Nom de carnet:
Date de publication:
Dimanche 15 Mars 2015 - 12:00
Publié ici :
15 Mars 2015Mis à jour le :
19 Juin 2017Mots-clefs:
- religion
- Turquie
Zone géographique:
- Moyen-Orient
Religion, contention, & state power beyond Turkey
Introduction
Let me start with a confession of sorts. I am a Dutch post-doc researcher that almost ten years ago stumbled, while living in Damascus learning Arabic, into a political sociology of Islamic activism. More recently, also more by chance than by choice, I included an additional focus on Turkey in my research. More often than not, broadening your horizons ends up with surprising insights in unexpected places and topics. This also proved to be true in my case.
I want to use this opportunity to elaborate on one of these insights: the peculiar position Turkey has as comparative case (or not) in scholarship and how this reflects in analyses on Turkey itself. Either Turkey and Arab countries are lumped together as "Muslim countries" in analyses because their inhabitants (and thus their social reality) are seen to be primarily defined by their religion (see for instance Lewis 2004).
Or studies fall within the area studies group: meaning that Arab countries are studied as a block and Turkey is relatively neglected. 1Sadly, the reverse also applies, Turkish studies using the Middle East as comparative study are few and far in between.2)
This disconnect is rather unfortunate because we can actually observe interesting parallel dynamics in Turkey and the Arab world. Coming from my personal "religious mobilization" perspective, they relate for instance to the development of economically "left" or "right" wing Islamist movements, the emergence and interaction between "Islamic" educational, charitable and political sectors, and the relation between religion and state bureaucratic institutions. Despite very different contexts regarding state strength, social cleavages and religious groups present in these countries, similar conflicts regarding religion and state power emerge. The similarity of these conflicts in these very different con-texts provides some great avenues for analysis. Let me elaborate on one example of such an analysis here – regarding religion and state power – and show how a cross national comparison between Turkey and Arab state might also facilitate the study of religion in Turkey itself.
Two Observations
I would like to discuss two related observations. The first, related to state power, is that in both Turkey and many Arab countries social and political conflicts are fought out within, and over, state institutions. These state institutions include bureaucracies, but also schools, universities, welfare organizations and security services. The row between the AKP and Gülen – and subsequent AKP attempts to purge Gülen members from state bureaucracies – does not stand on its own. In post-revolutionary Tunisia a constant struggle emerged over (the ruling party) Ennahda's attempts to control state bureaucracies, its security services and educational institutes. (Tunisia live 2013) In Egypt the rule of president Mohamed Mursi was marred by dysfunctional state bureaucracies: electricity and water was often failing and other services were equally in short supply. (Ali 2013; N. J. Brown 2013) Many of these problems miraculously disappeared the moment Sisi took power in July 2013. In Syria the project of governance building in the liberated areas was structured by religiously defined social cleavages, with Islamic governance eventually proving the more powerful. (al-Sharq al-Awsat 2013). The state in most Arab countries is much less developed than the Turkish one, but still the political instability following the so-called "Arab Spring" has emphasized the distinction between political rule and state institutions: showing how these state institutions can emerge as autonomous arenas where socio-political conflicts are fought out.
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