When nationalism began to permeate the Ottoman Empire, it found itself facing an extremely accommodating base. This was because the Ottoman “millet” system had created protected, public arenas that could be kept closed to the outside and within which religiously “different” communities could maintain their autonomies. Thus nationalism was naturally quickly embraced, particularly in cases where sectarian differences also meant ethnic differences. Two of the large ethnic communities in the Ottoman Empire, the Greeks and the Armenians, never hesitated to embrace nationalism as a basic part of modernization.
As for Ottoman Muslims, rather than immediately occupying the highest spot amongst the hierarchies of the different communities, they went through a long period of indecisiveness, torn between Ottoman-ness, Islamic-ness and Turkish nationalism. As Turkish nationalism began to move step by step toward being the predominant ideology, the elites who defended this stance also came under the influence of the science-based positivism, which was so popular among French intellectuals of the period. In this way, we saw the rise of the idea of Turkishness following 1910, witnessing also the racist nuances added to this ideology through some of its scientific approaches. In short, within the Muslim community of the Ottoman Empire, nationalism first functioned as an ideology which helped “find” and then “reject” the self. To this end, the Kemalist movement first declared Ottoman Muslims were “Turks” in order to create the people of the Republic, and then, in an authoritarian and positivist interpretation of this ideology, turned these same people into “secular” citizens.
This settling in of ideologies, which took place over what was essentially an historically short period of time, deeply affected the Muslims of Turkey. The religiously devout, who gained confidence when facing the West due to the Turkification of their “Muslimness,” were left obliged to turn over their identities to the state as the republic came into being. Following 1980 in particular, there was a “Turkish-Islam synthesis” which aimed to solve the hesitant relationship that existed between the Turkish society and Turkish state. According to proponents of this synthesis, it was only when Islam united as a whole with Turkishness that a historically strong identity would be formed, and that this was the identity necessary to take authority and control over Turkey’s future.
The “socialization” of nationalism had its natural reflection in the political arena. There were many nationalistic parties formed, among them notably the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Grand Unity Party (BBP), and some of these parties still participate in elections. But in the years following 1990, a period emerged which no one had expected: that Turkish Muslims would begin to individualize, would begin to become integrated with modern life according to their own preferences and demands. Just as the level of variety and of varying religious stances expanded within this trend, the political perceptions of the Islamic factions changed in Turkey. Thus the birth of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the ease with which it has found and nurtured support across the country is due to the sociological changes in the background that we have talked about here. Lest this be misunderstood, it is important to clarify that the factor which has worked to alter the mentality of the Islamic factions in Turkey has not been the AK Party itself, but that to the contrary, the mentality which created the AK Party is in itself this very change.
It is not at all surprising that those who today try to block Erdogan’s presidency and single party administration are again embracing nationalism. Because the process that the devoutly religious have gone through in the past 10 years, with the re-separation of the Muslim and Turkish identities, has in a sense brought us back to end of the 19th century. Those who talk about the recent rise in nationalism are actually trying to hide the fact that in Turkey, nationalism has been lost as a candidate to whom the future can be tied. Due to that fact that current polls on the subject are being carried out in an atmosphere which makes it hard for people to say “I am not a nationalist,” there are figures showing hints of a spreading nationalism. But the fact is, under this bubble of nationalism, you can hear the footsteps of modern religious devotees, searching for ever more individuality and freedom.
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