Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to Turkey, thanks to being under tight security including shutting down major arteries, snipers and security checkpoints in Istanbul and portions of the public transit system in Istanbul went off with nary a hitch, and the main demonstrations during the duration of his stay were either far afield from his itinerary or personal protests in heavily trafficked districts. The mainstream local press largely heralded his apparent efforts to bridge the religious divide between Christians and Muslims that was widened by his quoting from a dialogue of 14th-century Byzantine emperor Palaiologos that sparked fury across the Muslim world. Moderate Muslim-majority Turkey/>, was already suspicious of this Pope’s motives, alleged having reservations about the country joining the EU.
His trip to Turkey/> was as smoothly executed as a state dinner. He silently prayed at the Blue Mosque alongside Istanbul’s religious leader, Mustafa ÇaÄŸrıcı. He was careful not to pray at the Hagia Sophia, once the spiritual capital of Christianity, later mosque turned defiantly secular museum. On the first day of his Turkey/> tour, he expertly pulled off public adulation of Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey/>, at his mausoleum Anıtkabir, another bastion of the state’s commitment to laicism.
Yet some remained doubtful of the Pope’s motives. His main reason for going to Turkey/> was to visit Istanbul resident and Turkish citizen Patriarch Bartholomew, the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church. Many Orthodox adherents regard him as the spiritual head of the denomination as do Roman Catholics regard the pope. Yet the Turkish government claims that according to the Lozan Agreement of 1932, which laid out rights of the country’s religious and ethnic minorities, that the Patriarch resident in Istanbul is only the leader of the steeply dwindling Greek Orthodox followers in Turkey/>-not the international Orthodox community as a whole. Accordingly, priests can only be recruited from the some 2000 followers of Orthodoxy still resident in the country.
This distinction is key to understanding the nature of secularism in Turkey/>. In Turkey/>, secularism is not just the separation of religion and state but the freedom of the state from religion. Any external influence of religion can be deemed a threat to governmental stability. Acknowledging the Patriarch as the head of the church would open the proverbial floodgates to international money and influence to that corner of Istanbul, with the exception of the immediate environs around the Patriarchate, a conservative Muslim district.
Granting one religious minority perceived special status, could in the eyes of the state, set off a chain of demands from other religious groups, most notably conservative Muslims. Although only some 9% of Turks favor sharia law according to a survey conducted in May-June 2006 by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), recognizing the requests of an even smaller sliver of the religious milieu could be interpreted as an eventual threat to the secular state. It was just in 1997 that the army launched its so-called “post-modern coup”, pressuring heavily Islamist-leaning Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan out of power. Erbakan, now officially banned from politics, is now the behind-the-scenes leader of the Saadet (Happiness) Party. The party behind the largest pre-papal visit protest, held November 28 and attracting over 20,000 participants, only polled 3% in the last elections. The Büyük Birlik (Grand Unity) Partisi, another far-right Islamist party and organizer of a protest held at the Hagia Sophia, waving banners that the Pope get out of Turkey and that the museum should revert to being a mosque, polled less than 1% in the last round of voting.
This is not to say that there aren’t fears among Turkey/>‘s secularists of a tide towards Islamism however. The same TESEV survey showed that 41% of those polled believed that religion should play a role in governance, up from 25% in 1999. Current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan and his ruling AK Parti have tried to pass through legislation making adultery a crime and have tried to limit the number of areas where alcohol can be consumed, as well as raising taxes on cigarettes and liquor. At first ErdoÄŸan said that he would not be able to meet with Pope Benedict, saying that he would have to attend a NATO conference in Riga, Latvia/>. EU leaders advised him however, that not meeting with him would “be inappropriate”. General YaÅŸar Büyükanıt, since taking up his post in late August, has mentioned at least four times in the national press of the growing possibility of fundamentalism.
Yet the majority of Turks are moderate in their approach to Islam, thus the pope’s calls for reconciliation were heralded by much of the country. Yet the pontiff’s calls for religious freedom may be muffled by a fear of reverting to a country more divided than the status quo.