THIS refers to a news report (Sept 18) on a recent talk at the University of Peshawar by a Turkish scholar, Dr Behlul Ozkan, in which the learned speaker admired Turkey’s secular system.

On secularism, Turkey has it all wrong. Real secularism is not anti-religion. On the contrary, it gives one full liberty to practice one’s religion.

It is just that secularism does not allow any religion to interfere with the matters of state. At the same time, it does not allow a government to interfere in citizens’ religious conduct.

Turkey is so afraid of religion that the practice of Islamic rituals by citizens makes the so-called guardians of secularism uncomfortable. No wonder then that as Dr Ozkan stated, “in Turkey, the state controlled mosques, madressahs and other religious affairs.”

This anti-religion behaviour of various organs of the Turkish state contravenes the spirit of secularism. The defunct Soviet Union did not mix religion with government, but it suppressed religion. Would Dr Ozkan call the Soviet system secular?

What is the difference between the Taliban and ISIS dictates that women must cover their faces and the Turkish law that women cannot wear a headscarf? I see no difference.

They are all attacks on freedoms. By the way, a recent anti-veil French law falls in the same despicable anti-freedom category.

Turkey is not the Muslim world’s exception that many people in and outside Turkey wrongly believe Turkey is. Until recently there was no exception. Now it is Tunisia, which implemented a freedom-based secular constitution on Jan 26. Secularism without freedoms is a farce.

Siddique Malik
Louisville, USA

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2014