Visualizing Secularism and Religion: Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, India

4. Secularism, Islam, and the National Public Sphere: Politics of Commemorative Practices in Turkey

4 ✦ Secularism, Islam, and the National Public Sphere Politics of Commemorative Practices in Turkey gizem zencirci This chapter examines the politics of commemorative practices in Turkey as a site of intervention between discourses of secularism and religiosity. This analysis is based on arguments developed in this book analyzing secularism as a constitutive norm of the national experience of the public sphere. The focus is on the politicization of commemorative practices between Islamist and secularist constituencies in Turkey in the last two decades, which I argue to be an instance of the negotiation, contestation, and realignment of the discursive and performative mediations of secularism in the Turkish national public sphere. This chapter takes national holidays as sites through which the peculiar relationship between secularism and the national public sphere can be put under scrutiny. Speci‹cally I argue that the shift from authoritarian tendencies to participatory, popular, and democratic practices in the celebration of national holidays in Turkey are part and parcel of discursive interventions carried out in the name of secularism in the national public sphere. Put another way, new interventions aiming to reconstitute the public performance of national holidays have resulted in the stripping-off of state secularism from its authoritarian tendencies and have taken a more participatory, joyful, and pluralistic tone. These transformations recon‹guring the national subjects’ experience of public spectacles of nationhood have resulted from attempts of secularist 93 groups and the Turkish military to counteract criticisms posed by Islamist constituencies to authoritarian state secularism. To argue that one can discern the visual and performative contours of the secular-religious relationship via an analysis of the national holidays is not a common undertaking in studies on secularism and religion. To some extent the necessity of an inquiry concerning interconnections between the study of national commemorative practices and performative politics of secularism results from unique features of Turkish secularism. Until the mid-2000s, secularism has increasingly been perceived as in need of protection by the Turkish army and secularist groups and associations in the face of the increasing visibility of public Islam.1 The following example explains the ways in which questions of secularism have been intertwined with concerns over the practice and symbolic repertoire of national holidays , highlighting the necessity of a theoretical awareness about the centrality of practices in the study of both national identity and the secular-religious relationship. The presidential candidacy of the then foreign minister Abdullah Gul was at the center of political discussions in 2007 causing a constitutional crisis because secularist groups such as the Association for Atatürkist Thought were campaigning against the prospect that a president’s wife would wear a headscarf, and organizing Republic Rallies to show that secularism was popularly supported by Turkish citizenry. In the midst of these discussions, a controversial press release (referred to as the e-coup in media discourses) was released on the Turkish military’s of‹cial website. A military of‹cer had said ten days earlier that it was preferable to have a president who adheres to “secularism in essence,” so the military’s position on the presidential election—as preferring a president who was loyal to the principles of secularism, and hence not Abdullah Gul—was more or less well known and understood by the public. Defying expectations, however, this press release did not elaborate on the military’s position about the upcoming presidential elections, at least not directly. Rather the press release was criticizing various events organized for the celebration of the Children ’s Day national holiday (April 23). According to this press release, activities such as recitations of the Koran by schoolchildren, singing of religious songs (ilahis), or the commemoration of the birth of the Prophet Mohammed during the week of an of‹cial national holiday were undesirable , because they were attempts to mix Islamic practices with the public repertoire of national commemorative practices. These practices, which used religious symbols in celebration of national identity and in remembrance of national history, posed a challenge to the Turkish military’s un94 ✦ visualizing secularism and religion derstanding of what secularism meant, and the ways in which secularism needed to be practiced, performed, and embodied by schoolchildren during the celebration of the Children’s Day holiday. This e-coup, as it came to be known, was further followed by a number of mass demonstrations known as Republic Rallies, which have been organized by secularist groups with the central purpose...