When Defense Becomes Offense: The Role of Threat Narratives in the Turkish Civil War of the 1970s

Abstract

This article examines the role of threat narratives in the process of group mobilization for political violence, focusing on the Turkish civil war of the 1970s. It argues that threat narratives promote political violence by identifying a certain politically mobilized group as “the enemy,” and they incite fear in people against this group. Threat narratives further broaden the cycle of violence by deliberately conflating and expanding the category of the enemy and leaving no space for neutrality or moderation.

Notes on Contributor

Meral Ugur Cinar is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Bilkent University. She received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania in May 2012. She was Mellon Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Fellow at the New School for Social Research in 2012–2013. She was selected the National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID) Exemplary Diversity Scholar at the University of Michigan. She also co-authored an article that has won the 2013 Sabanci International Research Award. Her research interests include nationalism, citizenship, immigration, democracy, constitution making, collective memory, and social movements. Her articles are accepted for publication in PS: Political Science & Politics, Political Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, and Turkish Studies as well as several edited book volumes.

Notes

1. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War.

2. Tishkov, “Conflicts Start with Words,” 80.

3. By threat narrative, I mean the framing of the conflict as a threat of loss rather than the chance of winning something, or as a feeling of victimhood and the prevention of victimization. See Elwert, Feuchtwang and Neubert, “The Dynamics of Collective Violence,” 23 and Montville, “Epilogue: The Human Factor Revisited,” 537, respectively.

4. Bar-Tal, “Why Does Fear Override Hope in Societies Engulfed by Intractable Conflict, as It Does in the Israeli Society?,” 604–5.

5. Ricoeur, “Narrative Time,” 169–90; MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory; Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity; Bruner, “The Narrative Construction of Reality,” 1–21.

6. Somers, “The Narrative Constitution of Identity,” 605–49.

7. Smith, Stories of Peoplehood: The Politics and Morals of Political Memberships.

8. Rotherbart and Korostelina, “Identity, Morality and Threat: Studies in Violent Conflict,” 1, 2, 5.

9. I follow Kalyvas' definition of civil war, where it is “armed combat within the boundaries of a recognized sovereign entity between parties subject to a common authority at the outset of the hostilities.” Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, 5.

10. Cited in Baştunc, Şu 68 Kuşağı.

11. The trials following the 1980 military coup illustrate this direct link. In a case opened against the NAP in 1981, the prosecutor prepared a 945 page-long indictment accusing both party members and űlkűcű organization leaders and executives for attempting to change the constitutional and democratic order of the republic in favor of a dictatorial rule and for killings by arming the Turkish society and participating in these killings. The party leader, Alparslan Tűrkeş, was sentenced to 11 years one month and 10 days imprisonment. Other verdicts included five capital punishments, nine life-long imprisonments, and 219 imprisonments ranging from six months to 36 years. Akpınar, 172.

12. Pekmezci and Bűyűkyıldız, Űlkűcűler: Őteki Devletin Sehitleri, 77.

13. The radical right also formed various organizations around which it organized society. These include űlkűcű organizations for: teachers, technicians, police, civil servants, journalists, workers and farmers, among others. They also published various newspapers and journals addressing all sectors of the society, including women doctors, police, high school students.

14. Bozkurtlar means “grey wolves.” It is taken from Turkish mythology in Central Asia. This name was used almost interchangeably with the űlkűcű due to the same links with NAP. The name űlkűcű became much more common and the term bozkurtlar was abolished as the party gained a more religious character because of its pre-Islamic origins. Akpınar, Kurtların Kardeşliği.

15. Landau, “The Nationalist Action Party in Turkey,” 594.

16. In 1970, the government became concerned about these illegal establishments and wanted them to be investigated. According to the report prepared by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on 26 October 1970, commando camps were established by the Grey Wolves in order to fight the communists. This report gave in-depth information about the daily routine in these camps and included concerns about the similarities between the discourse and strategies in these camps and Nazi indoctrination.

17. Akpınar, Kurtların Kardeşliği, 57.

18. Cited in Akpınar, Kurtların Kardeşliği, 57.

19. Őzdemir, Siyasal Tarih: 1960–1980, 280.

20. Robert Winslow, San Diego State University: A Comparative Criminology Tour of the World, http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/rwinslow/asia_pacific/turkey.html.

21. Taşer's writings in the Devlet newspaper were collected in Dűndar Taşer, Mesele; Akpınar, Kurtların Kardeşliği, 98.

22. Devlet, 30 March 1970, in Taşer, Mesele, 164.

23. Devlet, 20 April 1970, in Taşer, Mesele, 177.

24. Anadol, Alparslan Tűrkeş: Olaylar, Belgeler ve MHP, 277, 287.

25. Anadol, Alparslan Tűrkeş, 277.

26. Ibid., 288.

27. Ibid., 331.

28. Akpınar, Kurtların Kardeşliği, 105.

29. Anadol, Alparslan Tűrkeş, 286.

30. Ibid., 331.

31. Canefe, “Tribalism and Nationalism in Turkey,” 161.

32. Ahmad, “Military Intervention and the Crisis in Turkey,” 18.

33. Ibid.

34. Canefe, “Tribalism and Nationalism in Turkey,” 163.

35. Taking this background into consideration, it comes as no surprise that judges were among the targets of the killings.

36. 20 July 1970, in Taşer, Mesele, 230–9.

37. 2 August 1971, in Taşer, Mesele, 411–14.

38. Cited in Akpınar, Kurtların Kardeşliği, 16393–4.

39. Cited in Akpınar, Kurtların Kardeşliği, 179.

40. Tanlak, Itiraf: Eski Űlkűcű MHP'yi Anlatiyor, 13.

41. A leftist-secularist newspaper.

42. Tanlak, Itiraf: Eski Űlkűcű MHP'yi Anlatiyor, 33–4.

43. Şermin Terzi, “Ben söylüyorsam boşa söylemiyorum [I am saying this for a reason],” Hűrriyet, 25 February 2007.

44. For instance, in one of his speeches, Tűrkeş says that the Revolutionary Teachers Association (TŐB-DER) is pro-Moscow. Anadol, Alparslan Tűrkeş, 125.