Moment of Ecstasy

Three years ago, just at the height of an election campaign, a handsome young Moslem hodja named Fevzi Boyar arrived in the western Turkish town of Odemis. Like most of Turkey's Moslem divines, Hodja Boyar took a dim view of the secular government established by the late, great Kemal Ataturk,* rejoiced that Premier Adnan Menderes and his Democratic Party had at long last restored religious instruction in Turkey's schools and even raised priestly salaries.

So strong were Hodja Boyar's feelings, in fact, that one Friday evening after prayers he incautiously told worshipers at the Odemis mosque: "All the devout should attend the Democratic Party meeting which will be held day after tomorrow. Those who do not attend may be classed with the infidels."

Forgiveness. Unhappily for Hodja Boyar, some of the Odemis faithful were Republicans, and in no time at all they had the young priest haled into court on the charge that he had violated a Turkish law forbidding religious participation in politics. The Menderes government, earnestly wooing the hard-shell rural Moslem vote, did its best for the hodja. When the court of first instance found him guilty and sentenced him to ten months in jail, the public prosecutor, in a curious performance, tried to get the Court of Appeals to overturn the conviction. And when that failed, the prosecutor appealed to Turkey's court of last resort--the Grand National Assembly, which Menderes dominates.

The Judiciary Committee blandly concluded that Hodja Boyar "spoke in a moment of religious ecstasy and should be forgiven," and it seemed foregone that the entire Assembly would next agree. But when the motion reached the floor, it ran into eloquent and unyielding opposition from 72-year-old ex-President Ismet Inonu, Ataturk's successor and now leader of the opposition Republican People's Party. He invoked a strong feeling: though Turkey remains a Moslem country, a whole generation of Turks has been brought up to believe that progress and democracy became possible only after Ataturk abolished the fez, separated church and state. Pointedly Inonu recalled that during their fight to overthrow the Sultan and forge the Turkish Republic, Ataturk and his followers were formerly proclaimed infidels by the Constantinople Caliphate. "The main point," said Inonu, "is not the pardon of this hodja, but whether we are going to permit the return of this kind of thing."

Retreat. When Ismet Inonu speaks, even autocratic Adnan Menderes listens. And this time Inonu had the backing of President Celal Bayar, who for all his loyalty to the Democratic Party of Menderes, went out of his way to tell students at Turkey's Air Force Academy last week: "We must never give reaction a chance to return to Turkey." Within 24 hours after President Bayar spoke, Turkey's legislators by an almost unanimous vote refused to pardon Hodja Boyar. For all Turks who believe in separation of church and state, it was a sweet victory, except for the fact that when police went to escort him to prison, Hodja Boyar was nowhere to be found.

* Who once publicly described Islam as "this theology of an immoral Arab."

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