I wouldn’t say that I disagree with Mustafa Akyol in everything what he said in this article, because definitely there is some correlation between hypocrisy of ruling conservative elites and apostasy in a highly secularized nation. However, there are two issues at least, that I want to mention.

First of all, the Islamic history of Turkey is so long and Turkish Islamic heritage is so vast, that there are no Muslims who thinks that Islam in Turkey is equal to AKP or Erdogan. Personally, I never meet such people. In fact, there is quite significant and diverse Islamist sector in opposition to AKP — from the leftists (as İhsan Eliaçık) and liberals (as Akyol himself) to the radical salafi-jihadists (as ISIS and Al-Qaeda supporters), including even such conventional movements as Saadet party. The existential equation between AKP and Islam simple doesn’t exist. Even among AKP voters you can easily find a lot of people who are very skeptical toward AKP, but they would vote for AKP because they don’t want a hostile secular alternative. And just note how pro-government columnists (from Yeni Şafak for example) writing on the ‘conservative opposition’.

Second aspect — yes, AKP unabashedly exploit Islam for their own political ends. Not only AKP actually, but of course AKP is the ruling party… However, AKP also unabashedly exploit Turkish nationalism and patriotism, and even kemalism, just like other Turkish parties. It also exploits the idea of democracy and popular will. Yet, you will not meet a such question as ‘Why so many Turks are losing faith in Turkey’ or ‘in patriotism’ or ‘in nationalism’. Quite opposite, nationalism is on the rise in Turkey, and even fierce opposition shares this nationalist sentiment. Only few marginals would say that they are losing faith in patriotism because patriotism is indispensable to AKP dominance. That is because nationalism is the REAL political religion of such national state as Republic of Turkey, it is a state-sponsored idea that indoctrinates Turkish people from the first days of their lives in every step. In fact, when it goes to nationalism and patriotism, we can see that people generally are less individualistic and skeptical, than progressives would believe.

Speaking about the reasons of many Turks apostasy, personally I would agree more with the ‘government supporters’ rather with Akyol, although in a more nuanced dimension. Yes, the reason is a ‘hedonistic, materialistic and degenerate culture’, but I don’t believe in a Western conspiracy against Turkey. These are the common problems of a profane post-modern world, and I doubt that AKP would have an adequate answer to them, using its own state bureaucratic machine.

But let us say it is clearly — ‘political Islam’ is not a main reason for spreading apostasy, atheism and deism. Apostasy, just like a conversion to Islam as well, has various reasons, no one said that it is possible to convert all people to Islam, and no one would say that without AKP all these Turkish atheists and deists should be a good Muslims. But AKP became a very nice tool for a seculars and ‘progressive Muslims’ to illustrate a failure of ‘political Islam’.

The main idea of Mustafa Akyol in this piece and his previous article is that Islam shouldn’t be a ‘political’ in order to avoid apostasies. This is exactly what seculars wants from Muslims, and bear in mind that their definition of ‘political Islam’ in most cases includes any presence of Islam in a public sphere and any more-less conservative issue (even question of beard and moustaches became political). It is especially clear in a case of Turkey, because despite all the wails on ‘Turkey becoming second Iran’, this country continues to be a secular republic, where no one, including the huge secular half of population, is in no way compelled to follow Islamic rules. For many Turkish seculars the first signs of ‘growing assertiveness of religious conservatives’ that according to Akyol ‘pushes the young generation toward deism’ is neither Sharia law or Caliphate (Turkey has neither one nor the other, despite what Akyol says on how Islam seems more ascendant than ever), but the simple fact that Islam and Muslims became much more visible in a public space. I rely on my own experience of conversation with secular Turks — most of them would complain on how many mosques are around and how many women in headscarves. And only then they could speak on the education, media, etc., because in their lives no one could force them to choose Imam-Hatip chool for kids or to read Yeni Şafak. So, apparently according to Akyol, Islam should be wiped out from any public sphere, then it will be a normal situation, and all these deists and atheists will be a good Muslims. Personally, I don’t believe in that nonsense.