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### Viewing cable 03ANKARA4767, TURKEY: THE BATTLE OVER CONTROL OF GOT RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
03ANKARA4767 | 2003-07-28 14:02 | 2011-03-23 15:03 | CONFIDENTIAL | Embassy Ankara

`

    This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

    281413Z Jul 03

` `

    C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 004767

    SIPDIS

    E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/27/2013
    TAGS: PGOV PREL TU
    SUBJECT: TURKEY: THE BATTLE OVER CONTROL OF GOT RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS

    (U) Classified by Charge d'Affaires a.i. Robert S. Deutsch.
    Reason:1.5(b)(d).

    ¶1. (C) Summary: Recent controversy over AK Parliament and
    Government proposals to employ an additional 15 thousand
    imams at Turkish mosques is reawakening an age-old
    controversy over the role of religion in Turkish public life.
    It also reveals that: 1) both strict secularists and
    religious conservatives try to play the "Islam" card to their
    advantage; and 2) that Islam in Turkey, far from being
    monolithic or politically united, is more flexible -- and
    deeply rooted in mainstream society -- than many secularists
    will allow.  End summary.

    ---------------------------------------
    Mosque and State: Joined, not Separated
    ---------------------------------------

    ¶2. (C) Turkish elites and officials with at least a
    simulacrum of westernization routinely assert to foreigners
    that since Ataturk's day, secularism in Turkey has been
    characterized by a strict institutional separation of "mosque
    and State."  In fact, the "Turkish" version of secularism is
    diametrically the opposite of that in the United States; not
    a deeply ingrained, constitutionally-protected habit, but
    rather a constitutionally-enshrined and enforced State
    ideology.  While Turkish law explicitly denies
    religiously-derived ideas and sentiments any place in the
    public square, religious institutions are not only under
    strict state control, but are in fact an integral part of the
    Turkish State apparatus.

    ¶3. (C)  The Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) is,
    with approximately 90 thousand employees, one of the largest
    organs of the Turkish State.  It is formally charged with
    overseeing mosque construction/supervision, the hiring of
    religious "officials" (imams, etc), and dispensing all manner
    of religious advice.  Such functions are secondary to the
    Diyanet's main purpose: to ensure, as it has since the early
    days of the Republic, that "Islamic" ideas -- and independent
    religious institutions -- pose no threat to the secularist
    revolution of Ataturk.

    -- Consequently, the Diyanet is to its detractors --
    including Islamists, centrist conservatives, and liberals
    alike -- the generator of a "Kemalist Islam" that all too
    often has little to do with the variegated strains of the
    faith practiced throughout Anatolia and in other, less elite,
    corners of Istanbul and Republican Ankara. It is even
    criticized by Turkey's sizable Alevi (heterodox Shia
    minority, which while strongly supporting the secular State
    has long been concerned that the Diyanet promotes the
    dominance of Turkey's Sunni majority community).

    -- Even as they are castigated from below, Diyanet contacts
    over the years have expressed to us their own frustration
    with what they perceive to be the Turkish Establishment's
    poor grasp of Islam and Islamic realities -- and thus the
    Establishment's inability to fully co-opt Islamic sentiment
    and subordinate it to the State.  In 1997 -- the year of the
    military's "post-modern" coup d'etat against the then
    Islamist Refah-led government -- the Diyanet won approval to
    centralize the Friday sermon to ensure content-control,
    fearful of what it has long believed are the numerous closet
    "reactionary" imams on the its own payroll.

    ---------------
    The Controversy
    ---------------

    ¶4. (C) Recent press coverage has once again brought the issue of Islam, and the Diyanet's role, to the public eye.  Various reports indicate that several AK Members of Parliament
    proposed that the Diyanet hire an additional 15 thousand
    imams to fill vacancies at mosques throughout Turkey.  The
    proposal won the support of State Minister Mehmet Aydin, who
    oversees the Diyanet.  However, it was quickly shelved by
    P.M. Erdogan in the face of accusations in the press and by
    the opposition CHP that AK was preparing to: 1) "infiltrate"
    the religious bureaucracy with Islamists and 2) take on an
    untenable financial burden by hiring more civil servants.  It
    was also criticized by more sympathetic pro-Islam activists
    like Yilmaz Ensaroglu of the Mazlum-Der human rights
    association, who asserted to us recently that the State
    should have no role in overseeing religious matters
    whatsoever.

    ¶5. (C) While the press coverage has died down in the crush of
    news from Iraq and elsewhere, the Diyanet controversy
    illustrates the complexity of interests brought to bear on
    religious issues in Turkey.

    ----------------
    The Diyanet View
    ----------------

    ¶6. (C) Yusuf Kalkan, a senior Diyanet official whose tenure
    pre-dates the arrival of the AK Government, received us at
    his office in the plush new Diyanet building, built by the
    Ecevit coalition government that preceded AK.  He explained
    to us recently that: 1) Turkey has not hired a new Imam since
    1991 (the Ozal Government in 1981 decreed that 2,000 imam
    slots would be provided to the Diyanet every year until
    1990); 2) that the Diyanet already has enough people to staff
    the mosques -- i.e. it will not have to look outside the
    Directorate -- but does not have the funds to pay them;
    3) that said, the timing of the motion was "inappropriate."
    Kalkan emphasized, however, that without Diyanet-sponsored
    imams, there is the danger that many of the mosques will
    become havens for the nominally illegal tarikats -- the sufi
    orders, such as the Naksibendi, that have exerted strong
    influence over conservative (particularly Kurdish) Anatolians
    -- and even terrorist groups like the Hizbullah.

    --------------
    The Gulen view
    --------------

    ¶7. (C) Islamic activists have noted to us a steady warming of
    relations between AK and its followers and those of Fethullah
    Gulen, who leads a large and wealthy offshoot of the mystical
    Nurcu movement.  This new and unprecedented cooperation
    between two movements traditionally at odds dovetails at the
    Diyanet and other elements of the bureaucracy, where AK's
    influence over the appointment process and Gulen's centrist
    contacts and knowledge of the system provide the basis for
    mutually beneficial ties.

    -- While Gulen Nurcus have habitually feared efforts by AK's
    predecessor parties to monopolize religion in Turkey, Gulen
    representatives tell us they are able to work quite well with
    the non-dogmatic Erdogan, Deputy P.M./F.M. Gul, and other AK stalwarts (Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc's late son was a
    Gulen disciple).  State Minister Aydin is also an admirer,
    though independent, of Gulen and his movement.  An advisor to a senior AK M.P. told us that Ahmet Davutoglu at the Prime
    Ministry is also a Nurcu (though it is unclear whether he is
    in Gulen's group).

    -- Gulen has traditionally emphasized working with and
    through rather than against the Turkish State apparatus.
    Gulen stands accused by Judiciary prosecutors and others in
    the Establishment of militant tendencies and as a threat to
    the State.  Nevertheless, Gulen and his group have long been
    a pillar of centrist politics, and have long benefited from
    close ties to certain elements of the bureaucracy -- which
    makes Gulen useful to AK.  Gulen includes among his key
    patrons former President Demirel and the secularist former
    P.M. Ecevit.  Indeed, according to the July 28 "Hurriyet"
    daily, Ecevit praised Gulen's expansive network of schools --
    thought by the Establishment GOT at various times as either a
    bulwark against or promoter of "reactionary" tendencies --
    and noted that he is "from time to time" in contact with
    Gulen through intermediaries.  (Note: Pro-Gulen and other
    sources tell us the contact is direct and regular.  End note)
     While Gulen Nurcus share with the Diyanet Kemalists a desire
    to supersede the traditional tarikats and "modernize" Islam,
    they seek to afford more official respect to Islamic values
    -- anathema to the Establishment but a cardinal principle of
    the center-right since Turkey began to liberalize political
    activity in 1946.

    -----------
    The AK View
    -----------

    ¶8. (C) AK and its predecessor parties have long looked
    askance at the Diyanet, seeing it as an obstacle to religious
    independence.  There are signs however that the AK view has
    changed since it came to power as a single-party government
    exercising dominion over the Diyanet.  Zahid Akman, a
    theology Ph.D and member of the board of pro-AK Kanal 7 TV
    (and the station's U.S. correspondent), related to us that he
    was in fact a former student both of Aydin and Naksibendi
    Shaykh Zahid Kotku, religious mentor to the late former
    President Ozal, former P.M. Erbakan, and others.  Aydin, he
    said, is more of a political activist than Gulen, who tends
    toward quietism and emphasis on Islam as a personal, moral
    code.  Aydin is of the view that there is also a corollary
    obligation for Muslims to venture out into in the world and
    into public life.  Akman asserted that with Erdogan as P.M.
    there is a growing sense that the Diyanet can be a key to
    "reform" Islam in Turkey -- Akman emphasized stripping the
    State of Kemalist influence over religion.  "You cannot have
    a CHP Islam," he said.  Akman echoed comments from the
    Diyanet's Kalkan that vacant mosques pose a real problem, and an opportunity to weed out the charlatans and miscreants.
    Aydin's aim is to upgrade the quality of imams and other
    religious officials, Akman added.

    ¶9. (C) Akman elaborated that the idea of mass hiring of imams
    came not from Erdogan or Aydin, but as a proposal from the
    floor of Parliament uncoordinated with the Cabinet. He
    noted in this regard that the controversy reflects the larger
    problems facing Erdogan: 1) lack of control over a party
    group with whom the P.M. has had little direct, personal
    contact since assuming office; and 2) a lack of strong cadre
    of advisers.

    --------------------------
    Comment: A Call for Nuance
    --------------------------

    ¶10. (C) The imam-hiring controversy reflects internal AK
    dynamics: a lack of experience in government and, at a time
    of budgetary shortfalls, an impulse toward ill-disciplined
    populist gestures. These, together with AK's newfound
    interest in re-directing rather than dismantling the apparat
    on behalf of its constituents, leave the party open to
    secularist charges that it has a "sinister" religious agenda.
     Nonetheless, the difference between the AK Government and
    the Establishment on this front highlights a basic gap in
    Turkey between those who support an order linked to a rigid,
    statist-oriented view of what Ataturk wanted for the Republic
    of Turkey, and those who say they want a more open, EU
    candidacy-linked, conservative Turkey, with greater
    opportunity for Islamic influences, to prevail.

    ¶11. (C) Indeed, Establishment accusations against AK are
    undercut by: 1) the complexity of Islam in Turkey; and 2) the
    fact that an ostensibly "secular" Republic has had since its
    inception its own "religious agenda," specifically the desire
    to mold Islam to coincide with Kemalist political purposes --
    a highly questionable theological enterprise.  Indeed, while
    both secularists and Islamists try to play the "Islam" card
    to their advantage, it is clear that Islam, far from being a
    monolithic militant spectral "threat," is more variegated,
    flexible, and deeply rooted in mainstream society than many
    secularists will allow.  While as a political matter Islam
    remains a challenging subject open to both quietist and
    radical influences, the Establishment portrayal of Islam --
    and the very nature and inspiration for an institution like
    the Diyanet -- reflects above all an effort to maintain elite
    dominance over the State and society.  As such, the
    Establishment view obscures the larger realities and
    restricts the room for the compromise essential to political
    development and social peace in Turkey.
    DEUTSCH

`