Ending Secularisms?

It has been quite usual to compare Turkey and France with regard to a strict separation of State and religion. Established in 1905 in France after hundred years of war between Church and State their separation has been taken as granted and settled as a non non-controversial feature of western societies. In Turkey, the process imposed by the new Republic created on the example of France, secularism has been an abstract, juridical and urban phenomenon not necessarily understood and followed by the entire society. In both contexts the principle and its interpretation in specific contexts has gradually been challenged on the grounds of religion in the last twenty, especially in the last ten, years. In both contexts the principle, that is a distinction between the public realm of citizens and policies, and the private realm of belief and worship, is being challenged by the visibility and politization of Islam. In a Muslim country like Turkey, this aspect becomes a part of policy and regime change and questions religious freedom and democracy. In Western societies like in France it questions the terms of citizenry, religious pluralism and equality.