The Anachronistic Kemalist Ideology: Fascist & Bankrupt

By Khalid Amayreh

PIC, June 15, 2008

Underscoring the ideological rigidity of the ultra-secular but  undemocratic Kemalist ideology, Turkey’s Constitutional Court this week ruled that Islamic headscarves violated secularism and can’t be allowed at universities and other public institutions.

The verdict overrides a recent decision by the Turkish parliament allowing hijabs at universities as a matter of personal and religious freedoms. It also sets up  the controversial court above parliament and even above the collective will of the Turkish masses. 

Indeed, it is more than mind-boggling to see female Muslim students granted full freedom to attend universities in Europe and North American with their headscarves on while Turkish students are  denied  the same freedom in a country where Muslims constitute nearly 99% of the population.

The military-dominated Kemalist establishment, which has been steadily  losing public appeal as evident from  the outcome of the two latest general elections, claims  that the “hijab” constitutes a mortal threat to the safety and survival of secularism in Turkey.

This rationale, however, is as irrational as  silly  since it is beyond the pale of commons sense to think that a small piece of cloth covering a woman’s hair poses a threat to the survival of secularism. In fact, one might argue that a secular regime that can’t tolerate, let alone survive, a woman’s headscarf is not worth maintaining.

Besides, true secularism  shouldn’t  really interfere with people’s choices and personal freedoms.

Non the less, it is obvious that the  Turkish  court as well as the military establishment and their  allies in the media and business sectors have long come to   view  secularism as a kind of religion whose raison d’etre  is to counter and if possible  eradicate Islam.

To the chagrin of  the anti-Islam Kemalist establishment, however,   nearly nine decades of   fundamentalist secular inquisition  have utterly failed to realize this sinister  goal Turks  continued to express their respect of  and adherence to Islamic teachings and ideals.

Fascist ideology

While paying lip service to democracy, the Kemalist ideology  actually shows little respect for genuine democracy and human rights. Kemalism (the political philosophy of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of Modern Turkey) emphasizes the ideals of secularism, republicanism, nationalism,  authoritarianism and patriotism. However, the ideals of  democracy, human rights, civil liberties, civil society are discouraged and if necessary crushed, often through  direct interference and intervention by the military.

The Kemalists say their goal is to “secularize and westernize” every aspect of Turkish life. However, these pseudo agents of western culture have utterly failed to adopt the basic western concepts of democracy and human rights.

Instead, they repeatedly acted to  suppress and repress the will of the people whenever  free elections produced governments the military establishment deemed incompatible with the Kemalist philosophy.

This military establishment had carried out  at least three military coups against civilian governments in 1960, 1971 and 1981, leading to the dissolution of  well-established  political parties.

In 1998,  the same notorious  constitutional court rubber-stamped a decision by Turkish Generals to ban the country’s leading political party, the Refah (wellfar) Party for “constituting a threat to secular order.”

Prior to the decision, the military establishment waged a war of attrition against Prime Minister Necmettien Erbakan on several fronts, including the media, the all-powerful National Security Council and the courts. The military also pursued a  foreign policy of its own  by forging a strategic military alliance with another pseudo democracy in the Middle East, Israel.

This happened in a state which hypocritical western leaders  kept referring  to as the “other democracy in the Middle East.”

Now, in addition to  re-banning the Hijab from university campuses, the constitutional court is flying in the face of the vast majority of Turks by threatening to ban the ruling and most popular party in Turkey, the Justice and development Party (AKP), headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Earlier this year, AKP once again won an overwhelming election victory  following a standoff with the Kemalist establishment which had been organizing massive street protests in an effort to bring the government down.

However, it is obvious that  the secular fundamentalists in Turkey   are unfazed by the clear popular mandate granted to AKP by the Turkish masses,  which explains their continued plots to corrode democracy and defy the will of the Turkish people.

Bankrupt

Unlike Marxism, for example, Kemalism is not an all encompassing ideology that provides explanations for such issues as history, society, man, God, ethics and nature. Hence, it lost much of its appeal  especially in the past two decades as many societies and individuals reverted to religious ethos to ensure moral integrity and social cohesion.

Beside its intellectual bankruptcy, the Kemalist establishment has also been quite opportunistic. In 1980, the leaders of the military coup, staged a military coup  to stem the rising  tide of violence between right-wing ultra-nationalists and militant Marxists.

Then, the establishment  saw the great merit of encouraging Islamic ideas and education as an antidote to Marxism. In 1982, military government  made the teaching of Islam compulsory in secondary education, something that had been optional since 1967. (see Turkey: Erbakan’s Legacy, Middle East International, 11 July, 1997)

However, when Islamic or quasi-Islamic parties,  which really don’t differ much from Christian Democratic parties in Europe,  the Kemalists hastened to suppress them, arguing that secularism came before and overrode democracy.

Crossroad

Today, Turkey stands at a cross-road, which leads either to true democracy, development and modernity, or takes  the country back into the throes of military dictatorship that would hang prime ministers for  the pettiest deviation from the Ataturk line of thinking.

Mustafa Kemal, his worshipers must realize, was not Prophet Muhammed or Jesus Christ. And his ideals and principles don’t constitute a holy scripture. 

Hence, the free will of the Turkish people  should always override  malicious efforts by the diehard Kemalist old-guards  to perpetuate a sacrosanct ideology that had outlived its usefulness a long time ago.

In short, the Turkish people has every right to shun  the anachronistic Kemalist ideology and  free itself from the claws of  its reactionary symbols, including the constitutional court.

Otherwise, Turkey will remain under the mercy of  its  self-serving generals and anti-democratic elites who so contemptuously and impetuously continue to disregard the will of the people.