A Bargain between the Secular State and Turkish Islam: Politics of Ethnicity in Central Asia, B. Turam

7/30/2019 A Bargain between the Secular State and Turkish Islam: Politics of Ethnicity in Central Asia, B. Turam

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A bargain between the secular state

and Turkish Islam: politics of ethnicityin Central Asia

BERNA TURAM

Hampshire College, School of Social Science, Amherst, MA 01002-5001, USA

ABSTRACT. This paper reveals and analyses the ethnic politics mobilised by a fast-

growing Islamic movement, the Gu len movement, which emerged in the 1980s in Turkey

and expanded to Central Asia in the mid-1990s. Following the micro-sites, where

nationness is reproduced as an everyday practice, my ethnographic research in Almaty-

Kazakhstan explored the emergent Islamic sensibilities for the nation and ethnic identity.

Revivalist Islam has often been essentialised as incompatible with nationalism, since it

has been widely associated with the Muslim community rather than nations and nation-

states. I argue that this bias is facilitated and maintained by the deep division in the

literature. Scholarly work on both Islam and nationalism are split into two opposingapproaches, state-centered and culture-centered. The findings of the present study

challenge the binary thinking that juxtaposes politics against culture and dichotomises

ethnic and state-framed base of nationalism and nationhood. My major finding is that

the Gu len movement has not only inherited the symbols and myths of descent from the

founding fathers of the Turkish state, but it is also currently reproducing the related

ethnic politics in cooperation withnot in opposition tothe secular states in the post-

Soviet Turkic world. The study reconciles ethno-symbolic and state-centered ap-

proaches in explaining the convergence between Islamic and secular nationalism in the

formation of ethnic politics in Almaty-Kazakhstan.

Introduction

The revival of Islam has intensified the debate on nationalism in the Muslim

context. This debate, which originated in the Western literature, has been

translated into the contemporary Islamic world without fully integrating the

historical, cultural and political specificities of modern Islam. First, histori-

cally rooted biases of secularisation theory have proven to be interlocked with

the debates on nationalism. The Eurocentric premises of secularisation have

to some extent continued to essentialise Islam through the theories ofnationalism. Second, the polarisation between culture-centered and state-

centered theories of nationalism has also tra eled to the M slim conte t

Nations and Nationalism 10 (3), 2004, 353374. r ASEN 2004


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revivalist Islam and the nation-state. The major aim of the paper is to tackle

the split in literature about nationalism, which, I argue, underlies the failure to

address contemporary Islamisation sufficiently (for exceptions see Piscatori

1986; Kandiyoti 1991; Eickelman 1998).

Although both cultural and political approaches have contributed sepa-

rately to our understanding of modern Islam, they have largely failed to

account fully for two important issues, the emergence of nationalist Islamic

revival and its contemporary convergence with secular nationalism. On the

basis of the findings of my field research, I will argue that a deeper under-

standing of the contemporary transformations of nationalism in the Islamic

context may be gained by incorporating the mutually exclusive debates on

politics and culture.

My field research is focused on an Islamic movement, the Gulen move-

ment,1 which originated in Turkey in the 1980s and expanded its activities and

organisation to Central Asia in the 1990s. The case challenges the dominant

assumption that the primary source of mobilisation of Islamic movements is

universal Muslim faith as opposed to loyalties to the nation-state. In contrast,

my findings have revealed that the primary source of the movements activities

in Central Asia has been ethnic sensibilities and national loyalties. Second,

Islamic revival is often understood as oppositional to secular political rule and

thereby juxtaposed against the state. Challenging this predominant view, the

case illustrates how the movement has intertwined sacredness of the nationand Islamic community in the secular political milieu. My major argument is

that state-framed and ethno-symbolic forms of nationalism are entwined in

transforming the movement from a putative enemy into a collaborator of

secular nation-states.

The paper consists of four parts. First, I discuss the ways in which the

division between the cultural and political emphasis on nationalism has been

transferred to studies of Islam. Second, highlighting Turkey as the staunchest

protector of secularism in the Muslim world, I discuss the significance of the

recent rise of the Gu len movement in this secular political milieu. Third, byusing the ethno-symbolic approach, I analyse the bottom-up nature of the

ethnic politics that the movement pursues in Central Asia. Finally, my

findings illustrate the top-down, state-framed quality of nationalism. I argue

that Turkish Islam has originally inherited these nationalist sentiments from

the founding fathers of the secular Republic. The findings on the affinities and

linkages between the states and Islamic forces challenge the dichotomies,

culture versus politics, ethnic versus civic nationalism, and perhaps most

importantly, the Islamic movements versus the (secular) nation-state.

The theoretical contro ers of Islam nationalism and the nation state

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modern nation-state (Hall 1998: 3; Mann 1993: 4850; Tilly 1975: 6). Another

group has focused on the cultural premises of nationalism and the pre-modern

roots of nations (Hutchinson 1994; Hutchinson and Smith 2000: 1309473;

Smith 1986). The polarisation between these two views amounted to the

mushrooming of problematic dichotomies in theorising nationalism. While

the nation-state has been exclusively associated with politics, ethnicity has

been rigidly confined to the realm of community and culture. In this

conceptual framework, ethnicity and Islam have shared a lot in common.

Both of them have often been pitted against the nation-state in theorising

modern secular nationalism. This explains the contemporary emphasis on

anti-state ethnic and Islamic movements, which has left the state-framed and

non-confrontational social movements understudied. This applies particularly

to Islam, mainly because recent world politics has reinforced the perception of

Islam as a fundamentalist and/or separatist threat to secular states.

The literature is so deeply bifurcated that it has become difficult to

acknowledge the affinities between modern Islam, ethnicity and the nation-

state. In tracing and analysing the links between them, three points have to be

noted. On one hand, the state has a distinct and constantly changing culture,

the so-called national or political culture, which embraces both religion and

ethnicity. While state capacities to accommodate different religious and ethnic

forces vary dramatically across the globe, nation-building heavily relies on

myths of religion and ethnicity to glue the imagined community together. Onthe other hand, both ethnicity and religion provide the motives and platforms

not only for political activity and action but also for major political

reconfiguration such as nation-building, reformation and revolutions (Smith

2000: 1397). Third, national, religious and ethnic identities are often a product

of ongoing engagements and negotiations between ethnic and religious forces

and the nation-state.

Islam and the secular state: an inevitable clash?The split between culture and politics in theorising nationalism fits well with

the juxtaposition of the Muslim community and secular states. The state-

centered view draws a clear link between the concurrent emergence of nations

and nation-states and the subsequent secular nationalism (see Brubaker 1992;

Hall 1993). From this perspective, Islam has been singled out as incompatible

not only with the secular nation-state but also with loyalties to the nation

(Gellner 1996: 22). This is mainly because Islam has been associated with

primary loyalties to the all-encompassing Umma, the community of Muslim

believers (ibid. : 26).Gellners universalistic theories of both Islam and nationalism converged

con eniently in his acco nt of modern Islamic re i al In his so called

Politics of ethnicity in Central Asia 355


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the political rule in the center. Subsequently, the Muslim society expanded

and stabilised its High Islam, the basis of which was the rule-observing

doctrinal faith. Gellner claimed that [t]he essence of nationalism in the West

is that a Highliteracy-linkedculture becomes the pervasive, member-defin-

ing culture of the total society; the same has happened in Islam, but it

expresses itself in fundamentalism rather than nationalism, though the two

are sometimes conflated (Gellner 1996: 22). By neglecting the wide-ranging

cultural and political diversity in the contemporary Muslim world, Gellner

generalised the transformations of modern Islam as fundamentalism. This

overgeneralisation is detrimental to the scholarly analysis of Islamic nation-

alism as a separate and independent force from fundamentalism. While the

former mobilises in the name of the nation and its state, the latter often calls

for the unity of the Muslim world.

The term fundamentalism is also used to indicate the secularisation-

resistant character of Islam, which has been highlighted as another reason

why Islam could not be replaced by or collaborate with modern secular

nationalism (for a critique, see Eickelman 1998: 258, 268). Secularisation

theories anticipated the decline of religion and its replacement by nationalism

in the West. However, Islam has been singled out as an exception, because

instead of declining, it revived in modern times by converting to so-called

political Islam (Gellner 1981: 5; 1996: 21). Accordingly, modernist theories

have conflated Islamic nationalism and fundamentalism as the pervasiveabsence of the rule of rational law. This has rendered Islam irrelevant to civic

and state-framed forms of nationalism. Both modern and classical Islam have

been regarded as inherently hostile to secular politics and incapable of

separating religion and politics (Lewis 1993; Gellner 1996: 15,28).

Most modernist depictions of Islam have had a Weberian focus on political

institutions and structures of domination at the cost of neglecting Islamic

culture, ways of life, values and beliefs as sources of national loyalties. (For a

critique of Webers account of Islam, see Turner 1964.) The analytical division

between culture and politics has in many ways obscured a deeper grasp ofIslamisation. This dichotomy has been reinforced in the Muslim context in the

form of the normative juxtaposition of the good Muslim community against

the bad Islamic politics. Islamas ways of life, identities and faithhas been

seen as doomed to an inevitable clash with secular nation-states and political

institutions, originally the products of Western civilisation (Huntingon 1996;

Lewis 1993: 8994). After the fall of the Soviet Union, Islam has come to be

seen as the major threat to secular democracies in the West.

Islam and culture: religion as a dimension of ethnic community

In contrast to the political emphasis on the hostility of Islam to sec lar politics

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bility of Islam and politics, the culture-centered view located the source of

Islamic nationalism in ideas, values, rituals and ways of life (see for an

example, Robinson 2000). Muslims collective identity has been constructed

around the superiority of the community of believers (Watt 1961: 204) and a

sense of common cultural heritage (Hodgson 1974: 75).

By widely neglecting the political aspects of Islamic revival, culture-centered

views regarded Islam as one of the several dimensions of ethnic belonging, such

as language, myths of descent, customs and symbols. Although cultural views

of Islam may be useful to explore Islam throughout history, contemporary

Islamic revival needs to be distinguished from the Islamic past for reasons

going beyond the religious dimension of ethnic community. First, extreme

positioning in primordialism results in overlooking the constant change in

culture in relation to political processes and institutions. Second, exclusive

emphasis on the impact of a shared Islamic culture on political processes fails

to acknowledge the diversity of Islamic resurgence across nation-states. More

importantly, exclusively cultural approaches to Islam run the risk of down-

playing the importance of the vertical links and affinities between Islam and

the states of the Muslim world. The so-called broader definition of politics, or

rather identity politics, needs to incorporate political institutions and the state

into the analysis. National cultures change constantly, and are continually

negotiated with the state of the nation (see the edited volume by Hall 1998).

Paradox

By focusing on different aspects of nationalism, both culture- and state-

centered views tend to converge in underestimating the interplay between

cultural aspects and political institutions. The identification of either culture

or politics as a fixed, independent variable of nations and nationalism deflects

attention away from ongoing engagements between secular states and Islamic

forces in imagining the community. Consequently, both of these opposing

schools converge in their juxtaposition of cultureembodied by the Islamic

communities, movements and identitiesagainst the secular states. Contrary

to this predominant agreement in the literature, the vertical links between the

states and the Islamic movements go beyond resistance and confrontation.

The analytical dichotomies between culture/community versus politics/state

inhibit our capacities to shift the exclusive focus from confrontation to

engagements and affinities between Islamic movements and the nation-states.

The historical background

Turkey

The nostalgic interest in Central Asia can be traced back to the Ottoman



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new and the old land of the Turks, that is, Anatolia and Central Asia, was

articulated clearly by the Young Turks (Landau 1995; Lewis 1968). Although

the founding fathers of the Turkish Republic glorified myths of descent from

Central Asia in the 1920s, extensive research on the official sources of the

Republic revealed no expansionist (pan-Islamist or pan-Turkist) agendas over

Central Asia (see Parla 1992, 1995: 204). However, Turk Tarih Tezi (The

Thesis of Turkish History) in the 1930s and various interpretations of

Kemalism reinforced the idea that the Turks contributed to civilisation in

Central Asia long before the Ottoman Empire. Not surprisingly, with the rise

of nationalist Islam and the Turkish-Islam synthesis in the post-1980s (Parla

1995: 202), Central Asias role has been centralised in the mobilisation of

nationalist Islamic movements.

In contrast to the increasing failure of secular state nationalism across the glo-

be, especially in the non-Western world (Jurgensmeyer 1993), Turkey stands

out as a success story of secular nationalism in the Muslim world. Indeed,

Turkish nationalism has been the most comprehensive ideology of Kemalism

(Mardin 1991: 142).

The early Republic also adopted a new ruling ideology of religion, laicism.

While the public sphere was de-Islamized through rigid interventions,

including the closure of Islamic sects and the ban of veil and fez, religion

was relegated to the private sphere. A large group of founding fathers

regarded religion as an important force in establishing the larger Turkishnation. As one of the early Republicans, Akcura argued that in the modern

world, religions are losing their political significance and powery they

[could] maintain their political and internal importance only by intermingling

with and assisting the races (Akcura 1998: 345).

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Turkish Republic has

come to be seen as an obvious candidate to fill the power vacuum in the

Turkic region. Despite the different historical backgrounds, Turkey and the

newly independent countries of Central Asia have had an important thing in

common; both controlled Islam as a potential threat. In this most secularMuslim corner, the call for regionalisation was initially related to the need to

form a buffer zone against the Islamist threat. Paradoxically, however, instead

of secularist civic forces, the Gu len movement has attempted to initiate the

building of bridges between Turkey and Central Asia. The present study

reveals that the primacy of national and ethnic sensibilities enabled the

movement to assume this international role in the region throughout the

1990s. It is extremely important to note that the post-Soviet period is

witnessing the formation of new relations between home countries and host

countries, which share large populations of co-ethnic and co-religious people(for a theoretical discussion see Brubaker 1996).

The G len mo ement emerged o t of fragmentation in another nationalist

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from the teachings of Said Nursi. Neither the Nur nor the Gu len movement is

a sect or an Islamic order with fixed memberships, but both are social move-

ments (Mardin 1989). Currently, the Gu len movement has numerous schools,

universities, companies, foundations and media outlets across the globe.

While the Nur Movement has been identified as a fundamentalist separatist

activity by the state since the formation of the Republic, the Gu len movement

has avoided conflict with the Republican project. The latter has also deviated

from other Islamic movements by internationalising its nationalist Islamic

mission in the Turkic Muslim world. The main distinction of the movement has

been the commitment to the reconciliation of Turkish Muslim identity with

the secular nation-state and its Republican project. The key to understanding

the major goal of the movement is to grasp both its cultural and political

dimensions. The followers aim is to revitalise faith and pious ways of living in a

secular democratic milieu, and not against it.

Currently, the Gu len movement is the largest and internationally most

recognised Islamic movement in Turkey. The followers have overtly rejected

any potential form of radical Islam. They have refused to vote for the Islamic

parties, Welfare and Virtue, which had radical fractions. Not surprisingly,

Welfare was banned by the state shortly after it came to power in 1996, and its

successor, Virtue, was also banned in 2001. As the majority of my informants

stated, the followers have consistently voted for conservative central right

parties. Interestingly, however, in the last elections in Turkey, the majority offollowers voted for the new pro-Islamic party, Justice and Development

(JD).2 Unlike the previous Islamic Welfare and Virtue, the new JD, which

came to power in November 2002, displays similar attitudes to the Gu len

movement. Like the Gu len movement, JD engages not only the secular

Republic but also maintains a dialogue with the West, the United States

and the European Union in particular. The rapid rise of non-confrontational

nationalist Islam in Turkey is indicative of contemporary transformations in

stateIslam interaction (Turam 2004). Below, I discuss the role that ethnic and

nationalist affinities play in eradicating the historically rooted confrontationbetween Islamic and secularist forces.

Central Asia

In addition to Turkey, the Gu len projects found fertile ground in Central Asia

in the 1990s. The end of Soviet rule has been an accidental trigger for the

expansion of Turkish Islam in the region. Breaking from the long-term Soviet

repression of Islam, the new Central Asian countries were expected to facefundamentalism. To a large extent, this has not happened. All new states

inherited the repressi e attit des of So iet r le against Islam in different



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Although the newly independent countries of Central Asia have had a

different background of secularisationthe anti-religious Soviet Unionthan

Turkey, all have recently witnessed the rise of an entwined ethnic and Islamic

politics. The Kazak state has been particularly cautious about Islamic revival

and has enforced rigid restrictions on the formation of religious self-organis-

ing and movements (Zhovtis 1999). Interestingly however, while still overtly

repressing many other forms of Islamic action, both Turkey and the Central

Asian states have started to accommodate the schools and associations of the

fast-growing Gu len movement.

The movement has twenty-nine schools in Kazakhstan, twelve schools in

Azerbaijan, thirteen schools in Turkmenistan and twelve schools in Kyrgyz-

stan (Balci 2003: 5). The only Turkic Central Asian country which has been

hostile to the movements schools is Uzbekistan. It has not only repressed

Islamic action as a result of fear of the Islamic threat but also banned the

movements schools since 1999.

The high concentration of the schools in the Turkic Muslim world presents

a sharp contrast to their weak presence, and often absence, in the Arab

Muslim world. This is a strong indicator of the primacy of ethnic drive in the

movements mobilisation. Following the sites of engagement between the Gu len

movement and the secular nation-states, my in-depth ethnography expanded

to the schools, dormitories, households and the movements foundation in

Almaty, where I explored the ethnic politics mobilised by Turkish Islam.

Ethnic politics by nationalist Islam: ambivalence of inclusion

Over 300 schoolshigh schools and seven universitieshave been founded by

the Gu len movement across the globe. The followers serve unconditionally in

educational projects, such as founding, financing and teaching in the move-

ments schools, dormitories and dersanes (private tutoring schools). The

intended social engineering through these schools is the creation of scientifi-

cally competitive generations, who will also be faithful believers and loyalcitizens. The goal of schools is not modest. They aim to overcome the

presumed conflict between the Muslim faith, Turkic-Islamic ways of life

and Western science and democracy.

Outside the national boundaries, however, schools have broader cultural

and political agendas. First, the schools in Europe attract Turkish immigrant

families who aspire to raise their children in the Turkish way. Second, in the

underdeveloped or developing countries of Africa and Asia, they appeal to

students for the quality of teaching, technology and better standards of

education. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the high concentration ofthe movements schools in Central Asia constitutes a major part of the ethnic

politics that the mo ement p rs es in that region

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Kazak-Turk Egitim Vakfi (Kazak-Turkish Foundation of Education), referred

to as KATEV, is the cornerstone of a Turkish community in Almaty. This

efficient organisation and the schools are supported by the charity of Turkish

companies, Turkish businessmen as well as the devout of the movement in

Turkey and Kazakhstan. It is not merely a community organisation sheltering

its followers. It also appeals to a wide-ranging variety of Turks, including the

diaspora Turks and the Turkish residents in Kazakhstan. Linked to another

organisation, the General Directorate, in the capital city, KATEV not only

coordinates and supervises schools, but also serves as a cultural center, or

rather a coffee house for a vivid, heterogeneous Turkish community in

Almaty. One of its primary duties is to coordinate and to organise cultural

events, such as hosting guests from Turkey and making connections between

businessmen, schools and local politicians.

The movement plays an important role in creating an ethnic politics in

Central Asia that emphasises ethnic pride in both Turkicness and nationness

through its projects and activities. It glorifiesand to some extent invents

myths and symbols of commonality between Kazaks and Turks. In Almaty,

one hears the following affirmations of common ancestry:

Tupumuz bir (We have the same roots in the Kazak language)Ayn{ anadan sut emdik (We were nursed by the same mother in the Turkish language)Kankardesiyiz (We are blood brothers in the Turkish language)

These festive expressions evoking symbols of commonalities facilitate the

movements relations with the local people, particularly the students and their

parents. While the Islamic emphasis on community helps to build strong

interpersonal ties and feelings of belonging, the movement triggers and

transmits a new Islamic sensibility of nationness. The primary sacredness of

the community of believers in Islam translates into the sacredness of the

nation (see Smith 2001: 1424). I argue that Islamic and national loyalties are

not only intertwined but also reinforce each other in these projects. The

participation in the movements educational projects indicates not onlyprioritisation but also politicisation of national affiliation (Yack 1999: 103

6). The movement promotes a pragmatic form of Islam, which nationalises its

Islamic mission as civil society projects. Through its ethnic politics in Central

Asia, it also expands the nationalist network to the international level.

There is a generic and implicit reference to the myths, symbols and

memories of common ancestry between Turks and Kazaks in everyday life

in Almaty. The claims to a common pre-modern past are expressed through

language and heroic stories as well as customs, food and drink, such as k{m{z.

These elements, which depict ethnie in Smiths terms, create a sense ofsolidarity and fellow feeling between the Turks and Kazaks in Almaty (Smith

1986: 32)



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sacred foundations of the nation (Smith 2001: 1436) came up in my

interviews with the followers and other Turks in Almaty. Most of them stated

that although Turkic ways of lives have been suppressed by the Soviet regime,

Soviets could not destroy all of Muslim faithy

and some of the Turkic

customs have survived.3

The teachers I interviewed emphasised that teaching fluent Turkish was

necessary to revive ethnic awareness. The principal of the boys high school

in Almaty stated that their students graduate with a proficiency in Turkish.

Indeed, the graduates of the schools that I met were not only fluent in Turkish

but also familiar with Turkish culture. The similarity between Central Asian

languages is celebrated as the most tangible basis of the ethnic affinity in the

region.

The movement displays a different boundary-maintenance inside and

outside of Turkey. Since there is no formal membership and no formal rules

for access and exit, followers and sympathisers express various kinds and

degrees of affiliation with the movement in Turkey. However, in the interna-

tional realm, the domestically fuzzy boundaries of the movement are

symbolically transposed to the presumed real boundaries of nationhood.

In Kazakhstan, the borders of we, the fellow Turks, are simply regarded as

natural. The movement aspires to being an ethno-religious community

(Smith 1999), which welcomes and tries to incorporate the so-called Kazak

Turks. This should not be surprising, if we note the irony of the inclusivenature of Turkish nationalism as opposed to exclusive ethnic nationalisms

(see Butenschon 2000: 20). Nationness in Turkey is imagined as inclusionary

of other ethnic groups and nations, such as Kurds, on condition that they

assimilate and define themselves as Turks. Put differently, this warm and

neighborly welcome has often cost the denial of the others ethnie. This is in

contrast to other exclusionary ethnic nationalisms, which leave out or

segregate other ethnic groups as threats to the utopias based on ethnic

election.

In my interviews in Almaty, the followers stated that their major aim is tobring the Turkic cultures closer. This goal has been articulated in terms of a

multiculturalist identity politics, which supposedly calls for peaceful recogni-

tion of differences. However, there is a paradox in the followers commu-

nitarian claims for diversity. On the one hand, the followers believe in the

unifying power of the Muslim faith and Turkic cultures. This belief aspires to

homogenisation rather than diversity in the region. On the other hand, their

projects create the platform for various nationalist agendas, and attract wide-

ranging faces of Turkish nationalism and Turkism. One of the teachers stated:

The aim is not to turkishise Central Asia but to bridge a variety of the Turkiccultures.4 However, when further probed about this multiculturalist dis-

co rse he added:

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lack ethnic consciousness. In the future, they will define themselves as Turks, theKazak Turks. It only takes a decent education for them to realise their roots and howmuch we have in common. Is education not all about self-awareness and self-

realisation?

At the extreme end of the continuum of nationalisms, one finds ultra-

nationalists who unconditionally support and finance the schools. One of

my respondents, a Turkish restaurant owner in Almaty, explained to me that

he was moved and incited by the encouragement of the leader, Fethullah

Gu len to go back to his Turkic roots in Central Asia. He was born into an

ultra-nationalist family and thus he was raised with this utopian view. Yet, his

vision, he narrated, has found expression only through his participation in the

Gu len movements undertakings in Central Asia. He stated:

My kin came from Central Asia and I am so proud to be back where I belong y Allthese lands are sacred Turkish landsy.We are getting our land back with a hugeMuslim population in ity However, these things take time. It may take at least fiftyyears if we try to turklestirmek [turkishise] them through nationalist education. But if asmart political leader appeared who would co-operate and agree to consolidate Kazaksunder the Turkish rule, we would save timey

Here, it is important to note the homogenising quality of ultra-nationalism

that fuses not only the political and cultural community, but also conflates

state-framed nationalism with Pan-Turkism.

The movements schools: secular teaching, moral formation and ethno-religious

politics

Education and the curriculum are secular in the movements schools. No

religious teaching is offered in Gu len schools in Central Asia, except for a

general course on the history of world religions. The instruction is partly in

English and partly in Turkish. The followers acknowledge that English is the

universal medium of education and science, which makes the schools more

attractive for Kazaks. Along with the movements recognition of universalprinciples of science and secularism, their goal is to make Turkish an

international means of communication and science.

Although KATEV seems like a multi-functional public relations organisa-

tion, its main function and responsibility is the coordination of education,

management and finance of the schools. KATEV offers a nation-wide

competitive exam in order to select the best students in Kazakhstan. The

educational project is actualised on the basis of networks between the

teachers, the students parents and the benefactors, who offer scholarships

to students. The schools provide the students with relatively better standardsof education, equipment and technology. As a result of subsidy by the Kazak

state and the T rkish entreprene rs the parents often end p paying only for



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tional project is divided into two parts that are implemented by two

departments of KATEV, egitim (education) and ogretim (teaching). The

Teaching Department coordinates the courses, schedules and the curriculum

in collaboration with the Turkish and Kazak states, whereas the Education

Department is oriented towards the resocialisation and identity-formation of

the students.

Boarding is mandatory in the movements schools. Obligatory extra-

curricular activities aim at discipline and resocialisation. Students are taught

ways of life, customs, traditions, Turkish-Muslim values and sanctions. Some

of these activities intervene directly with students privacy and personal

habits, even including Muslim rituals of hygiene, bathing, clothing and so

on. The students are also invited and encouraged to celebrate national days of

Turkey. The broader goal is to spread a certain morality and culture of

Turkish Islam to Kazak youth, who are viewed as the offspring of a society

that morally degenerated under the wicked Soviet rule. Moreover, the

teachers expressed pride in sheltering a subaltern Turkish diaspora that had

been suppressed for many years under Soviet rule. The teachers do not

compromise on disciplinary issues, either with students or parents.

The schools have a distinct philosophy of education: they try to reconcile

moral education with rationality (see Durkheim 1961: 11) as well as faith with

science. The teachers are in agreement with the argument that morality is

rational since it sets in motion only the ideas and sentiments deriving fromreason (ibid. :5). This view can be traced to the teachings of both Fethullah

Gu len and Said Nursi. The aspiration of creating a morally superior and

scientifically competitive Turkic world is explicitly pan-Turkist. An ethnically

conscious Islam is advocated, which seeks moral regeneration of the com-

munity (Hutchinson 1994: 41). In this sense, cultural nationalism mobilised

by the Islamic movement calls for a cure against rootlessness and moral

degeneration. The teachers in Almaty stated:

These kids need discipline. What an unlucky destiny that they were born into acomplete immoral disorder

y

The anti-religious Soviet ruley

cut people off fromtheir spirituality, faith and morality. We know that it will take time but they willgradually acquire the sensibility for order, discipline and communal feelings y Wehave already started to see the change in their attitudes. Their parents report the rapideffects of our education and thank us.5

In addition to altruistic teachers, responsive parents are needed to collaborate

in this ambitious educational project. The educators and teachers visit

students homes and ask for the parents co-operation. They monitor students

in their family life and follow their progress by psychological tests and

counseling. They not only make sure that the home environment does notcontradict the schooling and discipline in schools, but they also interfere with

order in the pri ate sphere if they find it is not cond ci e to the moral

364 Berna Turam


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all spheres of the students lives. Liberal concerns of freedom of experimenta-

tion and individual space to develop ones own path and identity are of no

concern to this educational project.

Not surprisingly, the initial responses of the local people to the schools

were negative. They were suspicious about the aims of the schools. Some

thought that the Turks were replacing the Soviet hegemony and taking

advantage of the power vacuum to dominate Kazaks through their missionary

agendas.6 Due to their refusal to call the schools Turk-Kazak, the name was

changed to Kazak-Turk schools. However, the initial backlash and suspicion

were soon replaced with the trust, appreciation and co-operation of the

parents as well as of the Kazak state.

The teachers have played a crucial role in developing trust in host

countries. The main characteristic of their service (hizmet) abroad is a high

degree of self-sacrifice and self-denial (see Hedetoft 1995: 20). The legendary

teachers who died for this goal in some Asian countries are recalled often with

pride and gratitude. Death is the most radical manner possible in which the

ideal pertaining to the unity of state and nation is realized (ibid.: 25). It is in

this unity that religious myths of ethnic election and nationalist concepts of

mission and destiny converge (Smith 1999: 3367).

When asked about the purpose of the schools, the followers in KATEV

raised the following question as a response: Why would there be only

American schools all around the world and not Turkish ones? Benefactorsof the schools, both non-religious and religious businessmen, reported that

they felt flattered and proud watching Kazak students who were singing the

Turkish national anthem and speaking proper Turkish fluently. Admitting

that they burst into tears while they watched those students, the followers

expressed their national sentiments: Who would not feel proud seeing the

Turkish flag in the schools abroad?

These sensibilities have often been interpreted as globalisation or transna-

tionalisation of Islam by social scientists (Balci 2003: 11). This view under-

estimates, if not contradicts, the assertive nationalism as a major driving forcebehind Turkish Islam in Central Asia. The sympathisers of the Gu len

movement in Almaty were not touched by the transnationalisation of Islam.

On the contrary, my informants were proudly enchanted by the representa-

tion of the national culture and its symbols in the international sphere. The

process of the nationalisation of Islam and Islamic identities coincides with

aspirations for their internationalisation (see Nairn 1998). National loyalties

are the key for the movements success in the international realm, because

they are shared both by Islamic and non-Islamic circles that support the

movements projects. The movement appears as a legitimate internationalactor recognised not only by the Turkish, but also by the host states. This, I

ill arg e belo leads to con ergence bet een Islamic and sec lar nation



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Turkish Islam, the nation and its state

The schools are of the nation and for the nation!7

An international network in Central Asia would only strengthen our Turkic

nation-states, said one of KATEVs distinguished teachers and administra-

tors, Hu samettin Bey. He was a wholehearted supporter of the ultra-

nationalist party in Turkey. After serving as a teacher and later as a principal

in the movements schools, he was granted an award for being a distinct

education specialist by the Kazak state. During my fieldwork in KATEV, I

had several chances to observe his altruistic service to the diaspora Turks, the

real Turks in his terms, in Kazakhstan.8 His cultural nationalism also took on

a political overtone, when he explained his connection to the leading

politicians and bureaucrats in Kazakhstan, including the president of the

country. On one hand, the educational projects engineer moral and cultural

uniformity. On the other, this cultural sensibility is also transformed into a

political aspiration, as the movement actively calls for a regional front

between the nation-states and the Muslim-Turkic majority.

In my interviews, the teachers identified themselves not only as followers of

the movement but also as loyal servants of the nation. However, in everyday

life in Almaty, they do not express this dual commitment. While they present

themselves as good citizens of the Turkish Republic, their deeper faith-based

motivation is not publicly announced. More importantly, the schools inAlmaty are presented simply as Turkish schoolsand not as the movements

schoolsby KATEV and the followers. Most of my informants claimed that if

it was not for the nation, the difficulties they faced abroad would have been

impossible to overcome. Similarly, a progressive daily newspaper in Turkey,

Yeni Yuzyil, reported on 27 March 1998: Four thousand teachers operate like

diplomats in the movements schools abroad.

Brubakers term nationness as a contingent event constantly happening

(Brubaker 1996: 21) is helpful in explaining nationness as an everyday life

practice both in cultural and political forms.9

The followers and the move-ment organisations participate in articulating ethnic awareness and reformu-

lating nationness as a practice of everyday life. This ordinary practice

repositions the movement in relation to the nation-state. The ethnic affinities

that the Turkish state and the movement share create strong links between

them in the international realm. This fact presented itself to me accidentally in

one of the sites in KATEV and provided me with the most illuminating

evidence of my fieldwork.

After interviewing almost all the officers and education experts in KATEV,

I started to note a group of gentlemen who visited the foundation regularly.They came to KATEV to socialise, discuss personal life and politics, eat, and

drink T rkish coffee They ere friends of the follo ers hose intimate

366 Berna Turam


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Turkish state, who were appointed to Kazakhstan to teach Turkish language

and history in Kazak schools and universities. They were the officials of the

Council of the Turkish Ministry of Education in Almaty, which consisted of

twenty Turkish teachers. My interviews with them in the Council revealed

explicit similarities in the world-views and ethnic politics between the states

and the movements teachers. One of the teachers of the Council observed:

These schools are under the control of the state. Our goal is mutual support andunderstanding of the Turkic nations. This does not mean a political consolidationunder a single, unitary Turkish state. Nobody can deny the advantage of having 67Turkic states in the United Nations which support and favor each other. We agree withKATEV that Turkic people do deserve such an international privilege y

When he was probed further about the links between them and KATEV, he

explained:

In collaboration with the Turkish Embassy, our Council, the schools and KATEVwork together, following the heritage of the founding fathers y These schools areimportant means to reconnect to our ancestors y Central Asian lives, customs,languages and jokes are similar to ours y I feel at home here. 10

The evidence speaks to the fact that the myths of descent have constituted the

primary motivation for both Gu lens Islamic teachers and the secular teachers

of the Turkish state for their undertakings in Kazakhstan. They both

inherited these myths from the founding fathers and the official ideology ofthe Turkish state. Islamist and secular nationalists converge not only in their

cultural affinities, but also in their yearnings for political regionalisation.

Emphasising the need for time for gradual reform and cultural changes, both

Islamic teachers and teachers of the Turkish state underlined that schooling is

the best and most direct way to shape fresh minds. It is extremely important to

note that their ethnic affinities and nationalist feelings overshadowed the

presumed hostility and/or tension between them. On the contrary, to my

surprise, the teachers of the Turkish state expressed their appreciation of what

KATEV has done for the Turkish nation: This is a charity for the good ofKazak people and a pride for the Turkish nation. KATEV makes us recall our

glorious past and refreshes our memory. The state officers sympathy for the

movement challenges the predominant juxtaposition of Islam against the

nation-state. Being asked, how do you feel about the expansion of Gu len

schools to Central Asia?, the director of the Council stated with confidence:

These are the schools of the Turkish state. Nobody is teaching Islam in these schools. Weonly try to establish familiarity between cultures y Ethnic consciousness can only beattained through education. These teachers are ready to sacrifice themselves for the nation.It has nothing to do with fundamentalism but everything to do with national loyalties.11

The state officials were neither uninformed nor in denial of the Islamic basis of

the schools On the contrary akin to the follo ers statements they highlighted



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Turkish schools (Demire et al. 2000). These events indicate the degree to

which the movement is associated with the nation by the state officials.

The findings of the study suggest that the formation of the linkages

between the secular state and the movement are facilitated largely by their

overlapping ethnic discourses and nationalist agendas over Central Asia. The

same issue came up in an interview with a hard-core secularist Turkish

diplomat, who was on duty in Central Asia. He admitted with a subtle degree

of discomfort: As long as the state does not position itself against the Gu len

movement, why would we?12

In the international realm, several branches of the Turkish state perceive

Turkish Islam as a national actor or ally rather than as an enemy. Within the

borders of Turkey, however, the engagement between the movement and the

state is still not stable. As the state is not a consistent monolithic entity, some

branches have sporadically fallen into conflict in their attitudes to the

movement. The police conducted a wire-tapping in 1998, which was followed

by the courts defense of the human rights followers. The chief police officer

(Emniyet Muduru) was removed from his office. Paradoxically, the state

prosecutors have occasionally initiated lawsuits against the movement,

investigating the sincerity of followers respect for Kemalism as well as the

agendas and finances of the schools. The last trial was initiated when a

videotape was found, in which Fethullah Gu len was preaching on strategies of

Islamic mobilisation. The leader has been living in the United States since thistrial, although he is not in exile at the moment. Interestingly, most of these

ruptures have been followed by mutual recognition between the movement

and the state. These ongoing negotiations between Islam and the state are a

major characteristic of transformation politics, which are indicative of the

shifting linkages between Islam and the state.

Similarly, the followers of the movement are careful not to intimidate

students and parents who already perceive Islam as a threat in Kazak society.

The officers of KATEV and the teachers explained that they do not want the

schools to lose their credibility because of the Soviet-inflicted negative feelingsagainst religion. The strong association with the nation and its secular state

is not only comforting but also pragmatic for the movements activities

abroad. The Kazak students and parents that I interviewed were not informed

about the movement and its Islamic association. The new ethnic sensibilities

nurtured by Islam are much easier to mobilise under the shelter of a secular

state and rule of law. This partly explains how the uneasy domestic interac-

tions between the movement and the state were transformed into smooth co-

operation and proud affiliations in the international realm. The followers

usage of millet (nation) in the interviews was usually interchangeableoralmost identicalwith the use of ulus-devlet (nation-state) in Almaty. This

clearly demonstrates the strong affinities bet een the national c lt re and

368 Berna Turam


17/23


18/23

were good. The micro-level collaboration explicitly confirms the states

recognition of the movement.

Co-operation with the officially secular states may seem to limit the

autonomy of the Islamic movement to pursue its goals independently. On

the contrary, however, co-operation empowers and emancipates the move-

ment at the international level (Turam 2004: 276). First, the collaboration

with the secular states does not undermine the Islamic goals of the movement,

which is often pursued through extra-curricular activities and cultural events.

The states are not intimidated by the movements schools, as long as the

schools implement a secular curriculum and national/international teaching.

Second, during my fieldwork, I discovered that the teachers and the experts of

education of KATEV have a dual responsibility in this collaboration. In

addition to their participation in educational policy-making, they have

complete authority and autonomy in implementing the educational projects.

This dual responsibility endows the movement with considerable freedom,

particularly in teaching and resocialising the students. Moreover, the move-

ments engagement with the secular states legitimises the movement in the eyes

of both Western states and the local people in the host states. The movement

expands its sphere of influence and power outside the national borders

because of its national loyalties and not in spite of them. The events analysed

above, concerning the international sites of the movement, lead to emergent

reconfigurations of nationness by nationalist Islam.

Conclusion

With the rise of Islamic revival, various kinds of religious nationalisms have

increasingly challenged ineffective secular state nationalisms in the non-

Western world (Jurgensmeyer 1993). In contrast to this trend, Turkish Islam

has started to engage and co-operate with secular states, particularly the

Turkish state and the newly independent nationalising states of Central Asia.The ethnic affinities and the new engagements between Islam and the state call

for a clear-cut differentiation between fundamentalism and various forms of

Islamic nationalisms. The predominant Euro-centric idea of secularism,

understood as the decline of religion and its replacement by nationalism,

obscures the convergences between Islamic and secular nationalism.

The findings challenged two modernist arguments about Islam concerning

the non-nationalist and secularisation-resistant nature of Islam and the taken-

for-granted confrontation between Islamic forces and the secular nation-state.

First, nationalism is likely to secularize Islam. Second, by demonstrating thatthe sacred and religiously rooted foundations of the nations do not necessarily

confront or contradict sec lar state framed nationalism I arg ed for a

370 Berna Turam


19/23

Political Islam is often pitted against the state at the cost of neglecting the

ethnic affinities and the cross-cutting national identities between nation-states

and Islamic movements. Similarly, the exploration of the cultural basis of

belonging and identity in the Muslim context tends to downplay the

inheritance of revivalist Islamic movements from the nation-states, into which

they were born.

A more in-depth insight can be gained from tracing the links, interactions

and affinities between the secular states and Islamic nationalisms. My field-

work demonstrated the ways in which nationness takes shape in the micro-

borders between states and social forces, where cultural and political

processes intertwine in everyday life. By bringing the presumably universa-

listic concepts of nationhood down to the level of ordinary life, the study

illustrated that the sources and consequences of nationalism are not mono-

causal, as grand theories have argued. While ethnic politics repositions the

Gu len movement in relation to the state, the Turkish state and its Republican

project continue to shape both ethnic and Islamic politics and identities.

A third dimension of the study speaks to broader transformations in the

world order and suggests further research. The demise of the Soviet Union has

definitely been an accidental trigger for the rise of the entwining ethnic and

Islamic politics in the Turkic Muslim world. There is no doubt that the nature

of Islamic revival in the Northern-Turkic part of the Muslim world is

dramatically different from the Southern-Arabic region. The key to explainthis difference is the historically and culturally specific affinities between the

nation-states, Islamic movements and ethnic politics. These elective affinities

will continue to be an increasingly important issue for social research on

religious forms of nationalism.

Finally, the study illustrated that the diversity of competing theories of

nationalism is not a handicap for further research. On the contrary, I argued

that the consensus in scholarly work on nationalism, which dichotomizes

culture and politics, is more detrimental to the study of modern Islam than are

the disagreements. Competing theories are likely to enrich the debate, as longas they do not become monologues that intersect (Smith 1998: 222). The

solution is not a unified theory of nationalism, which fails to explain the wide-

ranging variety of nationalisms in different contexts. Instead, we need more

communication and bridges between various theories of nationalism, which

can shed light on our understanding of distinct empirical cases. The difficult

cases of Islamic nationalism and other forms of religious nationalisms can

benefit a great deal from engagements between competing approaches in the

field.

Ackno ledgements



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could not be accomplished without the research grants from McGill Uni-

versity and SPIRIT Institute at Aalborg University in Denmark. I am deeply

thankful to Yesim Bayar, Suzanne Staggenborg and Charles Lindholm for

their invaluable remarks on earlier drafts and to the anonymous reviewers of

Nations and Nationalism for their insightful comments. I am truly grateful for

the never-ending support and guidance of John A. Hall on this project.

Notes

1 It was suggested by one of the anonymous reviewers to refer to the movement as the

fethullahci movement. However, as the followers of the movement consistently object to this

label on the basis of its negative connotations, I was unable to make this change.

2 Authors interviews, Istanbul, 2003.

3 Authors interview, Almaty, 1999.

4 Authors interview with Necati Bey, 1999, in Almaty.

5 Authors interview, Almaty, 1999.

6 Authors interview with the director of KATEV, 1999.

7 Authors interviews with the followers, May 1999, Almaty.

8 Authors fieldwork in Almaty, 1999.

9 Brubaker made the clear-cut separation between civic and ethnic forms of nationalism in his

earlier book, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (1992). However, his recent work

has revised this dichotomy by introducing new terminology, such as state-framed and counter-

state nationalisms, in Brubaker 1998.

10 Authors interviews, 1999, Almaty.

11 Authors interview with Ahmet Bey 1999, Council, Almaty.

12 Authors interview, anonymity asked, 2000.

13 Elective affinities between the movement and the state have been analysed at various levels in

my work, including the politics of ethnicity, gender, education and identity.

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A Bargain between the Secular State and Turkish Islam: Politics of Ethnicity in Central Asia, B. Turam

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