Ataturk's secular vision still thriving

Each morning, as dawn breaks, one awakens to the sound of the first Islamic call to prayer. The muezzin’s voice, beautifully atmospheric as it echoes and resonates about the town, will be heard another four times before midnight.

Each day, as well, around 5pm (11am and 5pm on Sundays), the bells of a nearby Christian church are tolled. On a personal level, this brings to mind childhood Sunday mornings, and my mother shepherding us the mile or so to church, our pace changing to the diktat of three successive patterns that summon us from across the fields.

During the first “bell”, we ambled along at our leisure; the second quickened our step; and by the time of the single, dull thud of the final third, we were almost running.

Although I’m sure it is present to some degree, one gets no sense of competitiveness between the daily Muslim and Christian rituals I have described. The muezzin’s call and the Christian bells enjoy an amicable coexistence, signalling no more than simple declarations of faith by the religious representatives of communities who are free to worship as they choose.

But then this is Turkey, functioning as Ataturk, its architect, intended it to: as a modern, secular state, a shining example to much of the rest of the world, and not least to the region in which it is situated.

Ataturk loved his religion (Islam) but recognised that mixing and confusing it with politics was to its detriment: “The religion of Islam will be elevated if it will cease to be a political instrument, as had been the case in the past.”

As in much else, Ataturk was ahead of his time. And his thinking was, and in some instances still is, some distance ahead of many majority Christian nations.

Ataturk’s concept of personal freedom was not restricted to that of religious practice. Under his direction Turkey granted the vote to women as early as 1934. He declared: “There is no logical explanation for the political disenfranchisement of women. Any hesitation and negative mentality on this subject is nothing more than a fading social phenomenon of the past. Women must have the right to vote and to be elected; because democracy dictates that, because there are interests that women must defend, and because there are social duties that women must perform.”

He was equally robust on what freedom and independence must mean for his country: “By complete independence, we mean of course complete economic, financial, juridical, military, cultural independence and freedom in all matters. Being deprived of independence in any of these is equivalent to the nation and country being deprived of all its independence.”