Turkey looks at religion in quest for identity

By Kesava Menon

ANKARA, MARCH. 1. Did you know that the modern State of Pakistan is Turkic in origin? This claim, which may surprise Pakistanis even though it would undoubtedly please them, is contained in a compilation prepared by the Turkish News Agency on behalf of the Directorate-General of Press and Information in the Prime Minister's office. Too much need not be read into this official paean of praise for Turkic glories but it nevertheless does reveal a facet of the Turkish world view.

The reference to the Turkic connection with the origin of Pakistan is contained in the chapter on history in the compilation ``Facts About Turkey''. It notes that the Ghaznavid dynasty was one of the most powerful of the Turkic States of the medieval period, that Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna invaded India and that the areas he brought under Turkish rule were Islamised. In Islamising these areas, the compilation concludes, the Ghaznavids laid the foundation for today's State of Pakistan. Some of the basic facts cannot, of course, be disputed. Mahmud of Ghazna did conquer parts of the Indian sub-continent and the Muslim dynasties that followed did introduce and spread the religion of Islam and cultures affiliated with it. But to conclude from this that Mahmud Ghazna brought the seeds of the idea of Pakistan requires a stretch of the imagination. It is almost as fantastic a claim as the one in Pakistani historiography that their country was born when the Arab Mohammed bin Qasim landed on the shores of Sindh.

It is curious that the Turks should consider their role in the spread of Islam through military conquest such an important element in the narrative of their national history. The post- Ataturk Turkish establishment has taken it as an article of faith that religiosity should be a strictly private affair.

Indeed, they have responded with grim determination whenever religion sought to intrude too pronouncedly into the political domain. Most educated Turks also take pride in the fact that their countrymen profess a moderate, non-political version of their religion.

What is more, points out Mr. Seyfi Tashan, Director of the Foreign Policy Institute in Bilkent University (a government think-tank), Islam has never been the determining factor in Turkish nationalism. The Arabs, he points out, have always considered Islam and their nationalism as intertwined and on this basis, distinguish between themselves and other ethnicities who profess the same faith.

The Turks, who professed Shamanism and Buddhism in pre-Islamic days, did not convert to the new religion easily. When they did they soon became the sword arm of Islam. Still this development did not completely suffuse their national identity with a religious spirit.

This dilemma about how to fixate the relationship between their religion and their national identity does not appear to have been resolved in the seven decades and more since the revolution of Kemal Ataturk.

In the official compilation mentioned at the beginning, the role of Turkish dynasties in spreading Islam comes up at points but the narrative begins not just with Attilla the Hun (5th century AD) but with the first settled Turkish societies of the 7th century BC. The obvious conclusion to be drawn from a reading of even this bare narrative is that the Turks believe they have a conhesive identity that stands apart from their identity as Muslims. This sense of separate identity manifests today in the basically cautious and distant, though friendly on the surface, equation that Turkey maintains with the other great Islamic nations of West Asia - the Iranians and the Arabs.

The quest to define a separate Turkish identity has acquired urgency these days as Turkey faces the challenges and the opportunities that await them in Central Asia. There is a strong and widespread feeling here that Turkey has a leading role to play in helping the fragile States of Central Asia to fit into the modern world.

Turkey, it is believed here, can only fulfil its potential for greatness if it builds abiding ties with the Turkic republics of Central Asia. There is also a recognition that for all its inherent strengths Turkey is in rivalry with Russia, Iran and others for the affections of the Central Asian States and that time will not await any nation.

Given the current trends in geo-politics, especially in the vicinity of Central Asia the role that is being played by religion cannot be ignored. Turkey's dilemma is what to do about it.

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