Prof. Liu Zhongmin: Turkiye’s Dilemma of Wandering between East and West Identity; between Secular and Islam Identity
November 2023
The modern state has strong subject-constructive characteristics because it is not composed of natural ties of blood or geography, but modern state is based on specific institutional arrangements, integrating the people in a certain region into a unified community that shares common institutional arrangements. National identity is not only the basis and premise for the construction of a modern country, but also the guarantee for the maintenance and prosperity of a modern country. Specific to Turkey, although Kemal and his successors tried their best to construct an identity and political discourse system with secularism, nationalism and Westernization as the core.
Kemal and his successors were caught in the identity politics dilemma of the long-term collision and competition between religious and secular, Eastern and Western identities, which is what Liang Qichao called the fate of “wanting to hatch into a different body, but not being able to do so”.
The reason for this phenomenon is that the Turkish nation has been in a state of crisis.
The reason for this phenomenon is the disconnect between history and reality in the establishment of the Turkish nation-state, which often faces a path-dependent crisis of legitimacy.
Religious-secular conflicts and the dilemma of identity politics in Turkey
The Ottoman Empire was an autocratic monarchy that combined politics and religion.
The empire’s administrative institutions were divided into two major systems: religious and secular.
The Sultan-Caliphate system of Ottoman empire combined secular and religious powers.
While Islam had the status of the state religion, the state implemented the “millet” system, which allowed the coexistence of multiple religious and secular groups.
The “Millet” system was a religious and ethnic autonomy system for non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire.
“Millet” system consisted of non-Muslim religious groups or clans (i.e., millets) which had their specific religious, cultural, and educational institutions.
These groups maintained their own languages and scripts, and enjoyed full internal autonomy, without harming the interests of the empire and paid taxes.
Its content was that non-Muslim religious groups or clans (i.e., “Millets”) had special rights and interests on the basis of not harming the interests of the empire and bearing taxes. Religious, cultural and educational institutions could maintain their own spoken and written languages and fully enjoy internal autonomy.
The implementation of the Millet system was conducive to the stability of the multi-ethnic and multi-religious Ottoman Empire, and was also conducive to easing religious and ethnic class conflicts and promoting social and economic development.
A series of reforms in the late Ottoman Empire widened the identity rift between Muslims and non-Muslims, and also created conflicts and disputes between religion and secularity. With the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, the proportion of the Muslim population in the remaining territories of the empire continued to increase. After Turkey and Greece completed the population exchange in 1920s, 98% of the population in Turkey were Muslims, objectively forming a realistic national situation in which the Muslim population dominated.
In the process from the “disintegration” of the Ottoman Empire to the “rebirth” of the Turkish Republic, how to deal with the relationship between religious belief and secular culture has become a major historical proposition facing Turkey. Mustafa Kemal and the elites which Kemal led argued that religion was the main obstacle to progress, rationality and modern civilization. They completely equated modernity with Westernization (Europeanization) and advocated cutting off ties with the Ottoman Empire and traditional religion in the country.
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