Turkey
This chapter argues that the supposed binary of a secular state and popular Islam is inadequate as a tool of analysis if we are to understand how religion has become a prominent category of both privilege and exclusion in Turkish society. Specifically, it contends that successive Turkish governments have privileged Sunni Islam as national identity. To build this argument, the chapter follows two parallel threads. The first analyses the ethnic and religious homogenization of the national body with a particular emphasis on violence against non-Muslim and non-Sunni groups. The second shows how, within the larger historical context of modernization theory, Cold War politics, and the post-9/11 promotion of moderate Islam, successive Turkish governments worked towards maintaining Sunni Muslim privilege while continuously expanding the category of enemies of the Turkish nation.