An article about secularism, religious issues and Turkey

As we all know Turkey is a beloved country for many foreigners. We appreciate this very much indeed regardless of whatever reason this attraction originates from, whether it be nice climate, sun and sea, nature, historical attractions, friendly people (hopefully at all times) an even affordable budgets for a comfortable life etc.

Certainly Turkey has a culture, traditions, history and other points that one can observe and see in this unique country. Matters having to do with religion is one of them and it goes without saying that a great majority (even more than 90 percent) belong to Islam, although it would be difficult to say all practice the religion as required in the holly book.

After being ruled under the name Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years and following the great war of independence, started an crowned successfully by GREAT ATATÜRK, Turkey adopted secularity – which is … “Secularity is an approach to religion-state relations that avoids identification of the state with any particular religion or ideology (including secularism itself) and that endeavors to provide a neutral framework capable of accommodating a broad range of religions and beliefs” as defined on following reputable link https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/faculty_scholarship/122 .

However, despite all efforts and work carried out at the time, religious fundamentalism has remained to survive.  There are still many in Turkey today who do not refrain from spending every effort for the secular regime to be abolished and sharia (religious law) to be re-established in the country again.

Thanks God, despite all efforts in this direction, the great majority of Turkish people have always been loyal to the secular regime and principles of GREAT ATATÜRK introduced to the nation on the way to catching up with the developed nations / countries of the modern world.

However, even today an ordinary citizen can feel and even see enough reasons to be concerned about an atmosphere threatening secularism (described above). Therefore, to the contrary of the strategy adopted to weaken secularism, it has been observed for quite a while many people in the country and youth in particular seem to experience the feeling of alienation from religious matters.

To recap, we should all have great respect for “whatever others believe and think”, as long as we are all aware we are not entitled to intervene in lives of others and practice several means to make others believe, behave or even think like we do. And to be equally important, we most certainly have to be aware that once state matters are related to religion – regardless of what religion – prospects of development and reaching the level of civilized nations of the world will be in jeopardy.

On this occasion once again therefore, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to GREAT ATATURK for having established secularism in this beautiful country.