Winds of change? Anti-Israel attitudes in Turkey, long unique among Muslim countries for its normalised relations with Israel, are on the rise.

..as Kemal Atatürk’s vision of a secular, West-facing Turkey is steadily dismantled by the AK Party Government:

Although Turks identify themselves as religiously tolerant, they do not behave that way in practice, according to a survey. There has been an increase in the number of people identifying themselves as religious since 1999, which might be related to the political atmosphere in Turkey, an academic says

Turkish people strongly identify themselves as religious and also regard religion as a source of tolerance. But when it comes to religious worship, a significant number are not as tolerant of people from other religions, concludes a survey released Tuesday.

Prominent political scientists Ersin Kalaycıoğlu and Ali Çarkoğlu from Sabancı University reported the research findings on religiosity in Turkey under the framework of the International Social Survey Program, or ISSP, which measures religious values from 43 different countries.

International research was conducted three times in the past; the last available data was from 1998. International data from the 2008 research is expected to be available in 2010. Turkey first participated in the survey in 2008 and is the first and only country surveyed with a Muslim majority population.

Eighty-three percent of Turks identify themselves as religious, with 16 percent saying they are extremely religious, 39 percent saying they are highly religious and 32 percent saying they are somewhat religious.

Of the 43 countries surveyed, Turkey, Poland, the Philippines and the United States are among the most religious. Almost half of Turks say they practice religious prayers and also identify themselves as religious. Twenty-eight percent say they pray, but do not regard themselves as highly religious.

According to Çarkoğlu, there has been a significant increase since 1999 in the number of people who identify as religious. “This is the most striking conclusion of this survey, though it is not alarming,” he said. He added that the change could be related to peoples’ attitudes toward behaving in accordance with the current political climate.

Izmir Protest: Despite the prevailing climate - there is still a huge secular base. Protests against the Islamist AKP party in 2007 attracted millions in massive rallies across the country

Another striking discovery made by the survey was that 60 percent of Turks said there is only one true religion, while 34 percent said most religions hold basic truths.

The findings on tolerance toward religions are remarkable as well. Ninety percent of the Turkish population reported having a positive view toward Muslims, but this ratio dropped to 13 percent for Christians and around 10 percent for Jews. Those who said they have highly positive views about non-believers of any religion totaled 7 percent.

When it comes to accepting political candidates from different religions, 37 percent of Turks said they would absolutely not accept this and 12 percent said they would most likely not accept it. However, 23 percent said they would absolutely accept it and 24 percent say they would probably accept it. Eleven percent of Turks said people from different religions should absolutely be allowed to organize public meetings to express their ideas, while 24 percent said they should be allowed to do so.

Thirty-six percent said people from different religions absolutely should not be allowed to organize such meetings, while 23 percent said they should not be allowed to do so.

Following religious rules

Another striking discovery dealt with obeying laws that contradict religious rules. A majority of the participants in the research, 67 percent, said they would continue acting in accordance with their religious beliefs if the Parliament passed a law that contradicted religious laws. Twenty-six percent said they would obey the country’s law in this case.

When it comes to the perception of God, Turks identify with a God who is more like a father than a mother, but as a lover rather than a judge. The perception of God for Turks is closer to the tasavvuf, or Islamic Sufism, tradition in Anatolia. Turks are more inclined to identify with God as a friend rather than a sultan or a spouse, or as the master of the house.

Despite repeated claims from Prime Minister Erdoğan and President Gül that Turkey will remain secular, there has been siginificant evidence of creeping adjustments to the balance of religion and state since the Islamist-leaning AK Party’s rise to power in 2002.

These have, among other things, included bids to relax long-standing ban on headscarves in public buildings, put in place by the founder of the modern Turkish state, Kemal Atatürk.

Other developments have included the increasing appointment of religious figures to positions of power, the banning of alcohol in certain municipalities; and a bizarre attempt by Erdoğan to criminalise marital infidelity – although this failed after pressure from, among other areas, the EU.

The pace of these changes has certainly stepped up over the past year or two, building towards something of a crescendo recently, with Erdoğan’s anti-Israel outburst to Shimon Peres at Davos in January, folowed various anti-Israel statements and actions during the rest of this year

However, this is not going unopposed. These moves, and the AKP itself, face a groundswell of opposition from the large body of Turks, particularly in the developed West of the country, who believe strongly in Atatürk’s founding principles.

Turkey also has a free, large and outspoken media, despite the AKP’s outrageous, attempt to silence its dissent recently.

It is our hope that the Turks will utimately defeat this slow-burn assault on their beloved constitution. But with attitudes among the religious changing in the wrong direction as highlighted by this study, together with the bellicose noises coming from Ankara; there is certainly going to be much to do.

[Source: Hürriyet Daily News]

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