Berkley Center

During the reign of the Ottomans in Istanbul, the ringing of church bells was outlawed in the city, as no sound was allowed to compete with the Muslim call to prayer. Religious minority communities in Istanbul had permission to control their own legal affairs and schools, but the public face of the Empire’s capital city was that of Islam. Istanbul’'s urban landscape, built on top of seven hills, reflects many echoes of the past. The histories of Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Islam wind throughout the streets of Istanbul, and the city’'s minarets anchor the skyline, despite the recent emergence of skyscrapers, which seem out of place among the ruins of Ottoman and Byzantine fortifications. Today, one can still hear the Muslim call to prayer sound five times a day from the city’'s numerous minarets, but the place of Islam in modern Istanbul and the rest of Turkey is less clear and more divisive than it has been in past eras.

The tension between religiosity and secularism in Turkey can be felt and experienced in Turkey’'s capital, Ankara, the city built in Anatolia by Kemal Atatürk to serve as the new capital of the Turkish republic. Atatürk, the Republic’'s founder and first president, purposely chose to build his new capital several hours south of Istanbul, the central city of Turkey’'s Ottoman past, in order to break with history and place the capital closer to the people of Anatolia. In Ankara, in contrast to Istanbul, the cityscape features hard, cold, tall buildings whose construction clearly reflects ideas of function and efficiency rather than the distinct architectural styles of the many Ottoman rulers. In Ankara, the minarets seem out of the place and the call to prayer rings hollow as it bounces off the tall steel and concrete structures. In fact, to the outside observer, at least, the dominant “religion” in Ankara seems to be the so-called “cult of Atatürk,” a term used to describe those who unquestioningly embrace the model for progress and development Atatürk prescribed for Turkey. In keeping with Atatürk'’s vision for Turkey, the government has instituted French-style policies of secularization, which prohibit women from wearing headscarves in places such as universities.

As a participant in Georgetown’'s McGhee Center program, I have had the opportunity, over the past two weeks, to meet with many members of Turkish society working on various political, social, and environmental issues within Turkey. I and the nine other McGhee Center students have had the chance to ask them many different questions about Turkey, but almost all of them have had, initially, one question in specific for, well, not all of us, but for one of my peers in particular. This student happens to be Muslim and to wear a headscarf. Prompted both by her name, which is of Turkish origin, as well as her headscarf, the questions this student receives about her nationality and heritage are certainly never vicious or condescending, but it has been a surprise to most of us studying at the McGhee Center this semester how many times our friend must insist that she has been born and raised in the United States of America before her questioner believes that she tells the truth about her birthplace and nationality. When this student asked a member of parliament about the headscarf issue, he treated it diplomatically, clearly in deference to her, but also denied, as David Remnick wrote in an article entitled "“The Experiment: Will Turkey be the Model for Islamic Democracy?"” in the New Yorker, that, “when asked if his [Atatürk’s] wife would wear a headscarf at public events, he [Atatürk] replied, ‘"I won't take her along.’”"

Turkey, certainly, is in a period of extremely complicated transition as it negotiates with the European Union for acceptance, attempts to find a place as a peace broker in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and struggles to maintain its integrity in the recent debate over the use of the word “genocide” to describe the murder and forced removal of hundred of thousands of Armenians during the early twentieth century. And each of those issues is further complicated by religion, even though over 99 percent of Turks identify as Muslim. How will Turkey begin to resolve the issues within in Muslim majority and cope with the many pressures that cause its politicians and other prominent figures to swing one way or the other in regards to issues of secularization? I, for one, hope to gain a much better understanding of that question as my semester progresses, but, for now, it seems that Turkey has many obstacles and debates to face before the religious identity of its citizens can serve as a strong source of unification and commonality when dealing with issues of society and politics.