The elephant in the room finally blew through its trunk yesterday - the parliamentary speaker, Ismail Kahraman was speaking at a conference relating to the new constitution and said:
“As a Muslim country, why should we be in a situation where we are retreating from religion? We are a Muslim country. So we must have a religious constitution”
He went on to say:
“A description of secularism shouldn’t be in the new constitution. France, Ireland and Turkey have constitutions that include a description of secularism. But everyone interprets it the way they want to. That shouldn’t be the case.”
Scary stuff.
Bit of an outcry from non AKP deputies, and later in the day the prime ministers office made a "
say a lot but say nothing" statement - the prime minister is, apparantly, going to evaluate whether secularism should feature in the constitution.
Kahraman isnt a free thinker, he's not some Skinneresque rebel, in fact he's little reginalds man through and through. He served under Erbakan (who the army seen off) in the nineties and was trotted out at the last (Nov 15) election in Istanbul with the view of him becoming speaker.
So why did he say it? I wonder if this was an exercise in testing the waters for the potential removal of secularism from the constitution, which ultimately would make The Republic of Turkey an officially muslim country. Like Pakistan, like Iran, Like Saudi Arabia - need I go on?
Hate to be repetitive, but interesting times ahead...
JF
Edit: sorry, forgot link to the ONLY English speaking publication covering this story -
HDN