Ramadan opens in Turkey as secular-conservative divide resurfaces

ANKARA — A TV series set off a nationwide storm in Turkey this week, with critics saying the script caricatured secular Turks as arrogant, detached and disrespectful toward religious sensibilities. The incident has reignited Turkey's fault lines, as the country entered Ramadan, typically a period of relative social calm. 

The backlash erupted after an episode of the "Under the Same Rain" drama this week showed a secular female character offering her pious guests pork, which is forbidden in Islam. A clip of the scene that was circulated widely on social media earlier this week prompted outrage from viewers who said it was offensive to secular Turks and accused the writers of deliberate provocation.

The new series, which launched on Feb. 9, revolves around tensions between a conservative, religious family and a secular one, dramatizing Turkey’s long-standing divide between the two factions. 

The controversy erupted in the show’s second episode, which aired Monday, when the conservative family visits a secular household for dinner and discovers their host — portrayed as a villainous secular woman — is serving a pork roast. Confronted by her pious guests, she says she prepared the dish for her soon-to-be Christian daughter-in-law, adding, in a thinly veiled jab, “I don’t eat it either, but I respect those who do. Unlike some others, we’re not intolerant.”

Many critics said the scene went beyond storytelling, accusing the writers of reigniting a long-running culture war.

“Through an extremely cheap, extremely sordid and fabricated scenario, attempts are being made to rekindle the Muslim-secular debate and to stage a provocation,” Perihan Koca, a lawmaker from pro-Kurdish DEM Party, told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday at the parliament.

Government critics in Turkey have long argued that the secular-religious divide has widened over the past decade under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who often portrays his conservative base as marginalized underdogs scorned by secular elites. 

While the political and cultural dominance of the founding secular ideology has eroded during Erdogan’s more than two decades in power, its earlier rule left lasting scars on conservative society. Restrictive policies such as headscarf bans in universities and public institutions, in place from the 1950s until 2013, fueled grievances long before Erdogan took office.

While roughly 98% of Turkey’s population identifies as Muslim, surveys show wide variation in religious observance, with some describing themselves as culturally Muslim rather than practicing. Pork, however, is widely avoided in the country and rarely consumed, even among Turkey’s Christians, making its offer to guests, particularly during Ramadan, highly unusual.

Koca also linked the controversial story line directly to the government, as the channel that it aired on, ATV, is part of a media group owned by the family of Erdogan’s oldest son-in-law, Berat Albayrak. The government is “once again instrumentalizing religion, exploiting Islam and manipulating people’s faith,” she said. 

Dueling Ramadan accusations

The timing of the series has further added to the sensitivity, coming just as Ramadan began, a period traditionally associated with restraint, reflection and social peace.

Ilhan Tasci, a member of Turkey’s broadcasting watchdog, Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUK), on Wednesday filed a formal complaint over the series, calling for “special scrutiny of the fact that its provocative and inflammatory scenes were broadcast during Ramadan.”

RTUK, is formally an independent regulator but is widely seen as aligned with government policy, as its board is dominated by members appointed by the ruling Justice and Development Party and its allies. Tasci, however, was appointed by parliament’s opposition parties. 

The watchdog has frequently imposed fines and broadcast bans on opposition-leaning outlets or content it deems provocative. 

While critics blamed the show’s writers for deliberately inflaming cultural tensions during Ramadan, Erdogan struck back at what he described as secular attempts to undermine religious life and the month’s calm. His remarks followed a statement issued earlier this week by more than 150 academics, artists and intellectuals rejecting what they called efforts to “erode secular education, law and public life.”

The statement came after Turkey’s Education Ministry ordered schools nationwide to hold Ramadan activities. Critics argued the directive could separate fasting and non-fasting students and pressure children to reveal their beliefs, and warned that it violates freedom of religion.

“We will not stand by while those who seek to cast a shadow over the Ramadan joy of our 86 million people through the statements they publish attempt to sow discord among our nation,” Erdogan said on Wednesday.