The AKP, Islam And Terrible Lies

I visited the US in the beginning of September for a number of academic events. I gave a keynote speech at a conference, had one roundtable discussion and one luncheon. The topic was Turkey's domestic and foreign policy challenges. In all my speeches, I more or less touched upon the same points. One of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's TV channels (A Haber) abused and manipulated my public luncheon speech at the Rumi Forum in Washington. The Erdoğanists' main point on the A Haber program was that I had become a laicist and even an anti-Islam guy in the US to please the American audience. Four pundits on A Haber agreed that I was resorting to double-speak and tailored my speech to the pleasure of the Westerners. They picked up two issues: imam-hatip (religious) schools and the alcohol ban. They drew their own ideas from my words and did not invite me to respond to them.
Some points I'd like to make:
1. The event was open to the public and as far as I remember there were a few guys from the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) think thank SETA.
2. There were several people at the luncheon who were either Turkish, knew Turkish or were experts on Turkey.
3. There were several practicing Muslims from different nations at the event.
4. The event was recorded by the Rumi Forum and posted on YouTube on Sept. 12, 2014.
5. Whatever I said during my talk was actually based on my pieces here in my Sunday's Zaman column. I have already repeatedly touched upon all those issues here. Moreover, in my conferences in Turkey and on the TV programs that I frequently attend in Turkey, I have talked about my ideas on imam-hatip schools and the alcohol ban. I did not say anything different to this in the US.
6. I gave a long talk and surveyed modern Turkish socio-political history and explained how the Kemalist authoritarian state has suppressed Alevis, Kurds, leftists, non-Muslims and practicing Muslims. I have talked about the Kemalist top-down homogenous nation-building process of creating the Homo LASTus citizen. Then, I talked about the emergence of the AKP and their democratization reforms.
7. I then said that some of the members, including Recep Erdoğan, of the AKP, have become authoritarian and Kemalo-Islamists after 2011. Kemalo-Islamism is different from Islamism and Islamism is different from Islam. I am a proud practicing Muslim but do not believe, unlike the Islamists, that the state can and should impose religion from the top. Religion must be left to the individual and civil society.
8. I tried to explain that similar to the Kemalist Homo-LASTus project, Erdoğan also aims to create a religious generation (dindar nesil) and he thinks this is the state's duty. To this end, he keeps opening imam-hatip schools, and does not leave, in practice, much choice to individuals who want to go to secular schools. I also stated that thousands of students were placed in imam-hatip schools despite their wishes.
9. I also said the ban on the sale of alcohol after 10 p.m. is a secular arrangement and there are such arrangements in the Western countries too. But instead of justifying this with secular language, Erdoğan purposefully mentioned Islam's ban on alcohol, even though he was not doing something in line with Islam since it was only a partial ban after 10 p.m., and was a totally secular arrangement based on health and safety concerns. Yet, he preferred to play to his religious voters in order to pretend that he was doing something for Islam.

Actually, there is not anything wrong even in the parts of my talk showed by A Haber. But my talk was given in academic language, and they rely on their viewers' lack of knowledge on concepts such as nation-building, fabricating consent, social engineering, top-down imposition, state-controlled religion, secular justification, abuse of religion and the difference between Islam and Islamism etc. Even though cut and paste parts of my speech do not say anything wrong, they try to highlight me speaking against the alcohol ban and the opening of imam hatip schools. They made me a target for the fanatics in the streets. Their Erdoğanist viewers, who number in the thousands in social media, stated that I was against Islam, a hypocrite, a Lawrence of Arabia, a traitor etc.

I am only against abuse of Islam for political purposes and the top-down imposition of Islam on individuals by using the state's power. But, then, how many of the AKP voters are against these? I am doomed to failure in convincing the Kemalo-Islamist Erdoğan's loyal voters.

İHSAN YILMAZ (Cihan/Today's Zaman)