Professor Mehmet Altan: 'We need urban religiosity for normalization'

Professor Mehmet Altan, who teaches at İstanbul University’s department of political economy, believes that the fight that is presented as one between secularists and Islamists is really in essence a class conflict in which religion is used as a tool.

“Religion was unfortunately turned into a tool used in the fight between state elitists and the poor masses, which are searching for a power domain based on religion. For normalization, we need a third way, one which I call urban religiosity,” Professor Altan says.***

He describes this fight as a conflict between the barracks and the mosques. According to him, this barrack-mosque conflict is the real class struggle in Turkey. In an exclusive interview with Today’s Zaman, he argued that the only way out of this conflict, aside from normalization and democratization, is urban religiosity.

In his new book, titled “Urban Religiosity,” he describes an urban pious Muslim as someone who practices his or her religion without imposing any prohibitions on others. According to him, in the cities, where pluralism exists in every field by default, an urban pious Muslim is someone who respects pluralism and is interested in the philosophical aspects of the religion. For Altan, Islamic societies and dervish lodges, which were shut down by the republic, are very important for improving this pluralism and for ensuring the intellectual depth of the religion.

Altan says he himself is not religious but that he fully respects religious people and adds that ideas he raises in his book have most likely been thought about by the pious. He underlines that he does not discuss religion but tries to think about the sociology of religion and the cultural aspects of Islam.

Altan underlines that the gross national product (GNP) of the 57 predominantly Muslim countries is equal to the GNP of Germany alone. “Also, we have the violent Taliban now, but in the past, there were many philosophers who were the products of a very deep culture of Islam,” he says.

Professor Mehmet Altan says that the current fight that is said to be taking place between secularists and Islamists in Turkey is actually a class struggle. Noting that the elites ‘tried to create a Westernized society by excluding Islam,’ Altan explains that urban religiosity will improve and help normalize the state that Turkey is in

“In my opinion, the difference between the past and today is not being aware of the cultural aspects, the beauties and the creativity of Islam but trying to use it as a political weapon.”

Altan notes that the masses, which are not respected or recognized but are impoverished by the regime, are trying to use religion as a tool to integrate with the system, while the regime does not want to share its privileges and instrumentalizes Islam, portraying it negatively.

“We did not have Western-style land ownership and feudalism, thus we did not have Western-style capital accumulation and a bourgeoisie. There is no Western-style working class either. What we had during the Ottoman era was the palace and its subjects. After the republic was formed, this turned into a state and its people. When analyzing this, you will notice that on one side are the poor people, who are not educated well, and on the other are the elitists, who squander the means of the state. This rich, prosperous segment of society, which lives in the cities, does not want the impoverished people in the cities. Such a situation has led to a very big fight that has been presented as a fight based on religion or one between secularists and Islamists although what it is in essence is a class struggle,” he says.

Barracks and mosques pitted against each other

Another subject he stresses that is tied into this fight is the conflict between the barracks and the mosques. According to Altan, statist elites living in the cities side with the barracks while the poor masses side with the mosques.

“The republic is a project of the elites. Its founders wanted to establish a Westernized society; they wanted to harmonize the Western style of consumption and way of livings with the society, but the founders did not pay attention to the production methods of the West. They tried to create a Westernized society by force. They tried to exclude Islam. The founders were a militarist bureaucracy whose power was based in the barracks. They also considered Islam a competitor of their ideology. To perceive religion as a political competitor imprisoned Turkey in a battle between the mosques and the barracks. If this founding ideology did not try to exclude Islam and its cultural aspects, normalization would take place in a calm atmosphere and such a situation would lead to the emergence of qualified religious people. This approach could have prevented the exploitation of Islam for political purposes,” he says.

He says both the Islamists, who use Islam as a tool in their struggle for power, and those who are against them are abusing religion and preventing normalization because both sides benefit from this tension. “This is why everyone is responsible for the normalization of religion,” Altan argues.

According to the professor, this normalization will succeed in so far as urban religiosity, prosperity and a Muslim bourgeoisie develops, but it will be difficult to reach this point considering the military coups of the past and especially the Feb. 28, 1997 postmodern coup, which targeted urban religiosity.

“The Feb. 28 coup was a move by the İstanbul bourgeoisie to prevent the rise of the Anatolian bourgeoisie. The Sept. 12, 1980 coup also used religion as a pretext, but after 1980, small and medium-sized enterprises [SMEs] had the chance to cooperate with companies beyond Turkey’s borders. People coming from Anatolia, the people excluded not only from business but also from art, began to flourish. The only reference point of this Anatolian bourgeoisie, however, is religion, and as long as religion is perceived as a political element and not a cultural one, it harms urban religiosity. If you are using religion as a tool, saying, ‘I cannot integrate with the city, so let’s make the city resemble me,’ this has nothing to do with religion.”

However, Altan is hopeful for the future and thinks it will take time, but development of the Islamic bourgeoisie will eventually lead to the emergence of strong urban religiosity.

“The second generation of the Islamic bourgeoisie living in the cities is still conservative but also respects pluralism. Urban religiosity means respecting others. We can say Turkey will change with the upcoming generations, but we want it to happen smoothly,” he underlines.

He trusts a third group between the mosque and the barracks and calls them democrats. He describes them as people who are making their living in the market but not from the state, people who are well-educated and follow developments in the world. “These people believe freedom and democracy will lead the development of this country. It sounds to me that the feeling of being squeezed between the barracks and political Islam can be broken only by these people.”

AK Party important for urban religiosity but made mistakes

Altan underlines that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is an important player in the emergence of urban religiously but adds that it has to be careful. “The biggest favor the AK Party did the society is integrate the excluded people into the system. But there are rough people, political Islamists and urban pious people in it. It should be very careful about this. It is able to show its electoral success in coastal areas. There are elements in their rank and file that give out concerning signals to middle-class women.”

Altan also has concerns about the AK Party. He says he hoped that urban pious people in the party would be more powerful after the 2007 elections and that the AK Party would rapidly implement European Union reforms and draft a new civilian constitution.

“I had hoped the AK Party would unify everyone through freedom, but the AK Party made a serious mistake and lost its enthusiasm for both EU reforms and a new constitution. If you say, ‘My only concern is the headscarf,’ you cannot lead Turkey to a period of reduced tension nor can you help urban religiosity develop,” he says.

According to him, Turkey should establish the delicate balance between conservatism and democratization. “On the one hand you say ‘religion’ but on the other you implement the rules of the game of the existing system. Religion means conscience and anything that is not compatible with conscience is not compatible with religion. To use your victimization as a tool to victimize others whenever you have the chance cannot be called religion. Religion should not be used to take revenge for your victimization. The question here is, is religion a tool to replace people you want to imitate or a philosophy to understand life? Are the secularists the main cause of complaints, or is it not being able to replace them? If that is the case, this cannot be called religiosity.”

Altan thinks religious people should be respected, but not everyone has to use the same paradigm while trying to understand the world. He underlines that religious education is extremely important to nurture a pluralistic atmosphere. “When you look at the West, you will notice that the priests are among the people and they have an important role in social life. We cannot see imams as actors of religious philosophy. Imams should have intellectual depth,” he says.

He considers Islamic societies and dervish lodges, which were shut down by the republic, very important for this intellectual depth. “The lodges in particular were essential for the aesthetic and artistic sides of the religion. Apart from that, I think our theological education, compared to the world, is extremely poor, and this is one of the reasons for the rise of political Islam,” he says.

Altan thinks that, despite all these shortcomings, urban religiosity will improve and help normalize the country. By achieving that, it will also set an example for the Islamic world.

“Among the 57 predominantly Muslim countries in the world, the highest production rate belongs to Turkey. This is why it will be the first country to establish urban religiosity. And if Turkey wants to be at the head of the Muslim world, it has to implement the concept of urban religiosity.”

todayszaman.com, 02.03.2010