WRR-69 / English 26-08-2004 00:08 Pagina oms2 The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (wrr) was estab- lished on a provisional basis in 1972. It was given a formal legal basis under the Act of Establishment of June, 30 1976. The present term of office runs up to December 31 2007. According to the Act of Establishment, it is the Council’s task to supply, in behalf of government policy, scientifically sound information on develop- ments which may affect society in the long term, and to draw timely atten- tion to likely anomalies and obstacles, to define major policy problems and to indicate policy alternatives. The Council draws up its own programme of work, after consultation with the Prime Minister, who also takes cognisance of the cabinet’s view on the proposed programme. This report was completed under responsibility of the seventh Council (2003-2007), which at that time had the following composition: Prof. mr. M. Scheltema (chairman) Prof. dr. W.B.H.J. van de Donk Prof. dr. P.L. Meurs Prof. dr. J.L.M. Pelkmans Prof. dr. mr. C.J.M. Schuyt Prof. dr. J.J.M. Theeuwes Prof. dr. P. Winsemius Director: dr. A.C. Hemerijck This is a full translation of the Council’s report De Europese Unie, Turkije en de islam, Rapporten aan de regering no. 69, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004 (isbn 90-5356-692-9). Lange Vijverberg 4-5 P.O. Box 20004 2500 EA ’s-Gravenhage Tel. + 31 70 356 46 00 Fax + 31 70 356 46 85 E-mail: WRR-69 / English 26-08-2004 00:08 Pagina 1 SCI EN T I FIC COUNCI L F OR GOVERNMEN T P OLIC Y The European Union, Turkey and Islam Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2004 WRR-69 / English 30-08-2004 10:57 Pagina 2 2 Illustration front cover: Reza/Webistan/Corbis/TCS isbn 90-5356-712-7 WRR-69 / English 26-08-2004 00:08 Pagina 3 contents contents The European Union, Turkey and Islam Summary 5 Preface 13 1 Introduction 15 1.1 Background and motivation 15 1.2 Aims, core question and limitations 1 7 1.3 Research approach and structure of the report 18 2 The European Union and religion 25 2.1 Introduction 25 2.2 The values of the Union 25 2.3 Religion in the European member states 29 2.3.1 Mutual autonomy and safeguarding freedoms 29 2.3.2 A European model? 30 2.4 Conclusion 38 3 3 Turkish Islam and the European Union 45 3.1 Introduction 45 3.2 The secular state: historical foundations 45 3.3 Secular state and political Islam 49 3.4 State-Islam and freedom of religion 52 3.5 Democracy and political Islam 55 3.6 Constitutional state and political Islam 58 3.7 Violence and political Islam 62 3.8 Conclusion 64 4 Conclusions 67 Epilogue 73 Literature 77 Searching for the Fault-Line 83 Survey by E.J. Zürcher and H. van der Linden WRR-69 / English 26-08-2004 00:08 Pagina 4 the europe a n union, t urkey a nd isl a m 4 WRR-69 / English 26-08-2004 00:08 Pagina 5 summary summary Officially, Islam does not play a role in the decision whether to accept Turkey as a member state of the European Union (eu). Yet many people wonder if a Muslim country such as Turkey would really fit into the Euro- pean Union. Is Turkish Islam compatible with democracy, human rights and the separation of state and religion? The central question of this report, therefore, is whether the fact that the majority of its population is Muslim forms a hindrance to Turkish accession to the European Union. This report is a full translation of De Europese Unie, Turkije en de islam, that was officially presented to the Dutch government on 21 June 2004 by the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy. The Council is an independent advisory body for the Dutch government which provides sollicited and unsollicited advise on developments which may affect society in the long term (see also: www.wrr.nl). Reason The question examined in this report is highly relevant, given the decision 5 to be taken by the eu under the Dutch Presidency in December 2004. It will then be decided whether candidate member state Turkey has made sufficient progress towards meeting the so-called political Copenhagen criterion that accession negotiations can commence. This criterion stipu- lates a stable democracy and a constitutional state that guarantees the rule of law, human rights and the rights of minorities. Religion as such plays no role in this Copenhagen criterion. The fact that the majority of the Turkish population is Muslim, therefore, played no for- mal role in the decision taken in 1999 to grant Turkey the status of candidate member. However, especially since the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, the concerns in member states about Islam and Muslims have in- creased. This has contributed to growing doubts over the question whether Turkey’s Islamic character is compatible with the political achievements of the eu and its member states. Objections to membership, on cultural and religious ground, have been increasingly raised, even in political circles. Objective of the repor t In light of these recent discussions, the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (henceforth identified by the initials of its Dutch title – the wrr) considers it important to have a separate review of the question whether Turkish Islam is compatible with the values upon which the Union is based. In this way, the wrr hopes to contribute to the formu- lation of an informed judgement . WRR-69 / English 26-08-2004 00:08 Pagina 6 the europe a n union, t urkey a nd isl a m In this report, the wrr offers the government no advice on the question whether accession negotiations should now be started with Turkey. The decision that will have to be made in December will have to take full account of all aspects of the membership question. This report makes no such comprehensive assessment; it is confined exclusively to the relation- ship between Turkish Islam and the democratic constitutional state. Nonetheless, the wrr, at the end of this report, looks at the possible impli- cations of Turkish membership for the deteriorating relations between the Muslim world and the West. Religion in the European Union and its member states In answering the question whether Turkish Islam forms a hindrance to eu membership, we should first determine the position of religion in the eu itself. Religion does not form part of the common eu values. The Union has defined itself as a system of values and actions based on the basic prin- ciples of freedom and democracy, as well as a recognition of human rights, fundamental liberties and the rule of law. The freedom of thought, conscience and religion forms an integral part of these basic rights, as does 6 the respect afforded by the Union to cultural and religious diversity. Viewed from the perspective of the principles and fundamental rights of the Union, there is no a priori reason to exclude a country on the grounds of its dominant religion. However, the question of the separation of church and state is another matter altogether. Behind the principles and the politi- cal and civil rights of the Union lies the assumption that its member states have a constitutional state that recognises and guarantees both the auton- omy of church and state, and freedom of religion and conscience. The prin- ciple of autonomy implies that religious communities and the state each have separate areas of competence. Freedom of religion and conscience means that religious believers (including members of minority churches), atheists and apostates face no restrictions in the exercise of their rights. It is precisely in this area that people harbour doubts about Islam. Looking at the autonomy of church and state, the situation among eu member states is extremely diverse. Even though all member states are formally secular and recognise freedom of religion, they do not always remain neutral towards religions or religious denominations. For example, some states have a state church and others do not. Even where there is no state church, one denomination may in practice be privileged above others. On the other hand, recognising a state church does not necessarily exclude equal treatment of other churches. Each member state has its own, often tense, history in the relationship between church, state, politics and society, which has resulted in specific arrangements. Thus, on the question WRR-69 / English 26-08-2004 00:08 Pagina 7 summary of the separation of church and state there is no single European model against which to test the Turkish experience. The most that can be done is to see whether Turkey meets certain minimum conditions. Characteristics of Turkish Islam The next question is whether Turkish Islam has characteristics that stand in the way of the country’s accession. In other words, are there developments afoot in Turkey that would negatively influence the attitude of Turkish Islam towards essential eu values? The wrr’s answer to this question is negative. The Turkish state is constitutionally protected against religious influences. In this respect the country has the same rigorous separation between the state and religion as does France. Indeed, France’s so-called laicism provided the model for the constitution of the Republic of Turkey. However, unlike the French state, the Turkish state still exercises a strong control and influence over religion. These characteristics have a long history. The nineteenth century was a period of modernisation following the West European example. The French Enlightenment greatly influenced constitutional thinking also in the Ottoman period. Not long after West European states had done so, Turkey 7 established its first constitution and held elections for the first Ottoman parliament (1876). This was followed, until the First World War, by a period of highly religiously coloured nationalism, which was accompanied by much government interference in the contents and the propagation of reli- gious beliefs. The Turkish Republic was established in 1923, and it marked the beginning of the most extreme banning of religious influences on the state. The Kemalist movement, named after the founder of the Republic, Mustafa Kemal Pasja (Atatürk), rigorously consigned religion to the private sphere. It banned religious symbols from public life, abolished religious organisations or placed them under state control, and outlawed the popular mystical orders. This period also witnessed the replacement of the last rem- nants of Islamic law, namely family law, by secular law. Islamic criminal law had already been abolished in the middle of the nineteenth century. After the Second World War, Turkey introduced a multi-party democracy and Islam gradually became a major political factor, even in programmes of non-religious secular parties. In addition, from the 1960s onwards, political parties also emerged that explicitly identified themselves as Islamic. The wrr considers that the rise of Islam as a politically relevant phenome- non should be seen in the context of its forced marginalisation in the previ- ous decades. This denial of Islamic identity by the upper classes was never shared by the population at large. At the same time, this rise was under- pinned by important socio-economic changes in Turkey, such as the devel- opment of a substantial middle class in rural areas and in the smaller WRR-69 / English 26-08-2004 00:08 Pagina 8 the europe a n union, t urkey a nd isl a m towns, for whom Islam constitutes a normal part of everyday life. Until now, Islamic parties have been met by profound distrust from the estab- lishment in and around governmental institutions, who identify strongly with Kemalist thinking. Both the Constitutional Court and the armed forces have intervened on several occasions and banned such parties. Since 1982, as a counterweight to the radical left and religious views, the army institutionalised a form of ‘state-Islam’ which still enjoys a privileged position today. This version of state religion combines a strong emphasis on social conservatism and nationalism with a moderate version of Islam and is propagated through mosques and through compulsory religious education in schools. This state-Islam, which is firmly embedded in a secu- lar state system and which reflects the beliefs of the majority of the popula- tion and of conservative political bodies, has given recognition to the importance attached to Islam by the broad public. Finally, the wrr notes that for the new Islamic political parties that were created during the last decade, the principle of the separation of state and religion was an important conditioning factor. However, they attached different consequences to it. Although they accepted the secular state, they 8 also wanted to increase the freedom of religion and therefore opposed the strong government controls on religion. Whilst supporting the existing democratic system, they have fought to make it accessible to religion-based parties. They still consider freedom of conscience and freedom of expres- sion as the basis of democracy and human rights. They have contested neither the secular nature of the law, nor the principle of equal rights for men and women. While it is possible to view this emphasis on such freedoms as a mere effort to enlarge the legitimate scope for one’s own views, the current government party, the Justice and Development Party (ak Party), which itself grew from a government banned Islamic party, emphasises human rights even more strongly from the standpoint of pluralism. The party intrinsically values differences in religion, culture, and opinions and sees secularism as the principle of freedom that makes their exercise and expression possible. Conclusion of the wrr The wrr believes that the fact that Turkey is a country with a majority Muslim population is no hindrance to its eu accession. This conclusion is based on the following considerations. First, the wrr has established, on the basis of the developments described above and the current characteristics of Turkish Islam, that the principle of the secular democratic state is solidly rooted in Turkish society. Moreover,