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Abstract
‘Europe’ is supposed to be an Enlightenment project that embodies the accumulated experiences of modernity. This project declares that secularism and human rights are the basic conditions for creating an ideal world that is expected to be embodied within the institution of the European Union. The integration of Europe has been based above all on the acceptance of standardized human rights that are the expression of the heritage of the Enlightenment. The realization of human rights requires political neutrality towards all religions, which in turn guarantees the legal equality of all citizens. It is only if secularism can be made the social and legal foundation of Europe that Turkey's accession to the EU as a Muslim country might be made possible. Otherwise the EU is most likely to remain a Christian-oriented union within a non-secular context. However, there seems to be some resistance to accepting Turkey on religious grounds. This in turn undermines the so-called ‘European values’ (at the top of which is secularism) and revives the religious memory of Europe. The cases investigated in the European Court of Human Rights demonstrate that religious differences are still taken into account within the European project and that this has become a new barrier to the true realization of ‘European values’. This paper aims to analyze the causes and effects of this encounter and the ways in which it is viewed within the Turkish–Islamic world with special references to its role in shaping a nationalist or Islamist identity that may work to counter Turkey's integration with Europe.
Acknowledgements
The editors would like to extend their gratitude to Hussein Mohammed and Ben Zala for their work in the preparation of this piece. I would like to thank Fatma Benli, Ramazan Yelken, Ertan Özensel, Mahmut Akın, Adem Seleş, and Muharrem Balcı for their help in the preparation of this article.
Notes
1 For a good analysis of the history and background of the formation of Christian Democratic parties see, Nigel Meek, ‘The Nature of Christian Democracy: A Review and Critique of Maurice Glasman's Unnecessary Suffering: Managing Market Utopia’, Economic Notes 95 (2003): <http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/econn/econn095.htm>.
2 Jon Keane, ‘Civil Society and the State’ (paper presented at conference, Sabanci University, Istanbul, 23 September 2005).
3 Martyn P. Thompson, 1994, ‘Ideas of Europe during the French and Napoleonic Eras’, Journal of the History of Ideas 55, no. 1 (1994): 39.
4 One should also mention the controversial aspect of such a dichotomy of Europe and Islam. ‘Islam’ is the name of a religion, while ‘Europe is the name of a geographical continent without indicating its supposed religion. But in this dichotomization one is inclined to attach Europe a religious nature.
5 Maurice Barber, ‘Towards a Definition of French Secularism’, translated by Gregory Elliott, <http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/IMG/pdf/0205-Barbier-GB.pdf>
6 Talal Asad, ‘Reflections on Laïcite & the Public Sphere’, Items & Issues 5, no 3 (2005): <http://publications.ssrc.org/items/v5n3/index.html>.
7 Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World of Civilization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974).
8 Sabah Gazetesi, 17 November, 2007, <http://arsiv.sabah.com.tr/2005/11/17/gnd104.html>.
9 C.W. Watson, Multiculturalism (Buckhingham, UK: Open University Press, 2000), 10.
10 Charles Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, in Campus Wars: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Difference, ed. John Arthur and Amy Shapiro (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995); Yasin Aktay, ‘Küreselleşme ve Çokkültürlülük’, tezkire, no. 35 (2004).
11 ‘The German case began in 1998, when a series of German courts debated whether the school authorities in Stuttgart could deny a civil service position as an elementary school teacher to Fereshta Ludin, an Afghani woman, solely because she refused to take off her headscarf while teaching. Ultimately in 2003 the Federal Constitutional Court ruled in Ludin's favor, but only because the state of Baden-Württemberg did not specifically ban headscarves (a failing the state legislature speedily remedied the following year). Central to the legal debate was whether wearing a headscarf was consistent with the civil service official's duty to neutrality and moderation. In this context, the headscarf raised two fears: (i) religious conversion—the court repeatedly expressed the concern that the sight of an authority figure wearing a headscarf would lead the pupils to adopt Ms. Ludin's views—even though she repeatedly claimed no interest in this and was even willing to tell her students that the headscarf was a ‘fashion accessory;’ and (ii) political Islam—here the courts repeatedly drew a connection between Ms. Ludin's headscarf and the Islamist movements, especially those that sought to repress women.' Robert A. Kahn, ‘The Headscarf as Threat? A Comparison of German and American Legal Discourses’, Berkeley Electronic Press Legal Series (2006), article 1504, <http://law.bepress.com/expresso/eps/1504>.
12 European Convention on Human Rights, <http://www.hri.org/docs/ECHR50.html>.
13 For the details of what happened during this process see Bekir Berat Özipek, ‘28 Şubat ve İslamcılar’, in Modern Türkiye'de Siyasi Düşünce; İslamcılık, ed. Yasin Aktay (Istanbul: iletişim Yayınları, 2004), 640–51.
14 For a good analysis of the process of the coup d'état 28 February 1997 and for the sociological and political analysis of Islamism within this process see M. Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
15 Refah Partisi (The Welfare Party) and Others v. Turkey, Judgment, Strasbourg, 31 July 2001 (applications nos 41340/98, 41342/98, 41343/98, and 41344/98), <http://folk.uio.no/chrismoe/papers/Strasbourg_Islam.v1a.rtf>.
16 Joint dissenting opinion of Judges Fuhrmann, Loucaides and Sir Nicolas Bratza, Refah, 35–47, <http://folk.uio.no/chrismoe/papers/Strasbourg_Islam.v1a.rtf>.
17 Joint dissenting opinion, 38, <http://folk.uio.no/chrismoe/papers/Strasbourg_Islam.v1a.rtf>.
18 Numerous applications have been made to the ECHR by Kurdish citizens claiming that they had exhausted all options within the Turkish legal system. Irrespectively of whether the Kurdish claims are right or wrong, and given the existing separatist struggle in southeastern Turkey, the attitudes of the ECHR appear to most Turks to be encouraging Kurdish separatism in Turkey. In most cases the ECHR approves the claims of the applicants and sentences Turkey to pay compensation. The same situation is repeated in the cases of Alavite applicants who claims their religious rights are violated by the majority Sunni group in Turkey.
19 For example, the Turkish daily newspaper Zaman (whose readers are mainly conservative Muslims) announced the decision of the ECHR with the headline ‘Support from the ECHR to the Prohibitory Attitudes Concerning the Headscarf’ (Emre Demir, Zaman, 16 February 2006). Under the headline the article goes on to state that ‘Having decided that prohibiting the headscarf in the University is not a violation of human rights the ECHR is continuing to reject the applications of women with headscarf cases. After the case of Leyla Şahin, the Court rejected also the applications of the students of Imam-Hatip schools and one academic … there are more than a hundred of such cases waiting for the Court and none of them is expected to be accepted by the Court whose reference is its decision in the Case of Leyla Şahin.’ <http://www.zaman.com.tr/webapp-tr/haber.do?haberno = 256619>.