Blasphemy is not a crime in France since the French Revolution regardless of the offensiveness or severity of the act. After the notion of blasphemy was eliminated from the French law with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, two counteractions to reverse this have failed and this right was confirmed and consolidated with the Law on the Freedom of the Press of July 29, 1881, and the 1905 Law on the Separation of the Churches and State.

Since secularism started to function almost like a religion and has been embraced by large masses in France from the early 20th century onward, discussing the “right to blaspheme” has turned into a taboo and the notion has been valorized as one of the inviolable features of the republic. To name a recent incident portraying the situation, Mila, a 16-year-old girl who is homosexual, was called a “dirty lesbian” on social media by a Muslim commenter, and Mila’s response to this was somewhat reminiscent of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. “The Koran is full of hatred,” she said and went on an anti-Islam rant, full of insults in a foul-mouthed tone, which found support in millions of people. Those who once said “I’m Charlie Hebdo” took up a stance by saying “I’m Mila.”

Mila, on the other hand, received death threats on social media. Although the Presidency of the French Council of the Muslim Faith unequivocally condemned the death threats, all Muslims were described as DAESH (ISIS) militants on social media while the posts in support of Mila such as “She defends the values of France against millions of DAESH militants,” received thousands of likes. The incident has become an outright manifestation of the fact that the “right to blaspheme” has evolved into a rigid stance against Islam and Muslims. After years, the incident has opened Pandora’s box in terms of the use of the right. Meanwhile, those arguing that such outbursts are extreme and pave the way for Islamophobia have been ostracized as if they have committed a sin.

As soon as Mila’s Instagram video, shared on January 19, 2020, became a matter of debate, the leading names of the French far-right, starting from Marine Le Pen, sided with Mila, and she was treated like a heroic figure in the far-right weeklies Valeurs Actuelles and Causeur. On the other hand, a few days after the incident became breaking news, the French Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet said in an interview with the radio station Europe 1 that an attack on religion was an attack on freedom of conscience, to which Marine Le Pen immediately responded from Twitter: “Can we trust Macron’s government for the defense of our freedoms and values? Obviously not!”

When the left too accused Belloubet of questioning the “right to blaspheme,” she had to backpedal, and issued another statement saying that her words might have gone beyond their purpose. Despite this, most comments on Mila referred to the initial statement by Belloubet. Another name after Belloubet that was strongly criticized was Ségolène Royal, former socialist minister who ran for the presidential election of 2007 and the mother of former French President François Hollande’s four children. In an interview she gave to the television channel France 3, she said, “I acknowledge the right to criticize religions but I’m absolutely against keeping a secularism debate through the words of a 15-year-old girl.” When Royal was reminded of the support Mila enjoys through the hashtags “I’m Mila,” she responded, “I’m absolutely not Mila. What would people say if she spoke like that to her family, teachers, or neighbors? Please have some respect. Criticizing a religion does not prevent anyone from doing this respectfully and rationally. I will not be involved in a freedom of expression debate sparked by a disrespectful teenager’s words.” After this interview, the statement Royal made in 2006 in the context of Charlie Hebdo, in which she had said that she found the humiliation of the sacred image of the Muslim Prophet unacceptable, she was brought back to the spotlight and accused of being anti-secular after it was stressed that she is religious and her family members are devout Catholics.

Meanwhile, the Communist Party Chair Fabien Roussel pointed out that Mila’s insults are unacceptable whereas Lille’s socialist mayor Martine Aubry said the threats made against Mila are unacceptable yet such expressions must be avoided. Far-right party Rassemblement National’s Deputy Chair Jordan Bardella accused the politicians criticizing or warning Mila of allying with Islamists and imposing their values on the French nation. He said, “As I’m Charlie Hebdo, I’m also Mila today.” 

The weekly L’Express, which is known for its Islamophobic content, published an article entitled “We Will Pay for This Cowardice” with the signatures of prominent left-wing intellectuals Elisabeth Badinter, Marcel Gauchet, Jacques Juillard, Jean Pierre Golf, and Elisabeth de Fontenay on the grounds that the French left did not give enough support to Mila. In this piece, comedian-singer Frédéric Fromet’s song that insults Jesus Christ was shown as an example and it was asked why the same thing would be a problem in the case of Muslims. The article also accused the political class of being obsessed with the acrobatics on the subjects of freedom of expression and right to blaspheme when it comes to Islam and making concessions to the republican values. Minister of Interior Christophe Castaner issued the following statement: “The offence of blasphemy does not exist in this country and it will never exist under the authority of this government. We must refuse the objections made to the right to criticize religion under the name of Islamophobia concerns.”

In fact, the statements of far-right Marine Le Pen are not different from the statements of these left-wing intellectuals and the minister of interior. Reminding audiences that Mila’s words are not different from Charlie Hebdo cartoons, on every occasion, Le Pen reiterated that not enough support was given to Mila. Also, in an editorial he wrote for the left-wing magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, Dominique Nora complained that the left’s support for Mila was more tepid than the far-right’s support. Instead of criticizing the incident’s Islamophobic outbursts, he criticized the anti-racist and anti-discriminatory organizations for not supporting Mila in response to the derogatory comments Mila received on social media like “dirty French.” He wrote, “In the France of 2020, if you are on the left, you have no right to blaspheme because it automatically makes you an Islamophobic racist.”

Nevertheless, it is rightful and understandable to have concerns or fears with regard to Islamophobia, which is particularly spurred by the far-right and growing with the reactions coming from both the right and left for years. Today, Islamophobia is not only the fear of Islam, but has become an explicit threat against Muslims, their lives, and lifestyles. Of course, for a Muslim, singer Frédéric Fromet’s insults against Jesus Christ or Mila’s insults against Islam and Allah are equally deplorable and unacceptable. It is not even necessary to be a Muslim or believe in God to condemn this language. However, as it does not seem possible to recognize blasphemy as a crime within the framework of secularism that has become itself like a religion and has been prevalent in France for two hundred years, Muslims will, of course, fight against the discourse that constantly points to them as targets while this “right” to insult and denigrate is practiced. Blaspheming Christians are not considered within the scope of provoking racism in today’s world, but this is not the case for Muslims and Jews, especially while the latter are protected with strong legal grounds and considerable public pressure. It is enough to look at the reactions of the far-right and racists in the Mila case to understand this point. This is where the situation gets sticky!

“Why does Islam scare the French?”, “All the disturbing facts about Islam,” “Islam and violence,” “Islam and the communitarianism threat,” “Islamophobia,” “The Republic against Islam,” “The Christians against Islam,” “Middle East, Israel, Islam,” “Our financial and Islamist enemies…”

These captions about Islam and Muslims are from the front covers of two French weeklies, namely Le Point and L’express – published only within a year. If you still don’t get enough dose of Islamophobia after reading these two, (because weekly magazines have higher circulations than daily newspapers in France), take a look at the other weekly or monthly magazines, daily newspapers and TV programs.

Consider also the remarks of the prominent intellectuals in the country, such as Alain Finkelkraut, Eric Zemmur, Robert Badinter, Plantu, Houllebecq and others… Or, listen to the politicians other than Marine Le Pen, including the representatives of right, left, and center groups. It is highly possible to find a whole slew of phobic hints between their lines.

After acquiring Islamophobic tendencies, it is time to get bolder. As Elizabeth Badinter argues, “one should not be afraid of being called Islamophobic and condemned for that.” After all these manipulations, it’s time to develop your own ideas, voice your own apprehensions and anxiety, make judgements without hesitation, and fabricate new fears.

In such a country, a report entitled “The Islamist Factory” was released instead of something called “The Islamophobic Factory.” Although Hakim El Karoui, a Franco-Tunisian consultant, presented in the liberal Montaigne Institute his third report under this title, the 617-page report focuses on “Islam.” His aim is to conduct a study on how to form a “French Islam” upon the demand of his old colleague President Emmanuel Macron from their years in Rothschilds’, and organize and finance the religion of Islam in a way to break the effect of Islamism in France.

When it comes to the report and Karoui’s approach, the interviews he formerly gave provide some clues. In one of his interviews, Karoui is asked: “60 percent of the Muslims believe that wearing headscarf should be allowed in schools. Isn’t this a failure?” And he answers: “No, everyone has respected and conformed to the laws. But as Marcel Gauchet says, there is a phenomenon of individualization in social relations. They regard the headscarf as a symbol of belonging, which is actually a success of the Islamists, just like the issue of halal meat. In France, 40 percent of the Muslims think that eating halal meat is among the five pillars of Islam, which is absolutely wrong.”

Although the report emphasizes that its primary purpose is to avert radicalization through the power that Islamic doctrines like Wahhabism and Salafism enjoy on social media and financial support of a number of countries, the general tone of the report suggests much more. The leading questions in the case study published in the report include the issues such as the headscarf, halal meat, virginity, obedience to men and frequency of mosque visits. It also sketches a crude outline of the view of Muslims on world politics and anti-Semitism and the countries that they are antagonistic to.

Everything presented in the report is intertwined together with a plain logic. In another interview, Karoui says: “25 percent of the Muslims in the country are against the Republican values,” whereas the newspaper interpreted this as a “shock.” While referring to the Republican values, Karoui surely means secularism a la French. Accordingly, the secularism experience of France shows that what is actually desired is an “invisible and indiscernible Islam.” Former Interior Minister Jean Pierre Chenevement, who was elected as the chair of a foundation that was established to invent a French-style Islam two years ago, summed up the situation as follows: “Muslims should freely live their faith but since we are going through hard times, they should not be very visible in public spaces.”

Associating a terror group with Islam is scandalous. Would have DAESH been called a “humanist terror group” had the group defined itself as a humanist organization fighting for human rights? Asking Muslims to be less visible in the public by departing from this shows the absurdity of the situation. As for the report, there are undoubtedly serious differences between a Muslim performing the rules of Islam and a religious belief developed by the hybrid identities in-between the West and Islam amid the dynamics and problems of the modern world that is completely disconnected from traditions.

But when looked at the Muslims through the perspective of Republican values and secularism, a mindset that does not differentiate these two or three is prevalent, which is called Islamophobia. Since this factory is operating full-time, it is not a surprise that some other doctrines have been emerging simultaneously. These two are fueled by the same engine, both the secularist world and Salafi and Wahhabi doctrines are in a battle against traditional Islam.

It is not so long ago that Germany’s Federal Minister of the Interior stated that Islam does not belong to Germany. In addition, his party, the CSU’s Bavarian leader Markus Söder recently announced that crosses must be hung in all Bavarian state’s government buildings, stating that the move is a “commitment to Bavarian identity and culture.” Besides the fact that his first act as the new leader of the Bavarian government is most probably violating the constitution’s neutrality, and on the other hand, most of the four million Muslims in Germany would actually have no problem with Söder’s act of emphasizing Christianity, there are also some other statements by politicians which are also quite disputable.

For instance, a leading federal politician from Chancellor Merkel’s ruling CDU party, Volker Kauder, made a speech on 27 April about the freedom of religion at Germany’s federal parliament, the Bundestag. Kauder said something very strange which has to be addressed in detail. In his speech Kauder used these words: “As we –of course– give Muslims the possibility –and we are supporting this– to build their mosque and to worship in it, as part of freedom of religion; we demand that the Christians can also build their small churches in Turkey, my dear ladies and gentlemen.”

Before addressing this statement, it has to be mentioned that Kauder is heading the strongest parliamentary group in the German Bundestagand his party CDU is a member of the coalition government ruling the country. Generally, people would thus expect that a high-profile and influential politician from such a central party in one of the wealthiest countries in the world prefer legitimate and reasonable words. However, this did not happen. Let me explain why.

Kauder’s statement is very problematic from some basic points.

First, he said that “we give Muslims the opportunity…” But, whom does he mean with “we” in a country that respects the rule of law and whose constitution expects religious neutrality? If he explicitly names some people as “we,” he consequently excludes others. Does he mean “we” Germany and all its people as a whole? Or, just ethnic Germans who are Christians? Or, also Germans who are Germans due to their German citizenship? Or, just Christians independent of their nationality or ethnic origin, or, just the CDU or CSU?

Furthermore, Kauder stressed that they (“we”) give “Muslims” the possibility to build mosques in Germany. But who are these “Muslims?” And do they have a special status according to the German constitution or do they need special treatment? Does Article 4 of the German constitution (freedom of faith, conscience, and creed) not protect Muslim rights as much as it does Christian rights? Do Muslims need a tolerance range due to a constitutional lack? Or, does Kauder just mean the (approximately 3 million) Turkish Muslim population who are living in Germany or the 1 million Syrian refugees or even other German Muslim groups with a background from Morocco, Lebanon, Bosnia, Iran, Iraq etc. Or, Muslims who are actually ethnic Germans?

It’s also very absurd and not acceptable from a democratic point of view as to why Kauder requests something in the form of a precondition and response to freedom of religion in Germany. Does Germany’s constitution allow people who are not Christians or Germans to practice their religions only if the country of their origin, where they or their parents once upon a time came from, deliver the same rights? For instance, in the form of allowing to build churches and to worship in them? In the context of Turkey, his arguments are not true because churches do exist in Turkey along with Christian groups and communities. However, the question arises whether Kauder would go so far to prohibit building mosques in Germany if Muslim-dominated countries would do the same against Christians? If yes, how will he legitimize this kind of antidemocratic and unconstitutional request? As predicted, this kind of a premise has nothing to do with democratic mentality.

Thus, it must be stated that Muslims in Germany, who possess German citizenship or not, have also one of the indisputable basic rights, the freedom of religion, according to which the “undisturbed practice of religion” is guaranteed in Germany – without any precondition. Unfortunately, statements made by politicians and similar moves in order to gain potential votes from far-right, anti-Islamic and populist circles just polarize the country while excluding Muslims in Germany. Mr. Kauder can of course stand up for the demands of Christians building churches all over the world. However, he does not have the right to instrumentalize Muslims living in Germany who are under the protection of the German constitution.

One day, a man starts a religion. A friend asks him what kind of a religion it is, and he answers that it is the religion of laziness. When the friend wants him to describe the religion, he says: “I am too lazy to explain!” This anecdote is reminiscent of secularism in France. If secularism is a religion in France – which certainly is since it even has a church and the shrine of its prominent figures in Pantheon – then it is safe to argue that no nation upholds its religion more than France. Senior French bureaucrat Gilles Clavreul, who is renowned for his affinity with former French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, has lately presented a report entitled “Secularism and Republican Values,” in which he listed a number of radical recommendations such as introducing a two-year secularism education to all the officials in the country. Apparently, he felt a decline in the Frenchmen’s faith. The first solution France came up with in the face of the Daesh threat was harshening secular implementations, as if terror threats emerged due to loosening secular practices.

Secularism, which turned into the official religion of the state with the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and State, is still being preserved in a bigot way although it has been a matter of discussion for 113 years. Numerous books based on the “secularism religion” bombast of statesmen and intellectuals have been written so far. This bigotry is to such an extent that one can engage in profanity against any religion (except Judaism due to the anti-Semitism law) whereas blasphemy is regarded within the boundaries of freedom of expression. In a highly contrasting way, secularism is in such a sacred position that it cannot be joked about in any terms.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who stands either on the right or the left, lately attended a meeting of the Bishops’ Conference of France, which is a significant event for the Catholic Church. He also delivered a speech during the meeting that stirred controversy and outrage. In his speech, Macron said that the damaged link between the Church and State must be mended since there are many misunderstandings with regard to their roles. The President also stressed that the function of secularism is not denying the spiritual as it contributes to society and citizens, and asked Catholics to take on a more active role on several issues such as poverty. He added that France will grow stronger with the participation of Catholics in societal and political life and that dialogue between the Church and State is essential in this respect.

Macron finally stated that France secures the freedom of expression to all believers and non-believers on condition that the Republican laws and values are conformed to; and concluded his remarks by saying: “It is a Church from which I do not expect lessons, but rather this wisdom of humility.” In other words, he guaranteed the protection of secularism in his speech. But the past experiences showed that the freedom of expression with regard to belief has always conflicted with the Republican norms (except Judaism), and freedom of expression is ultimately blocked.

As the overall tone of the speech is considered, it can be said that the President called Catholics to serve social solidarity in an atmosphere where economic crisis and a nihilistic philosophy are prevalent. But this did not prevent the secular bishops’ slamming Macron. It was even calculated that the President uttered the word “secularism” only two times in a 45.000 character and one-hour long speech. The worst part for them is the one where he expressed the link between the church and state. According to their mindset, this link was permanently broken in 1905, so a “damaged link” did not make any sense to them even metaphorically. These circles have labelled Macron and his speech as irresponsible and scandalous. Left-wing politicians and intellectuals and some right-wing figures looked to the issue through such a lens as it is thought that France cannot stand a reference to any other religion than secularism even in the context of social solidarity. As can be remembered, during the 1990s, then President of the Socialist International and incumbent United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guteress attempted to draw an analogy between socialist values and Jesus Christ, which caused an uproar amongst the socialist French.

These circles are now outraged due to Macron’s speech. Olivier Faure, the new leader of the French Socialist Party, lashed out a la Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei: “Secularism is France and the 1905 law.”

In a nutshell, people have freedom of expression in France whether they are believers or non-believers, whereas the only sacred and untouchable thing is secularism to them.

In recent years Turkish politics is claimed to suffer the absence of a strong opposition which is expected to be an alternative to the existing AK Party rule. This absence seems to stem from the fact that the opposition tends to limit itself with merely obstructing or subverting AK Party’s endeavor to rule the country. Indeed, while the AK Party insistently takes offensive steps to enlarge and deepen its clout in society, the opposition remains in defense to contain the AK Party’s moves by resorting to a policy of polarization. The opposition resorts to a feeble and notorious policy, for it naturally does not want to lose the final front – which is its own secular societal base, to an aggressive rival in the political struggle for power. Political opposition in Turkey thus seeks to keep society divided and polarized, most often betting on the age-old dichotomy of secular versus conservative in order to consolidate its societal base and protect it from external infiltrations.

As this policy of polarization yields results, which happened in the Gezi Park protests in 2013 and June 7, 2015 elections, the opposition’s faith in polarizing has grown stronger and keeps bending towards it. After each incident of having successfully driven a wedge between the AK Party and its own “natural” constituency, the opposition feels triumphant and presumes its divisive policy to be politically satisfactory for the time being. Hence, the opposition often feels less pressure on itself after these rare high times and grows reluctant to change their strategy of governance. Ultimately, it then becomes unnecessary for the AK Party to carve up an alternative and better political project to broaden its sphere of influence and appeal to those outside of its electorate, when polarization, in effect, assists them. In the opposition circles however, sadly, the pleasure of subverting the ruling power usually appears to take precedence over the burden of building a better one.

This results in a situation where the opposition only speaks to a limited audience, which constitutes no more than one third of the society. This is usually accompanied by the use of virulent and exclusionary language towards the rest; the majority of society who back the AK Party rule, remain neutral or undecided. This leads to further polarization of society by splitting it into two ideologically rival or hostile camps and carries the danger of dragging it on the verge of collapse and fragmentation.

Some in the opposition firmly believe that the policy of polarization should be extended or rather radicalized to an extent that it lays the foundation of political struggle under extraordinary conditions. By extraordinary conditions or times, they refer to a situation where stable democratic politics ceases to exist, where rules and norms become subversive. This reveals that the opposition oscillates between two policy options: limiting itself to make AK Party rule more difficult, yet remaining within the limits of democratic politics or leading the society to pre-political or non-democratic political conditions by mobilizing the streets.

With its democratic or non-democratic forms, the opposition seems to be obliged towards the policy of polarization. In the last 15 years, the opposition that shaped around a secularist identity has, first of all, lost the control of the state. The internal split within the secularist camp between the liberals and the nationalists played a crucial role in their defeat. Whereas the nationalists resisted the AK Party, as epitomized by the Republican rallies in 2007, many liberals provided overt support to the process of democratization. Thus, as the conservatives have gradually poured into the place of power or the state, the opposition has retired to the societal realm or the periphery. The conservatives have replaced the secularists at the center.

In the aftermath of this transfer of power through democratic ways, the AK Party has started to expand its power into the secularist sections of society. And it has faced a strong resistance by the secularists, especially the nationalist sections of the secularist camp. The liberals have joined forces with the nationalists after the Gezi Park protests in 2013. The policy of polarization, in general, has made up the main strategy of this secularist resistance.

Till now, even though the secularist opposition lost the control of the state, it has become, to an extent, successful in protecting its societal lines and contain infiltration from outside. Nevertheless, for now it is miles away from changing its policy from defense to offense, or rather polarization to expansion. The AK Party still calls the shots in the country. It is the sole hegemonic power that keeps seeking alternative ways to expand in the social realm. Even worse, provided that the AK Party is deposed from power in the 2019 elections, the secularist actors do not know how, or rather lack necessary political tools to expand into society. Not to mention their lack of a cogent plan to control the state and tackle with basic security and economic problems of the country.

As of Monday 15 January, Mayor of Beaucaire – a town in the south of France – Julien Sanchez, and member of the far-right National Front, outlawed alternatives to pork in school canteens, arguing that substitute meals are “anti-republican” and violate France’s secular principles.

While the Mayor justified his decision on the basis of “secularism,” the decision once again brought to the agenda the difference in secularism and the discrimination of minorities in society in the name of secularism.

Previous laws have also been applied by the French authorities in the name of protecting the secular nature of the Republic, such as the headscarf ban. Meanwhile, many groups dismiss this law as discriminatory and unjust.

Similar to the headscarf ban, Abdallah Zekri, head of France’s National Observatory Against Islamophobia condemned Sanchez’s decision, calling it “arbitrary and discriminatory.”

“It is an unacceptable measure. We cannot accept that while some children are eating, others will just watch.”

Bringing attention to the mere difference between secularism and discrimination, Zekri stated that the decision made is contrary to the principle of secularism, noting that secularism guarantees freedom of conscience and religion as a fundamental right for every citizen.

Calling for the decision to be cancelled, Zekri added “He [Julien Sanchez] is using the respect of secularism as a pretext, but his action contradicts it. It is simply racism against Muslims. It is an anti-Muslim process.”

Following the decision made, around 150 Muslim students have been deprived of their “substitute meals.”

Anne Moiroud, head of the Beaucaire school district’s parents’ association organized a picnic in the square in front of Beaucaire’s town hall on Monday to protest the decision made.

Speaking to a local news website ObjectifGard, Moiroud expressed her distress by stating: “My issue is in fact that [Sanchez] seeks publicity for the National Front all throughout France but does not think of the children here in Beaucaire.”

“It [substitute menus] has existed for 40 years. Children have the same rights as us concerning their freedom of religion, thought and expression. They have the right to eat pork or not to.”

Head of the local opposition group, Laure Cordelet, criticized the Mayor’s decision and claimed it “breached children’s rights” and “stigmatized the local Maghreb [North African] community.”

The decision, she added “can in no way be justified in the name of secularism.”

Marlène Schiappa, a French politician serving as the Secretary of State in charge of Equality between Men and Women, also dismissed the decision and expressed her outrage by calling Sanchez “a typical example of someone brandishing secularism as an anti-Muslim political weapon, or anti-Jewish for that matter.”

The objects surrounding our daily lives are not just pieces of particular shape and color meant to perform a particular function. Objects are texts that convey meanings. They are the instruments of emotion and ideology. Therefore the narratives built through the usage of social and cultural objects can not be treated as objective or innocent. They are filled with the makers’ bias: ideology, motives or sensation. Television dramas and films are like dreams. Elements belonging to disperate contexts or situations can be combined together along with human beings from disperate backgrounds. A story can be woven through this manipulation that is far away from reality or makes the idea of reality obsolete. Yet, in these represented or imaginary stories, objects and their combinations become metaphors, open to interpretations. Hence, in the light of above statement, visual media plays two important roles: it reflects as well as shapes the society. Here we comparatively examine two television serials. One is set in Turkey (Huzur Sokağı or Serenity Street), and another is set in Pakistan (Khuda Aur Mohabbat or God and the Love). Representation of Islam, Islamic symbols and women are at the centre of the two narratives.

“I did not start wearing hijab before because … ,” says Feyza (Selin Demiratar), the character of a young Turkish girl who wears miniskirts, visits late night parties and drinks occasionally, to her beloved, Bilal (Kutsi). Feyza belongs to a rich corporate family where the concept of hijab exists as a dressing for the poor, ignorant and backward people, thus having no place within the realm of a “modern” family.

“… because I always had a feeling that if I begin wearing hijab I would be doing it for you, not for God. Now I don’t care whether you are with me or not. I have found my world now,” Feyza tells Bilal, a man who comes from a modest family and defines every aspect of his life in keeping with religious guidelines. Feyza utters these words after going through a series of hardships and deception at the hands of her own family members and friends. As she prays in silence calmness befalls her. Prayers give her peace that she has found absent all through her life. Now in this new world bowing her head to God liberates her from all the sadness of past and fear of future. Even Bilal, her beloved, who in fact had opened the gates for her to this new world of spirituality becomes insignificant to her. Such is the overpowering influence of this new life.

http://thenewturkey.org/the-journey-of-a-soul-ayse-sasa/

These lines describe what lies at the heart of the narrative of the Şenol Sönmez directed Turkish television serial, Huzur Sokağı. Few things in this message set Huzur Sokağı apart from its Pakistani counterpart, Khuda Aur Mohabbat, directed by Saud Raheem. First, it establishes that religion is to be appreciated as a ‘consequence’, not cult or authority. Second, compromise between love and God, rich and poor is not completely impossible, as represented in Khuda Aur Mohabbat. Third, within a social setup woman’s identity does not have to necessarily be overshadowed by religion, which has historically been deemed as proprietorship of man. The two serials, though unrelated, hit the screen around the same time in their respective countries – Huzur Sokağı in 2012 and Khuda Aur Mohabbat in 2011.

The relationship between religion and modernity

Both Huzur Sokağı and Khuda Aur Mohabbat have a socio-historical context in Turkey and Pakistan. The two countries are Muslim majority and the debate between Islam, secularism and modernity has existed ever since the two states were formed in the first half of the twentieth century. More specifically, since the 1980s the debate gained more salience in Pakistan as well as Turkey, with a particular focus on women. In Turkey, the demand for the right to wear the headscarf in public places, like schools, public offices and universities, was raised as the secularist republican rule had become ever more oppressive in that regard. On the other hand, through Zia-ul-Haq’s “Islamization” process in Pakistan new parameters were legislatively drawn curtailing women’s rights. The two television dramas capture these two opposing debates involving Islam, women’s rights, and human rights.

Huzur Sokağı represents a complex interplay between religion and modernity. It rejects modernity in its Western form, which promotes individualism and divests a human being of spirituality. It completes this “modernity” by infusing a spiritual element – that is religious values – into it, and it revitalizes the power of a sokak or street. Thus an individual is no more simply a corporate machine, but a human being, a social animal who identifies himself/herself within a neighborhood. The food cooking in one kitchen can be shared by the entire community. So Huzur Sokağı emphasizes molding of the existing social order to make it conducive for all the social agents irrespective of their beliefs, gender and economic status. It does this by putting the individual at the center. Conversely, however, Khuda Aur Mohabbat reflects the rigidity of the social structure in which an individual is merely an object that serves this structure.

For a century now structuralists and post-structuralists have been arguing about the arbitrariness of meaning of symbols and words; the same word or object can mean different things in different settings. This is exactly what the two serials exemplify. The headscarf and abaya, traditionally a Muslim dress, for instance, assume two different types of meanings within the setting of the two television serials under discussion.

The power of ideological symbolization

Huzur Sokağı’s hijab, analyzing the character of Shukran (Sinem Ozturk), signifies wisdom, self-respect, patience, politeness and prudence. The hijab of Khuda Aur Mohabbat, on the other hand, is a symbol of an overarching authority — a mix of religion and patriarchy. It not only segregates but also blocks. Apart from being a symbol controlling identity of a woman, the hijab of Khuda Aur Mohabbat, which also extends to the face, allowing only eyes to be visible, acts as a wall that solidifies the difference between male and female. Throughout this drama serial hijab has a central role that cements the male-female difference.

However, perhaps for the first time in modern Turkey, a television serial has such an extensive visibility of the hijab and abaya, yet there is no conscious focus on this dress. Huzur Sokağı’s increased exposure to the Islamic dressing may be attributed to the changing ground reality of Turkey. After the lifting of the ban on headscarf in Turkey, the visibility rate of headscarf throughout the country has gone up. The portrayal of women, with and without headscarf, involved in normal exchange of social life, is an assertion of the need for different sections of the society to intermingle and coexist with each other in the new Turkey.

Its focus is on the complex features of characters – wisdom, shallowness, recklessness, foresight, morality/immorality, politeness and so on – that cut across the ideological and identity boundaries. In the process, not only is the social gender difference obliterated but the secularist-conservative divide also becomes insignificant; one is not promoted over the other. For instance, Bilal, the lead male character, who is depicted as very religious, self-respecting and authoritative, falls in love with Feyza, who is quite unlike him. For Bilal, the condition to be in love with Feyza and get married to her is not to transform her to a pious woman. This is not even a point. Even Bilal’s own teenage sister, Rezaan, doesn’t wear a headscarf and sometimes wears miniskirts. Still Bilal loves and cares for Rezaan as an elder brother would do. Though it is Bilal who, after their father’s demise, acts as head-of-the family, he never imposes anything to the family members. He acts as an obedient and respectful son to his mother.

The narrative and symbolization of Huzur Sokağı is integral to the Turkish government’s ideology in trying to redefine Turkish identity, i.e., advocating the creation of a culture of cooperation, rather than competition or confrontation, among different social and ideological groups. In a society like Turkey there has been a raging antagonism between extreme/strict secularist policies of past regimes at the cost of those who were surviving their religious tradition in the country’s remote corners.

Huzur Sokağı also attempts to serve as an educational platform which sends clear socio-cultural signals. It does not obliterate the “secularist” discourse to promote a “religious” one (as some scholars tend to see them as two binary opposites). It is simply redefining the secularist discourse to broaden its circumference in order to become more inclusive. Khuda Aur Mohabbat, on the other hand, is a spectacle of tragedy. An individual is trapped in a structure, whose rigidity gives him/her a choice between death and submission. The individual is an object whose emotions, feelings, thoughts and desires are subject to structural regulation.

The Social Divide

When two people – Imaan (Sadia Khan), a girl from a poor and religious family and Hamaad (Imran Abbas), a boy from a modern, rich family transcend their class boundaries and fall in love with each other, the end they meet is death. Even changing sides does not help Hamaad: he forsakes his rich family to become equal to his beloved and begins to pray, but then it is the girl’s father Molvi Aleemuddin (Salman Shahid) who refuses to accept this marriage, signaling the social stigma, entrenched inequality between the two families and “illegitimacy of love marriage in Islam”.

The uncompromisability of the social classes so vividly illustrated in Khuda Aur Mohabbat evokes a high degree of emotion. The narrative and mode of representation can be interpreted as a general signifier for the most of the post-colonial South Asian cultures, including India and Pakistan, the two most populous nations of the region. Within the boundaries of these countries two unequal societies exist side by side. While one is defined by its economic status – a highly westernized elite who predominantly occupy governmental positions, the other is defined by its poverty and religiosity.

Due to poverty and massive population states in Pakistan and India have not been able to exert their authority to the peripheries of the countries. Consequently, in the absence of any support from state apparatuses, large masses of population find refuge in cultural and religious rituals. It is the local bodies at village level and, in some cases, tribal bodies, that regulate the social life through religious or cultural decrees. Weak state institutions find it hard to reach out to the people at the periphery. While the elite are guided by their economic status, those at the bottom adopt religion and traditional rituals as an authority guiding social behavior. This overwhelmingly resulted in religion becoming a source of power, which became capable of justifying patriarchy. Molvi Aleemuddin represents this authority in Khuda Aur Mohabbat. The serial symbolically captures this convolution.

Islamic symbols like hijab and beard, in the past two decades especially, have assumed an extremely negative connotation. Comparative analysis of Huzur Sokağı and Khuda Aur Mohabbat opens a window to see the artificial nature of human perception about symbols: meanings of symbols are not natural; they are produced through social interaction. Therefore, anything wrong about Islamic symbols is only a matter of human perception, which can change as well.

The 1982 Constitution and the Limits of Politics 

As the determinants of the legal norms forming a state a constitution provide the main references to regulate state agencies and draw a general frame for the fundamental rights and duties of all. This aspect of a constitution defines its legal character. Thus the entire legal structure of a state is basically defined by its constitution, written or unwritten, which theoretically laid down the superior ground norm for its functioning. Moreover, a constitution, as a part of its technical function, transfers the values, that would dominate the political organization of the state, to a normative platform. At this point a constitution outstrips its legal nature and gains an extrajudicial identity.

These being the basic functions of a constitution, the Turkish Constitution of 1982 brought forth, since it came into force, a rather precarious situation for the Turkish legal and political systems. For this reason, the 1982 Constitution could be named as an “anti-constitution” for its objective is ‘to guard’ the state against society. The result, as far as more than thirty years of experience has shown, is that this constitution makes a preference for the side of the state in the individual-state balance when applied by a narrow literal approach. This constitution makes the individuals’ rights and freedoms vulnerable against the state authority by the means of sacralisation. Its preamble and unchangeable provisions attest to the uncompromising nature of the 1982 Constitution.

As a product of the coup d’état which took place in September 1980, the 1982 Constitution served, in line with the mind-set of the interventionist high-ranking officers, to ensure military tutelage over the political and the public spheres. The authorized bodies of judiciary, executive and legislation were regulated in accordance with the framework drawn by the founding ideology. Furthermore, steps were also taken to inhibit the actors who would use these bodies in future to overstep the “red lines” which had been determined during the constitution making- process. The very natural consequence of this situation was to prevent possible leakages of opposition which are realizable through democratic elections.

http://thenewturkey.org/turkey-erdogan-and-the-wisdom-of-the-presidential-system/

The Institutional Structure of the Bureaucratic Tutelage

The 1982 constitution carries an ideological view of social life and determines its borders. Secularism and nationalism laid down the main components of this view. The unchangeable first three provisions provide the textual basis of this mechanism. The constitution highlighted two main factors in the bureaucratic tutelage system, one being the judiciary while the second is the president office. Both of these institutions enjoy broad authorities but they are mainly politically unaccountable.

The judiciary ensured the politics to become judicialized by the means of transforming “independence of judiciary” into a myth. This way, not only the power domain of political authority was restricted but also those political parties which were considered dangerous have been closed down and pushed out of the system by the Constitutional Court.

It is a fact that the negative scene in question has lost ground by the democratization attempts of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) within the scope of harmonization process to EU. These resulted in strengthening the civil politics.

The presidency could be considered as the other institution undertaking the carrier role of tutelage of the 1982 constitution. This continued to be the case until the constitutional amendment made in 2007. The mission attributed to this institution could be seen clearly by considering the constitutional powers and duties given to the president. The president, who has been elected by the parliament until 2007, exercised executive powers other than being only a figurehead as it is in the parliamentary regimes and was subject to slightest pressure to accountability. Thus, the president office turned out to become a vital instrument of tutelage. There are two dimensions of the constitutional nature of this office. First is the rather familiar and proclaimed role of the President of the Republic and the second is its capacity to strengthen the bureaucratic tutelage mechanisms. Moreover, the interventions made on the presidentially determined political domain of the Constitutional Court by both the president and the court members could be indicated as the clear evidence to this situation.

Obviously, the military and bureaucratic tutelage functioned with the contributions of the actors apart from two institutions. For example, the National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Konseyi-MGK) which remained under the control of the military until 2000s or the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors (Hakim ve Savcılar Yüksek Kurulu-HSYK) as being the protectors of a specific ideology in judiciary were the effective institutions of this order.

It is a fact that the negative scene in question has lost ground by the democratization attempts of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) within the scope of harmonization process to EU. These resulted in strengthening the civil politics. Two vital steps were taken to downgrade the tutelage by the constitutional amendments made in 2007 and 2010. By these amendments, presidency and judiciary, as the two vital institutions of tutelage, have become more accountable from a democratic viewpoint.

According a major amendment made in 2007, the president was to be elected by a popular election, which was practiced for the first time in 2013. Also, in 2010 the Constitutional Court and the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors were restructured to obtain a more democratic judiciary. Nonetheless these amendments remark to an unfinished ideal. The failures of the current state system and the revision of the position of bureaucracy toward democratic institutions still call for further steps.

The empowerment of the politics against bureaucracy has not been implemented only in constitutional dimension. Several steps have been taken in order to overcome centrist state administration by essential regulations and to strengthen the local administrations. Thus, efforts were made to create a transparent, politically elected and accountable administration mentality.

New Constitution and Legitimacy Gap of Politics

Recent public surveys show that approximately 70% of public demands a new constitution. The incapability of the Turkish Parliament to secure a new constitution bears the potential of undermining its credibility in the eyes of the populace.

The constitutional reconciliation commission which following the November 2015 elections resumed its activities offers an historic opportunity for drafting a new constitution. The political parties in the parliament need to take advantage of the connective and participatory power of the commission in order to increase the credibility of politics in the eyes of public and keep their promise for “new constitution”. However, that CHP has left the commission lately has a risk to miss this opportunity.

The constitution of 1982, which has been amended quite a few times since the day it was put into operation, failed not only to meet the popular demands but also to come up with a coherent and stable political mechanism. The gap left by legal politics has in time been filled by a bureaucratic tutelage which further complicated the functioning of Turkish politics. Despite many democratic steps taken by various AK Party governments the rationalization of Turkish politics and furthering the powers of legal political actors cannot be duly secured without a new constitution. On the other hand it should not be forgotten that the success of the new constitution making process is not only a structural imperative but it is also strongly demanded by the public. For this reason, elimination of the “presidentialism-centered” approach toward the new constitution issue of Turkey would provide a sound basis for the discussions.