VertigoGal said:
Sorry if my post isn't as intelligent as everyone else's, but I honestly don't know much about your country. So you can help me.
I know Turkey is a secular Muslim country...I was once reading an article that blew this off by basically saying they're forced to be secular by armies and such...the person made it sound like it was some kind of anti-religion, communist-like government. Now I know that's an exaggeration, but could you explain a little bit exactly what role religion plays, how the government operates, how the secular aspect is different from other Western secular countries, etc...just a basic overview for a clueless idiot.
I do know that your food is awesome though...I once went to a Turkish restaurant with my grandparents I think, and it was
ok, i should probably start off with a bit of history. 1918, WW1 was over for the ottoman empire, and they were on the losing side, along with the germans and austrians. after the war, the sultan basicly gave up and decided to deal with the occupying countries: french, british, greeks and italians. pretty much everyone. british invaded istanbul and iraq and most of middle east, french invaded the southeast and syria, greeks invaded the west, italians invaded the south and the british offered the east to the armenians so they could create their own country there (some armenian maps still show those territories as armenia). what would be left is basicly 1/8th of the country we have today, and that would be mostly mountain ranges and whatnot.
then there were local movements to fight off the invaders, but they were dispersed and not very effective. one of the army officials, mustafa kemal (later took the name ataturk) held a national congress in sivas, central turkey today, and started a major movement to fight off the invaders, in 1919. with whats left of the ottoman army and draft from the existing rebel movement, a proper army was put together, and the army fought off the greeks, and liberated the west. after that they liberated istanbul and british, french and italians just decided to leave turkey afterwards. in 1923, the republic was founded, and with it many reforms were put into motion - secularism, culture reforms, economic reforms, language reforms and basicly this changed the way of life all over the country, in a period of 10 years. the war torn nation in 1923 paid off its debts before the 30s, and the country was fundamentally changed.
the man who started everything, ataturk, was a general. after the introduction of the republic, there were several islamist insurgencies, which were quite effectively suppressed. the freedoms as we know them today were a gift of that great man, and the army that he lead. ataturk himself was not a religious man, and he believed that the only way to secure religious freedom in the country was to strip it from admistrative and judicial branches. only if the legislature and government was secular, they would treat the different religious beliefs equally. his political party, republican people's party, is a social democrat party which is the political stronghold of secularism. our army today is the most secular organization in the country, and it is a guarantee for us against the fundamentalist movements. what the west doesnt understand is we dont see the army as an oppressor, we trust our army and the job they are doing. actually, and quite sadly, the army today is the most trusted organization in the country, rating higher than the government, judiciary and the parliament. it is mostly the fundamentalists who complain about army's role because it is a roadblock for them. but a lot of the secular turks sleep easy at night knowing if anything was to happen, army is there to step in and protect the secular republic.
now, this is not anti-religion, because the aim is not to suppress religious beliefs, it is to keep them away from the administation of the country. religion here is seen as a private matter, not a public issue. everyone is free to practice their religious beliefs as long as they dont try impose them on others.
there is an state sponsored organization, the religious affairs office, that basicly trains and assigns imams to local mosques and if the request is made to places like germany where there is a high muslim concentration. they have no influence on politics or judiciary. laws are NOT based of religion.
that was kinda long but it was sort of necessary to fully explain the role of the army and the whole issue of secularism. i hope that cleared some of the things you werent sure about