Tim Russert, one of the most important journalists in the American media, best known for his role as host of NBC’s Meet the Press, has passed away.
Thank you, Mr. Russert, for your years of hard work, dedication, and integrity. You were among the best of those working in the press today.
In a move that will unfortunately anger members of the Islamic movement in Turkey, the country’s Constitutional Court recently decided to reinstate bans on head scarves in Turkey’s universities. The bill had been passed at the urging of Turkey’s prime minister, was a pair of constitutional amendments that had the overwhelming support of the parliament. The opposition party, representing members of academia, the military, the legal system and other secularists, mounted an appeal to the amendments. Even more so, Turkey’s chief prosecutor has threatened to try and get Justice and Development Party, or AKP, who passed the amendments banned.
It is obvious that Turkey, as a country whose modern founders placed a heavy emphasis on secularism, should be allowed to maintain the separation between religion and the public sphere. However, the methods by which they are attempting to enforce this are obviously questionable. Secularist values include those of liberalism, such as democratic ideals and upholding the will of the majority. To try and rescind these two amendments in the name of secularism is quite self defeating.
And yet at the same time the increased involvement of religion within the public sphere would in fact threaten secularism. The problem here, however, is that Turkey’s secularists need a democratic method for removing the amendments, which it will have great difficulty in doing. It cannot, simply because Turkey as a country values Islam more highly than the founder of the nation did. Because of this, a clash over such issues was unavoidable.
Resolving this problem will take a delicate balance. Turkey’s secular elite need to recognize that a vast majority of people actually do support the AKP on this issue and that repression will only bring about a renewed and stronger religious party. At this time, it needs to grant slow concessions to the religious while working to try and change the society democratically back into one that values secularism over religion.
