And I feel dissatisfied with my rights related to religious freedom, as I am sure is the case with many other members of the majority of the people living in this country. I would like as much religious freedom as is enjoyed by the people of the European Union and of the United States. I don't want to enumerate what is missing in Turkish-style secularism and what other religious rights people of this country would like to have, but I want you to be certain they are all within the framework of the secularist principles of any democratic country.

So why the fuss over Foreign Minister Ali Babacan's words when he answered a question at a session of the European Parliament on the rights of religious minorities in Turkey? Minister Babacan said the majority in Turkey also has problems in terms of religious rights. The very next day, some pundits and politicians in Turkey started to attack the foreign minister, calling for his resignation.

They ask us, the majority, how we could complain about our religious rights when people can go to mosques and conduct their prayers freely. “Nobody forbids you from professing your beliefs, and you give alms to the needy without any difficulty as is required by religion, go on pilgrimage without any hindrance from the state,” they say.

Graduation ceremonies at universities will soon begin; we will see students with headscarves not invited to receive their diplomas and women family members forced either to loosen their headscarves as prescribed by the military or leave the premises. Thousands of female students who would like to study at university while wearing a headscarf are deprived of that right, despite their success in the entrance exam.

A political party that has been running the country for the last six years is under threat of closure by the Constitutional Court for the anti-secular sayings and deeds of its leaders -- almost all the speeches are innocent and naïve to the extent that they could not be regarded as being against secularism in any democratic country. Its leader's emphasis on the importance of religion between people from different ethnic backgrounds is one of the reasons cited in the party closure case indictment.

When Minister Babacan spoke about the reality that even the majority has some problems stemming from the existing religious framework, some in media have come to the fore with their “problem-free Turkey” preconception. The very same media has been criticizing the existence of small places of worship in government buildings with the contention that there are mosques nearby for those who would like to attend prayers, although the places of worship have been in service from eternity on the understanding that state employees would lose less time in in-house worship. In some circumstances, depending on the time of the year, a believer has to perform at least three prayers during working hours.

Incidentally, those who deny the existence of religious problems experienced by the majority also close their ears to demands of the Alevis or the Kurds. The Alevis would like to conduct their prayers in specially designated prayer-houses, cem evleri, and request funding for their upkeep, for example, and those who write in criticism of Minister Babacan's acknowledgment of the suffering by the majority ignore this peaceful demand.

They are also against the demands of the Greek Orthodox Church to reopen the Halki Theological Seminary. The seminary was based on Heybeliada, an island in the Sea of Marmara, and trained young seminarians for the priesthood. It was closed down in 1971, and the Greek Orthodox Church in İstanbul has subsequently been forced to import its priests from Greece, although the Greek Orthodox Church is regarded as a local church under Turkish law.

At this point you may have had second thoughts about my sanity. Well, you're right, but I am not wrong, either. You're right because this sort of people, against every kind of democratic demand, whether it comes from the minority or from the majority, cannot find any prominent place in any democratic society -- let alone in media or politics. But I am also not wrong, since many in the media and some in politics are outdated and obsolete in Turkey.

Thank God they are a tiny minority, almost extinct. Their power comes from their positions held in the media and in politics, in some cases for more than half a century, and they seem to find it convenient to stand up against every new public demand with the fear of losing ground.