“Tevhidi Sosyal Düşünce”

The Ontology of Freedom

The concept of freedom holds a very important place in the new constitutional works. Turkish- Islamic civilization and liberal capitalism differ significantly with the world’s  fundamentals of freedom.Intentionally introducing these differences into the original social science foundation is quite important. Because in all social systems’ the basic topic is ‘human’,the main issue is how to create this human. There are quite some challenges about this topic in Turkey. On one hand the originality of theunion ofman andthe universewhich should be accepted in the understanding of social thought, has been on the other hand, for two hundred yearsof Westernization syndromebrought about a world of human- centeredness with relationship to things that enslavehumans and this has been made to be understood as freedom. Because of the new constitution’s most critical concept which is ‘’freedom’’ liberal-capitalist structure, questions such as ‘’whose freedom’’,’’ what type of freedom’’ could be answered by the Turkish-Islamic civilization. There is therefore the need to introduce these ideas.

Freedom, Liberal-capitalist in the world’ssystem’s basic approach, is a necessary concept that needs to be introduced in order to eliminate hindrances caused on the part of the state or public opinion that retards the capitalist individual’s independent enterprise. There is a famous western saying about this topic  ‘’Trade just like hell’’ and this encompases the elimination of all obstacles in trade, getting rid of bourgeois, lifting of bans, and the free operation of activities. Thus liberal capitalism is a concept that paves way to development and systematization. Its subject matter is material (things). A bourgeois aims at increasing his or her material wealth.

In the Turkish-Islamic civilization, freedomdoes not include economic bases like that of Western civilization.

On this topic, according to, an Islamic philosopher by nameFahrettin Razi, freedom, ‘starts from the control of one’s self from his or her heart desires and once this is done freedom could be achieved. That is to say that,the Islamic system of social thought can be dealt with in an ontological dimension. Because adherence to desires and wishes enslaves man under capitalism, this adherence to desires and wishes have been rationalized,based on materials, addiction and enslavement by goods, serves as freedom.Homo economicusmentality, the culture of consumption, culture of fame, ‘’you are important’’, ‘’do think’’, ‘’enjoy your life’’ and the likes related to consuption that is seen as freedom, is evaluated on the other hand by Farehttin that man’s desires and wishes leads to his own enslavery.

For Ibn-i Suvar, freedom could be defined as being chaste, not falling too much in love for wealth but ratther being benevolent.

Freedom to Mawlana Rumi means the ability of human being to clean all the negative thoughts within him/her.To Mawlana human being is more closer to the animal in the forest if he or she does not control his temperament.The most free man according to Mawlana is the one whose forest is clean.According to Mawlana if the human being can control his behaviour and character   such as lion’s arrogance , tiger’s hatred,the destructive nature of hyenas,frivolous attitude of monkey,the ambitiousness nature of an ants,then he has attained the level of freedom.With these the Islamic civilization means freedom  that on the level of personal and communal behaviour should start from the inner self then to the community at large.The understanding of the concept of the ‘’individual’’ in the Turkish-ıslamic civilization is not the same as the western understanding of the individual.If we should look at the concept of the metaphysics, the western political thought’s understanding of the term ‘’individual’’ is that of a person who has authority over people capable of exploiting them.In the communal sense vis-a-vis Turkish-Islamic civilization,freedom means equality of opportunity in all aspects devoid of exploitation and conditions.In the Liberal democratic sense freedom is  independence.Because of these misunderstanding brought about as a result of the metaphysical and western thoughts and lack of a central system of developing the metaphysical idea,the western liberal capitalist idea propagated by the materialistic understanding of various concepts,the tUrkish social science,law,psychology has being influenced.

In conclusion,lack of thoroughly discussing the concept of ‘’freedom’’ brought about different understandings .In Turkey there is the need to initiate a new understanding of  social science in fields suchas  new constitution,new educational programs,societal theories, and economics.

Yazarın Son Makaleleri

Sosyal Ağlarda Paylaş

Twitter Facebook Google+ E-mail

Kategoriler

Son Yazılar