PESHAWAR: The use of religion for political purpose brings a bad name to religion, said Turkish scholar Dr Behlül Özkan here on Wednesday.

“The present Turkish constitution states that Turkey is a secular republic. Turkish constitution considers use of religion for political propaganda a criminal offense,” he said while talking on ‘Governance, community and religion, during a session at University of Peshawar.

Dr Behlül, is an assistant professor in department of international relations at Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey and author of “From the Abode of Islam to the Turkish Vatan: Making of a National Homeland in Turkey”. The session was organised jointly by Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) in collaboration with Heinrich Bill Stiftung (HBS), said a press release.

Mian Sanaullah, former ambassador of Pakistan to Indonesia, also spoke on the occasion and said that conservatives were flexing their muscles in Indonesia but the soul of Indonesia remained diverse and accommodating. Indonesia was a Muslim majority country and not an Islamic country, he said.

Says Turkey is the only country in the region that has completely secularised its legal system

Dr Behlül said that Turkey had 90 years of secular tradition behind it. It was the only country in Middle East and Africa that had completely secularised its legal system, he said. “Turkey has a very good record of education and career opportunities for women depicted by very high percentage of female participation in civil service, judiciary and academia,” he said.

He said that the Turkish women were granted the right to cast their vote in 1930 before France, Greece, Canada, Switzerland and Belgium.

“According to the Turkish constitution, it is a criminal offence to use religion for political propaganda and likewise it is illegal to form political parties based on religion,” the scholar said. He added that the fact was also witnessed by the history where many political parties were banned for use of religion for political propaganda.

Dr Behlül said that in Turkey, the state controlled mosques, madressahs and other religious affairs. Talking about the political expedience, he referred to the worst mining accident in Turkey’s history wherein 301 coalminers died, and the government, rather than punishing the responsible people, used the religious rhetoric and announced the deceased workers as martyrs and called the accident a destiny.

“This also signifies that the use of religion for political purposes also brings bad name to the religion,” he said and stressed the need for separating religion from politics.

Mian Sanaullah said that Indonesia was the third largest democracy in the world and had a very high number of Muslim populace with 88.2 per cent of Muslims out of its total population of 250 million but it was still a Muslim majority country and not an Islamic country.

“From the governance point of view, it is a democracy and not a theocracy. The first principle of Pancasila, the official philosophical foundation of the Indonesian state, refers to believe in one God which can be used to absorb the Indonesian diversity as it does not mention which God,” Mian Sanaullah said. He added that there was no state religion of Indonesia but also it was not completely a secular country. “There are six recognised religions, Islam being one of them,” he said.

Dr Adnan Sarwar, dean faculty of social sciences, UoP said that there was a lot of space in Islam for any community or state trying to adjust itself.

“In politics, governance and political system, there is nothing full, final and ultimate,” he said and added that the models of successful democracies in the world were not the perfect examples to be replicated other countries.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2014