Clash of secularity and religiosity: The staging of secularism and Islam through the icons of Atatürk and the veil in Turkey

Abstract

1920s Republic When the military interrupted parliamentary democratic politics in Turkey in 1980, the Turkish population did not know or predict that this was indeed the harbinger of far-reaching transformation in the position Islam has been used to occupying in the social and public life of Turkey. José Casanova's (1994) thesis about the significant “deprivatization” of religion applies well to the noteworthy presence that Islamic religiosity has achieved in Turkey's social, cultural, political and economic life in the last two decades or so. The term “deprivatization” signifies the emergence of new historical developments that entail the reversal of a certain secular trend, involving the entrance of religion into the public sphere and the arena of political contestation. Religion is called upon not simply to defend the territory that has been allocated to it, but also to participate in the very struggles to define and set the modern boundaries between the private and public spheres, between system and life-world, between legality and morality, between individual and society, between family, civil society and state, between nations, states, civilizations and the world system. (Casanova, 1994: 6) Following Casanova's thinking, it is possible to talk about a process of “deprivatization” of Islam in Turkey since the 1980s. Since then, not only has Turkey's political life become fairly volatile and unpredictable, but the social and cultural life has been characterized by the confrontation or clash of secular and Islamic ways of living, styles of dressing and manners, targeting the constitution of bodies and subjectivities. © 2011 Jack Barbalet, Adam Possamai and Bryan S. Turner editorial matter and selection.