Diyanet in Turkey and the Netherlands – Transnational politics and politicization of research
Guest Author: Thijl Sunier
Do you agree that foreign governments should not intervene in matters of integration, or interfere with the religious life of people in the Netherlands?”
“If this still happens, do you agree that this is counterproductive to integration [of Muslims]?
These questions were posed by liberal MP’s in the Dutch Parliament to the government in February this year following the publication of the research report Diyanet. The Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs in a changing Environment that I wrote together with colleagues from the Netherlands and Turkey. The Diyanet is a state institution that regulates the mosques in Turkey and a considerable number of Turkish mosques in Europe.
The time that researchers could pretend to work in an academic bubble is definitively over, if it ever existed. It is common knowledge that research results especially those dealing with culture are not just blind data that simply ‘add to our knowledge’. Cultural data are the result of a multilayered process of communication and rhetorical technique. We also know that the conditions under which social scientists carry out research are inextricably linked to political conditions. Data are not ‘neutral’ packages of knowledge up for grasp. They play a role in political processes and they are always part of specific power configuration. Scientific knowledge is socially situated.
It is also common knowledge that the political sensitivity of research on Muslims and Islam in Europe has become particularly critical in the last decade. Doing research in the post 9/11 political climate about issues such as the place of Islam in European societies is caught up in a complex political and social web of opposing requirements and assumptions. The presence of Muslims in Europe has become first and foremost an issue of either integration policy, or security, or both. This has not only determined research agendas, but it has also made outcomes multi-interpretable almost by definition. Researchers on issues such as the application of sharia practices in family legislation in Europe, the different outlooks and convictions of young Muslims, the religious affiliations of women, or even innocent topics such as regulations for Islamic elderly people, cannot ignore the fact that their results bear a high political sensitivity.
Both integration and security have become social engineering industries with their own assumptions and trajectories. Governments and policy makers, providers of research money increasingly ask for ‘hard facts’ about the presence of Muslims. There is of course an abundance of (mainly quantitative) research output that is completely geared towards the policy requirements of the day. Researchers produce readymade data that can be applied instantaneously.
But there are also an important number of scholars that carry out research with a broader scope. Their results cannot so easily be applied to policy development, or, even more importantly, the outcomes are not at all unambiguous. Their research agenda reflect academic debates, theoretical and thematic inquiries, and socially and politically relevant problematic. When the results of such research are published the authors can be brought in awkward positions because the interpretation and hence the implications of the results can be diverted in all different directions completely beyond their control. Discussions may arise about issues that are only loosely related to the topic of the research and so on.
Our research project was commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The main question to be answered was to what extent the coming to power of the moderate Islamic Party for Justice and Development in Turkey (AKP) in 2003 has caused a policy shift towards the aforementioned Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). The relevance of this question arises from the central role Diyanet plays in shaping and organizing Islam, both in Turkey and in Europe. The Diyanet was founded in 1924 by the new Turkish republic as an institute that resorted directly under the prime minister’s office. The first aim of Diyanet was to control religious life in Turkey, a state that had applied a radical secularist policy. Secondly Diyanet had the task to facilitate religious life, to train priests and to issue religious educational material. Although the organization is officially meant for all religious denominations present within the borders of Turkey, the actual fact that over 75% of the Turkish population is of Sunni Islamic background means that Diyanet is de facto a Sunni institute. Since the new Constitution of 1982 Diyanet has adopted the additional task to protect and endorse Turkish national identity.
This makes Diyanet into a pivot in the debate about the separation of religion and state in Turkey and the freedom of religion. Diyanet was primarily designed to control Islam and to prevent Islamic teaching and practice that was not monitored by Diyanet. To what extent is the strong control on religious practices at odds with the freedom of religion and to what extent does the set-up of Diyanet guarantee the religious freedom of other than Sunni Islamic religious groups in Turkish society?
Since 1982 Diyanet operates in Europe, notably in the Netherlands. They facilitate the opening and organization of mosques and the practicing of Islamic duties. They have an arrangement with the Dutch government to send imams who are trained in Turkey for a period of four years to their mosques. Unlike Turkey Diyanet has no monopoly position with regard to religious services in the Netherlands, but they outnumber other religious organizations. An adequate assessment of its position and the possible changes in this position is relevant for European governments and their representatives in Turkey because it may influence the position of Turkish immigrants in Europe. The activities of Diyanet in European host countries and its close connection with the Turkish state is common practice for over 25 years.
In 2003 the AK Party in Turkey obtained an absolute majority during national elections. The AK party has a moderate Islamic agenda and is supported by the emerging internationally oriented but conservative urban middle class. Since Diyanet resorts directly under the prime minister, the question arises whether AKP has influenced the traditional functions of Diyanet with regard to Islam. This is not only relevant in order to understand the position of Diyanet, but also because it touches on the present debate about the future membership of Turkey of the EU and to what extent Turkey meets the ‘Copenhagen criteria’ with respect to the freedom of religion.
The initial motivation to commission this research was related to worries on the part of the Dutch government that the AKP would undermine the secular principles of the Turkish republic and subsequently exert an influence on the mosques in the Netherlands that resort under the Diyanet. Instead of sticking to the formal question about the possible influence of the AKP on the agenda of Diyanet, as good academics we broadened up the question arguing that the growth of the AKP as the most powerful political force in Turkey in the 2000s and consequently the possible changes in the position of Diyanet, should be understood against the background of much more fundamental transformations of Turkish society. Since the 1980s Turkey has witnessed not only the emergence of a successful new urban middle class, but also the gradual growth of a civil society. This has brought Islam into the center of the political debate. One of the most remarkable and, according to some, paradoxical developments is the fact that the political and social forces that made Islam into a pivotal political issue are the same that require Turkey to open up to the world, to democratize and to break down the strong position of the state. So what we have observed in Turkey is a very complex transformation in which some of the traditional political and social dividing lines are put upside down. These transformations are so fundamental that they can hardly be turned reverse anymore even if the present AKP government tends to exhibit some of the nasty statist and authoritarian practices so typical of many of the Turkish governments of the past.
With respect to the situation in the Netherlands we have observed a gradual detachment of mosques organizations from the countries of origin, a process that is taking place since the 1980s. They develop their own agenda despite the fact that they are part of a formal juridical top-down structure. As in the case of Turkey, such developments can only be understood if we place short term research results into long-term social, cultural and political contexts. In short, the outcomes of our research were consistent with the long term developments just sketched, but it did not reveal sudden changes, dramatic developments or breaches in long term trends. In fact the outcomes were nuanced, multidimensional and in many respects poly interpretable. This made the report an ambiguous project.
Our research took place in a very sensitive context. The research was commissioned by the Dutch government dealing with a state bureaucracy of another country. The outcomes are relevant for the discussion about Turkey possible EU membership. What would this membership imply for expected opening up of the border? How should the Netherlands position itself in the debate about the identity of Europe? On the domestic level the issues raised in the report are relevant for the debate on integration and the position of Muslims in the country. In the 1980s the sending of Diyanet imams was welcomed because it would constitute a barrier against radicalism among Muslims. Today the same practice is depicted as unacceptable foreign influence exerted on domestic affairs and an obstacle against integration. The questions in the Parliament with which I started indicate clearly this remarkable political change. The sensitivity of Islam in the Netherlands is further stirred up by the anti-Islamic rhetoric of the right-wing party led by the populist Geert Wilders. There was even a strong rumor that the ministry of foreign affairs wanted to postpone the publication until after the regional elections on the 2nd of March 2011. Some feared that the issue of the ‘long arm of Ankara’ would be used by Wilders to depict the presence of Muslims as a fifth column and to gain electoral benefit.
Also the very strong political polarization among Turks, both in Turkey and in Europe made the outcomes contested. During a public debate in Amsterdam some secular Turks accused us of being too credulous, even naïve by interviewing and citing officials of Diyanet. According to some representatives of organized Islam the report did not pay enough attention to the diversity, debates and contestations among Muslims in the Netherlands.
It is hard to predict what the implications of the report will be. The media attention prior to the publication of the report was considerable, but very moderate and piecemeal afterwards. The editorial office of the main Dutch television news desk mailed us almost weekly to ask when the report would be published. But once it was published they decided that it was not dramatic enough for a news item. And eventually the timing is crucial but completely beyond one’s control: the amazing and dramatic developments in North Africa turned our report (and quite understandably so) into a footnote….!!
Thijl Sunier is VISOR chair Islam in European societies at VU University Amsterdam, Dept. Of Social and Cultural Anthropology. He conducted research on inter-ethnic relations, Turkish youth and Turkish Islamic organisations in the Netherlands, comparative research among Turkish youth in France, Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands, and international comparative research on nation building and multiculturalism in France and The Netherlands. Presently he is preparing research on styles of popular religiosity among young Muslims in Europe, religious leadership, and nation-building and Islam in Europe.
The research on Diyanet was done by Thijl Sunier, Nico Landman, Heleen van der Linden, Nazl? Bilgili and Alper Bilgili
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