In Between Democracy and Secularism: The Case of Turkish Civil Society

Abstract

Since 2011, the Arab uprisings, signaling a new wave of political mobilization, have restored belief in the potential for civil society to make democratic openings. Nevertheless, the academic literature up to the present has attributed the enduring authoritarianism in the Middle East region to the weakness or dominantly Islamist nature of civil society and promoted the development of secular platforms. This article argues that the discussion about civil society is misplaced, and the democratic potential of civil society is not related to its being Islamic or secular, but rather to its attachment to the state. For this purpose, it examines the emergence of a secularist civil societal current in Turkey with special focus on one of its major manifestations, the Republic Rallies in 2007.

Keywords:

• AKP
• civil society
• democratization
• EU-accession
• Kemalism
• Republic Rallies secularism
• state ideology
• Turkish nationalism
• Turkey
• anti-Westernism

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Abdulkadir Yildirim, Ilknur Murphy and Ozge Genc for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. Needless to say, the responsibility for the views presented here are solely ours.

Notes

¹ N. Akman (2005) Emekli General Nejat Eslen: Demokrasi, Türkiye'nin öncelikli meselesi değil [Retired General Nejat Eslen: Democracy is not a priority for Turkey], Zaman , July 18, 2005; and M. Akyol (2005) Ulusalcılarımızın Çıkarları [The interests of our nationalists], Radikal, September 30, 2005.

² Secularism has different implications and conceptualization in different contexts. The dominant interpretation of secularism in Turkey is ‘assertive secularism’ which aims to end the public role of religion. Throughout our discussion of Turkish secularists, we refer to this dominant version of secularism and to the groups that adhere to assertive secularism. For a thorough discussion of Turkish secularism in comparison with the secularism in the United States and France, see A. Kuru (2009) Secularism and State Policies Toward Religion: The United States, France and Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

³ H. Altınay & K. Nicolaidis (2008) Why the European Union strengthens Turkish secularism, Open Democracy, August 3, 2008. Available at http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/the-european-union-and-turkey-strengthening-secularism, accessed January 5, 2009.

⁴ ‘Ordu Göreve’ DGMlik oluyor [‘Army, Do Your Duty’ brought to the National Security Court], Hürriyet , November 4, 2003.

⁵ S. Berman (2003) Islamism, Revolution and Civil Society, Perspectives on Politics, 1(2), pp. 257–272.

⁶ B. Toprak (2005) Islam and Democracy in Turkey, Turkish Studies, 6(2), pp. 167–186; and S. Lakoff (2004) The Reality of Muslim Exceptionalism, Journal of Democracy, 15(4), pp. 133–139, p. 134.

⁸ E. Gellner (1994) Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and Its Enemies (New York: Penguin), p. 5.

⁷ E. Shils (1991) The Virtue of Civil Society, Government and Opposition, 26(1), pp. 3–20, p. 4.

⁹ There exists an expansive literature now on the necessity of an active civil society for democratic consolidation. Some of the most important contributions are from L. Diamond (1994) Rethinking Civil Society: Toward Democratic Consolidation, Journal of Democracy, 5(3), pp. 4–17; L. Diamond (1999) Developing Democracy Towards Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press); Gellner, Conditions of Liberty; J. J. Linz & A. Stepan (1996) Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press); R. Putnam (1993) Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press); and M. Walzer (1992) The Civil Society Argument, in: C. Mouffe (ed.) Dimensions of Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship and Community, pp. 89–108 (London: Verso).

¹⁰ F. Ibrahim & H. Wedel (1997) Introduction, in: F. Ibrahim & H. Wedel (eds) Ortadoğu'da Sivil Toplumun Sorunları [Problems of civil society in the Middle East], pp. 11–28 (Istanbul: Iletişim), p. 12.

¹¹ A. Hawthorne (2004) Is Civil Society the Answer?, Carnegie Papers, 44 (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), p. 5.

¹² C. Tempest (1997) Myths from Eastern Europe and the Legend of the West, Democratization, 4(1), pp. 132–44.

¹³ O. G. Encarnación (2006) Civil Society Reconsidered, Comparative Politics, 38(3), pp. 357–376, p. 357.

¹⁴ A. Abootalebi (1998) Civil Society, Democracy and the Middle East, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 2(3), pp. 46–59. However, for an alternative view, see the articles guest edited by M. Valbjorn & A. Bank in the special issue of Middle East Critique (2010) The Future of Middle Eastern Political Rule Through Lenses of the Past: Revisiting the (first) Era of Post-Democratization, 19(3), pp. 181–319.

¹⁵ Ş. Mardin (1995) Civil Society and Islam, in: J. Hall (ed.) Civil Society: History, Theory, Comparison, pp. 278–300 (Cambridge: Polity Press).

¹⁶ Richard Norton rightly argues that this orientalist analysis can be traced back to Karl Wittfogel's influential work Oriental Society. Norton states that ‘according to Wittfogel, absence of a civil society to counterbalance despotic power was a marker of oriental society, and it is this lacuna that lies at the heart of the orientalist analysis.’ See A. R. Norton (1993) The Future of Civil Society in Middle East, Middle East Journal, 47(2), pp. 205–216, p. 212; and K. Wittfogel (1957) Oriental Despotism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).

¹⁷ M. Sariolghalam (1997) Prospects for Civil Society in the Middle East: An Analysis of Cultural Impediments, in: E. Özdalga & S. Persson (eds) Civil Society, Democracy and the Muslim World, pp. 57–73 (Istanbul: Swedish Research Institute), p. 59.

¹⁸ Norton, Future of Civil Society.

¹⁹ A. R. Norton (ed.) (1995/1996) Civil Society in the Middle East (Leiden: Brill Academic).

²⁰ F. Cavatorta (2006) Civil Society, Islamism and Democratization: The Case of Morocco, Journal of Modern African Studies, 44, pp. 203–222.

²¹ S. L. Yom (2005) Civil Society and Democratization in the Arab World, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 9(4), pp. 14–33, p. 17.

²² S. L. Yom (2005) Civil Society and Democratization in the Arab World, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 9(4), pp. 14–33, p. 17

²³ There is also an extensive and expanding literature that explains the democracy failures as the deliberate result of Western political involvement in the region. The formation of Middle East Information Project (MERIP) in 1971 has been a stimulus to the emergence of this alternative school of thought. Two academic journals, Middle East Report, published by MERIP and Middle East Critique, had been the two major avenues for the flourishing of this critical literature. For a wider and more historical analysis of Western involvement in the region see also J. Salt (2008) The Unmaking of the Middle East (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press).

²⁴ S. Zubaida (2001) Civil Society, Community, and Democracy in the Middle East, in: S. Kaviraj & S. Khilnani (eds) Civil Society: History and Possibilities, pp. 232–249 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 239.

²⁵ E. Gellner (1981) Muslim World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

²⁶ Gellner, Conditions of Liberty, p. 14.

²⁷ G. Nonneman (2001) Rentiers and Autocrats, Monarchs and Democrats, State and Society: the Middle East Between Globalisation, Human Agency, and Europe, International Affairs, 77(1), pp. 141–162, p. 143.

²⁸ Norton, Future of Civil Society, p. 214.

²⁹ F. Zakaria (2001) The Politics of Rage: Why Do They Hate Us?, Newsweek, October 15, 2001, pp. 22–40, p. 34.

³⁰ Berman, Islamism, Revolution, p. 266.

³¹ F. Zakaria (2004) Islam, Democracy and Constitutional Liberalism, Political Science Quarterly, 119(1), pp. 1–20, p. 2. In contrast, for a provocative thesis claiming that revival of Islam is prone to democratization, see J. L. Esposito & J. O. Voll (1996) Islam and Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press).

³² A. A. Jamal (2007) Barriers to Democracy: The Other Side of Social Capital in Palestine and the Arab World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press); M. L. Browers (2006) Democracy and Civil Society in Arab Political Thought: Transcultural Possibilities (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press); Cavatorta, Civil Society, Islamism and Democratization; F. Cavatorta & V. Durac (2011) Civil Society and Democratization in the Arab World: The Dynamics of Activism (New York: Routledge).

³³ Lakoff, Reality of Muslim Exceptionalism, p. 134.

³⁴ B. Toprak, Islam and Democracy, p. 169.

³⁵ B. Toprak (1981) Islam and Political Development (Leiden: E. J. Brill), pp. 36–48.

³⁶ N. Göle (1996) Authoritarian Secularism and Islamist Politics: The Case of Turkey, in: A. R. Norton (ed.) Civil Society in the Middle East, pp. 17–43 (Leiden: E. J. Brill), p. 35.

³⁷ A. Çınar (2005) Modernity, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey: Bodies, Places, and Time (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), p. 20.

³⁸ A. Çınar (2005) Modernity, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey: Bodies, Places, and Time (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), p. 20 pp. 19–20.

³⁹ Y. Navaro-Yashin (1998) Uses and Abuses of ‘State and Civil Society’ in Contemporary Turkey, New Perspectives on Turkey, 18, pp. 1–22, p. 16.

⁴⁰ M. Howe (1997) Secularists Won First Round Without Bloodshed, But Islamists Expect Victory in 1998 Election, The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 16(4), December 31, 1997, pp. 31–33, p. 31.

⁴¹ E. ÖÖzyürek (2006)zyürek (2006) Nostalgia for the Modern: State Secularism and Everyday Politics in Turkey (Durham: Duke University Press), pp. 125–150.

⁴² On February 28, 1997, the National Security Council, composed of military and civilian leaders, issued a list of 18 ‘recommendations’ imposed on the government and justified by the need to prevent the assumed Islamicization and preserve the secular regime. This led not only to the downfall of the coalition government and the dissolution of the RP, but also to the rearrangement of the parameters of political and social life in line with secularism.

⁴³ Ü. Cizre & M. Çınar (2003) Turkey 2002: Kemalism, Islamism, and Politics in the Light of February 28 Process, The South Atlantic Quarterly, 102(2/3), pp. 309–332, p. 322.

⁴⁴ Navaro-Yashin, Uses and Abuses, pp. 19–20.

⁴⁵ Cizre & Çınar, Turkey 2002, p. 314.

⁴⁶ Altınay & Nicolaidis, European Union strengthens Turkish secularism.

⁴⁷ Z. Öniş (2003) Domestic Politics, International Norms and Challenges to the State: Turkey–EU Relations in the Post-Helsinki Era, Turkish Studies, 4(1), pp. 9–34, p. 33, fn 21.

⁴⁸ The acquis are the set of norms and legal provisions that exist among the EU member states and are set as the membership criteria to be fulfilled by the candidate countries.

⁴⁹ N. Erdoğan (2000) Kemalist Non-governmental Organizations: Troubled Elites in Defence of a Sacred Heritage, in: S. Yerasimos, G. Seufert & K. Vorhoff (eds) Civil Society in the Grip of Nationalism, pp. 251–282 (Istanbul: Orient-Institut): 252.

⁵⁰ TÜSİAD'dan Hükümete Laiklik Uyarısı [TÜSİAD warns the government on secularism], Milliyet , September 21, 2007.

⁵¹ E. Akçalı & M. Perinçek (2009) Kemalist Euroasianism: An Emerging Geopolitical Discourse in Turkey, Geopolitics, 14(3), pp. 550–569, p. 551.

⁵² S. Özel, S. Yılmaz & A. Akyüz (2009) Re-building a Partnership: Turkish–American Relations for a New Era—A Turkish Perspective (Istanbul: TÜSİAD), p. 31.

⁵³ B. Taraktaş (2008) A Comparative Approach to Euroscepticism in Turkey and Eastern European Countries, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 16(2), pp. 249–266.

⁵⁴ Akçalı & Perinçek, Kemalist Euroasianism, p. 553.

⁵⁵ Erdoğan, “Kemalist Non-governmental Organizations, p. 267.

⁵⁶ In an interview she gave to a website in April 2012, Tansel Colasan, current head of ADD, testifies to the financial and organizational support that ADD received from state organs. For the full interview, see O. Zafer Ceylan (2012) Tansel Çölaşan: Kılıçdaroğlu'nun Atatürkçülüğünden Emin Değilim [Tansel Çölaşan: I am not sure about how Kemalist Kılıçdaroğlu is], Son Kulis, April 18. Available at http://www.sonkulis.com/roportaj/add-baskani-tansel-colasan-sonkulise-konustu-kilicdaroglunun-ataturkculugunden-emin-degilim-h3096.html, accessed April 24, 2012. Of the YTL113,000 donations collected by ADD in year 2006, YTL100,000 has been provided by the budget of the presidential office. See ADD'nin Resmi Sponsoru Ahmet Necdet Sezer [ADD's Official Sponsor Ahmet Necdet Sezer], Zaman, July 13, 2008.

⁵⁷ As a radical manifestation of the militarist approach, Fikri Karadağ initiated in the oath-taking ceremonies for the members of the organization to swear that they are ready to kill and be killed: ‘I am of pure Turkish stock without any Jewish convert in my blood. We can die for this cause, we can be murdered, we can murder… for the sake of making the Turkish nation the lord of the world.” İ. Saymaz (2007) ‘Vatanseverlik’ yarışındaki örgütler emekli asker dolu [Organizations competing for ‘Patriotism’ are Full of Retired Soldiers], Radikal, February 17, 2007.

⁵⁸ Yüzbinler Çağlayan'a aktı [Hundreds of thousands of people streamed to Çağlayan], Hürriyet , April 29, 2007.

⁵⁹ N. Göle (2007) Sokak ve Cumhuriyet: ‘Nümayişkar’ Feminen Darbe [Street and republic: ‘Pretentious’ feminine coup], Radikal, May 1, 2007.

⁶² Çağlayan'da bayrak denizi [The sea of flags in Çağlayan], Milliyet , April 29, 2007.

⁶⁰ Excerpts of Turkish army statement, Turkish Daily News , April 30, 2007.

⁶¹ Türkan Saylan, the then head of ÇYDD, took a more democratic stance and popularized the motto ‘Neither coup, nor Shariah!,’ but she was not allowed to address the audience in the following rallies. See B. Oran (2009) Türkan Hoca'nın evi niye arandı? [Why was Professor Türkan's house investigated?], Radikal 2, May 3, 2009. Nevertheless, Türkan Saylan also approved the military's e-memorandum. See A. Arman (2007) Annem ve ben birbirimizin zıddı iki kadındık [We, mom and me, were opposite women], Hürriyet, May 6, 2007.

⁶³ S. Ranisford (2007) Battle Begins for Turkish Parliament, BBC News, May 15, 2007.

⁶⁴ S. Ranisford (2007) Battle Begins for Turkish Parliament, BBC News, May 15, 2007

⁶⁵ S. Fraser (2007) Secular Turks Hold Demonstration, The Guardian, May 13, 2007.

⁶⁶ Although the rallies called for unity to save the Republic, their rhetoric also excluded the Kurdish groups, and Kurdish identity was totally invisible in the rallies. Slogans like ‘No sub- and supra-identity! Happy is the one who says I am Turk!’ showed the disapproval with enhancing ethnic minority rights.

⁶⁷ ‘Cumhurbaşkanı olma’ mitingi [‘Don't be the president’ meeting], Hürriyet , April 15, 2007.

⁶⁸ H. Taş, Will Turkey Benefit from Turkey, Le Monde Diplomatique, November 18, 2009. Available at http://mondediplo.com/blogs/will-turkey-benefit-from-ergenekon, accessed February 7, 2010.

⁶⁹ For a summary of the indictments, see The Open Source Center Report (2010) Turkey—Guide to Ergenekon, March 19, 2010; see also the special issue guest-edited by A. Balci & T. Jacoby (2012) The Ergenekon Counter-Terrorism Investigation in Turkey: Representations and Implications, Middle East Critique, 21(2), pp. 135–225.

⁷⁰ W. Weiker (1973) Political Tutelage and Democracy in Turkey: The Free Party and its Aftermath (Leiden: E. J. Brill), p. 58.

⁷¹ N. R. Keddie (1997) Secularism and the State: Towards Clarity and Global Comparison, New Left Review, 226, pp. 21–40, p. 28.

⁷² T. Timur (1968) Türk Devrimi—Tarihi Anlamı ve Felsefi Temeli [The Turkish revolution—Its historical meaning and philosophical background] (Ankara: Ankara Universitesi SBF), p. 96.

⁷³ M. Heper (1985) The State Tradition in Turkey (Walkington: Eothen Press), pp. 7–8, 16.

⁷⁴ E. F. Keyman & A. Icduygu (eds) (2005) Citizenship in a Global World: European Questions and Turkish Experiences (New York: Routledge).

⁷⁵ For a supportive assessment of Turkish modernization, see B. Lewis (1963) The Emergence of Modern Turkey (New York: Oxford University Press). For a more recent and critical review, see S. Bozdogan & R. Kasaba (eds) (1997) Rethinking Modernity and National Identity (Seattle: University of Washington Press).

⁷⁶ H. Yavuz (2003) Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 46.

⁷⁷ H. Yavuz (2003) Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 46 p. 31.

⁷⁸ H. Yavuz (2003) Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 46 p. 46.

⁷⁹ A report on the unrest following the elections in Iran issued by a very powerful NGO called the Isargeran (Self-sacrifice) Society is very illuminating in this respect. The report is titled ‘Defeat of Velvet Revolution in Iran,’ and it accuses the protestors in Iran of being infiltrators of Western powers. See The Analysis of the Self Sacrifice Society of Iran on the Failure of Velvet Revolution, Doğudan , 2(13) (2009), pp. 34–47.

⁸⁰ A. İnsel (2003) The AKP and the Normalizing of Democracy in Turkey, South Atlantic Quarterly, 102(2/3), pp. 293–308, p. 306.

⁸¹ For an analysis of these youth clubs, see Y. Di-Capua (2004) Sports, Society, and Revolution: Egypt in the Early Nasserite Period, in: E. Podeh & O. Winckler (eds) Rethinking Nasserism (Gainesville: University Press of Florida), pp. 144–162.