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Kemalists, Islamists, and Liberals: Shifting Patterns of
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 Turkish Studies
Vol. 8, No. 2, 273–288, June 2007
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Kemalists, Islamists, and Liberals:

Shifting Patterns of Confrontation and
Consensus, 2002–06
NORA ONAR
St. Anthony’s College, University of Oxford, UK
NoraOnar
820Taylor
noraonar@gmail.com
00000June
Turkish&
10.1080/14683840701312252
FTUR_A_231126.sgm
1468-3849
Original
2007 andFrancis
2007 Ltd
Studies
Article
(print)/1743-9663
Francis (online)

ABSTRACT This article analyzes shifting patterns of confrontation and consensus between
adherents of three Turkish political camps: Kemalists, Islamists, and liberals. It is argued
that their proclivity to cooperate or clash is a function of how domestic and international
forces impinge upon their respective understandings of secularism and pluralism. From 2002
to 2005, an Islamist–liberal consensus, supported by pro-EU Kemalists, drove EU accession-
oriented reform. This consensus collapsed by late 2005 due, at the domestic level, to debates
over the Islamic headscarf and Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, and at the international
level, to worsening EU–Turkey relations and the altered geo-strategic balance in the Middle
East. These developments fueled a Kemalist–Islamist confrontation over secularism while
providing for a common Kemalist–Islamist position on national identity politics. Since
Kemalists control the state and Islamists the government, the Islamist–Kemalist clash over
secularism and consensus over identity politics has excluded liberal views from the
policymaking process, effectively halting reform.

Introduction
In November 2002, the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve
Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) won one-third of the popular vote in the general elections
on a pro-human rights and pro-European Union (EU) platform. It proceeded to push
through major reforms in accordance with the EU accession criteria, compelling the
Union to open negotiations with long-standing candidate Turkey. Successes on the
EU front won the AK Party the cautious endorsement of many Turkish liberals—
from NGO activists and newspaper columnists to the influential Turkish Industrial-
ists and Businessmen’s Association (Türk Sanayicileri ve İşadamları Derneği, TÜS
]dIo[t ]csel[di geb[vre] dI[ot

İAD). It also stayed the hands of the staunchly secularist military and judiciary,
]

which had on several previous occasions intervened to remove revisionist Islamist

actors. This alignment of political forces sustained Turkey’s reform process for
several years, keeping Euro-skeptic Kemalists and Islamists at bay. By 2005,
however, reform had ground to a halt, and relations between the Kemalist state, the

Correspondence Address: Nora Onar, St Antony’s College, 62 Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6JF, UK.
Email: noraonar@gmail.com

ISSN 1468-3849 Print/1743-9663 Online/07/020273-16 © 2007 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/14683840701312252
 274 N. Onar

moderate Islamist government, and the broadly liberal intelligentsia and NGO
community were increasingly characterized by a hostile stalemate. Why had the
counterintuitive convergence of agendas occurred in the first place, and why did it
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come apart? What does the current deadlock imply for the future of political reform?
And what does all of this bode for Turkey’s EU candidacy?
This article addresses these questions by examining, in the context of shifting
structures of domestic and international politics, the changing ways in which propo-
nents of three major ideological currents within Turkish society—Kemalists, Islam-
ists, and liberals—conceive of secularism on one hand and of pluralism with regard
to national identity on the other. These two issues, secularism and pluralism on iden-
tity questions, lie at the heart of the contest that is currently underway for control of
the content and direction of the Turkish national project. Throughout the analysis it
is important to recall that the resources Kemalists, Islamists, and liberals bring to this
battle are not equal. Kemalists’ control of the state—and Islamists’ control of the
government and parliament since 2002—means that a liberal stamp on policymaking
is dependent upon there being sufficient convergence between the liberal position on
secularism and pluralism and those endorsed by one or the other two camps.
It is argued that from 2002 to roughly 2005, Islamists and liberals evinced a
working consensus on understandings of both secularism and pluralism, which was
underpinned by the prospect of accession to the EU. This arrangement did not
overtly threaten Kemalist views because the strategic and existential goal of EU
membership was furthered by the Islamist–liberal agenda. By 2005, domestic and
international forces had undermined this consensus. At the domestic level, heated
debates over the permissibility of the Islamic headscarf in public institutions and
Article 301 of the Turkish penal code brought to the surface deep cleavages within
Turkish society over secularism and pluralism, respectively. The ideological shift
these debates precipitated was powerfully reinforced at the international level by the
increasing doubtfulness of the EU’s commitment to Turkey’s membership. Resur-
gent Kurdish terrorism as part of the new geopolitics of the Middle East also under-
mined the Islamist–liberal consensus on identity politics. These developments have
pushed Islamists into a collision course with Kemalists over secularism while
providing for a common Kemalist–Islamist position on national identity politics.
The result, from a policy perspective, is that liberal views of secularism have been
subsumed into the more rigid Kemalist understanding, while liberal views on iden-
tity pluralism are excluded by the Kemalist–Islamist accord on a narrow conception
of national identity. This article traces these shifting patterns of convergence and
divergence with regard to secularism and pluralism in order to gain a sense of the
future of reform and Turkey’s EU path.

The Kemalist–Islamist–Liberal Triangle

At the outset, it is necessary to explain what is meant by “Kemalism,” “Islamism,”
and “liberalism” and to identify their respective visions of secularism and pluralism
at the time that the AKP came to power.
 Kemalists, Islamists, and Liberals 275

Kemalism

Kemalism, the country’s founding ideology, is a nationalist, secularist, positivist

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project, which, despite its embrace of these doctrines of Western origin, evinces an
ambivalent relationship with the West due to the historical circumstances in which
both Kemalism and the Turkish Republic were born. Kemalist understandings of
secularism and pluralism reflect this ambiguity.
Kemalist secularism, or laiklik, was developed over the course of the 1920s. It
was inspired by French laïcité, the Comptian positivism which prevailed among
many European elites at the time, and the Orientalist notion that Islam is a source of
backwardness. It may be thought of as attempt to engineer religion—specifically
Islam—out of the public sphere. Accordingly, a series of radical reforms were
implemented that abolished religious law ( şeriat), the caliphate, the Islamic judi-
]cs[eldi

ciary (ulema), and the influential religious brotherhoods (tarikatlar). Adoption of

the Latin alphabet and Georgian calendar and discouragement of traditional head-
gear such as the fez and veil reinforced the new order. Laiklik differed from its
French antecedent and the Anglo-Saxon variant, in that religion was not separated
from but rather subordinated to the state through a Directorate of Religious Affairs
(Diyanet) that was charged with the management of religious institutions and their
personnel. This approach was in keeping with a strong statist tradition and resulted
in an official Islam that did not capture the heterogeneity of religious practices
across the country. Secularists pursued women’s liberation as another way of distin-
guishing the new order from the Ottoman–Islamic past. Laiklik was embraced by the
army, senior bureaucrats, urban elites, and a generation of women empowered by
the new official feminism.1
A second pillar of Kemalism is its unitary understanding of national identity. The
collapse of the multiethnic, multi-confessional Ottoman Empire was due in part to
centrifugal forces and Great Power sponsorship of those forces. This experience
engendered deep suspicion of claims for self-determination from ethnic minorities
(including those of Muslim co-religionists) and of Western European endorsement
of such claims. It also meant that a formula was needed to integrate millions of
Muslim refugees from the Balkans, Greece, and the Caucasus into the fledgling
Republic. That formula was Turkish nationalism, which ascribed the characteristic
of “Turkishness” to all Muslim citizens irrespective of origin. Every Turk was in
turn called upon to participate in the building of the nation-state, a project that
demanded the subordination of individual and even group preferences to the good of
the state. This unitary understanding of the content and purpose of national identity
was propagated through a highly centralized and aggressively assimilationist educa-
tion and security apparatus. Refusal to conform was interpreted as secessionism.
These views of secularism and national identity have been challenged over time
by groups who have little in common with one another except their marginality vis-
à-vis the Kemalist center. Indeed, the story of social conflict and change in Turkish
society is one of a series of challenges to the Kemalist monopoly of the state,
resulting in the progressive liberalization of Turkish political life.2 By and large, the
 276 N. Onar

process has unfolded through electoral politics. When, however, peripheral

challengers appear to threaten the foundational tenants, notably secularism and the
territorial integrity that Kemalists believe is safeguarded by a unitary national
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identity, the military and/or judiciary have intervened to purge the perceived anti-
systemic actors.

Islamism
Though there are many branches of Islamism,3 the Nakşibendi-affiliated National
sc[]edli

View Movement (Milli Görüş Hareketi, MG) has been the mainstream political
sc[e]dli

Islamist movement since the 1970s, when it served as both opposition and
coalition member. Islamists of this tradition typically have contested the Kemalist
understanding of secularism but not the unitary construction of national identity.
Founded by Necmettin Erbakan, MG-affiliated parties ascribed to the view that
Turkey is destined by culture, history, and geography to the leadership of a
Muslim bloc that should in turn balance and challenge the West.4 Kemalists’
marginalization of religion from the public sphere and thus alienation from
“authentic” Turkish culture (read Islam) has denied Turkey its rightful place at the
helm of the Muslim world. As such, the Milli Görüş challenge to the state was
s[ce]dli

anti-secular and anti-Westernist but not necessarily anti-nationalist. Accordingly,

Islamist nationalism was harnessed by the army following the 1980 coup. Worried
by Soviet expansionism and the Turkish left, the military endorsed a “Turkish-
Islamic synthesis” that promoted religion and family values in school curricula
and religious high schools. This ironically paved the way for the reintegration of
religion into mainstream life. By the 1990s, political Islam in the form of
Erbakan’s Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, WP) had become a formidable political
force. Following nationwide success in municipal elections, the party became the
leading partner in a coalition government. Its rapid rise sparked a confrontation
with secularists, culminating in the “post-modern” coup of 1997. At this juncture,
a coalition of secularists—notably the army, the Constitutional Court, and civic
organizations such as TÜSİAD—banded together to force the WP’s closure due to
]dI[ot

fear that the Islamists were taking Turkey down an anti-Western, anti-secular
path.
One branch of young reformers within the MG tradition responded by reformulat-
ing its challenge to the state in anti-authoritarian rather than anti-secular terms.
Founding the AKP, they began to deploy post-Cold War and pro-EU discourse on
democratization and human rights—most notably the rights to freedom of religion,
expression, and political organization. The party program stressed the ontological
priority of individual rights, in striking contrast to the traditional Islamist identifica-
tion of the Koran as the basis for being and action. It was also careful to underscore
respect for the country’s territorial integrity, national sovereignty, and secularism.5
It was argued that so long as religious observance did not interfere with the func-
tioning of the secular state, there should be no prohibition on modes of observance
such as wearing the headscarf in public offices and universities.6 With its professed
 Kemalists, Islamists, and Liberals 277

commitment to state equidistance from all forms of religion but a suggestion that a
range of religious practice is acceptable in private life, the AKP position echoed that
of many secular liberals.
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At the time of its electoral victory, the AKP’s stance on pluralist conceptions of
national identity was less defined than its position on secularism. There was support
for a political solution to the “Kurdish problem,” and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdo ğan would go on to become the first Turkish head of state to use the phrase.
g[bevre]

However, interest in questions of multiculturalism had little purchase for the Islam-
ists’ core constituency. As such, endorsement of multiculturalism was more a de
facto component element of the overall bid to sell the AKP as a champion of
democracy and Turkey’s EU candidacy. In the hierarchy of political priorities, the
demands of ethnic and religious minorities took a distant backstage to grievances
over authoritarian attitudes towards religion.7
The AKP turnaround from its own leaders’ previous anti-EU and anti-democratic
views was a difficult pill for some to swallow. Many Kemalists and liberals could
not dispel fears that the Islamists were practicing takkıye, or dissimulation, in order
to Islamize the state by disabling the secular establishment’s powers of intervention
through the EU process. Yet given the Islamists’ overwhelming electoral mandate
and professed sincerity, there was little to do except give up on democracy
altogether or give the new administration the benefit of the doubt.

Liberalism
Turkish liberalism is a somewhat nebulous set of forces since there is no mass
movement that explicitly identifies itself as liberal. Nevertheless, economic liberal-
ism has, since the 1980s, found wide acceptance. Meanwhile, a tradition of political
liberalism can be traced from the faction of the Young Turk movement led by Prince
Sabahattin, through the early Free Republican Party (Serbest Firka) of Ahmet
A ğao ğlu, to prominent businessman Cem Boyner’s Democratic Turkey Party
g[bevre] g[bevre]

(Demokrat Türkiye Partisi, DTP). The fact that none of these parties has ever come
to power testifies to a small liberal constituency from an electoral perspective.
Nevertheless, important segments of the secular intelligentsia and business and
NGO communities support policies based on political liberalism. It is to these
groups that this essay refers in its discussion of Turkish liberalism.
Since the dawn of the Republic, liberals have been marginalized by the prevailing
“absolute, homogenous, all-encompassing category of Turkish citizenship” in which
the “citizen precedes the individual.”8 Effectively, what liberals contest in the
Kemalist narrative is not secularism per se, nor even the primacy of “Turkishness”
in constructions of national identity, but rather the exclusion of diversity in these
constructs. As such, Turkish liberals favor a more laissez-faire approach to secular-
ism that tolerates a range of practices so long as they do not threaten others’ pursuit
of their own religious beliefs. It is on these grounds that some liberal columnists
perceived the right to wear the veil as a civic right of pious women rather than as a
symbolic threat to the secular order.9
 278 N. Onar

The liberal stance on identity pluralism likewise acknowledges ethnic, linguistic,

and cultural diversity within the polity, challenging the monolithic construction of
“Turkishness” as a “collective myth based on minority exclusion.”10 The most
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controversial aspect of this pluralism has proved to be the revisionist approach of

several journalists, scholars, and activists to the official narrative on the Kurdish
question and on the fate of the Ottoman Armenians and Greeks.

Islamist–Liberal Consensus, Kemalist Acquiescence

The AKP leadership launched its term in power with a whirlwind tour of European
capitals in pursuit of a date for accession negotiations. The initiative was applauded
by the Kemalist president and the opposition Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet
Halk Partisi, CHP) as well as by liberal NGOs.11 Meanwhile, the parliament got to
work passing four legal harmonization packages between January and July 2003 that
improved Turkey’s human rights profile. Among the reforms were provisions allow-
ing for broadcasting in minority languages and facilitating the establishment of
private language instruction in these languages, notably Kurdish. The AKP also
challenged the status quo by adopting a soft line on Cyprus, which was agreeable to
the EU. That it was able to do so testifies to the fact that important elements within
the State were willing to make concessions on pillars of national policy in the name
of EU membership. Indicatively, on May 29, 2003, Commander of the Land Forces
General Yaşar Büyükanıt affirmed the military’s support for the country’s EU
sc[]edli

membership. The armed forces “… cannot be opposed to the European Union,” he

declared, “because the European Union is a geopolitical and geostrategic necessity
for the goal of modernization which Mustafa Kemal Atatürk revealed to Turkish
society.”12 Public support for the EU process was also high, bolstered by the heavy-
handed approach of the US Administration in its campaign for the invasion of Iraq.
In order to maintain this balance of forces, the AKP steered clear of policies that
could set Kemalist sentiment on edge. It persistently dodged the cause of the head-
scarf in spite of campaign promises to address it and pressure from the Islamist
press. Similarly, it pursued what could be called “light multiculturalism,” endorsing
measures called upon by the EU with regard to the non-Muslim and Kurdish minor-
ities without venturing beyond the EU rubric.

A Parting of Ways?
Upon installing itself in government, the AKP began to follow a classic pattern of
Turkish governance—kadrola şma—which can be roughly translated as “personnel-
[sc]edli

ization,” or the institutionalization of clientistic networks at every level and in each

organ of government. This meant that the rank-and-file, less versed in the cosmopol-
itan discourse of the party leadership, became increasingly involved in policymak-
ing. Accordingly, cracks began to show in the liberal–Islamist synthesis. AKP
municipalities across the country sought to ban alcohol or to limit its sale to certain
neighborhoods.13 An attempt was made to introduce helal labeling on food
 Kemalists, Islamists, and Liberals 279

products, a move that critics argued would give Islamist business an unfair edge.14
Even the upper echelons of the party pursued certain policies that irked secularist
observers. One such incident was a proposal to include an item outlawing adultery
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in the draft legislation of a new penal code.15 To do so would have been meant
incorporating an element of Islamic law into the corpus of national law. Moreover,
the proposal came mere weeks before the European Commission was set to
announce its recommendation (or not) for opening accession negotiations. The AKP
insisted that the move was empowering for women because it would provide legal
recourse against adulterous husbands in a society that often condones male infidelity
while punishing that of women. Secularists—liberal and Kemalist alike—as well as
the AKP’s negotiating counterparts in the EU objected vociferously. Although the
proposal was dropped as suddenly as it burst onto the agenda, questions remained:

What is the goal of this administration? To continue to provide economic

stability, close the budget deficit, and continue on the EU path? Or, with the
headscarf, alcohol ban, and separation of men and women in public spaces, to
create new problems and ruin the things they’ve achieved?16

The Headscarf Controversy

When all was said and done, the real axis of contention proved to be the headscarf.
Tension initially revolved around the awkwardness of veiled wives of notables such
as Erdo ğan, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül,17 and Speaker of Parliament Bülent Arınç
g[bevre]

being barred from attendance at state functions due to the ban on the headscarf in
public institutions. The moment of truth came in two installments. On June 29, 2004,
and then even more decisively on November 11, 2005, the European Court of Human
Rights (ECHR) passed judgment on Leyla Şahin vs. Turkey. The plaintiff charged
S[]celdi

that the ban, which had compelled her to leave medical school in her fifth year of
study, was a violation of freedom of thought, conscience, religion, right of access to
education, respect for private and family life, and right to freedom from discrimina-
tion. The court did not agree. With one dissenting opinion in 2004, and unanimously
in 2005, the ECHR asserted that the ban was an appropriate measure to safeguard
secularism in the Turkish context.18 The decision read that the state was obliged to
protect non-veiled women and non-observant citizens “… from external pressure from
extremist movements.”19 Islamists railed at the verdicts as evidence of a European
double-standard towards Muslims, causing many to question the AKP’s recent
conversion to “universal” values of European provenance. Editorials in the Islamist
press angrily challenged the right of the state or any court to determine an individual’s
relationship with religion.20 The prime minister fed the furor when he stated that he
did not think it was legitimate for the court to pass judgment on the headscarf without
informing itself of the position of the ulema.21 Though he immediately tried to qualify
the statement, others took the argument to its extreme but logical end, arguing that
religious and temporal law are fundamentally incompatible. One Islamist critic
argued that the ECHR decision should make it clear to “neo-Islamists” who defend
 280 N. Onar

“Anglo-Saxon liberalism” as an alternative to “Jacobin French laicism” that the former

is but a “more refined way of destroying the religious bases of society.”22
Kemalists, unsurprisingly, rejoiced at the rulings and chastised the government
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for protesting a verdict in favor of the Turkish state. Some interpreted Erdo ğan’s g[bevre]

ulema remark as a slip of the tongue that revealed the AKP’s hidden project—Islam-
ization of the state.23 Calling the AKP comments criticizing the decisions a “crime
against the constitution,” the Kemalist daily Cumhuriyet suggested that the govern-
ment sought to implement the “Jeddah Criteria.”24 Others, like Chairman of the
Board of Higher Education (Yüksek Ö ğretim Kurulu, YÖK) Erdoğan Teziç
g[bevre] gevb[r]

(misleadingly), announced that that the Turkish ban was now irrevocable.25 This
triumphalism forced the AKP into taking an even stronger stand in order to maintain
credibility in the eyes of its core constituents such that both Kemalists and Islamists
dwelled obsessively on the issue long after the final ECHR ruling.
Liberals, watching the rhetoric escalate, began to despair that “bitter days [were]
beginning.”26 As feared, in the ensuing months a series of crises erupted over the
headscarf. The earlier impasse over veiled wives’ attendance at state functions took
on a new dimension in light of presidential elections slated for 2007. Both Erdo ğan g[bevre]

and Arınç hinted that they would run for the position. The prospect of a veiled matron
of the presidential palace fueled Kemalist fears that the AKP sought to take over and
dismantle the secular state. Meanwhile, in a controversial speech Arınç called for a
redefinition of secularism, setting off alarm bells with the Kemalist establishment,
which rang all the louder with the bombing of the Cumhuriyet newspaper office. Then,
two days before a national holiday commemorating Atatürk’s launching of the War
of Independence, an Islamist militant attacked the Court of Higher Appeals
(Danıştay). The attack was motivated by the court’s decision several months prior to
[sc]edli

suspend an elementary school teacher for wearing a headscarf outside the classroom.
Before opening fire, the assailant reportedly shouted: “We are the soldier, the envoy
of God, you will be punished for the headscarf trial.” Five justices were wounded,
one of whom perished.27 The tragedy prompted hundreds of thousands across the
country to march in protest at the perceived onslaught on secularism. Though the AKP
roundly condemned the violence, secularist popular opinion became more inclined to
read takkıye into government policies. This impulse has been reinforced by speeches
from the president and General Büyükanıt, now chief of the armed forces, warning
that fundamentalism in the country has acquired dangerous proportions.
In sum, by failing to contain rising apprehension over the process of kadrolaşma ]cs[eldi

and a series of increasingly dramatic confrontations over the headscarf, the AKP has
lost the confidence of liberals and stirred the fears of Kemalists. And with this
breakdown in the Islamist–liberal consensus, the Kemalist vision of secularism has
prevailed.

Article 301
Around one year into the headscarf controversy, a new and overhauled version of
the Turkish penal code went into effect on June 1, 2005. The package had left
 Kemalists, Islamists, and Liberals 281

untouched a number of articles compromising freedom of speech, freedom of

expression, and press freedoms. One such item was Article 301 of the new code,
criminalizing insults to “Turkishness.”28 Convicted offenders can receive a sentence
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of up to three years. It also provides for the imprisonment of those who denigrate the
Turkish Republic, the parliament, the government, the judiciary, the military, and
the security forces. An ambivalent loophole allows that statements of conscience
made with critical intent (as opposed to statements of denigration) do not constitute
crimes.
Almost immediately, a group of nationalist lawyers opposed to Turkey’s integra-
tion with the EU began a campaign on Article 301 grounds against prominent and
less prominent public figures. Many believed that the lawyers’ intent was as much
to rile up nationalist sentiment and tarnish Turkey’s image in the eyes of European
commentators as it was to imprison the perceived offenders. Although all manner of
“insults” were cause for prosecution—from criticism of the army by a former
soldier to translation and publication of a book critical of Turkey by a young
publisher—the act most likely to attract the lawyers’ ire was questioning the official
line on the Armenian genocide. Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and novel-
ist Elif Şafak were among those targeted by the vigilantes, who also sought to
S[]celdi

censure critically-minded intellectuals and activists at two controversial conferences

convened on the Armenian and Kurdish questions, respectively.
The nationalist lawyers, led by Kemal Kerinçsiz, found their “goldmine”29 in
novelist Orhan Pamuk, who would go on to win the Nobel prize in literature a year
after being hauled before an Istanbul court. Pamuk was summoned to defend his
statement to a Swiss newspaper that a million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds had
perished in Turkey. His case became an international cause célèbre, which in turn
meant that scenes of nationalists attacking the mild-mannered author and his entou-
rage—which included the likes of European Parliament Speaker Daniel Cohn-
Bendit and Turkey–European Union Parliamentary Joint Commission Co-chairman
Joost Lagendjk—received worldwide coverage. International condemnation in turn
fueled a divisive domestic debate. Even those opposed to Article 301 questioned the
legitimacy of the international community’s call for government intervention on
Pamuk’s behalf when Turkey was at the same time constantly reprimanded for fail-
ure to respect rule of law and judicial independence. Although the trials of house-
hold names like Pamuk and Şafak culminated in immediate acquittal, at least 96
S[]celdi

people have been prosecuted and many imprisoned under the statute to date.30
Since the beginning of the Article 301 imbroglio, Islamists have sought to toe a
fine line between the demands of liberals and the international community and
rising nationalist sentiment. Why has the AKP, with its parliamentary majority and
stated commitment to EU membership, refused to amend this or other articles
restrictive of freedom of expression in the new penal code? Justice Minister Cemil
Çiçek sought to justify the party’s inactivity in liberal terms, arguing that 301 was
not a repressive piece of legislation: “If there are differences in how [the law] is
applied by the courts it can be resolved through the application of critical interpreta-
tion of the law (ictihat). I say we should wait for the judicial process.”31 Çiçek has
 282 N. Onar

since gone through quite elaborate contortions to avoid taking a stand on the
controversial statute—including blaming the whole affair on Orhan Pamuk—
despite holding powers which permit him to intervene. Erdo ğan too has equivo-
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g[bevre]

cated: “As a part of the EU process we’ve taken steps that have never been seen in
the history of the Republic towards freedom of thought and belief. The view of a
state prosecutor may be different. I will not discuss the judicial process. I do not
know how the judiciary works.”32 Though small gestures have been made, such as
Erdo ğan’s personal phone call to Şafak congratulating her on her acquittal, it is
g[bevre] S[]celdi

believed that the government’s refusal to touch Article 301 is due to upcoming
national elections. Wary of being tarred with an anti-patriotic brush, Çiçek has
rationalized inactivity by saying that should the government attempt to strike Article
301: “[W]e will be faced with a regime debate … wouldn’t some people then ask us
if we are ashamed of being Turks?”33
It is precisely a desire to goad the AKP—already under siege for its revisionism on
secularism—into a regime debate that has animated the attitude of CHP leader Deniz
Baykal towards Article 301. Noting that Islamists have the strength of numbers to
overturn the statute whenever they wish, Baykal has played the patriotic card:

The prime minister is looking for an accomplice to share the shame of allowing
insults against Turkish identity in Turkey. My answer is, knock on someone
else’s door … We are almost asked to apologize because we are Turks. We
won’t apologize, we are proud of this.34

The ongoing controversy is thus testimony to the Islamists’ unwillingness to take

on the orthodox Kemalist position on both secularism and pluralism in constructions
of national identity. There is little motivation to do so, given rising nationalist
sentiment across the political spectrum and the fact that Islamist discourse has, with
the exception of the early 2000s, spoken to a relatively nationalist following. Once
again, this has left liberal advocates of a more pluralist understanding of national
identity out in the cold.

International Dimension
The shift towards a Kemalist–Islamist collision over secularism and consensus over
identity politics, and the consequent abandonment of liberal reform, has also been
driven by developments at the international level. The single most important interna-
tional variable has been a brewing crisis in EU–Turkey relations. Renewed insecurity
over the Kurdish question as a result of the emerging geo-strategic balance in the
Middle East has also affected domestic understandings of secularism and pluralism.

The EU: From Liberal to Identity Politics

At the time the AKP came to power, both EU and candidate states were engaged in
the formulation of a draft European constitution, a process which piqued debate
 Kemalists, Islamists, and Liberals 283

over what was and ought to be the nature of the European project. The debate
divided proponents of a cosmopolitan and post-national Europe founded upon civic
values and advocates of a Europe built upon a common historical and cultural
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heritage. Brussels insisted that its enlargement policy towards Turkey was based
entirely on the civic rather than culturalist perspective: Turkey would become
European upon its full democratization in accordance with the accession criteria.
This stance empowered Turkish reformers. It established that the ball was in
Turkey’s court and made it clear that the Muslim creed of the country’s some
70 million citizens was irrelevant to its accession prospects.
The EU claim was undermined by a rising tide of objections to Turkish candidacy
on culturalist grounds, especially from a resurgent center-right in Germany and
France. Soon enough, the taboo on identity concerns over Turkish membership was
swept aside with the pan-European debate leading up to the December 2004 Luxem-
bourg Summit, at which it was to be decided whether to give Turkey a date for
opening accession negotiations. While such considerations did not alter the outcome
at Luxembourg, increasingly strident objections to Turkish candidacy nearly
resulted in an Austrian (and Cypriot) veto on opening negotiations as promised on
October 3, 2005. This trend was reinforced by the rejection of the draft constitution
in French and Dutch referenda, an outcome that was attributed in some measure to
popular objection to Brussels’ insistence on integrating Turkey.
At the level of public opinion, the assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo van
Gogh by an Islamist extremist and outraged protests across the Muslim world at a
Danish newspaper’s publication of caricatures of Muhammad precipitated a crisis of
multiculturalism in countries such as the Netherlands that had considered them-
selves beacons of tolerance. Riots in the Paris banlieus further highlighted the fail-
ure of many EU member states to integrate their Muslim immigrant populations.
Although the relevance of the Paris riots to Turkish candidacy was tenuous at best, it
proved easy enough for populists like France’s Nicolas Sarkozy to take a hard line
stance on both questions. This inability and/or unwillingness to meet the social
demands of Muslim immigrants has transformed Europeans’ previously “benign
ignorance” of Islam into a “fearful ignorance.”35 The result is that it has become
almost politically correct for EU and member state officials, from German Chancel-
lor Angela Merkel to Commission President Manuel Barroso, to express ambiva-
lence if not outright hostility towards the eventuality of Turkish membership.
Predictably, these developments have not aided the cause of reform in Turkey.
The AKP lost its gamble that the EU would provide leverage for a redefinition of
secularism with regard to the headscarf. It does not wish now, in the absence of a
credible accession process, to also antagonize Kemalists and nationalist feelings
across the political spectrum by pursuing pluralist identity politics vis-à-vis Article
301 and the Kurdish question. This dynamic is reinforced by the vista of upcoming
elections and public opinion polls showing ever lower support for eventual EU
membership. Turkey-bashing in the EU has likewise activated the anti-Western,
anti-EU streak within Kemalism. Moves like the October 2006 French parliamen-
tary resolution criminalizing denial of the Armenian genocide fanned emotional
 284 N. Onar

calls for a boycott of French products, retaliatory resolutions condemning French

conduct in Algeria as genocide, and even an extreme proposal to deport Turkey’s
some 60,000 Armenian citizens. European actors’ criticism is increasingly inter-
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preted through the prism of the Sèvres syndrome, the collective trauma of near
dismemberment at the hands of the Great Powers following World War I. If, as
Göçek claims, Turkish nationalism is reproduced through arousal of collective
emotion over an imagined unitary nation,36 then European actors could not be doing
more to assist the likes of Kerinçsiz.
This tableau means that liberals, under siege by nationalists and unable to co-opt
either the Kemalist opposition, presidency, and army, or the Islamist government
and parliament, have resorted to pleading with European actors to at least refrain
from further provocation. Already under siege on Article 301 grounds for his posi-
tion on the Armenian question, Hrant Dink found himself between an EU rock and
Turkish nationalist hard place. The Armenian-Turkish journalist, a passionate
advocate of dialogue and reconciliation, had vowed to go to France and deny the
genocide himself should the law be implemented. Murdered by an ultra-nationalist
teenager, Dink’s fate speaks with tragic poignancy of the current dilemma of the
Turkish liberal reformer.37

The US: Northern Iraq and the Kurdish Question

The long-standing Turkish–American alliance encountered new challenges follow-
ing September 11 and the occupation of Iraq. When the AKP first came to power,
many in Washington thought more than ever that Turkey could serve as a model for
the promotion of democracy across the Muslim world. However, when public
opinion and a parliamentary vote denied the Unites States a Turkish base for the
invasion of Iraq, the Bush Administration made no secret of its anger. This fueled
anti-American sentiment, which, in tandem with revelations about torture in Iraq,
fed a fad for conspiracy theories regarding the United States, Israel, and the geopol-
itics of the Middle East. The alienation was mutual. When AKP figures invited
newly elected Hamas leaders to Ankara, albeit in an unofficial capacity, they
outraged Washington and the Israel–American lobby that had long defended Turk-
ish interests in the United States in the name of the Turkish–Israeli military alliance.
Increasingly, American observers expressed concern that the AKP government was
borderline anti-systemic in its religiosity, corroborating Kemalist claims that the
Islamists had crossed the line on secularism.
Meanwhile, before the EU process was moribund, the AKP had tried at Brussels’
behest to reach out to Kurds. The release of Kurdish activist and former parliamen-
tarian Leyla Zana removed a thorn in EU–Turkey ties. Erdo ğan took part in a
g[bevre]

national discussion on multiculturalism in which he stated that all Turkish citizens

share a common supra-identity (üst kimlik), but that they may legitimately claim a
Kurdish (or Laz or Georgian, and so forth) sub-identity (alt kimlik).38 He expressed
solidarity with Kurds through visits to Diyabakır and rushed to the scene to defuse
tensions in the southeastern town of Şemdinli after a bombing in which the
S[]celdi
 Kemalists, Islamists, and Liberals 285

gendarmerie had been implicated. He sought to draw a clear line between the
demands of Kurds and those of the Kurdish terrorists by proclaiming that Turkey
did not have a Kurdish problem but rather a separatism problem.39
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These efforts did not prove sufficient to prevent an upsurge in violence. By early
2006, it became clear that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) had reestablished
itself as a fighting force based in the mountains of northern Iraq. A steep increase
occurred in attacks on military, civilian, and even tourist targets. Images of Kurdish
youth burning the Turkish flag and torching banks and buildings in riots across the
country in April 2006 exacerbated the already raging domestic debate over identity
politics. This remilitarization of the conflict, in conjunction with deteriorating
relations with the EU and the Article 301 controversy, catalyzed the Islamist shift to
a neo-Kemalist stance on national identity questions. The result has been that a
government that began its tenure implementing liberalizing reforms passed a
comprehensive anti-terror law in June 2006. The law widened the definition of
terrorism in ways that, NGOs argued, posed serious dangers to individuals’ freedom
of expression and press freedom. Çiçek defended the legislation in a fitting epithet
to the Islamist–liberal synthesis by saying: “We cannot sacrifice freedoms for public
order, but we also cannot drag the country into chaos in the name of freedoms.”40

Conclusion
This survey of shifting patterns of understandings of secularism and pluralism
points to several conclusions. First of all, with regard to secularism, it appears that
the AKP has missed a major opportunity to take up the mantle of pious liberal
Turgut Özal under whose leadership the Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi,
ANAP) became the golden goose of Turkish elections. This would have been in
keeping with AKP aspirations to become a mainstream center-right party, the
Turkish answer to Christian Democracy. It may not be too late to strike such a path,
but it will not be easy. The AKP must placate Kemalist fears, reign in fundamental-
ist tendencies among its grassroots, and maintain its electoral base. What is certain
is that if the AKP wishes to become a mainstream political force, it needs to explic-
itly demonstrate its commitment to secularism. One gesture in this direction could
be to endorse a candidate for the presidency whose wife does not wear a veil.
On questions of national identity, all signs from Ankara are that there is no politi-
cal will to strike Article 301 any time before national elections. It may, however, be
possible to reign in Kerinçsiz and his associates through the bylaws of the Istanbul
Bar, which allow for censure of members who behave so as to tarnish the legal
profession, engage in inappropriate behavior to win fame, and use immature and
subjective language in their professional activities.41 However, prolonged populist
politics and delay in removing Article 301 may irrevocably damage Turkey’s EU
prospects.
The EU process, as has been shown, was the anchor for reforms achieved to date.
Although negotiations are practically stalled, it is important to remember that EU–
Turkey relations do go through intermittent crises—turbulent ties following the
 286 N. Onar

1997 rejection of Turkey’s candidacy and the turnaround two years later at the Hels-
inki Summit being a case in point. The institutional integration of the past three
years cannot be undone, at least not overnight, and as much as there may be a lull in
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progress, it is unlikely that either the EU or Turkey will formally pull out of the
accession process. That said, the structure of local, regional, and international poli-
tics is such that the danger of permanent estrangement is greater today than ever
before. Turkey has friends in Europe, and now is the time for them to speak up
behind the scenes in Brussels and out loud to both EU and Turkish public opinion.
There are signs that this is beginning to happen, with the French genocide denial
resolution prompting a number of US and European commentators to express
concern that the West is on the brink of “losing” Turkey. As former British Minister
for Europe Denis McShane put it, alienating Turkey “… will transform one of
Europe’s greatest assets into a source of conflict and tension. For good or ill Europe
is now intervening in a region full of problems in Iran, Iraq and Israel–Palestine.
Making an enemy of Turkey will make solving any of these problems far more
difficult.”42 It is similarly in the interests of the United States to make a serious
effort to reign in the PKK in northern Iraq in order help calm insecurity over
Kurdish secessionism. If actors within the EU and United States manage to provide
the right structure of incentives, there may be hope that reformist actors in Turkey
can make their mark on policy once again.

Notes
1. Actually, the existence of 37 women’s journals with a readership of up to 3,000 speaks of a healthy
feminist movement in the late Ottoman and early Republican period. The question of women’s
suffrage was debated in some of the earliest parliamentary sessions, and the first political party of the
Republic was a women’s party. In 1935, almost immediately after women were given the right to
vote, the Women’s Union was shut down along with many other grassroots political organizations.
Women’s rights were henceforth safeguarded by a paternalistic state. See Deniz Kandiyoti, “End of
Empire: Islam, Nationalism, and Women in Turkey,” in Deniz Kandiyoti (ed.), Women, Islam and
the State (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), pp.32–42; Fatmagül Berktay, Tarihin
Cinsiyeti [History’s Gender] (Istanbul: Metis Yayınları, 2003).
2. See the seminal article by Şerif Mardin, “Center–Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?”
S[]celdi

Daedalus, Vol.102, No.1 (Winter 1973).

3. For example, the popular modernist Islamic Nurcu movement today led by Fethüllah Gülen claims a
following of some five or six million but insists that it is apolitical and fields no political party.
4. The argument is evocative of what Samuel Huntington would later characterize as Turkey’s position
as a “torn country” in his clash of civilizations thesis. Emasculated by its bandwagoning with the
West, Turkey is in fact the natural leader of the Islamic world. See Samuel Huntington, “The Clash
of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs, Vol.72, No.3 (Summer 1993) pp. 22–49. For further discussion of
evolving Milli Görüş views of the West, see Ihsan D. Daği, “Transformation of Islamic Political
]csel[di geb[vre]

Identity in Turkey,” Turkish Studies, Vol.6, No.1 (March 2005) pp. 21–37.
5. Binnaz Toprak, “Islam and Democracy in Turkey,” Turkish Studies, Vol.6, No.2 (June 2005), p.171.
6. Mehmet Ballı, “Yök Ba şkanı Erdoğan Teziç Ba şörtüsü Konusunda Hukuki Düşünmüyor” [The
s[ce]dli geb[vre] s[ce]dli sc[]edli

President of the Board of Higher Education Does Not Think in Legal Terms about the Headscarf],
Yeni Ş afak, January 12, 2002.
S[]celdi

7. Observation of author based on extensive study of editorials published in Yeni Ş afak from 1999 to
S[]celdi

2005; see Nora Onar, “Freedom of Religion versus Secularism?: Universal Rights, Turkish
 Kemalists, Islamists, and Liberals 287

Islamism, and the Headscarf,” RAMSES working paper series, European Studies Centre, St
Antony’s College, University of Oxford, available at http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/esc/ramses.shtml.
8. Ayşe Kadıoğlu, “Citizenship and Individuation in Turkey: The Triumph of Will over Reason,”
sc[]edli geb[vre]
Downloaded By: [Carleton University] At: 12:54 4 August 2007

CEMOTI, January 2006, available at http://cemoti.revues.org/document34.html.

9. Türker Alkan, “Laikçilerle ‘Dincilerin’ Ortak Noktaları” [Common Points of “Secularists” and
“Religionists”], Radikal, November 15, 2005.
10. Fatma Müge Göçek, “Furor against the West: Nationalism as the Dangerous Underbelly of the
Modern Turkish Republic,” forthcoming.
11. Ergün Aksoy, “Erdoğan 15’te Sekiz Yaptı” [Erdoğan Scored Eight out of 15], Radikal, December 1,
geb[vre] geb[vre]

2002.
12. “Orgeneral Büyükanıt: Ordu AB’ye Kar şı Değil” [General Büyükanıt: The Army is Not Anti-EU], s[ced]li geb[vre]

Hürriyet, May 29, 2003.

13. Altan Öymen, “İçki’ Konusunda Nereden Nereye” [From Where to Where on the “Drinking”
]dI[ot

Question], Radıkal, November 24, 2005.

14. Orhan Erinç, “Geçmişten Geleceğe” [From the Past to the Future], Cumhuriyet, November 12, 2005.
sc[]edli geb[vre]

15. The AKP proposal was all the more puzzling in that the criminal code itself was being overhauled to
bring the country’s statutes in line with EU standards.
16. Öymen, “ İçki’ Konusunda Nereden Nereye.”
dI[]ot

17. Gül’s wife had only recently withdrawn her own lawsuit with the ECHR, in which she contested the
headscarf ban.
18. Fehmi Koru, “Yanlış Bir Karar” [A Wrong Decision], Yeni Şafak, June 30, 2004.
]cse[ldi S[]celdi

19. “Grand Chamber Judgement—Leyle Şahin v. Turkey, European Court of Human Rights,” press S[]celdi

release, November 11, 2005, available at http://press.coe.int/cp/2005/608a(2005).html.

20. Ahmet Kekeç, “Biz AB’ye Giremedik Ama AB Bize Girdi Bile” [We Couldn’t Get in the EU but the
EU Has Entered Us], Yeni Ş afak, June 30, 2004. This argument naturally raises the question: why S[]celdi

file a suit with the ECHR in the first place if its competence is in question?
21. The comment was dissected by the media for weeks: “The court does not have the right to
pronounce judgment on this subject. The right to pass judgment is that of the religious ulema. If one
is a Jew one asks the representative of that religion, if one is Christian [one asks] that religion’s
representative. [One asks] does this really have the status of a binding duty? If so, you have to
respect it. If [it were] not [a religious command] then it would be a different thing, in that case its
political, ideological. That’s a different situation. But I say that in religion this [the headscarf] has a
place. We’ve studied this. I think it is wrong that those who have no connection to this field and
who have not even consulted the ulema try to pull this decision in another direction.”
“Başbakanımız Mürekkep Yalamış” [Our Prime Minister Knows What He’s Talking About],
sc[]edli sc[]edli

Radikal, November 16, 2005.

22. Akif Emre, “Aziz Nesin’den ‘Türban Dersi” [Headscarf Lesson from Aziz Nesin], Yeni Şafak, S[]celdi

November 15, 2005.

23. Cüneyt Arcayürek, “İki Arada Bir Derede” [Between a Rock and a Hard Place], Cumhuriyet, ]dI[ot

November 12, 2005; Fırat Kozok, “Ağzındaki Baklayı Çıkarıyor” [He Reveals His True Agenda], geb[vre]

Cumhuriyet, November 16, 2005.

24. “Muhalefet, ‘Ulemaya Başvurulmasını’ Isteyen” [The Opposition: Those Who Want the Clergy to be s[ce]dli

Consulted], Cumhuriyet, November 17, 2005.

25. The ECHR decision only stated that the ban was not a violation of Şahin’s rights but did not suggest S[]celdi

that the Turkish ban could not be lifted.

26. Hakkı Devrim, “Eğer Adaletin Kestiği Parmak Acımaz Demeyeceklerse, Fena!” [If They Don’t
gevb[r] gevb][r

Accept the Harsh Hand of Justice, It’s Trouble], Radikal, November 12, 2005.
27. “Türban Yüzünden Hedef Aldım” [I Chose My Target Because of the Headscarf], Hürriyet, May 17,
2005.
28. Article 301 is a revamped version of the much condemned Article 159. It calls for a shorter prison
term than its antecedent.
29. Mehmet Ali Birand, “Good Going, Lawyer Kerinçsiz,” Turkish Daily News, December 29, 2005.
 288 N. Onar

30. Göksel Bozkurt, “Turkey Debates Free Expression of Thought,” Turkish Daily News, October 1,
2006.
31. Murat Yetkin, “Adalet Bakanı: Yargıtay’da Düzelebilir” [Justice Minister: The Supreme Court Can
Downloaded By: [Carleton University] At: 12:54 4 August 2007

Fix It], Radikal, October 9, 2005.

32. Bozkurt, “Turkey Debates Free Expression of Thought.”
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. “Looking to Europe,” Economist, March 17, 2005.
36. Göçek, “Furor against the West: Nationalism as the Dangerous Underbelly of the Modern Turkish
Republic.”
37. Dink was felled by an assassin on January, 19, 2007, plunging the country into shock. The press was
almost universally sympathetic and hundreds of thousands marched with placards declaring: “We are
all Armenians: We are all Hrant Dink.” In this way his death may have served the cause he held so
dear, provoking ordinary citizens to question the tenor, content, and consequences of rising national-
ist sentiment. Yet the outpouring of grief also spurred nationalist reaction exemplified by the banner
held up by football fans at a nationally televised match: “We are not Armenians; We are Turks.” The
heightened opposition between revisionist and hard-line sentiment is catalyzing new discourse on
both sides, the final shape of which is uncertain.
38. The fact that Erdo ğ an emphasized not a “Turkish” but a “Muslim” supra-identity rubbed some secu-
g[bevre]

larists the wrong way. Turan Yilmaz, “Kürt’ün Sorunu da Türk’ünki Kadar” [The Problems of the
Kurds Are as Much as Those of the Turks], Hürriyet, December 7, 2005.
39. “Erdo ğ an: Türkiye’de Kürt Değil, Bölücülük Sorunu Var” [Erdoğan: Turkey Has a Separatism Prob-
g[bevre] gevb[r] gevb[r]

lem, Not a Kurdish Problem], Zaman, December 7, 2005.

40. “Anti-Terror Law Toughened Despite Protests,” Turkish Daily News, July 1, 2006.
41. “Şiddet Korosu İş Ba şında!—TESEV Saldırısı” [The Chorus of Violence is at Work—Attack on
S[]celdi ] dIo[t ]csel[di s[ce]dli

TESEV], Human Rights Agenda Association (İnsan Hakları Gündemi Derneği), available at http://
]dI[ot geb[vre]

www.rightsagenda.org/main.php?id=99.
42. Denis MacShane, “Patronising Turkey is a Dangerous Game for Europe,” Financial Times, October
10, 2006.