For the last week we have discussed whether nationalism is rising in the country. While some of our intelligentsia are agreed that it is indeed increasing, others have disagreed.
To decide if nationalism is rising in the country or not, one first of all needs to define its meaning. Nationalism has been widely translated to Turkish as “milliyetçilik,” but that is not its precise meaning. The word “millet” (nation) has more religious connotations than it is understood in the West. Islam had been part of the grammar of this society for more than 1,000 years, even as far as the non-Muslims were concerned. The Ottomans had an Islamic legally pluralist system called the millet system, whereby every religious community had regulated their own affairs in the a law realm of private, had their own courts, operated their own schools and so on. Ottoman Muslims, although from very diverse ethnic backgrounds, were nonetheless considered a single millet.
Even after the Ottoman state collapsed, İsmet İnönü successfully argued at the Lausanne Treaty debates that Turks and Kurds were of the same millet. That is why we have many Turkish milliyetçi (nationalist) who are of Kurdish background. One prominent example is the ethnically Kurdish former Health Minister, Osman Durmus of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). This nationalism is not exclusively based on race. It is also a little more than patriotism, as it has certain religious, cultural and ethnic elements. Said Nursi calls this “positive nationalism,” while in his view negative nationalists focus only race, disregarding religious, cultural and historical ties. As far as this type of nationalism (milliyetçilik) is concerned the overwhelming majority of Turks has always been nationalist in this sense and its level cannot be seen as rising.
Today’s fashionable, more secular-type nationalism of “ulusalcilik” exactly matches the term nationalism as used in the sense of the phrase coined by Nursi, “negative nationalism.” I am not sure even this type of nationalism is on the rise either, as it seems that it is not a real grassroots movement, but rather a socially engineered top-down artificial nationalism. This artificial nationalism has no cultural or historical roots in Turkish society and its protagonists are either retired military officers, or else ultra-leftists unhappy with the EU process and the democratization of society. Even though the voice and visibility of these people and their so-called civil society institutions have increased for all sorts of reasons, we cannot say that even ulusalcilik is on the rise, as it is socially artificial.
So what is on the rise? Suspicion of the West, anti-Bushism, anti-EUism. And the reason is the West’s foreign policy. Turks from all walks of life have been rightly suspicious of their allies’ activities in the Middle East, mainly in northern Iraq, and cannot not see why Kurdistan Workers’ Part (PKK) terrorists who cross the border every summer and bomb civilians, including children, are still allowed to reside in northern Iraq and feel heartache in the face of the arrogant and ambiguous attitude of the EU, which has seemingly been enslaved by the Greek Cypriots. Turks are also suspicious that Western governments would not mind a military coup in Turkey, so long as its interests are not prejudiced.
If our Western friends are worried about rising “nationalism” then they should revisit their foreign policy.
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