[Reader-list] An Enthusiastic Defender of Freedom

[Pawan Durani]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,686906,00.html#ref=nlint

The Turkish-German writer Necla Kelek is a vehement defender of
democracy. Her criticism of Islam has made many German intellectuals
uneasy. But has she been unjustly vilified?

There are also problems among Germans, it's not just the Turks, a
young man points out. Necla Kelek is familiar with this objection --
it's one she hears again and again. She grimaces for a moment but then
smiles gently and says in a confessional tone, "There are also a lot
of things not right in Germany."

The young man is satisfied, and Necla Kelek later admits that
certainly not all Muslims pose a problem for democracy in Germany. In
fact most of them certainly don't -- but there are still the few who
do and they are the ones she has chosen to focus on. It's the problems
she is concerned with, she says.
Kelek, 52, a German woman with Turkish roots, is sitting in the
cultural center in Achim, a town near Bremen in northern Germany. She
has just finished a reading from her new book, "Himmelsreise"
("Journey to Heaven").

The book casts a critical look at Islam and condemns the oppression
and lack of freedom within Turkish communities and families in
Germany.

Hate Monger and Holy Warrior?

Such views have made Kelek a controversial figure. The center-left
Süddeutsche Zeitung has labeled her a "hate monger," while the
center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung has called her a
"holy warrior." People often talk about Kelek in the same breath as
Henryk M. Broder, a controversial polemic journalist who writes for
SPIEGEL.

The interesting thing about Kelek is that she defends all of the terms
that form the basis of German society: freedom, democracy,
enlightenment, secular order, civil society. Yet in doing so, she
draws harsh criticism from Germans. She's a woman who makes people
uneasy. But why?

One accusation is that Kelek has been unable to rid herself of the
humiliation she suffered at the hands of her own family and that this
is why she condemns Islam as a whole. Kelek has often recounted her
life story. As a child, she came from Turkey to a small city in the
German state of Lower Saxony, but never fully arrived in Germany.
Breaks were the worst part of the school day because she stood around
alone, not knowing what to do. Before and after school, Kelek lived in
a completely Turkish world. Her father ran that world like a dictator,
her mother obeyed, and the children had to humbly serve their father.

When Kelek disobeyed one of his orders and locked herself in her
bedroom, her father forced his way in with an axe, seized his daughter
by the throat, and swung her around. He disappeared shortly after, and
Kelek never saw him again. He is now dead.

Kelek experienced what it was not to be free, a situation that applied
in particular to women. The mothers had to obey the fathers, and many
girls were married off to men from Turkish villages while they were
still children. Kelek's sister was among them. Kelek herself escaped
this fate -- "You're too ugly," her mother told her.

'Our Society Is so Marvelous!'

Kelek studied technical drawing, and then was given the opportunity to
study sociology through a grant from the Hans Böckler Stiftung, a
foundation with close ties to labor unions. She calls the people from
the foundation "my true parents." After spending a period working as
an academic, Kelek now makes her living mainly as an author.

She has since obtained German citizenship, but when Kelek talks about
Europeans, she says "the Europeans," not "we Europeans." Questioned
about this, she says she counts herself among their ranks, but has to
smile, as if she's been caught out. It's a fairly big leap from a
Turkish identity to a European one.

Kelek generally speaks in a calm, quiet voice. At the reading in
Achim, again and again she invites the audience to criticize and
debate. When she speaks of the freedoms denied to Turkish girls, her
tone grows sharp, but she's still a far cry from a "hate monger."

Oddly enough one of the things that can make a conversation with Kelek
somewhat disconcerting is the enthusiasm with which she praises
freedom. It's unfamiliar because Germans don't talk this way anymore.

Questioning Creates Discourse

Kelek says words like "freedom," "democracy," "civil society," and
"enlightenment" in a tone others reserve for the describing amazing
soccer goals. "Our society is so marvelous!" she exclaims. It pains
Kelek that she rarely meets Germans capable of mentioning the word
"freedom" without immediately alluding to the downsides, whether it be
obsessive consumption or pornography. Perhaps it's necessary to have
experienced a lack of freedom in order to have such enthusiasm for it.
And once the unease subsides, it's actually gratifying to experience
Kelek's enthusiasm for the foundations of Western society.

Kelek is so taken by Germans, she can even find something positive in
their endless contrition. "I've come to see that these self-doubts
advance them," she explains. Endless questioning creates discourse,
she says, and discourse is the basis of all democracy. In the course
of two long conversations, never once does a negative word about her
critics pass her lips. She defends herself, but welcomes debate.

Her heroes are people like the German writers Ludwig Börne and
Heinrich Heine, both intellectual fighters for freedom in the early
19th century. "I would have loved to have lived during that period,"
Kelek says.

The second source of unease when talking to Necla Kelek is the fact
that in her unapologetic criticism of the circumstances in some
Turkish families or communities, she fails to constantly add that
there are many Turks in Germany who are in favor of freedom,
democracy, and enlightenment, and she also lacks the usual discomfort
that suggests criticizing other ways of life can sometimes border on
racism.

'Religion Is Part of Freedom'

There are two reasons, it seems, why Germans often make lousy
defenders of their own values -- their detachment and their fear of
being accused of intolerance. But a free society needs enthusiasts
like Kelek. Otherwise, it risks becoming cynical.

Kelek finds herself in a dilemma familiar to all those who defend
freedom and tolerance -- namely, that freedom can never be complete
freedom, and tolerance never complete tolerance. This means that a
rational person who fights for freedom and tolerance is necessarily
also always fighting for intolerance and a lack of freedom. In other
words, those who fight for tolerance must also be intolerant of those
who are intolerant.

Thus the accusation against Kelek turns out to be an empty one. It is
during a debate such as the current one that a democratic society
determines where it draws the line between what it will tolerate and
what it won't.

Headscarves cannot be tolerated as long as they remain an expression
of the oppression of women, Kelek says. Sharia law cannot apply in
Germany, and forced marriages of young girls are shameful. What
happens in mosques and Koran schools, she adds, should be transparent
and founded on Germany's democratic constitutional order. "Religion,"
she declares, "is part of freedom. It does not stand above it."

It's only natural that "Himmelsreise" is a one-sided book, singling
out the aspects that, from a Western perspective, argue against
allowing an unlimited Islam in Germany. The book is, after all, a
contribution to a debate -- an important contribution. Others can take
up the role of responding to her views, but Kelek doesn't deserve to
be vilified.

Fighting For Every Immigrant Child

An event in early March demonstrated the importance of Kelek's
position. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and
Development Party (AKP) invited 1,500 Turks living abroad to a
conversation in Istanbul. Ali Ertan Toprak, deputy chairman of
Germany's Alevi community, said afterward, "They wanted us to
integrate in Europe, but with the single goal of representing Turkish
interests."

In addition, the Islam Conference -- a dialogue series initiated by
the German Interior Ministry -- failed to reach an agreement with
representatives from Turkish organizations on common core values.
Kelek participated in the conference and considers it to have
"successfully failed." It became clear, she says, that these
representatives didn't place importance on common core values.

For Kelek, the central point is that Muslims should be able to become
European citizens, with an appreciation for democracy, freedom, and
secular society. Particularly in light of the growing proportion of
Muslims in the population, society needs to fight for every single
child of immigrants. It's not enough to count on every oppressed
person emerging with a disposition toward freedom and democracy, as
Kelek did. Democracy requires a critical mass of democrats --
otherwise, it collapses. The multicultural approach has given too
little consideration to this aspect.

Kelek is fighting for nothing less than an Islamic enlightenment in
Germany. As a devout Muslim, she has every right to do so. Her goal is
to have many religions, but a single understanding of government and
society.

This consensus leaves enough room for individual cultural differences.
Kelek, for example, the enlightened Turkish-German woman, has done
something that isn't easy for a European to comprehend. She visited
her father's grave in Turkey and found it neglected. So she paid to
have the grave fixed up again, and did it in such a manner that she
and her siblings will be able to have their final resting place next
to the man who oppressed and abused them. She wouldn't want to be
buried anywhere else.

Translated from the German by Ella Ornstein