On Laicism and Equal Citizenship

Dear Young Comrades, Enlightened Minds Who Will Build the Future;

The development of social structures and the shaping of public policy have, throughout history, been the outcome of a dialectical struggle—the interaction of social claims to rights with public regulation, of individual freedoms with state practice. As recently reported to the public and conveyed in DW Turkish's related coverage, the administrative instruction issued by the Istanbul Governorship directing all schools to "open prayer rooms (mescits)" is a concrete development that makes it necessary to reopen the question of the relation between the state and the public sphere.

Despite constructive warnings by education unions with professional expertise such as Eğitim-Sen, by specialists in pedagogy, and by civil society organizations (CSOs) that look to the public interest—warnings concerning the neutrality of education, pedagogical principles, and the principles of equal citizenship—these administrative steps continue with determination and create a "de facto" situation in educational institutions. Practices of this kind, in which the views of participatory democracy, pedagogical autonomy, and civil society are disregarded, go beyond a merely spatial arrangement. These decisions reopen the necessity that public service be offered to every citizen at an equal and neutral distance.

At the outset it must be stated with absolute clarity: Our approach adopts, as a fundamental principle, deep respect for every individual's religious belief, right of worship, conscientious preferences, or lack of belief. Religious beliefs are a dignified part of individuals' spiritual worlds. The real problem, however, is that this respect is not shown equally by the state to all sections of society; that while the rights and demands of a particular section are protected and supported with all the means of the state, the rights of other sections and public neutrality are pushed into the background.

We write this text so that you, young comrades who carry the primitivity of scientific thought, may grasp current public policies not through emotional reactions but with sociological, legal, and philosophical depth—in a language that is entirely positive, respectful, and dialectical.

A Dialectical Analysis: Normative Ideal and Empirical Reality

In political science and sociology, the most rigorous way to analyze social processes is dialectical methodology. This method makes visible the contradictions between "what ought to be" (normative law, equality, and the principles of universal democracy) and "what is" (empirical reality and asymmetries in practice).

The table below offers an academic summary of the present state–religion–citizen relation in Turkey and of the injustice in the administration of rights:

Fundamental Dynamic (Conceptual Focus)	Normative Aim / Ideal Rule of Law (What Ought to Be)	Empirical Reality / Present Situation (What Is)	Synthesis and the Mission of Young Comrades
The State's Epistemological Foundation	The delivery of public services to all belief groups on an equal, rational, scientific, and secular ground.	The shaping of the public sphere and administrative decisions primarily along the axis of a particular religious understanding.	To defend the state's neutrality toward all citizens and the rational foundations of institutions.
Law and Equal Citizenship	The state's equal protection of every belief and of non-belief; privilege for no one.	Superior legal protection for the dominant religious understanding, and a deficit of protection for different views and conscientious preferences.	To defend the legal ground that will make the ideal of "privilege-free, classless, equal citizenship" valid for every individual.
Public Finance and Taxation	The spending of taxes collected from all citizens again for the universal common good of society as a whole (education, health, science).	The channeling of taxes taken from people of different beliefs and from non-believers (via the Diyanet) predominantly toward a single understanding.	To demand justice, transparency, and universal representation in the distribution of public resources.
The Character of Educational Institutions	Schools as scientific and neutral spaces in which all children of different origins feel equal.	The shaping of schools, through governorship instructions and de facto practices, with spaces of religious worship.	To support educational institutions that preserve their inclusiveness and their scientific structure.

This analysis shows us clearly that the problem is not the existence of religion or of believing people, but the state's loss of neutrality, which wounds the principles of justice and equality.

The Ontology of Laicism: Atatürk's Revolutions, Freedom of Belief, and Equality

Dear comrades, the concept of "laicism," contrary to how it is sometimes misinterpreted in society, is by no means a "rejection of religion" or "hostility to belief." On the contrary, laicism is the sole legal guarantee that every individual may freely live their own world of conscience and belief.

In the founding of modern Turkey and in Atatürk's revolutions, laicism was the fundamental instrument for raising individuals from the status of subjects/servants to that of "citizens" endowed with their own will and equal rights. In Atatürk's vision, laicism is the principle by which the state stands at an equal distance from all religious understandings and thereby secures society's peaceful coexistence.

The universal model of laicism in the world rests on two inseparable pillars:

Freedom of Belief: The individual's right to believe in the religion of their choice, to worship, and to express their belief freely.
Freedom from Belief: The right of no individual to be compelled, by state power or social pressure, to conform to any religious practice, symbol, or rule.

In a country, protecting the worship rights of religious citizens is as much a duty as protecting the freedom of citizens of different beliefs or of no belief at all. Today's fundamental injustice is that while the rights of the first group are meticulously observed, the second group is rendered invisible or its rights are passed over.

The Asymmetric Operation of Law: The Deniz Göktaş Case and Double Standards

The most basic criterion of justice in a society is that laws be applied to every individual and every idea with equal flexibility and equal severity (symmetrically). When we look at the empirical situation, however, we encounter a marked double standard, especially in the equation of freedom of expression and religious sensibilities.

As we analyzed in detail in our article at https://bilgimusterekleri.org/en/blog/denizlaiklik/, the judicial and administrative mechanism is unfortunately unable to display a neutral attitude when it comes to protecting beliefs.

Analysis of the Deniz Göktaş Case: The targeting of the young humorist Deniz Göktaş for expressions uttered within the frame of the performing arts, and his being confronted with legal sanctions (TCK 216/3), is a concrete example of how legal sensitivity works in a one-sided manner.
Legal Asymmetry and Rights Violation: The slightest humorous or critical approach to the symbols of the dominant religious understanding can be punished at once under the heading of "insulting the people's religious values." By contrast, discourses that contain direct insult toward Alevism, toward different minority beliefs, or toward non-believing individuals (atheists, deists, agnostics), and that other these people, are mostly treated within the bounds of "freedom of expression" or go unpunished.

This situation is incompatible with the equality principle of normative law. Just as respecting a belief and those who hold it is a human and legal necessity, so demanding that the right not to adopt that belief, to criticize it, or to live without belief also be respected is an equally legitimate right. The state cannot be an authority that protects only one group's sensibilities; it must be the guardian of every citizen's freedom of conscience.

The Paradox of Public Finance and Representation: The Diyanet and Equal Citizenship

Turkish society has an extremely pluralist structure of belief and thought: Sunni, Alevi, Christian, Jewish, Deist, Atheist, and Agnostic.

In modern constitutional states the tax system rests on the rational social contract between citizen and state. All citizens pay taxes equally, independent of their beliefs. Yet when the present institutional structure is examined—especially the share the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) takes from the public budget and the services it provides—a serious public injustice emerges:

Possessing a vast public budget, the Diyanet serves, in essence, the worship and institutional needs of a single religious understanding.
The taxes paid by millions of citizens who hold different beliefs or who need no religious institution at all are used to finance services from which they themselves do not benefit.
This is not a religious debate; it is entirely a violation of the principles of justice, transparency, and equal citizenship in public finance. When distributing its resources, the state must approach all its citizens with a neutral and inclusive understanding.

The Historical Task Falling to Young Comrades

Dear young comrades who will build the future;

The de facto situations created today in public schools in Istanbul by administrative instructions wound the neutral and universal character of education and cast a shadow over society's search for equality. Our schools and universities must be public spaces in which every child and young person feels equal, and in which science, art, philosophy, and free thought rise.

Our stance is an inclusive attitude that does not other any citizen for their belief, worship, or way of life—on the contrary, that defends everyone's freedom of belief and conscience in the strongest way. Our struggle is not against religion or against our believing citizens; it is against the unjust use of state means in favor of a single understanding and against the ignoring of the rights of all other sections.

The task that falls to you, young comrades, is:

To take scientific and critical thought as your fundamental guide,
To demand the absolute neutrality of the state while defending equal respect for every belief and for non-belief,
To explain justice in education, law, and the public budget with dialectical understanding and with courtesy.

Social peace and justice can be established only and solely on the ground of genuine laicism and equal citizenship, where no one is privileged for their belief and no one is discriminated against for their belief or non-belief. We shall continue to walk in the light of science, reason, and justice.

With love, hope, and determination...

APPENDIX: The Conception of Laicism and Its Social Function from the Standpoint of Materialist and Marxist Theory

In order to set the principles of equal citizenship and state neutrality discussed in the main body of our text on a deeper philosophical ground, it is important to examine, within a dialectical frame, how materialist philosophy and Marxist theory look at the phenomenon of laicism.

Philosophical Materialism and the Epistemological Ground

Materialist philosophy explains nature and social events not through abstract or metaphysical concepts, but through material reality, empirical observation, and historical conditions. From this epistemological (theory-of-knowledge) standpoint, laicism is:

Mental Emancipation: The process by which, in humanity's effort to understand nature and society, the source of knowledge is transferred from religious or metaphysical authority to rational reason and the scientific method.
Worldly Reality: The necessity that social institutions, laws, and the education system be ordered not by celestial/abstract references, but in line with people's concrete needs, the data of science, and social utility.

Historical Materialism and Laicism in Marxist Theory

Marxist theory subjects laicism not merely as a legal principle, but as a product of historical and class processes, to dialectical analysis:

The Progressive Gain of Bourgeois-Democratic Revolutions

Marxism, by the method of historical materialism, sees the emergence of laicism as a historical advance waged against the clerical domination of the feudal period. In the process of the dissolution of feudal structures, laicism is a historical stage that opened the way for rising rationalism, individual freedoms, and the development of science. For this reason Marxists defend laicism as a historically won progressive democratic right.

Class Struggle and the Unity of Working People

In Marxist analysis, laicism is the precondition for the working classes to unite around common interests:

When the state elevates one religion or denomination, it divides the working class and the oppressed along religious/identitarian lines.
When the state remains neutral (impartial) toward all religious understandings, it makes it easier for all working people—of different beliefs or of no belief—to struggle shoulder to shoulder around their own socio-economic rights and demands for equality.

Human and Sociological Nuance in the Analysis of Religion

Karl Marx's analyses of religion are frequently misunderstood or given superficial readings in popular discourse. When Marx criticized religion, he did not target believing people or individual conscience. On the contrary, he evaluated religion as a reflection of social conditions:

"Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and also the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world... The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo."

According to this dialectical understanding, excluding or judging people for their beliefs is not a scientific attitude. What matters is to eliminate the material deprivations, injustices, and inequalities that drive people toward religious consolation.

The Difference Between "Bourgeois Laicism" and "Real Human Emancipation"

Marxist theory distinguishes two different levels regarding laicism:

Conceptual Dimension	Bourgeois / Legal Laicism	Real / Human Emancipation (Classless Laicism)
Character	Institutional and legal separation (the separation of state and religious institutions).	Social and material emancipation (the overcoming of all forms of pressure and alienation upon the individual).
Field of Application	At the level of laws and constitutional articles.	Encompasses the whole of social, economic, and everyday life.
Class Limit	Remains within the capitalist system; can at times be instrumentalized by those in power.	Takes as its basis a justice in which public resources are distributed equally to all citizens.

For Marxists, legal laicism is an extremely valuable gain; yet the ultimate aim is a fully egalitarian social structure in which the human being also becomes the subject of their own destiny economically and socially, and in which no group can establish superiority over another.

A Theoretical Summary for Young Comrades

From the standpoint of the materialist and Marxist tradition, the defense of laicism is by no means a line that divides social sections according to their religious preferences. On the contrary, laicism is:

A common freedom that secures the worship and freedom of conscience of all believing citizens of different faiths,
That protects the right to life of non-believers and of those who think differently,
That unites all sections of society on the ground of class and human rights—a shared field of freedom.

As young comrades, our task is to use materialist dialectics not as an instrument of exclusion, but as a scientific key with which to build social justice and equal citizenship for everyone.