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SEARCH FOR IDENTITY: TURKEY’S IDENTITY CRISIS

Semih Minareci *

30 April 2008

Abstract This research deals exclusively with the question of why Turks still have an identity crisis after eighty years of the Kemalist modernization process. I argue that Kemalism, deeply obsessed with nationalism and secularism (Laïcité), averted many equivocal principles by originating vague definitions. Thus, Kemalism failed to construct a mutual and generally accepted identity and profoundly baffled Turkish society while it turned itself into a Kafkaesque state ideology. The research concludes that deep confusion and growing criticism of the current identity debates in Turkey are the result of the experience with the hybrid ideology of Kemalism and the emergence of a new civic Turkish identity.

Keywords: Political Identity, Democratization, Modernization, Regime Transitions, Political Economy, Development

__________________________ *Department of Political Science, University of Memphis Contact Information: [email protected]

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1297378

- IntroductionIn May 2005, during his interview in Istanbul, Samuel Huntington asserted that Turkey's chances of being accepted into the European Union (EU) are nonexistent, “Since the European nations continue to believe that Turkish people are not culturally European, they won't let Turkey enter the EU” (HUNTINGTON). This statement led to an argument among Turks; are Turks part of the European culture or not, if not who are we? Indeed, Turkey’s search for identity did not start with Huntington’s sharp statement, and it seems it will not end very soon. Turkey’s need for a new and contemporary identity began with modernization and the nation-building movement in the early 1900s. After the Independence War and during the subsequent establishment of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal (better known as Atatürk) redefined the individual and state identities of Turks in its own terms (Kemalist Principles). The emancipation process of the new Republic made a clean break from Islam and the legacy of Ottoman Empire and redefined the contemporary Turkish identity based on ideas of nationalism and secularism. Why Turks still have an identity crisis after eighty years of the Kemalist modernization process is a lingering question. Deep confusion and growing criticism of the current identity debates in Turkey are the result of the experience with the hybrid ideology of Kemalism and the emergence of a new civic Turkish identity. I argue that Kemalism, sharply obsessed with nationalism and secularism, averted many equivocal principles by originating vague definitions. Thus, Kemalism created a profoundly baffled Turkish society while it turned itself into a Kafkaesque state ideology. Kemalist principles were an amalgam of French Positivism and its purely Realist Turkish interpenetration. This hybrid ideology was the basis of a modernization model in Turkey, which

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1297378

aimed to create a French style secular nation-state. However, after eighty years of modernization and Europeanization, the process of Kemalism could not successfully create a generally accepted new identity nor was it able to break the traditional identity of Turks. Today, only 49% of the Turks support EU membership (down from 71% in 2004). There is a distinct skepticism of the EU (EUROBAROMETER).

In section I, I examine the historical background of the current identity crisis. I present some historical events and traditional patterns to show how they shaped the Kemalist ideology. In section II and III, I focus on how Kemalist Principles and Revolutions interacted and formed the Republic as a model of modernization. Section IV demonstrates how the Kemalist modernization model played a dominant role in the determination of the new Turkish identity. In the same section, I also provide some evidence that examines how Kemalism fabricated various theories and theses. Section V focuses on the failing of Kemalism and the emergence of new opposition from civic Turkish society. In the final section, I examine the current events of Turkey and how they were both stimulated and impeded by the Kemalist identity. I. Historical Roots The historical roots of Turkey’s contemporary identity debates seem embedded in the declining period of the Ottoman Empire starting in the early 1600s by 1632 at the second siege of Vienna: “the Ottoman Empire had reached the line beyond which it could not advance, from which it could only withdraw” (BERNARD 25). During this era of decline of the Ottoman Empire, janissaries (army) and ulemas (elites) actively engaged in palace politics, and became a formidable obstacle to reform in the Empire. Indeed, these two traditional powers of the Ottoman Empire were still playing decisive and continuing roles during the establishment period of the

new Republic. Only this time, the notion of ulema was adopted by Kemalist elites and the notion of janissary was adopted by the Turkish Army. The Tanzimat (reorganization) era in 1839 was the most significant reformation period of the Ottoman Empire. Tanzimat reforms had far reaching effects, including influencing Mustafa Kemal and other progressive leaders and thinkers of the Republic. During the same era, groups of young university students and some military cadets established an underground society, Jön Türkler (The Young Turks). Later, the same groups inspired by French Positivism would operate in a single coalition of İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti (Committee of Union and Progress-CPU). The new committee aimed to replace the official ideology of Ottomanism with the nationalistic one Turkism (Pan Turkism). During the Independence War and throughout the 1920s and the 1930s, Muslim immigrants, mainly from the Balkans, but, also the Black Sea, Aegean islands, Cyprus, Sancak of Alexandretta (Hatay), Middle East, and the Soviet Union poured into Turkey. Turks and Muslims of the former Ottoman Empire came to the country that they considered home. (CAPATAY 82). Turkey granted citizenship not only to ethnic Turks, but also to all former Ottoman Muslims who immigrated to the new Republic. Accordingly, the fabric of the new Turkish society was based on the same multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society of the old Ottoman Empire. In fact, the Turks never had a culturally and ethnically homogeneous society during the establishment years of the new Republic. II. Kemalist Principles and Revolutions During the establishment of the Turkish Republic (29 October 1923), Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (Republican People’s Party -RPP) became the first and only political party in Turkey until 1945 (end of single-party period). RPP’s party flag today, still carries the crest of altı ok

(six arrows) which refers to the six main principles of Kemalism. Republicanism represents replacing of the monarch, banishing the dynasty and establishing a republic; Revolutionism represents replacing traditional institutions with the modern institutions and concepts through social changes; Populism represents the Kemalist revolution led by the elite with an orientation towards the Turkish people in general; Étatism represents social and economic revolutions that depend on state-intervention; Secularism (Laïcité) represents the absence of religious and clerical interference in government and political affairs; Nationalism creates a Turkish nation state, based on ‘Turkishness’. Undoubtedly, Mustafa Kemal’s own discrete choice was the focal determinant to form the new Republic and its identity: “Ataturk a great commander holding the whole of the Nationalist Army under his complete authority, and the mass of the Anatolian peasants under his spell as a conqueror of infidels and national hero, gained the greatest power in the country. He proclaimed the country a Republic and himself became its ruler. Thereafter, like another Cromwell, or Napoleon, or another Mussolini, he has guided the destinies of the new state.” (TOYNBEE 186) In parallel to the Kemalist Principles, Mustafa Kemal replaced some traditional institutions with the new secular revolutions, such as: abolishing the hilafet (caliphate) and instituting the Diyanet İşleri (Directorate of Religious Affairs) in 1924; closing the medrese (traditional religious schools) in 1924, and banning Sufi orders in 1925; prohibiting the fez and the peçe (veil) in 1925; adopting European criminal, civil, and commercial codes in 1926; replacing Arabic script with Latin in 1928; removing Islam as the state religion in 1928; recognizing full political rights of women in 1934; initiating secularism as a constitutional

principle in 1937; and barring the establishment of a society or party based on religion or sect in 1938. Kemalism, like the other early Turkish modernization movement the CPU, was profoundly influenced by French Positivism and adopted principles such as Jacobin (radical) secularism. However, adopting the French style secularism with a purely realist method led Kemalist elites into a serious dilemma. While French type of secularism had to deal with the whole church as an institution; neither the Ottoman Empire nor the new Republic had a similar religious organization to substitute for the French church. As a result, the place of the church as a religious adversary of French Jacobin secularism was always empty in the Kemalist secularism. Kemalism tried to fill this gap, often fabricating new tentative concepts or elevating and redirecting the antagonism to the isolated small groups. In addition, the religious fabric of the Ottoman Empire was very colorful. There were various multi religious groups living in the Ottoman territory without having any serious conflict. In this sense, the Ottoman Empire have already achieved a strong secular structure in its own territory. Kemalist principles and revolutions faced arduous domestic oppositions in the early years of the Republic (especially secularism and nationalism) and became self-protective: “while Turkey had come to regard the West as a model, and since Atatürk’s idea of modernization followed Europe, Ankara turned away from democracy and adopted an authoritarian line. (CAGAPTAY 156) After this turn, Kemalism, like other ideologies, generally served as a means for the acquisition and maintenance of its own power. (FEROZ 46)

III. Model of Modernizations Kemalist ideology undertook the reformation of the Turkish Republic and redefinition of the identities toward the Western model. Before drawing a link between new identities and reforms, the Republican elite had to dissolve all the traditional links between the new Republic and its Ottoman past. The intellectual father of the Republic, Ziya Gökalp, in his book defines the only model for Turks: “There is only one way to solve our problems, which is to emulate the progress of the Europeans in science, industry and military and legal organization, in other words to equal them in civilization. And the only way to do this is to enter European civilization completely.” (GÖKALP 45) While Kemalist elites obstinately insisted upon the importance of the Westernization of modern Turkey, on the other hand, they persuaded implicitly that Turks were different from the Western civilization. According to Kemalist elites, Turks were never a part of them (European civilization) and Western civilizations were never allies of us (the Turks). One can clearly observe this Janus-faced attitude of Kemalism on the impression toward the Sevres Treaty. Even though, the Sevres Treaty was abolished completely by the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, Kemalism adopted the Sevres Treaty as a muscular apparatus to interpret and condemn the Western civilization. The Sevres Treaty was habitually used by Kemalism as evidence for ‘the real purpose of the European policies’ to Turkish society. In this sense, the West was the hidden enemy of Turks, which aimed to divide, weaken, even obliterate the Turkish Republic. Additionally, the economic and political model of Western style modernism still had to face another dilemma. The doctrinaire tone of Kemalism would not find enough support in civic society that “controversial groups to turn to traditional and Islamic values as a to the authoritarian hegemony of the state and its administrative elite” (YAVUZ 9). There is no doubt

that Kemalism created some drastic iconoclastic measures “especially language reform, which severed future Turkish generations from the written Ottoman cultural heritage” that would cause a backlash and potential identity problems later. (PICCOLIO 61) Turkey’s early modernization process shows resemblance to the Japanese path of modernization—“catch up with the West.” The main divergence with the Japanese path was that Kemalism did not have a lucid path for modernization. Most of the Kemalist definitions for modernization were oblique and contradictory even esoteric. In addition, Kemalism either fully gave up on some of its own definitions or frequently replaced them with new ones. Later these struggles of definition would open the gap between the sate elites and Turkish society. IV. Identifying Turks and Others When Kemalist state elites decided to create a new identity for the Turkish Republic and its citizens, the starting point was the notion that the “Turkish identity was connected with movement away from Islamic practice and tradition, and towards Europe” (BERNARD 54). Shifting from Islamic and traditional popular identity to new Westernized nation-state identity, Kemalism overstressed nationalism and secularism. Kemalist elites used the ‘language apparatus’ to determine links between individual and state identity. “Once the Ottoman-Islamic past had been discarded, the Republican elite had an opportunity to fill this lacuna by fabricating a new history and language tailored to its vision of the new Turk. Atatürk himself encouraged historians to create pseudo historical theories such as “the Turkish History Thesis” and the “SunLanguage Theory” in the 1930s.” (YAVUZ 50) All of the Kemalist language and history theories carried the same message: Turks were real Europeans. Under the lights of the new theories, Kemalist elites started to redefine the centuries old concepts and thoughts of Turkish society. Kemalism attempted to determine a new and mutual

identity based on Turkishness by asserting that ‘all civilizations derivate from Turks (the Turkish History Thesis); Turkic language is a part of the Indo European language family (Sun-Language Theory)’. These ideas created mass doubt and dispute in Turkish society. Ironically, the dogmatic Kemalist theses were fundamentally clashing with the Western foundations of critical thinking and scientific reasoning. In fact, Kemalism was moving away from Western modernization while it was attempting to catch up with the West. The redefinition and rebuilding efforts of the elites would soon face sharp criticism even from its own. Halide Edip condemned the Kemalist struggle for new identity: “The continuity of Turkish culture has been abruptly broken. The younger people will read and write, but will not be at home with any culture half a century old. Without a past, without a [collective] memory of the accumulated beauty in the national consciousness, there will be certain crudeness, a lowering of aesthetic standards.” (ADIVAR 235) In this manner, Kemalist interpretation of nationalism and secularism could not establish a mutual and generally accepted Turkish identity. Based on Kemalist principles with a flimsy Turkish identity, state elites were not able to establish robust institutions in the new Republic to promote democracy. This color blinded political development was the crucial condition of the government. Whereas, contemporary Turkish society was a multi-ethnic, multi cultural society like the Ottoman Empire, the lack of liberal rule of law and ersatz homogeneity of the new Republic affected the flourishing of full democracy. Although, Kemalist elites endlessly proclaimed to possess a democracy in modern Turkey, in fact, it was a poorly established, weak democracy. Hence, the quality of democracy in Turkey never reached the same level of any Western societies.

During the eighty years of modern Turkey, Kemalist elites and the Turkish Army translated the struggle for liberal democracy as a separatism, disloyalty, even the grave enemy of Turks and the Republic. Furthermore, authoritarian hegemony of the state consistently oppressed these movements by using an excessive military and judicial power in the name of unity and the Republic. V. Failing and Moving Away Anybody who read the late political history of the Turkish Republic would be shocked by the complex role of the Turkish Army. Ironically, the reformation movement against the janissaries (army) and ulema (elites) was creating a new type of janissaries and ulemas. “The three coups of 1960, 1971, and 1980 serve as focal points to examine the return of the ‘new janissaries’ and the stabilization of their autonomous political role. (PICCOLI 86) Turkey had faced its very first ‘hard’ military coup on May, 27th 1960. The coup had closed the Democrat Party and imprisoned its leaders for violating the Kemalist principles and constitution. The elected government of Turkey and party members were sent to prison and the Prime Minister, Adnan Menderes, his finance, and foreign ministers, Hasan Polatkan and Fatin Rüştü Zorlu were hanged in September 1961. On March, 12th 1971, the Turkish Military High Command officers sent a warning to force the resignation of the Süleyman Demirel government. The third ‘hard’ military coup in Turkey was on September, 11th 1980. The elected government of Turkey and the Prime Minister of Adalet Partisi (Justice Party) were forced to leave by an official military warning. During all the 'hard' military coups, elected governments were forced to leave Parliament, political parties were closed and banned, political leaders were sentenced and jailed, all democratic processes were blocked and barred, and all civic political figures were arrested.

The extensive role of the Turkish Army was not limited by the ‘hard’ coup d'état, but also had some other ways to make ‘necessary’ changes, such as the ‘soft’ coup. For instance, the army released a military warning publicly to the elected governments without any physical intervention and issued a warning press release from the ‘web page’ of the Turkish General Staff. Consequently, countless interventions of the Turkish army forces generated a chronic political instability in Turkey. The long term effect of this political uncertainty would be the main reason blocking the economic development of Turkey. Turkey was neither an attractive state for foreign investment, nor let the market economy flourish within its own borders. The new Republic isolated itself from regional and global integration with an insufficient statecentered economy. Later, the fragile economy of Turkey would trigger more political flux. It was clearly a trap for Turks, a vicious circle. In 2008, Turks witnessed a new variety of coup, a judicial coup fired up by Kemalist elites. Shortly after the 2007 general election, the Supreme Court of Turkey decided that it might ban two political parties of Turkey: the winner of the 2007 election, AKP and the political party that represents ethnic Kurds of Turkey, DTP. Obviously, there was no rational way for Turks to possess a democratic or economic progress under the military and judicial interventions. The boundless autonomy of the Turkish army provided a massive contingency for the sate elites that they could work uninterrupted on the new structure of Turkey. On the other hand, the same autonomy drove the opposition out of the system. Later, counter-elites of civic society would move away from Kemalism and strive for a new system. VI. Current Events In 1996 a strange traffic accident took place in the small town of Susurluk. Passengers of the car and a scandalous load in the trunk created lingering questions. One of the passengers,

Abdullah Çatlı, was on the most wanted list of the Interpol as a hit man. He was the former ringleader of a right-wing terror organization during the 1970s. The trunk was full of money, cocaine, automatic weapons, his diplomatic passports and his official ID cards that identified him as a police officer in Istanbul. The Susurluk accident played an essential role in unraveling the complex affairs of the state elites and structural behavior of the Republic known as ‘state in the state’ or Derin Devlet (The Deep Government). “Susurluk was nothing more than the tip of an iceberg. The disclosed criminal network, including various politicians, member of the security forces, banks and enterprises, right-wing terror groups, drug traffickers and money launderers, reflected the disastrous state that Turkey’s political institutions had reached in the mid-1990s.” (PICCOLI 112). The Susurluk incident was raised awareness about the state elite’s corruptive practices and how far they can go. After the Susurluk incident public opinion in Turkey has changed drastically leading to serious doubts about state elites. Turkey’s official state policies and affairs were always a frightening rollercoaster of military coups, assassinations, endless interventions, army operations and heavy pressure by Kemalist elites, and the invisible hand of the Deep Government. Turkey had to face some external problems such as Cyprus, Armenian affairs, Kurdish territory in North Iraq, and the negotiation of EU membership. However, some internal problems of Turkey have more urgency, such as, Kurdish separatism (PKK) and individual rights of Kurds in Turkey, the banning of the headscarf from education and official state locations, the future of Turkish democracy, and the lack of stable economic development. Thus far, Turkey has not had much chance to determine its own civic solutions for those internal and external problems because of the implicit official state identity. Neither could create a new civic state structure and a society that fully liberated from all Kemalist forms.

Fortuitously, from the beginning of the Turgut Özal era (1980–1993) to the current Recep Tayyip Erdoğan government, liberalizing of Turkey’s political system is continuing and “the ongoing rearguard action by the Turkish state’s military bureaucratic establishment to preserve its authoritarian privileges could not be sustained over the long term” (YAVUZ 12). The modernization movement of Kemalism was the only model for Turks during the nation state building process. The concept of Turkishness was the central theme for Kemalist ideologies. However, the incoherent definition of Turkishness and obscure interpretations of the Kemalist revolutionary movement seriously failed. Today’s severely bifurcated and confused Turkish society is the product of those Kemalist failings. The default theme of Turkishness could not bring any ease for an ethnically mixed Turkish society and would not allow any other philosophy to attempt to bring change. In addition, severe Kemalist obsessions with nationalism and secularism created profound problems. Kemalism could not recognize the importance of the traditional and the religious past of Turks. Instead, it strived to bring newly fabricated definitions with its own terms. Kemalism took refuge in Realism during the early years of revolution. Indeed, Kemalism, like other early Turkish modernization movements, was influenced by French Positivism and adopted the its principles such as Jacobin secularism. Conversely, Kemalist and early modernization models failed to recognize the ethnic and religious diversity of Turkey. The biggest promise of Kemalism was the transfer of Western political and economic developments into Turkey. In contrast, the early years of Mustafa Kemal’s leadership turned into an absolute leadership. His leadership was authoritarian: “Ataturk was a man of swift and decisive action of sudden and often violent decision. A tough and brilliant soldier, a hard drinker and wencher, he was in all things a man of immense will and abounding vitality. By his

contemporaries he was often called a dictator, and in a sense he certainly was” (LEWIS 290). Paradoxically, Turkey started to move away from Western style political and economic developments instead of transferring them into Turkish society because of the chronic oppression of Kemalism.

References: Adıvar, Halide Edip. Turkey Faces West: A Turkish View of Recent Changes and Their Origins . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930. Cagaptay, Soner. Islam, Secularism, and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who Is a Turk? London, New York: Taylor & Francis Routledge, 2006. European Commission. Public Opinion. Eurobarometer 68. December 2007 < http://ec.europa.eu /public_opinion/archives/eb/eb68/eb68_tr_nat.pdf>.

Feroz, Ahmad. Making of Modern Turkey . London, New York: Taylor & Francis Routledge, 1993. Gökalp, Ziya and Devereaux Robert. The principles of Turkism. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1968 Huntington, Samuel P. Huntington: Turkey won't enter EU. Turkish Daily News, May 26, 2005. <http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=14176>. Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey . London: Oxford University Press, 1968. Piccoli, Wolfango and Jung Dietrich. Turkey at the Crossroads: Ottoman Legacies and a Greater Middle East . London: Zed Books, 2001 Toynbee, J. Arnold. Turkey. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1927 Yavuz, M. Hakan. Islamic Political Identity in Turkey . New York: Oxford University Press (US), 2003.

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