Secularity or Secularism: Two Competing Visions for the Relationship Between Religion and the State in The New Turkish Constitution

Brett G. SCHARRFS

One of the most controversial issues in crafting a new constitution for Turkey will likely be the definition and conceptualization of what kind of secular state Turkey envisions for itself and what the relationship between religion and the state ought to be. In this paper I want to suggest that there is an important, perhaps critical, distinction between and – in particular that one concept is a fundamental component of liberal pluralism and a bastion against religious extremism, and that the other is a misguided, even dangerous, ideology that may degenerate into its own dystopian fundamentalism. Secularity is an approach to religion-state relations that avoids identification of the state with any particular religion or ideology (including secularism itself) and that endeavors to provide a neutral framework capable of accommodating a broad range of religions and beliefs. Secularism, in contrast, is an ideological position that is committed to promoting a secular order. In this paper I will illustrate the difference between these conceptualizations of the secular state with examples of cases from several different jurisdictions focusing on the institutional relationships between religion and the state, and the individual’s relationship with the state.

I. INTRODUCTION

One of the most controversial issues in crafting a new constitution for Turkey will likely be the definition and conceptualization of what kind of secular state Turkey envisions for itself and that the relationship between religion and the state ought to be. In this paper I want to suggest that there is an important, perhaps critical, distinction between secularity and secularism – in particular that one concept is a fundamental component of liberal pluralism and a bastion against religious extremism, and that the other is a misguided, even dangerous, ideology that may degenerate into its own dystopian fundamentalism.

In Part II, I will describe in greater detail the distinction as I am describing it between secularity and secularism. In Part III, I will illustrate the difference between these conceptualizations of the secular state with several examples of recent cases from a variety of legal jurisdictions. The first set of illustrations will focus on the institutional relationships between religion and the state, and the second set of examples will focus on the individual’s relationship with the state. In Part IV, I conclude with a few observations relating to the constitution-making process in Turkey.

II. SECULARITY AND SECULARISM

Both secularity and secularism are linked to the general historical process of secularization, but as I use the terms, they have significantly different meanings and practical implications.¹ By ‘secularity’ I mean an approach to religion-state relations that avoids identification of the state with any particular religion or ideology (including secularism itself) and that endeavors to provide a neutral framework capable of accommodating a broad range of religions and beliefs. By ‘secularism’, in contrast, I mean an ideological position that is committed to promoting a secular order. Secularity is a more modest concept, committed to creating what might be called a broad realm of ‘constitutional space’² in which competing conceptions of the good (some religious, some not) may be worked out in theory and lived in practice by their proponents, adherents, and critics. Secularism, in contrast, is itself a positive ideology that the state may be committed to promoting, an ideology that may manifest itself as opposition to religiously-based or religiously-motivated reasons by political actors, hostility to religion in public life and an insistence that religious manifestations, reasons, or even beliefs be relegated to an ever-shrinking sphere of private life, or even an aggressive proselytizing atheism, or what has been called “secular fundamentalism.”³