This photo of Mustafa Kemal among imams of Islam might shock the viewer for a second. After all, didn't Ataturk drive the new Turkish republic to secularize after abolishing both the office of the Caliphate and the Sheik-ul Islam in 1924? Why then is he pictured here in a pious stance? The answer has to do with the application of secularism in Turkey, and the reality that secularism is a universal ideal but a nuanced application.
The two powerful offices of Islam (the Caliphate and the Sheik-ul Islam) were swept away in 1924 and a new era of secularism was ushered in. But secularism, in my view, is a very nuanced application--varying from country to country. In the same way that Communism varied from Soviet Russia to China to Vietnam, or imperialism varied from Britain to Spain. So too does secularism vary from Turkey to France to the United States. Turkey's brand of secularism saw the orthodoxy of Islam and the training of its imams put under the control of the state. Meaning that imams are employees of the state, receiving a state salary. Their sermons are written by the state's official organization, the Presidency of Religious Affairs. In addition of the assertion of the state over the religion, the 1928 Turkish constitution left out the notion that Islam was the official religion of the state. The main objective of the Presidency of Religious Affairs is to "execute the works concerning the beliefs, worship, and ethics of Islam, enlighten the public about their religion, and administer the sacred worshipping places."
This may seem like a contradiction to what we understand as secularism in the west, which is geared towards a total separation of church and state. In Turkey's case, secularism means the religion is regulated by the state. The state structure is superimposed upon the religion. To me, this seems like a great model we could even adopt in the west.
Let's take America for example. If we had a "Bureau of Religious Affairs" for example, the government could mediate and regulate religion. For example, there was recent story where Muslim holidays are left out of school calendars, while Jewish and Christian holidays are recognized. Under this Bureau of Religious Affairs, the state could give Islam, Hinduism, Taoist, and other religions their due and recognize their holidays along with Christian ones. Much like Turkey's organization, this office could also monitor religious activity, even regulating extremism (both in Islam and in Christianity). Ideally, the bureau would decide on an official orthodoxy for Christianity and would promote this orthodoxy against more extremist fringes such as Catholicism, Baptists, and Mormons.
The bureau would be supported by tax money, so the tax exempt status of churches, mosques, etc would be revoked. No need, the bureau would be responsible for all "religious charities" monitored by the government in a check-and-balance system. The bureau could also write the sermons and ideally the preachers, imams (employed by the state, possibly voted or appointed by the citizenry) would merely read the sermons (thereby negating personality and prejudice on the part of many religious leaders). Also, the bureau would be in charge of training preachers, imams for their jobs. Ideally it would be illegal to preach without certification from the bureau.
This is the case in Turkey. Sounds like a brand of secularism that America needs. Our "government stay out of religion" is breeding extremism and discontent. Churches are a den of would-be patriots ready to take up arms against their "great-Satan" in Washington. If we could secularize in the sense of sucking religion into the bureaucracy of government, perhaps our society could more uniform in terms of religion.
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