Turkey’s democracy
DAWN’s editorial of May 4 under the heading ‘Turkey’s testing times’ made me look for reasons that turned Turkey into a secular republic.
Soon after the Allied victory in First World War, Sayyid Ahmad, the Grand Sanusi of Cyrenaica, who was in Turkey since 1917, played a proactive roll mobilising the Islam-loving Turkish peasants to join the Turkish army which was under the command of Mustafa Kemal.
In his book Road to Makkah, Muhammad Asad wrote at page 319: “As the Allied troops were landing at Istanbul, he (Sayyid Ahmad)crossed over to Asia Minor to join Kemal Ataturk who had just begun to organise the Turkish resistance in Anatolia.
“One should remember that, in the beginning , the heroic struggle of Kemal’s Turkey stood in the sign of Islam, and that it was religious enthusiasm alone that gave the Turkish nation, in those grim days, the strength to fight against the overwhelming power of the Greeks, who were backed by all the resources of the Allies.
“Placing his great spiritual and moral authority in the service of the Turkish cause , Sayyid Ahmad travelled tirelessly through the towns and villages of Anatolia, calling upon the people to support the Ghazi (defender of the faith) Mustafa Kemal. The Grand Sanusi’s efforts . . . .. contributed immeasurably to the success of the Kemalist movement among the simple peasants of Anatolia, to whom nationalist slogans meant nothing, but who for countless generations had deemed it the privilege to lay down their lives for Islam.
“But here again the Grand Sanusi had committed an error of judgment, not with regard to the Turkish people, whose religious fervour did lead to victory against an enemy many times stronger, but with regard to the intentions of their leader; for no sooner had the Ghazi attained to victory than it became obvious that his aims differed widely from what his people had been led to expect.
“Instead of basing his social revolution on a revived and reinvigorated Islam, Ataturk forsook the spiritual force of religion . . . . . Unnecessarily, even from Ataturk’s viewpoint; for he could have easily harnessed the tremendous religious enthusiasm of his people to a positive drive for progress without cutting them adrift from all that had shaped their culture and made them a great race.”
Ataturk was saddened by the decline that has come about on the Muslims around the world since the end of Muslim rule over Spain because they fell under the influence of the mullahs with half-baked knowledge of true Islam.. The vast Ottoman Empire shrank to its present size by the end of World War I because of the Turkish-German defeat at the hands of the Allies.
He felt deeply hurt that the Arabs Muslims joined the Allies and fought against the Turks. Besides, the Khalifah became a mere shadow of great bygone days. Further, Kemal’s assignments in different countries of Europe while he was in Turkish foreign service made him enamoured of the secularism of Europe.
Incidentally, did Kemal and the members of his Republican Party have the secular polity as a part of their party’s manifesto when they campaigned for the elections to the Grand National Assembly in 1922. In other words , did they have a mandate of the Turkish people in favour of a secular polity when they were elected to the GNA?
Democracy means governance by the representatives of the majority of the people. The people pay the taxes to run all the departments, including the military. They are the paymasters and the future presidents of Turkey are going to be elected directly by them rather than by the Turkish parliament. Whomsoever the people choose shall become the president.
JALAL AHMED
Muscat