Two scandals related to insults occurred in Turkey last week and serve as an example of a problem relevant to Muslims not only in Turkey.
The first scandal was provoked by the lyrics of a re-released song by Sezen Aksu, which can be called the Turkish Alla Pugacheva. These words, addressed to Adam and Eve, which we will not reproduce here, can be considered «freethinking» from a secular point of view, but they are considered blasphemy and an insult to the Prophet from a religious, Islamic point of view. In response, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, «No one has the right to open his mouth about Adam and Eve, otherwise it will be our duty to rip out his tongue. However, so far there have been no consequences for the «Turkish Alla Pugacheva», but journalist Sedef Kabash became a target for insulting the president.
Without naming Erdogan, but discussing who might become president after the next elections, she said, «If a big-horned cow moves into the palace, it will not become a king, but the palace will become a barn. The arrest of the popular journalist and the harsh words against the popular singer have exacerbated the divisions within Turkish society, which are growing against the backdrop of economic problems.
Interestingly, not only secular parties such as the Kemalist CHP and the post-Marxist HDP, but also a number of opposition parties and politicians belonging to the conservative flank (Ahmet Davutoglu, Ali Babacan, Meral Aksener) have spoken out against the prosecution of her.
Such an approach on their part can be perceived as a manifestation of religious hypocrisy or even disbelief in the case of defending Sezen Aksu, considering the insult to something sacred for Muslims. But it is necessary to understand — in what coordinate system do they operate and what does it mean to them? If we are talking about a religious coordinate system, then everything is clear — not only insults, but even the slightest disrespect towards the prophets is unacceptable in Islamic society. And if such a thing happened in a Sharia state, the person who did it would have been held accountable, as is regularly the case in Pakistan. But is Turkey a Sharia state?
As we recall, all proposals to introduce language about Sharia governance into the constitution, and even timid language about Islam as the state religion, have not been supported by Turkish society as a whole or by Erdogan’s ruling party in particular (https://golosislama.com/news.php?id=29602).
As a result, Turkey remains a secular state, but a country of Muslim historical and cultural significance, which is a consensus embraced by the ruling AKP and MHP coalition. Commenting on Erdogan’s party’s 2016 dissociation from the «Muslim Brotherhood»* and its alliance with the military and party nationalists, we wrote at the time that it should be taken seriously.
Whether it is a Sharia system or a system of a secular nation-state, there are certain frameworks and rules of the game, and by accepting them, one must understand what they require. No, these words should not be understood as an accusation against Erdogan for choosing nationalism instead of Sharia. If he had acted differently, he would probably have shared the fate of the martyr (Insha’Allah) Mohammed Morsi long ago, and for roughly the same reason — just as this course did not have the necessary support in Egypt, it has even less support in Turkey.
How does this situation in Turkey apply to other Muslims in similar circumstances? There is an anti-religious camp that constantly attacks religious values and insults the other camp — the religious camp — with caricatures of Mecca or insults to Adam and Eve. Previously, the power was in the hands of the representatives of the first camp and they oppressed the second camp, but now it seems that they have changed places.
But if that is the case, why did Sezen Aksu not end up behind bars for insulting the Prophet, but Sedat Kabash for insulting Erdogan, even though from a religious point of view the priorities should have been the opposite? That’s because in a secular state like Turkey, there is no punishment for insulting the prophets, but there is punishment for insulting the president, which is often applied even in such ambiguous cases as this one.
The problem is that over the decades of the republican regime, Turkish society has formed its own public and political culture, which implies freedom of expression. Moreover, for a long time it did not apply to representatives of the religious camp who had to be held accountable for their words, as was the case with the current president and former mayor of Istanbul, Erdogan, who was sentenced to ten months in prison for reciting a religious poem.
Commenting on the whole situation, Meral Aksener, the leader of a party that can be considered moderately conservative, reminded everyone: «Contemporary Turkey is experiencing a period in which former victims who were imprisoned for their poems are now imprisoned for their poems.» However, no one has been imprisoned for poetry yet, but the idea itself is understandable, and it is interesting in this regard to note Aksener’s promise, whose positions within the opposition camp have been strengthening lately as she attracts religious voters. «Soon this mentality will be a thing of the past and justice will prevail in Turkey,» she promised, which can be interpreted as a refusal to oppress both the religious and secular camps.
But let’s conclude. If we face the truth, the contradictions between the religious and «secular» value systems will not disappear, and there are only two radical ways and one compromise way to live with it. The radical ways are either a religious or an anti-religious state, where the opponents of the regime would be banned. The compromise is a model in which both the religious and the anti-religious can exist, and their representatives would have the recognized freedom of speech. Undoubtedly, in some cases, this will lead to the violation of the values of the other camp and the feelings of its representatives. The question, to which there is no simple answer, is how to teach the representatives of these camps to behave in such a way that peaceful coexistence is possible. Is it possible to find the line where freedom of speech turns into insult and not to cross it? Or is it impossible to avoid wars and radical solutions?
In the photo: Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Sedat Kabash and Meral Aksener. * Banned in Russia.