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Politics, identity and religious nationalism in Turkey: from Atatürk to the AKP

Article in Australian Journal Of International Affairs · June 2010

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Atatürk to the AKP

Turkey has had an Islam-influenced government since a general election in 2002. The

Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, abbreviated to AK Parti

or AKP) won over a third of the popular vote and took power alone. A subsequent

general election in 2007 saw the AKP win again with an improved 47% of votes cast.

Over the last few years under the AKP, Turkey has often been noted for the

‘moderation’ of its Islam-influenced government, a positive example of the

compatibility of Islam and democracy.

The article focuses on Turkey’s national identity and the place within it of Islam,

secularism and the political role over time of the military, often judged to be the

guardian of the country’s secular national identity. This involves both a focus on the

role and legacy of the country’s nationalist founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk , and on

the special insular and inward-looking self-selected guardian role of the military, long

seen as central to national choices of the pursuit of a secular political path.

The article argues that one of the defining characteristics of Turkish identity is not

Islam or secularism per se. Rather, it is a pronounced, perhaps even xenophobic, fear

of outsiders, including not only Westerners but also some Muslim non-Turks. The

article suggests that while Islam is part of that sense of identity it is not at its core.

Moreover, if the military has its way, which at the moment seems likely, then Islam

will never be allowed to be central to Turkey’s sense of national identity.

1
Introduction

The Republic of Turkey connects Europe and Asia, bridging a divide between

(mainly) Muslim Asia and (mainly) Christian Europe. Sharing a border with several

Muslim-majority countries – including, Iraq, Iran, and Syria – Turkey is also a

member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), an entity long dominated

by the United States and other Western countries. While the Muslim population of

Turkey amounts to 99 per cent of the country’s inhabitants, 1 government rejected

Islamic rule in 1923 in favour of a categorically secular regime. Now, however,

Turkey’s current government – led by a party with roots in political Islam, the Justice

and Development Party (AKP) – finds itself caught on the horns of a dilemma. On the

one hand, Western governments are, to varying yet significant degrees, suspicious of

political Islam in office, a concern of course highlighted in recent years following

September 11, 2001, and the subsequent US-led ‘war on terror’, involving extensive

incursions into two Muslim-majority countries, Afghanistan and Iraq. On the other

hand, Turkey has an increasingly vocal constituency that dislikes the country’s

growing closeness to the West (Gül 2004; Walker 2004). This is characterised by the

continuing bid to join the EU, NATO membership, and closer ties to both the USA

and Israel. It is sometimes asserted that a conservative Islamism lies at the heart of

this anti-Western stance, implying profound ‘civilisational’ differences between

Turkey and ‘normal’ European countries, that is, those without majority Muslim

populations. It is certainly true that, despite nearly nine decades of often-aggressive

secularisation, Islam still retains a strong social (and to a degree, political) position in

2
Turkey. Indeed, it is a sense of profound adhesion to Islam that provides core electoral

foundations for the AKP.

Since 2002 and the election for the first time of the AKP government to power in

Turkey, two questions have contoured political considerations in the country. First,

how should the AKP proceed in office? Should it defer to the demands of many of its

supporters and reintroduce aspects of Islam into public life? Or, second, should the

AKP retain the secular path that has not only dominated the country’s development

for nearly nine decades but has also brought Turkey within sight of a coveted national

goal: EU membership? Finally, to what extent does the interaction of Muslim and

secular values, with the latter represented most consistently by the country’s powerful

and politicised military, inform and colour the way that Turks see the outside world,

including the non-Muslim West?

As already noted, the AKP has been in power since 2002. The government has

focused attention on Turkey’s national identity and the place within it of ‘Islamic

values’. To examine this issue requires a focus on the political and social goals and

legacy of Atatürk. It also necessitates an examination of the political role of the

military over time. The starting point is that Turkey’s armed forces have exhibited for

decades a special insular and inward-looking self-selected guardian role, central to the

country’s secularist traditions and outlook.

This article argues that the defining characteristic of Turkish national identity is not

Islam or secularism per se, but rather a pronounced, sometimes even a xenophobic,

1
Most Turkish Muslims are Sunnis, although around 20 per cent are Alevis of the Twelver Shia sect

3
fear among some Turks of outsiders. While Islam is undoubtedly part of that sense of

identity for many Turks, it is not, the article contends, at its core. Moreover, if the

military has its way, which at the moment seems likely, then Islam will never be

allowed to be central to Turkey’s sense of national identity.

Islam, secularism and nationalism: The military and politics in Turkey

Turkey’s secularist orientations were originally laid down in the 1920s by the founder

of the Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938). Over the next nine

decades, Turkey’s political circumstances have consistently reflected two key aspects

of elite preference for secularism, focused in: (1) a strongly secularising and

centralising state, and (2) political domination by the armed forces.

Although Turkey first democratised in 1950, the next 60 years saw frequent, often

dramatic, political intrusions by the military. 2 Transition from military rule in 1983

exemplified the degree to which outgoing military regimes in Turkey have

consistently set the terms of their departure from power. Post-1983 constitutional

amendments have eradicated some legacies of military rule, including a ban on

political activity by some former politicians and on cooperation between political

parties and some civil society organisations, including various trade unions and

professional organisations. In addition, other constitutional exit guarantees, such as

the president’s power to block constitutional amendments, automatically expired in

1989. On the other hand, the progress of civilianisation – and hence democratic

(Jenkins 2008: 38-39). The remaining 1% of the population includes Christians, Jews, and Bahais.

4
progress after 1983 – arguably had less to do with formal constitutional change than

with informal practice and adaptation. The point is that, despite Turkey’s current

status as a ‘partly free’ country in Freedom House terminology, implying that the

political system is characterised by a fair degree of democracy, the military retains

high political salience in Turkey, which may put in doubt the country’s long-term

democratic consolidation. In sum, the long term structural effect on politics of

aggressive secularisation and military significance has significantly influenced the

country’s political culture and made it difficult to develop an emphatically democratic

regime.

The roots of the military’s political involvement in contemporary Turkey can be

traced back to before the founding of the modern state of Turkey in 1923, to the time

of the Ottoman empire (1293–1922). Since Turkey’s founding, there have been

decades of often aggressive modernisation and secularisation, initially dominated by

the leadership of a military hero, Mustafa Kemal ‘Atatürk’ (‘Father of the Turks’).

For 15 years, until his death in 1938, Atatürk aggressively imposed western-style civil

law in Turkey. The new republic also inherited from the Ottoman empire a strong,

centralised and highly bureaucratic state which Atatürk proceeded to mould to his

own vision. Believing that Turkey’s indigenous traditions – including, most

importantly, Islam – were unequivocal expressions of backwardness, Atatürk believed

that national progress would come by emulating, absorbing and reproducing

‘European’ cultural values and political institutions. This dual ideological perspective

was henceforward promulgated in state policies and programmes, defended not only

by the politically powerful armed forces but also by an array of increasingly

2
Turkey has had four military coups, in 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997. The most recent was described as

5
entrenched civilian secular interests.

The armed forces long enjoyed almost total control over their own processes of

recruitment, training and promotion, resulting in the creation of a specific military

culture facilitating the development of a specific role within Turkish society: the

‘hyper-secular’ defender of Atatürk’s revolution. The armed forces’ institutional

autonomy made it impossible to manipulate the military for political purposes from

outside its ranks. In recent years it demonstrated a profound ability to maintain its

cohesion and organisational integrity – a period when Turkish society itself became

increasingly fragmented into competing classes, ethnic entities, religious groupings,

and ideological factions. The military’s political clout was demonstrated by the fact

that the armed forces could – and did – close down political parties which it believed

to be ‘extremist’ – that is, either too religiously oriented, too ideologically radical, or

too separatist in orientation, for example, those connected to Kurdish demands for

autonomy or independence. In addition, the military top brass periodically purged the

officer corps with the aim of to rooting out those suspected of sympathising with

Islamist groups or Kurdish rebels.

In addition national leaders, supported by the military, have long shown little concern

for the wishes of the national legislature, 3 which has resulted in a lack of horizontal

accountability between the leader and the legislature. Consequently, civilian political

leaders have on occasion sought to make policy by decree – typically following

discussions with senior military figures. In sum, Turkey’s political culture and the

a ‘soft coup’, when the generals edged from power a government they considered Islamist, by using
both public and behind-the-scenes pressure rather than taking their forces to the streets.
3
The Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi – TBMM), usually
referred to simply as Meclis – ‘the Parliament’).

6
legitimacy of successive regimes have been strongly moulded by the heavily

politicised armed forces. As a result, Turkey is a limited democracy which has failed

in recent years to make clear and sustained democratic progress.

The military government tried to overhaul the party system by manipulating electoral

laws. In 1983, it introduced a statute proclaiming that a 10 per cent national threshold

– and even higher constituency thresholds – was necessary for parties to take seats in

parliament. The hope was that this would lead to the elimination of the most intensely

ideological parties, leading instead to a ‘manageable’ system of two or three parties,

none of which would exhibit anything in the way of ‘extremist’ tendencies or policies.

However, despite this preference for ‘moderation’, in practice there continued to be a

weakening of the politically moderate centre-right and centre-left, with a rise in

popularity of strongly nationalist, separatist and Islamic parties. For example, in the

1995 elections, the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi), then the main Islamic grouping,

achieved 21.4 per cent of the vote, the ultra-nationalist NAP gained 8.2 per cent, and

the Kurdish nationalist HADEP managed 4.2 per cent, amounting overall to 34% of

the votes cast. According to Özbudun (1996: 124), this result ‘boost[ed] the combined

extremist vote share to one-third and raised the possibility that Turkish democracy

[was] facing a systemic challenge’. It also reflected the fact that some parties,

including the Islamist Refah Partisi, put in much care and attention to grassroots

organisation, a strategy which paid off in electoral success (Haynes 1998: 141-6;

Jenkins 2008: 141-183).

These were the political circumstances that formed the background to the AKP’s

electoral triumph in 2002. Five years later in July 2007, the AKP again won an

7
electoral victory: this time it was a landslide.4 Competing with 14 other political

parties, the AKP garnered nearly 47% of the total votes (in 2002 the AKP had won

with just over 34% of the vote). Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan was re-elected as prime

minister, having first achieved that office in 2002.5 The result paved the way for the

party’s presidential candidate, Abdullah Gül, to win election in August 2007, despite

strong objections from both military and civilian secularist opposition (Freedom

House 2008).

There is much debate, both in Turkey and elsewhere, regarding the issue of whether

the AKP is in fact an Islamist party. Has the AKP overtly courted radical Islamist or

even simply mainstream religious sentiment? Can we point to particular policies

which demonstrate this? Focusing on this issue is necessary, as it might enable us to

delineate whether the AKP’s Islamic influence is actual or merely attributed by

secularists seeking to discredit the party for electoral purposes.

The problem however is that it is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to answer the

question objectively. It is certainly the case that the AKP government has brought in

changes which might be interpreted as showing that it is ‘Islam-leaning’. Recent

political developments in Turkey have widely been interpreted as reflective of a

fundamental power struggle between ‘secularists’ and ‘Islamists’, characterised by

controversies surrounding various issues, including: (1) the AKP city government of

4
Turkey’s proclaimed Islamist party is the Felicity party. In the 2002 elections, it amassed just 785,489
votes (2.49%) and in 2007, it managed 820,289 (2.34%). It has no seats in parliament (Torun 2007: 7)
5
Following the resignation of an AKP member of parliament in September 2008, the breakdown of
seats in the 550-seat national legislature is at the time of writing (mid-March 2009) as follows: AKP:
338 (61.5% of seats), Republican People’s Party (CHP): 98 (17.9%) ; Nationalist Action Party (MHP):
70 (12.7%); Democratic Society Party (DTP): 21 (3.8%); Democratic Left Party (DSP): 13 (2.5%).;
Independent: 5 (1%); Freedom and Solidarity Party (ODP): 1 (0.2%); Grand Unity Party (BBP): 1
(0.2%); Vacant: 3

8
Ankara, led by Melih Gokcek, temporarily banned the sale of alcoholic beverages in

2005 in an area of Ankara, where many bars and restaurants are located. On appeal,

however, the ban was lifted; 6 (2) the presidential elections in 2007, won by the AKP

candidate, Abdullah Gül; (3) the first concrete measures to reform Article 301 of the

Turkish penal code – which forbids reference to the genocide of Armenians in 1914 –

from three to two years imprisonment, and (4) the AKP government’s decision to no

longer ban headscarves from universities (although overturned by the constitutional

court in July 2008). In addition, in July and October 2008 respectively, there was a

closure case against the AKP (the Supreme Court eventually agreed by one vote [6-5]

not to close the party, although it did deprive it of a considerable part of its public

financing) 7 and official charges against a shadowy group known as Ergenekon,8 as

the latest and most extreme manifestations of this struggle. Just as the possible closure

of the ruling party would have been a unique case in Turkish history, the charges filed

against numerous personalities believed to wish to overthrow the present government,

were also regarded as unprecedented actions against a so-called ‘deep state’, whose

existence was allegedly revealed by the Ergenekon conspiracy.

In very general terms, the continuing power struggle between ‘secularists’ and

‘Islamists’ is also widely considered to reflect a polarisation within Turkey between

the ‘new’ Anatolian middle class (many of whom are regarded as ‘Islamist’ in the

sense not only that their cultural roots are in Islam but also that their religious beliefs

6
Later, in 2008, the mayor of Istanbul sought to do the same thing in parts of Istanbul, with greater
long-term success.
7
The charge against the AKP to be a ‘centre of anti-secularism’ not only threatened the existence of
the governing party but was also combined with an attempt to forbid the continuous political
engagement of more than 70 of its members, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and
President Abdullah Gül.
8
‘Ergenekon’ or the ‘Ergenekon network’ is an alleged clandestine ultra-nationalist organisation in
Turkey with ties to the country’s military and security apparatus

9
are central to their success in business), strongly supportive of the AKP since its

foundation in 2001, and the traditional’ Kemalist ‘secularist’ establishment. This latter

constituency is mainly represented electorally by the Republican People’s Party

(Turkish: Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi or CHP) and in societal terms by the military. This

polarisation implies that a monolithic image of Turkey is no longer appropriate – if it

ever was.

The unresolved question, however, is whether these controversial policies point to a

government which is secretly aiming to Islamise Turkey, or one which is ‘merely’

conservative, and wishes to introduce and pursue policies which are commensurate

with that goal. Public opinion research into recent voter behaviour indicates that a

vote for the AKP does not mean support for Islamism per se. Instead, it seems to

indicate that ‘bread and butter’ issues – for example, overall economic performance

and especially jobs availability – far outweigh religious and ideological appeals in the

minds of most Turkish people. As a result, the AKP appears not to be an Islamist

party. Rather, it seems to be pro-Western, pro-market, and populist (Dagi 2008).

Turkish national identity and the outside world

Atatürk’s desire to turn Turkey from an ‘Eastern’ to a ‘Western’ nation has long

found expression in the desire of the country to join the European Union. ‘Europe’, on

the other hand, has consistently shown significant elite and popular reservations in

some regional countries regarding the prospect of Turkey joining the Union. What of

Turks’ views of the EU and, more generally, of the ‘West’? To what extent is their

view of the world influenced by a religion-informed nationalism. The first thing to

10
note is that there is a lack of clarity regarding how Turks, over 90% of whom are

Muslims, actually view the prospect of joining the EU. A 2007 opinion survey found

that ‘negative views ... appear to be growing among Turks with respect to the

European Union and to Westerners in general. Such negativity toward the EU is likely

associated with disillusionment over Turkey’s stalled bid to join the union’. The

survey also reported that ‘the favorability rating for the EU dropped from 58% in

2004 to 27% in 2007’ (Grim and Wike 2007). On the other hand, a more recent poll

from early 2009 indicates that ‘around 63 percent of respondents believed Turkey

should join the European Union’. What this might be a sign of is that many Turks are

not particularly enamoured of the EU yet recognise that joining the Union would

probably improve Turkey’s economic prospects, undergoing a dip in early 2009 due

to the consequences of the international ‘credit crunch’ and associated travails in the

global economy. For Ayhan Uğur, Istanbul Bilgi University rector, these findings

indicate that ‘Turks are not too far from the West and modernity in contrast to

common belief. One major reason is that Turks have never experienced colonialism,

unlike some in the Middle East or India’ (‘Nation’s woes led by bias to women’

2009). In other words, suspicion of the EU was not necessarily due to Turks’

‘religious’, ‘cultural’ or ‘civilisational’ reservations but perhaps reflected, inter alia,

fallout from the Iraq and Afghanistan imbroglios, issues closing linking Europe and

the USA in relation to controversial and for many Turks, distasteful episodes.

Turkey’s political direction and sense of national identity is a cause for concern not

only for many Turks but also for entities beyond Turkey’s frontiers. In addition, as

already mentioned, Turkey is seeking to join the EU and there are some European

concerns about the impact of ‘Islamic extremism’ on Europe, if Turkey succeeds in

11
joining the Union. Can Turkey display the necessary credentials and clear signs of

commitment to European norms and values? How might such characteristics find

expression? To answer such questions requires a focus upon the political and social

role of Islam in Turkey, as well as Turks’ attitudes towards Europe and, more

generally, the West. It is no doubt the case that part of Turkey’s long-running desire

to join the EU is linked to the perception that to join the Union is to enhance Turkey’s

economic prospects.

When asked about their attitudes to ‘Westerners’ more generally, Turks presented the

most negative views from among 10 Muslim publics (including Muslim minorities in

four European countries: Britain, France, Germany, and Spain). Surveyed in a 2006

Pew Global Attitudes poll, Muslims were asked whether they associate people in

Western countries – that is, the USA and European nations – mainly with negative or

positive characteristics (including, on the one hand, ‘arrogant’, ‘greedy’, ‘immoral’,

‘selfish’, and ‘violent’, and on the other hand, ‘generous’ and ‘honest’). The findings

are shown in table 5. 9

Table 5: Muslims’ ‘Average Negativity to Westerners’

Country Mean

Turkey 5.2

Indonesia 5.1

9
The two positive characteristics were reverse coded to reflect the opposite. For this analysis, a
negativity index that ranges from zero (extremely positive) to 7 (extremely negative) was created using
this series of questions. The seven questions used in the negativity index are part of a larger group of
questions in which Muslim respondents were read lists of positive and negative traits and, for each one,
were asked whether they associated it with Westerners. The questions regarding generosity and
honesty, which originally were stated positively, were recoded to indicate the extent to which these
positive traits were not associated with Westerners. For more information on the index, see Wike and
Grim 2007.

12
Jordan 4.8

Egypt 4.7

Pakistan 4.4

Nigerian Muslims 4.4

British Muslims 4.2

German Muslims (mainly of 3.2

Turkish origin)

French Muslims 2.7

Spanish Muslims 2.7

Note: Muslim average negativity would equal 7 if all those surveyed indicated that all

seven negative characteristics applied to Westerners

Source: Pew Global Attitudes Survey 2006

Table 5 indicates that on this scale, the average for Turkey is 5.2, reflecting a higher

level of negativity than found in the other four Muslim-majority countries surveyed

(Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan and Pakistan), as well as among Muslim minority

populations in Nigeria, Britain, Germany, France and Spain. It is notable that German

Muslims, who are predominantly of Turkish background, score much lower (3.2) on

the index than Turks residing in Turkey. This appears to indicate that negativity

toward Westerners is not particular to Turks per se but rather appears to be

geographically specific, limited to Turks living in Turkey. The percentage of Turks

with a very or somewhat favourable opinion of Christians, Muslims, and Jews, is

indicated in table 6.

13
Table 6: Turks’ Rating of Christians, Muslims and Jews

Year Christians % Muslims % Jews %

2006 16 88 15

2005 21 83 18

2004 31 88 27

Source: Pew Global Attitudes Survey 2006

Table 6 indicates that among Turks living in Turkey, large and increasing majorities

hold unfavourable views of Christians and Jews. Between 2004 and 2006, favourable

perceptions of Christians declined by 15 percentage points, falling from 31% to 16%.

In addition, in a similar decline, favourability toward Jews dropped 12 points, from

27% to 15%.

Note, however, that Turkish dislike of outsiders extends beyond views of the West.

For example, according to the same 2006 Pew poll, Turks also express lukewarm

attitudes toward Arabs. While Muslims among other non-Arab publics

overwhelmingly say they have a positive view of Arabs, only 46% of Turks express a

positive opinion, among the lowest of the 10 Muslim publics surveyed; only German

Muslims (who, as noted above, are predominately of Turkish origin) were less

positive toward Arabs. In addition, when asked whether they sympathise more with

Israel or the Palestinians, fewer Turks expressed sympathies with Palestinians (64%)

than did other peoples in the Middle East (Pew Global Attitudes Survey 2006).

14
Turkish antipathy to Westerners should not be seen in isolation. Given that many

Turks also express reservations towards Christians, Jews and Arabs, it is likely that

such people more generally dislike and distrust non-Turks, not only Westerners.

While it is unclear why this is the case, it is appropriate to conclude that it is unlikely

to be civilisational or cultural differences that separate some Turks from Europeans.

Instead, it is likely linked to a more general xenophobia that may find expression in

parties or movements characterised by extreme, secular nationalism.

There are in addition indications that there is growing polarisation between secularists

and Islamists in Turkey, a state of affairs that may reflect recent political

developments in the country. The background is that, over the last few years, Turkey

has experienced notable and continuing internal political conflicts focusing on the

problematic relationship between, on the one hand, the country’s secular

establishment, with its large and powerful presence in the military and, on the other,

supporters of the ruling AKP, which many secularists regard as a closet Islamist party,

secretly plotting aiming to impose Sharia law on the country. It is however important

to draw a distinction between most AKP supporters and those that might be termed

political Islamists – i.e., people who wish to see some form of Islamic state in Turkey.

Despite secularist fears, their natural ideological home is not the AKP, whose leaders

deny that the party is an Islamist party or has any intention of becoming one, but the

tiny Felicity Party, which in the 2002 elections gained just 785,489 votes (2.49%),

followed in 2007 by 820,289 votes (2.34%). The Felicity party has no seats in

parliament and minimal political influence (Torun 2007: 7).

15
On the other hand, despite a strong tradition and decades of sometimes-aggressive

secularisation in Turkey, Islam remains central to the identity of most Turks. Indeed,

religious identification seems to be on the rise. Roughly half of Turkish Muslims

(51%) surveyed in 2006 say they think of themselves first as Muslim rather than

Turkish, while 19% identify primarily with their nationality, and 30% volunteer that

they think of themselves as both. This represents a significant change from just one

year earlier, when only 43% of Turks identified themselves primarily as Muslim. In

addition, the percentage of Turks claiming a very or somewhat favourable opinion of

Muslims has changed minimally in recent years: 88% in 2004, 83% in 2005 and 88%

in 2006. The percentage of Turks saying that they were very favourable toward

Muslims increased from 66% in 2004 to 74% in 2006 (Pew Global Attitudes Survey

2006).

In addition, unlike in the era of Turkey’s founder and first president Mustafa Kemal

Ataturk (d. 1938), the country now appears to be less inclined to look to Europe or the

West more generally for solutions to its political and social problems. But this is not

to claim that Turkey is: (1) increasingly affected by culturally or civilisationally

distinct ‘Muslim values’, which could threaten the integrity and cultural homogeneity

of the European Union should Turkey eventually join, and (2) moving closer to an

‘extremist’ Muslim world, with a goal of ‘Islamisation’ of Europe. Instead, there

appears in Turkey to be two simultaneous developments that may or may not be

related. On the one hand, opinion poll data show growing xenophobia and, on the

other hand, it may be that increasing numbers of Turks regard themselves as

‘religious’. How, if at all, are the two trends related?

16
To shed light on these questions, I next examine findings of another recent opinion

poll, conducted in early 2009. It surveyed the views of 6,428 people in 41 of Turkey’s

81 provinces. The poll, entitled, ‘Who Are We?’, was conducted by one of Turkey’s

most respected polling organisations, Konda, on behalf of Hurriyet newspaper, one of

the country’s biggest selling newspapers and noted for its secularist outlook. The

Konda survey was one of the most representative studies of Turkish society ever

undertaken. 10 According to Robert Tait (2009), writing in the British Guardian

newspaper, the poll found that ‘Turks are xenophobic, socially conservative people

who rarely read books, relegate women to second-class status and harbour ambivalent

views about democracy’. These views echo findings from an earlier study from 2008,

which surveyed public opinion in 12 Anatolian cities, entitled ‘Being different in

Turkey. Alienation on the axis of religion and conservatism’. It was conducted by

Professor Binnaz Toprak of Boğaziçi University for the Open Society Institute (OSI).

Toprak’s survey supported some of the findings of the Konda survey. She claimed

that, as for women, social pressures on ‘others: Kurds, Alevis and seculars’ in Turkish

society was higher than expected (Pope 2008)

The 2009 Konda survey identified opinions on three crucial aspects of Turkey’s

current political and social position: gender equality, how foreigners are regarded, and

the desirability of democracy. Referring to gender equality, nearly 70% of

respondents in the Konda survey believed that wives required their husband’s

permission to work outside the home. In addition, over half (57%) believed that a

female should never leave home wearing a sleeveless top, and 53% favoured allowing

women judges, prosecutors, teachers and other public servants to wear the Islamic

10
Unfortunately, the findings of the poll have not yet been translated into English at the time of writing

17
headscarf on duty, something to which Turkey’s secular establishment would never

agree. Finally, four-fifths (80%) thought that a woman and a man must be married in

order to live together.

Tarhan Erdem, a well-respected election analyst and columnist for the daily Radikal

newspaper, headed the team that conducted the Konda survey. At a press conference

to launch the report in Istanbul in February 2009, Erdem said the research was aimed

at understanding continuing social transformation and trying to find out whether

Turkey was indeed the country that many of its people thought they knew. Erdem

defined gender inequality as the key problem that could be linked to all other societal

problems. The poll indicated that widely held attitudes towards women demonstrated

a lack of gender equality in Turkey. ‘The data shows that women aren’t free in their

private lives’, Erdem said (‘Survey Says: Turks are Xenophobic’ 2009). Ahmet Insel,

another columnist with Radikal, noted that only one-quarter of working-age women in

Turkey were part of the formal workforce. ‘This is lower than some Arab countries’,

he said, adding that this was because in a patriarchal society such as Turkey, even

women themselves accepted the social norms that discriminate against women in the

business world. According to Insel, ‘The patriarchal society should change’, as

women are not only excluded from the economic sphere but are also prevented from

exercising absolute control over their bodies and decisions. (‘Nation’s woes led by

bias to women’ 2009).

It is possible to draw the conclusion that the results of the Konda study indicated that

social progress in Turkey is not only held back by gender inequality but also by a

this paper (mid-March 2009). As a result, I rely here upon several commentaries on the poll published
in English in both the UK and Turkey in February and March 2009.

18
widespread dislike and distrust of foreigners. According to the survey, many Turks

believe that foreigners have designs on Turkish territory, aiming to dismember the

nation state. A fear of foreigners was also reflected in the fact that nearly three-

quarters (73%) of respondents opposed allowing outsiders to own Turkish land or

property. Insel said that opposition to foreign property ownership stemmed from a

preoccupation with the 1919-1923 war of independence that established modern

Turkey. He claimed that, ‘We think the war of independence is still under way, so it’s

no surprise we are xenophobic. We’re still fighting foreigners’ (‘Turks reveal

xenophobic, conservative attitudes in poll’ 2009). Many Turks appear still to fear that

Turkey is constantly under the preying eyes of its neighbours, hoping to carve it up at

the first opportunity. This may be to some degree a phobic remnant of late Ottoman

times, although more research would be needed to ascertain if this was the sole or

even a contributory factor in some Turks’ views of foreigners.

Turning to the issue of democracy, a key issue when it comes to the question of

whether Turkey is a fit country to join the EU, nearly nine out of ten respondents

(88%) agreed that Turkey should be governed by democracy ‘under each and every

condition’. On the other hand, nearly half (48%) claimed that the military should

intervene ‘when necessary’. 11 Tait (2009) contends that this finding indicates that

Turks ‘harbour ambivalent views about democracy’. Erdem claims that this shows, on

the one hand, significant popular support for a political role for the military in some

circumstances, indicating that many Turks retained reservations about the efficacy of

democracy as ‘the only game in town’.

In conclusion, the 2009 Konda survey paints a picture, on the one hand of a society,

with conservative views regarding the place of women and foreigners in society. On

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the other hand, the study also indicated that a huge majority of Turks are committed

democrats, with about half seeing a political role for the military only in extremis.

Conclusion

We cannot justifiably conclude that Turkey is a one-dimensional, conservative

country built on religious values that would make it very difficult, because of

civilisational incompatibilities, to join the EU and integrate within the Union. In other

words, even though Turkey is led by an Islam-leaning government, it does not

exemplify an inward-looking religious nationalism in its relations with the EU.

Turkey, a diverse nation of more than 70 million people, presents simultaneously

several contrasting images. On the one hand, Turkey not only indisputably constitutes

an essential part of European heritage, going back to Greco-Roman times and early

Christianity (Byzantium), but also strongly cherishes democracy under all but extreme

circumstances. On the other hand, many Turks appear not only not to believe in

gender equality but also fear or distrust foreigners. It is difficult, however, to argue

that the conservative position of some Turks is attributable to ‘Muslim values’.

Instead, some Turks’ adhesion to unequal gender relations is more explicable by a

cultural conservatism that is also found in, for example, the neighbouring country of

Greece, with its huge Orthodox Christian majority (Tzilivakis n/d). 12

11
The powerful armed forces have toppled four elected governments in coups in the past 50 years.
12
Approximately 97% of Greeks are Orthodox Christians. A study measuring the ‘Global Gender Gap’
published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in May 2005 highlighted the severity of the problems
facing Greek women. The study assessed patterns of inequality in five dimensions – economic
participation, economic opportunity, political empowerment, educational attainment, health and well-
being. Greece ranked 50th in the study of 58 countries and Turkey ranked 57th. However, we cannot
usefully conclude that it was Turkey’s ‘Muslim values’ which explains its even poorer position in the
rankings compared to Greece, which also did very badly. In fact, several Muslim majority countries,
including Indonesia and Malaysia, did as well or better not only than Greece but also several other
Christian-majority, EU member states, including: Italy, Malta and Romania (Lopez-Claros and Zahidi
2005: 9)

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Fear of foreigners similarly does not seem to be linked clearly to ‘Muslim values’.

Instead, this perception may be rooted in cultural memories that go back at least to the

time of the decline of the Ottoman empire in the early 20th century when the country

faced a clear threat of foreign intervention and dismemberment. Overall, viewed

through the lens of differing perceptions and understandings, it is clear that current

political and social views in Turkey do not depend upon entrenchment of religious

worldviews among Turks, which in turn informs a policy of religious nationalism in

relation to the EU. Having said this, however, it is almost certainly the case that the

AKP’s electoral triumphs in 2002 and 2007 – the AKP is often dubbed an ‘Islamist

party’ both inside and outside Turkey, despite consistent denials from the party’s

leaders – reinforced already-existing perceptions among some EU publics and elites.

This view focuses on the idea that Turkey is a radical Muslim country lacking strong

‘European’ credentials, characterised by a religious nationalism making the country

an inappropriate member of the EU. But such a one-dimensional and stereotypical

conclusion would by no means correspond to the reality: Turkey is a country wracked

by various divisions (secular/religious, religious/religious [orthodox Sunni

Muslim/non-orthodox Sunni Muslim, eg, Alevis/Sufis], nationalism/nationalism

[Turks/Kurds], urban/rural, rich/poor, and so on). Yet, despite these divisions, Turks

also exhibit very high levels of consensus on the desirability of democracy except in

certain extreme situations, for example, a fundamental breakdown of law and order,

as occurred in Turkey during the 1970s when the country was torn by extreme

ideological polarisation and accompanying extremist violence involving secular right

and secular left.

The AKP under Prime Minister Erdoğan now controls parliament single-handedly

(holding 338 seats in the 550-seat chamber, that is, 61.45%). The party controls

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Turkey’s executive branch of government, and has a strong ally in the person of the

president, Abdullah Gül, a founding member of the AKP. This is the first time that the

presidency has been occupied by a non-secularist. Among the remaining institutions

still beyond the AKP’s control, both academia and the judiciary are still packed with

secular appointees of former presidents. However, this situation will not last

indefinitely. As time goes by, attrition will mean that replacements will be required.

The job of choosing them will fall to President Abdullah Gül, although his status as

head of state now makes him officially apolitical.

Conservative practices now apply in several AKP-led municipalities, including in

Istanbul an alleged alcohol ban in some parts of the city and violence against

shopkeepers selling it, which made headlines in newspapers in Turkey in 2008

(Radikal 2008). Is this the beginning of the end of secularism in Turkey? Will it

encourage the military to act again to throw the popularly elected AKP from power?

After years of incomplete or at least inconclusive democratisation, Turkey is at a

political impasse. On the one hand, it seems very unlikely that military rule will return

to Turkey in the present circumstances, despite the military’s known dislike of AKP

rule. Military rule would neither please most Turks nor find favour with the EU; for

these reasons, in the present circumstances armed forces rule seems highly unlikely.

Indeed, recent opinion surveys and scholarly opinion (eg, Jenkins 2008) agree that

there is a strong commitment to democracy at both elite and mass levels.

On the other hand, the national position of the military remains untouchable: It has

overthrown four elected governments since 1960, two of them for being ‘too

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Islamist’. It has made it known that it will step in if the secular order is seriously

threatened. Because of this factor and two others – growing incompatibility between

secularist and religious worldviews and a significant threat to national unity posed by

Kurdish demands for autonomy or independence – it has proved impossible to

institutionalise democracy in a manner commensurate with democratic consolidation.

A very high proportion of citizens vote in elections – well over 80 per cent on average

in the seven national-level parliamentary elections since 1983 – yet the choices they

make have not necessarily helped the cause of democratisation, as they tend

increasingly to vote for parties that are regarded by their political enemies as actually

or potentially extremist, including in recent years, the AKP, with its roots in political

Islam (Günes-Ayata 1994; Jenkins 2008).

Marc Pierini, head of the EU delegation in Turkey, said in 2008 that the EU was

closely watching such incidents and was proposing an ombudsman system in Turkey

to regulate the coexistence of different lifestyles. He stated that: ‘But still, probably

this is one way, of course, not the only one, but one way to regulate different lifestyles

without crisis all the time. This is a very delicate balance that Turkey has to find. We

are well aware that there are different trends in the society but, at the same time,

democracy is to organize these…So we are watching’ (emphasis added; ‘EU monitors

the debate between Dogan and Turkey’s ruling AKP’).

Finally, this article has discussed several recent opinion polls that also shed light on

the issue of Turkey’s compatibility with European human rights and democracy

norms and values. When looked at together, these studies all point to the same

conclusion: Turkey is rather inward looking, a country where for individuals to stand

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 in opposition to the social and political flow may be problematic. As Professor

Toprak’s study for the OSI indicates, ‘the in-group can be the family or a community,

based on village ties, on religion, on political or ethnic affiliations, but conformism is

still widely expected and deviations are unwelcome. Many traditional restrictive

norms have been institutionalized and are now promoted by the state through the

education system and by political parties’ (Pope 2008).

In addition, even if the OSI report only reflects one aspect of the overall picture, it

still indicates that not only are notions of citizenship and individual rights in Turkey

relatively underdeveloped but also that they open up a wider discussion on various

issues related to human rights norms. On the other hand, given that Turkey does not

have a long history of opinion polls and public debate about associated issues, then

the surveys, rather than being divisive, may actually help convince Turks that to

progress they need to unite and work toward introducing a new Constitution focusing

much more than previously on not only individual rights for all but also the legal

mechanisms necessary to ensure that such rights would actually be respected in

everyday life. Turning to the issue of the EU and how to gain entry, it seems clear that

seeking to dictate how people should behave, striving to curb free expression and

aiming to impose dress codes are all unwelcome. They are also in addition probably

unworkable in a fully democratic society, whether imposed in the name of religion,

tradition or secularism.

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