Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Tina Ramirez
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000213A
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00:22 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:24 This is a program bringing you discussion 00:26 about religious liberty events, developments 00:29 and issues around the world. 00:31 My name is Lincoln Steed. 00:33 I'm editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:35 And my guest on the program is Tina Ramirez 00:38 from the Becket Foundation, and you're the liaison 00:41 for Congress in Washington and international events 00:45 as well-- and the UN I noticed. 00:47 Yeah. You have many, many hats. 00:48 Yes, I do. I want to talk about Turkey, 00:51 and not the American turkey, 00:53 not thanksgiving, but the country of Turkey. 00:56 I have always been fascinated by Turkey 00:59 and of course that part of the world 01:01 has a long and ancient history. 01:06 And in fact one of the places 01:07 that I'd love to go to is Istanbul. 01:10 Yeah, you should you go. 01:11 I've thought about it a lot recently. 01:14 You know, it's the ancient Byzantium. 01:16 Yeah, yeah. Almost a favorite place. 01:19 But Turkey is really going through 01:21 some interesting changes at the moment, isn't that? 01:24 Yeah, definitely. 01:25 In fact, one of the more sensational news of Turkey 01:32 not too long ago was Pope Benedict. 01:36 Oh, the Regensburg speech. Regensburg speech. 01:38 Yeah. He inadvertently offended 01:43 some Muslim sensibilities in a makeup session. 01:47 He went then to Istanbul to Turkey 01:50 and prayed in the Blue Mosque. 01:52 Yeah, it created a quite a stir that's for sure. 01:54 So I think that reminded lot of people 01:56 might not have been aware of Turkey 01:57 and its culture and its religion. 01:59 And really how grand presence it has. 02:02 Yeah, you know it's true. It's a very significant country 02:04 within the Middle East and within Europe. 02:07 And so it borders both regions and-- 02:10 And it's a NATO ally. 02:11 And so in a certain sense it's linked with the West 02:15 and yet culturally it's very much Middle Eastern 02:18 and predominantly Islamic population. 02:23 But at least in the modern era it's been a secular regime. 02:29 What was that? Kemal Ataturk, 02:31 westernized the country by force, 02:34 tamped down religious sensibilities 02:36 or at least its religion's control over the government. 02:39 But we're heading a little bit away from that way, aren't we? 02:42 Yeah, you know, you can try to suppress religion 02:44 as much as you want, but it's inherent 02:47 who we are as human beings that it only lasts so long. 02:50 And so what we've seen in Turkey 02:51 is this resurgence of Islam and of Sufism 02:56 and just religious expression throughout the country 03:00 because with the rise of Erdogan and his government-- 03:03 And he is really a fundamental, 03:05 well that's a really long word. 03:06 He is an Islamist, isn't it? Well, he is-- 03:09 His party is an Islamist party. 03:10 Yeah, and his party has had several-- 03:15 Iterations. Yes, I don't know exactly 03:16 what to say. I mean it started 03:18 with the AKP party which was banned or the Refah Partisi-- 03:21 I'm sorry. Well, they spent some time 03:22 in prison, isn't it? Yeah, it started 03:23 as Refah Partisi that was banned. 03:26 There was a big case that went all the way 03:27 to European court of human rights, 03:28 trying to determine whether it's legitimate 03:30 for the government to get rid of a party 03:33 because it was a religious party. 03:35 Because at that time, as you explained 03:38 the government was completely secular 03:39 and so you weren't allowed to have religious parties. 03:42 And so then it transformed itself into the AKP party, 03:45 which now at the end are there in power 03:47 and what they've done is tried to open up 03:51 religious freedom for many Muslims within the country. 03:53 So there isn't such fear of being Muslim and religious, 03:57 and expressing yourself within the country. 03:59 And so for instance the headscarf issue 04:01 has been a major issue there and Becket Fund 04:03 was involved in this case 04:05 at the European court of human rights. 04:06 I know that. Yeah, fascinating case. 04:10 They can read about it on our website. 04:11 But essentially the case was over whether the headscarf 04:15 is a political symbol or religious one, 04:16 and whether it's a threat 04:18 to the national security, national identity. 04:20 And so the APK party has been very good 04:25 at trying to help improve the freedom of people 04:29 to express themselves religiously, 04:30 even if that means bringing out headscarf. 04:32 And this is a right that people should have everywhere 04:35 whether it's in France which wants to ban religious garb 04:38 such as headscarves or anywhere. 04:40 But because it's so tightened to this history for secularism, 04:45 it really has opened up these kind of worlds within Turkey 04:48 over the role of religion and society and to what extent 04:52 that's compatible with this 04:54 secularist Kemal Ataturk tradition. 04:58 I should throw something and I hope 05:00 our viewers understand. 05:02 I mean the religious issue is the same, 05:05 but in Turkey this headscarf 05:07 is quite literary often just the scarf. 05:09 Yeah, its not a-- It's not like the abaya or the-- 05:11 Right, it's just headscarf. 05:13 Or these black heavy veils that you see in Saudi Arabia 05:16 or some other Middle Eastern countries. 05:18 Hmm, hmm. It's a really 05:21 almost a fashion statement connected 05:23 to religious sensibility, isn't it? 05:25 Well, it's, I mean I can't speak for them 05:27 but it's definitely a religious expression 05:30 that many of them choose and many don't choose. 05:33 I mean you can go to Turkey and see people 05:35 wearing the headscarf or not wearing it. 05:36 So it's a diverse society for a lot of different views. 05:40 But really the issue at hand right now 05:42 is what will be the role of religion 05:44 in the future of Turkey? 05:46 As you know they're going through 05:47 constitutional review process 05:49 where they're trying to re-write the constitution 05:51 and this issue has really-- it's come up quite a bit, 05:56 but it's also been suppressed because it's really-- 05:59 there's a lot of different opinions on it. 06:01 Well, I have read a lot of news reports on it. 06:03 But I don't remember reading anything 06:05 that reports on general view of the population. 06:09 What are their opinions? Where are they tending in their-- 06:13 Yeah, that's a great question. 06:14 I was in Turkey just last month, 06:16 and when I was there one of the questions 06:18 we were asking was what are-- what is the public opinion 06:21 about religion in the constitution, 06:23 and you know, expanding religious freedom? 06:25 And there's couple of different views. 06:27 In general, most people are not confident 06:29 that this issue will be resolved in the constitution 06:33 and there hasn't been a lot of public discourse 06:36 on religious freedom in Turkey. 06:38 There's been a lot of public discourse 06:40 about two other prominent issues 06:41 in the constitutional debate that's going on. 06:43 One is whether they'll adopt a presidential system 06:46 and then the Kurdish question of ethnic identity 06:49 and whether that would be recognized. 06:51 But really underlying both of those two were prominent issues 06:55 within Turkey right now-- is this underlying issue 06:57 of much of the fears of the people that are concerned 07:02 with whether the country goes for presidential system 07:04 are afraid that Erdogan will become 07:06 a president for life essentially. 07:07 This model that we've seen-- It's happened before. 07:10 That we've seen much in the Middle East. 07:11 Yeah and so there's this great fear 07:13 amongst secularists within the society 07:14 that's what it will become. 07:15 And his movement into expanding the freedom of Islam 07:19 within expressing itself publicly will lead 07:22 itself into a more religiously-- imposed society. 07:27 And so that's a fear. 07:28 But then on the other side, with the Kurdish issue 07:30 is this question of ethnic identity. 07:33 And, you know, can you have-- can you have an identity, 07:38 national identity that includes many different faiths 07:40 and ethnic communities or not? 07:43 And traditionally the government has been purely secularist. 07:46 And of course they've recognized Islam 07:48 as the religion of the majority of the people, 07:51 but they've suppressed many of their ethnic minorities. 07:55 The Kurds have been the largest one. 07:57 But if you look at the Greeks and the Syriacs 07:59 and the Armenians, they've also been 08:01 equally suppressed as well as they're living. 08:02 Sure. The Armenian question still not settled. 08:03 I mean that was come up to the UN recently. 08:08 What I will bring out for our viewers 08:10 and it's not directly the way you're leading a discussion, 08:14 but it's worth remembering that Constantinople 08:17 was once the major center of Christianity. 08:21 It was vying a Roman Constantinople 08:24 that vied for attention. 08:25 We tend to think it was an Islamic country, 08:27 but it was the massive center of Christianity. 08:31 Oh, absolutely for the Eastern Church. 08:32 I mean that was a center of Byzantium. 08:34 I mean it was, I mean for the Greek Orthodox Church 08:37 that was the center and for a long time, 08:40 I mean it was the center for the all of Christian dome. 08:42 And then if you look out the Syriac church 08:45 which still speaks Aramaic and the language-- 08:47 It's a good point here. 08:48 Yeah, the language of Aramaic is actually 08:50 in jeopardy right now because of the situation in Syria 08:52 and what's happening in Turkey. 08:55 But the Syriac church has a monastery in eastern Turkey 09:00 called Mor Gabriel Monastery which dates back to the 300. 09:03 It's one of the oldest monasteries 09:05 in the Christian church. 09:06 And there's was a seat 09:07 of the Syriac church for a number of years. 09:11 And so in that church as well, we can talk about it later, 09:14 is also in jeopardy. 09:15 Yeah, let's come back to that. 09:16 Yeah. The other thing that's worth 09:18 remembering and many members of my church, 09:22 older ones probably, that remember 09:26 discussions of prophecy and history know the importance 09:30 that we had once played or placed on Turkey. 09:34 Because this sultan of Turkey was very much 09:38 the expansionary time of Islam, up in the Europe, 09:41 the time of Martin Luther. 09:42 So this is incredible. 09:44 This is at crossroads country really, 09:46 the way to see it. Oh, absolutely. 09:47 Yeah, it's always been at the crossroads of history 09:49 and even for our faith, I mean many Christians still go there, 09:54 and do pilgrimages throughout the different, 09:56 the Seven Churches of the Revelation of-- 09:58 Absolutely. That's another point. 09:59 The role in that general area. Ephesus. 10:01 And I mean I would encourage everybody 10:02 to go visit Ephesus, its amazing place, or Cappadocia 10:05 where the Catacombs are. 10:06 I mean the history there is phenomenal. 10:08 And then again back on Islam, 10:11 there was the Turkish Sultan and Constantinople 10:14 and then the center in Baghdad, but those are the two 10:19 expansionary centers of Islam, 10:21 Baghdad and then Constantinople, not Saudi Arabia-- 10:24 that's what a lot of people think. 10:25 That's a product really of World War I 10:27 and the discovery of oil and the oil business. 10:31 But it's a massive cultural center 10:34 from a religious and a political point of view. 10:36 It is. And the Turkish government really 10:39 wants to positionitself within the world 10:42 as a place of tolerance or respect for religious freedom. 10:45 And the bridges, the divide 10:47 between the Middle East and Europe. 10:49 And the process to get into European Union 10:53 is pretty much been stalled. 10:55 But Angela Merkel was-- The German chancellor. 10:59 Yeah, the German chancellor was in Turkey recently. 11:01 And she spent a lot of time with Erdogan, 11:05 talking about the religious minority problem. 11:07 So even though the EU process-- 11:10 Germany is big problem. Yeah. 11:11 Yeah, but I mean but what it was great that she spent 11:15 so much time focusing on the fact that to bridge 11:20 this divide you need to take seriously religious minorities 11:24 and religious freedom because this is such an inherent 11:26 and foundational part of human freedom 11:28 and democracy around the world. 11:30 And if you want to be a model to the Middle East, 11:32 and you want to be connected to the West, 11:34 then really you need to deal with these issues. 11:36 So unfortunately in this constitutional process 11:39 in Turkey, they have been overlooking that issue. 11:42 And its because they recognized 11:43 that it is such a difficult issue that it really, 11:47 when the Ottoman empire fell at the world war I, 11:51 and it was it was obviously split up and the empire 11:55 as you've mentioned that was expanded was restricted. 11:59 And the Lausanne convention is really what regulates 12:02 the treaty that ended that, that in the Ottoman Empire. 12:05 And they recognized three minorities- 12:08 the Jewish community, the Armenian community, 12:09 and Greek community. 12:11 But there are number of communities 12:12 that are recognized and even those 12:14 three minorities groups don't have equal protection. 12:17 And so right now, really for the future of Turkey, 12:20 and how we move forward it needs 12:23 to begin to deal with this issue. 12:24 Now when you say there's no protection in Turkey, 12:26 how does that lack of protection manifest 12:28 itself so presently in Turkey? 12:30 Well, a number of the problems relate 12:31 to property right and registration. 12:34 The most prominent example would be the Halki seminary 12:37 which is where the Greek Orthodox Church 12:38 trains its pastors-- it's bishops. 12:41 And it hasn't been able to operate it since the 70s. 12:44 So this is a major problem for one of the largest churches 12:47 in the world with historic roots in Turkey 12:50 that is unable to continue to exist. 12:53 Another problem would be that they're unable 12:56 to teach in their own language. 12:57 So Aramaic, for instance, they can't train people 13:00 in their ancient languages, but you could say 13:02 the same thing to Armenian and of other ancient languages. 13:05 The languages are-- 13:06 The languages of their religion. 13:08 Well, they're not allowed to it. 13:10 It would be violation of the constitution in Turkish, 13:13 and a threat to that, right. 13:15 There's a restriction on using those languages. 13:19 But they-- That's very prejudicial. 13:21 That's only in a few countries that sort of thing. 13:23 So if you can't train your clergy, 13:25 if your property is confiscated and not returned, 13:28 if you're unable to speak in your religious language, 13:31 which I can only imagine a Muslim 13:34 that wouldn't be able to speak in Arabic, 13:35 how offensive that would be to them. 13:37 Then this is a major problem for maintaining 13:40 your religious communities. 13:41 And so what we see in Turkey is really the threatened survival 13:45 of these ancient communities, whether it's Alawite Muslim 13:49 or Syriac orthodox Christian. 13:52 It's a familiar story to other discussions, 13:54 other places in the Middle East that ancient 13:58 religious minorities are really a threat at the moment. 14:01 They're just being pushed 14:02 to the margins numerically in their practice. 14:06 You know, this is an interesting picture of Turkey 14:08 because I know Turkey has been given 14:10 a very progressive image of light. 14:14 We need to comeback before I get into further discussion. 14:17 We'll be back after a short break, stay with us. |
Revised 2014-12-17