The favourite son of Islamic reformists is having problems with its forced “Enlightenment”:

From The Economist (Premium Content)

ON THE edge of a village near Midyat is a stone building whose fate may test Turkey’s commitment to the European Union. Thirty Kurdish families in Bardakci use it as a mosque. But members of Turkey’s Syrian Orthodox Christian minority (or Syriacs) insist it is St Mary’s church, which served their community for 200 years until civil strife and economic hardship forced them out. They want it back.

Some 3,000 Syriacs in the south-east say their land and houses have been seized, not just by Kurds, but also by the state. In Kayseri, an American couple were recently sent death threats by e-mail because they are “Christian”Â?. A Protestant pastor in Izmit province received a menacing letter and found a red swastika painted on his door. In Tarsus, a New Zealand missionary was beaten up and then told to leave by the mayor.

Though the constitution provides for religious freedom and prohibits discrimination on religious grounds:

One shot was fired by the state institution that micro-manages religious life in Turkey, when it issued a sermon on March 11th to be preached at some 75,000 officially registered mosques. The sermon talked of the dangers posed to national unity by missionaries, who “work as a part of a plan to cut the ties of our citizens with the [Islamic] faith.”Â? This was followed by a statement by Mehmet Aydin, the minister for religious affairs, calling missionary activities “separatist and destructive”Â?. He was praised by nationalists, who fear that Europe has plans to convert Turks to Christianity. It matters little that only 300 souls have defected in the past eight years””?or that proselytising is legally permitted.

Secularism in Turkey was not a gradual process of separation of church and state, as in the West, but the result of Atatürk’s “Six Arrows” program for remaking Turkey in the 1920’s. Backlash towards these policies started as early as 1925 with the Seyh Sait rebellion, resulting in (possibly) 30,000 deaths. Wikipedia has more on Islam in Turkey

Without a doubt these latest incidents will be raised at the October 6th discussions for accession to the EU, and represent a blow to the confidence of Westerners looking for reform in other Islamic countries. It will be interesting to see how Turkey’s pro-Islamic president Recep Tayyip Erdogan handles the hot seat in October.

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