

in East Bengal has left post-independent elites in Bangladesh caught between the

theory and praxis of secularism.

The next two chapters will show how a conflicted understanding of secularism has

influenced identity creation and the struggle for recognition for the Bengalis living in

Bangladesh in both the pre- and post-independence periods. Islam has always been

used politically in order to win elections in Bangladesh, but once elections were over,

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 141

the role of religion was restricted in the name of promoting secularism.

Nevertheless, the use of religion was needed to win over the masses internally.

Externally, Bangladeshi elites have shown their ideological commitment to an

idealized form of secularism that highlights a modern identity for Bangladesh. This

commitment was intrinsically tied not only to a universalized project of achieving

modernity but also to two other important national specificities: the need to create a

conscious separation from the theocratic state of Pakistan and to justify the claim for

a separate homeland for what was effectively a truncated ‘Bengal’ people made up

only of the Bengalis of the Eastern part of Bengal. This latter claim was aimed at

realizing a ‘Golden Bengal’, the myth created by Bangladeshi elites to underpin their

claims to be the true representatives of Bengal. However, in the first chapter, the

discussion is limited to the process of identity creation in pre-independence

Bangladesh by pointing out two interrelated developments: the historical

construction of Hindu-Muslim separateness in Bengal and the rise of a Bengali

Muslim identity during the British period; and the rise of a Bengali secular identity

during the Pakistani period. In doing so, it will be seen that a latent Muslim identity

has always been present as an important marker of identity creation in Bengal.

However, it did not assume a political role until the secular Bengali identity creation

turned reactionary in the face of West Pakistani elite attempts to Islamize Bengali

ethnic identity. As the next chapter argues, this became more prominent in the post-

independence period. The effort to create a conscious separation between East and

West Pakistan ended by overemphasizing the ideological application of secularism,

although the major political actors in East Pakistan nevertheless publicly proclaimed

that they had never abandoned Islam.

This chapter illustrates the origin of Bengali-Muslim identity and its changing

contours to show how secularism was misconstrued in Bangladesh. It reveals that an

over-prioritization of ethnic identity over religious identity created the dubious

category of a ‘secular Bengali identity’. While politically this was an attempt to

disassociate the people of East Pakistan from those of West Pakistan, practically it

embraced religion as an important component of identity creation especially during

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 142

general elections. As a result, the ‘secular Bengali identity’ did not actually separate

politics from religion but rather embraced religion in the name of upholding

‘secularism’. This chapter illustrates how this conflicted version of ‘secularism’,

embedded at the birth of Bengali nationalism, later fueled the rise of Islamic

elements in a post-liberation Bangladesh.

Who are the Bengal Muslims?

The greater dilemma for the people living in the Bengal has always been how to

infuse their cultural and religious allegiance into the building of a singular identity.

Are they Muslims first or Bengali first? Or are they the bearers of both

simultaneously? This tension between ethnicity and territoriality on the one hand

and religious identity on the other is aptly summarized by Rafiuddin Ahmed:

[A] Bengali Muslim may have seen himself primarily as a ‘Muslim’ the

other day, as a ‘Bengali’ yesterday, and a ‘Bengali Muslim’ today,

depending on objective conditions, but on none of these occasions

did his thoughts and his idea of destiny become separated from his

territorial identity.3

During the colonial period, the British administrators originally had little idea

regarding the religious composition of Bengal. As Dr. James Wise stated, ‘[w]hen the

English magistrates first came in contact with the people of Bengal, they arrived at

the conclusion that the Muhammadans [Muslims] only comprised one percent of the

population’.4 However, as the colonial administrators were intrigued to understand

the role of the caste system in Indian society, which according to their opinion was

3Rafiuddin Ahmed, “Introduction”, Rafiuddin Ahmed (ed.), Understanding the Bengal Muslims: Interpretive Essays, The University Press Limited, 2001, p. 4. 4Quoted in Sufia Ahmed, Muslim Community in Bengal 1884-1912, University Press Ltd, 1996, p. 2.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 143

the principal contributor to Indian backwardness,5 religion was introduced as a

category of identification in the population census from 1872. For the first time, a

different kind of geopolitical reality became apparent. As the Muslim population

were poor peasants, it was thought the popular theory of ‘Hindu conversion’

provided an explanation for the presence of such large numbers of Muslims in the

region. This theory suggested that a large number of low-caste Hindus had been

converted to Islam by Muslim missionaries during Muslim rule in Bengal from the

thirteenth century onward.6 However, more recent research has disproven this

theory. Although Bengal was ruled by Muslims from the thirteenth century, neither

the Muslim rulers of that period, nor the Mughal Rulers of the subcontinent (who

were also Muslims), encouraged the conversion of the people of Bengal during their

rule. In fact, as Richard Eaton has pointed out, the Mughal rulers were against the

conversion of the locals to Islam due to their understanding of the region as ‘a house

of turbulence’.7 As a result, ‘Muslim rule also reinforced [an] isolationist trend in

Bengal’.8

The Muslims who migrated from north and west India, who considered themselves

as Ashraf (upper class), also kept a conscious distance from the locals, considering

them as inferiors or Atrap (lower class). It was only from the sixteenth century

onwards that a primarily hunting, fishing or shifting agricultural people were

transformed into an agrarian society due to the abundance of fertile land. Permits

were given to ‘forest pioneers’ who were sufis to set up the agricultural lands that

ultimately made the Bengal region ‘Europe’s single most important supplier of goods

5 Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, Caste, Culture and Hegemony: Social Domination in Colonial Bengal, Sage Publications, 2004, p. 16. 6 Naila Kabeer, “The Quest for National Identity: Women, Islam and the State in Bangladesh”, Kamala Visweswaran (ed), Perspectives on Modern South Asia: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, p. 140. 7 Richard M. Eaton, “Who are the Bengal Muslims? Conversion and Islamization in Bengal”, Rafiuddin Ahmed (ed.), Understanding the Bengal Muslims, p. 27. 8 Mizanur Rahman Shelley, Emergence of a New Nation in a Multipolar World: Bangladesh, Academic Press and Publishers Library, 2007, p. 18.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 144

in Asia as a whole’.9 These forest pioneers shaped the culture and religion of the

Bengal delta, which was still not Hindu and had ‘not yet been integrated into a

rigidly-structured caste society informed by Brahmanical notions of hierarchy and

order’ like that of the ‘more Hinduized Western India’.10 As a part of the land policy,

and as a condition of the permit, mosques were built. These infused Islam into the

mainstream of the society. Agriculture and religion thus grew hand in hand in a land

that was already a home to various religious traditions. Thus, it was the land policy of

the Mughals that transformed the social and religious structures of Bengal. It is

interesting to note in this context that Islam in northern India remained confined to

the urban centers while it spread in the rural and agrarian society in deltaic East

Bengal due to the influence of sufi culture.11

While the stories of the Bengal delta speak about the influence of the sufis, it can

also be argued that the very nature of the people of the Bengal delta allowed the

permeation of this foreign religion to go rather smoothly. In fact, it has been pointed

out that conversion to Islam was done so ‘unwittingly’, as opposed to the

conventional understanding that ‘Islam was spread with a sword’ in India, that it was

never regarded as alien in the agrarian society and rather, was blended with the

Bengal’s localism.12 One of the major traditional characteristics of the local people

was tolerance of different opinions and religions.13 As Imtiaz Ahmed has pointed out,

the literary traditions of the people of Bengal highlight a strong tradition of tolerance

and ‘public reasoning that has contributed to the growth and sustenance of different

opinions in the whole of Bengal, both east and west’.14 In the context of greater

India, scholars have also pointed out how the toleration of different cultures has

9 Richard M. Eaton, “Who are the Bengal Muslims?” p. 34. 10 Ibid, p. 35. 11 Jayanti Maitra, Muslim Politics in Bengal, 1855-1906, KP Bagchi & Company, 1984, p. 46. 12 Sushil Chaudhury, “Identity and Composite Culture: The Bengal case”, Journal of Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, Vol. 58, No. 1, September 2013, p. 1. 13 Richard M. Eaton, “Who are the Bengal Muslims?” p. 40. 14 Imtiaz Ahmed, “Sufis and Sufism: A closer look at the journey of the Sufis to Bangladesh”, Middle East Institute, Singapore, 2010, p. 3.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 145

always been a part of Indian culture. In the context of political culture, for instance,

Ashis Nandy has pointed out that ‘new political ideas have always been acceptable in

India, welcomed as different aspects of a larger indivisible truth, and incorporated

into the polity’.15 Similarly, Amartya Sen has argued that it was possible for

democracy to take root in India because of the tradition of public reasoning:

‘persistent arguments are an important part of our public life’.16 With regard to

Bengal, Imtiaz Ahmed has also claimed that it was ‘the presence of precise public

reasoning in Bengal that has allowed tolerance and proto-democratic norms to

thrive culturally’.17 In light of these claims, it can be argued that Islam made its way

in the eastern part of Bengal due to the presence of two simultaneous factors: 1) the

Mughal initiated land reform policy, which transformed the largely forested region

into agricultural land and; 2) the culture of toleration of differing opinion, which

made it easy for the locals to accept Islam ‘without noticeable violence’.18 Eaton

points out that ‘Islam in Bengal absorbed so much local culture and became so

profoundly identified with the delta’s long-term process of agrarian expansion, that

the cultivating classes never seem to have regarded it as “foreign”‘.19 With Islam

integrated into the local culture, the contradiction between religion and Bengali

identity did not appear until the emergence of the political connotations of identity

per se in the subcontinent.

The Indian Independence Movement and the Construction of Hindu-

Muslim Separateness in Bengal

While these alternative explanations for the easy acceptance of Islam in Bengal are

most plausible, it is nevertheless the earlier conversion theory popularized during

15 Ashis Nandy, Exiled at Home: Comprising at the Edge of Psychology, the Intimate Enemy and Creating a Nationality, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 51. 16 Amartya Sen, The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian Culture, History and Identity, Penguin Books, 2005, p. 12. 17Imtiaz Ahmed, “Sufis and Sufism”, p. 3. 18Ibid, p. 3. 19 Richard M. Eaton, “Who are the Bengal Muslims?” p. 44.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 146

the British period that has dominated interpretations of the process of identity

construction in Bengal. As a result, the Muslims of Bengal have suffered a two-fold

identity challenge: they were neither regarded as proper Muslims by the Muslims of

the subcontinent nor were they regarded as proper Bengalis by the Hindu Bengalis of

Bengal. First, with regard to the Muslims living mainly in the western part of India,

the Muslims of Bengal have generally been seen as having an inferior status. The

division between the Muslims of the subcontinent into Ashraf and Atrap classified

the Muslims of Bengal in the latter category. The thrust of the argument to this

effect has been to point out the relatively recent conversion to Islam of the people

living in the east compared to those in the other parts of the sub-continent.20 This

construction was to play an important role in defining the relationship between the

people of East and West Pakistan after the partition of the subcontinent.

Second, along with this dimension of identity in relation to their Muslim identity, the

other challenge for the Bengali Muslims was that their religion separated them from

the ethnic Bengalis. The ethnic Bengalis, who were predominantly Hindu, dislodged

Bengali Muslims, who also belonged to the same race, from the construction of

mainstream Bengali identity. Hindu Bengalis seldom considered Bengali Muslims as

‘proper’ Bengalis.21 The Muslims of Bengal were called mleccha, meaning unpurified

or even barbaric. Analyzing ethnic origins and social practices, the Muslims of Bengal

were dismissed as merely converts from lower class Hindus and therefore, it was

claimed that,

His [Muslims of Bengal] claim to a separate recognition is untenable

and absolutely unfounded…His religion is but skin-deep; he has got

no past and his past is not glorious. He tries to shine in the reflected

glory of the Pathan or the Mughal conquerors, forgetting that it was

20 Naila Kabeer, “The Quest for National Identity: Women, Islam and the State in Bangladesh”, Feminist Review, No. 37, Spring 1991, p. 40. 21 Robert W. Stern, Changing India: Bourgeois Revolution on the Subcontinent, Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 162.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 147

his ancestors who were conquered; that it was his father who was

oppressed, and perhaps, forcibly converted.22

In other words, Datta here, using British scholars’ sources, attempted to justify the

conversion theory. Simultaneously, he raised the issue of Muslim oppression of the

Hindus by pointing to the forcible conversions of the people of Bengal. However, the

term ‘Muslim’ or ‘Mussulman’ in relation to the Muslims of Bengal did not come into

common usage until the texts of the late eighteenth or even those of the nineteenth

century used it to single out a beard-bearing cap-wearing group of people.23 The

term ‘Musalman-Bengali’ (Muslim Bengali) was coined in 1855 by a vernacular

reformer Reverend James Long.24 Language became an innate driver of the creation

of a distinct Bengali (Hindu Bengali) identity vis-à-vis the Muslim Bengalis. This

manifested in the construction of the Muslims living in the Eastern part of Bengal as

Bangals, a derogatory term applied to refer to their inferior social status compared

to the genteel Bengalis.25

An excellent example of this is found in the writings of Nirod C. Chaudhuri who

categorized Bengali Muslims as a ‘new ethnic group of people, born of the same race

and language and in geographical contiguity, but who do not look the same, dress

the same, or have the same beliefs as others so born’.26 Chaudhuri has clearly cited

the general attitude of Hindus towards the Muslims of India as antagonistic. He

claims that this attitude has been shaped by tradition and is due to the centuries-old

22 Jatindra Mohan Datta, “Who the Bengali Muhammadans are?” Modern Review, Vol. 49, No. 3, March 1931, p. 309. 23 Edward C. Dimock, Jr., “Hinduism and Islam in Medieval Bengal”, Rachel Van M. Baumer (ed), Aspects of Bengali History and Society, The University Press of Hawaii, 1975, p. 5. 24 Anindita Ghosh, Power in Print: Popular Publishing and the Politics of Language and Culture in a Colonial Society, Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 61. 25 Sirajul Islam Chowdhury, Bangalir Jatiyotabad (Nationalism of the Bengalis), The University Press Limited, 2007, p. xvii. 26 Quoted in James Novak, Bangladesh: Reflections on the Water, Indiana University Press, 1993, p. 72.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 148

Muslim domination over the Hindus.27 Similarly, the Bengali intelligentsia during the

early nineteenth century produced analogous ideas regarding the ethnic status of

Muslim Bengalis: ‘they are not quite “like us”; they were enemies of “our” country

and religion’.28 Mushirul Hasan has shown that although there were some efforts to

overcome the portrayal of Muslims as pariahs in Bengal, the crux of the acceptance

of the social identity of the Muslim Bengalis rested on the requirement that, ‘[i]f

they [Bengali Muslims] wanted to enter the Bengali cultural world they could do so

only after giving up all their Islamic values and traditions’.29

For the Muslims of Bengal, therefore, a complicated facet of their identity was the

issue of ethnicity and/or religion. This created an internal dynamic amongst the

Muslims of Bengal that one observer termed the ‘quicksand of a persisting identity

problem between the self-image of Bengali Muslims and Muslim Bengalis’.30

The Bengal Divide of 1905 and the Rise in Political Consciousness of

the Muslims of Bengal

The division of Bengal in 1905 is considered an important milestone for Bengali-

Muslims because it starkly revealed the unequal economic relationship between the

Bengali-Muslims and Bengali-Hindus. While the division is often considered as a

triumph of the British divide and rule policy that sharpened the religious divide

between Hindus and Muslims, it also brought about a much needed political

consciousness among Bengali-Muslims about who controlled their fate—the British

or the Hindus. This was also linked to the wider socio-economic conditions of

Muslims of the sub-continent. Although the Mughal rulers initially had no

27 Nirod C. Chaudhuri has elaborated on this aspect in his autobiography, The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, The New York Review of Books, 2001. 28 Mushirul Hasan, Legacy of a Divided Nation: India’s Muslims since Independence, Westview Press, 1997, p. 44. 29 Mushirul Hasan, Legacy of a Divided Nation, p. 45. 30 Quoted in Naila Kabeer, ”The Quest for National Identity”, p. 141.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 149

reservations about accommodating the British in India,31 their sense of loss of

political power became apparent with their gradual decline vis-à-vis the British

consolidation of power in India. This sense of loss was considered to be the major

reason for their mistrusting the British and thus, there was a common feeling of not

accepting anything that was essentially British in nature.

The Muslims chose to keep a conscious distance from the British-introduced

modernization program.32 Moreover, the British-introduced education system did

not include religious studies, so Muslims were reluctant to accept it.33 The Hindus,

however, took advantage of the British education system and thus became

frontrunners in the development of a middle class in the subcontinent. When the

British-introduced bureaucratic system needed deshi (local) people to run the

administration, this vacuum was quickly filled by the Hindus. The economic sector in

Bengal was also controlled by the Hindus, who, mainly Kolkata-centric, controlled

the properties in East Bengal where the Muslims were mainly the peasantry. The

development of this land-based aristocratic and elite Hindu Bhadrolok (gentlefolk)

class came to dominate the culture and identity construction in Bengal.34

Additionally, Bhadrolok literary figures who insisted on a glorious Hindu past were

instrumental in constructing an anti-Muslim stance in the region,35 and in confining

the term Bhadrolok to mean only Hindus as gentlefolk, in order to create a

separation between themselves and the non-Hindus and lower-caste Hindus.36 Thus,

although it has been argued that the Bengal intelligentsia was heavily influenced by

31 P. Hardy, The Muslims of British India, Cambridge University Press, 1972, p. 32. 32Jim Masselos, Nationalism on the Indian Subcontinent: An Introductory History, Thomas Nelson, 1972, p. 95. 33 Lion MG Agarwal, The Freedom Fighters of India, Volume 3, Isha Books, 2008, p. 76. 34 Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-1947, Cambridge University Press, 1994. 35 Rashed Uz Zaman, “Bengal Terrorism and the Ambiguity of Bengali Muslims”, Jussi N. Hanhimaki and Bernhard Blumenau (eds.), An International History of Terrorism: Western and non-Western Experiences, Routledge, 2013, p. 158. 36 Rini Bhattacharya Mehta, “The Bhagavadgita, Pistol, and the Lone Bhadrolok: Individual Spirituality, Masculinity, and Politics in the Nationalist Writings of Aurobindo Ghose, 1872-1950”, Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2007, p. 97.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 150

the European renaissance, they nevertheless engaged in an intense soul-searching

for and rediscovery of their own traditions rather than just the adoption of Western

culture.37 It was due to the need to construct an Indian identity that the Bhadroloks

emerged as defenders of Sati on the ground that the British had no right to interfere

in their cultural traditions.38 Nevertheless, this process of renaissance also saw the

embrace of science as an important element in building nationhood,39 as

emphasized by Jawaharlal Nehru.40 While this process began with the establishment

of the Asiatic Foundation in India in 1784 in Kolkata,41 it was interesting to observe

later that a large number of MassachusettesMassachusetts Institute of Technology

(MIT) graduates actively participated in the Swadeshi movement and were

forerunners in building India’s technological identity.42

While the aim of the scientific community was to create an industrialized India,

technologically independent within its own means,43 the cultural construction of

Indian identity depended heavily upon identifying the Muslims as invaders, like the

British, of India’s cultural and geographic terrains.44 This latter view, which argued

that everyone who was raised on the soil of India was Hindu, was substantiated by

early political thinkers in their creation of an Indian nation and soon overtook the

more moderate version that was presented by the Indian National Congress (INC).

The extreme manifestation of the construction of the Hindus as the sole inheritors of

37 David Kopf, British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance: The Dynamics of Indian Modernization 1773-1835, University of California Press, 1969, p. 277. 38Sati is a Hindu traditional practice of widow-burning. 39 Pratik Chakrabarty, “Signs of the Times”: Medicine and Nationhood in British India”, Osiris, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2009, p. 191. 40 Carol E. Harrison and Ann Johnson, “Introduction: Science and National Identity”, Osiris, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2009, p. 1. 41 Arabinda Poddara, Renaissance in Bengal: Quests and Confrontations, 1800-1860, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1970, p. 218. 42 Ross Bassett, “MIT-trained Swadeshis: MIT and Indian Nationalism, 1880-1947”, Osiris, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2009, p. 290. 43 It is interesting to observe here that Jawharlal Nehru held the view that scientific reasoning might lead to the establishment of a secular society, as had happened in Europe. 44 An interesting manifestation of this attitude can still be found when one strand of opposition to Sonia Gandhi’s possible claim to the post of Prime Minister of India contended that she was foreigner and therefore not an authentic Indian or true representative of the Indians.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 151

India was expressed in the writings of Vinayak Savarkar, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and

Aravina Ghosh, among others. This view held that although there had been a large

number of conversions to Islam and Christianity, this did not make these religions

indigenous and therefore, they remained ‘alien’ to Indian culture.45 It was this anti-

Muslim and anti-Christian outlook that culminated in the establishment of the All-

India Hindu Mahasabha by the 1920s.46

West Bengal saw the Bengal Divide as an attempt to create a religious divide among

the people residing in the Bengal region and its press, mainly based in Kolkata,

spearheaded movements to annul the Divide. The Bhadroloks, too, by virtue of their

land-ownership, were successful in mobilizing popular opinion in the eastern part of

Bengal as well.47 Nevertheless, the notion that the people of this region ought to

control their own economic fate had gained prominence in the East. The Muslim

masses of the eastern part of Bengal had turned out to be the direct beneficiaries of

the Divide because the economic, legal and political centre had shifted from Hindu-

dominated Kolkata to the eastern district of Dhaka. As a result, according to one

estimate, the literacy rate in East Bengal had increased from 14.33% in 1905 to

21.43% in 1910-11.48 When the Divide was revoked in 1911, it left a permanent scar

on the relationship between the two communities.

Bengal spearheaded the rise of nationalism in the form of the Swadeshi movement

in India but since it was Hindus who led the movement, it was centred on Hindu

symbols and the construction of a mighty Hindu nation.49 This created a further

45 Shabnum Tejani, Indian Secularism: A Social and Intellectual History, 1890-1950, Indiana University Press, 2008, p. 9. 46 Vinayak Chaturvedi, “Vinayak & Me: Hindutva and the Politics of Naming”, Social History, Vol. 28, No. 2, May 2003, p. 159. 47 Jim Masselos, Nationalism on the Indian Subcontinent, p. 88. 48Ibid, p. 52. 49 Dr. D.D. Pattanaik, '“The Swadeshi Movement: Culmination of Cultural Nationalism”, Orissa Review, August 2005, p. 11. Aurobindo Ghose is considered to be the first significant political thinker in India to construct the concept of a Hindu nation, which was latter supplanted by other political thinkers and activists. See, Rini Bhattacharya Mehta, “The Bhagavadgita, Pistol, and the Lone Bhadrolok.”

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 152

contradiction of identity among not only Bengal Muslims but also among Muslims of

the whole region. The assertion that Hindus and Muslims constituted different

nations in the subcontinent had started to emerge in the mid-nineteenth century,

although the aim and objectives of this assertion did not initially anticipate the

establishment of separate countries.50 Rather, it was centred on awakening Muslims

who were falling behind Hindus in the competition for modern education and

available government jobs. Initially Muslims saw themselves as being ‘part of the

bigger nation, that was India under British rule’.51 The Muslims even sought the co-

operation of the Hindus in the beginning. However, although the Indian National

Congress proclaimed itself to be a true representative of all Indians irrespective of

religious identity, the activities of some Congress members raised suspicions among

Muslims about the true intentions of the Congress.52 The rise of extremist Hindu

ideals and the adoption of Ganapati and Shivaji as Indian heroes also increasingly

added to the alienation of Muslims vis-à-vis Hindus in British India.53 At one part of

political development, the Muslims of India saw themselves as part of a greater

Muslim community, as is evident in eighteenth century expressions such as ‘we are

an Arab people whose fathers have fallen in exile in the country of Hindustan, and

Arabic genealogy and Arabic language are our pride’.54 Similarly, the Muslims of India

were avowed supporters of the Ottoman Empire as the understanding was that

‘[T]he Ottoman Caliphate possesses the only sword which Muslims have for the

protection of the Religion of God (din-i-ilahi)’.55 Therefore, international

developments such as ‘the annulment of the partition of the Bengal, the difficulties

50 Bimal Prasad, A Nation within A Nation: Pathway to India’s Partition, Volume II, The University Press Limited, 2000, p. 50. 51Ibid, p. 49. 52 Mushirul Hasan, Nationalism and Communal Politics in India, 1916-1928, South Asia Books, 1979, p. 30-1. 53 Jim Masselos, Nationalism on the Indian Subcontinent, p. 81. 54 Quoted in Francis Robinson, “The British Empire and Muslim Identity in South Asia”, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth Series, Vol. 8, 1998, p. 272. 55 Peter Hardy, Partners in Freedom and True Muslims: The Political Thought of Some Muslim Scholars in British India 1912-1947, Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series, No. 5, 1971, p. 22.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 153

of Turkey, theand the failure of the Muslim University movement’ during the

nineteenth and early part of twentieth century helped to consolidate the idea of a

separate land exclusively for the Muslims of India.56 Moreover, the idea of ‘the

conquest of Muslim peoples and the decline of Muslim power’ by the British framed

Muslim perceptions of the loss of political power vis-à-vis the British.57

Numerous peasant movements in pursuit of economic objectives in Bengal from the

eighteenth century onwards in effect turned out to reinforce Bengali Islamic

identity.58 The growth of terrorism in Bengal similarly had religious implications. As

Bengal terrorism was spearheaded mainly by the Bhadroloks, it not only increased

awareness of Muslims as a separate community vis-à-vis Hindus, but it also increased

antagonism between the two communities.59 Muslim notables also started to get

involved in active politics in Bengal as a reaction to the extremist Swadeshi

movement.60 Therefore, at the initial stage of the Bengali identity creation process,

the emphasis was on religious aspects and Urdu or Arabic were emphasized at the

expense of Bengali, which was the vernacular of the region. However, the beginning

of the twentieth century saw a realization of the importance of the vernacular

language even for the proper Islamization of Bengal.61 Dhurjati Prasad De has

described how different literary organizations were established with a view to

promoting both Islamization and a Bengali Muslim identity that would no longer be

under Hindu domination.62

56 Bimal Prasad, A Nation within A Nation, p. 135-78. 57 Francis Robinson, “The British Empire and Muslim Identity in South Asia”, p. 280. 58Rashed Uz Zaman, “Bangladesh—Between Terrorism, Identity and Illiberal Democracy: The Unfolding of a Tragic Saga”, Perceptions, Vol. XVII, No. 3, Autumn 2012, p. 155. 59Ibid, p. 156. 60 Leonard A. Gordon, Bengal: The Nationalist Movement 1876-1940, Manohar Book Service, 1974, p. 298. 61 Dhurjati Prasad De, Bengal Muslims in Search of Social Identity 1905-47, The University Press Limited, 1998, p. 56. 62Ibid, p. 62.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 154

As Indian nationalism started to unfold, the Bengal region also witnessed Hindu

chauvinism in the nationalist movement when it was proclaimed that Muslims and

Christians were all, by definition, Hindus as ‘Hindu means Indian’ and ‘India belonged

specifically to Hindus’.63 There were therefore two factors that built a bridge

between Muslims living in the western and eastern parts of India: the British concern

to accommodate Muslims within their fold; and the rise of ultra-Hindu nationalism.64

Hindu-Muslim separateness in the sub-continent was, therefore, not simply a result

of the British divide and rule policy, i.e. of colonialism.65

The rise in Muslim political consciousness was spearheaded by the establishment of

the All-India Muslim League in 1906 and its emergence as the only authoritative and

representative political organization of Muslims in India. When the reality of

partition of the subcontinent became apparent, the Muslims of East Bengal did not

hesitate to consider it as an opportunity to break away from the economic

domination of West Bengal. In fact, a straightforward reading of the Lahore

Resolution of 1940, which was the basis of the partition of the subcontinent, sets out

the establishment of several independent Muslim states in the region. This can be

interpreted as the realization of national differences among Muslims living in the

north, east and west of the subcontinent. The Resolution therefore gave hope to the

people of Bengal that their separate identity vis-à-vis Muslims of the other parts of

India would be recognized. Politics in Bengal, mainly led by the Bengal Provincial

Muslim League (BPML) and the Krishok Praja Samity (KPS) worked with this view in

mind. For both, but especially the latter which asserted itself as ‘not a purely Muslim

organisation’,66 the issue of economic domination was at the forefront for organizing

public opinion in favour of a state of Bengal, although initially it was problematic to

63Ibid, p. 195. 64Francis Robinson, “The British Empire and Muslim Identity in South Asia”. 65 Cynthia Talbott, “Inscribing the Other, Inscribing the Self: Hindu-Muslim Identity in Pre-Colonial India”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 37, No. 4, October 1995. 66 Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 25.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 155

identify even the issue of economic domination as the singular goal for the people of

this region. As Harun-Or-Rashid has pointed out regarding the mobilization of the

Muslims of the Bengal region:

[T]he terrible dilemma faced by the leaders [of BPML] with regard to

the identification of the principal enemies of the community, [was]

whether the Hindus or the British or the non-Bengali Muslims or the

zamindars and other vested interests [were the principle enemy].67

It was at this point that the people of East Bengal gathered under the umbrella of

Fazlul Haque’s leadership. Haque provided a non-communal approach to the issue of

Hindu-Muslim relations, establishing economic issues as the principle challenge

facing the people of Bengal. In fact, in the context of the greater politics of the

subcontinent, the Congress also recognized that its failure to attract Muslims rested

on an overemphasis on communal and sectoral issues. It argued that an emphasis on

economic issues could unify both Hindus and Muslims against the British under the

Congress leadership. Matilal Nehru, for example, pointed out that ‘[i]t is my firm

conviction that Hindu-Muslim unity cannot be achieved by preaching it…This can

only be done on an economic basis and in the course of the fight for freedom from

the usurper’.68

BPML successfully utilized the economic argument, arguing that economic issues

would be prominent for the people of this region in persuading them to support the

Two Nation Theory. Thus, the creation of ‘Pakistan meant achieving state power to

redress the injustices inflicted by the Hindu dominance since the advent of the

67 Harun-Or-Rashid, The Foreshadowing of Bangladesh: Bengal Muslim League and Muslim Politics 1906-1947, The University Press Limited, Dhaka, 2003, p. 324. 68 Mushirul Hasan, “The Muslim Mass Contacts Campaign: Analysis of a Strategy of Political Mobilization”, Richard Sisson and Stanley Wolpert (eds.), Congress and Indian Nationalism: The Pre-Independence Phase, University of California Press, 1988, p. 199.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 156

British’.69 For the people of East Bengal in general, therefore, the idea of Pakistan

was considered more as a solution to their economic problems rather than solely as

an opportunity to embrace their religious identity and join with their Muslim

brothers living in the western part of the subcontinent. In the decisive election of

1946, the Bengal Muslim League achieved almost a total victory largely through

massive rural votes which:

[U]nderstood that Pakistan would bring not only their emancipation

from the exploitation of the Hindu zamindars and mahajans but also

the complete abolition of the Zamindary system as such together

with the permanent solution of their basic Dal-Bhat problem.70

The emphasis on economic issues did not mean that the religious undertone of

identity was forgotten. The leaders of Bengal were united in their insistence on the

realization of independent Muslim states as per the Lahore Resolution. With the

Resolution of 1940, the dream of a separate homeland for the Muslims of Bengal,

comprising East Bengal and Assam, was envisaged. In the words of a prominent

Bengali politician:

I will never allow the interest of the 33,000,000 of the Muslims of

Bengal to be under the domination of any outside authority however

eminent it may be. At the present moment I have a feeling that

Bengal does not count much in the counsels of political leaders

outside our province although we constitute more than one-third of

the total Muslim population of India.71

The linguistic and cultural distinctiveness of the Bengali Muslims that separated

them from the Muslims living in the Western part of India was considered a potent

69 Zaheer Hasan, The Separation of East Pakistan: The Rise and Realization of Bengali Muslim Nationalism, The University Press Limited, Dhaka, 2001, p. 8. 70Harun-Or-Rashid, The Foreshadowing of Bangladesh, p. 326. 71Dhurjati Prasad De, Bengal Muslims in Search of Social Identity 1905-47, p. 203.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 157

weapon in the demand for a separate homeland, and the political scenario of 1946-

47 in East Bengal was dominated by tremendous efforts to realize such a dream.72

But while there was a concerted effort to establish an independent Bengal,

resistance to such a plan did not originate just from the central leadership of the All

India Muslim League (AIML). It was also reported that ‘Mr. Jinnah considered that,

with its Muslim majority, an independent Bengal would be a sort of subsidiary

Pakistan’.73 However, the Bhadroloks, who had turned ‘inward-looking and

defensive’ in the face of growing political changes in pre-partition Indian politics that

made their political position vis-à-vis the Muslims of Bengal increasingly vulnerable,

‘called for Bengal to be partitioned because they saw no future for themselves in a

Muslim-majority province’.74 Although some prominent Hindu leaders tried to

materialize a plan for a sovereign Bengal with the assistance of the Muslim leaders of

Bengal, it was the Congress High Command that ultimately decided the fate of

Bengal75 and the Muslim-majority East Bengal became a part of Pakistan: ‘The fate of

United Independent Bengal was decided at the centre. It was the Congress High

Command, particularly Nehru and Patel, who exercised the veto against it’.76

Even as the partition plan was declared in June, 1946, Bengali intellectuals did not

hesitate to emphasize the uniqueness of Bengali culture by highlighting the

importance of Bengali as a language, a drive that started to emerge as the dominant

perspective among the Bengali Muslims from 1917 onward.77 It was also predicted at

that time that if attempts were made to impose Urdu on the people of East Bengal,

the relationship between the eastern and western parts of Pakistan would

72Harun-Or-Rashid, The Foreshadowing of Bangladesh; Kamal, op. cit. 73 Quoted in Harun-Or-Rashid, The Foreshadowing of Bangladesh, p. 277. 74Ibid, p. 29. 75 Joya Chatterji, The Spoils of Partition, Bengal and India, 1947-1967, Cambridge University Press, 2007, p. 14. 76Harun-Or-Rashid, The Foreshadowing of Bangladesh, p. 327. 77 Mustafa Nurul Islam, Bengali Muslim Public Opinion as Reflected in the Bengali Press, 1901-1930, Bangla Academy, 1973, p. 230.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 158

deteriorate.78 The identification of the eastern part of Bengal as East Pakistan had

been in vogue from the early 1940s and had received special impetus after the

formation of the East Pakistan Renaissance Society in 1942,79 despite other political

efforts for the creation of a united Bengal or a separate Muslim Bengal. However, in

1946, when it became apparent that Bengal’s independence was to be compromised

by making it a part of greater Pakistan, the leaders of Bengal conformed to the idea

mainly because ‘the whole idea of Pakistan could have been torpedoed as a result of

disunity in the ranks of the Indian Muslim community’.80 Thus, the eastern part of

Bengal became a part of Pakistan with the expectation that Pakistan as a whole

would be ‘the land of promise, the land of hope’.81

This was, however, also the beginning of the assumption that the province of Bengal

had been bisected into two areas: Muslims and Hindu, which had far-reaching

implications for the construction of Bengali nationalism in East Pakistan. However,

research shows that Bengal was also home to Christians and Buddhists who were not

ethnic Bengalis but rather belonged to different indigenous tribes. The map of

Bengal was therefore redrawn keeping in mind of the principle of division between

Muslims and non-Muslims.82 Nonetheless, the tendency to show Bengal only as a

place of ethnic Bengalis—religiously Hindu-Muslim—reflected the manner that

identity was constructed in the pre-partition period. Now the Muslims of Bengal

residing in East Pakistan wanted to be Bhadroloks in the manner that the Hindus of

undivided Bengal had constructed their identity. Moreover, as will be seen in the

next chapter, this perception led to the beginning of ethnic identity problems within

the state of Bangladesh, which, after achieving independence from Pakistan,

78Dhurjati Prasad De, Bengal Muslims in Search of Social Identity 1905-47, 205-6. 79 Andrew Sartori, “Abul Mansur Ahmad and the Cultural Politics of Bengali Pakistanism”, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Rochona majumdar and Andrew Sartori (eds.), From the Colonial to the Postcolonial: India and Pakistan in Transition, Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 120. 80Harun-Or-Rashid, The Foreshadowing of Bangladesh, p. 327. 81 Ahmed Kamal, State against the Nation: The Decline of the Muslim League in Pre-independence Bangladesh, 1947-54, The University Press Limited, 2009, p. 14. 82 For a detailed analysis of this, see Wilhelm Van Schendel, The Bengal Borderland: beyond State and Nation in South Asia, Anthem Press, 2005.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 159

followed the Pakistani style of homogenization of all ethnic groups living inside the

country. The difference lied in Pakistani elites attempt to Islamicize the East

Pakistan, and the Bangladeshi elites attempt to impose Bengali identity on all the

inhabitants of the country.

The State of Pakistan and the Issue of Religion

The establishment of Pakistan was seen as impossible from its very beginning. With

many different ethnic and linguistic sub-nations, the country was divided into two

wings according to what the British called the ‘greatest administrative operation in

history’.83 With a thousand mile distance between the two wings and separated by

the ‘enemy’ country India, the only way to communicate between the people of the

two wings was through air channels, which was out of the question for most

ordinary people. National integration between the two wings in the nascent country

was therefore virtually impossible. Indeed, there were questions as to how people of

such divergent lands could form a single nation-state with their only commonality

being Islam. From its very beginning, Pakistan was a country that ‘defied virtually

every criterion of nationhood’.84

There was also no clear definition of the direction Pakistan would take with regard to

state policies. The founding father of Pakistan, M.A. Jinnah, in his first Presidential

address, surprised everybody by declaring that Pakistan would abandon being a

theological state. In his much cited statement, Jinnah declared that:

You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your

mosques or to any other places of worship in the State of

Pakistan.......You may belong to any religion or caste or creed—that

has nothing to do in the business of the state....We are starting in the

days when there is no discrimination, no distinction between one

83 Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman, p. 293. 84 Ahmed Kamal, State against the Nation, p. 15.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 160

community and another, no discrimination between one caste or

creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle

that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state.85

However, Jinnah did not get much time to shape the country according to his vision.

He died only one year after the birth of Pakistan. At the same time, the Muslim

League itself did not have any particular direction as to what course the country

should take. As Ahmed Kamal pointed out, ‘[t]he rhetoric makes the thousands who

rallied around the Muslim League look like one “Muslim people”, irrespective of class

or ethnic difference’.86

Regardless of this perception of unity, however, very soon after the creation of

Pakistan, the divergent character of the two wings became apparent in relation to

the question of the national language of the country. Jinnah and the West Pakistan

oriented establishment proposed Urdu as the national language of the country,

disregarding the fact that the language of the majority of Pakistan was Bengali since

Bengalis were the largest ethnic group. In March 1948 at the University of Dhaka,

Jinnah declared:

Let me restate my views on the question of a state language for

Pakistan. For official use in [East Bengal], the people of the province

can choose any language they wish…There can, however, be only one

lingua franca—that is, the language for intercommunication between

the various provinces of the state—and that language should be Urdu

and cannot be any other.87

85 William B. Milam, Bangladesh and Pakistan: Flirting with Failure in South Asia, The University Press Limited, 2010, p. 16. 86 Ahmed Kamal, State against the Nation, p. 14. 87 Sufia M. Uddin, Constructing Bangladesh: Religion, Ethnicity, and Language in an Islamic Nation, The University of North Carolina Press, 2006, p. 2.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 161

Although East Pakistan was territorially much smaller than West Pakistan, it was

home to 55% of the population of Pakistan, of whom 99% were Bengali speakers.

The largest majority in West Pakistan were the Punjabis who constituted only 29% of

the total Pakistani population. Urdu was not the mother-tongue of any of the ethnic

groups in Pakistan. It was the language of the Muslims of West India and had

gradually come to hold an important place in the evolution of Muslim nationalism in

the Indian subcontinent. Urdu was considered such a significant element in the

Pakistan movement that, as early as 1937, it was proposed as the language of both

Muslim India and the Muslim League, although even during that time, the proposal

was strongly opposed by Bengali delegates.88 Moreover, as Urdu was used in the

Mughal courts by the Muslim rulers of the subcontinent, continuation of Urdu

‘signified that Pakistan, at least culturally, would represent the continuation of a

great tradition’.89 Insistence on establishing Urdu as the state language therefore

was seen as the cultural realization of an Indian Muslim nation.

The unequal relationship between East and West

Although the eastern wing was ahead of the western wing of Pakistan in terms of

socio-economic development,90 it was the location of the elites based in the west

that determined the pattern of relationship between the two wings. The issue of

determining the national language of Pakistan brought forward the unequal

relationship between the two wings. Contentions became visible in almost every

sector. Disregarding the Bengali majority, the capital was established in the western

sector. This became the financial centre of the newly established country and

investment and business flourished there. Although East Bengal made the greatest

contribution to foreign exchange earnings through the export of jute, state

88 Zaheer Hasan, The Separation of East Pakistan, p.23. 89 Stanley Maron, “Problem of East Pakistan”, Pacific Affairs, Vol 28, No 2. June 1955, p. 133. 90 S.R. Chakravarty, “The National Liberation Movement: Problems and Prospects”, S.R. Chakravarty and Virendra Narain (eds.), Bangladesh: Domestic Politics, Volume Two, South Asian Publishers, 1986, p. 2.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 162

expenditure was concentrated in the west as the ‘centre’ of the country was located

there. Table 4.1 below clarifies the exploitative relationship existing between the

two wings.

West Pakistan

Rs. (millions)

East Pakistan

Rs. (millions)

Financial Assistance 10, 000 1,260

Capital Expenditure 2,100 620

Grants-in-aid 540 180

Educational Grants 1,530 240

Foreign aid allotted 730 150

Defence expenditure 4,650 100

Foreign trade (exports) 4,830 4,940

Foreign trade (imports) 6,220 2,580

Table 4.1: Relative Financial Arrangements West/East91

The economy was not the only sector where the disparity between East and West

was visible. For example, the military elite in Pakistan were almost entirely

composed of West Pakistanis. Compared to fourteen army officers from East

Pakistan, there were 894 officers from West Pakistan in 1955.92 The same was the

case in the Navy and Air Force. In the case of the civil bureaucratic and

entrepreneurial elites, East Bengal’s representation was only 30% and 10%

respectively.93

Underlying tensions were reflected in the 1954 election where the Muslim League

was virtually annihilated by the people of East Bengal, even though it was the same

91 Richard D. Lambert, “Factors in Bengali Regionalism in Pakistan”, Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 28, No. 4, April, 1959, p. 92 Rounaq Jahan, Pakistan: Failure in National Integration, The University Press Limited, 1972, p. 25. 93Ibid, p. 25-6.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 163

Muslim League that had put forward the cause of Pakistan in the pre-partition period

by virtue of the overwhelming support of the same people. The complete rejection

of the Muslim League in a national election within only seven years clearly indicated

the frustration of the people of East Pakistan with the party. The issue of language,

the food crisis and famine, the low prices of jute and the bringing in of non-Bengali

people to run the administration in East Pakistan all contributed to a massive fall in

the popularity of the Muslim League.94 East Pakistan then started to consolidate its

demands on the centre in what was termed ‘a struggle for political survival’.95

Political parties based in East Pakistan put forward demands for full autonomy on

political, economic and social issues pertaining to the province. These were either

repeatedly rejected or neglected by the centre.96 The people of East Pakistan began

to realize that:

[T]he communal contradiction which caused the partition of the

country, was replaced by the contradictions between the two regions

and ethnically and linguistically different people who belonged to the

Muslim community.97

It was very much apparent to the East that Hindu and British domination had been

replaced by a ‘Punjabi imperialism’.98

As a consequence, although the demand for autonomy had surfaced as early as

1950, taking its strength from the Lahore Resolution of 1940, the demand became

stronger on part of the East Pakistan polity after the 1954 election. Nevertheless, the

demands for autonomy did not materialize even after the politicians of East Bengal

94 M. Rashiduzzaman, “The Awami League in the Political Development of Pakistan”, Asian Survey, Vol. 10, No. 7, July, 1970, p. 577. 95 Richard L. Park, “East Bengal: Pakistan’s Troubled Province”, Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 23, No. 5, May, 1954, p. 74. 96 Abul Mansur Ahmad, Amar Deka Rajnitir Ponchas Bachara (Politics of 50 Years as I Saw It), Nawroze Kitabistan, 1975, p. 379. 97 Badruddin Umar, Language Movement in East Bengal, Jatiyo Grontha Prakashan, 2000, p. 27. 98 Richard L. Park, “East Bengal”, p. 52.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 164

formed the central government a number of times. Opposition in East Bengal grew

stronger in the 1950s and 60s and revealed the inequality between the two

provinces. As well as the Awami Muslim League, which had been established in 1949

with a view to consolidating the rights and demands of the people of East Bengal,99

renowned East Pakistani politician Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani formed the

National Awami Party (NAP). Leftists also organized and formed parties. As well as

these mainstream political parties, student unions, which had started to organize on

the language issue in 1948, were also strong in East Pakistan and stood as a potent

political force.100

The question of regional autonomy

The province of East Bengal was renamed East Pakistan on 14 October, 1955, in an

administrative decision, and its autonomy was abolished on 7 October, 1958,101

while Bengali received its official status as one of the two official languages of

Pakistan on 6 January, 1956.102 The major thrust of politics in the East during this

period was the issue of regional autonomy and parity between the two provinces.

Although it has been argued that the lesson of the violent partition of the

subcontinent had resulted in the assertion of strong central government in both

India and Pakistan,103 in the case of Pakistan this was to the detriment of the

interests of the majority population, the Bengalis. The Manifesto of the Awami

Muslim League in 1949, the 21 point electoral program of the United Front in 1954

and the draft manifesto of the Awami League in 1964 all at first emphasized regional

equality and, later on, regional autonomy. The concept of ‘two economies’ within

99 The party dropped the word ‘Muslim’ in 1955. 100 Interview with Ahmad Rafique, September 10, 2010. 101Ben Cahoon, “Bangladesh”, located at <http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Bangladesh.html>, accessed on July 22, 2013. 102A M A Muhith, State Language Movement in East Bengal, 1947-1956, The University Press, Limited, 2008, p. 104. 103 Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, Routledge, 2004, p. 171.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 165

one country also emerged, which was clearly detrimental to the interests of East

Pakistan.104

The centercentre, however, disregarded all demands put forward by the

representatives of the majority population, and Pakistan’s unstable and volatile

internal politics gave rise to militant or extreme Bengali nationalism in the decade of

the 1960s. The extent of the frustration of Bengalis was summarised by Maulana

Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani when he declared at a public meeting in 1957, within a

mere ten years of the establishment of the country, that if East Pakistan’s demand

for autonomy was not fulfilled, then the people of East Pakistan would say ‘assalamo

alaikum’ (to bid farewell) to Pakistan.105 Such frustrations reached their peak during

the 1965 war between India and Pakistan.

The 1965 Indo-Pakistan War and the further isolation of East Pakistan

During the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War, the east was not only cut off from the west, it

was also left unprotected. The politicians of the east had pointed out the lack of a

defence mechanism for East Pakistan to the centre, but the centre’s response was

that: ‘East Pakistan is indefensible. Defence of East Pakistan lies in West Pakistan’.106

The claim by the military establishment (which was essentially composed of West

Pakistanis) was that if India attacked East Pakistan, West Pakistan would capture

Delhi and force India to withdraw. Therefore, the East did not require its own

defence mechanisms.107 The war of 1965 and this kind of argument on defence

added further impetus to the desire for regional autonomy in the East, a desire that

104The concept of ‘two economy theory’ was first coined by East Bengal’s economist Anisur Rahman and later was used by the politicians to justify their demands. For example, see, Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Changing Face of Nationalism: The Case of Bangladesh, The University Press Limited, 1995, p. 166, and Rounaq Jahan, Pakistan, p-85-89. 105Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Changing Face of Nationalism, p. 170; Zaheer Hasan, The Separation of East Pakistan, 45; M. Rashiduzzaman, “The Awami League in the Political Development of Pakistan”, p. 584. Politicians of East Pakistan continued to refer to it as East Bengal in public meetings. 106 Abul Mansur Ahmad, Amar Deka Rajnitir Ponchas Bachara, p. 361. 107Ibid, p. 361-4; also, Talukder Maniruzzaman, The Bangladesh Revolution and its Aftermath, The University Press Limited, 2003, p. 24.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 166

was politically utilized by the Awami League which ‘thought that East Bengal’s sense

of isolation could be manipulated to spark a nationalist explosion among the

politically discontented and economically frustrated Bengalis’.108 While the Pakistan

government was busy fighting against India over Kashmir, the East Pakistanis put up

demands for the equal status of Bengali vis-à-vis Urdu.109 Thus the war of 1965

clearly marks a sharp divergence between the eastern and western psyches which

was even reflected in the Indian decision not to threaten the eastern part of

Pakistan.110

The tumultuous politics of the 1960s

The war and India’s apparent reluctance to threaten the East provided the Awami

League with the opportunity to press its demands for ‘full regional autonomy’ in

which East Pakistan would take control of its own matters, including security and the

economy. The party declared its famous Six-Point Program in 1966, which they called

a Charter of Survival for the people of East Pakistan. The political scene in the east

became explosive as similar demands were also produced by diverse student forums.

All received overwhelming support from the different professional groups and the

middle class, and the province was virtually in the grip of a mass revolution. The

centre responded by arresting Sheikh Mujib, the leader of the Awami League, along

with some other important members of the Awami League, under the Defence of

Pakistan Rules. Known as the Agartal Conspiracy Case, the accused were put into

prison on the charge of ‘conspiracy to bring about the secession of East Pakistan with

Indian help’.111 The arrests led to the eruption of a mass movement that radicalised

politics in East Pakistan, forcing the military regime to withdraw the case against

Sheikh Mujib and his compatriots and release them. A general election was called in

108 Talukder Maniruzzaman, “Radical Politics and the Emergence of Bangladesh”, Paul B. Brass and Marcus Franda (eds.), Radical Politics in South Asia, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1973, p. 258. 109 Mizanur Rahman Shelley, Emergence of a New Nation in a Multipolar World, p. 52. 110 Ibid, p. 54. 111 Talukder Maniruzzaman, “Radical Politics and the Emergence of Bangladesh”, p. 258.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 167

1970 in which 169 of the 313 seats in the national parliament were allocated to East

Pakistan. The Awami League’s election manifesto reiterated the demand for regional

autonomy under a confederal solution for Pakistan’s constitutional problem. It also

called for the nationalization of major financial institutions and the right to pursue

an ‘independent, non-aligned foreign policy’.112

The 1970 election was a huge success for the Awami League, which won the majority

vote. However, this victory meant not only a transfer of power from West Pakistani

elites to the elites of East Pakistan, but also the realization of the Awami League’s

election manifesto, both of which were unacceptable to the centre. The military

junta initiated discussions with the Awami League about its definite objectives. West

Pakistani politicians vehemently opposed the transfer of power to the East Pakistani

politicians. The Awami League cooperated with the military junta and carried on the

discussions, but eventually declared them a failure. On the night of 25 March, 1971,

Sheikh Mujibar Rahman was taken to West Pakistan by the military and incarcerated,

and a military crackdown imposed on the unarmed East Pakistani people. A

Bangladeshi army officer, Major Zia, declared the independence of Bangladesh on 26

March.113 After nine-months of guerrilla warfare, Bangladesh achieved

independence on 16 December, 1971.

The Creation of Identity during the Pakistani Era: the Emergence of

the Myth of Golden Bengal

The issue of identity for Bengalis during the Pakistani period went through a massive

transformation. The Bengalis were well aware of their religious identity as well as of

the economic domination of the West Bengal Hindus during the pre-partition period.

However, although nurturing a latent religious identity, religion took second place to

economic priorities for the Bengali Muslims in the creation of Pakistan. It was

112 Talukder Maniruzzaman, The Bangladesh Revolution, p. 27. 113 Sufia M. Uddin, Constructing Bangladesh, p. 137

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 168

economic considerations that had originally prompted the agreement of the Muslim

League in East Bengal for the realization of Pakistan.114

However, the peasants who had once voted for the Muslim League in 1946 hardly

had religious reasons to vote for them again since:

[T]he downtrodden Muslim peasants of Bengal thought that the

establishment of Pakistan would mean a much needed agrarian

revolution, that the Hindu landlords would be driven out and the land

redistributed.115

There was a feeling of betrayal by the Muslim League as it had not carried out the

reforms that the peasants had been promised in an independent Pakistan. Thus, in

East Bengal, an area which had shown almost solid Muslim support for Pakistan, the

Muslim League saw its worst defeat in the 1954 general election. Not only had the

commitments made by the Muslim League to carry out agrarian reforms been

completely forgotten after the establishment of Pakistan, the attempt by the

Pakistani national elite to impose Urdu over Bengali, which they saw as the language

of peasants, proved another political mistake. The issue of determining the state

language revealed that religion alone could not be a binding factor of national

integration in Pakistan.

With the declaration that Urdu would be the national language of Pakistan, the

people of East Pakistan congregated irrespective of religion, creed or class to protest

and to demand national status for Bengali and a distinct Bengali nationalism made

its first appearance. As the Pakistani national elite pushed their project to ‘Islamize’

Bengali by introducing Arabic and Urdu words with ‘evangelical fervour’,116 there

was a revival of Bengali songs, especially those of Rabindranath Tagore, in East

114 Interview with Professor Mujaffar Ahmad, January 30, 2011. 115Stanley Maron, “Problem of East Pakistan”, p. 143. 116 Zaheer Hasan, The Separation of East Pakistan, p. 24.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 169

Pakistan. The celebration of the Bengali New Year, Pahela Baishakh, as an urban

marker of a secular Bengali identity, became increasingly popular from the 1960s in

response to Pakistan’s cultural imperialism.117

On the other hand, West Pakistani elites rediscovered Kazi Nazrul Islam as a Muslim

Bengali poet as a counter to Hindu Tagore’s literature and songs, disregarding that

Tagore’s poems covered both religious and non-religious themes. In fact, the West

Pakistani elites perceived the syncretic and inclusive Islam of Bengal as ‘religiously

suspect’, as William Milam has pointed out.118 However, East Pakistan’s response

was to solidify its cultural movement through scores of Bengali movies that

highlighted a distinct Bengali culture. Leading cultural figures set out to project a

Bengali ‘nation’ through songs, poetry and drama. Students and teachers of the Fine

Arts painted pictures depicting the past glory of East Bengal. The myth of Sonar

Bangla (Golden Bengal) was rediscovered.119 Tagore’s song, which was later adopted

as Bangladesh’s national anthem, was the basis of this myth. Tagore sings of Bengal

in the following manner: Amar sonar Bangla, ami tomai bhalobashi (My golden

Bengal, I love you).

A renowned artist of East Pakistan, Zainul Abedin, painted his famous Nabanno

(harvest) in which he depicted a Sonar Bangla (Golden Bengal) experiencing miseries

in the present.120 The glorification of the past of East Pakistan in economic terms was

also vigorously pursued by the politicians of East Pakistan. Sheikh Mujib in particular

repeatedly asked ‘Sonar Bangla Soshan Keno’ (why has Golden Bengal turned into a

graveyard now?) and pointed the finger at the economic exploitation of the

centre.121 During the election campaign of 1970, Mujib frequently referred to East

Pakistan as Bangladesh, although he was, at the time, demanding only the

117 Sufia M. Uddin, Constructing Bangladesh, p. 134. 118 William B. Milam, Bangladesh and Pakistan, p. 22. 119 Interview with Ahmad Rafique, September 10, 2010. 120B.K. Jahangir, Nationalism, Fundamentalism and Democracy in Bangladesh, ICBS, 2002, p. 99. 121 Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Changing Face of Nationalism, p. 178.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 170

autonomous status of the province within Pakistan.122 However, all these

awakenings of nationalism from 1954 onwards created the genuine hope for ‘a

liberated future’: ‘Sonar Bangla denotes a future, therefore this future constitutes a

realm of possibility’.123

The Bengali identity created during this period took on more of a non-communal

character rather than an essentially secular one. That is, it was not particularly

focused on separating religion from the political sphere. The Awami Muslim League,

which gradually became the representatives of the people of the region, had always

limited its membership to Muslims only. In the early 1950s’ period of solidification of

leftist politics in East Pakistan, the leftist faction of the Awami Muslim League led by

Maulana Bhashani proposed dropping the word ‘Muslim’ from the League’s title for

the 1954 election. As the election neared, however, the League, allied with the

United Front, became hesitant about the psychological make-up of the masses and

did not want to risk alienating them so early in a country whose basis was Islam. The

election result led the Bhashani faction to make a stronger demand to drop the word

‘Muslim’.124 However, dropping ‘Muslim’ from its nomenclature did not necessarily

mean that the Awami League now emphasized secular politics. Rather, secularism as

an ideological stance was the only choice left for the Bengalis in their desire to

create a conscious distinction between themselves and the West at a time when the

West Pakistani elite was attempting to impose a Muslim identity by denigrating the

Bengali language as ‘anti-Pakistan’ and ‘anti-Islam’. Thus, the imposed contradiction

between religion and language led inevitably to ‘the continuous decommunalisation

of politics and the emergence of non-communal forces as organised political and

cultural bodies’.125

122 Ibid, p. 176. 123 B.K. Jahangir, Nationalism, p. 103. 124 Talukder Maniruzzaman, The Bangladesh Revolution, op. cit. p. 231. 125 Badruddin Umar, Language Movement in East Bengal, p. 132.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 171

This contradiction was also demonstrated in political activities which did not in

practice intend to create a secular credential for Bengali identity. While the Bhashani

faction sought the removal of ‘Muslim’ from the Awami League’s name before the

election of 1954, Bhashani himself proclaimed during political rallies that ‘Amra bhat

chai, kapod chai, kintu taha Alaah ke kendro koriya’ (We want food, we want

clothing, but we want all of them centred around Allah).126 Sheikh Mujib, who took

over the Awami League’s leadership in 1966, would still begin his public meetings

with an Islamic greeting such as Assaalamu Walaikum (Arabic for ‘may peace be

upon you’) or Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim (In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the

Beneficial).

Thus, even during the 1960s when a secular Bengali identity was forming, Islam

never took backstage, mainly because of the fear of losing the Muslim mass vote.127

Moreover, a prominent political figure of that era, Abul Mansur Ahmad strongly

argued that the seeds of peasant culture of Bengal lay in its Islamic root and

therefore overreliance on Rabindranath Tagore seemed like an artificial import in

creating a secular Bengali identity.128 The creation of an indigenized Islamic identity

in Bengal had been evident since the early twentieth century, when a clear

preference was given to Bengali to be the vernacular of the Muslims of Bengal as

opposed to Urdu, the language preferred during this period by the elitist Muslims of

the mainly western part of the Indian sub-continent. Therefore, Pakistan truly

emerged as a ‘peasant utopia’129 in which Islam came to be at the forefront of

political choice both as a realization of religious identity and because of the Islamic

concept of material justice which was to free the peasants from the tyranny of the

Hindu Zamindars. However, it turned into a betrayal, as the Hindu Zamindars were

simply replaced by Punjabi domination.

126 Sirajul Islam Chowdhury, Bangalir Jatiyotabad, p. 218. 127 Interview with Ahmad Rafique, September 10, 2010. 128 Andrew Sartori, “Abul Mansur Ahmad and the Cultural Politics of Bengali Pakistanism”, p. 132. 129 Taj I. Hashmi, Pakistan as a Peasant Utopia: The Communalization of Class Politics in East Bengal, Westview Press, 1992.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 172

As a distinct Bengali identity was being formed by Bengali urban elites during the

1960s, the role of Islam in generating this earlier utopian vision came to be over-

ridden by the reactionary search for the ‘self’ in the ‘other’. The only viable option

seemed to be to eliminate any Islamic content within the ‘self’. Ironically, ‘ground

realities’ were always an important consideration for the Awami League, as will be

seen in the next chapter. The party soon realized the political blunder that might be

caused due to an overemphasis on secularism. Although secularism was not

articulated coherently by the political elites during this period, it nevertheless carried

an implicit connotation of being anti-religious. This, and the dangers it posed, was

evident in the Awami League’s election manifesto of 1970, in which the party

declared in its second principle that no laws would be enacted which would go

against the Quran.130 Thus, even though secularism was constructed as part of

Bengali culture, the political elites of East Pakistan did not put too much emphasis on

it in the pre-independence period. Rather, they used religion to meet their political

ends with regard to the voters of East Pakistan, while using secularism as an

ideological tool to create a separate Bengali identity vis-à-vis the Muslim Pakistani

state.131 Enacting secularism as one of the four principles of the state of Bangladesh

was always going to be opposed politically. Indeed, efforts to do so have ultimately

led to the manifestation of Islamist elements in Bangladesh’s politics in opposition.

Conclusion

Politics in post-independent Bangladesh is now dominated by the dyadic

understanding that the imposition of secularism can be countered by religiosity.

Moreover, the over-emphasis on the myth of Golden Bengal, a Bengal which was

culturally constructed by the Hindu Bhadroloks of West Bengal but whose political

realization was made possible by the Muslim peasantry of the East, has created an

ideological confusion as to who Golden Bengal ‘belongs’ to. To prove that the

130 Sirajul Islam Chowdhury, Bangalir Jatiyotabad, p. 222. 131 Interview with Professor Delwar Hossain. 9 December, 2010.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 173

Muslim peasantry were equally capable of creating a Golden Bengal, secularism as

an ideology was championed by the Awami League in order to establish its legitimate

claim to the Golden Bengal. In the process, the Awami League developed a close

relationship with India, such that the League’s brand of secularism became equated

with the Indian brand of secularism.132 It must be noted here that India

constitutionally adopted ‘secularism’ as one of its state principle in 1976, four years

after Bangladesh did. But the fact remains that the Awami League adopted the

Indian-styled secular approach of keeping a distance between state and religion by

inserting the term ‘secularism’ in the Bangladesh constitution ideologically to

separate itself from ultra-religious Pakistan. However, the party failed to recognize

that secularism, as promoted at the time, could not remain an ideological option

given the demographic reality of the Muslim masses, which were vulnerable to the

misinterpretation of secularism as atheism, and the Awami League’s own willingness

to use religion for political ends in the pre-independence period. As a consequence,

the onus of Islamization fell upon the Awami League in the post-independent period

despite their official championing of secularism, since ‘Bangladesh [might have]

negated the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam as promoted by the Pakistani

state, but it did not in any way deny its Muslim identity’.133

The rise of Islamism in Bangladesh as a reaction to the Awami League’s sponsorship

of secularism can be best explained by recognizing the way Bengali nationalism in

the 1950s and 60s was a reaction to the imposition of an Islamic identity by West

Pakistani rather than a response to Islamization per se. Nevertheless, the reaction to

secularism has brought Islam back into the mainstream of Bangladesh’s politics, as

will be seen in the next chapter.

132 Talukder Maniruzzaman, ”Bangladesh Politics: Secular and Islamic Trends”, S.R. Chakravarty and Virendra Narain (eds.), Bangladesh, p. 49. 133 Rashed Uz Zaman, “Bangladesh”, p. 159.

Chapter 4: Bengal and Bangladesh: Trapped in History 174

Chapter 5

Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali

Muslims: Secularism as a Self-Serving Ideology for Bangladesh

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Bangladesh stands as the only ‘successful case of secession’ during the Cold War

period yet its liberation was hardly marked.1 The ceremony of the Pakistani Army’s

surrender to the Indian Army announced the birth of Bangladesh with the statement

that ‘[t]he sovereignty of Eastern Bengal, its map redrawn several times since 1905,

[has] passed from Pakistani masters to Indian allies’.2 The world only knows

Bangladesh’s liberation war as the third Indo-Pakistani War. The signing ceremony’s

photo illustrates this perception. The Commander of the Pakistan Force, AAK Niazi, is

seen surrendering to the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Eastern Command Jagjit

Singh Aurora, while the two Bangladeshi military officers present at the ceremony

appear to be merely spectators with no visible role in the proceedings.3 Although

India entered the fray for only the last ten days of the conflict, its military

involvement is generally cited as the principal reason that Bangladesh gained

independence and acceptance in the international community. However, while not

denying India’s role during 1971, it was not out of altruism that India assisted

Bangladesh in achieving its independence but rather because of its own geopolitical

1Allen Buchanan and Margaret Moore, “Introduction: The Making and Unmaking of Boundaries”, Allen Buchanan and Margaret Moore (eds.), States, Nations, and Borders: the Ethics of Making Boundaries, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 1. 2 S. Mahmud Ali, Understanding Bangladesh, Columbia University Press, 2010, p. ix. 3Ibid, p. ix.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 176

calculations.4 Recent research by Adrian Geulke suggests that Bangladesh’s right to

self-determination was considered as a ‘special case’ under the United Nations

General Assembly’s Declaration of Principles of International Law concerning Friendly

Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the

United Nations, adopted in 1970, due to the specific condition of its emergence: the

creation of Pakistan through partition; the geographic distance between the two

wings of Pakistan; and the majority of Pakistan (i.e. the population of East Pakistan)

wished to secede.5

Bangladesh has thus experienced an image problem since its inception as an

independent nation-state, being seen as a kind of after-thought to Pakistan. More

recently, another blow to its image emerged in the wake of 9/11, since Bangladesh is

home to the third largest Muslim population in the world. While the United Nations

categorizes Bangladesh as a moderate Muslim democracy, the current Foreign

Minister Dipu Moni has proclaimed Bangladesh to be a secular country, defining it as

a non-communal country with a Muslim majority population and adding that the

description of moderate Muslim democracy could not be applied to Bangladesh

because it fought its war of independence on the basis of secularism.6 Indeed, the

Constitution of Bangladesh has embodied secularism as one of its state principles.

Yet, despite having secularism as a state principle, the idea of secularism is hotly

contested on the ground in Bangladesh where the issue of whether it should

embrace religion or create a secular identity has been a major focus of debate with

regard to creating a national identity since the partition of the sub-continent in 1947.

A central question for Bangladesh remains whether it is a country of secular

Bengalis, or a country of Muslim Bangladeshis: is ethnicity important or does

4Lailufar Yasmin, “India Bangladesh Tussles”, Imtiaz Alam (ed), Conflict Resolution in South Asia, South Asian Policy Analysis Network, SAPANA, Lahore, 2006. 5 Adrian Geulke, Politics in Deeply Divided Societies, Polity Press, 2012, p. 138. 6 “Bangladesh is secular, not moderate Muslim country”, The Daily Star, April 11, 2009, <http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/latest_news.php?nid=16212>, accessed on 26 November, 2012.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 177

religious identity overrule ethnicity? The inability to resolve this question has created

a split personality for Bangladesh that can confound an international observer.

In the previous chapter, it was argued that secularism was used as a political choice

in order to differentiate a Bengali identity from Pakistani identity. This argument will

be extended in this chapter by showing how the reality on the ground has given rise

to Islamism in post-independent Bangladesh due to an overemphasis on secularism,

which was not seen as a political alternative in pre-independence Bangladesh.

Moreover, the Bengali drive to create a distinct identity that championed secularism

was essentially linked with the creation of a ‘Golden Bengal’ in which Bengali identity

was seen as the national identity for all the people living inside Bangladesh,

irrespective of their ethnic or religious origins. Ironically, the use of religion for

political purposes was introduced by the political party that was the proponent of

secularism, the Awami League, as gradually anti-Awami League and anti-Indian

political bases found solace in preaching Islamism.

The discussion begins by looking at the constitutional assertion of secularism and

Bengali language that was intended to emphasize a specific Bengali identity in

Bangladesh. Next, the course of politics in Bangladesh is analyzed to show how

secularism existed only as an ideological position, whereas religiosity has become

entrenched in post-independent Bangladesh politics in a way not witnessed before.

The result has been the rise of reactionary Islamic elements in Bangladesh’s politics

and, as a result, mainstream political parties have been forced to adjust their

approaches. Now the major thrust in Bangladesh’s politics has become a contest

over which party can be considered more Islamic within an official guise of

secularism.

The Constitutional Creation of a Secular and Bengali identity

The original Bangladesh constitution, adopted on 16 December, 1972, declared the

principles of nationalism, socialism, democracy and secularism as ‘fundamental

principles of the Constitution’. In institutionalizing both secularism and a Bengali

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 178

identity, it provided contested definitions, drafted by the Awami League.7 For

secularism, the Bengali word ‘Dharma Niropekhkhota’ was considered as a synonym

for the English word secularism, translated as state neutrality with regard to the

practice of religion by its citizens. Additionally, Article 12 of the Constitution stated

the elimination of the following in order to achieve secularism:

1. Communalism in all forms;

2. The granting by the state of political status in favour of any religion;

3. The abuse of religion for political purposes; and

4. Any discrimination against or persecution of persons practicing a

particular religion.8

Secularism thus did not mean the absence of religion from the public sphere or even

from state affiliation. This was very much apparent in a speech made by the Head of

State, Sheikh Mujib, in the national parliament:

Secularism does not mean absence of religion. The 75 million people of

Bengal will have the right to religion. We do not want to ban religion

by law. We have no intention of that kind. Secularism does not mean

absence of religion. Muslims will observe their religion and nobody in

this state has the power to prevent that. Hindus will observe their

religion and nobody has the power to prevent that. Buddhists and

Christians will observe their respective religions and nobody can

7 “The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh” in <http://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/pdf_part.php?id=367> (accessed May 18, 2013). 8 M. Anisuzzaman, “The Identity Question and Politics”, Rounaq Jahan (ed.), Bangladesh: Promise and Performance, The University Press Limited, 2002, p. 59.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 179

prevent that. Our only objection is that nobody will be allowed to use

religion as a political weapon.9

Thus Sheikh Mujib, constitutionally proclaimed as ‘the father of the nation,’

effectively introduced a multi-theocracy10 by providing a finely tuned definition of

secularism in which the state would allow the promotion and cultivation of religious

affairs in the country as long as religion was not used politically. Similarly, a

contentious definition of Bengali in which no ethnic group other than ‘Bengalee’ was

recognized as residing within the geographic border of Bangladesh, was also

embodied in the Constitution. In Part II, Fundamental Principles of State Policy, the

Constitution declares that:

The unity and solidarity of the Bengalee nation, which, deriving its

identity from its language and culture, attained sovereign and

independent Bangladesh through a united and determined struggle in

the war of independence, shall be the basis of Bengalee nationalism.11

Constitutional arrangements thus encapsulated two particular slogans that were

used by the independence movement and that had formed the basis on which the

Awami League had led the Independence War and had insisted its politics were

based upon: Banglar Hindu, Banglar Kristan, Banglar Buddha, Banglar Mussalman,

Amra shobai Bangali (Hindus of Bengal, Christians of Bengal, Buddhists of Bengal,

Muslims of Bengal—We are all Bengalis)12 and Tumi key? Ami Key? Bangali Bangali

(Who are you? Who am I? We are all Bengalis).13 These two slogans, essentially

9 Quoted in Talukder Maniruzzaman, “Bangladesh Politics: Secular and Islamic Trends”, S.R. Chakravarty and Virendra Narain (eds.), Bangladesh: History and Culture, South Asian Publishers, 1986, p. 49. 10 Ibid. 11The Constitution of Bangladesh, located at <http://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/sections_detail.php?id=367&sections_id=24557>, accessed on June 6, 2013. 12 Willem Van Schendel, A History of Bangladesh, Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 185. 13Pahari Promiti, “An Adivasi Speaks: What Brings Me to Shahbag, What Pulls Me Back from it”, Alal O Dulal, February 25, 2013, located at <http://alalodulal.org/2013/02/25/shahbag-what-pulls-back/>, accessed on May 10, 2013.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 180

aimed at the construction of a hegemonic secular Bengali identity, formed the crux

of the Awami League’s politics. However this ideological insistence, originally aimed

at creating a clear distinction between an Islam-oriented state (Pakistan) and a

secular-modern state (Indian) where the latter was considered as the progressive

path for Bengali politics, has resulted in a deeply divided political culture in

Bangladesh. The following section examines how these divisions have arisen.

The Practice of Secularism: Importing Religion in the Guise of

Secularism

Sheikh Mujib returned to Dhaka on 10 January, 1972, after being released from

prison in Pakistan. The government-in-exile, however, had delayed its return to

Bangladesh from India for ten days after 16 December, 1971. There was a period,

therefore, when there was a complete power vacuum in Bangladesh due to the

absence of any central authority. Immediately after the government’s return,

recitation of the Quran in the national media was prohibited, since Bangladesh was

now a secular country.14 These incidents, coupled with the continuing presence of

the Indian army in Bangladesh even after independence had been achieved, sowed

the seeds of mistrust against the Awami League’s politics as well as against India

from as early as December 1971. This situation has had a far reaching impact on

Bangladesh’s politics.

The formal inclusion of secularism as a state principle was unacceptable to the

Muslim masses of Bangladesh. Moreover, neither the earlier politics of the Awami

League nor its 1970’s election manifesto specifically mentioned secularism as being

as significant as it appeared to have become in the immediate post-independent

period. Contentions, however, arose over how far there was popular support for the

policies of an urban middle-class based political party like of the Awami League. This

14Abul Mansur Ahmad, Amar Deka Rajnitir Ponchas Bachara (Politics of 50 Years as I Saw It), Nawroze Kitabistan, 1975.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 181

was raised particularly in relation to people’s participation in the Independence War

in 1971. Some commentators have contended that had it not been for the atrocities

carried out by the Pakistani army, people’s participation would not have risen to the

level it did during this nine month battle. In Rounaq Jahan’s words:

The savage brutalities of the Pakistan army and the genocidal nature

of their killings aroused a keen sense of unity among the Bengalis,

broke down primordial sentiments, and stiffened their

resistance…The brutalities of the army thus proved to be

counterproductive.15

This situation provoked the people’s rejection of Pakistan. It therefore should not be

construed as a natural acceptance of the Awami League’s policies.16 Indeed, Sheikh

Mujib had proclaimed himself to be a Muslim upon his return, and announced

Bangladesh as the second largest Muslim country in the world.17 The inclusion of

secularism as a constitutional principle therefore was greeted with consternation. A

public demonstration against the idea was carried out on the streets of Dhaka on the

day of the formal acceptance of the constitution.18 Some authors have contended

that the comprehensive win of the Awami League at the first general election held in

1973 did indicate popular acceptance in favour of the principles of the constitution,

including secularism.19 The truth remains, however, that although the Awami League

won the election, there was practically no opposition to contend with due to the

particular political scenario that had emerged within less than two years of achieving

independence. The election turned out to be a one-party show, in most cases

15 Rounaq Jahan, Pakistan: Failure in National Integration, The University Press Limited, 1972, p. 204. 16 Interview with Professor Delwar Hossain. 9 December, 2010. 17Abul Mansur Ahmad, Amar Deka Rajnitir Ponchas Bachara, p. 772. 18Lailufar Yasmin, “Politics of Secularism in Bangladesh”, Zakia Soman and Jimmy Dhabi (eds.), Peace and Justice: Imagine a New South Asia, Pearson, 2010, p. 49. 19 This point was particularly stressed by Tazeen M. Murshid; for details, please see, Tazeen M. Murshid, The Sacred and the Secular: Bengal Muslim Discourses, 1871-1977, Oxford University Press, 1996.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 182

supplemented by blatant and unnecessary vote-rigging.20 Moreover, most political

actors, including the leftists, were not only disorganized but also faced state-

terrorism charges and were barred from taking part in the election on these

grounds, as Chowdhury has pointed out.21 Willem Schendel argues that state

terrorism was perpetrated against the opposition as, despite Sheikh Mujib’s personal

popularity, ‘a store of resentment had built up among the electorate against the

Awami League and it was bound to be reflected in the election’.22 Therefore, the

assertion of popular acceptance of secularism as a state principle on the basis of the

general election remains controversial. Rather, Schendel has argued that the 1973

election transferred a deltaic tradition of election irregularities into Bangladesh

politics.23

Further unrest occurred when the Indian army finally left Bangladesh. There were

widespread accusations that the army had usurped Bangladesh’s property since it

took away a major portion of the arms left by the defeated Pakistani army. This

became a source of discontent among members of the Bangladesh Army.24 However,

the Bangladesh Army’s discontent was not limited to this incident only. There was a

clear division between army personnel on the basis of those who had participated

directly in the Independence War and those who had been imprisoned in West

Pakistan during the war but returned later.25 Added to this was the formation of a

para-military force by Sheikh Mujib which had been trained by the Indian Army and

had had its battle dress designed after them as well. The creation of the Jatio

Rakhkhi Bahini (JRB-National Security Force) as a parallel to the Bangladesh Army

and Sheikh Mujib’s over-reliance on it, made the Army suspicious of the government.

20 William B. Milam, Bangladesh and Pakistan: Flirting with Failure in South Asia, The University Press Limited, 2010, p. 37. 21Sirajul Islam, Bangalir Jatiyotabad (Nationalism of the Bengalis), The University Press Limited, 2007. 22 Willem Van Schendel, A History of Bangladesh, p. 179. 23Ibid, p. 179. 24 Talukder Maniruzzaman, The Bangladesh Revolution and its Aftermath, The University Press Limited, 2003, p. 155. 25 William B. Milam, Bangladesh and Pakistan, p. 35.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 183

The signing of the 25 year Peace Treaty between Bangladesh and India was also seen

as a formalization of Indian control over Bangladesh. In response, the media raised

the question: ‘Are We Really Sovereign?’26 Thus, when Sheikh Mujib began to talk

about ‘eternal friendship’ between India and Bangladesh, ‘suspicions grew that he

was surrendering Bangladesh national interest for the sake of protection of his

regime’.27

The rise of Indian influence in Bangladesh’s politics provoked a rise of pro-Islamic

politics during Sheikh Mujib’s period, even though the people of the East had not

been supportive of mixing religion with politics either during the 1947 partition or

during their association with Pakistan. Now, however, ‘Islamic identity became the

centre of resistance against Indian predominance in Bangladesh politics’ and also as

opposition to Sheikh Mujib’s regime and party.28 Sheikh Mujib tried to recover from

this situation by reorienting his foreign policy towards Islamic countries, arguing that

‘widespread sympathy for Islamic identity in Bangladesh was felt among the elites as

well as the rural masses’.29 However, the identification of the Awami League’s

secularism with the Indian brand of secularism30 had already created a reaction in

Bangladesh which fed into the rise and consolidation of Islamic ideals in the

mainstream. Authors have argued that ‘Islamic identity became not only the

26 Holiday, Dhaka, March 26, 1972, originally quoted in M.G. Kabir, “Post-1971 Nationalism in Bangladesh: Search for a New Identity”, M. Abdul Hafiz and Abdur Rob Khan (eds.) Nation Building in Banglades: Retrospect and Prospect, Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), 1986, p. 51. 27 Talukder Maniruzzaman, The Bangladesh Revolution and its Aftermath, p.156. 28 M. Rashiduzzaman, “Changing Political Patterns in Bangladesh: Internal Constraints and External Fears”, Asian Survey, Vol. 17, No. 9, September, 1977, p. 797. 29 Ibid, p. 797. 30 Talukder Maniruzzaman, “Bangladesh Politics: Secular and Islamic Trends”, S.R. Chakravarty and Virendra Narain (eds.), Bangladesh: Domestic Politics, Volume Two, South Asian Publishers, 1986, p. 49.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 184

instrument of differentiation from Hindu Bengalis of West Bengal but also the core-

value of resistance against Indian predominance in Bangladesh politics’.31

Sensing the public mood, the Awami League also gradually took up the project of

Islamization after independence.32 As Islamic political parties and politics based on

religion were banned by the party, the onus of incorporating the demand for

Islamization fell upon none but the League itself.33 Since the government was

already in trouble because of its chronic failure to provide good governance and was

facing a rapid deterioration in its popularity, the party also saw the pursuit of an

Islamic path as a way to divert attention from its failures.34 The consequence was

that Sheikh Mujib eventually made Bangladesh more Islamic than it had been

before,35 but within a rhetoric of secularism. Additionally, Sheikh Mujib sought to

rebuild connections with Islamic countries and, more importantly, with Pakistan in

order to promote an Islamic face for his government and, in 1974, he participated in

a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) in Lahore, Pakistan.

However, the identification of the Awami League with secularism and as an Indian

ally provoked a reaction and people in Bangladesh began to stress their Islamic

identity more.36 In the context of the imposition of secularism, Abul Mansoor

Ahmad, an eminent Bengali politician, warned as early as December 1971 that if the

Awami League failed to understand the difference between an ‘Islamic country’ and

a ‘Muslim majority country’ then the country’s future would be grave.37

31 Iftekharuzzaman and Mahbubur Rahman, “Nation Building in Bangladesh: Perceptions, Problems and an Approach”, M. Abdul Hafiz and Abdur Rob Khan (eds.) Nation Building in Bangladesh, p. 18. 32Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Changing Face of Nationalism: The Case of Bangladesh, The University Press Limited, 1995, p. 50. 33 Emajuddin Ahamed and D.R.J.A Nazneen, “Islam in Bangladesh: Revival or Power Politics?” Asian Survey, Vol. 30, No. 8, August, 1990, p. 807. 34Ibid, p. 807. 35 Zillur Rahman Khan, “Islam and Bengali Nationalism”, Asian Survey, Vol. 25, No. 8, August, 1985, p. 845. 36M. Rashiduzzaman, “Changing Political Patterns in Bangladesh”, p. 797. 37Abul Mansur Ahmad, Amar Deka Rajnitir Ponchas Bachara, p. 759.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 185

The overarching Bengali identity became ideologically so significant for the Awami

League that it also gradually denied the claims of the other ethnic minorities living

inside the country. The 1.15% indigenous population living predominantly in the

south-eastern part of Bangladesh38 were asked to ‘become Bengalis’ by Sheikh Mujib

in 1972.39 With the adoption of the constitution, legal control by the Bengalis was

established over the indigenous people. In a visit to the CHT, Sheikh Mujib addressed

the indigenous community ‘as brethren and told them to become Bengalis, to forget

the colonial past and join the mainstream of Bengali culture’.40 This demand to

‘become Bengali’ was underpinned by a state initiative to reclaim the land of the CHT

by initiating Bengali migration into the area starting as early as 1972. Gradually it

turned into military skirmish between the Bengalis and the indigenous people from

1975, which was only officially resolved by the signing of a peace treaty in 1997.

The Rise of Overt Religiosity: the Regimes of Zia and Ershad

Bangladesh suffered a series of military coups in 1975-76. In 1976, state power was

consolidated by the Army Chief, General Ziaur Rahman, who was a national hero of

the 1971 war of liberation. After securing his hold on power, Zia concentrated on

building a civilian base in national politics and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)

was born. The political situation started to normalize and Zia became President of

the country. Religious parties were formally allowed to engage in political activities.

More importantly, Zia sought to redefine the question of the identity of the country.

He proposed a ‘Bangladeshi’ identity for the people of Bangladesh, emphasizing

territoriality and thus demarcating a separation from Bengalis living in the West

Bengal province of India. The basis of Bangladeshi nationalism was embodied in

seven factors— ‘territory; people irrespective of religion; Bengali language; culture;

38 13 ethnic groups are orginal inhabitants of the CHT region, who are collectively known as Jummas. See, Lailufar Yasmin, “The Tyranny of the Majority in Bangladesh: The Case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts”, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 20, No. 1, 2014. 39 Subir Bhaumik, Insurgent Crossfire: Northeast India, Lancer Publishers, 2008, p. 86. 40 Cited in Willem Van Schendel, A History of Bangladesh, p. 186.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 186

economic life; religion; and the legacy of the 1971 liberation war’.41 The Fifth

Amendment of the Constitution omitted secularism and replaced it by ‘absolute

trust and faith in Almighty Allah’ with the understanding that ‘the independent

nation that emerged from the 1971 war was overwhelmingly and essentially

Muslim’.42 Bangladeshi nationalism replaced pan-Bengali nationalism.43 However,

although Bangladeshi nationalism emphasized the Islamic identity of the majority of

the country, it did not seek to exclude people belonging to other faiths.44

Nevertheless, the redefinition of the national identity as Bangladeshi, with its

emphasis on the religious composition of the country, indicated something that

Mujib had apparently been unable to grasp, that the country was ill-prepared for

secularism.45

Another significant aspect of the concept of Bangladeshi nationalism was that it

included all the people, irrespective of their ethnic identity, in the building of a

comprehensive national identity. While Sheikh Mujib had denied the right to express

an indigenous identity, seeking to submerge it under the overarching Bengali identity

by institutionalizing the latter, Bangladeshi identity sought to be all-encompassing

for the people living inside the geographic territory of Bangladesh. Willem Schendel

has pointed out that Sheikh Mujib had been as inflexible over the imposition of

Bengali identity on the indigenous population as the Pakistani elites had been in

their attempt to impose Urdu on East Pakistan.46 It was therefore no wonder that

the imposition of the Bengali identity had produced such dissatisfaction among the

indigenous people that it later erupted in violent conflict in Bangladesh.

41 M.G. Kabir, “Post-1971 Nationalism in Bangladesh”, p. 56. 42 Willem Van Schendel, A History of Bangladesh, p. 202; italics in original. 43 William B. Milam, Bangladesh and Pakistan, p. 56. 44 Ibid, p. 28. 45 Taj I. Hashmi, “Islamic Resurgence in Bangladesh: Genesis, Dynamics and Implications”, S.P. Limaye, M. Malik, and R.G. Wrising (eds.), Religious Radicalism and Security in South Asia, Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 2004, p. 48. 46 Willem Van Schendel, A History of Bangladesh, p. 186.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 187

The collective consciousness of identity in indigenous people had started to

consolidate in the 1960s and reached its peak after the independence of Bangladesh

with the formation of the PCJSS. Known as Jumma identity, it was a collective

expression of the thirteen indigenous communities,47 living in the southeastern part

of Bangladesh, to construct a separate identity vis-à-vis the Bengalis. Therefore, the

emergence of a Jumma consciousness in the early 1970s lay directly in the assertion

of a Bengali identity over indigenous identity. As Schendel has pointed out:

[T]he creation of ‘Jummas’ was an act of defiance…it was a bid for ethnic

innovation, to cope with the political and economic consequences of

loss of power, growing expendability to the state and cultural

marginalization.48

Since Bangladeshi identity was territorial in nature, it also clearly differentiated

between Hindu Bengalis living in the West Bengal province of India and Muslim

Bangladeshis residing in Bangladesh. The assertion of Bengali nationalism lay in an

historical division between the Hindu and Muslim communities that had manifested

in ‘Hinduphobia’ during the Pakistan period.49 However, the Awami League’s

overreliance on India after independence had muddied the country’s initial anti-

Hindu stance and a new identity was required that was clearly free from any

connection to Hinduism. Bangladeshi nationalism re-identified the pre-partition

emergence of a separate Muslim identity that had led first to partition and finally to

the establishment of an independent, sovereign nation-state in the form of

Bangladesh while continuing and confirming the Two Nation Theory that Muslims

and Hindus constituted separate nations. As Schendel has pointed out, the crux of

Bangladeshi nationalism lay in the understanding that ‘1947 had been necessary for

47 Amena Mohsin, “Identity, Politics and Hegemony: the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh”, Identity, Culture and Politics, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2000, p. 82. 48Willem Van Schendel, “The Invention of the ‘Jummas’: State Formation and Ethnicity in Southeastern Bangladesh”, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1, February 1992, p. 126. 49Taj I. Hashmi, “Islamic Resurgence in Bangladesh”, p. 42.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 188

1971 to happen’.50 The reaffirmation of the Two Nation Theory was an important

statement in relation to Bangladesh’s national identity, since there had been

grumblings in the Indian quarter after Bangladesh achieved independence in 1971

that without the Two Nation Theory, there was no justification for a separate

Bangladesh:

Somebody should ask these hypocrites if they could give one good

reason for the separate existence of Bangladesh after the destruction of

the Two Nation theory. If the theory has been demolished, as they claim,

then the only logical consequence should be the reunion of Bangladesh

with India, as seems to be the positive stand of the Bangladeshi

Hindus…for the people know that had Pakistan not been created then,

Bangladesh too would not have come into existence now.51

This statement captures the dilemma that the Awami League had created for itself in

endorsing both secularism and the myth of a Golden Bengal. The ‘nation’ of

Bangladesh, and more precisely, the ‘national’ category of Bengali Muslims, had not

existed as an ontological reality in the history of the sub-continent. It was thanks to

the establishment of Pakistan that East Bengal came to develop a separate sense of

itself as a nation. Therefore, the realization of their state is often considered as one

of the ‘two Muslim homelands of South Asia’.52 Yet it was against Pakistan that

Bangladesh had to struggle to establish its own identity and to justify a new

sovereign state for itself. It has been argued that the claim of the Awami League’s

politics was based therefore on the ‘denial of religion as a source of nationalist

inspiration [which] was a manifestation of the rejection of communal politics that

50 Willem Van Schendel, A History of Bangladesh, p. 203. 51 Quoted in Taj I.Hashmi, “Failure of the ‘Welfare State’: Islamic Resurgence and Politics in Bangladesh”, Shahram Akbarzadeh and Abdullah Saeed (eds.), Islam and Political Legitimacy, Routledge, 2003, p. 106. 52 William B. Milam, Bangladesh and Pakistan, p. 27.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 189

abetted the perpetration of Pakistani rule in Bangladesh’.53 The ‘secular Bengali’

identity project of the Awami League thus had set itself a twofold and, as it turned

out, impossible task: it had to disassociate itself from Islam in order to disassociate

itself from Pakistan; and it had to prove that it had a legitimate claim to Bengal. This

latter task also required a rejection of Islam since Golden Bengal was historically

constructed as Hindu: Bengali Muslims were not considered to be part of Bengali

culture.54 A secular nation seemed the only option, yet this was, in fact, to deny a

significant aspect of the East Pakistani population’s identityIslam. Bangladeshi

nationalism’s embrace of religion as part and parcel of its identity, extended in the

establishment of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) by Zia, seems to have

resolved this dilemma.

Bangladesh returned to democracy, albeit for a short period, through the second

parliamentary election held in 1979. After his party won and he was elected as

President, Zia consciously set out to ‘civilianize’ Bangladesh’s politics by making sure

that members of his political party and regime were of civilian background.55 The

BNP, which chose the symbol of a paddy sheaf symbolizing the peasantry of the

country, became a major force in Bangladesh’s politics. However, Zia was

assassinated in 1981 by a faction within the army and the country returned to

military rule. HM Ershad took power in 1982, and remained in power for eight years

before being overthrown in 1990. Ershad‘s contribution to Bangladesh’s history was

to overturn Bangladesh’s constitutional commitment to secularism. Through the

Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, Islam was declared the state religion of

Bangladesh. Although this move was a political ploy designed to consolidate Ershad’s

hold on power by demonstrating his love for Islam to the masses, it painted politics

into a corner with regard to Bangladesh’s secular credentials. No political party in

Bangladesh, not even the progressive and secular Awami League, is able to take any

53 M.G. Kabir, “Post-1971 Nationalism in Bangladesh”, p. 50. 54 Interview with Professor Rashed Uz Zaman, September 15, 2010. 55 William B. Milam, Bangladesh and Pakistan, p. 58.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 190

step towards overturning this Amendment for fear of losing public support and being

deemed unIslamic.56 Bangladesh’s political identity is, in this sense, fated to be

Islamic.

The Return to Democracy and the Beginning of Confrontational

Politics

The Ershad regime was overthrown in December 1990 in an unprecedented mass

movement that entailed a level of political compromise unseen in Bangladesh before

or since. Democracy was once again revived. To date, Bangladesh has had four

national elections since 1991. Voter turnout in each of the elections has exceeded

the record of the previous one, clearly demonstrating that the people of Bangladesh

support democratic ideals and principles. All the general elections, most of which

have taken place in the presence of international observers, have been deemed free

and fair, although one noteworthy characteristic of the voting behaviour of

Bangladeshi voters has been to vote against incumbents. In the 1991 and 2001

elections, the BNP won the majority of the vote, whereas in the 1996 and 2008

elections, the opposition Awami League won.

Democratic institutions in the country have been generally weak, where holding of

free and fair elections has remained as the only marker of democracy.57 The practice

of democracy by holding elections has been possible because of the establishment in

1996 of a neutral Caretaker Government (CTG) provision for elections. Otherwise,

Bangladesh has turned into a classic example of an ‘illiberal democracy’, as Rashed

Uz Zaman calls it, in which both major political parties reject election results when

they lose, but welcome them when they win.58 Both major parties have boycotted

56 Interview with Dr. Ali Riaz, December 22, 2010. 57Syed Imtiaz Ahmed, “Civilian Supremacy in Democracies with ‘fault lines’: the Role of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence in Bangladesh”, Democratization, Vol. 13, No. 2, April 2006, p. 286. 58 Rashed Uz Zaman, “Bangladesh—Between Terrorism, Identity and Illiberal Democracy: The Unfolding of a Tragic Saga”, Perceptions, Vol. XVII, No. 3, Autumn 2012.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 191

parliament while in opposition, blaming the absence of an appropriate political

environment in the parliament. Thus, the two main opposition parties have been at

loggerheads since 1991. Intolerance in national politics has been so intense that the

two female heads of the Awami League and the BNP literally did not exchange words

with each other until November, 2008, after a period of 17 years. Thus, mainstream

politics in Bangladesh has remained exceptionally confrontational, reflecting that, as

one analyst has pointed out, the political culture of the country is one in which

‘everything centres on the desire to win power’.59

The role of religion in this style of politics was clearly manifested during the electoral

campaign of 1996. The electoral slogans of the three major political parties, the

Awami League, the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami, made similar religious appeals to the

public: La ilaha illallha, Naukar malik tui Allah (There is no God but Allah, and Allah is

the Owner of the boat); La ilaha illalha, Dhaner shishe Bismillah (There is no God but

Allah, and Allah willing, vote for the paddy sheaf); Vote diley pallay, Khushi hobe

Allah (Allah would be pleased if you vote for scale).60 Similarly, during the 1996

election, the Awami League not only promoted itself as the champion of Islam but

also made a formal alliance with BJI. The League also proved adept at manipulating

religious obligations for political purposes. For instance, by being timed to fit in with

elections, the performance of Omrah, a Muslim religious ritual that, unlike Hajj, is

not compulsory and does not have to occur at a pre-set time but does require a

female to maintain hijab for at least 40 days afterwards, allows a female politician to

present herself as religious for political purposes without any overt statement about

religion in relation to politics. When Sheikh Hasina went to Saudi Arabia to perform

Omrah just before an election she returned wearing a hijab, even though this

requirement is generally not followed strictly in Bangladesh. Soon after, the Awami

59Ibid, p. 154. 60 Ali Riaz, “God Willing: The Politics and Ideology of Islamism in Bangladesh”, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 23 (1-2), 2003, p. 312.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 192

League’s election posters depicted a hijab-covered Sheikh Hasina praying to Allah.61

Performing a religious ritual immediately before an election has since become a fad

in Bangladesh politics. No matter how much any political party supports secularism,

it has become a tradition in Bangladesh that the major political parties start their

electoral campaigns by visiting Sylhet, a north-eastern district famous for its Islamic

shrines.62

The present political situation remains confrontational. The current government

formed by the Awami League has annulled the constitutional provision of the neutral

CTG system for the upcoming national election, taking advantage of its majority in

the Parliament to misinterpret a Supreme Court Ruling on the matter.63 The main

opposition BNP has rejected this move and has declared that it will not take part in

the upcoming national election if it is held under the incumbent Awami League. For

its part, the Awami League has argued that the Election Commission (EC) successfully

held five Mayoral elections countrywide during 2013 in which all Awami League

candidates lost to BNP candidates, even though the Awami League held government.

Therefore, a national election conducted by the same EC under the same rules would

also be unlikely to favour the incumbent government, meaning that the Caretaker

provision could be dispensed with. However, one technical yet vital point ignored by

the Awami League government is that all incumbent Mayors are required to step

down prior to the holding of City Corporation elections. In the case of the national

election as proposed by the Awami League, the incumbent government would be

standing for election while retaining its administrative position.64

61 Election posters of Awami League, BNP and BJI. Ali Riaz has also made a good analysis of this issue; for details see, Ali Riaz, God Willing: The Politics of Islamism in Bangladesh, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2004. 62 Interview with Professor Imtiaz Ahmed on December 21, 2010. 63 Ali Riaz, “Democracy in Bangladesh: A Report Card”, South Asian Journal, Issue 7, January 2013. 64 Kamal Ahmed, “Netader Tusto Korar Protijogita London-e o”, Dainik Prothom Alo, July 23, 2013, located at <http://www.prothom-alo.com/detail/date/2013-07-23/news/369955>, accessed on July 23, 2013.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 193

Ali Riaz argues that it is clear that Bangladesh has failed to establish ‘progress

towards democratic consolidation’. Instead, ‘the country has returned to the

acrimonious political environment and is likely heading for a repeat of the political

crisis of 2006’.65 To make matters worse, a recent proposal by the EC with regard to

electoral rules and the regulation of candidates if the election is held with the

incumbent government still in power, recommends a special state patronage for the

Prime Minister and her selection of an additional twenty leaders while carrying out

electoral campaigns.66 This proposal has been criticized in the mass media as a clear

misuse of power and a government attempt to impose rules of operations that will

provide it with a clear advantage over any opposition. The plan is yet to be enacted

in law but since the government holds the majority in the Parliament, the enactment

of the proposal is only a matter of time. As occurred in 1996, there have been

international efforts to resolve the current crisis between the Awami League and the

BNP by sending special envoys from the UN and by holding an international

conference in London.67 However, at the time of writing the thesis, Bangladeshi

national politics seems once again en route to instability.

Since its return to democracy, Bangladesh has emerged politically as a deeply

divided society essentially because of the rivalry between the two major political

parties, the Awami League and the BNP. In their battle to capture power, both have

attempted to woo the Islam-based political parties, especially the Bangladesh

Jamaat-i-Islami (BJI), a party that was openly opposed to the very birth of

Bangladesh. After its defeat in the 1991 election, when the Awami League agitated in

the streets to demand the establishment of the CTG system, the BJI was its principle

ally. The leader of the Awami League, Sheikh Hasina, shared the same podium with

65 Ali Riaz, “Democracy in Bangladesh.” 66 Harun Al Rashid, “Shangshod Nirbachoner Achoronbidhi Shongshodhoner Uddyog: Pradhanmontri o Mantrira Nibachoni Procharonar Shujog Paben”, Dainik Prothom Alo, July 23, 2013, located at <http://www.prothom-alo.com/detail/date/2013-07-23/news/370078>, accessed on July 23 2013. 67 Kamal Ahmed, “London Safar e ki pelen netara”, Dainik Prothom Alo, July 22, 2013, located at <http://www.prothom-alo.com/detail/date/2013-07-22/news/369710>, accessed on July 22, 2013.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 194

Ghulam Azam, even though the latter was widely known for his personal role in

working for the Pakistan Army during the liberation war and for which he has

recently been tried in the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT). The Awami League

termed its alliance with the BJI as a tactical alliance at the time, and severed its ties

with the party once it had won the 1996 election. The BNP, after losing this election,

then formed an alliance with the BJI that is still intact. After losing the 2001 national

election, the Awami League tried to promote an Islamic face by signing pre-election

pacts with smaller but significant Islamic political players. In one such move, the

Awami League went as far as signing a pact with Islami Oikkya Jote (IOJ), in which it

agreed to give IOJ the right to issue fatwa if they won in the next general election,

scheduled for 2008. Imtiaz Ahmed has pointed out that, according to Islamic

explanations, fatwa means opinion which does not have any binding implications.68

Whether or not this legal aspect crossed the minds of the politicians, the Awami

League was clearly prepared to do whatever it needed to do at the time to win

public support. However, to appease the intellectuals and reiterate its so-called

commitment to secularism, the party also proclaimed that such agreements did not

compromise its secular credentials.

The Return to a Secular Bengali Identity

The people of Bangladesh retained their predictability in voting against the

incumbent in the last general election, held in December 2008. The Awami League

came to power with an absolute majority in the Parliament. With such an advantage,

the League set about restoring its ideological commitment to a secular Bengali

identity, although it continued to use Islam for political purposes. The Fifteenth

Amendment of the Constitution restored secularism as a state ideal by asserting it as

a restoration of the spirit of the war of independence. The Supreme Court of

Bangladesh, the peak legal body in the country, annulled the Fifth Amendment and

68 Interview with Professor Imtiaz Ahmed on December 21, 2010.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 195

re-established secularism as one of the four principles of the country. In October

2010, the High Court declared:

Bangladesh is now a secular state as the Appellate Division (of the

Supreme Court) verdict scrapped the Fifth Amendment to the

constitution. In this secular state, everybody has religious freedom, and

therefore no man, woman or child can be forced to wear religious attires

like burqa, cap and dhoti.69

However, the Bill that restored secularism to its previous status did not deal with

two other significant yet controversial issues that cut across the secular principle and

the very secular nature of the Constitution of Bangladesh itself. The status of Islam

as the state religion, enacted in the Eighth Amendment, and the phrase ‘Bismillahir

Rahmanur Rahim’ (In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Beneficial), which was

enacted as part of the preamble of the Constitution in the Fifth Amendment, were

both left untouched by the Government. Billah argues that while Islam remains as

the state religion of the country, Article 2A has redefined this provision since the

High Court’s amendment by stating that ‘[t]he state religion of the Republic is Islam,

but the State shall ensure equal status and equal right in the practice of the Hindu,

Buddhist, Christian and other religions’.70 Therefore, in keeping Islam as the state

religion, the secular character of the Constitution has supposedly not been

compromised, although the constitutionalizing of a religion into a country’s political

charter is itself a violation of the secularity principle. A state cannot logically

institutionalize the religious supremacy of one religion over all others while claiming

to be secular. Supporters of the change, however, argue that although there is a

clear contradiction in keeping Islam as the state religion while institutionalizing

69 “Bangladesh is Secular Again: HC”, October 10, 2010, located at <http://news.rediff.com/report/2010/oct/05/bangladesh-is-secular-again-says-hc.htm>, accessed on 21 November, 2012. 70 S.M. Masum Billah, “The Secularity of Bangladesh Constitution after 15th Amendment”, The Daily Star, March 18, 2013, located at <http://www.thedailystar.net/beta2/news/the-secularity-of-bangladesh-constitution-after-15th-amendment/>, accessed on July 15, 2013.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 196

secularism as a state principle, the constitutional changes were largely progressive

given the reality on the ground. Concessions had to be made.71

The Fifteenth Amendment has similarly partly restored Bengali identity by declaring

that ‘[t]he people of Bangladesh shall be known as Bengalee as a nation and the

citizens of Bangladesh shall be known as Bangladeshis’.72 The Prime Minister of the

country signaled the official position of her government before the Bill was placed

before the National Parliament by asserting that ‘As citizen our identity is

Bangladeshi, and as nationality our identity is Bengalee’.73 It seems that Bengalee is

an ideological position for the Awami League that it is unable to relinquish. Although

in the same speech the Prime Minister added that ‘[l]ike the Bengalees all ethnic

groups would have their own identities, such as Santals, Chakmas, Garos, etc’,74 the

legal supremacy of the Bengalis has once again been established over all other

ethnicities living inside Bangladesh. As one scholar has pointed out:

Article 6 [of the Constitution] provides the state machinery with a brutal

policy weapon to be employed against ethnic minorities. It nullifies the

ethno-political existence of indigenous non-Bengali peoples who have

been living in this land since time immemorial. It gives a very dangerous

‘legal signal’ to state bureaucrats, law enforcers, and particularly army

officials deployed in the hill districts. ‘We’ don’t care for the ‘others’.75

The statement of Foreign Minister Dipu Moni indeed signaled such a beginning when

she asserted that under the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution, non-Bengali

71 Haroon Habib, “A Return to Secularism, Almost”, August 2011, Himal South Asian, located at <http://www.himalmag.com/component/content/article/4588-a-return-to-secularism-almost.html>, accessed on November 21, 2012. 72 “Fifteenth Amendment: All Citizens are Bengalees”, The New Age, June 12, 2011, located at <http://www.newagebd.com/special.php?spid=5&id=22>, accessed on June 6, 2013. 73 “Citizenship Bangladeshi, Nationalism Bengali: PM”, BanglaNews24.com, March 28 2011, located at <http://www.banglanews24.com/English/detailsnews.php?nssl=ee49fef85e1bed67b9f530391b9c74d9&nttl=2012072617585>, accessed on June 6, 2013. 74 Ibid. 75 “Fifteenth Amendment.”

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 197

people residing in Bangladesh were neither indigenous nor hill people. Rather, they

were ethnic minorities. Arguing that the term ‘indigenous people’ was a misnomer,

the Foreign Minister stated: ‘[u]nfortunately, Bangladesh and the ethnic Bengalee

nation remain a victim of global misperception about the ancient anthropological

roots, colonial history and our identity as a nation’.76 She went on to suggest that the

Bengalis were the original settlers of Bangladesh according to archeological findings,

while the ethnic minorities arrived in the present land called Bangladesh later,

thereby justifying the claim of the ‘first-ness’ of the Bengalis.

In reaction to such an extreme assertion of Bengali nationalism, Chakma Raja

Devasish Roy has pointed out that, as Bangladesh has ratified Article 107 of the ILO

Convention, indigenous people do not have to reside in a place for millennia to

prove their authentic claim to the land as per that specific provision.77 Moreover, in

the context of the Foreign Minister’s assertion that the elevated status of 1.2% of

the people of a country would only disentitle the rights of 98% of the population, in

detriment to the national interest of the country, Roy has argued that the

acceptance of indigenous identity does not disprove or curtail the rights of ethnic

Bengalis. In any case, if the issue of migration is brought to the forefront of

determining who the original inhabitants of Bangladesh were—Bengalis or the

indigenous people—the ethnic origins of Bengali-speaking or Urdu-speaking people

of Islamic faith would be categorized as migrant from present-day India or Myanmar.

Thus, Roy has raised the old question of what are the determinants of being a

Bengali—ethnicity or religion, or both.

76 “‘Indigenous people’ a misnomer: Moni”, bdnews24.com, July 26 2011, located at <http://dev-bd.bdnews24.com/details.php?id=201888&cid=2>, accessed on June 6, 2013. 77 “Raja Devasish Rejects FM’s Statement”, The Daily Star, July 28 2011, located at <http://archive.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=196091>, accessed on June 6 2013.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 198

The Trial of War Criminals and Politicization of Identity

As mentioned above, identity politics in Bangladesh have thus become split, with

changes every five years when either the BNP or the Awami League wins. In the last

general election, the Islamists did poorly compared with their previous

performances, but it is too early to say whether the role or influence of the Islamists

will wane in Bangladesh’s politics in the future.78 The Awami League seems to

believe that if they can break up the Four Party Alliance or the unity between BNP

and BJI, it will be easier for them to win future elections. As the most prominent

members of BJI had been accused of carrying out activities against the independence

of Bangladesh in 1971 by showing their overt support for the Pakistani military, the

Awami League took up the project of trying them by establishing the War Criminal

Tribunal. However, history rather says that it was the Awami League which traded its

diplomatic recognition from Pakistan in 1973 and the return of Bengalis held in

Pakistan for a general amnesty for the collaborators of the 1971 war.79 It is

interesting to observe that the Party has remained significantly silent regarding

alleged war criminals who are now involved with the Party, suggesting that the trials

were a form of political vengeance targeting the opposition only, a point raised by

political analyst Amena Mohsin.80

The seemingly interminable trial of collaborators from the independence war was

nevertheless also taken up and vigorously pursued by the government as a means of

curtailing the influence of religion in political life. This project was also taken up by

the Shah Bag movement, which has rallied for the banning of the BJI since February

78 Ali Riaz, “Bangladesh: 2008 Election and Democracy”, South Asian Journal, No. 25, July-September, 2009, p. 45. 79 Willem Van Schendel, A History of Bangladesh, p. 172. 80 Amena Mohsin, “Don’t Politicise the Shah Bag Protest”, Tehelka.com, Issue. 11, Vol. 10, March 16, 2013, located at <http://www.tehelka.com/dont-politicise-the-shahbag-protest/>, accessed on July 24, 2013.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 199

5, 2013, with the overt support of the government.81 However, instead of curtailing

the role of the Islamists, the Shah Bag’s activities have led to a rise in Islam-based

apolitical movements such as Hefazat-i-Islami which have no interest in participating

in national elections but, rather, seek to dictate the social life of the country based

on their understanding of Islam. Islamic politics is, of course, not only pursued by

those who opposed the liberation war. Many of those who oppose the Indian

influence in Bangladesh’s politics are also united under the Islamic banner. The

present government’s pro-India foreign policy has raised much debate throughout

the country, although the government’s enjoyment of an absolute majority in the

Parliament has meant that opposition to the policy can be ignored.

Nevertheless, the on-going Shah Bag movement and the rise of Hefazat-i-Islami have

meant that the Awami League must reconcile the need to create an Islamic identity

with its contradictory emphasis on secularism. It too initially called for the banning of

the BJI after it was implicated in the death of a blogger.82 However, the uneasiness of

the party with this call was revealed in its response to Hefazat-i-Islami’s placement of

a demand for the realization of their Thirteen Points, based on Islamic principles,

before the government. While the government responded by saying that the existing

laws of the country were enough to try anyone defaming religion, Prime Minister

Sheikh Hasina did not waste any time in announcing that the country would be run

according to the Medina Charter and the Prophet’s ‘Sermon on the Last

Pilgrimage’.83 The Medina Charter emphasizes equal rights for all religions in the

country, but also makes clear that any defamation of religion will not be tolerated.

81 “PM Worries about the Safety of Youth’s”, The Daily Star, February 12, 2013, located at <http://archive.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=268807>, accessed on July 24, 2013. 82 “Jamaat has no right to do politics”, says PM as she consoles Rajib’s family, The Daily Star, February 17, 2013, located at <http://archive.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=269418>, accessed on July 24, 2013. 83 “Madinah Charter to Guide the State, says PM”, The New Age, April 14, 2013, located at <http://www.newagebd.com/detail.php?date=2013-04-14&nid=46127#.UeOC1Pk3B8F>, accessed April 14, 2013.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 200

The principal intent of this announcement was likely to have been to appease

Muslim voters as elections approached.

However, the Shah Bag movement, which originally sprouted in protest at what was

deemed as mild punishment by the ICT for one of the war collaborators, Abdul

Quader Mollah, has once again brought the country face to face with the sharp

divide along a militant religious-secular line which recalls President Bush’s saying of

‘either you are with us or against us’. Amena Mohsin has pointed out that instead of

identifying war criminals regardless of their political affiliation, the ruling Awami

League has only targeted the BJI affiliated offenders and ignored those actively

involved in the Awami League.84 The Shah Bag movement, therefore, appears to be

an attempt by secular elites to curtail the BNP’s activities rather than a protest over

the misuse of religion for political purposes. The verdicts of the ICT on the war

collaborators have therefore been questioned, especially as the two major accused,

Ghulam Azam and Abdul Quader Mollah were not sentenced to capital punishment.

The Awami League’s representatives have justified the verdict in the case of Ghulam

Azam on the grounds of his age and ailment and issued a mild caution against

creating any disturbances over the verdicts.85 However, since Abdur Quader Mollah

also was not sentenced to capital punishment, the question of a political entente

between the Awami League and Jamaat-i-Islami has been raised, and the Awami

League’s efforts to reconcile secularism with the need to appease the Islamists seem

likely to continue to be fraught.

Conclusion: Secularism as a Political Weapon of Identity Creation

Secularism has created a chronically sensitive split in Bangladesh’s psyche which is

sharply divided along a pro-independence, secular versus an anti-independence

84 Amena Mohsin, “Don’t Politicise the Shah Bag Protest.” 85 “Ghulam Azam er Raye Awami League Shantosto”, (Awami League is satisfied with the verdict on Ghulam Azam case), Dainik Prothom Alo, July 15 2013, located at <http://www.prothom-alo.com/detail/date/2013-07-15/news/368078>, accessed on July 15 2013.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 201

religious line because religion has, in the final analysis, been the determining factor

in the creation of Bangladesh’s identity from the pre-partition period until now.86

Generally, secularism is seen as fundamental to the process of creating a distinctly

‘modern’ identity.87 However, Bangladesh’s secular identity includes the Bengali

identity created by East Pakistan on the basis of the myth of a Golden Bengal,

developed in order to assert its own claim to a separate identity rather than accept

the identity being imposed by the Pakistani elite.88 This construction of a Golden

Bengal was carried out during the Pakistan period through popular arts and cultural

activities. In effect, it plundered an historical identity, one that had once

encompassed all of Bengal and that was characterised by religious tolerance, in

order to secure a modern, apparently secular, national identity for the Muslims of

East Bengal.89 This securitization of identity allowed the East to claim Bengali

‘firstness’, which in turn bolstered the claim of this identity while denying the

identity claims of other ethnic groups residing in the region. Secularism for

Bangladesh has not only been about modernity but also about promoting its own

distinctiveness.

The politics of identity in Bangladesh has continued to emphasize this secular Bengali

identity. By institutionalizing it as law, Bangladesh effectively denies the right of

other identities to challenge the image being promoted as the national identity. In

Balibar’s terms, this is an example of the use of nationalism as a ‘projective’

ideology90 in which a state creates ‘national’ institutions to assert and affirm its claim

to statehood and nationality by helping people to reimagine the bonds of

86 Interview with Profesor Rashed Uz Zaman, September 15, 2010. 87 S.N. Eisenstadt, “The Reconstruction of Religious Arenas in the Framework of ‘Multiple Modernities’”, Millennium: Journal of International Relations, Vol. 29, No. 3, 2000, p. 595. 88 Interview with Ahmad Rafique, September 10, 2010. 89 Reece Jones, “Dreaming of a Golden Bengal: Discontinuities of Place and Identity in South Asia”, Asian Studies Review, Vol. 35, September 2011. 90 Etienne Balibar, Politics and the Other Scene, translated by Christine Jones, James Swenson, Chris Turner, Verso, 2002, p. 58.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 202

nationhood.91 The Bengalis, especially under the leadership of the Awami League,

are attempting to nationalize a Bengali secular identity in order to reinforce

Bangladesh’s claim to sovereign statehood. But the myth of Bengali struggle and

eventual victory ignores the significant parts played during the liberation struggles

by both the Hindu Bengalis of East Bengal and the province’s ethnic minorities.92 The

nationalization of this secular Bengali identity has thus imposed a truncated identity

on Bangladesh and this has provided the impetus to the challenges on the basis of

religion. It has also left the country ill-equipped to manage the challenges to its

identity that have been posed by the West since 9/11 where being secular

increasingly stands as a marker of being civilized. As is evident in the statement of

the current Foreign Minister mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the current

political establishment asserts that Bangladesh is a secular country, denying a

religious identity for the country. Realistically, however, the political elites of

Bangladesh need to find what Nicholas Adams calls a ‘new plural settlement’ which

takes account of the changes that are currently occurring both inside and outside the

country.93 This new plural settlement would need to accommodate people belonging

to different faiths as well as different ethnicities before Bangladesh can become a

home of peaceful coexistence.

This brings up the issue of how secularism is viewed as opposed to what it actually

means in Bangladesh. The understanding of secularism as anti-religious or

nonreligious in nature was what guided the elites in the beginning of Bangladesh’s

statehood. It still continues to be interpreted in a similar manner by those who reject

it. One renowned political commentator has declared that secularism cannot work in

a religious country like Bangladesh.94 This view is not exceptional: prominent Indian

scholars have also declared secularism to be dead because it is seen as anti-religion,

91 Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, Cambridge University Press, 1992. 92 Sufia M. Uddin, Constructing Bangladesh, p. 133. 93 Nicholas Adams, “A New Plural Settlement”, University of Edinburgh, an unpublished paper. 94 Amena Mohsin, “Don’t Politicise the Shah Bag Protest.”

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 203

as mentioned in the introduction to this thesis. In Bangladesh’s context especially,

the forgoing analysis leads to the conclusion, therefore, that secularism was

primarily considered as a civilizing mission for the urban Bengali middle class in its

efforts to constitute a distinctive self vis-à-vis the Pakistani other. As the West

Pakistani elites emphasized a Pakistani identity, Islam being the common binding

factor between the two wings of the country, the East Pakistanis opted for

secularism as an ideological option as a way of suppressing any markers of identity

that would have an Islamic connotation. This necessarily required the endorsement

of an areligious conception of secularism. In doing so, however, the Bengali elites

disregarded the role of indigenized Islam in the formation of identity in Bengal in the

pre-partition period. On the other hand, the ground reality of the presence of a

Muslim mass led them to deviate from their so-called commitment to secularism.

The mixing of religion with politics has become standard practice in the guise of

promoting secularism, making the practice of secularism nothing but farcical at

times.95 On the other hand, since 9/11 created the civilized versus the uncivilized

dichotomy, the Awami League especially has refused the identification of Bangladesh

as a moderate Muslim country, as is evident in the repeated denials by both the

Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister.

All this means that Bangladesh has perhaps been too focused on establishing a

coherent and acceptable identity within the state to worry too much about how it is

seen from outside. Time and again, Foreign Minister Dipu Moni has reiterated that

Bangladesh was the very first country in South Asia to have adopted a secular

constitution in 1972, and it restored its status as such when it was removed by Ziaur

Rahman, the founder of BNP.96 Nevertheless, it is a very particular understanding of

secularism that Moni has been recognizing: one that sees secularism as a separation

between religion and politics rather than a separation between religion and state.

95 Interview with Dr. Ali Riaz, December 22, 2010. 96 “Dipu for Separation of Religion from Politics to Spur Regional Dev”, located at <http://unbconnect.com/politics-religion-ld/#&panel1-5>, accessed on November 5, 2013.

Chapter 5: Creating the Ontological Category of Nationhood for Bengali Muslims 204

This is all too evident in the Prime Minister’s repeated avowals that her party, the

Awami League, is the more rightful promoter of Islam than either the BNP or the

BJI.97

It is hard to see how Bangladesh, under the leadership of the Awami League, will be

able to gain acceptance for this particular understanding of secularism. Internal

politics have become too confrontational and deeply divided. Political stalemates

have become almost a regular feature in a country in which democracy is limited to

holding elections rather than promoting a tolerance of opinion, and in which religion

has become a determining factor of identity.

97“Deshio o Antorjatik Shorojontro Cholche—Pradhan Mantri”, (National and International Conspiracy Going on—Prime Minister), Dainik Prothom Alo, September 14, 2013; located at <http://www.prothom-alo.com/bangladesh/article/47315/%E0%A6%A6%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%80%E0%A6%AF%E0%A6%BC_%E0%A6%93_%E0%A6%86%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%A4%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%9C%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A4%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%95_%E0%A6%B7%E0%A6%A1%E0%A6%BC%E0%A6%AF%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%A4%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%B0_%E0%A6%9A%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%9B%E0%A7%87_%E0%A6%AA%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%B0%E0%A6%A7%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A8%E0%A6%AE%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%A4%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%80>, accessed on September 20, 2013.

Chapter 6

The Global Covenant of being Civilized: Secular Options for

Turkey and Bangladesh

You can take religion out of the state but you cannot take religion out

of the nation.1

The establishment of the modern state system historically required the waning of

religious power to facilitate the rise of political power. A separation between the

Church and the state therefore was necessary in Europe. Secularity was thus a

crucial step in creating the modern state system. As the European model gradually

came to be accepted as the ideal form of such a system, so was this model adopted

as a symbol of modernity. Rooted in this acceptance was a replication of the system

in a manner that ensured a separation between religion and politics, i.e. as secular.

Thus secularity, now generally referred to as secularism, has come to be

institutionalized as the norm for a modern state system.

The reality in non-Western countries and especially in countries with Muslim

majorities, however, has been different. Religion in many Muslim majority countries

has not only been institutionalized in the legal system but is blended into public life

as part and parcel of the culture and its everyday life. A struggle therefore must take

place over the interpretation of modernity in such countries since religion and its

expression must be limited and regulated because modernity and secularism have

come to be seen as inseparable such that the ‘containment’ of religion stands as a

legitimate marker of modern statehood in international relations.

1 Karen Armstrong, Fields of Blood, p. 276.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 206

The two case studies used in this thesis—Turkey and Bangladesh—both show that

their interpretation of modernity did assume that religion was an obstacle to the

attainment of a modern identity in relation to other states. Despite different

historical trajectories, both Turkey and Bangladesh have attempted to assume a

modern identity in which they were adamant in upholding an assertive secular image

despite internal developments that asked for more freedom in the expression of

religion. The inability to address these developments has resulted in social tension

and the creation of the binary categories of secularists versus Islamists in both

countries. This suggests that where secularism is imposed from above by a country’s

elites in disregard of the desires of the population, it remains an alien concept, and

therefore cannot work. Having said that, at least some form of secularism, preferably

one in which religion is accommodated in public life, is still required. Otherwise,

religion can become subsumed under a broader nationalist ideology and, if

suppressed, turn into a breeding ground for extremism. All states can be blighted by

religion in this way, not just states with Muslim majority populations, but the current

perception is that these states are particularly vulnerable. This situation has been

exacerbated by 9/11. As Al Qaeda perpetrated their terrorism in the name of Islam,

Islam, as well as countries with Muslim majorities, has come to be seen as a threat to

modernity.

In this chapter, an analysis is provided of how Turkey and Bangladesh’s internal

developments indicate an increasing visibility of religion despite a long-standing

embrace of secularism. Yet they do not necessarily imply an extremist trend. This, of

course, varies. As far as Turkey is concerned, the increasing visibility of religion is

apparent in the contradiction between the state and political elites on the meaning

and practice of secularism. In Bangladesh, the excessive emphasis on state-imposed

secularism during the early years of the country has led to the rise of Islam-based

organizations and political parties as a direct repercussion.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 207

What is Secularism? The Contradiction between the State and

Political Elites in Turkey

The adoption by the AK Parti of a ‘passive’ secularism to replace the ‘assertive’

secularism originally espoused by Kemalist state elites is a reflection of the

recognition that the issue of religion needs to be accommodated and be provided

with a proper channel of public expression. The rising acceptance of the AK Parti in

Turkey is a sign of how ‘self-secluded’ elites had been in modernizing non-Western

societies in relation to the popular embrace of culture and religion. Instead, the

approach of the AK Parti towards religion suggests that issues relating to religion can

be addressed and accommodated within a modernist aspiration. The party’s

approach has helped Turkey to contain any rise of fundamentalist Islam while

nevertheless promoting itself as a model state for the Islamic World. Turkey

therefore stands not only as a model of the commensurability of Islam with

democracy, but also of how the present can meet its past, and accommodate the

East and West dichotomy and ideals—all within the construction of one modern

Turkey.

The AK Parti and the rise of Passive Secularism

The Turkish Constitutional Court has been a vigilant guardian in maintaining official

secularism.2 This vigilance is often expressed in rhetorical and emotional statements

such as: ‘the state is SINGLE; the territory is a WHOLE; the nation is ONE’.3 Eight

political parties have so far been banned under this decree. In the verdict on the

closure cases for both the Welfare Party (1988) and the AK Parti (2008) the

2 The Armed Forces Union (AFU), formed in 1961, initiated an era that is known in Turkish history as the Second Republic. The legacy of the Second Republic is found in the establishment of the Constitutional Court, which remains as a powerful but controversial legal instrument that implements a Kemalist interpretation of secularism. Feroz Ahmad, Turkey: The Quest for Identity, Oneworld Publications, 2003, p. 122. 3 Ergun Ozbudun, “The Turkish Constitutional Court and Political Crisis”, Ahmet T. Kuru and Alfred Steppan (eds.), Democracy, Islam & Secularism in Turkey, Columbia University Press, 2012, p. 158.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 208

Constitutional Court asserted that secularism could not be practiced in Turkey the

way it was practiced in the West.4 It held that, given the context of Turkey as a

Muslim majority country, the freedom to religious expression needed to be

controlled. This observation in essence upheld the same negative connotation of

Islam as that held by the proponents of the civilizational discourse that points

towards the dichotomy between Islam and the West. Moreover, the observation has

been used politically against the AK Parti, which was accused of trying to promote an

Islamic viewpoint.

The AK Parti, however, has maintained a clear policy in this regard, insisting that ‘it

does not speak from within Islam and does not stand for Islamic modernism’.5 As

proposed by Bulent Arinc, a reformist colleague of Erdogan and Gul: ‘we [the AK

Parti] need to steer ourselves from the margins of society and become a party that

can be trusted by everyone’.6 The AK Parti’s principle political leaders have in fact

emerged from a background of association with pro-Islamic political parties such as

the Fazilet Party and the Refah Party, both of which were banned from Turkish

politics, and the National Turkish Students Union.7 However, in spite of the varied

backgrounds, associations and experiences of the AK Parti’s political leaders, the

party has nevertheless shown the political maturity to understand the changing role

of religion in Turkey. In this sense, modernity has served as an important

denominator in defining its political ideology in a way that creates a conscious break

with the Islamic parties of the past. The party has been termed an ‘electoral-

professional party’ by Angelo Panebianco, and certainly this is discernible in the

party’s organization, policy positioning, funding methods, advertising and campaign

4 Menderes Cinar, “Turkey’s present ancient regime and the Justice and Development Party”, Marlies Casier and Joost Jongerden (eds.), Nationalisms and Politics in Turkey: Political Islam, Kemalism and the Kurdish Issue, Routledge, 2011, p. 14. 5 Alev Cinar, Modernity, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey: Bodies, Places, and Time, University of Minnesota Press, 2005, p. 15. 6 Quoted in Ibid, p. 104. 7 Tozun Bahcheli and Sid Noel, “The Justice and Development Party and the Kurdish Question”, Marlies Casier and Joost Jongerden (eds.), Nationalisms and Politics in Turkey, p. 104.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 209

tactics and strategies, all of which are proven vehicles of electoral success in various

European countries.8 However, while Keyman and Onis agree that the rise of the AK

Parti is attributable to a synthesis of communitarian and liberal values, they have

also pointed out that the centre-left CHP has failed because of its poor grass-roots

connection and continuing imperviousness to growing changes within Turkish

society, as well as shifting global dynamics.9

On the question of the role of religion in society, the AK Parti has nevertheless

maintained that ‘intense secularism’ should not turn the society into a ‘prison’.10 The

major leaders of the party have called for a re-evaluation of the concept of

secularism so that it upholds the religious rights of all the various communities in

terms of ‘state neutrality towards all religions and doctrines’ such as is espoused in

American secularism.11 However, although they have pointed to the need to adopt

the American model in terms of granting freedom of religion for all, they also

consider that it is equally important for Turkey to keep a statist control over religion

through the Diyanet or Directorate of Religious Affairs.12 During his visit to Cairo in

2011, Erdogan insisted that ‘[t]he Turkish state is in its core a state of freedoms and

secularism’,13 and declared himself as a Muslim Prime Minister of a secular

8Ibid, p. 104. 9 E. Fuat Keyman and Ziya Onis, Turkish Politics in a Changing World: Global Dynamics and Domestic Transformations, Istanbul Bilgi University Press, 2007, p. 170. 10 Zeyno Baran, Torn Country: Turkey between Secularism and Islamism, Hoover Institution Press, 2010, p. 57. 11 Ahmet T. Kuru, “Reinterpretation of Secularism in Turkey: The Case of the Justice and Development Party”, M. Hakan Yavuz (ed), The Emergence of New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Parti, University of Utah Press, 2006, p. 143. 12 Ibid, p. 143. While the Diyanet was criticized for hiring 15,000 new Imams, the Minister of State in Charge of Religious Affairs defended the action by saying that the state’s duty was to provide religious services. Moreover, the Minister argued, ‘In these “empty” mosques, improper people might teach religion inappropriately’. 13 David D. Kirkpatrick, “Premier of Turkey Takes Role in Region”, The New York Times, September 12, 2011, located at <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/world/middleeast/13egypt.html?_r=0>, accessed on May 02, 2013.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 210

country.14 According to Gole, by emphasizing both aspects, Erdogan was

demonstrating that the AK Parti aimed to provide a new meaning for secularism that

would include religious diversity in Turkey, one that was:

[A]dvocating for the rights of non-Muslims in the Oriental world. So in

that sense, that interpretation of secularism, and not just the

reproduction of Kemalist secularism, has the potential to surmount

the authoritarian feature of secularism and open up a post-secular

understanding of the religious-secular divide.15

The AK Parti has, therefore, both ‘transformed the mutual conceptions of the

Muslim and secular publics and limited the claims to hegemony of the latter’.16 The

Prime Minister Erdogan, who was elected President in August 2014, has called for a

redefinition of secularism. With a vision to realize to celebrate the 100-year

anniversary of birth of the state of Turkey in 2023, he vowed that ‘the old Turkey is a

thing of past’ and offered four priorities under his leadership:

Advancing democracy;

Working towards a ‘normalization’ of politics and society;

Improving social welfare; and

Taking a place among the top 10 world economies.

As the strength of the AK Parti has been fairly tested in the 2014 local elections,

where it secured a 45% citizenry approval compared to 39% during the 2009 national

election, clear support for redefining state rigidity on the practice of religion in the

public sphere seems to be on the rise, particularly as secularism is more likely to be

14 Arash Dabestani, Pinar Sevinclidir and Ertugrul Erol, “Is Turkey's secular system in danger?”, BBC Monitoring, located at <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20028295>, accessed on December 8, 2014. 15 Nilufer Gole, “Post-Secular Turkey”, New Perspectives Quarterly, Vol. 29, Issue 1, Winter 2012. 16 Nilufer Gole, quoted in Gonul Donmez-Colin, Turkish Cinema: Identity, Distance and Belonging, Reaktion Books, 2008, p. 14.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 211

seen as a marker of modernity by an urban-based population that has very little

connection with the majority of the population. Turkey’s case is similar to that of

Bangladesh in this regard, as will be seen later in this chapter.

The headscarf issue and the AK Parti

By law, Turkish women are not allowed to wear a headscarf in government offices

and in many educational institutions. In 1999, a newly elected female MP from the

pro-Islamist Virtue Party, Merve Kavakci, was prevented from taking the

Parliamentary oath because she was wearing a traditional head-scarf. The issue

provoked a huge debate in Turkey but was resolved when Kavakci’s Turkish

citizenship was revoked a few months later because it was discovered that she also

held American citizenship.17 However, the head-scarf debate was not only revived

but reached a new height with the election of Abdullah Gul as President of Turkey

because Gul’s wife, Hayrunnisa, wears a head-scarf. In October 2010, the President

allowed his wife to take part in a celebration marking the founding of Turkey wearing

a head-scarf. The move was promptly criticised by secular elites and the Army, which

held its own celebration half-an-hour before President Gul’s program to avoid having

to shake hands with Hayrunnisa,18 although the leader of the main opposition party

maintained that his absence from the President’s party did not indicate his

reservations about the President’s wife’s choice of attire, stating that to do so would

be ‘being unfair to the first lady…Her choice of dress is her concern, not ours’.19

17 “Headscarf Row in Turkey Parliament”, BBC News, May 3, 1999, located at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/333641.stm>, accessed on April 26, 2013; “Citizenship Twist in headscarf Row”, BBC News, May 12, 1999, located at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/342070.stm>, accessed on April 26, 2013. Turkish officials are not permitted to hold dual citizenship. 18 “Headscarf Row Mars Turkey’s Anniversary Celebration”, BBC News, October 29, 2010, located at <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11652750>, accessed on April 26, 2013. 19 “Turkish Headscarf Legal Warning by the Supreme Court”, BBC News, October 20, 2010, located at <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11590588>, accessed on April 26, 2013.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 212

Nevertheless, the issue has been at the centre of political battles for the AK Parti for

some years. In 2008, the party proposed a Parliamentary Bill to lift the ban on

wearing headscarfs in universities. Although the bill was passed, the Constitutional

Court annulled the decision on the grounds that it violated the secular principles of

the state.20 The refusal of the court to uphold the Parliamentary decision was

labelled as a ‘judicial coup d’état’, introducing a new expression into the Turkish

political lexicon.21 It coincided with the AK Parti’s probe into what is now widely

known as the ‘Ergenekon’ case, an alleged plot by some Kemalist elites and a group

of retired Army Generals against the government.22 As tensions surfaced over the

issue, the Constitutional Court threatened the survival of the party by re-opening a

former case to ban it. Amidst national and international concern over the future of

both the AK Parti and Turkish democracy, the Constitutional Court finally ruled

against the banning of the party by only seven to six votes. However, although the

ruling gave the party a narrow victory, the Court also described the AK Parti as a ‘hub

of anti-secular activities’, deprived it of half of its state subsidies, and warned it to

learn from the experience what was likely to happen to future attempts to violate

the secular principles of the state.23

The ‘covered women’ who have chosen to embrace the headscarf are generally

considered ‘bad daughters’ of the Republic vis-à-vis uncovered ‘good daughters’.

Unveiling has long been seen as a commitment to the Kemalist Republic as opposed

to a commitment to a backward Ottoman identity.24 However, the headscarf issue is

increasingly being seen as a women’s human rights issue as well. The imposition of

20 “Court Annuls Turkish Scarf Reform”, BBC News, June 5, 2008, located at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7438348.stm>, accessed on April 26, 2013. 21 Ahmet T. Kuru and Alfred Stepan, “Laicite as an “Ideal Type” and a Continuum: Comparing Turkey, France, and Senegal”, Ahmet Kuru and Alfred Stepan (eds.), Democracy, p. 110. 22 Zeyno Baran, Torn Country, p. 67. 23 Ergun Ozbudun, “The Turkish Constitutional Court and Political Crisis”; also, Zeyno Baran, Torn Country, p. 68. 24 Gul Ceylan Tok, “The Securitization of the Headscarf Issue in Turkey: ‘the Good and Bad Daughters’ of the Republic”, Ritsumeikan Annual Review of International Studies, Vol. 8, 2009, p. 116.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 213

unveiling without considering women’s agency and the right to decide is said to be

undermining pluralism and democratic culture in Turkey. The AK Parti’s attempt to

lift the ban on headscarves in public universities provoked debate amongst women’s

groups across a wide range of concerns. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s proposition

that ‘[i]gnoring anyone directs him/her to be suspicious about his/her existence’, the

women have declared that ‘they reject[ed] a public sphere where every woman

cannot walk arm in arm’, thus associating the veiling issue with the issue of basic

rights and freedoms.25 It was argued that, given the tension created by seeing the

headscarf as a form of opposition to Republican secularism, the secular principle of

the Kemalist state should be re-evaluated so that it ensured the right of all religions

in the country to express their religious beliefs. Under such a re-evaluation,

secularism would still retain its constitutional existence but would also take into

account the rights of the people.26 In fact, this position has also been stressed by the

AK Parti, which maintains that secularism should remain as a constitutional principle

but not be a required ideology imposed on individuals. Nevertheless, the headscarf

issue has been termed a ‘Bermuda Triangle’ in Turkish politics – a place that no

politician likes to visit.27

Secularists versus the Islamists in Turkey

Challenges to the hegemonic and unitary conception of Turk espoused by state elites

have appeared in the cultural productions of the Turkish media since early 2000,28

largely because the AK Parti’s ascent to power through popular mandate has

provided a new kind of legitimacy for the construction of this new synthesis of

25 Ayse Saktanber and Gul Corbacioglu, “Veiling and Headscarf—Skepticism in Turkey”, Social Political, Vol. 15, No. 4, 2008, p. 516. 26 Gul Ceylan Tok, “The Securitization of the Headscarf Issue in Turkey”, p. 115. Ahmet Kuru, “Reinterpretation of Secularism in Turkey: The Case of Justice and Development Party.” 27 Nicole Pope, “The Headscarf Issue, 15 Years Later”, Today’s Zaman, April 26, 2012, located at <http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist-278704-the-headscarf-issue-15-years-later.html>, accessed on April 26, 2013. 28Ibid, p. 144.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 214

Turkish identity. As a result, this synthesis is aimed towards creating what Nilufer

Gole terms a ‘post-secular Turkey’ that not only insists upon the right of religious

expression for Muslims but has also expanded the religious rights of all other

religions, including the Shiites, because ‘[f]or democratization, a need exists to

create a consensual ‘secularism’ and not an exclusionary, authoritarian one, backed

up only with military power’.29 Gole claims that such a synthesis creates an in-

between ‘grey’ Turk as opposed to the strictly divided White versus Black Turkish

identities that represented the divide between the civilizational identity of the

modern versus the traditional. It is perhaps ironic that the authoritarian imposition

of the modernist demand for homogeneity provided the democratic forum for this

homogeneity to be challenged on the basis that it was exclusionary, helping to

generate the ‘new’ Turkish identity that stands as a synthesis of religion and

modernity that provides a voice to the ‘other’. Neo-Ottomanism in this context has

become constitutive of an all-encompassing national identity for and in Turkey, while

at the same time, providing a model of conservative democracy that can be

espoused and carried by Islamists, for other Islamist states to follow.

Bangladesh: the Rise of Islam-based Political Parties and Islamic

Extremism

Bangladesh is the first constitutionally secular state in South Asia. In its drive to

become secular, Bangladesh restricted expression of Islam immediately after its

independence, despite Islam being the religion of the majority.30 Very soon,

however, having installed secularism as a state principle, religion was co-opted by

the state, quite like the way it was done in Turkey. Regional dynamics were different

for Bangladesh, though. Due to the first regime’s pro-Indian policy, from the very

29 Gole, “Europe: A Common Dream?”, Quantara.de, December 22, 2005, located at <http://en.qantara.de/Europe-A-Common-Dream/6209c159/index.html>, accessed on May 02, 2013. 30Abul Mansur Ahmad, Amar Deka Rajnitir Ponchas Bachara (Politics of 50 Years as I Saw It), Nawroze Kitabistan, 1975.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 215

birth of the country the state was bifurcated into two opposing camps: pro-

Indian/secular versus anti-Indian/pro-Pakistani Islamic. The Awami League was the

proponent of a pro-Hindu secular Bengali nationalism while the Bangladesh National

Party (BNP) was identified with pro-Islamic Bangladeshi nationalism. The electoral

alliance of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (BJI) with the BNP since 2001 has added yet

another dimension to this binary identity. The Awami League claims itself to be the

sole pro-liberation force in Bangladesh, while the BNP-BJI alliance is termed an anti-

liberation force.31 Nevertheless, the status of Islam was elevated in 1988 when it was

proclaimed the state religion of Bangladesh, thus officially making Bangladesh an

Islamic state. With the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, although the

Awami League has reinstated secularism as a state principle, the state religion of the

country remains the same. Bangladesh is both an Islamic and a secular state.

This tussle between secular and Islamist ideals has affected Bangladesh in a way that

has never been seen before in the country. As stated before, during the hey-day of

religion-based politics in the sub-continent, the people of East Bengal voted on the

Pakistan question on the basis of an economic rationale. This is not to say that the

politics of Bengal were never influenced by religion as such, however. In fact, the

Faraizi movement and the movement led by Titu Mir in the nineteenth century were

very much dedicated to removing all un-Islamic practices and ridding the country

(Bengal) of foreign domination.32 However, the underlying causes were as much

economic as they were religious in nature.33 Often economic dynamics can be

overlooked in favour of tracing the contemporary origin of extremist Islam-based

politics in Bengal. In fact, peasant movements deeply concerned to consolidate their

31 Ferdous Arfina Osman, “Bangladesh Politics: Confrontation, Monopoly and Crisis in Governance”, Asian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 18, No. 3, 2010, p. 316. 32 Mubashar Hasan, “Historical Developments of Political Islam with Reference to Bangladesh”, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Vol. 47, No. 2, 2011, p. 158. 33 Iftekhar Iqbal, “Return of the Bhadralok: Ecology and Agrarian Relations in Eastern Bengal, c. 1905–1947”, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 43, Issue 06, November, 2009.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 216

economic future were of paramount importance in raising Muslim consciousness in

Bengal.34

On the other hand, after the independence of Bangladesh, the overemphasis on

secularism saw the return of religion to everyday life in a way that had also not been

seen before. While recital of the Quran was required in state programs, celebrating

Islamic programs like Shab-e-Barat and Muharram became regular features of life in

a way not seen in the pre-independence period.35 The value of micro-level analysis is

often overlooked but such an analysis, here based in part on interviews with expert

observers, reveals the silent but steady change in the lives of the people of

Bangladesh since the early 1970s. People in Bangladesh had always been religious

but religious expression became visible on a large scale only from this period. The

period before was construed as dhormo-heenota (being bereft of religion) rather

than dhormo niropkhkhota (neutral to religion). It was this period that prepared the

ground for the emergence of Islam-based extremist political parties once the ban on

religion-based political parties was lifted in the mid-1970s.

Changes in the Social Fabric of Bangladesh

It has been unfortunate for the Awami League and the country generally that

realities on the ground were not taken into consideration in the attempt to impose

secularism, for over the years the country has become a playground for religious

intolerance, albeit on a small scale in comparison to other countries with Muslim

majorities. Attacks on religious minorities have taken place during both the last BNP

term in power (2001-06) and the present Awami League regime. While the

magnitude of the attacks has been lesser in degree and number during the Awami

League tenure, they have nonetheless been occurring periodically and have targeted

34 Zillur R. Khan, “Islam and Bengali Nationalism”, Asian Survey, Vol. 25, No. 8, August, 1985, p. 842. 35 Interview with Professor Mujaffar Ahmad, January 30, 2011, and Dr. Ahmad Rafique, September 10, 2010.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 217

both Hindus and Buddhists.36 The latest attacks on Buddhist minorities, which were

instigated by a Buddhist giving a ‘like’ to a social media post defaming the Prophet,

have raised questions about how safe minority rights actually are in this so-called

secular country. Moreover, in 2007, the country was rocked when a young cartoonist

used the Prophet’s name for a character in a cartoon that was published in a premier

Bengali daily newspaper. The editor of the newspaper was forced to apologize

publicly to the highest religious authority of the main mosque in the country in order

to placate protesters.

Ironically, the Awami League’s over-emphasis of secularism has meant that it has

always overlooked a positive aspect of Bengal’s past in relation to religious

tolerance, when both the educated and semi-educated classes of Bengal treated Mir

Mussharaf Hossain’s Muslim religious tale, Bishad Shindhu, and Rabindranath

Tagore’s (Hindu) books with the same vigour and respect.37 It seems that the

Bengalis once knew how to keep their diverse religious and linguistic identities in

harmony. It has been the rigid imposition of secularism that has provoked the public

visibility of the society’s religious elements, even though it is recognized that the

ideological commitment to secularism came about in response to the West Pakistani

elites’ preference for excessive religiosity. Nevertheless, as Mujaffar Ahmad has

pointed out, Islamic programs like Muharram and Shab-e-Barat were generally not

observed during the Pakistan period while, in the post-independent period these

Islamic rituals have been practiced with much religious fervor.38 In an agrarian-based

country with a low rate of urbanization, the reach of the Mullahs is infinitely greater

than that of the politicians. It is therefore easier to lead a local populace to think that

secularism reflects an absence of religion than it is to instil more nuanced ideas.

Moreover, the proponents of secularism have failed to notice a wider social change

36 Kamal Ahmed, “London Safar e ki pelen netara”, Dainik Prothom Alo, July 22, 2013, located at <http://www.prothom-alo.com/detail/date/2013-07-22/news/369710>, accessed on July 22, 2013. 37 Interview with Ali Riaz on December 22, 2010. 38 Interview with Professor Mujaffar Ahmad on January 30, 2011.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 218

that has been quietly happening throughout the country over the years: the

introduction of a conservative Islamic culture by the vast migrant community that

works periodically in Middle Eastern countries.39 This explains the significant rise in

women wearing hijab, something even a cursory look at any public gathering would

appreciate. Bengali/Bangladeshi women were famous for their unique attire called

sari. Over the years, however, sari has come to be deemed unIslamic for women

because it reveals a significant body part. The salwar-kameez, on the other hand, is

considered semi-Islamic dress because it helps to cover the whole body.

Bangladesh’s culture has, in the past, generally incorporated a liberal vision in

relation to women’s clothes that has seen the growth in local fashion brands over

the last few decades and international recognition of the premier local brand

Aarong.40 However, as Schendel points out, ‘the liberal vision denies the Islamic one

the right to speak for the nation’.41

The consequence is that even in relation to this most visible aspect of its culture,

Bangladesh is turning into a nation that is highly segregated between progressive

modernists/secularists on the one hand, versus reactionary or conservative Islamists

on the other, a clear indication of an inability to decide on a common identity

generally acceptable to all. This is demonstrated in the way people introduce

themselves say ‘I am from Bangladesh’ rather than ‘I am a Bangladeshi’. Even as a

mere citizenship status, the term Bangladeshi is seen as carrying a political

statement tied to the politics of BNP. Although a foreigner would not generally know

the political connotations of the term, nonetheless Bangladeshis, especially those

belonging to academia, are segregated along this line and are generally not

39 Interview with Professor Delwar Hossain on December 9, 2010. This issue was also raised by Professor Ali Riaz during his interview, on December 22, 2010. Schendel has written on the issues well; see, Willem Van Schendel, A History of Bangladesh, p. 253. 40 Aarong, established in 1978, won the 2012 UNESCO Award of Excellence for Handicrafts for South-East Asia and Asia. 41 Willem Van Schendel, A History of Bangladesh, Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 255. Schendel has discussed the transition in the dress-code of women in Bangladesh over the years; ibid, p. 254-55.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 219

comfortable introducing themselves with an ‘I am an American/Australian/Indian’

sort of citizenry approach to identity.

Another significant transition in the national culture since the 1990s that has

remained largely undocumented in scholarly work is the change in the way people

commonly bid farewell. The usual Bengali greeting of Khuda Hafiz (good-bye in the

name of the Creator) has given way to Allah Hafiz (good-bye in the name of Allah) in

just over twenty years. The reason seems to be that Allah is Arabic while Khuda

originates from Persian. Hafiz is also a Persian word, but as it is etymologically

derived from the Arabic hifz it has remained acceptable as a Muslim greeting while

Khuda has not. Sheikh Mujib introduced Khuda Hafiz as a farewell gesture in lieu of

his usual ‘Joy Bangla’ (victory to Bengal) soon after independence, a move that, at

the time, led him to be accused of introducing religion into politics.42 Now, however,

the phrase has come to be seen as short of expressing proper Islamic ideals and has

largely been replaced. These silent-yet-strong social changes have barely been

researched or documented in academia. Only Schendel and Sufia M. Uddin have

pointed out these social changes and their significance as indicators of change in the

national psyche.43 Sohela Nazneen claims that secular-focused academics of

Bangladesh are trapped in a 1970s’ mentality with regard to Bangladesh, and have

therefore failed to acknowledge the changes taking place.44 There is, of course, no

direct causal link that can be established between the re-imposition of secularism

and the recent increased expression of Islam in relation to people’s attire and use of

language in Bangladesh. However, a similar phenomenon occurred after the

imposition of secularism from above using the legal apparatus after independence in

the early 1970s: the general mass chose to express their religion by overtly

embracing more Islamic symbols and rituals.

42 Talukder Maniruzzaman, “Bangladesh Politics”, p. 53. 43 Sufia M. Uddin, Constructing Bangladesh. 44 Interview with Professor Sohela Nazneen on October 11, 2010.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 220

When large numbers of people in a society begin to openly express their religious

beliefs through their choice of daily attire and their use of everyday language, then it

can be considered that that society is turning more religious. This can lead political

elites to try to locate a middle ground so that religious sentiments are not vexed. The

evidence in Bangladesh is that political elites are paying attention to religion, at least

when it comes to election time. This has produced what Schendel considers to be a

split in Bangladesh’s national psyche in which there has also been a rise of military

leaders to create ‘a new model, brash and increasingly self-confident’ as opposed to

secularism.45 He attributes this to the failure of the first leaders of Bangladesh to

deliver the dreams of nationalism, secularism, socialism and democracy based on a

vernacular cultural model. In response, the anti-Awami League/anti-Indian political

bases of the country have publicly embraced Islam as a means of uniting against the

politics of secularism.

The Growth of Islam-based Political Parties and Intolerance

It is very much arguable whether Bangladesh’s War of Independence was fought

under the principle of secularism, as the Awami League has insisted. For one thing,

the 1970’s election which gave legitimacy to the Awami league in post-independent

Bangladesh to write the Constitution was held under the Legal Framework Order

that prohibited any speeches against Islamic ideals.46 Similarly, the involvement of

people of all creeds in the war against the Pakistani Army was not motivated by their

overt support for either the Awami League or for secularism. Rather, it has been

contended that the brutality of the Pakistan Army left no other choice for the

ordinary Bangladeshis but to fight against them.47 In face of growing dissatisfaction

with the regime, it was contended that Sheikh Mujib promoted:

45 Schendel, A History of Bangladesh, p. 251. 46 Emajuddin Ahamed and D.R.J.A Nazneen, “Islam in Bangladesh: Revival or Power Politics?” Asian Survey, Vol. 30, No. 8, August, 1990. 47 Rounaq Jahan, Pakistan: Failure in National Integration, The University Press Limited, 1993.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 221

[T]he idea that secularism “did not mean the absence of religion”,

was giving generous state patronage to madrassa education and, on

the other hand, religion for his government “was a shadow, the ghost

of the past one did not know how to deal with”.48

With the changes in government in 1975, secularism as an ideology was shunned. At

the time of the Political Parties Regulation Act of 1976, there were only three

recognized Islam-based political parties in Bangladesh. Gradually, the number has

risen due to political opportunism and successive regimes that have used religion as

a political tool of legitimization. BJI has emerged as a key player in Bangladesh’s

politics since the 1990s. In the 1991 elections, BJI participated as the third force.

From 1996 however, the scenario began to change in its favorfavour. The Awami

League sought the support of the Islamist BJI for its demand to install a Care Taker

Government (CTG) system to oversee the holding of the national election. When it

severed its ties with BJI immediately after winning the 1996 election, BNP and BJI

formed a Four-Party Alliance soon after. This alliance was extended to include other

political parties and, since 2012, has been an 18-Party Alliance. Thus, political

polarization occurs on the basis of religion now in Bangladesh, with secular and left-

wing parties at one extreme and right-wing, religion-based political parties at the

other.

With 9/11 and the increasing notice paid to the rise of religion, Bangladesh has

figured as the next breeding ground of Islamic extremism in South Asia after

Afghanistan. The events of 9/11 coincided with Bangladesh being governed by a

right-wing coalition of the Four Party, led by BNP and supported by BJI, where BJI

received two key ministry positions. With the publication of Bertil Lintner’s ‘Beware

48 Taj I. Hashmi, ”Islamic Resurgence in Bangladesh: Genesis, Dynamics and Implications”, S.P. Limaye, M. Malik, and R.G. Wrising (eds.), Religious Radicalism and Security in South Asia, Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 2004, p. 47.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 222

of Bangladesh: A Cocoon of Terror’49 and Alex Perry’s ‘Deadly Cargo’,50 Bangladesh

suddenly drew international attention as an Islamist country, and the international

media linked the rise of Islamic militancy there with global Islamist terrorism.51 This

was coupled with publications by Indian analysts that depicted Bangladesh as being

on the verge of being transformed into an Islamic state either through peaceful or

violent means.52 To make matters worse, Bangladesh experienced its first ever

country-wide Islamist terror attack on August 17, 2005, targeting 63 out of its 64

districts. This was carried out by Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) in alliance

with Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, with purported international connections to Al Qaeda.

The arrest of the prominent leaders of these Islamist groups by the BNP, which was

accused of harboring Islamic militancy, and the quick trial and execution of seven of

the militants within a few years, subsequently quelled Islamic militancy in

Bangladesh.

Bangladesh, however, has recently seen a rise in intolerance that has deeply divided

the country into secularist versus religious camps. On the one hand, the Shah Bag

movement has reinvigorated the claims of Bengali nationalism. The movement

preaches about a specific culture based on the Bengali language, ethnicity and,

especially, attire for women. This assertive version of secularism puts women at the

center of its debates, arguing that the sari is the Bengali woman’s marker and that

those who do not wear the attire or choose hijab, cannot be termed Bengali.53

Another offshoot of the Shah Bag movement has been the visibility of atheist

49 Bertil Lintner’s “Beware of Bangladesh: A Cocoon of Terror”, Far Eastern Economic Review, April 4, 2004. 50 Alex Perry, “Deadly Cargo”, Time Magazine, 15 October, 2002. 51 Moinul Khan, ”Islamist militancy in Bangladesh: why it failedto take root”, Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2011, p. 52. 52 Sreeradha Datta, “Islamic Militancy in Bangladesh: The Threat from Within”, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2007; Sumit Ganguly, “The Rise ofIslamist Militancy in Bangladesh”, Special Report 171, US Institute of Peace,2006; Anand Kumar, “Jamaat and its Agenda of Islamic Statein Bangladesh”, Strategic Analysis, Vol. 33, No. 4, 2009. 53 Lailufar Yasmin, ““What to Wear and Not to Wear: That is the Question”: Cultural Transformation in the University of Dhaka”, in Imtiaz Ahmed and Iftekhar Iqbal (eds.), University of Dhaka: Past, Present and Futures, Dhaka: University Press Limited, 2015, forthcoming.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 223

bloggers in Bangladesh and attacks against them. So far, four bloggers have been

killed in the country since 2013, something that is widely identified as an attack on

freedom of speech and religious expression. Some international media have termed

this the ‘Bangladesh Charlie Hebdo’.54 While the ruling Awami League continues to

claim itself a champion of secular ideals, the Prime Minister has issued a statement

that insists that:

You [Islamic parties] do not need to go for any movement. As a

Muslim, I have the responsibility to take action…We have already

decided what action to be taken against those responsible for

[internet posts and blogs] hurting people’s religious sentiments.55

The contradiction in asserting secularism while simultaneously promoting Islam has,

thus, become apparent in subsequent government actions. It is noteworthy that

Bangladesh is one of the few countries that has not officially condemned the Charlie

Hebdo attack. Although during the Biswa Ijtema, Dhaka, the second largest Muslim

congregation in the world after Hajj, condemned the Charlie Hebdo attack as un-

Islamic,56 no such statement was issued by the government of Bangladesh. On the

one hand, the government aims to placate the Muslim masses internally while on

the other hand, it continues to claim to be a secular government for its international

audience.

54 Orlando Crowcroft, “Bangladesh Charlie Hebdo: Al-Qaeda linked group brags about killing after blogger hacked to death”, International Business Times, May 12, 2015, located at <http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/bangladeshs-charlie-hebdo-al-qaeda-linked-terrorist-group-brag-about-killing-after-blogger-1500893>, accessed on July 8, 2015. 55 “Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina pledges to punish online insults against Islam”, ndtv.com, March 31, 2013, located at <http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/bangladesh-pm-sheikh-hasina-pledges-to-punish-online-insults-against-islam-517688>, accessed July 8, 2015. 56 “Muslims condemn Paris massacre at Bangladesh's mini-Hajj”, Mail Online, January 9, 2015, located at <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-2903415/Muslims-condemn-Paris-massacre-Bangladeshs-mini-Hajj.html>, accessed on July 8, 2015.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 224

Bangladesh’s story since its independence has been dichotomous regarding whether

it is a religious or secular state. While urban-based elites imposed secularism, the

society at large has apparently become more publicly religious.57 It is in this

connection that Khan has argued that ‘whenever nationalism has been allowed to

relegate Islam to the status of a particularistic creed, development and change

become retrogressive or short-lived’,58 suggesting that religion is regarded as an

important marker of identity, particularly in Muslim majority countries. Bangladesh

has been experiencing the same since its birth as an independent country.

Conclusion

Turkey created its independent existence out of the remnants of the Ottoman

Empire. As it did so, it was a necessity for Turkey to downplay the Islamic identity

associated with the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, the emergence of

Bangladesh saw an emphasis on ethnicity along with a significant downplaying of

religious identity that was essential to the task of creating a separation between East

and West Pakistan. In the end, though, over-emphasis on an ethnic Bengali identity,

and the attempt to create a secular identity, has created a convoluted understanding

that a ‘modern’ identity cannot accommodate religion. Therefore, in this

(mis)understanding, secularism stands as an absence of religion in the public sphere.

This has in fact spurred demonstrations of religiosity by political leaders that have

been counterproductive in domestic politics.

For both Turkey and Bangladesh, projecting a secular identity in order to be

recognized as modern, civilized members of the international community of states

has created internal instability. In both cases, secularism was imposed by elites in

57Habibul Haque Khondker, “The Curious Case of Secularism in Bangladesh: What is the Relevance For

The Muslim Majority Democracies?”, Totalitarian Movements and PoliticalReligions, Vol. 11, No.2, 2010, p. 198. 58 Zillur R. Khan, “Islam and Bengali Nationalism”, Asian Survey, Vol. 25, No. 8, August, 1985, p. 848.

Chapter 6: The Global Covenant of Being Civilized: Secular Options for Turkey and Bangladesh 225

disregard of the deeply religious nature of the society. As democratic options were

made available in both states, the people of Turkey have rejected official secular

parties, forcing a reconsideration of secularism, while in Bangladesh, they have

chosen both right-wing Islamist and left-wing secular parties alternately and have

also continued to bring religion into the public sphere. According to Khan:

Had Kemal Ataturk, Mohammad Mosaddegh [of Iran], and Sheikh

Mujibur Rahman combined Islam with their nationalist movements,

probably Turkey, Iran, and Bangladesh would have been spared the

socioeconomic and political instability that has plagued them.59

Nevertheless, the two case studies show that a rigid understanding has dominated

the conceptualization of secularism in Turkey and Bangladesh. Both countries have

taken secularism as anti-religious. In this understanding, both countries follow the

global covenant of being ‘modern’ by being ‘secular’ in a rigid manner. The Western

understanding of the secularization process, as discussed previously, held modernity

and religion to be mutually exclusive. This process has been followed like a copybook

rule by Turkey and Bangladesh, with the consequences outlined above. The next

chapter argues that such a view of secularism demands to be reconceptualized so

that religion can become one of the recognized components of a modern identity. It

explores the idea of multiple secularisms and suggests that this conception of

secularism may allow Muslim majority countries to uphold the religious aspects of

their identity while simultaneously being recognized as modern members of the

international community.

59 Ibid, p. 849.

Chapter 7

Reinterpreting Secularism

The Westphalian state system has become a ubiquitous model for Western and non-

Western states alike. While the legal requirements—defined territory, population

group, a government and political sovereignty—have provided non-Western

societies with legal equality with their former rulers, the normative requirements

embodying a certain ‘standard of civilization’ have been harder to achieve. The

standard of civilization has also varied from time to time, from democracy to human

rights and to the latest norm regarding the role of religion.

Turkey and Bangladesh have both experienced the same dilemma in creating their

external identity: how best to combine an internal religious character with an

external secular identity. The solution both took to this dilemma was to employ

secularism as an anti-religious concept, although there were differences in how this

was done. Turkey imposed restrictions on the public display of religious attire in an

effort to forcefully remove religion from its public sphere. On the other hand, in

Bangladesh no such restriction was imposed. Rather, the proponents of secularism

gradually embraced it, albeit loosely, as their version of secularism created a

backlash in society as being anti-religious. Nevertheless, the problems this embrace

of secularism has produced for both countries have raised the question of whether

secularism needs to be viewed in its idealized form or whether alternative ways of

thinking about secularism are required. This chapter argues that there is room for

reinterpreting secularism. Indeed, it is essential given the societal tensions and

ensuing rise of religiosity that such an assertive version of secularism has produced

in these Muslim majority countries, otherwise Muslim majority countries will come

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 228

to consider that the idea of secularism is not applicable to their societies. It is in this

connection that the concept of multiple secularisms needs to be explored.

Revisiting the Secularization Thesis: Post-secularism

‘God is dead’—the famous proclamation of Nietzsche at the turn of the nineteenth

century—probably sounded rational at a time when religion was becoming

increasingly subordinated to reason and science as the only possible options to be

followed for progress. Nevertheless, evidence of thriving religious practices in

everyday life in the West present a challenge to the secularization thesis that

predicted the eventual end of religion in modern societies.1 It is not just that non-

Western states are finding it necessary to either ditch or modify secularism. The

increased public visibility of religion in the West has led to the late-twentieth century

perception that there has been a ‘return’ of religion to the West:2 ‘People continue

to be religious in most modern societies…but are religious in new ways’.3 While

1 Caroline Ford, “Religion and Popular Culture in Modern Europe”,Review Article, Journal of Modern History, Vol. 65, No. 1, March 1993, p. 152. 2 There is an array of literature that discusses the revival of religion in the West. I mention only a few important works here. For example, see, Robert Bellah, “Civil Religion in America”,Daedalus, Vol. 134, No. 4, Fall 2005 (originally published in Winter 1967, in Daedalus); Mark A. Noll and Luke E. Harlow, Religion and American Politics: from the Colonial Period to the Present, Oxford University Press, 2007; Robert Wuthnow, After Heaven: Spirituality in America since the 1950s, University of California Press, 1998; John Stenhouse and Brett Knowles (eds.), Christianity in the Post Secular West, ATF Press, Adelaide, 2007; Grace Davie,Europe: The Exceptional Case. The Parameters of Faith in the Modern World, Darton, Longman and Todd, 2002; Grace Davie, Religion in Modern Europe: A Memory Mutates, Oxford University Press, 2000; Philip Jenkins, God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe’s Religious Crisis, Oxford University Press, 2007; Peter Berger, Gracie Davie and Effie Fokas, Religious America, Secular Europe: A Theme and Variations, Ashgate, 2008; Timothy A Byrnes and Peter J. Katzenstein (eds.), Religion in an Expanding Europe, Cambridge University Press, 2006; Kristin Aune, Sonya Sharma, and Giselle Vincent (eds.), Women and Religion in the West: Challenging Secularization, Ashgate, 2008. 3 Lida Woodhead, “Introduction”, Linda Woodhead, Paul Heelas and David Martin (eds.), Peter Berger and the Study of Religion, Routledge, 2001, p. 2.

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 229

Keppel has called this revival the ‘revenge of God’,4 Jacques Derrida has insisted that

the turn to religion need not be reduced to fundamentalism.5

This has produced a reconceptualization of secularism in the West as post-

secularism. This term was originally coined by Jürgen Habermas6 in October 2001 in

a speech entitled ‘Faith and Knowledge’.7 Habermas was motivated to speak about

post-secularism in the aftermath of 9/11 because of the way that event highlighted

the dilemma of religious people, especially in the Islamic world. He therefore

proposed the concept of a ‘post-secular society that posits the continued existence

of religious communities within a continually secularizing society’.8 In other words,

post-secularism would provide room for dialogue between the secular and the

religious, but would ultimately lead to a total secularization of the society in

question. Since Habermas coined the term, post-secularism has gained currency in

discussions of how to build a bridge between the secular and the religious.

Both Habermas and Taylor have argued that the negative category into which the

secularization thesis has put religion needs to be reviewed. As Taylor points out, the

prediction of the disappearance of religion as expected by the secularization thesis

has always been flawed because religion has always been ‘part of the official story

itself’.9 Quoting Robert Bellah’s formulation of the continuing impact of the past, he

warns that with regard to the appeal of faith and religion ‘nothing is ever lost’.10

4 Gilles Keppel, The Revenge of God, translated by Alan Braley, The Pennsylvania University Press, 1994. 5 Philippa Berry, “Postmodernism and Post-religion”, Steven Connor (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism, Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 171. 6 Rosi Braidotti, Bolette Blaagaard, Tobijn de Graauw, Eva Midden, ‘Introductory Note’, in Rosi Braidotti, Bolette Blaagaard, Tobijn de Graauw, Eva Midden (eds.) Transformations of Religion and the Public Sphere: Postsecular Publics, Palgrave MacMilan, 2013, p. 1. 7 John D. Boy, ‘What we talk about when we talk about the postsecular’, located in <http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2011/03/15/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-the-postsecular/>, accessed on July 24, 2015. 8 ‘Habermas on Faith, Knowledge and 9-11’, located at <http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0111/msg00100.html>, accessed on July 24, 2015. 9 Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007, p. 591. 10 Ibid, p. 772.

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 230

Taylor therefore argues that religion must be dealt with on the principles of ‘liberty,

equality and fraternity’ in order to achieve the common goal of the progress of

humanity.11 This means that the secular liberal framework must find a way to

accommodate the continued existence of religious communities in order to accord

with the principle of justice. That is, since the secular, modernist framework provides

for pluralism of thought, it must also provide for religious ideas. This requires current

modernist perceptions about religion to be challenged.

This is where Habermas is successful: he demonstrates that religion is not fatal to the

secular rubric of the West by going back to a Kantian form of universalism and

autonomy in belief and thoughts and arguing that the modern retreat of religion has

been ‘unfair’. At the same time, he has pointed out that there are two trends in the

current religious revivalism: one taking a ‘fundamentalist’ path that rejects

modernity; the other opting for a ‘reflective faith’ that incorporates ‘institutionalized

science as well as human rights’.12 It is the latter path that Habermas sees as leading

to a dialogue between the secular and the religious in which religion is not seen as

threatening secularist ideals of tolerance, and vice-versa.

However, David Martin and others have pointed out that the continuing adherence

to secularism as a master-narrative within understandings of post-secularism still

tends to mystify religion.13 What is missing in much of the scholarship that is insisting

on the increasing sacralization of the world is the ability to explain the rise of religion

in a way that makes sense to supporters of secularism. The solution to the rise of

religion for these moderns may lie in revising the modernist paradigm, rather than

trying to draw religion along the path of secularism. Understanding what drives the

11 Charles Taylor, “Foreword: What is Secularism?” Geoffrey Brahm Levery and Tariq Modood (eds.), Secularism, Religion and Multicultural Citizenship, Cambridge University Press, 2009. 12 “A postsecular world society?: An interview with Jürgen Habermas”, SSRC.org, located at <http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2010/02/03/a-postsecular-world-society/>, accessed on July 14, 2015. 13 David Martin, “The Secularization Issue: Prospect and Retrospect”, The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 42, No. 3, September 1991.

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 231

pursuit of religion may also make it easier for secularists to make room for it.

Particularly as a rebuttal to Habermas and Taylor, Scherer in his Beyond Church and

State points out the need to look at secularism as a matter relating to both politics

and religion, rather than merely seeing it as an institutional separation between

‘Church and state’.14

On the other hand, in his systemic analysis of the rise and power of Christianity, and

considering the nineteenth century evolution of the position of religion in the West,

Asad has argued that religion should be considered a ‘human construction’ and more

properly viewed as an anthropological phenomenon. This is because the separation

between one religion (Christianity) and the structures of power as a modern

invention specific to the West that has been fundamentally shaped by Western and

Christian assumptions, has enabled the West to use religion as a compulsory, if

oppositional, element in the making of history as well as modernity for both Western

and non-Western societies. Hence ‘[t]he concept of the secular cannot do without

the idea of religion’, as Taylor has pointed out.15 Asad insists that non-Westerners

need to enquire about the specific patterns of the Western construction of history

rather than of religion (or politics) as these have worked to transform non-Western

histories into merely ‘local’ histories, that is, ‘histories with a limit’, in comparison to

the West’s assumption of its own history as both universal and inevitable, and

therefore superior.16 This move has had the effect of relegating religion to a local

concern rather than one that has to be addressed seriously as a worldwide

phenomenon.

This means that Habermas’ idea of a dialogue between secularism and religion

cannot take place due to two reasons. First, secularism and religion exist in two

14 Matthew Scherer, Beyond Church and State: Democracy, Secularism, and Conversion, Cambridge University Press, 2013. 15 Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, Stanford University Press, 2003, p. 200. 16 Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, p. 200.

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 232

different dimensions where religion is already securitized. Second, the ultimate goal

of Habermasian post-secularism remains the elevation of the secular over the

religious. Habermasian secularism is therefore unable to resolve Europe’s crisis in

dealing with Muslim migrants who tend to reterritorialize Islam wherever they

resettle. To resolve this, secularism itself needs to change.

A return to the original conception of secularism as the accommodation of religious

difference may show how this might be done. As shown in the first chapter,

secularity first emerged internationally as a means of giving protection to religious

differences among different Princes’ domains. Secularism later arose with the

coinage of the term by Holyoake as a means of accommodating personal or group

religious differences within a state. Thus, religion was originally accommodated both

externally and internally in the Westphalian system itself. With the later

securitization of religion, these original meanings were lost as secularity and

secularism collapsed into each other such that secularism has come to be seen as the

absence of religion in the public domain internally as well as externally. The terrorist

attacks of 9/11 in the name of Islam have provided the impetus to revisit these

original conceptions of secularity and secularism in the face of a general revival of

religion worldwide. A reinterpretation of the concept of secularism as a way of

accommodating religious differences that does not securitize religion or see it as a

threat would allow multiple ways of accommodating religion to be developed both

within and between states, producing multiple secularisms that allow the secular and

the religious to co-exist in ways unique to each society.

From Post-Secularism to Multiple Secularisms

With the expansion of Western civilization globally, a singular, idealized version of

secularism as areligious has tended to be promoted despite the different degrees

and different forms of secularism that are actually practiced in different Western

countries. In this idealized version, an exclusion of religion that is not evident in

Western countries themselves tends to be championed in, and for, non-Western

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 233

countries. Yet this form of secularism is not the only form available. Some non-

Western states have been experimenting with their own interpretations of

secularism for quite some time. Current practices of secularism in Turkey, China, and

India show that religion can be accommodated with secularism and that the debate

need not only be couched in dyadic terms. In fact, it is damaging to do so. The

secular/religious binary approach, as Hurd has argued, tends to impose ‘a simplistic

and distorted template on world politics’17 that can only lead to backlash and

conflict.

Drawing attention to the Indian practice of secularism in which religions are treated

according to a notion of ‘principled distance’, Rajeev Bhargava argues that

secularism should not be perceived from only mainstream and liberal conceptions as

it is currently presented through the Western lens, and through Western IR theory.

Rather a situational approach to secularism should be adopted. This would allow an

exploration of alternative conceptions of secularism as they manifest in the practices

of many non-Western countries.18 Moreover, while modernization induces cultural

changes in any society, ‘values also reflect the imprint of each society’s religious

legacies and historical experiences’.19 These multiple secularisms carry with them

the cultural particularities of each society that has experimented with secularism,

producing many different ways of ‘being secular’.

It is interesting to observe in this context the rise of religious expressions such as the

wearing of the hijab in public by Muslims not only in countries with Muslim

majorities but also by those living in the western hemisphere.20 Recourse to religion

17 Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, “A Suspension of (Dis)Belief: The Secular-Religious Binary and the Study of International Relations”, Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan Van Antwerpen (eds.), Rethinking Secularism, Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 168. 18 Rajeev Bhargava, “Rehabilitating Secularism”, in ibid. 19 Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide, Cambridge University Press, 2004, p 137. 20 Nilufer Gole, The Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling, The University of Michigan Press, 1996

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 234

in this respect can be seen as a cultural response rather than a religious response in

many societies, one which is being translated into a political response in which a

‘resistance identity’ is being created in response to the challenges posed by the

discourse of an homogenizing modern, secular ideology.21 As Eisenstadt has argued

regarding the multiple forms of modernity that have developed throughout the

diverse historical experiences of contemporary societies, secularism also has

assumed variegated features in postcolonial countries,22 including those with Muslim

majorities.

Multiple Secularisms: Islam as a Marker of Identity

The response to secularism from many Muslim majority countries shows that there

is a midway formulation between Western prescription and Islamic exclusivity. These

countries are increasingly moving towards embracing a form of democracy as the

preferable form of governance with two distinctive characteristics: it is ‘inclusively

secular and nuanced in its Islamic orientation’.23 It appears as a unique formulation

of modernity that can be termed as ‘Muslim yet modern’. These Muslim majority

countries have thus rejected the original proposition of modernity that there needs

to be a conscious distance between modernity and religion. They nevertheless insist

that they embrace modernity. For instance, former Prime Minister of Malaysia,

Abdullah Ahmed Badawi, declared that:

Malaysia has shown the way that Islam is not an impediment to

modernity and to democracy. It is not an impediment to rapid

21 Nilufer Gole argues that ‘Islam’ is changing and is not considered in a static fashion as it used to be. Nilufer Gole, “The Civilizational, Spatial, and Sexual Powers of the Secular”, Michael Warner, Jonathan Van Antwerpen, Craig Calhoun (eds.), Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age, Harvard University Press, 2010. 22 S.N. Eisenstadt, “The Reconstruction of Religious Arenas in the Framework of ‘Multiple Modernities’”, Millennium, The Journal of International Studies, Vol. 29, No. 3, 2000. 23 Lily Zubaidah Rahim, “Towards a Post-Islamist Secular Democracy in the Muslim World”, Paper for the Contemporary Challenges of Politics Research Workshop, 31 October, 2011, located at <http://sydney.edu.au/arts/government_international_relations/downloads/documents/1_3_Rahim_Papers.pdf>, accessed on October 29, 2013.

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 235

economic growth, to self-respect and confidence, to tolerance and

mutual respect across religions, cultures and ethnic groups.24

Clearly, there has been a conscious effort to blend modernity with cultural

specificities in many Muslim societies. In fact, research shows that there has been a

‘shift [in] the refutation of both authoritarian secularization and state-sponsored

Islamism’.25 Predictably, some Islamic states reject this interpretation, and its

implications. The Iranian political establishment, for instance, has termed the Arab

Spring an impending Islamic Revolution against ‘global arrogance’ despite it being

widely reported as a secular phenomenon by the global media.26 However, the

inevitable turn towards instituting democracy in these countries refutes the official

Iranian position on this matter.27 Rather, Lily Rahim has argued that the Arab Spring

shows a shift in Islamic countries towards a unique assertion of post-Islamism that

she has called ‘refolution’—a mixture of reformist and revolutionary zeal.28 It is in

this context that the connotations attached to sharia law, which is increasingly being

mixed with democratic ideals, is discussed below as a potential model for managing

the relationship between religion and secularism in the future.

Sharia Law and the West: a model for secularism?

A large part of sharia is in fact already understood as law in the West.29

Nevertheless, it has been argued that sharia also has a psychological impact that has

24 Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Address at the Asia House, Park Lane Hotel, London, 23 July, 2004, located at <http://www.pmo.gov.my/ucapan/?m=p&p=paklah&id=2871>, accessed on October 29, 2013. 25 Naser Ghobadzadeh, “Religious Secularity: Reconciliation between Political Islam and Secular Democracy”, Lily Zubaidah Rahim (ed), Muslim Secular Democracy: Voices from Within, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, p. 31. 26 Ali Parchami, “The ‘Arab Spring’: the View from Tehran”, Contemporary Politics, Vol. 18, No. 1, March 2012, p. 37. Due to Iran’s alliance with the Syrian political establishment, Iran identified the Syrian uprising as a seditious movement instigated by the US; Ibid, p. 42. 27 Michelle Pace and Francesco Cavatorta, “The Uprisings in Theoretical Perspective—An Introduction”, Mediterranean Politics, Vol. 17, No. 2, July 2012, p. 129. 28 Lily Zubaidah Rahim, “Towards a Post-Islamist Secular Democracy in the Muslim World.” 29 Rudolph Peters, “From Jurists’ Law to Statute Law or What Happens When the Shari’a is Codified”, BA Robertson (ed), Shaping the Current Islamic Reformation, Frank Cass, 2003, p. 83.

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 236

led to it being regarded as a ‘scary’ word in conventional literature on the subject.30

The Quran does not mention any sharia to be the guiding principle of an Islamic legal

system. Rather, it unequivocally requires only justice to be the principle of any legal

system. While it has stated principles pertaining to some offenses, it does not dictate

any single coherent legal system or sharia law per se.

The concept of (Islamic) sharia law emerged from the eighth and ninth centuries. It is

predominantly based on Arab culture. Although it varies in different countries with

Muslim majorities, Islamic jurisprudence has four roots—the basic legitimizing tools

of the Quran and Hadith, along with two other roots—ijma, consensus of the jurists

and qiyas, juristic method of logical arguments.31 It is a fallacy, then, to refer to

sharia law as the Islamic law. It is not entirely guided by either the Quran or the

Hadith and it takes the particularity of culture into cognizance. Yet, sharia law is

often considered to be universalist in nature by so-called experts of Islam in different

countries. Bassam Tibi, very rightfully, has argued that sharia law is a ‘fiction’ that is

conveniently used by Islamic radicals as their legitimizing tool.32 Similarly, arguing for

the need to revisit the concept of sharia, Abdullahi An-Naim highlights that the very

nature of sharia is a matter of private conviction for Muslims. It cannot be imposed

upon them by the state. He adds that ‘we [Muslims] do not have an institutional

hierarchy that pronounces what sharia is…whatever the state enforces [in the name

of Islam] is not sharia’.33

On the other hand, there is an increasing trend in countries with Muslim majorities

to increasingly prefer sharia to be a part of their legal system. Here, sharia is

30 Tariq Ramadan, “Following Sharia in the West”, Robin Griffith-Jones (ed), Islam and English Law: Rights, Responsibilities and the Place of Sharia, Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 246. 31 Judith Romney Wegner, “Islamic and Talmudic Jurisprudence: The Four Roots of Islamic Law and Their Talmudic Counterparts”, The American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 26, No. 1, January 1982, p. 30. 32 Bassam Tibi, The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political Islam and the New World Disorder, University of California Press, 1998, p. 189. 33 Abdullahi An-Naim, “Towards an Islamic Society, not an Islamic State”, Robin Griffith-Jones (ed), Islam and English Law, p. 241 & 239 respectively.

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 237

understood to provide moral and ethical guidance rather than a rigid framework of

law as propounded by the ulemas. It is argued that this shift has occurred largely due

to the failure of secularist or modernist projects to take hold in these countries.

Nonetheless, popular opinion is in favor of curtailing the control of the ulemas in

exerting sole authority in explaining sharia law.34 This is clearly reflected in opinion

polls carried out under the heading: ‘what a billion Muslims really think?’35 Based on

Gallup’s world poll, the largest of its kind, John Espositio and Dalia Mogahed have

argued that people in countries with Muslim majorities mostly favour a democratic

system that allows them to express their opinions on political, social and economic

issues, yet that has sharia at least as one source of legislation.36 It appears that these

Muslim populations reject the wholesale adoption of Western systems in favour of a

blend of ‘universal’ (Western) and ‘local’ (Islamic) values or what can be termed a

wasatiyyah trajectory.37 Vali Nasr points out that the practice of ‘Muslim democracy’

has been the subject of experimentation since the early 1990s involving drawing

from Islamic understandings of morality, ethics, the family, rights, social issues and

applying these with a Western model of democracy.38

What this discussion of the integration of sharia into public life offers is a distinct

way of looking at the accommodation of religion: as a blend of the universal and the

local. While the proposal of forming an ‘inclusive middle path’39 is often deemed as

coming from a liberal spectrum that is not acceptable to most Islamists, especially

those associated with extremism, it nevertheless offers a potent way to challenge

the religious-secular dyad. The idea not only desecuritizes religion, but also suggests

that religion can be blended into a modernist framework. As Ghobadzadeh points

34 Ann Elizabeth Mayer, “Islamic Law as a Cure for Political Law: The Withering of an Islamist Illusion”, BA Robertson (ed), Shaping the Current Islamic Reformation, Frank Cass, 2003, 117-142. 35 John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think?, Gallup Inc., 2007. 36 Ibid, p. 48. 37 Lily Zubaidah Rahim, “Introduction”, in Lily Zubaidah Rahim (ed), Muslim Secular Democracy, p. 14. 38 Vali Nasr, “The Rise of “Muslim Democracy””, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2005, p. 13. 39 Ibid, p. 2.

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 238

out, secularism is often misconstrued as ‘anti-religion’ in Muslim majority states.

Offering a middle ground between Islam and modernity may effectively provide a

solution to a more democratic society on the basis of justice to religion and its

expression in these states. In such a case, secularism would not mean the

bereavement of religion and a top-down approach imported from the West and

imposed on the masses. This new middle ground would rather contribute to

reducing the tensions that have emerged due to the forceful imposition of

‘secularism as [an] anti-religious principle’ in Muslim majority states that are

increasingly making these states vulnerable to extremist interventions, as has

occurred in Egypt.40 Just as Scherer argues that secularism does not necessarily have

to mean a ‘wall of separation between Church & state’,41 the experience of the

intersections between Western and shariah law shows that such a separation is also

not necessary. As a model, the successful incorporation of both traditions of law

suggests that a reconceptualization of secularism in a way that incorporates cultural

differences is also possible. Secularism does not have to remain confined to being a

Western ideal.

Identity Claims and Islamism

The rise of Islamism can also be seen as the move of the subalterns from the

periphery to the center of political activities. This has both economic and cultural

implications that resonate along the line of the question posed by Gayatri Spivak:

‘Can the subaltern speak?’42 In analyzing the causes of the Arab Spring, some

40 Shadi Hamid, “Sisi’s regime is a gift to the Islamic State”, Middle East Politics and Policies, August 7, 2015, located at <http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2015/08/07-sisi-gift-to-islamic-state-hamid?utm_campaign=Brookings+Brief&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=21177870&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8c77JtNnm3TTXj9gtaIoRtijqS8rTr7xkyFb34PI6_DH5BunpAlJdF8UtdAAd1b_TBjiAafu3k6bCt27Hvjx7NLIWTbg&_hsmi=21177870>, accessed on August 10, 2015. 41 Matthew Scherer, Beyond Church and State. 42 Gayatri Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, University of Illinois Press, 1988.

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 239

observers have pointed out that the modernization efforts carried out in the past

two decades in the countries involved have certainly been a strong element fueling

popular discontent in these countries.43 On the other hand, the rise and increasing

support for Islamists in Turkey particularly has been both a cause and effect of

modernization—both cultural and economic.44 The cultural assertion imposed by a

small group of ‘self-secluded’ elites in the name of a homogenizing modernity that

required Muslims to give up their traditional cultural practices to enter into the

modern space,45 has certainly reduced the value of homogenizing Westernization

and strengthened the hand of Islamists who have provided a middle ground.

Therefore, the increasing support for Islamic values in Muslim majority countries

must give rise to questioning Westernization in the context of the ‘epistemic

violence’ carried out on local (Islamic) cultures vis-à-vis the imposition of Western

cultural concepts.46 The Islamists in the post-Arab Spring phase of democratization

have emerged with a new ideology, and tactics that are clearly connected to the

modern forces of globalization. They have not remained secluded like the Islamists

of previous phases—a transition that has been termed by scholars as ‘the end of old

narratives’.47 In his analysis of post-Arab Spring political developments, Rahim has

argued that it is evident that these countries have rejected both an authoritarian

43 Roland Hodler, “The Political Economics of the Arab Spring”, OxCarre Research paper 101, November 2012, located at <http://www.oxcarre.ox.ac.uk/files/OxCarreRP2012101.pdf>, accessed on November 1, 2013; R. Springborg, “The Political Economy of the Arab Spring”, Mediterranean Politics, Vol. 16, No. 3, November 2011; Padamja Khandelwal and Agustin Roitman, “The Economics of Political Transitions: Implications for the Arab Spring”, IMF Working Paper, March 2013, located at <http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2013/wp1369.pdf>, accessed on November 1, 2013. 44 This is linked with the rise of the Anatolian Tigers as influential players in Turkish politics due to economic policies pursued under Turkish Prime Minister Turgut Ozal. See, for example, Omer Demir, Mustafa Acar and Metin Toprak, “Anatolian Tigers or Islamic Capital: Prospects and Challenges”, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 40, No. 6, November 2004. 45 Kemal H. Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and Community on the Late Ottoman Society, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 406. 46 David Thurfjell, “Is the Islamic Voice Subaltern?” Kerstin W. Shands, Neither East nor West: Postcolonial Essays on Literature, Culture and Religion, Sodertorns Hogskola, 2008, p. 157. 47 Khalil Al-Anani, “Islamist Parties Post-Arab Spring”, Mediterranean Politics, Vol. 17, No. 3, November 2012, p. 467.

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 240

Islamic state system as well as authoritarian secular principles.48 Political

developments in Sudan and Egypt support such an argument.49 These movements,

then, must be considered both Islamic and modern. On the other hand, the modern

construction of religion as a threat has led many to consider the Islamists’ win in

Egypt as a hindrance to modernity. The undemocratic toppling of the elected

government in Egypt was supported unconditionally by the West, primarily by the

United States. Former Secretary of State Condolezza Rice declared in 2005 that the

US would ensure the holding of free and fair elections in Egypt but it would not

engage with the Muslim Brotherhood under any conditions. The West thus

confirmed the domains of the secular and the religious as mutually exclusive.50

Turkish scholars, in this context, have argued for the need for a ‘liberal version’ of

secularism in which secularism would not refer to the exclusion of religion from the

public sphere as held by modern assumptions, but would indicate state neutrality

towards religion. This type of secularism has been referred to in a variety of ways by

different scholars: passive secularism,51 civil Islamism,52 or Islamic liberalism.53

Similarly, Ghobadzadeh has argued that the Turkish AK Parti has provided a solution

to the apparent rift between Islam and secularism in the Muslim majority states by

proposing a new Islamism that ‘challenges the conventional notion of Islamism and

the French-style secularism.’54 An-Naim has added to this debate by asserting that

there is no historic precedence for an Islamic state and the Quran certainly does not

48 Lily Zubaidah Rahim, “Introduction”, p. 10-16. 49 Ibid, p. 10. 50 Hurd, Elizabeth Shakman, “A Suspension of (Dis)Belief: The Secular-Religious Binary and the Study of International Relations”, Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer, Jonathan Van Antwerpen (eds.), Rethinking Secularism, Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 166. 51 Ahmet T. Kuru, Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey, Cambridge University Press, 2009. 52 Ali Bulac, cited in Ahmet T. Kuru, “Reinterpretation of Secularism in Turkey: The Case of the Justice and Development Party”, M. Hakan Yavuz (ed), The Emergence of New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Parti, University of Utah Press, 2006, p. 140. 53 Ziya Onis, “Political Islam at the Crossroads: from Hegemony to Co-existence”, Contemporary Politics, Vol. 7, No. 4, December 2001. 54 Naser Ghobadzadeh, “Religious secularity: A vision for revisionist political Islam”, Philosophy and Social Criticism, Vol. 39, No. 10, 2013, p. 1018.

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 241

ask for its establishment.55 Rather, the Quran delineates how to maintain religious

neutrality, as described in Chapter One. Therefore, An-Naim asserts, it is

fundamentally flawed to consider countries with Muslim majorities as ‘religious

states’. In fact, An-Naim claims that ‘[t]o be a Muslim, I need a secular state’ which

would maintain neutrality towards its citizens’ religious choices.56

In fact if not in IR theory or in Western ideology, multiple ways already exist to

practice secularism. It also seems to be perfectly possible for the particularities of a

culture to be embodied in a secular body politic without reducing the modern

character of a state. Concerns about the commensurability of Islam and democracy

therefore need not be considered a threat to modernity. Rather, this

commensurability can demonstrate how religion can be accommodated within a

modernist, secularist framework. Secularism when viewed as a concept capable of

accommodating religious differences that are central to a culture can provide for the

expression of religion that is required in Muslim majority countries so that religion

itself is not misinterpreted in the hands of extremists. The rise of religion within a

secular rubric need not be perceived as a threat.

Paradoxically, this can be most easily seen in the way that even authoritarian

leaderships in some Muslim majority countries have received direct or indirect

support from liberal democracies in the West. Regardless of their religious

affiliations, many of these regimes have been perceived as Western allies in the

effort to counter the rise of Islamism, and the West has found ways to work with

these states that belie the civilized/Islamic dichotomy. Nevertheless, the Arab Spring

and the holding of free and fair elections in some of the countries involved have

revealed how deep the place of religion is in Muslim majority societies. It is evident

from the return of the Islamists after democratic elections in Tunisia and Egypt, two

55 Abdullahi An-Naim, “Towards an Islamic Society, not an Islamic State”, Robin Griffith-Jones (ed),

Islam and English Law, p. 239. 56 Ibid, p. 241; italics original.

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 242

of the earliest Muslim majority countries that experimented with secularism, that

Islam is not only a religion but also a part of their culture that the people decline to

give up.

Democracy, another characteristic of an ideal modern sovereign state, has thus

acted as a tool to empower the masses in Muslim majority countries and this has led

the people to reject assertive secularist projects that have been imposed on them by

their leaders. As the two case studies of Turkey and Bangladesh show, religion needs

to be integrated with modernist perspectives in Muslim majority countries if a

backlash is to be avoided. In any case, the apparent repudiation of a state’s cultural

heritage is clearly viewed with skepticism by the international community, no matter

how assertively a modernist perspective has been applied. Both Turkey and

Bangladesh continue to be viewed by the West as ‘Muslim’ states, in spite of their

protests. This can be seen in the response to Turkey’s application to join the EU and

become part of the European community. Despite the imposition of an assertive

version of secularism designed to flag to the international audience that it was both

‘modern’ and Westernized, the country remains resolutely viewed as Islamic by the

West, with all the fears that that identity can provoke. The imposition of assertive

secularism in these states thus seems to be a lost cause.

Yet it is also clear that this conclusion has not yet been realized in Bangladesh, at

least. As democratic options have been opened up and the right to choose has

become available in both Turkey and Bangladesh, the people have opted for Islam-

based political parties, but this has produced quite different responses. On the one

hand, support for the AK Parti in Turkey has meant not only supporting the religious

overtures of the party but also the democratic and post-secular options offered. This

could be seen as a positive response to the problems of combining religion and

secularism. On the other hand, Bangladesh, where secularism is preached as a near

absence of Islam in the predominantly Muslim country, remaining secular has

brought about an increasingly undemocratic response from both the government

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 243

and parts of the population, with the result that a distinct pattern of Islamophobia

has emerged. In this new pattern, Islamic ideals, attire and way of life are feared as

signaling the spread of a radical version of Islam rather than the accommodation of

religion in the public sphere.57 Wearing the sari and giving up the hijab have

therefore been prescribed for Bengali women, while men have also been targeted

for wearing Punjabi, a traditional religious attire for Bengali men.58 Moreover, the

Awami League has found it necessary to withhold democratic elections in the

country since January, 2014, in the name of promoting secularism and battling

religious extremism.

These moves away from democracy in Bangladesh indicate that reconceptualizing

secularism from a non-Western and Islam-centric perspective is a matter of urgency.

While in Western countries the retreat of religion led to the rise of democracy and

liberalism, in Muslim majority countries the suppression of religion can lead in the

opposite direction. However, opening up a public space for religion need not mean

the rise of Islamic fundamentalism or barbarianism, as the West fears. On the one

hand, religion, i.e. Islam, has been indigenized in these states, and on the other,

Islam does not appear to be the kind of ‘problem’ that will lead to centuries of

religious wars as occurred historically in Europe. While Islamists in some Muslim-

majority countries are not prepared to give up their religious roots, they remain

insistently modern, as can be seen from their attitudes to women in their countries.

In Tunisia, for instance, these New Islamists are driven by a ‘slogan of identity’ that is

blended with ‘the freedoms of press, demonstration, expression, belief, and

women's rights [that do] not conflict with the country’s identity, moral values, and

the sacred in general’.59 In Bangladesh, too, Islam-based political parties have not

57 Interview with Ahmad Rafique, September 10, 2010. 58 MD Saidul Islam, “Minority Islam” in Muslim Majority Bangladesh: TheViolent Road to a New Brand of Secularism”, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 31, No.1, 2011, p. 126. 59 “Islamism and Identity in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia”, Tunisialive, September 6, 2013, located at <http://www.tunisia-live.net/2013/09/06/islamism-and-identity-in-post-revolutionary-tunisia/>, accessed on July 14, 2015.

Chapter 7: Reinterpreting Secularism 244

hesitated in making coalitions with either the Awami League or the BNP, both of

which are led by women. Indeed, Bangladesh was the first Muslim majority country

to have both a female head of the government and a female leader of the

opposition.

Nevertheless, without a reinterpretation of secularism, a clash of culture is likely to

continue to pervade in countries with Muslim majorities because a rigid

understanding of secularism from a Western perspective only makes the rise of

religion appear a threat to modernity. Post-secularism here does not seem to offer

enough. While Habermas has gone as far as accommodating a dialogue between the

secular and the religious in the public sphere, he does not accept the role of religion

in that sphere. In any case, Western states are already experiencing religious

debates on issues in the public sphere, such as the legalization of gay rights, without

really resolving the issue of how to combine secularism with a public religious

identity for the state. For that to happen, multiple secularisms are not only required,

but must be theorized as well. IR must take up this task.

Conclusion

The Future may be ‘post-Western’. It may be ‘anti-Western’. It cannot

be ‘non-Western’…Tomorrow’s Educated Persons will have to be

prepared for living in a global world. It will be a ‘Westernized’ world.

But the Educated Persons will also live in an increasingly tribalized

world. They must be able to be ‘citizens of the world’—in their vision,

their horizon, their information. But they will also have to draw

nourishment from their local roots and, in turn, enrich and nourish

their own local culture.1

This thesis has shown the role of ideas in shaping understandings and creating

certain meanings for any given term. The term, in this case, has been secularism,

which over time has become a misunderstood concept. On the one hand, it has

acquired the connotation of being an areligious or anti-religious concept through the

work of a certain section of Enlightenment thinkers. On the other, it has also been

identified as having a Western Christian origin and therefore having little relevance

for non-Western societies. In these differing understandings, the original meaning of

secularism as the accommodation of religious differences and the maintenance of

state neutrality towards its citizens’ religious choices, as other Enlightenment

thinkers had proposed, has largely been ignored by both Western and non-Western

thinkers alike. For instance, when Talal Asad and others point out that secularism’s

inherent flaw is that it can be used as a weapon of Western triumphalism over the

Rest, they too ignore the original conception of secularism as the accommodation of

religious choices. It seems that secularism needs to be redefined in terms of its

earlier meaning for both West and non-West. However, the concept of secularism

1 Peter F. Drucker, Post-capitalist Society, Butterworth Heinemann, 1993, p. 195.

Conclusion 246

has also become politicized. This has produced an intolerance of religion, particularly

of Islam, creating a situation that Turner has termed internal xenophobia. Therefore,

more is required than a simple redefinition of secularism. What is required is the

recognition of the efforts of Muslim majority states to find ways in which religion

and modernity can co-exist within a system of democratic pluralism acceptable to

the international community.

This discussion also needs to be brought into IR theory, despite the discussion

incorporating a wide range of issues from society to culture to politics and

international politics. Only the study of IR can answer how societal impacts can

affect a state’s choosing certain foreign policies that cannot be envisaged by any

other discipline. IR is a vast discipline. It includes Herbert Mead and Nietzsche,

Weber and Huntington—diverse to say the least. Yet the Weberian formulation of

secularism can aptly explain Huntington’s clash of civilizations thesis—especially in

terms of its foreign policy implications. Although IR is increasingly turning into a

‘mission impossible’, micro studies such as those undertaken in this thesis, can come

near to providing a reinterpretation and generalization on a particular concept—in

this context, secularism.

The Conformation of Sovereignty and Secularism as Areligious

Concepts

At the level of states, the supreme political organization known as the sovereign

state that emerged first in Europe as a result of the historical conflict between

religious and political authority doubly ties a people to a place. They are tied

geographically because of where they live, but they are also tied politically because

of the connection of sovereign power to territory. They are not necessarily tied

culturally, particularly in relation to religion. Yet the concept of sovereignty that

developed in Europe was predicated on a well-defined division between politics and

religion. While this developed into a separation between Church and state in relation

to authority over the territory, this conception of the sovereign state has become

Conclusion 247

universalized so that it is now the norm for states everywhere, irrespective of

whether it suits a state’s particular historical development. Indeed, the path of

development undertaken in Europe as a result of the Enlightenment project has also

been universalized as the path that all states must follow in order to find their place

in the world as modern members of the nation-state system. The Enlightenment

project in Europe envisaged the eventual death of religion as an outcome of

achieving modernity. As a consequence, the adoption of the European sovereign

state as the model that should be aimed for in attempting to establish a modern

identity as a state brings with it an insistence on secularism, even though the

distance between politics and religious affairs has not been fully realized or

maintained even in the heartland of the model. Western states in fact display a

range of approaches to religion, from accommodation to embracing outright bans on

the public expression of religion that fit within Kuru’s continuum from passive to

assertive secularism.2

Nevertheless, the original identification of the power of the Christian church as a

problem in relation to the management of a state has been transformed into a

perception that religion itself is the problem in relation to the development of a

modern nation-state. This perception is particularly problematic for Islamic states

because it has been coupled with a civilizational construction of Islam by some

Western scholars that has declared Islam in particular to be a hindrance to

modernity per se. This has put non-Western states with Muslim-majority populations

into the position of having to reimagine their place in the world in such a way that

the role of religion must be curtailed if they want to be considered by the rest of the

world as a modern civilized state.

Both the Muslim-majority states examined in this thesis took up this challenge

through the imposition of strictly secular state policies imposed by educated elites

2 Ahmet T. Kuru, “Passive and Assertive Secularism: Historical Conditions, Ideological Struggles, and State Policies toward Religion”, World Politics, Vol. 59, No. 4, July 2007, p. 571.

Conclusion 248

upon a population at large that had low literacy levels and little capacity to

understand the meaning of secularism or the need for such a policy. The result in

both cases has been the rise of reactionary politics. Political developments in Turkey

and Bangladesh are testimony to the difficulties that can ensue when the path to

modernity is perceived to have to follow that of the West so completely that existing

cultural and historical complexities must be ignored or suppressed. The indigenous

cultures in both countries are deeply infused with religion. By suppressing these

cultures, Islam has emerged as a resistant identity for the masses in these countries,

creating deeply segregated societies split along a modern/non-modern fault-line. It is

clear from these experiences that the conception of what can constitute a modern

state needs to change.

International Relations, however, emerged as an academic discipline based on

Enlightenment ideals, and has been dominated by a realist approach to relations

between states. This has had two inter-related implications for the discipline. First,

the concept of political sovereignty has been developed by the discipline into a

system that involves the separation of political and religious power within a state.

Increasingly, therefore, sovereignty has come to be seen as an areligious concept. It

has also developed as one of the many markers of civilization that non-Western

entities wishing to be a part of an international society of sovereign nation-states

must replicate. These assumptions have in turn produced an assertion of secularism

as also areligious. The two concepts, sovereignty and secularism, have seemed, then,

to match each other perfectly. The sovereign state was required to be secular inside

in relation to its public sphere in order to be a sovereign state, and because of this

requirement, was simply presumed to be secular outside, in relation to other states,

albeit that secularism within the internal sphere of states actually took a long time to

achieve. Second, the sovereign state has been routinely perceived as a unitary actor

in its dealings with other states. The consequence of these inter-related premises

has been that religion was simply removed from the concern of International

Relations while the identity of any one modern sovereign state was taken to adhere

to the same Western Enlightenment ideals that underpinned the discipline, and

Conclusion 249

therefore also did not concern it. In fact, the discipline has demonstrated a

teleological view of history that dictates that the European experience in developing

a sovereign nation-state system ‘could not have been otherwise’,3 and therefore,

could not assume any other form.

As a result, Enlightenment ideals have come to be considered the mark of a modern

civilized state for the discipline. The West has been established almost by default in

international relations as the epitome of a civilized culture that the non-West must

replicate in order to be considered as both modern and civilized. Although the

West’s particular identity was established over centuries during which it borrowed

heavily from civilizations based in the Middle East, India and China, including its

embrace of the Judeo-Christian tradition, it has also come to be seen as the polar

opposite of these cultures, particularly the Middle East which has been constructed

as the hub of Islam. The construction and reproduction of this understanding of the

Middle East has come to embody the binary creation of an us versus them/civilized

versus the uncivilized discourse that acquired an acute form in the wake of 9/11, but

which has since come to embrace all Muslim states, irrespective of where they are

located geographically. Actual place may well inform ‘what we really are’4 but so too

does metaphorical place. Post 9/11, all Muslim-majority states have tended to be

confronted with the misrecognition initially accorded to the Middle East.

With its largely positivist orientation and in the context of its emergence as a means

of addressing the requirements for maintaining structural peace among sovereign

states, the field of IR initially had little interest in culture and the issue of state

identity. Culture was only relevant in so much as it was necessary to know about an

enemy in order to confront it. Identity was barely mentioned until postcolonial

countries that were attempting to model their new states after the Western model

3 Dr (Mrs) Margaret Chatterjee, “The Meaning of History”, Principal Miller Endowment Lectures, delivered at the University of Madras on the 17 and 18 February, 1976, p. 22. 4Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”, Framework, Vol. 36, 1989.

Conclusion 250

of their colonial masters so as to be ‘modern’ found themselves confronted by a

population that was resistant to submerging its culture within such an

uncompromising model. The struggle postcolonial countries became engaged in was

all about creating a unique and meaningful identity for themselves. Although

mainstream IR typically ignored this during the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet

Union brought the identity concerns of states into a sharp focus. Issues relating to

norms, ideas, culture and identity began to be addressed within a new

understanding of the way the knowledge bases of the discipline had themselves

been constructed. The question of what motivated states began to be addressed as

well, since it was apparent that the concept of interests had been seen in much too

limited a way.

National identity and prestige is vital to the existence of a state, as the nation sees

itself through the prism of its state. It has been widely recognized that the wounded

ego of the Germans was easily exploited by Adolf Hitler who promised to raise the

German nation from the humiliation that it had suffered at the Treaty of Versailles in

1919.5 The works of not only Honneth, but also Will Kymlicka, Neil MacCormick and

Yael Tamir also demonstrate that self-respect at the personal level can be linked to a

flourishing national existence.6 Similarly, the works of Meyer Reinhold, Barry O’Neill,

and Richard Lebow demonstrate the relevance of prestige for states in international

politics.7 The US space program, for example, has often been referred to as an

American drive for prestige as well as technological dominance during the Cold War

period.8 The most recent Chinese drive to space has similarly been categorized as a

competition for national prestige vis-à-vis Japan and India, who are all vying for

5 Evelin Gerda Lindler, “Healing the Cycles of Humiliation: How to Attend the Emotional Aspects of “Unsolvable” Conflicts and the Use of “Humiliation Entrepreneurship”“, Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2002. 6 Jeff Spinner Halev and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, “National Identity and Self-Esteem”, Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 1, Issue, 3, 2003. 7 Steve Wood, “Prestige in World Politics: History, Theory, Expression”, International Politics, Vol. 50, No. 3, 2013. 8 Yanek Mieczkowski, Eisenhower’s Sputnik Moment: The Race for Space and World Prestige, Cornell University Press, 2013.

Conclusion 251

‘Asian prestige’.9 States as well as people ‘appear driven by their needs for self-

preservation, pleasure, recognition, and power but also needs for love, honor, and

esteem’.10

With this broader focus, the discipline can now begin to come to terms with the

need for a state to develop an image of itself that can be embraced by both itself

and other states. This is an issue that is of deep importance to a state and its people,

but it is a process that a state cannot do alone: it is reciprocal. The recognition of an

acceptable identity involves a ‘two-way complex of attitudes’ in which the responses

of the other are fundamental to how each can see itself.11 This is what has made the

rhetorical construction of the civilized versus the uncivilized dichotomy that has

been promoted in the West in the wake of 9/11 so dangerous. It has painted both

sides into corners in which the West sees Islam as a threat to civilization at large

while Islamists see the West as the root of all the ills of the non-West and especially

Islamic countries. This polarization can only be broken by seriously reconsidering the

role of religion in the construction of all societies, including those Western societies

that promote themselves as secular.

The overemphasis in traditional IR theory on maximizing realist goals as the sole

objective of any kind of identity projection overlooks the ways cultural, historical and

social identity is tied up with a state’s interests. It also raises the misleading (and

undemocratic) question of ‘[w]hat encourages religious actors to enter political,

social and economic debates?’12—as if their presence in these debates is an

anomaly. The question assumes that religious actors are normally separated from

political, social and economic issues and, for some inexplicable reason, are

9Craig Covault, “India Races China in Space for Asian Prestige, Military Security”, spaceref.com, located at <http://spaceref.com/asia/india-races-china-in-space-for-asian-prestige-military-security.html>, accessed on June 25, 2013. 10 Steve Wood, “Prestige in World Politics: History, Theory, Expression”, International Politics, Vol. 50, No. 3, 2013, p. 395. 11 Heikki Ikaheimo, “On the Genus and Species of Recognition”, Inquiry, Vol. 45, No. 4, 2002, p. 447. 12 Jeffrey Haynes, Introduction to International Relations and Religion, Pearson: Longman, 2007, p. 23.

Conclusion 252

attempting to re-enter these spaces. But this question can only be posed on the

assumption that the absence of religion from the public sphere is a norm of

modernity. The reality is that political actors who have strong religious beliefs bring

their religious identity with them when they enter the public realm. This is the case

in both the West and the non-West. Irrespective of how religion has developed

politically and ideologically, it continues to provide many people with guidance as to

how human life should be oriented, guided and improved. As such, it necessarily

becomes part of the way these people look at the world, and therefore a

fundamental part of their identity both individually and collectively. Considering

religion as an integral facet of a self’s identity, however, can explain the persistence

of religion. When this consideration is extended to the state as a self, its persistence

is further explained. It is here that the constructivist school in IR theory has a

significant contribution to make within IR’s original project as a discipline devoted to

finding ways of preventing conflict and promoting world peace. However, this must

be done in such a way that the efforts of the societies themselves are recognized and

valued. All states must satisfy a range of pressures within their territorial boundaries,

including the pressures exerted by the presence of very different population groups,

cultures and histories. Non-western states in particular, as a bloc, encompass an

enormous range of possibilities and pressures. To not recognize or to misrecognize

the uniqueness of the struggles they must engage with in order to present

themselves as a single coherent entity vis-à-vis other states in the international order

is both harmful and, in the end, unjust – even according to the standards of the

West.

The Struggle for Recognition and its Impact on Politics in the Islamic

World

States do not operate in a state of anarchy only to protect their interests, narrowly

defined in terms of power. International life is ‘social’ in the sense that it is through

Conclusion 253

ideas and intersubjective dealings that states ultimately relate to one another, and

‘constructivist’ in the sense that these ideas help define ‘who and what states are’.13

International life is also dynamic, so that it is not possible to fully capture it from a

purely structural or materialist perspective. Mainstream IR theory has lagged behind

in recognizing these characteristics of the state, but the seeds are there for this lack

to be addressed. This is important because state identities can determine a state’s

behaviour in ways that traditional theories of IR cannot explain. This means that if

religion is an integral element of a state’s internal identity, it cannot be viewed

externally in isolation or as an optional extra that can be dispensed with. The results

of doing so wereas seen in the in case studies.

Since the period of decolonization, newly sovereign states have struggled to create

their identities as modern nation-states. Initially the fascination with the West led

elites in these emerging states to attempt to replicate the Western state-system in

fashioning their own. However, the hegemonic Western order eventually came

under challenge because it simply could not encompass the cultural differences

within these societies. The rise of postcolonialism brought a new conception of

modernity as multiple, which provided a breathing space for non-Western states to

infuse their own cultural specificities into the body politic of global modernity.

Countries with Muslim majority populations, however, have remained caught in the

dilemma of how to be modern, not just because of the insistence on secularism as an

absence of religion rather than an absence or subordination of religious power, but

also more recently because of the polarizing effect of the civilized/uncivilized

dichotomy since 9/11. Although many countries with Muslim majority populations

have been intrigued by the West and for the most part have willingly embraced its

model of modernization, the impact of the West’s establishment of the state of

Israel on Arab-occupied lands and the consequent defeat of Islamic countries in the

13 Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, p. 372.

Conclusion 254

region by Israel have given rise to a politicized Islam as well as Islamic terrorism that

makes it even more difficult for Muslim majority states to embrace Western models.

Nevertheless, the term ‘political Islam’ itself is discomforting as it raises questions

regarding fundamental assumptions about how identities are formed. While general

assumptions in social science ignore the role of religion in the formation of identity,

religion is nevertheless part and parcel of both human and, consequently, state

identity. It is simply erroneous to assume that religion is attempting to ‘make an

entrance’ into the socio-political and economic scene (again). Rather, it is demanding

to be recognized as part of that scene’s history. As Eliade observes:

Nonreligious man descends from homo religiosus and, whether he

likes it or not, he is the work of religious man. … Do what he will, he is

an inheritor. He cannot utterly abolish his past, since he is himself the

product of his past. He forms himself by a series of denials and

refusals, but he continues to be haunted by the realities that he has

refused and denied.14

Religion never disappears in constructing an identity. It simply becomes political in

the context of being manipulated, as is done by extremist groups on both sides. As

has been pointed out, the concept of the coexistence of different religions emerged

first in Islam, although this assertion should not be construed as an attempt to

establish Islam’s supremacy over other religions. It is rather to point out that it is not

religion per se that is the problem, but the political manipulation of religion that

creates these misunderstandings.

It is possible for any state as the supreme political organization to maintain

neutrality towards the religious choices of its citizens. Nonetheless, when the attacks

of 9/11 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon revived interest in Samuel

14 Quoted in Ian Tregenza, “Secularism, Myth, and History”, C. Hartney (ed), Secularisation: New Historical Perspectives, Cambridge Scholars Press, forthcoming,

Conclusion 255

Huntington’s propositions on a clash of civilizations, militant Muslims in particular

were happy to concur with the idea of a battle against the West. However, this

polarization of the world according to religion presents states with Muslim majority

populations with an enormous dilemma. To avoid the implications of the clash of

civilizations thesis, pressed upon them as it has been by a hegemonic power, the US,

they need to prove their identities as modern states that do not endorse these

implications. But this need to project a ‘Muslim-yet-modern’ identity also requires

them to challenge the idealized version of secularism that has, at the same time,

come to be assumed to be a condition of being considered civilized because religion

must be allowed a place in the public culture of the state. To embrace secularism in

its strictest form is in the end impossible for these states because religion is

fundamental to the state’s identity–as the experiences of Turkey and Bangladesh

indicate. How then, can a Muslim state come to be recognized as a civilized member

of the modern state system?

The Lessons from Turkey and Bangladesh

Turkey and Bangladesh have undergone very different political experiences in their

emergence as sovereign nation-states, yet their beginnings are in some ways very

similar. In their initial attempts at building their identities as modern nation-states,

both rejected a role for religion in the public sphere. The political elites of Turkey

openly identified Islam as a civilizational construct and thereby endorsed the

Western view of Islam as anti-modern. For them it was obvious that religion had to

be contained within the private sphere. As a result, Turkey embraced a path of

assertive secularism in which the expression of religion, particularly through the use

of religious attire, was banned in state institutions. However, as the political space

opened up for democracy, the masses indicated considerable discontent at this

denial of their Islamic culture. At the same time, the population in general endorsed

Turkey’s desire for a place in the European Union, not only for the practical benefits

it was likely to bring but also as a powerful confirmation of their modern identity.

Turkish Islamists have, as a result, emerged as a strong influence in Turkish politics,

Conclusion 256

but this influence has been moderated because they have had to take into account

their own economic interests. This has led to the recent success of the Islamic AK

Parti in Turkish politics on the basis of its call for a redefinition of Turkish identity

that aims to accommodate the religious and ethnic identities of the Turkish people

while also keeping the political sphere free from religious manipulation.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, emerged as a negation of Pakistan’s fundamentalist

Islamic theocracy. Pakistan’s attempt to create an identity solely based on religious

identity was rejected by the Bengalis from the beginning and led instead to an

attempt to develop an identity based on a restricted ethnicity. Despite this history,

religion has been used extensively for the purposes of winning elections. As a result,

the formal imposition of secularism as a state principle has never been strictly

adhered to even by the elites who assert it. Nevertheless, the official endorsement

of secularism, combined with objections to the truncated ethnic identity imposed by

the political elite, has produced a strong reaction among Bangladeshis, resulting in

the rise of Islamism. Secularism has provided the battle-ground over the degree to

which Islam should be formally recognized in the public sphere, and therefore, the

degree to which Islam is to be seen as a fundamental characteristic of the state’s

identity both internally and externally.

These dilemmas of identity faced by both states raise fundamental questions about

the identity of these states as democracies. In both states, the practice of democracy

has been termed ‘illiberal’.15 In Turkey, democracy has given voice to the masses

who have voted overwhelmingly for the Islamists. However, state elites have refused

to accept this verdict of the people for fear of its potential damage to the state’s

reputation as a modern, potentially European state. In Bangladesh, while secularism

stands as an official policy of the state, politicians from all parties use religion as a

15 Berna Turam, Between Islam and the State: The Politics of Engagement, Stanford University Press, 2007, p. 3; Rashed Uz Zaman, “Bangladesh—Between Terrorism, Identity and Illiberal Democracy: The Unfolding of a Tragic Saga”, Perceptions, Vol. XVII, No. 3, Autumn 2012.

Conclusion 257

means of persuasion in order to capture state power at elections. The effects of

democracy mean that Islamic voices must be heard and taken into account when it

comes to who is to run the country, but the constitutional commitment to

secularism remains in spite of the adherence to Islam by the majority of the country,

and provides a mean to impose undemocratic measures to curtail those voices.

Both countries have thus emerged with deep divisions along the lines of

modern/unmodern and secular/religious that can easily be exploited by

fundamentalists on either side both within the countries and in the international

arena. Recent demonstrations in both Turkey and Bangladesh reflect this. The Gezi

Park issue and the Shah Bag movement respectively both began as protests about

local or immediate concerns that then escalated. While the protest in Turkey began

because of the proposal to close down Gezi Park, an urban outlet of fresh air in the

middle of Istanbul, so that the site could be developed, it was soon directed against

the Islamist government. The Shah Bag movement began as a protest against the

leniency of sentences given to collaborators in the Bangladesh’s Independence war.

It too escalated, this time into an argument over secularism. Although Slavoj Zizek

argues that popular outbursts are always directed against the structures of power,

issues of identity have fueled these escalations. In both cases, the identity of the

state at the elite level does not match or recognize the identity of the state at

ground level. This is a recipe for conflict, as Etienne Balibar reminds us:

[E]very nationalism—has an absolute singular way of defining

nationalism and, in particular, of projecting it on to others

(nationalism is an essentially projective ideology). In these

conditions, it is highly likely that any definition of nationalism will be

Conclusion 258

unacceptable to its addressees, since it confronts them with their

own misrecognition of themselves.16

In particular, identities that are ‘being administered from above, by political and

economic elites’ provoke ‘resistance that wells up from below’.17

However, the attempts of the Turkish Islamists to achieve a political identity can be

interpreted as a unique test case of whether democracy and Islam can coexist in a

modern state, only if the concept of secularism in its intended manner is revisited.

Aras argues that ‘the political experiences of Muslim societies in their own contexts

create a demand for a pluralist and democratic state’.18 However, recent events in

Egypt suggest that meeting these demands may bring results that are unacceptable

to other states, and to significant populations within those states. It is therefore not

simply a matter of democracy. The identity of the state matters, in particular its

religious identity. This can be seen in Bangladesh where there has been a rise of both

political and apolitical Islamist groups that are turning out to be significant actors in

the socio-political spheres in Bangladesh.

The experiments with modernity carried out in Muslim majority countries show that

whenever there has been a conscious attempt to remove Islam completely from the

public sphere, there has been a strong reaction against it. Religion stands as ‘the well

of the past’ that cannot be bypassed to create a modern identity, particularly for

Muslim majority countries. The experiments of disregarding the role of religion or

suppressing it have ended up actually strengthening the hand of Islamic extremists

and facilitating their rise, especially within a discourse of democracy in which Islamic

extremists have been able to fuel the dissatisfaction of the masses not by capitalizing

16 Etienne Balibar, Politics and the Other Scene, translated by Christine Jones, James Swenson, Chris Turner, Verso, 2002, p. 58. 17 Slavoj Zizek, “Trouble in Paradise”, London Review of Books, Vol. 35, No. 14, July 2013, located at <http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n14/slavoj-zizek/trouble-in-paradise>, accessed on July 1, 2013; Ulrich Beck, German Europe, translated by Rodney Livingstone, Polity Press, 2013. 18 Bulent Aras, “Turkey, September 11, and Greater Middle East”, E. Fuat Keyman (ed.), Remaking Turkey: Globalization, Alternative Modernities, and Democracy, Lexington Books, 2007, p. 234.

Conclusion 259

on their religious beliefs but rather by emphasizing the deep economic disparities

between the rich and poor.19 Although on the surface this seems to endorse Zizek’s

view of what drives resistance, the religious identity of the state is what is driving

this phenomenon.

Just as postcolonial authors have argued that the modern assumption of one-state

containing one-nation seems to be inapplicable to postcolonial countries, keeping

religion out of the public domain does not appear to work for countries with Muslim

majorities simply because religion is fundamental to the identities of these states.

Religion, that is Islam, has mostly been indigenized in these societies. As Eisenstadt

and other proponents of an alternative modernity have argued, a public sphere

completely void of religion cannot exist in these countries. This, of course, does not

conform to the West’s general understanding of a singular modernity. However, it is

producing unique experimentations aimed at finding ways in which religion and

modernity can co-exist within a democratic pluralism. These efforts on the part of

countries with Muslim majorities need to be recognized as reasonable and deeply

sincere responses to the demands that the West, particularly post-9/11, has imposed

upon them. Misrecognition of such efforts not only treats these experiments with

contempt. It leads towards further polarization and aggravation of the relationship

between the West and non-Western countries with Muslim majorities and in the

end, undermines the fundamental purpose of International Relations: peaceful

relations.

19Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide, Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 137.

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Appendix 1- List of Interviews

Bangladesh

Interviews were conducted with the following interviewees in Bangladesh between

September 2010 and January 2011.

1. Professor Imtiaz Ahmed, Department of International Relations, University of

Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

2. Professor Sirajul Islam Chowdhury, Department of English, University of Dhaka,

Dhaka, Bangladesh.

3. Professor Delwar Hossain, Department of International Relations, University of

Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

4. Professor Rashed Uz Zaman, Department of International Relations, University of

Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

5. Professor Sohela Nazneen, Department of International Relations, University of

Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

6. Professor Mujaffar Ahmad, Institute of Business Administration, University of

Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

7. Dr. Ahmad Rafique, eminent writer, activist during the language movement of

1952, receipient of the highest civilian honor given to a Bangladeshi citizen in 1995.

Appendix 1 326

8. Dr. Ali Riaz, Professor and Chair of the Department of Politics and Government,

Illinois State University, USA.

Turkey

Five interviews were conducted in Turkey with the following interviewees during

March, 2010.

1. Dr Ibrahim Mazlum, Department of Political Science & International Relations,

Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey (primary contact and advisor).

2. Associate Professor Yüksel Taşkın, Department of Political Science and

International Relations, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey.

3. Professor Dr. Fatmagül Berktay, Department of Political Science - International

Relations - Political Science, Istanbul University, Turkey.

4. Professor Haldun Gülalp, Professor of Political Science, Yildiz Technical University,

Istanbul, Turkey.

5. Dr Fulya Atacan, Department of Public Administration, Marmara University,

Istanbul, Turkey.

As advised in footnote 47 in the Introduction to this thesis, the primary research

material gathered in Turkey through these interviews was lost when baggage was

stolen in Istanbul. This material was unable to be replaced. Although insights into the

contemporary Turkish experience of secularism gained from these interviews have

informed the observations and argument presented in the thesis, it has not been

possible to acknowledge the individual sources and these insights have had to

remain at a general level.

Appendix 2 - Sample Questionnaires

Sample Questionnaire for Bangladesh

1. How would you define Bengali identity? Do you think that the ethnic Bengali identity

clashes with the state identity?

2. Being a predominantly Muslim country, does Bangladeshi identity clash with its

Islamic identity?

3. Would you consider yourself a Bangladeshi first or Muslim first? Why?

4. How would you define modernity? Do you think that modernity ends up being

“Western” only or could there be alternative forms of modernities?

5. Do you think modernity and Islam are mutually exclusive or can they be

accommodated together?

6. What is your opinion on Huntington’s “civilizational clash”? Do you think the West

and Islam are in tussle against each other?

7. Do you consider Bangladesh as a “Modern Country” or “Modern Islamic Country”?

Why?

8. How would you define Bangladesh’s sensitivity on the Israel issue?

Appendix 2 328

Sample Questionnaire for Turkey

1. How would you define Turkish identity? What are the essential elements of a Turkish

identity?

2. Does Turkish identity clash with an Islamic identity?

3. Is there a conflict of interest between Turkish identity at the personal level and

Turkish identity at the state level?

4. How would you define modernity? Do you think that modernity ends up being

“Western” only or could there be alternative forms of modernities?

5. Do you think modernity and Islam are mutually exclusive or can they be

accommodated together?

6. What is your opinion on Huntington’s “civilizational clash”? Do you think the West

and Islam are in tussle against each other?

7. Do you consider Turkey as a “Modern Country”? Why? Do you think Turkey is only a

“Modern Country” or also a “Modern Islamic Country”?

8. What were the reasons behind Turkey’s decision to recognize Israel?

10. How do you think that Turkey, establishing meaningful bilateral relations with

Israel, might be a role-model for other Islamic countries?

Appendix 3 - Ethics Approval

Ethics Secretariat

Dear Lailufar,

Dear Sir/Madam,

This email is to confirm that the following ethics application/s cited below received final

approval from the Macquarie University Human Research Ethics Committee:

Chief Investigator: Ms Lailufar Yasmin

Ref: HE31JUL2009-D00060

Date Approved: 6 January 2010

Title: "Struggle for recognition: Politics in the Islamic world after 9/11"

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Karolyn White

Director, Research Ethics

Chair, Macquarie University Human Research Ethics Committee

Ethics Secretariat

Research Office

Level 3, Research Hub, Building C5C East

Macquarie University

NSW 2109 Australia

T: +61 2 9850 6848

F: +61 2 9850 4465

http://www.mq.edu.au/research

Appendix 3 330

Consent Form for the Potential Participants in the Field Study

Name of the Study - “Struggle for Recognition: Politics in the Islamic World after

9/11”

You are invited to participate in the above mentioned study. The purpose of this

study is look at how Islamic World is creating its identity in the post 9/11

international environment. In the aftermath of 9/11, the Islamic countries are

viewed with suspicion by the West and often deemed as devoid of modernity, where

modernity is defined by Western standards. This study aims to find whether there is

only one type of modernity or multiple modernities and how the Islamic countries

are creating their own forms of modernity. As a corollary of the research, this study

also looks at Israel’s relationship with the Islamic countries.

This study is being conducted by Lailufar Yasmin (lailufar@gmail.com), a PhD

candidate in the Department of Politics and International Relations, Macquarie

University, Sydney, Australia, under the supervision of Dr. Lloyd Cox (Department of

Politics and International Relations; telephone: +61298504096).

If you wish to participate, you will be interviewed and the interview would be audio-

taped for the purpose of retaining information intact. The interview would take 30 to

40 minutes. I shall ask your opinion on the above mentioned issues. This interview

will be used to write chapters of my PhD thesis. Therefore, your opinion and

perception on the issue would be used in the study, but you would not be quoted

unless you provide your permission to do so. The outcome of the research would be

published either as monographs or journal articles. As you would participate

voluntarily, no remuneration would be given to you by the researcher. However, if

you wish to receive a copy of the final outcome, you will be sent one at the end of

the publication. It might be clarified that if you wish to withdraw at any point of the

interview, you are free to do so without having to give any reason or any

Appendix 3 331

consequences. If you wish to remain confidential, please mention it here and in that

case, even though your argument/perception might be mentioned, but your name

would not be quoted in the study.

I (the participant) have read and fully understood the information stated above and

any questions I have been asked have been answered to my satisfaction. I agree to

participate in this research knowing that I can withdraw from further participation in

the research at any time without any consequences. I have been given a copy of this

form to keep for any future reference.

Name of the Participant:

Would you like to remain Confidential? Yes No

Signature of the Participant: Date:

Would you like to be audio-taped? Yes No

Would you like a transcribed copy of your interview? Yes No

Name of the Investigator:

Signature of the Investigator: Date:

The ethical aspects of this study have been approved by the Macquarie University

Ethic Review Committee (Human Research). If you have any complaints or

reservations about any ethical aspect of your participation in this research, you may

contact the Ethic Review Committee through its Secretary (telephone

+61298507854; email: ethics@mq.edu.au). Any complaint you make will be treated in

confidence and investigated and you will be informed of the outcome.