Page - 117 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Volume 2:1

117 | www.limina-graz.eu hande Birkalan-Gedik | muslim | martyr | masculine To borrow from Ram’s typology, nationalism in this period was a typical example of “strong nationalism/weak religionism” when the Turkish “na- tion” became equal to the Turkish “race” (Çağaptay 2006; Eissenstat 2004). In broader terms, this specific version of nationalism is a vision created by Turkey’s founding figure and first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who wanted to establish a culturally unified “nation,” incorporating a western- ized, secular society in which the military, among other state institutions, played the role of the guardian of democracy and secularism. Most of the military coups in Turkey can be traced back to this idea. Yet, this is not to mean that religion was completely disregarded. To the contrary, the Turkish state always had, in one form or another, a symbiotic and perplexing relationship with religion. The state’s male elite had a com- plex relationship with religion and used different forms and strategies to “control,” “eliminate” or “use” religion in different periods and contexts. Thus, the term “laïcité,” meaning religion being separated from the state, cannot entirely hold true in the case of Turkey. After the proclamation of the Turkish Republic, the Republicans introduced a series of laicizing reforms in civil law, education, and social life to elimi- nate the influence of religion over the state affairs. These reforms included the abolition of the caliphate, the abolition of the medreses and the Sufi lodges and the standardization of education (Tevhid-i Tedrisat), and were accepted by the National Assembly on 3 March 1924. While there had been several efforts towards secularism, secularism (or laïcité) was first intro- duced by the 1928 amendment to the Constitution of 1924, which removed the provision declaring that the “Religion of the State is Islam.” After the abolition of the caliphate and the Ministry of Islamic Law and Foundations (Şer’iye ve Evkaf Vekaleti) in 1924, the Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı (the Directorate of Religious Affairs) was formed as a new government agency in 1924. The establishment of Diyanet (hereafter) illustrates the state’s overt desire to control religion through its secularist vision.3 As Ah- met Erdi Öztürk recently argued, “the relationship between the two forces has not always been hostile, as there have been periods of engagement as well as co-optation” (Öztürk 2016). Attached to the Office of the Prime Minister, the Diyanet became responsible for carrying out activities related to Islam. Today, the Diyanet controls and coordinates religious affairs in Even in the Early Turkish Republic, the Turkish state always had a symbiotic and perplexing relationship with religion. 3 The Directorate of Religious Af- fairs belonged to the Turkish Prime Ministry until the implementation of the presidential system, which is es- tablished by the AKP. Today it func- tions under the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey under the name Presidency of Religious Affairs.