Reinvention of Kemalism: Kemalism Between Elitism, Anti-Elitism and Anti-Intellectualism

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The Reinvention of Kemalism:Between Elitism, Anti-Elitism and Anti-IntellectualismDoğan Gürpinar a

a Istanbul Technical University , IstanbulPublished online: 11 Jun 2013.

To cite this article: Doğan Gürpinar (2013) The Reinvention of Kemalism: BetweenElitism, Anti-Elitism and Anti-Intellectualism, Middle Eastern Studies, 49:3, 454-476, DOI:10.1080/00263206.2013.783822

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The Reinvention of Kemalism:Between Elitism, Anti-Elitismand Anti-Intellectualism

DO�GAN G€URPINAR�

One of the maxims regarding Kemalism was that it was and is an elitist ideology.

This clich�e was taken for granted and self-evident in the conventional historiography

of the Turkish republic and in the Turkish political science literature before the maincontours and premises of the modernist paradigm were questioned and to a large ex-

tent discredited in the last two decades by the revisionist historiography. This view

was shared by the supposedly diverging approaches to modern Turkey such as the

centre–periphery paradigm, the modernization paradigm, and the Marxian and neo-

Marxian paradigms which reigned in academia before the 1980s. In all these

approaches, a dichotomy was established between the Kemalist elite and the masses.

Interestingly, this dichotomy was originally a self-ascription of Kemalism which had

styled the Kemalist military-bureaucratic guard as the enlightened elite devoted toeducate the ignorant masses. Interestingly, this premise of Kemalism was espoused

equally emphatically by both Kemalists and anti-Kemalists alike. Whereas Kemalists

endorsed this axiom to portray themselves as the audacious enlightened few against

the ignorant masses, their anti-Kemalist right-populist foes endorsed this axiom to

portray the right-wing opposition to the Kemalist regime as vox populi against the

illegitimate usurpers, viewing the imagined Kemalist elite as an insurmountable and

gargantuan intellectual–political complex. This article aims to recalibrate this widely

held assumption and probe Kemalism in its modalities.Evidently, we need to contextualize different and partially contradicting manifes-

tations of Kemalism in different historicities and conjectures. Ideologies and modes

of thought are not comprehensive, consistent, and coherent wholes.1 The continuous

reinvention and reconfiguration of Kemalism at different conjectures by different

agents ensued the emergence of different and opposing Kemalisms, all claiming

Kemalism exclusively for themselves.2 Thus, it is tempting to argue that there is no

Kemalism, outside text paraphrasing Derrida. Although most of the contemporary

claims to Kemalism are apparently ahistorical and products of the contemporaryconcerns and agendas rather than derivations of the ‘original Kemalism’, still there is

�Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Email: [email protected]

� 2013 Taylor & Francis

Middle Eastern Studies, 2013

Vol. 49, No. 3, 454–476, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2013.783822

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a certain reservoir of vocabulary of ‘original Kemalism’ from which all these varia-

tions and versions establish their lineage and enjoy a ‘mirage of continuity and

authenticity’. Although Kemalism is not a coherent and comprehensive ideology but

rather an amalgam of different and even contradictory discourses, this article will un-

derline the strong anti-elitist overtones and dimensions of the ‘original Kemalism’.A reassessment of Kemalism is particularly pertinent because of what we observed

in the first decade of the twenty-first century in Turkey, i.e. the vulgarization and

marginalization of the Kemalist ideology and Kemalist discourses. After the reformist

Islamist JDP (Justice and Development Party)3 came to power in 2002, as a response

to this shift of power, a radical reaction with robust anti-elitist and anti-westernist

overtones accompanying its anti-Islamist agenda burgeoned. In this juncture, Kemal-

ism resurged and disseminated among the secular middle classes, intellectuals, and the

bastions of the secular bureaucratic establishment.In fact, this new indoctrination had its origins in the ‘28 February Process’ in

which the Turkish military indirectly intervened in politics, first to topple the ruling

coalition established by the centre-right True Path Party and the Islamist Welfare

Party, subsequently to redesign politics, the state, and society, and finally to margin-

alize Islam and the public presence of Islam. Instead of employing conventional

strategies to target its opponents, the military leadership organized a mobilization of

the civil society and reshaped the ‘hearts and minds’ of the people.4 After 2002, a

form of neo-Kemalism gained popularity, especially among the middle classes, as aresponse to the reformist Islamist JDP’s coming to power in 2002. This process also

resulted in the plebianization of the Kemalist discourse. This was startling because,

conventionally, Kemalism was regarded by Kemalists, non-Kemalists, and anti-

Kemalists alike as an ‘elitist ideology’. According to the subscribers to this view,

Kemalism is the ‘organic ideology of the civil–military bureaucracy’ which perceives

itself as elite, civilized, and cultivated in opposition to the vulgarity and intellectual

philistinism of the masses. This assumption presumes that there is an irreconcilable

contradiction between the ‘enlightened few’, who are secularized and westernized,and the masses who are uneducated and obscurantist. What we observe in the first

decade of the 2000s is the transformation of this perception. Whereas in this decade

the JDP pursued pro-democratic liberal politics and a pro-EU agenda and allied

with the minute liberal intelligentsia, the Kemalist opposition, represented politically

by the main opposition RPP (Republican People’s Party) and intellectually by a self-

styled Kemalist intelligentsia, advocated a hard-line nationalist and authoritarian

line and advanced a Euro-sceptic agenda.5 As a corollary to this development, a new

anti-western, anti-liberal, and extremely xenophobic neo-Kemalist discourse waspopularized via TV shows and programmes, newspaper articles, internet blogs, and

easy-reading political books. This neo-Kemalism was not only ideologically radical,

but also intellectually plebian and demagogic.

The mainstream secular middle class followers of the Kemalist discourse sub-

scribed to a conspiratorial and intellectually plebian political vision, worldview, and

ideology.6 The bookstores in the shopping malls in the well-off quarters of Istanbul,

Ankara, and Izmir began to display intellectually redundant books on their ‘new

arrival’ and ‘best-selling’ shelves. The two principal premises of the neo-Kemalist vis-tas in these books and in the minds of its adherents is as follows: the ruling moderate

Islamist JDP is in the service of western imperialists who are aiming to dismember

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and annihilate Turkey. Simultaneously, the JDP is implementing its hidden agenda

to Islamize Turkey. For the adherents of these conspiracy theories, these two pro-

cesses complement each other. While the secular nationalists are staunch defenders

of the republic, because the Islamists entertain no loyalty to the republic, they would

be indifferent to (if not pleased by) the collapse of the republic at the hands of ene-mies. Furthermore, a marginal and treacherous liberal intelligentsia encourages this

process stemming from their aversion to the nationally minded Kemalist

establishment.7

In Turkey, beginning from the mid-2000s, the bookstores targeting the middle

class were stuffed with conspiracy theory books bought and read by middle class pro-

fessionals depicting Turkish politics as an eternal struggle between the ‘good people’

endeavouring to uphold the Turkish nation-state and the alliance of evil forces, con-

sisting of Islamists, liberal and leftist intellectuals, Jews, and the West (the EU andthe United States).8 Furthermore, the daily Taraf, known for its uncompromising

liberal line, sympathy towards the JDP, and open hostility to the neo-Kemalist dis-

positions, emerged as the bete noir of the secular middle classes. The liberal daily

Taraf was deliberately excluded from the middle class public sphere and all the walks

of this ‘imagined community’ and its habitus. This daily is not allowed on the reading

shelves9 of middle class cafes and its presence was arguably regarded as an offence to

the very values of this imagined community.

The neo-nationalist (ulusalcı) epistemic universe and community which boomedafter JDP came to power and gradually elapsed in 2010–11 in many regards resem-

bles the American right-wing publishing industry’s paranoid style in the age of

Obama not only in terms of their content but also their medium. Although Turkish

neo-nationalism is staunchly secular and overtly anti-religious as opposed to the reli-

giously inspired nature of the new American right, they not only resemble each other

in their exclusivist nativism but also with regard to the means they exploit. Both of

them constitute their exclusive epistemic universe, enjoy a monopoly over a certain

self-evident ‘regime of truth’, and cultivate their own intellectual sphere closed tooutside intrusions. They benefit from the new means of media and communication

such as blogs, websites, and newsgroups. They both enjoy a booming publishing in-

dustry. They are both self-referential.

The discourses employed by the new neo-Kemalist intelligentsia, neo-nationalist

public intellectuals in print and in TV screens and neo-nationalist TV hosts such as

Hulki Cevizo�glu, Banu Avar, Erol M€utercimler and radio hosts such as Nihat Sırdar

and €Umit Zileli resembled the bravados of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann

Coulter in terms of their nostalgia, anti-liberalism, and anti-elitism.10 They alldetested the liberal intelligentsia perceiving them as aloof to the national values, con-

cerns and sentiments and associate themselves with national vigilance and concerned

not only with the coming to power of Obama and JDP respectively but also with the

enhancement of cultural pluralism and diversity. They all self-portray themselves as

mavericks against the elites (regardless of the veracity of their claims).

The transitions between the two are also remarkable. The main themes and prem-

ises of the American right-wing industry of conspiracy theories were extensively

imported and adapted by the neo-nationalist intelligentsia.11 Jonah Goldberg’s Lib-eral Fascism, a book in the genre of American ultra-conservative anti-communism

and anti-intellectualism and an epitome of the right-wing demonization of American

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liberals, was translated in spring 2010,12 and numerous copies of this book were dis-

played in the ‘popular books’ sections among many others. The book authored by

Goldberg, who was one of the first to popularize the alleged analogy between Obama

and Hitler, was displayed right next to many other books targeting the middle classes

and imbued with middle class sensibilities (such as books on Italian cuisine, pets,flowers and gardening, and best destinations for summer holidays) and books on

Atat€urk in the bookstore chains exclusively appealing to the middle classes,13 such as

D&R, Remzi, and _Inkılab. Ironically, books authored by right-wing nationalists and

even Islamists such as Aydo�gan Vatandas, Hakan Yılmaz Cebi, and Sadi Somun-

cuo�glu, and numerous books published by the Islamic Timas Publishing House,14

which produces books explaining the world (and Turkey) by grand conspiracies, be-

gan to be displayed (and sold) in these bookstores benefiting from the moral crisis of

the secular middle classes.Xenophobic nationalism resurged in the 2000s in Turkey, portraying and imposing

itself as Kemalist and engendering the illusion that there exists one single Kemalism

with an authorized, traceable trajectory from Mustafa Kemal Atat€urk to the 2000s.

On the one hand, this new Kemalism, which is considerably different from the main-

stream Kemalism espoused by the middle class for decades, attests to the ‘crisis of

Kemalism’ and hence marks the ‘death of Kemalism’ in the age of globalization and

erosion of nation-states. On the other hand, this development may be viewed as the

backlash of the ‘original Kemalism’ before it was modified and rendered compatiblewith a multi-party democracy with the onset of the Cold War.15

It may legitimately be stipulated that, with the end of the Cold War, the alliance

with the United States and the West against the Soviet threat from the north was

no longer as immanent as it had been, and thus in the new geopolitics, the Kemal-

ist ideology could revert to its isolationist vision of the 1930s. Hence, disassociation

from the West in terms of international relations arguably facilitated the revival of

the anti-intellectualist discourses of the 1920s and 1930s. Here it will be argued

that the neo-Kemalism of the 2000s is partially a novel invention that emerged as aconsequence of the age of globalization (and the age of insecurity) and the weaken-

ing of Keynesian nation-states and partially as a consequence of the persistence

and resilience of a mental set produced in the unique circumstances of a particular

historical juncture which witnessed the ascension of rival imperialisms, the retreat

and dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, and the ensuing rise of Turkish

nationalism. Thus, on the one hand, the new xenophobic and belligerent national-

ism and nation-statism is a totally novel phenomenon and, on the other hand, it

could not flourish if the historical legacy it emulated and exploited was not condu-cive to it. Arguably, it is a stimulating case of the persistence of ideas over material

conditions and the autonomous lives of the ideas and concepts once they were

generated.

Given that Kemalist ideology was partially moulded within the Young Turk men-

tal framework, first, the 1908 Young Turk Revolution and its repercussions have to

be briefly discussed to contextualize ‘original Kemalism’. The 1908 Revolution and

the institutionalization of a parliament had a revolutionary impact on the socio-

economic organization of Ottoman politics. It resulted in the democratization ofpolitics, not necessarily in terms of electoral procedures but in terms of the transfor-

mation of the social backgrounds of the politicians and statesmen.16 With 1908, a

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new generation with a new social and cultural background came to power, weaken-

ing the institutional and cultural bases of the Ottoman ancien r�egime.

Generation is a historical category constructed within social and political

circumstances rather than a cultural concept. As Wohl points out, ‘historical gen-

erations are not born; they are made’.17 Early experiences and particular modes ofsocialization in particular periods are crucial for the formation and development

of individuals and constitutive of pervasive and shared mindsets. Generations are

also class-bound. It is an ideational and cultural concept. Therefore, generations

are exclusive rather than inclusive. For example, Robert Wohl defines the genera-

tion of 1914 as follows:

In early twentieth century Europe, generationalists [generation of 1914] werealmost always literary intellectuals living in large cities. They were members of a

small elite who were keenly aware of their uniqueness and proud of their intel-

lectual superiority. What concerned these writers or would-be writers was their

decline of culture and the waning of vital energies; what drove them together

was the desire to create new values and to replace those that were fading; what

incited them to action was the conviction that they represented the future in the

present.18

Paradoxically, the generation of 1914 subsumed all Europe by surpassing national

borders, but excluded many of the layers and cultural formations of Europe at the

same time. Likewise, the Tanzimat generations were also simultaneously both exclu-

sive and inclusive.19

The Young Turk (subsuming the young officials of the late Hamidian era) genera-

tion epitomizes a deliberate and full-blown renunciation of the values, codes, and

mentalities of their fathers. As pointed out above, generational politics cannot be

isolated from social changes and transformations. The reshaping of the class struc-tures and the export of new thoughts gave rise to the emergence of new cultures of

politics and new social, political, and philosophical cosmologies. In the late Ottoman

context, we may argue that a mental revolution was followed by a social and political

revolution. The new Young Turk generation was radical in terms of their cultural

proclivities and values and juxtaposed itself in opposition to the culturally aristo-

cratic and conservative Tanzimat generation and elite.

The Young Turk generation emerged with a distinct mentality structure. Dismiss-

ing the conservative value system of their predecessors, as children of the materialis-tic very late nineteenth century European thought,20 they advanced a new and

radical agenda. Their radicalism arguably involved three components: nationaliza-

tion, secularization, and modernization. They were proud sons of the Enlightenment

and its secular and rational values, but they also entertained an anti-elitist rhetoric

deriving partially from their anti-western, anti-liberal, and anti-rational

proclivities.21

The ‘Turkish people’ were discovered at such a conjecture. The uncorrupted na-

ture and purity of the Turkish folk were discovered and consecrated. This was juxta-posed in opposition to the impure blood of Istanbul and the Ottoman ancien

r�egime.22 The National Struggle led by the government in Ankara was in many ways

moulded with by populist airs of the Unionists. Its discourse was an idiosyncratic

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blend of Turkism, populism, and Islamism instigated by the impacts of Bolshevism.23

The volkish and populist romanticism was not necessarily shared by the majority of

the members of the National Struggle, but this Unionist narodnik ideology was a

significant motivation for many adherents of the National Struggle,24 especially re-

garding the left-wing Unionists who were also inspired by Bolshevism and short-lived leftist utopianism in Anatolia (known as the Eastern Ideal – Do�gu Mefkuresi).

Furthermore, as conveyed in their memoirs, many were enthralled with the anti-

monarchist, politically and socially progressive sentiments and ideas among the Ana-

tolian villagers they encountered (and who, as they noted in their memoirs, were

scorned erroneously by the Ottoman intelligentsia).25 In many ways, the reluctant

move to Ankara became a retreat to the pure and uncorrupted heartland of Anato-

lian Turkishness and was perceived as a liberation from the degenerate Istanbul.26

Ankara was posited as the diametric opposite of the values that Istanbul and theOttoman ancien r�egime based in Istanbul represented.27 The rebels in Ankara were

uncompromising, virile, Spartan, and uncorrupted. The Ottoman ancien r�egime was

depicted as corrupt, decadent, effeminate, and opportunistic. They perceived the

reconciliation of the Ottoman establishment with the invading British as stemming

from their ideological and ethical perfidiousness. Those who remained in Istanbul, in

the words of Mustafa Kemal, ‘could not dare to serve the Turkish nation in its

bleakest days but preferred to be servants of [sultan] Vahdettin’.28 Quoting Mustafa

Kemal from his ‘Speech’, the official Kemalist history textbook contrasts these twoopposing visions as ‘two different mentalities and characters’. For the history

textbook, the Ottoman statesmen who remained in Istanbul were ‘deficient of energy

and any motivation for sacrifice, sluggish and notorious but arrogant’.29 In contrast,

those who moved to the ‘heart of the fatherland’ were genuine Turks (€oz T€urkler)opting for the low-paid, uncomfortable, and difficult jobs available in Anatolia.30

The two novels by Yakup Kadri Karaosmano�glu, the foremost novelist with Kem-

alist commitment and credentials (Kiralık Konak – Mansion for Rent and Sodom ve

Gomorra – Sodom and Gomorrah), also depicted the decadent demi-monde of Istan-bul.31 Whereas the first (published in 1922) was a general critique of the degeneration

of the first Tanzimat generation’s morals into mere western degeneracy, in the later

one (published in 1928), Yakup Kadri depicted the Istanbul of 1918–22 as a hub of

corruption comparable to the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah. The occupation not

only damaged the Turks politically, but also morally corrupted them. In this novel,

the political and ideological differences were represented as moral issues. National

treason was equated with the sexual permissiveness of the women in Istanbul who

were flirting with the British officers.32 The denigration of occupied Istanbul in moralterms ran throughout the novel. Falih Rıfkı Atay, one of Atat€urk’s confidants andthe long-time editor of the party’s official daily, also depicted Istanbul as hedonistic

and treacherous. Quoting Armstrong, he wrote:

Istanbul of sweet water Ottomans, Turkishness of the Liberty and Alliance

Party [liberal-conservative political party opposing the Ankara government and

Unionists] and the Christendom of Beyo�glu . . . is a wound. There are no greatideals and inspirations. This is a city of ignoble people living in dirty streets. It is

the headquarters of intrigue, preposterousness, treachery, and cowardice. It is a

city of treacherous men and promiscuous women.33

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For Halide Edip Adıvar, some quarters of _Istanbul were ‘like a bleeding wound of

a nation that became gangrenous’.34 In the official military history of the National

Struggle published after the end of hostilities, the women of the Ottoman imperial

elite were accused of ‘dancing in the arms of the commanders and officers of the ex-

termination and destruction armies . . . in the palaces of Tesvikiye and Nisantası andthe villas on Bosphorus’.35

It was argued that the quality of literature had deteriorated with Kemalist rule,

and this was no coincidence. The late Ottoman literary styles and currents were dis-

credited and disparaged by the Kemalist canon due to their sentimentalism, escap-

ism, and individualism. There was an attempt to launch a ‘national realist’ canon,36

which was to prioritize national concerns and national awareness over pure literary

and aesthetic concerns and quality. The same didacticism, the Kemalist preoccupa-

tion with creating ‘nationalized styles’, and the condemnation of modern art as ‘anaggressive counter-cultural tendency, born out of post-war hysteria, and cut off from

any ties to habit and tradition’ or ‘psychologically disturbed mind’ can be observed

also in the other fields of art such as painting, music, and sculpture.37

In fact, the leading opponents of the National Struggle were overwhelmingly the

adversaries of the Unionists. They regarded the Unionists and the cadres of

the Ankara government as upstarts of inferior social and cultural capital, lacking the

refinement required to legitimately govern the imperial state.38 Ali Kemal regarded

the Ankara government as ‘ruffians, rogues, imbecilic bullies . . . , murderers’ (ipsiz,sapsız, akılsız, fikirsiz zorbalar . . . , caniler), and hence for him the Ankara govern-

ment had to be eradicated at all costs (kan, can, mal ne bahasına olursa olsun temizle-

melidir).39 For Refik Halid Karay the Unionist ‘rogues’ ‘headed from the local

coffeehouse (mahalle kahvesi) in one step to the prime ministry and from the stools

of the local pub to ministerial posts’.40 Thus, the Ankara government upholding the

Unionist cause had no credibility or respectability in the eyes of Karay.41 The propo-

nents of an aristocratic, liberal conservatism on many occasions derided the Ankara

government as a group of uncivilized sans-culottes.42

With the end of the National Struggle and the establishment of a republic in

Ankara, the new political power had to curb the anti-authoritarian and populist

overtones of the National Struggle once the war was over and the Ankara regime

emerged as the only political authority, ending the Ottoman government based in

Istanbul. Subsequently, a ‘myth of the state’ was constructed which was regarded as

the embodiment of the Turkish nation. The new state was to be organized strictly

top to bottom. Its nationalism and national identity were constructed upon this

myth of the state, and the nation was rendered submissive to the state since the newTurkish republic embodied and represented the nation (unlike its imperial predeces-

sor). The enlightened Kemalist guard was to civilize, educate, and lead the nation.

However, the anti-intellectualism, populism, and anti-elitism embedded within the

Kemalist mindset persisted.

One of the principal traits of the Kemalist republic in Ankara was its robust senti-

ment against non-Muslims.43 The Armenians were massacred and wiped out during

the First World War, and the Greeks were expatriated between 1922 and 1924 with

the exception of those Greeks resident in Istanbul.44 Thus, Anatolia was ‘cleansed’of non-Muslims with the exception of small, scattered Armenian, Jewish, and Syriac

communities. However, Istanbul continued to be a heavily non-Muslim city although

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the percentage of non-Muslims resident in Istanbul also shrank considerably after

the War of Independence.

Thus, Istanbul was associated with all the undesirable elements. It was the hub of

the intrigues of the ancien r�egime, non-Muslims, the sultanate, the caliphate, and

creeping western capitalism/imperialism and its local beneficiaries. Thus, Istanbulwas deliberately ignored during the Kemalist single-party period.45 Ankara aimed to

create its own and ‘better’ counter-elite, its (organic and ideologically committed and

reliable) counter-intellectuals and counter-culture. Against the despised liberal, cos-

mopolitan, and cynical intellectuals such as Ali Kemal (who was lynched in 1922),

and Refik Halid Karay and Refii Cevat Ulunay (who were exiled), a new nationally

minded, politically engaged, and loyalist intelligentsia was to be crafted. On the one

hand, it recruited many willing sons of the Istanbul establishment and the Ottoman

ancien r�egime. However, an intense mistrust of the Ottoman establishment in Istan-bul persisted. It also has to be observed that the Kemalist cadres were predominantly

men of humble origins who owed their position to their merit and training (examples

of upward mobility included Mustafa Kemal Atat€urk46 and _Ismet _In€on€u47). Thisshould not be surprising. Although Kemalist politicians, bureaucrats, and the estab-

lishment in general included in their ranks many sons of prosperous families either

from the Istanbul establishment (e.g. Yakup Kadri Karaosmano�glu, Hamdullah

Suphi Tanrı€over, and Numan Menemencio�glu) or from the provincial elites (e.g.

S€ukr€u Saraco�glu and Mahmut Esat Bozkurt) and although the landowners werealso significantly represented in the parliament due to their support for the RPP, the

reigning ideology was, as argued above, derived from the Unionist and modernist-

radical social vision. This political, ideological, and cultural party line was imposed

upon the relatively aristocratic recruits. Although a new discourse of elitism was

crafted, this new elitist and intellectualist discourse was moulded into an anti-

intellectualist discourse despising cosmopolitan and liberal intellectuals as out of

touch with the people and insensitive to the agonies of the nation – the concepts of

nation and people being identical.The policy of restructuring the Turkish diplomatic service is illustrative. As the

Ottoman government in Istanbul was abolished by the leadership of the War of Inde-

pendence on 1 November 1922, the Ottoman Foreign Ministry was also abolished.

With that decision, hundreds of officials serving in the Ministry became unemployed.

Two weeks later, all the foreign representations of the Ottoman Empire were

assigned to Ahmed Ferid (Tek), the Paris representative of the Ankara government.

Ahmed Ferid sent circulars to the undersecretaries or other assigned officials to take

over the administration of the relevant embassies and representations.48 For exam-ple, the man in charge in the London embassy was no longer Mustafa Resid Pasa,

but Sefik Bey. In Stockholm, the head of the representation became Esad Bey, who

replaced the ambassador Galip Kemali (S€oylemezo�glu). However, decisions with

regard to other heads of representations were not unambiguous. Although Ahmed

Ferid Bey assigned the second secretary, Numan Rifat Bey (Menemencio�glu), inplace of the head official, Resat Nuri Bey, he informed Resat Nuri Bey that this

decision was temporary and that he should stay in Berne and take a rest while wait-

ing for the final decision. It seems that some prominent diplomats with connectionsand affiliations with the ancien r�egime and some scions of the Ottoman aristocratic

houses were removed while others (who clearly constituted the majority of the

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diplomatic service) who were not regarded as associated with the ancien r�egime were

retained.49 We may conclude that this was a partial takeover of the Istanbul establish-

ment. The new ambassadors consisted of those who served in the National Struggle

and who were loyal to Mustafa Kemal (such as H€usrev Gerede, Kemalettin Sami, and

Ahmed Ferid). Thus, the Kemalist diplomatic establishment was a mixture of the oldOttoman bureaucratic establishment and the new cadres of the Kemalist movement.

The cadres below the ambassadorial posts continued to serve as Republican loyalists

who were promoted to more prominent posts in time. However, ideologically, the

culture of the new republic was to be imposed upon the diplomatic service, and it had

to be internalized by the old cadres.

Although in the first ten years of the Republic, the Republican Ministry of the

Foreign Ministry was reluctant to fill diplomatic posts with those sympathetic to

Britain or France, or with imperial loyalists, they encountered difficulty in recruitingqualified younger people due to the unattractiveness of Ankara and the limited pros-

pects of such a career. However, the Foreign Ministry reacquired its earlier prestige

and became a niche of prestige and high esteem, attracting the descendants of the

aristocratic/imperial families of Istanbul and the sons of high-ranking bureaucrats

and of the new political elite in Ankara with the new entanglements in Europe of the

early 1930s.50 With the appointment of Numan Menemencio�glu as the general secre-

tary of the Ministry in 1933, it became professionalized and ‘admission to the Minis-

try was now conditional on the candidate’s passing an entrance examination’.51 Theinternationalization of politics, the escalation of tensions in Europe, and diplomacy’s

increasing importance from the early 1930s onwards led to the professionalization of

the Ministry. In short, the Republic took over the imperial cadres, and the Ministry

became one of the most prestigious offices of the Republic after ten years of neglect.

The Turkish diplomatic service with its distinct ethos became one of the foremost

bastions and quintessential embodiments of the secular and Kemalist Turkish repub-

lic. It espoused a discourse of elitism based on the premises of Kemalism, cultivated

a mistrust of westerners, and forged a nationalist-westernist and nation-statist modeof thought.52 The pro-United States and pro-western proclivities of the Turkish dip-

lomatic service replaced a strong isolationist line with the onset of the Cold War.

However, although the Turkish diplomatic service was one of the bastions of loyalty

to the transatlantic alliance, it fused a pro-American and pro-NATO stance with a

strong nation-statism and a mistrust of multilateralism stemming from its cultural

and ideological leanings and Sevrophobia.53

This became even more apparent after the end of the Cold War. In the absence of

an overarching international conjuncture, whereas some retired diplomats withrelatively liberal credentials, such as _Ilter T€urkmen and €Ozdem Sanberk, espoused a

pro-American and pro-western line as a continuation of their Cold War commit-

ments, others, such as Onur €Oymen, S€ukr€u Elekda�g, and G€und€uz Aktan, emerged

as anti-western, neo-nationalist opinion leaders (and later politicians) concomitant

with their Kemalist cosmologies and Kemalist premises which they had retained

throughout their professional service and finally revealed in the post-Cold War world

and in the age of globalization.54

Onur €Oymen defined the liberal intellectuals as ‘quasi-intellectuals (s€ozde aydınlar)and spokespersons of foreigners’.55 Whereas €Oymen and Elekda�g joined the Kemal-

ist RPP, in 2007 G€und€uz Aktan (along with Deniz B€ol€ukbası, another retired

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diplomat) became an MP for the right-wing nationalist NAP (Nationalist Action

Party), a party with a conservative and lower class constituency. G€und€uz Aktan’s

preference seemed to stem from his increasingly anti-elitist, anti-liberal, and anti-

intellectual parlance as a response to the rise of the JDP and the liberal intelligentsia.

Dismayed with liberals’ ruthless criticism of state policies, Aktan argues that the lib-erals who overwhelmingly come from leftist origins ‘suffer from a trauma’. They

‘injured their notions of justice and identity’ because of the traumas they cultivated

during their leftist days when their political activism was suppressed by the state. For

Aktan, because of their profound hostility towards the state, they do not entertain

‘loyalty to the state and the nation . . . , and [furthermore] look to the West for

authority’ seemingly also suffering from an inferiority complex regarding the West.

Hence, in Aktan’s Freudian analysis, their vengeance on the state is the source of

this ‘liberal nonsense’.56 His joining NAP, a political party abhorrent to his ideologi-cal proclivities and his cultural and social habitus, was highly unlikely if he would

not champion neo-nationalism and begin to perceive the NAP as sharing his anti-

liberalism and his anti-intellectualism which augments and surges with his anti-

liberal inklings.

The Kemalism these retired diplomats espoused was reminiscent of the anti-liberal

and anti-intellectualist jargon of the 1930s. Although diplomats in Turkey are

addressed derogatorily as mon cher,57 referring to their cosmopolitan and elitist out-

looks (and to imply they are alienated from the ‘authentic natural culture’, a perfectcase of conservative anti-elitist discourse), their anti-liberal and nationalist dis-

courses can hardly be regarded as elitist in the sense that they subscribed to a nation-

alist discourse that contradicts the refinement and social exclusivity they supposedly

espouse. Furthermore, given that they are prone to question the loyalties and creden-

tials of those who criticize this stand, they can be regarded as highly anti-intellectual.

In the neo-nationalist intellectual climate of Turkey, these mes chers gradually began

to replicate the patterns of anti-elitist and anti-intellectual discourses associated with

right-wing populist discourses denigrating the imagined Kemalist elite and its atti-tudes. Although predominantly coming from elitist backgrounds and habitus, politi-

cally, they appeared at venues that may hardly be regarded as elitist, such as TV

programmes hosted by anti-intellectual and populist hosts or panels organized by

NGOs with anti-intellectual affinities, the most well-known and influential ones be-

ing ADD (Society for Ataturkist Thinking) and TGB (The League of Turkish

Youth).58 This contradictory development was normalized and not seriously pro-

blematized arguably due to the inherent anti-intellectualism of the ‘original

Kemalism’ embedded in its discourse of elitism.Kemalism’s discourses of anti-elitism and anti-intellectualism were accompanied

by self-styled discourses of elitism and intellectualism. The republican spartanism,

anti-elitism, and anti-intellectualism – most blatantly observable in the Jacobin

French revolutionaries59 (and also in the Bolsheviks, the contemporaries of Kemal-

ism), discredited the ancien r�egime elite as effeminate and sexually debased, as shown

in the pornographic images of Marie Antoinette common in the pamphlets widely

distributed during the French Revolution60 – were patterns also observable in the

radicalism of the early Turkish republic. Whereas the liberal, cosmopolitan intellec-tuals and elite were to be despised for their indifference to the fate of the nation and

the state (given that the state represented the common good of the nation), an

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alternative engaged and idealist elite and intelligentsia were to be espoused.61 This

counter-intelligentsia may be regarded as the negation of the intelligentsia in terms

of the mission it was charged with. Yakup Kadri Karaosmano�glu’s novels are illus-trative of this dialogic mental set. Yakup Kadri sought a revival and purification via

replacing the decayed intelligentsia with a new and vigilant one. The new intelligent-sia was to emanate from the hearts of the people and the nation and to stand for the

uncorrupted values of the people and the nation in opposition to the corrupt con-

formism of the Ottoman ancien r�egime intelligentsia. Nevertheless, he was disap-

pointed in his aspirations. Whereas in his other books he criticized the decadent

intellectuals and the Ottoman intelligentsia, in his utopian novel Ankara62 he

expounded a critique of the end of idealism and altruism of the National Struggle

and the corruption of the intellectual guard of the new regime once a new state with

its vested interests was founded in Ankara.This double rhetoric of Kemalism persisted throughout the republic. It retained

the image of a corrupt and treacherous intelligentsia indifferent to social affairs

against which the patriotic Kemalist counter-intelligentsia was juxtaposed. However,

the elitist dimensions of Kemalism became more visible and explicit, especially after

the transition to a multi-party regime in which Kemalist ideology was redefined as a

tutelary stage for democracy and reconstructed as compatible with the premises of

post-war liberal democracy.63 Whereas before the consolidation of Kemalist single-

party rule, the anti-Kemalist and pro-monarchical opposition was embodied in theKemalist demonology in the Istanbul/Ottoman ancien r�egime establishment,64 with

the transition to multi-party democracy, the anti-Kemalist reactionary foes emerged

as the ignorant and unenlightened masses, who were prone to be deceived by clerical-

ism. This transformation of the Kemalist demonology was possible because of the

Kemalist establishment’s successful obliteration of its prehistory. With this mecha-

nism of obliteration, Kemalism could claim elitism for itself. A new bureaucratic cul-

ture and a bureaucratic elite emerged which upheld the Kemalist/republican

premises, ideals, and mental cosmology. This bureaucratic culture and elite had de-veloped an ethos distinct from the allegedly selfish and corrupt aristocratic bureau-

cratic culture of the Ottoman ancien regime. It had to be altruistic, self-sacrificing,

and socially and nationally concerned.65 This mental cosmology was also endorsed

by the middle class that expanded throughout the republic, perceived itself as grateful

(and thus subordinate) to the Kemalist state, and cultivated a shrewd allegiance to it

by internalizing its ethos and premises. The self-identity of the middle classes was

welded around a benevolent and progressive state protected by a Kemalist ethos as if

in the lack of this protective belt, middle classes could not survive and prosper.As indicated above, the ‘original Kemalism’ of the single-party regime was success-

fully transformed into an ideology compatible with a multi-party political system and

aligned with the Transatlantic alliance. What is striking is that the nature of ‘original

Kemalism’ and the contradictions inherent in the Kemalist discourse were success-

fully obliterated in the eyes of its adherents (and its critics). In the process of the ‘(re)

invention of Kemalism’ and as Kemalism became elitist over time,66 the RPP’s rule

was rid of its affinities with the authoritarian intra-war rightist regimes. The reaction-

ary modernism67 of the 1930s was altered. Its anti-urban,68 anti-liberal, anti-market,69and pro-ruralist70 affinities and policies were also obliterated by the post-

war Kemalist historiography in favour of a post-Second World War imagination of

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a single-party rule with pro-industrialization, pro-capitalist, pro-urban, and pro-

middle class inclinations, as the Cold War Kemalism was. It was also rendered com-

patible with the reorientation of the foreign policy of Turkey at the onset of the Cold

War. Isolationist Turkey, mistrustful of any western intervention, emerged as a

staunch client of the United States and a partner of the transatlantic western alliance,and thus Kemalism had to be redefined as compatible with western democratic and

liberal values.71 In other words, it had to be domesticated and made safe for a liberal

democratic ideal. This ‘Cold War Kemalism’ (or Anglo-Saxon Kemalism, depicting

Kemalism as an ideology of tutelage educating Turkish society to be able to endorse

a liberal democracy) could be successfully espoused and internalized by the middle

classes. The newly designed Kemalism was an ideology of centrism and represented

the political ‘mainstream’ and political conservatism. This Cold War interpretation

of Kemalism and its centrism was to be shattered with the end of the Cold War (orarguably from €Ozal onwards).

The end of the Cold War caused a redefinition and transformation of Kemalism.

With the end of the Cold War, the alliance with the United States and allegiance to

NATO were no longer pivotal to the interests of the state. Although the 28 February

Process initiated in the second half of the 1990s was supported by the United States

and although one of the aims of the 28 February Process was to reorient the Turkish

foreign policy to a pro-western and pro-United States orientation, in time, due to the

clash of different factions within the military,72 the initiators of the 28 February pro-cess tilted towards an anti-American posture and isolationist foreign policy orienta-

tion. This new orientation was arguably tantamount to a rupture in the institutional

culture of the Turkish military, which (as the second largest army of NATO) had

been one of the pillars of the pro-American foreign policy orientation of Turkey.73

A similar drift in the mindsets of the subscribers to the centrist-mainstream Kem-

alism was observed. The perception of a double threat from Kurdish separatism and

an Islamic revival (both allegedly supported by the imperialist West to weaken the

secular Turkish republic) led the natural clientele of mainstream-centrist Kemalismto turn to a radical and xenophobic nationalism and nation-statism in search of shel-

ter and assurance in an age of insecurity. Although the secular middle classes per-

ceived themselves to be an educated, ‘civilized’ and enlightened elite in contrast to

the lower class and philistine electorate of the reformist Islamist JDP, what they

ended up with was an anti-intellectualist jargon assailing cosmopolitan and liberal

intellectuals lacking a national spirit.74

This perception was historically and traditionally endorsed by the military (being

inherent in the military culture as shared by all the militaries throughout the world75)and the military and its institutional culture fomenting in the barracks and garrisons

juxtaposed itself in opposition to the conformism of ivory tower intellectualism.

What we observe is the transmission of this anti-intellectualist attitude to the con-

formist middle classes.

What is striking is the coexistence of an elitist/intellectualist and an anti-

intellectualist discourse in the mental structures of the secular middle classes. Ironi-

cally, this anti-intellectualist discourse in fact assails and vilifies middle class culture,

values, sensitivities, and conformism. This implausible structure of mentalityemerged and dominated the middle class discourse in the 2000s, simultaneously de-

spising the cosmopolitan and liberal intellectuals (for being insensitive to the Islamist

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and separatist threats) and despising the philistinism, ignorance, and backwardness

of the lower classes, who are seen as the clientele of the Islamist reformist JDP.

According to this discourse, while liberal and cosmopolitan intellectuals deride the

Kemalist ideology due to their lack of social and national sensibilities, the lower clas-

ses vote for the JDP due to their lack of learning and due to their patriarchal cultureand culture of obedience. It was the enlightened, nationally sensitive, and patriotic

middle class that was concerned with the future of the secular Turkish republic. Nev-

ertheless, the interesting development was that while reformist Islamists valued the

liberal intellectuals and allied with them, seeking legitimacy and approval, the emerg-

ing axis comprised of liberals and reformist Islamists was countered by an emerging

counter-intelligentsia. This counter-intelligentsia styled itself as the organic intelli-

gentsia of Kemalism and espoused a strong anti-intellectualist discourse, indicting

liberals as cosmopolitan and alienated from the culture and values of society, accus-ing them of whitewashing the secret agenda of Islamists and Kurdish separatists.

Many emerged as the public opinion leaders, appealing to the middle classes from

the numbers of this neo-nationalist intelligentsia. For example, Vural Savas, the ex-

attorney general of the High Court of Appeal who emerged upon his retirement as a

public opinion leader, stipulated in the introduction to one of his popular books

that, ‘those who observed that nets of treachery of the collaborators seized media,

universities, and all the other institutions of the republic like an octopus responded

by sparking a “deep wave”’,76 the ‘deep wave’ being the rightful vengeance of thepeople against the corrupt and collaborationist intelligentsia. For Banu Avar, the

popular TV host, documentarian, and best-selling author of several books read by

the middle classes, many Turkish ‘intellectuals’ regard Sweden as their ‘homeland’

and are ‘accredited’ to the West. Avar praised and contrasted the ‘genuine

intelligentsia’ comprised of the intellectuals of left-Kemalist daily Cumhuriyet and the

extreme right and fascist Yenica�g in opposition to the treacherous quasi-intellectuals

of the liberal camp.77

Yılmaz €Ozdil, a columnist for H€urriyet (possibly the most influential newspaper inTurkey) and arguably one of the most popular and widely read columnists among

the secular Turkish middle classes, emerged as the most outspoken proponent of this

new anti-intellectual discourse. Yılmaz €Ozdil developed a fascistic discourse assailing

the JDP, Kurds, and liberals.78 What was enigmatic and impressive in Yılmaz €Ozdil

was that he could develop a fascistic discourse out of middle class sensitivities, anxi-

eties, and concerns while embedding it in his sarcastic and humorous writing style,

thus becoming the epitome of ‘banal fascism’ or ‘conformist fascism’. Depicting him-

self and his readers as ‘civilized, cultivated, intellectually superior, socially aware andconcerned, and responsible’, he disdained those whom he perceived as uneducated,

rapacious, insensitive to the concerns of the people and the country, and only caring

for their luxury in expensive hotels. He became successful in forging an intimate

bond with his readers as belonging to the same habitus and ‘imagined community’ of

the educated secular middle class and engendering a ‘sense of community’. Other

leading neo-nationalist public opinion leaders who articulated and conveyed the sen-

timents of the middle classes, such as widely read ex-H€urriyet columnists Bekir

Coskun and Emin C€olasan, also imagined a ‘republican utopia’ back in time withnostalgia where there was no corruption and the vices of unabashed neoliberal capi-

talism.79 They portrayed affiliates of the JDP as a philistine and morally corrupt

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nouveau riche, spending their money lavishly in contrast to those who were imbued

with the republican values and virtues, who therefore lived parsimoniously and mod-

estly and shunned any luxury, such as Ahmed Necdet Sezer, the president of Turkey

between 2000 and 2007, who became a neo-nationalist icon and was praised not only

for his Kemalist and patriotic credentials but also for his humility and aversion toluxury and pomposity.80 Especially €Ozdil and C€olasan depicted the liberals and JDP

affiliates as a corrupt elite and the neo-nationalists loyal to the premises of the Kem-

alist secular republic as men of the people benefiting from the anti-elitist discourses

which were exhaustively employed by the Islamists to discredit the allegedly super-

westernized and alienated secular elite. Thus in Yılmaz €Ozdil, in Emin C€olasan, whoblended his anti-corruption agenda with his Kemalist thinking, and in Bekir Coskun,

who emerged as the most prominent exponent of the ‘republican modesty’ as

opposed to ‘neo-liberal hedonism’, a blatant elitism was blended with staunch anti-intellectualism derived from the anti-elitist premises of the inherited Kemalist ideology.

The phenomenon of Turgut €Ozakman’s documentary-novel (which was originally

written as the script of the film Kurtulus, screened for state television TRT in 1994)

Su C ılgın T€urkler (Those Crazy Turks) perfectly illustrates this shift.81 This docu-

mentary-novel, published for the first time in 2005, sold more than 700,000 copies

(with more than 300 reprints) excluding an estimated another 700,000 pirated cop-

ies82 within a few years and became a must-read for the secular middle class. This

didactic book, which arguably acquired republican and Kemalist cult status, is aslightly fictionalized epic narrative of the National Struggle. €Ozakman, following the

plot of Yakup Kadri and others, targets the cosmopolitan and ‘denationalized’ demi-

monde of Istanbul and portrays it as degenerate and decadent. Again, sexual morals

are extensively employed and the strain between the nationally minded Turks and

the others is conveyed within a sexualized discourse. The theme of the debauched

women of Istanbul and the rapacious British officers is articulated extensively

throughout the book. Whereas the demi-monde of Istanbul is depicted as treacher-

ous, the self-sacrificing idealists in Ankara are portrayed as uncompromising, bellig-erent, and boorish, as these qualities are regarded as evidence of their renunciation

of British imperialism and western rapacity and arrogance.

In the original film version of the documentary-book (Kurtulus), Nesrin, the hero-

ine, is one of the three daughters of an Istanbul aristocrat who is shown scene social-

izing with cosmopolitan intellectuals, such as Ali Kemal, and with British officers at

a garden party. Whereas Nesrin’s two sisters are fond of British officers and enthusi-

astically socialize with them, Nesrin refuses to join the garden party and secludes

herself. Ironically, whereas Nesrin’s morally loose two sisters are shown exposingtheir hair and faces, chaste Nesrin prefers to veil her hair (apparently to protect her

chastity and conceal her body from the gaze of British officers). This scene demon-

strates how the national resistance was (in the representation of Turgut €Ozakman)

coded within a (sexist) moral language and envisions a patriarchal, conservative so-

cial order. This is the view praised and consecrated by the enthusiastic readers of€Ozakman’s best-seller. In the book, to escape from this corruption, Nesrin flees to

Ankara to join the National Movement. When asked in Ankara ‘why she had come

to the Middle Ages’ from Istanbul, she responds: ‘because of my father’s associationwith (yatıp, kalkmasından) the members of the Liberty and Alliance Party, his admi-

ration of Ali Kemal’s articles, my fianc�ee’s and his family’s flattering of the British,

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and the dishonour of the families around us. I was depressed, embarrassed, and

disgusted. Then, I fled here’.83 Apparently, for €Ozakman, some of the Turks in Istan-

bul were in good company with the invaders and ‘lived in pleasure and comfort (zevk

ve sefa icinde) without bothering about anything’.84 According to the glossary pre-

pared by €Ozakman for his middle class readers to learn about the period and readthe book appropriately, the members and leaders of the demonized Liberty and Alli-

ance Party consisted of ‘defenders of the ummah lacking any national sentiments,

quarter intellectuals lacking any concern for independence, collaborators [with the en-

emy], exploiters of religion, and fanatics’.85 The political and ideological implications

for €Ozakman were unambiguous. For him, Turkey was under the assault of western

imperialism and its local collaborators in the 2000s as was the case in 1918–22. Islam-

ists and liberal hedonist intellectuals who lacked national mores and sentiments posed

an imminent threat and had to be defeated by belligerence and vigilance as demon-strated by Kemalists in Ankara in 1919–22. In short, €Ozakman conveyed a plot con-

structed in the historicity of a certain specific conjuncture imbued with the values and

cultural and ideological proclivities of a certain group (the republican Kemalist elite)

to be enthusiastically embraced by an audience which is a product of another historic-

ity and adapted it to a very different historicity addressing a very different audience in

terms of its own cultural and mental structures. €Ozakman succeeded in influencing his

audience by framing a certain perception of a different age and environment and

eternalizing/perpetuating it by extending it to the contemporary age.Turgut €Ozakman’s book is not an exception. On the contrary, it is only the most

popular example of a genre marketed to a middle class readership. Bookstores of the

middle class neighbourhoods of Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir became laden with

books on display as ‘best-sellers’, ‘new releases’ on all the shelves in the 2000s. These

books were intellectually redundant and imbued with a demagogic nationalism not

unlike the books which circulated among the middle class readers of Wilhelmine

Germany in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, works such as

Julius Langbehn’s widely read Rembrandt als Erzieher.86 As these German authorsespoused a German nationalism based on an anti-liberal, anti-modern, and authori-

tarian utopianism (which found a considerable following among the German middle

class87), these Turkish populists, some of right-wing origin and others of left-wing

origin, agitated for an anti-liberal and authoritarian utopia.88 These authors per-

ceived the (liberal and liberal socialist) intellectuals as alienated from the values and

concerns of the Turkish people and thus indifferent to the interests of the Turkish

state. For them, the alienated nature of the intelligentsia render them inimical to the

Turkish state. These populist authors perceived Kemalism and Kemalist nationalismas representing the incarnation of the values and interests of Turkish society in

contrast to the cosmopolitism and hedonism of the degenerate intellectuals. They

equated liberal intellectuals with the cosmopolitan and degenerate pro-British con-

servative liberals of Istanbul during the British occupation with moralized and

sexualized overtones.89 Clearly, this version of Kemalism is anti-elitist and anti-

intellectual.90 Furthermore, they demonized an imaginary liberal and cosmopolitan

elite consisting of businessmen and their liberal intellectual stooges enjoying whisky

in their mansions along the Bosphorus. TESEV (Turkish Economic and Social Stud-ies Foundation), a liberal NGO headed by Can Paker, a rich businessman and a bete

noire of neo-nationalists, emerged as the epitome of the satanic alliance of the

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indifferent super-westernized and denationalized commercial elite and the treacher-

ous liberal intelligentsia,91 resembling the imagery of CFR (US Council on Foreign

Relations) of American right-wing populists.92 What was ironic is not only that

T €US_IAD, the commercial association comprised of the richest industrialists of Tur-

key, follows a low-profile political stance that is in line with many of the premises ofthe neo-nationalists and shares the conformist ethos of the middle classes, but that

the commercial elite as a whole endorses the Kemalist ethos of the middle classes.

Thus, this illusion of an anti-elitist and anti-intellectual denationalized elite, as real

as the windmills of Don Quixote, was ironically embraced by the elite itself.

What was remarkable was that neo-nationalist intellectuals could disseminate their

marginal and radical discourses among the middle classes by exploiting the vistas of

the mainstream apolitical ideology of Kemalism, which was the dominant political

paradigm of the apolitical and centrist middle classes.93 Furthermore, as an exem-plary case of ‘false consciousness’ which no Marx or Gramsci can explain satisfacto-

rily, convinced by the neo-nationalist leadership, the middle class began to support

anti-EU, isolationist, and statist economic policies and repudiate open markets and

liberal economics which hardly serve their (class) interests. Thus, the apoliticism and

centrism of Kemalism paved the way to a heavily politicized and marginal ideology

imbued with socialist, anti-imperialist, xenophobic, and militarist overtones.94 Kem-

alism as a signifier ensured and facilitated the endorsement of a marginal ideology by

the middle classes. The vocabulary, grammar, and root paradigms of Kemalism wereinstrumentalized to construct hegemony over a larger audience by an otherwise

overlooked ideological leadership. In a way, these ideological entrepreneurs spoke in

the name of middle classes ‘who cannot speak for themselves’ due to their lack of

political sophistication and perception, like subalterns studied by historians. Hence,

the neo-nationalist ideological entrepreneurs hijacked their sensitivities, anxieties,

and agenda for their own ends. In fact, this was no coincidence. The ambiguities

inherent in Kemalism resulted in such a superimposition. Kemalism was originally

an ideology instituted in the intra-war period with clearly anti-market, anti-elitistconcerns espousing an organized economy and society around an omnipotent state.

Although it has been modified since then, certain continuities could be reproduced

and perpetuated thanks to ‘reality effects’.

Evidently, no discourse is expected to be coherent. On the contrary, discourses are

expected to be self-contradictory.95 This contradiction is arguably embedded in the

Kemalist discourse itself although the continuous reinvention and appropriation of

Kemalism in new disguises and the plurality of ‘Kemalisms’ rendered it even more

complex.The high tide of hard-line Kemalism seems to end by 2010/11 for various reasons

which will not be discussed here. In 2011, just before the elections held in Turkey, the

RPP, the Kemalist opposition party to the JDP, considerably modified its ideological

stance, moderating its hard-line nationalist rhetoric, and also emerged as critical of

the JDP’s democratic deficits, a dramatic transformation in the discourse of the party

after the change of party leadership although the political line of the part seems neb-

ulous. Hence, it seems we are observing another reinvention of Kemalism, the blend-

ing party’s Kemalist thrust and sensitivities and its resilient anti-JDP attitude with aseemingly pro-democratic rhetoric to counter the challenges posed by the JDP as

long as this rhetoric does not clash with nation-statist premises of Kemalism.

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This article has argued that the statist nature of Kemalism was modified with the

transition to multi-party democracy in accordance with changing global trends and

circumstances. Although it was imbued with a strong anti-commercial and anti-

middle class ethos espoused by the bureaucratic elite during single-party rule, after

the redefinition and appropriation of Kemalism, it was subsequently internalized bythe middle classes who perceived it as their default political programme and ideol-

ogy, thus forging an intimate and dependent relationship with Kemalist ideas and

the Kemalist state.96 Thus, their allegiance to Kemalism, their loyalty to and trust in

the Kemalist state, and their submissiveness to the Kemalist paradigm could lead

them to endorse such radical and marginal modes of thought at certain historical

junctures as observed in the 2000s as a reaction to the rise of political Islam and

Kurdish separatism. On account of the anti-elitist and anti-intellectual premises em-

bedded in the political cosmology they adhered to, they were led to subscribe to thevisions of ideological entrepreneurs whose worldviews and political affinities were

alien to their conformist and politically conservative middle class concerns and sensi-

tivities apart from their allegiance to the Kemalist secular republic and their aversion

to the Islamists. They also jettisoned and contradicted the ‘civilizationist discourse’

which was arguably the very mark of middle class Kemalist elitism and exclusivism

throughout the Cold War. They internalized an extremely politicized ideology which

they attained from the neo-nationalist leadership, which, ironically, was possible due

to their apolitical attitude and their culture of dismissal of politics. The ideologicalvacuum was to be filled from outside. Resembling the never-ending debate on the

extent and motivations of support given to the Nazis by the German middle classes

(fearing a communist takeover) in 1933 but differing from it in many regards, this is

arguably an astonishing case of the primacy of ‘ideas’ over material conditions and

realities.

Notes

I would like to thank _Ilkan Dalkuc for his valuable input into the text

1. Q. Skinner, ‘Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas’, History and Theory, Vol.8, No.1

(1969), pp.16–22.

2. For the plurality of Kemalisms, see €O.D. Bagdanos, ‘The Clash of Kemalisms ? Reflections on the

Past and Present Politics of Kemalism in Turkish Political Discourse’, Turkish Studies, Vol.9, No.1

(2008), pp.99–114.

3. For some assessments of the JDP, see H. Yavuz, Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey (Cam-

bridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); H. Yavuz (ed.), The Emergence of a New

Turkey: Democracy and the AK Party (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2006); _I. Da�gı,

‘Transformation of Islamic Identity in Turkey’, Turkish Studies, Vol.6, No.1 (2005), pp.21–37;

W. Hale, ‘Christian Democracy and the AKP’, Turkish Studies, Vol.6, No.2 (2005), pp.293–310.

4. €U. Cizre, ‘Ideology, Context and Interest: The Turkish Military’, in R. Kasaba (ed.), The Cambridge

History of Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), Vol. IV, pp.310–14. For the emer-

gence of a ‘Kemalist civil society’, see N. Erdo�gan, ‘“Kalpaksız Kuvvacılar”: Kemalist Sivil Toplum

Kurulusları’, in S. Yerasimos, G. Seufert and K. Vorhoff (eds.), T€urkiye’de Sivil Toplum ve Milli-

yetcilik (_Istanbul: _Iletisim Yayınları, 2001). Also see M. Baransu, Karargah (_Istanbul: Karakutu,

2010).

5. For this process, see N. Onar, ‘Kemalists, Islamists, and Liberals: Shifting Patterns of Confrontation

and Consensus, 2002–2006’, Turkish Studies, Vol.8, No.2 (2007), pp.273–88. For an overview of RPP

470 D. G€urpinar

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and its crisis, see S. Ciddi, Kemalism in Turkish Politics: The Republican People’s Party, Secularism

and Nationalism (London and New York: Routledge, 2009).

6. See A. Bayramo�glu, Ca�gdaslık Hurafe Kaldırmaz: Demokratiklesme S€urecinde Dindar ve Laikler

(_Istanbul: TESEV, 2006); F. Kentel, M. Ahıska and F. Genc, Milletin B€ol€unmez B€ut€unl€u�g€u:

Demokratiklesme S€urecinde Parcalayan Milliyetcilik(ler) (_Istanbul: TESEV, 2007); F. €Ustel and

B. Caymaz, Seckinler ve Sosyal Mesafe (_Istanbul: _Istanbul Bilgi €Universitesi, 2009).

7. For some popular neo-nationalist books assailing the liberal intelligentsia and accusing them of trea-

son: M. Yıldırım, Sivil €Or€umce�gin A�gında (Istanbul: Toplumsal D€on€us€um Yayınları, 2004); N.

Hablemito�glu, Alman Vakıfları: Bergama Dosyası (_Istanbul: Otopsi Yayınları, 2001); N. Hablemi-

to�glu, Seriatcı Ter€or€un ve Batının Kıskacındaki €Ulke: T€urkiye (_Istanbul: Toplumsal D€on€us€um

Yayınları, 2003).

8. For example, the conspiratorial (and anti-Semitic) books of the ex-leftist Soner Yalcın are widely

read among the middle classes. His two books arguing that Sabbatians (Jewish converts to Islam in

the seventeenth century) played an influential role in the course of the history of modern Turkey sold

more than 250,000 copies. R. Bali, A Scapegoat for all Seasons: The D€onmes or Crypto-Jews of Tur-

key (_Istanbul: Isis, 2008), pp.12–13. For the anti-Semitism of Soner Yalcın’s books, also see N. Polat,

‘Yeni Anti-Semitizm: Efendi €Uzerine Notlar’, Do�gu-Batı, No.29, 2004, pp.179–94; R. Bali, ‘What is

Efendi Telling Us?’, in Bali, A Scapegoat for all Seasons, pp.317–49. The blatantly anti-Semitic anti-

JDP trilogy by Erg€un Poyraz, who was later detained for being a member of the illegal anti-JDP or-

ganization ‘Ergenekon’, were best-sellers among the middle classes. E. Poyraz, Musa’nın Cocukları

(_Istanbul: Togan Yayıncılık, 2007); E. Poyraz, Musa’nın G€ul€u (_Istanbul: Togan Yayıncılık, 2007); E.

Poyraz, Musa’nın M€ucahidi (_Istanbul: Togan Yayıncılık, 2007). However, it was Turgut €Ozakman’s

literary narrative of the Turkish National Struggle (1919–22) depicting it in highly chauvinistic lan-

guage which became a phenomenal best-seller in Turkey, especially among the middle classes. T.€Ozakman, Su C ılgın T€urkler (_Istanbul: Bilgi Yayınevi, 2005).

9. The author was not allowed to leave his copy of Taraf among the newspapers bought for a cafe’s cus-

tomers. The waiter remarked that, ‘this newspaper is not suitable for the caf�e’; he was most likely con-

cerned with the possible reactions and unfavourable remarks of the customers.

10. For the discourses of the new partisan Republican intelligentsia in the United States, see S.

Tannenhaus, The Death of Conservatism (New York: Random House, 2009); J. Avlon, Wingnuts (New

York: Beast Books, 2010); W. Bunch, The Backlash (New York: Harper, 2010); S. Rasmussen and D.

Schoen, Mad as Hell (New York, Harper, 2010). For the resemblance of Turkish neo-nationalism

surged in the 2000s with the US Tea Party movement, see Do�gan G€urpınar, ‘ “Amerikan Ulusalcılı�gı”:

Tea Party?’, Taraf, 8 August 2011. For the Tea Party, see Theda Skocpol, Vanessa Williamson, The Tea

Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 2012).

11. For the American right-wing conspiracy theory industry, see R.A. Goldberg, Enemies Within (New

Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001); M. Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy (Berkeley: University

of California Press, 2003); P. Knight, Conspiracy Culture: American Paranoia From Kennedy to the

‘X-Files’ (New York: Routledge, 2001). For the rise of conspiracy theories in the Arabic world espe-

cially in the 1990s, see M. Gray, Conspiracy Theories in the Arab World (London: Routledge, 2010);

D. Cook, Comtemporary Apocalyptic Literature (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005).

12. For the translation of Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, see J. Goldberg, Liberal Fasizm (_Istanbul:Pegasus, 2010).

13. See the list of the books below on Atat€urk in the ‘Atat€urk section’ of a D&R bookstore (in the Asto-

ria-Gayrettepe shopping mall) in May 2010 which fuse middle class sensitivities and concerns with an

allegiance and adulation towards Atat€urk. Atat€urk gibi Beyefendi ve Sık Olmak (Oktay Kadayıfcı);

‘Benim Sofram Bu’ (O�guz Akay); Dehanın Kodları (Ali G€uler); Atat€urk ve Parapsikoloji (Ali Bektan);

Atat€urk’€un Fikir Sofrası (_Ismet Bozda�g); Dersimiz Atat€urk (Turgut €Ozakman); Atat€urk’€u ve Cumhur-

iyeti Anlamak (Ali G€uler); Atat€urk’ten _Insanlı�ga Yol G€osteren S€ozler (Truva Yayınları); Babanız

Atat€urk (Falih Rıfkı Atay); Z€ubeyde Hanım ve Mustafa Kemal (Yılmaz G€urb€uz); Sarı Pasam (Sinan

Meydan); Atat€urk’€un €Ong€or€uleri (Aydın Keleso�glu); Mustafa Kemal’i Atat€urk Yapan 7 Temel Aile

Sırrı (Ahmet Kemal Do�gancay); Beni Benden Dinleyin (Demiray Do�gasal); 101 Foto�grafta 101

Atat€urk S€ozleri (Olca Dervent); Seni Anlasaydık Bu Hale Gelmezdik (_Ibrahim Candan); Atat€urk’€unLiderlik Sırları (Murat Baykızı).

14. M. Kaynak and €O.L. Mete, Erdo�gan Operasyonu (_Istanbul: Timas Yayınları, 2008); M. Kaynak and

E. G€urses, B€uy€uk Ortado�gu Projesi (_Istanbul: Timas Yayınları, 2008); A. Vatandas, Apokrifal

The Reinvention of Kemalism 471

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(_Istanbul: Timas Yayınları, 2012); A. Vatandas, Agharta (_Istanbul: Timas Yayınları, 2008); _I.Karag€ul, Hesaplasma Y€uzyılı (_Istanbul: Timas Yayınları, 2007); A. Cimen and H. Yılmaz, _Ipler

Kimin Elinde? (_Istanbul: Timas Yayınları, 2000); A. Vatandas, Monser (_Istanbul: Timas Yayınları,

2009). Also see _I. Ortaylı, Osmanlı’yı Yeniden Kesfetmek (_Istanbul: Timas, 2006); _I. Ortaylı, Son_Imparatorluk (_Istanbul: Timas, 2006).

15. For an assessment of the Kemalist ideology in the single-party period, see A. Davison and T. Parla,

Corporatist Ideology in Kemalist Turkey (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2004); T. Parla,

T€urkiye’de Siyasal K€ult€ur€un Resmi Kaynakları (3 vols.) (_Istanbul: _Iletisim Yayınları, 1991).

16. See A. Kansu, Politics in Post-Revolutionary Turkey, 1908–1913 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1992).

17. R. Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), p.5.

18. Ibid., p.5.

19. Studies of generations are numerous although these did not lead to an established conceptualization

of generation as a historical and sociological category. For locating generations within a social frame-

work, see K. Mannheim, ‘The Problem of Generations’, in Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge

(London: Routledge & Paul, 1952); S. Eisenstadt, From Generation to Generation: Age Groups and

Social Structure (London: Routledge, 1956). For a review of studies taking generation as a proper so-

ciological category, see D. Kertzer, ‘Generation as a Sociological Problem’, Annual Review of Socio-

logy, Vol.9 (1983), pp.125–49. For some remarkable studies on certain ‘generations’; see A. Spitzer,

The French Generation of 1820 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987); R. Wohl, The Gen-

eration of 1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979); M. Ekstins, Rites of Spring (Bos-

ton: Houghton Mifflin, 2000); D. Owram, Born at the Right Time (Toronto and Buffalo: University

of Toronto Press, 1997). Some generations are ‘more generations’ than others. Both Spitzer and

Wohl emphasized the extraordinary nature of the generations they studied. Both the French genera-

tion of 1820 and the Europe generation of 1914 were revolutionaries and displayed very distinctive

features that easily distinguished them from preceding and succeeding generations.

20. C. Hayes, A Generation of Materialism 1871–1900 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941); S. Hughes,

Consciousness and Society (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1958); J. Burrow, The Crisis of Reason: Euro-

pean Thought, 1848–1914 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000).

21. For the radicalism and anti-westernism of the Young Turks, see C. Aydın, The Politics of Anti-

Westernism in Asia (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007).

22. For the Young Turk populism, see Z. Toprak, ‘Osmanlı Narodnikleri: “Halka Do�gru” Gidenler’,

Toplum ve Bilim, No.24 (Winter 1984), pp.69–79; F. Georgeon, T€urk Milliyetcili�ginin K€okenleri:

Yusuf Akcura (1876–1935) (_Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1996), pp.84–91.

23. For example, see M. Tuncay, T€urkiye’de Sol Akımlar, 1908–1925 (Ankara: Ankara €Universitesi

Siyasal Bilgiler Fak€ultesi, 1978); H. Erdem, 1920 Yılı ve Sol Muhalefet (Istanbul: Sel Yayıncılık,

2010).

24. The clearest example of this tendency is the k€oyc€ul€uk (villageism) movement of Resit Galip. Medical

doctor Resit Galip and his friends left Istanbul under Allied occupation and settled in a village near

K€utahya in 1919 to work for the development of the villages. See A. Kara€omerlio�glu, Orada Bir K€oy

Var Uzakta (_Istanbul: _Iletisim Yayınları, 2006), pp.40–42; F. €Ustel, ‘K€oyc€uler Cemiyeti’, Tarih ve

Toplum, No.72 (Dec. 1989), p.13. Also see A.S. Elmas, Dr. Resit Galip (Ankara: Yeni Matbaa,

1953). It has to be noted that Resit Galip became a prominent functionary in the Kemalist regime

and served as the Minister of Public Education in 1932–33.

25. Y. Nadi, Kurtulus Savası Anıları (_Istanbul: Ca�gdas Yayınları, 1978), p.234; M. Birgen, _Ittihat ve

Terakki’de On Sene (_Istanbul: Kitabevi, 2006), pp.665–6, 667–8, 670–72; H.E. Adıvar, T€urk€un Atesle_Imtihanı (_Istanbul: Atlas Kitabevi, 1994), p.78; A. A�gao�glu, _Ihtilal mi _Inkilap mı? (Ankara: Alaeddin

Kıral Matbaası, 1942), pp.34– 6. Birgen wrote that ‘one of the things we, as the intellectuals of Istan-

bul, took for granted is that the Anatolian people are loyal to the sultan and caliph’ (p.665–6). After

‘meeting the genuine Turk struggling to survive with bare foot and bald head’, Muhittin Birgen

‘began to see the homeland and the people differently’ (p.668). To his amazement, he discovers the

revolutionarism and anti-monarchism of the Anatolian villagers.

26. The most apparent reiteration of this narrative is the memoirs of Muhittin Birgen, _Ittihat ve

Terakki’de On Sene, pp.663–4. Also see H. Uran, Mesrutiyet, Tek Parti, Cok Parti Hatıralarım

(_Istanbul: _Is Bankası K€ult€ur Yayınları, 2008), pp.127–9.

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27. For example, see Y. Nadi, Kurtulus Savası Anıları (_Istanbul: Ca�gdas Yayınları, 1978), p.177; C.K._Incedayı, T€urk _Istiklal Harbi: Garp Cephesi (_Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2007), p.15.

28. Tarih IV (Ankara: Devlet Matbaası, 1933), p.90.

29. Ibid., p.91.

30. Ibid., p.91.

31. Y.K. Karaosmano�glu, Kiralık Konak (_Istanbul: _Iletisim Yayınları, 2000); Y.K. Karaosmano�glu,

Sodom ve Gomorra (_Istanbul: _Iletisim Yayınları, 2000).

32. For the depiction of Istanbul during the Allied occupation in the Turkish novels, see M. T€orenek,

T€urk Romanında _I sgal _Istanbulu (_Istanbul: Kitabevi, 2002), pp.143–59. For the representation of col-

laboration with the British and the occupation forces, see ibid, pp.66–79. Also see T. Erdo�gan, T€urk

Romanında M€utareke _Istanbul’u (_Istanbul: Kanat, 2005).

33. F.R. Atay, Cankaya (_Istanbul: Bates, 1998), p.132.34. H.E. Adıvar, Atesten G€omlek (_Istanbul: Muallim Ahmet Halit Kitap Evi, 1937), p.21.

35. C.K. Kabadayı, _Istiklal Harbi (Garp Cephesi) (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2007), p.15.

36. Erda�g G€oknar dubs the literature of the Kemalist regime as ‘social nationalism’, fusing the social

concerns of the novelists and their national concerns. E. G€oknar, ‘The Novel in Turkish: Narrative

Tradition to Nobel Prize’, in R. Kasaba (ed.), The Cambridge History of Turkey (Cambridge: Cam-

bridge University Press, 2006), Vol.IV, pp.485–9.

37. S. Bozdo�gan, ‘Art and Architecture in Modern Turkey: The Republican Period’, in Kasaba (ed.), The

Cambridge History of Turkey, Vol.IV, p.441.

38. For some examples of this recurring discourse in the anti-Unionist press after the armistice in 1918,

see O. Kolo�glu, Aydınlarımızın Bunalım Yılı: 1918 (_Istanbul: Boyut Kitapları, 2000).

39. A. Kemal, ‘Yeni Ruh’, Peyam-ı Sabah, 5 Aug. 1336/5 Aug. 1920.

40. Quoted in S. Aktas, Refik Halid Karay (Ankara: K€ult€ur ve Turizm Bakanlı�gı, 1986), p.29. Also see

R.H. Karay, Minelbab _Ilelmihrab (_Istanbul: _Inkilap Kitabevi, 1992).

41. Another staunch opponent of the Ankara government was Rıza Tevfik. For a study of the post-1908

aristocratic conservative liberal thought and Rıza Tevfik’s aristocratic conservative liberalism, see H.

Alkan and A. Do�gan, Osmanlı Liberal D€us€uncesi: Ulum-ı _Iktisadiye ve _Ictimaiye Mecmuası (_Istanbul:

Bilgi €Universitesi Yayınları, 2010). Also see R. Tevfik, Biraz da Ben Konusayım (_Istanbul: _Iletisim

Yayınları, 2008); A.R. Rey, G€ord€uklerim, Yaptıklarım (_Istanbul: T€urkiye Basımevi, 1945).

42. R. Cevad, ‘Bir Fikir, Bir Siyaset’, Alemdar, 1 Sept. 1336/1 Sept. 1920; R. Tevfik, ‘Son Anadolu

Vukuatı’, Alemdar, 11 July 1336/11 July 1920. For the Ottoman aristocratic conservative liberalism,

see Alkan and Do�gan, Osmanlı Liberal D€us€uncesi. For the nineteenth century European aristocratic

conservative liberalism, see also A.S. Kahan, Aristocratic Liberalism: The Social and Political

Thought of Jacob Burckhardt, John Stuart Mill and Alexis De Tocqueville (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1992); A.S. Kahan, Liberalism in Nineteenth-Century Europe: The Political Culture of Limited

Suffrage (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).

43. C. Okutan, Tek Parti D€oneminde Azınlık Politikaları (_Istanbul: Bilgi €Universitesi Yayınları, 2004),

p.300.

44. For the ethnic cleansing of Anatolia of non-Muslims, see F. D€undar, Modern T€urkiye’nin Sifresi:_Ittihat ve Terakki’nin Etnisite M€uhendisli�gi, 1913–1918 (_Istanbul: _Iletisim Yayıncılık, 2008);

T. Akcam, ‘Ermeni Meselesi Hallolunmustur’ (_Istanbul: _Iletisim Yayınları, 2008); S. Cagaptay, Islam,

Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who is a Turk? (London and New York: Routledge,

2006).

45. M. G€ul, The Emergence of Modern Istanbul (London and New York: I.B.Tauris, 2009), p.79.

46. See A. Mango, Atat€urk (London: John Murray, 1999), p.26.

47. S.S. Aydemir, _Ikinci Adam (_Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1993), pp.23–4.

48. I thank G€ul _Inanc for drawing my attention to the process of the establishment of the Republican

Foreign Ministry in November 1922.

49. For this process, see B. Simsir, Bizim Diplomatlar (Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, 1996), pp.166–70.

50. M. Dikerdem,Hariciye Carkı (_Istanbul: Cem Yayınları, 1989), pp.22–4.

51. S. Kuneralp, ‘Turkey: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs Under the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish

Republic’, in Z. Steiner (ed.), The Times Survey of Foreign Ministries of the World (Westport, CT:

Times Books, 1982), p.506.

52. For the culture of the republican diplomatic service, see G. _Inanc, T€urk Diplomasisinde Kıbrıs, 1970–

1991 (Istanbul: _Is Bankası K€ult€ur Yayınları, 2007), pp.xi–xix; P. Robins, Suits and Uniforms

The Reinvention of Kemalism 473

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(London: Hurst & Company, 2003), pp.71–5; B. Oran, ‘Giris: T€urk Dıs Politikasının (TDP) Teori ve

Prati�gi’, in B. Oran (ed.), T€urk Dıs Politikası (_Istanbul: _Iletisim Yayınları, 2001), Vol.I, pp.54–73;

M. Tamkoc, The Warrior Diplomats (Salt Lake City: Utah University Press, 1976).

53. For example, see the memoirs of some of the most prominent Turkish diplomats. K. G€ur€un, Fırtınalı

Yıllar: Dısisleri M€ustesarlı�gı Hatıralarım (_Istanbul: Milliyet Yayınları, 1995); E. Yavuzalp, Liderleri-

miz ve Dıs Politika (Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, 1996); Kamran _Inan, Cenevre Yılları (_Istanbul: Timas,

2002); T. Baytok, Dıs Politikada Bir Nefes: Anılar (_Istanbul: Remzi Kitapevi, 2005); D. B€ol€ukbası,

Dısisleri _Iskelesi (_Istanbul: Do�gan Kitap, 2011).

54. See O. €Oymen, C ıkıs Yolu: Dıs Baskılara Karsı Tam Ba�gımsızlı�gı Korumak (_Istanbul: Remzi Kita-

pevi, 2008); O. €Oymen; Demokrasiden Diktat€orl€u�ge (_Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 2011); G. Aktan, Acık

Kriptolar (_Istanbul: Asina Kitaplar, 2006).

55. O. €Oymen, C ıkıs Yolu (_Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 2008), p.470.

56. See G. Aktan, ‘Travma (2)’, Radikal, 30 Nov. 2006. Also see G. Aktan,’Milliyetsizcilik’, Radikal, 16

February 2006; G. Aktan, ‘Cumhuriyet ve Kimlik’, Radikal, 20 Haziran 2006; G. Aktan, ‘Derdimiz

Ne?’, Radikal, 31 Aug. 2006; G. Aktan, ‘Polemik (1)’, Radikal, 28 Nov. 2006; G. Aktan, ‘Irkcı-

Milliyetci’, Radikal, 17 Feb. 2007.

57. Even the prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdo�gan did not abstain from insulting diplomats by calling

them mon chers. ‘Erdo�gan’a Monser _Isyanı’, Radikal, 18 June 2010. Also see E. G€oze, Hariciyemizin_Icy€uz€u (Istanbul: Bo�gazici Yayınları, 1990).

58. For this emerging neo-nationalist milieu, see E. Uslu, ‘Ulusalcılık: Neo-Nationalist Resurgence in

Turkey’, Turkish Studies, Vol.9, No.1 (March 2008), pp.89–90.

59. For example, see P. Higonnet, Goodness Beyond Virtue (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,

1998); M. Sonenscher, Sans-Culottes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008); F. Furet,

Interpreting the French Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); M.K. Baker,

Inventing the French Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); N. Hampson, ‘The

Heavenly City of the French Revolutionaries’, in C. Lucas (ed.), Rewriting the French Revolution

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp.46–68.

60. L.A. Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press,

1992), pp.101–6.

61. A deliberate project was undertaken by certain prominent Kemalist intellectuals in the early 1930s.

Seven Kemalist intellectuals launched a journal Kadro (Cadre) to create the ideology of the organic

intellectuals of the Kemalist regime. Nevertheless, this initiative was seen as precarious and the jour-

nal was closed down. See _I. Tekeli and S. _Ilkin, Kadrocuları ve Kadro’yu Anlamak (_Istanbul: Tarih

Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2003).

62. Y.K. Karaosmano�glu, Ankara (_Istanbul: _Iletisim Yayınları, 2002).

63. See C. Kocak, Belgelerle _Iktidar ve Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası (_Istanbul: _Iletisim Yayınları, 2006),

pp.633–92; C. Kocak, _Ikinci Parti (_Istanbul: _Iletisim Yayınları, 2010).

64. For example, for the demonization of Rauf Bey, see M. Kemal,Nutuk (Ankara: T€urk Tarih Kurumu,

1999), Vol.II, p.1068; F.R. Atay, Cankaya (_Istanbul: D€unya Yayınları, 1961), Vol.II, p.323. Also see

R. Orbay, Siyasi Hatıralar (_Istanbul: €Org€un Yayınevi, 2003), pp.561–70; E.J. Z€urcher, Terakkiperver

Cumhuriyet Fırkası (_Istanbul: Ba�glam Yayıncılık, 1992), pp.50–51; A. Yesil, Terakkiperver Cumhur-

iyet Fırkası (Ankara: Cedit Nesriyat, 2002), pp.124–30.

65. For some memoirs reflecting the ethos of the Kemalist republican bureaucracy, see C. Kayra, ‘38

Kusa�gı: Anılar (_Istanbul: _Is Bankası K€ult€ur Yayınları, 2002); K. G€ur€un, Fırtınalı Yıllar (Istanbul:

Milliyet Yayınları, 1995); T. Saylan, G€unes Umuttan Simdi Do�gar: T€urkan Saylan Kitabı (Istanbul: _Is

Bankası K€ult€ur Yayınları, 2004). Also see D. L€uk€usl€u, T€urkiye’de ‘Genclik Miti’ (Istanbul: _IletisimYayınları, 2009), p.43.

66. This process arguably resembles the transformation of French republicanism in the late nineteenth

century in the Third Republic. With the emergence of a republican elite, republicanism was tempered

and gradually jettisoning its radicalism, it tilted to centrism. See P. Nord, The Republican Moment

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); K. Auspitz, The Radical Bourgeoisie (Cambridge

and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982); F. Furet, Revolutionary France, 1770–1880,

trans. Antonia Nevill (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), pp.492–537.

67. See J. Herf, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich

(Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

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68. The percentage of urban population remained almost constant throughout the single-party regime

(16.4% in 1927, 18.5% in 1950, 20.0% in 1913 before the expulsion of the non-Muslims). Y.S. Tezel,

Cumhuriyet D€oneminin _Iktisadi Tarihi (1923–1950) (Ankara: Yurt Yayınları, 1982), p.118. This sta-

bility was due to the intentional policies of the regime. Also, for the strategies to deal with the work-

ers employed in factories located in smaller cities and towns (rather than in larger cities) and

satisfactory social services provided to the workers to keep them content and away from socialist agi-

tation, see A. Makal, T€urkiye’de Tek Partili D€onemde Calısma _I liskileri, 1920–1946 (Ankara: _Imge,

1999); A. Makal, Ameleden _I sciye (Istanbul: Iletisim Yayınları, 2007); E. Akcan, Ceviride Modern

Olan (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2009), p.325.

69. M.W. Thornburg, G. Spry and G. Soule, Turkey: An Economic Appraisal (New York: The Twentieth

Century Fund, 1949), p.255.

70. A. Kara€omerlio�glu, ‘The People’s Houses and the Cult of the Peasant in Turkey’, Middle Eastern

Studies, Vol.34, No.4 (Oct. 1998), p.67.

71. For example, see B. Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1968). Also, see the criticisms in D. Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide (Oxford: Oxford Univer-

sity Press, 2005); E.J. Z€urcher, ‘Modern T€urkiye’ye Ne Oldu? Kırk Yıl Sonra Bernard Lewis’, in

Modern T€urkiye’nin Do�gusu Kitabı’, in E.J. Z€urcher, Savas, Devrim ve Uluslasma (_Istanbul: Bilgi€Universitesi Yayınları, 2005), pp.81–99.

72. For some accounts of this process, see S. Tayyar, Kıt’a Dur (Istanbul: Timas, 2009); M. Baransu,

Karargah (Istanbul: Karakutu, 2010).

73. See L. €Unsaldı, T€urkiye’de Asker ve Siyaset (Istanbul: Kitap Yayınevi, 2008).

74. See A. _Ilhan,D€onek Bereketi (_Istanbul: Bilgi Yayınevi, 2002).

75. S.E. Finer, The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics (Oxford: Pall Mall Press,

1962), pp.10–13; S. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (New York: Vintage, 1957).

76. V. Savas, Dip Dalgası (Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, 2006), p.7.

77. B. Avar,Hangi Avrupa (_Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 2008), p.10.

78. For some overtly fascistic articles of €Ozdil, see Y. €Ozdil, ‘Bidon Kafa. . .’, H€urriyet, 13 Aug. 2007; Y.€Ozdil, ‘Ahmet T€urk _Izmir’in Kaymak Tabakasındandır’, H€urriyet, 25 Nov. 2009; Y. €Ozdil,

‘Yumruk’,H€urriyet, 14 April 2010.

79. For this republican utopia, especially see B. Coskun, ‘O Aile. . .’,H€urriyet, 28 April 2000. Other than

Emin C€olasan’s hundreds of articles published in H€urriyet from the 1980s to 2010 praising a republi-

can modesty in contrast to the rapacious neo-liberal extragavanza and Islamic noveaux-riche habits,

see E. C€olasan, Turgut Nereden Kosuyor? (_Istanbul: Tekin Yayınevi, 1989); E. C€olasan, Turgut’un

Ser€uveni (_Istanbul: Tekin Yayınevi, 1990); E. C€olasan, 24 Ocak: Bir D€onemin Perde Arkası (_Istanbul:

Milliyet Yayınları, 1984); E. C€olasan, 12 Eyl€ul: €Ozal Ekonomisinin Perde Arkası (_Istanbul: Milliyet

Yayınları, 1984).

80. Y. €Ozdil, ‘Sezer. . .’, H€urriyet, 24 April 2007; Y. €Ozdil, ‘Sezer’den Kurtulmaya 4 G€un Falan kaldı’,

H€urriyet, 25 Aug. 2007.

81. T. €Ozakman, Su C ılgın T€urkler (Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, 2005).

82. ‘“Su Cılgın T€urkler” ile Vergi Rekortmeni Oldu’, Sabah, 2 April 2006.

83. €Ozakman, Su C ılgın T€urkler, p.99.

84. Ibid, p.75.

85. Ibid, p.690.

86. For this intellectual milieu, see K. Repp, Reformers, Critics and the Paths of German Modernity

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000). Also see F. Stern, The Politics of Cultural De-

spair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor-

nia Press, 1961); G. Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology (New York: Grosset & Dunlop, 1964).

87. For example, see R. Chickering, We Men Who Feel Most German: A Cultural Study of the Pan-

German League, 1886–1914 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1984).

88. E. Uslu, ‘Ulusalcılık: Neo-Nationalist Resurgence in Turkey’, Turkish Studies, Vol.9, No.1 (March

2008), pp.73–97.

89. O. Karaveli, Ali Kemal: ‘Belki de Bir G€unah Kecisi’ (_Istanbul: Do�gan Kitapcılık, 2009); €Ozakman, Su

C ılgın T€urkler; A. _Ilhan,D€onek Bereketi (_Istanbul: _Is Bankası Yayınları, 2002).

90. Among many others, see A. _Ilhan, D€onek Bereketi (_Istanbul: _Is Bankası Yayınları, 2002);

H. Cetinkaya, Libos Tayfa €Oyk€uleri (_Istanbul: Cumhuriyet Kitapları, 2009); D. Som, Vatan Millet

Fasarya (_Istanbul: Cumhuriyet Kitapları, 2009); S. Yalcın, Siz Kimi Kandırıyorsunuz? (_Istanbul:

The Reinvention of Kemalism 475

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Do�gan Kitapcılık, 2008); S. Yalcın, Bu Dinciler O M€usl€umanlara Benzemiyor (_Istanbul: Do�ganKitapcılık, 2009).

91. For example, see M. Yıldırım, Sivil €Or€umce�gin A�gında (Istanbul: Ulus Da�gı Yayınları, 2005), pp.303–

32; E. Bilbilik, D€unyayı Y€oneten Gizli €Org€utler/K€uresel _Iktidarın Kurmayları (Istanbul: Profil, 2007).

Also see M. Baransu, ‘Bu da STK Andıcı’, Taraf, 7 April 2008.

92. For CFR and the conspiratorial views of CFR, see L.H. Shoup and W. Minter, Imperial Brain Trust:

The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy (New York: Monthly Review

Press, 1977); W. Domhoff, Who Rules Amerıca Now? (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983),

pp.71–3; W. Domhoff, The Power Elite and the State (New York: A. De Gruyter, 1990), pp.113–44;

R.D. Schulzinfer, The Wise Men of Foreign Affairs: The History of the Council on Foreign Relations

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1984); M. Wala, The Council on Foreign Relations and Amer-

ican Foreign Policy in the Early Cold War (Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1994); I. Parmar, Special

Interests, the State and the Anglo-American Alliance, 1939–1945 (London: Frank Cass, 1995).

93. Apparently, the assumption that the middle classes are necessarily liberal had been renounced by the

1970s. Since then, many studies have demonstrated that the middle classes could and did subscribe to

authoritarian and anti-liberal political mobilizations and ideologies at certain junctures. The political

attitudes of the Turkish middle class also demonstrate this historical phenomenon. For some studies

on the authoritarian tendencies of the middle classes in Europe at certain historical moments, see K.

Jarausch, Unfree Professions (Oxford University Press, 1990); F. Ringer, The Decline of the German

Mandarins (Madison, WI: Wesleyan University Press, 1969); M. Kovacs, Liberal Professions and

Illiberal Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994); R. Chickering, We Men Who Feel Most

German: A Cultural Study of the German League (London: Unwin Hyman, 1984); C.E. McClelland,

The German Experience of Professionalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); W.S.

Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1984); K.H. Jarausch and

G. Cocks (ed.), German Professions 1800–1950 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); H.D. Balzer

(ed.), Russia’s Missing Middle Class: The Professions in Russian History (Armonk, NY: M.E.Sharpe,

1996); E.W. Clowes, J.L. West and S.D. Kassow (eds.), Betwen Tsar and People: Educated Society

and Qust for Public Identity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).

94. For the political content and meanings of apoliticism and apoliticism as an ideology, see R. Koshar,

Social Life, Local Politics and Nazism: Marburg 1880–1935 (Chapel Hill: University of North Caro-

lina Press, 1986), p.6. Also see M. Billig, Banal Nationalism (London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Publications, 1995), pp.7–8

95. See Q. Skinner, ‘Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas’, History and Theory, Vol.8,

No.1 (1969), pp.16–22.

96. See E. €Ozy€urek, Nostalgia for the Modern (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006); Y. Navaro,

Faces of the State (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002).

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