An Unfulfilled Promise of Enlightenment: Kemalism and its Liberal Critics

Abstract

A defining feature of Turkish politics during the 2000s has been the alliance between liberals and Islamic conservatives. While legitimizing Islamic conservatism, the liberals have concomitantly de‐legitimized Kemalism. Ultimately, the liberal disavowal is a call for a reexamination of the Turkish secularist experience, and in particular of how it relates to Western, emancipating traditions. The potential of freedom has remained unfulfilled because Turkish secularism has never really broken with the orthodox mentality of the past. Mirroring the failure of the secular‐minded Ottoman reformers of the nineteenth century, who had initially held out an unfulfilled promise of universalism, enshrined in the concept of liberal citizenship, the Kemalists have gotten stuck in parochial nationalism. The promise of universalism was distorted by the allure of the parochial, as the rational succumbed to the mystique of the primordial. The story of Turkish secularism is ultimately one about the promise of an enlightened modernity being overrun by the primordial forces of history and tradition.

Notes

1. Ahmet Altan, “Günlükler,” [Diaries] Taraf, (March 18, 2009).

2. Atilla Yayla, Kemalizm—Liberal bir bakış [Kemalism, a Liberal View] (Ankara: Liberte yayınları, 2008), p. 10.

3. Daniel Levin, Editor, Göteborgs‐Posten. In conversation with author, May 2007.

4. US‐educated social anthropologist and the author of Nostalgia for the Modern (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006).

5. Esra Özyürek, Nostalgia for the Modern (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), p. 107

6. Taner Timur, Osmanli‐Türk romanında tarih, toplum ve kimlik [History, Society and Identity in the Ottoman‐Turkish Novel] (Istanbul: Afa, 1991), p. 57.

7. Yayla, Kemalizm—Liberal bir bakış, p. 66.

8. Ibid., p. 55.

9. Ibid., p. 51.

10. Ibid., p. 44.

11. Taha Akyol, Ama Hangi Atatürk? [But which Atatürk?] (Istanbul: Doğan kitap, 2008), p. 394.

12. Radikal (May 25, 2008).

13. In conversation with the author, Ankara, October 2008.

14. Radikal (May, 25, 2008).

15. Mehmet Ali Birand, “AKP mi yoksa biz mi Sorumluyuz?”, Hürriyet (May, 30, 2008).

16. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), pp. 178–179.

17. İsmail Küçükkaya (ed.), Cumhuriyetimize dair [About our Republic] (Ankara: Aşina kitaplar, 2008), p. 79.

18. Baskın Oran, Atatürk milliyetçiliği [Ataturkist Nationalism] (Istanbul: Bilgi yayınları, 1990), p. 214.

19. Füsun Üstel, Makbul vatandaşın peşinde [Looking for an Approved Citizen] (Istanbul: İletişim yayınları, 2004).

20. Özer Ozankaya, Dünya düşünürleri gözüyle Atatürk ve Cumhuriyeti [Atatürk and his Republic as Evaluated by International Intellectuals] (Istanbul: Türkiye İs Bankası Kültür yayınları, 2008), p. 4.

21. Ibid., p. 4.

22. Gazi Mustafa Kemal, Medenî Bilgiler [Civic Instruction] (Istanbul: Örgün yayinevi, 2003), p. 85.

23. Yayla, Kemalizm—Liberal bir bakış, p. 24.

24. Etyen Mahçupyan, Türkiye'yi anlamak [To Understand Turkey] (Istanbul: İletişim yayınları, 2008), p. 296.

25. Ibid., p. 88.

26. Mete Tunçay, Eleştirel tarih yazıları [Critical Historical Essays] (Istanbul: Liberte yayınları, 2006), p. 189.

27. Taner Timur, Osmanlı Kimliği [Ottoman Identity] (Istanbul: Hil, 1986), p. 165.

28. Ibid., p. 165.

29. Mahçupyan, Türkiye'yi anlamak, p. 297.

30. Ibid., p.89.

31. Ibid., p. 168.

32. Cumhuriyet (May 31, 2009).

33. Yayla, Kemalizm—Liberal bir bakış, p. 39.

34. Mahçupyan, Türkiye'yi anlamak, p. 83.

35. Yayla, Kemalizm—Liberal bir bakış, p. 38.

36. Tunçay, Eleştirel tarih yazıları, pp. 11–17.

37. Patrick Kinross, Atatürk, The Rebirth of a Nation (London: Phoenix, 2001), p. 392.

38. Orhan Pamuk, in speech delivered at the Frankfurt book fair, October 22, 2005.

39. Yayla, Kemalizm—Liberal bir bakış, pp. 24, 26.

40. Mahçupyan, Türkiye'yi anlamak, p. 241.

41. Etyen Mahçupyan, “Erdoğan'ın sürprizi,” [Erdogan's Surprise] Taraf, (May 31, 2009).

42. Binnaz Toprak, Türkiye'de farklı olmak [To be Different in Turkey] (Istanbul: Metis yayınları, 2009).

43. Cumhuriyet (May 31, 2009).

44. Perry Anderson, “Kemalism,” London Review of Books (September 11, 2008).

45. Timur, Osmanlı Kimliği, p. 167.

46. In a conversation with the author, Istanbul, October 2008.

47. Timur, Osmanlı Kimliği, p.167.

48. Yılmaz Esmer, Devrim, Evrim, Statüko. Türkiye'de Sosyal, Siyasal, Ekonomik Değerler [Revolution, Evolution, Status Quo: Social, Political and Economic Values in Turkey] (Istanbul: TESEV, 1999), p. 86.

49. Orhan Karaveli, Tevfik Fikret ve Halûk gerçeği[Tevfik Fikret and the Story of Halûk] (Istanbul: Doğan kitap, 2007), back page.

50. Ibid., p. 98.

51. Baskın Oran, “Aramıza hoşgeldin Atatürk,” [Welcome among Us, Atatürk] Radikal (November 9, 2008).

52. Ibid.

53. Mark Lilla, The Stillborn God—Religion, Politics, and the Modern West (New York: Vintage, 2008), p. 88.

54. Ibid., p. 86.

55. Ibid., p. 93.

56. Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, Tek Adam, 1922–1938, 3. cilt [The Single Man, 1922–1938, Tome 3] (Istanbul: Remzi kitabevi,1966), p. 500.

57. Jean‐Claude Barreau, De l'Islam en général et du Monde Moderne en particulier [About Islam in General and about the Modern World in Particular] (Paris: Le pré aux clercs, 1991), p. 119.

58. Lilla, The Stillborn God, p. 100.

59. John Gray, Al Qaeda and What it Means to be Modern (London: Faber and Faber, 2003), p. 28.

60. Kinross, Atatürk, The Rebirth of a Nation, p. 468.

61. Ibid., p. 469.