"Indeed, without understanding the role and function of the Diyanet, our analysis of religion and society in Turkey will remain incomplete" (Bardakoğlu 2009 : 24).
The Republic of Turkey is a secular state ; however, since the 1980s, religious values and norms have been more strongly connected with Turkey's new socio-political culture and national identity. The Diyanet (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı), the Turkish Directorate for Religious Affairs, has the exclusive role of integrating Turkish people into a framework based on Turkish Islam and secular principles compatible with the new regime's values after the 1980s. In contemporary Turkey, the Diyanet has responsibility for rendering religious services, managing religious locations, and securing public order, and it seems to have been excluding non-Turkish elements by contact with socially constructed Turkish Muslimness. Clearly, the Diyanet's role and function is connecting a series of nation building projects from the early Republic so as to maintain a homogeneous nation in the name of Diyanet supervision.
In this paper, I attempt to explore a model framework of Turkey's national integration policy, mainly focusing on the perceptions of Ali Bardakoğlu (former president of the Diyanet) and Mehmet Görmez (incumbent president of the Diyanet). These Diyanet leaders play an important role in the production, transmission, and reconstruction of the main idea of both Turkish secularism and Islam, which functions as an integral tool for a substantial multi-ethnic and multi-religious state. Exploring this process is prerequisite for understanding the fundamental concept of nation and national identity in contemporary Turkey.
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