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‘Ali Bilgiç shows us here why asking smart gender-analytical questions is so crucial if IR practitioners hope to be useful and reliable. Turkey, Power and the West reveals the ways in which masculinities are wielded by the US, the EU and current Turkish officials of the Erdoğan government.’ – Cynthia Enloe, author of Bananas, Beaches and Bases
Ali Bilgiç is Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations, Bilkent University, Ankara, and the author of Rethinking Security in the Age of Migration: Trust and Emancipation in Europe (2013).
Cover image: Word leaders at the NATO summit in Brussels, May 1988. (L–R) Turgut Özal, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan. (Photo by Diana Walker/Time Life Pictures/ Getty Images)
Ali Bilgiç
www.ibtauris.com
– Terrell Carver, Professor of Political Theory, University of Bristol
Turkey, Power West
From the Ottoman Empire to the present day, the book constructs an image of Turkish foreign policy as reflecting a gendered insecurity – one of a ‘non-Western’ Turkish masculinity subordinated to a ‘Western’ hegemonic masculinity – and shows how Turkey’s ‘subordination’ has in turn been internalised by its own politicians. Across a diverse range of sources, Bilgiç takes advantage of new theories such as critical security studies (CSS) to paint a picture of a Turkish republic anxious to make its mark on the world stage, yet perennially insecure about its position as a global power. Turkey, Power and the West is essential for students and researchers interested in Turkish politics and the international relations of the Middle East, as well as those with an interest in gender and identity studies.
‘This is a superbly written and thoroughly researched original study that contributes in highly significant ways to three literatures not normally brought together: foreign policy studies, gender/feminist research, and post-colonial perspectives through which the East/West binary is reimagined.’
and the
During the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP, the Turkish government shifted from a ‘reactive’ to an ‘activist’ foreign policy. As a result, many in the West increasingly began to see Turkey as a key actor in the international relations of the region, and indeed the wider global stage. Turkey, Power and the West offers a unique approach to this transformation and considers questions of Turkish national identity and its relations with the West through the lens of gender studies.
Gendered International Relations and Foreign Policy
Turkey, Power and the West Gendered International Relations and Foreign Policy
Ali Bilgiç
Ali Bilgic is Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations, Bilkent University, Ankara. He holds a PhD from Aberystwyth University in the UK. His research interests include feminist and gender approaches to world politics, critical approaches to security, new political activism, Turkey’s foreign policy, and the European Union’s external relations. He is the author of Rethinking Security in the Age of Migration: Trust and Emancipation in Europe (2013). His articles have appeared in Review of International Studies, Security Dialogue, International Relations, Mediterranean Politics, Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, and International Migration.
‘This is a superbly written and thoroughly researched original study that contributes in highly significant ways to three literatures not normally brought together: foreign policy studies, gender/feminist research, and post-colonial perspectives through which the East/West binary is reimagined.’ Terrell Carver, Professor of Political Theory, University of Bristol ‘Ali Bilgic shows us here why asking smart gender-analytical questions is so crucial if IR practitioners hope to be useful and reliable. Turkey, Power and the West reveals the ways in which masculinities are wielded by the US, the EU and current Turkish officials of the Erdog˘an government. In contesting past allegedly feminising humiliations with contemporary assertions of masculinised militarism, Turkish elites have a lot of company.’ Cynthia Enloe, author of the newly updated Bananas, Beaches and Bases ‘Breaks new ground by bringing the insights of feminist and postcolonial theory to bear on Turkish foreign policy, thereby making a much-needed critical intervention into the debates on Turkey’s relations with the world . . . a most welcome addition to the literature on Turkish foreign policy.’ Asli Calkivik, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Istanbul Technical University
TURKEY, POWER AND THE WEST
Gendered International Relations and Foreign Policy
ALI BILGIC
Published in 2016 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd London • New York www.ibtauris.com Copyright q 2016 Ali Bilgic The right of Ali Bilgic to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. References to websites were correct at the time of writing. Library of Modern Turkey 19 ISBN: 978 1 78453 347 2 eISBN: 978 1 78672 084 9 ePDF: 978 1 78673 084 8 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Typeset in Garamond Three by OKS Prepress Services, Chennai, India Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
To Athina, & Leo
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
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Introduction Gendered Power Hierarchies between Turkey and the West(s): A Case for Feminist Post-Colonial Analysis
1
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Reproduction of Power Hierarchies through ‘Devalorising’ the Non-West 27 Violent Encounters with the West: A Gendered Modern State in the Making during the Late Ottoman Period 54 Encounters with the West’s Civilisational Hegemonic Masculinity: The Republic of Turkey, 1923– 50 88 Encounters with the ‘Cold Warrior’ Masculinity of the West: Turkey on the Frontline of the Free World 128 Encounters with the Neoliberal Masculinity of the West: Non-Western ‘Market Man’ Rising 181
Conclusion Gendered Subordination of the Non-West and Beyond
236
Notes Selected Bibliography Index
247 283 287
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I was a teenager in the 1990s, with a middle-class, secular, nationalist, and Atatu¨rkist background. And I was angry with a ‘Europe’ which constantly criticised ‘my’ country due to democracy and human rights problems. Who were they to do this? They were those who had tried to occupy the country 70 years before. Now they were trying to do the same again. But then, why was I so happy when Turkey entered the Customs Union (I did not know what the Customs Union was, but it was ‘Europe’ for me)? Why was I so proud of myself when the newspapers came out with the headlines ‘European Turkey‘ in 1995? Why did I, as a teenager, get angry and frustrated when the Western media was showing photos of women wearing headscarves from Turkey? In my thinking, they were not doing ‘justice’ to ‘my’ country, which was ‘European’ for me. Look at how I live, how I dress, and how I think… ‘Headscarf women’ could not represent this Western country, I thought; they belonged to the past, to a geography and people against which I positioned myself. I wrote this book because I needed to find out what made a teenager from the Global South feel this way, and I received much help in the pursuit of answers. Although academic works carry their authors’ names, they are in fact products of collective endeavours. There are so many scholars to whom I owe my gratitude. Exchanges with Terrell Carver, Cynthia Enloe, Spike Peterson, and Annick Wibben encouraged me to continue working on the project. Ken Booth gave vital feedback on the article upon which the book is based. Terrell Carver, Asli Falay Calkivik, and Berk Esen
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shared their comments on the whole version. With his friendship and intellectualism, Clemens Hoffmann has been a source of, and a push for, intellectual and academic openings in my thinking. I owe all of them thanks, while all mistakes and omissions are solely mine. Lastly, I would like to thank SAGE Publishing and the editors of International Relations for kindly allowing me to reproduce the sections of my article, ‘“We are not barbarians”: Gender Politics and Turkey’s Quest for the West’, International Relations, xxix/2 (2015), pp. 198–218.
INTRODUCTION GENDERED POWER HIERARCHIES BETWEEN TURKEY AND THE WEST (S) : A CASE FOR FEMINIST POST- COLONIAL ANALYSIS
In 1911, Enver Pasha, one of the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress that ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1918, wrote to his friend from Tripoli, the last territory of the Empire in North Africa under Italian occupation: ‘I hope, my dear friend, that we will show civilised Europe that we are not barbarians who are not entitled to rights, and that we deserve respect’.1 Ambivalence was also detectable in his words: ‘True, I hate my European enemies, but I also admire them because they showed me that I was right during our conversations with Hans, when I said “only interests matter in the game of nations, there is no role for emotions”’.2 Over 60 years later, in 1974, following the military operation of Turkey in Cyprus, Prime Minister Bu¨lent Ecevit attempted to convince the West that in comparison to Greece, Turkey was ‘a more realist nation’.3 In two different historical-political contexts, two foreign policy makers of the Ottoman Empire/Turkey developed similar narratives. Both Enver Pasha and Ecevit were keen to convince Europe/the West/ international society (henceforth, the West) that their country should not be treated by the West with disrespect and contempt, as Turkey is like the West and ‘one of them’, not ‘barbarians’. This book is the analysis of Turkey’s relations with the West from a feminist post-colonial perspective. It aims to explore the processes through which power hierarchies between the West and Turkey have been
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historically reproduced and how these power hierarchies have come to be perceived as sources of insecurity for Turkey’s policy makers. The central research question is: how does gender work in normalising, legitimising and reproducing power hierarchies between the West(s) and Turkey by generating insecurities for the latter? Turkey’s foreign policy vis-a`-vis the West has been studied from competing theoretical and historical perspectives.4 However, these studies, which include constructivist and critical accounts focusing on identity construction processes between Turkey and the West, have not factored gender as an analytical category. Consequently, they overlook the ways in which gender and gendering has been a constitutive trope in these processes. To the contrary, the present feminist post-colonial analysis lays out the gender regime of Turkey’s political and economic relations with the West(s). More specifically, it analyses gendering – feminisation and hypermasculinisation – as a source of insecurity for the non-West with specific reference to Turkey’s relations with the West. Moreover, in line with the feminist objective of unfolding the interplay between the domestic and international, the discussion aims to provide a fresh look at state –society relations in Turkey by positioning this ostensibly domestic issue within the context of Turkey – West relations. This examination will be performed through the theoretical insight offered by writers of post-colonial and feminist literature, literature on masculinities, and feminist critiques of Orientalism. The analysis will be built upon five assumptions: a. Power hierarchies between the West and non-West are reproduced and normalised through the politics of masculinities in which the West represents the ‘standard’ of hegemonic masculinities of global politics by subordinating non-Western masculinities. b. Gendered power hierarchies between the West and Turkey have been a source of ‘ontological insecurity’ for Turkey’s policy makers, who are both objects and subjects of power relations. c. Methodologically, gendered ontological insecurity can be detected through a phenomenological approach by investigating narratives of policy makers with the purpose of understanding how they historically articulate the West, the non-West and Turkey. d. These articulations can be sought in speeches (in tandem with related policy performances) in Turkey’s foreign and domestic
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political contexts, as the West(s) has been reproduced and challenged in both spheres of politics. e. Gendered power hierarchies between the West and Turkey have implications for non-Western individual and societal insecurities. In patriarchal global politics, the feminisation of individuals, states and regions (attributing values such as irrationality, weakness, emotionality and aggressiveness) contributes to their production, normalisation and justification by those who are associated with masculinity through attributing values such as rationality, strength, prudence and activism. However, as the politics of masculinities show, hypermasculinisation (attributing values such as excessive aggressiveness, militarism, barbarism and violent irrationality) also operates similarly to feminisation, because in the former case the hypermasculinised unit is also normalised and mystified as subordinate to those who define the ‘standards’ of masculinity. The West/non-West power hierarchies are reproduced through gendering by generating insecurities for the nonWest. Gendered power relations penetrate into the domestic politics of the non-West by unpacking more insecurities at societal level. This introductory chapter will begin by explaining the concept of power that is adopted in the analysis. This will be followed by a discussion of the advantages offered to the current literature by a feminist post-colonial analysis of Turkey’s relations with the West.
How to Understand Power in the West/Non-West Context Dowding recently argued that one of the main reasons of the existence of contending definitions of power in the Social Sciences is the intervention of social scientists’ normative beliefs in their works.5 Provided that this normative meddling is prevented, it can be possible to achieve a ‘better’ conception of power. However, this suggestion is problematic in two ways. First, as both Hindess6 and Hearn7 show, power understandings in the Social Sciences (which were once widely accepted in International Relations (IR)) cannot be thought of independently from influences of Western political thought shaped by Hobbes, Locke, Kant and Weber. Under these influences, power generally appears as one’s capacity to realise ends in spite of the resistance of others. According to Hearn, this results in a
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conceptualisation of deeply interconnected ‘power-over’ (an exercise of coercion over others) and ‘power-to’ (an ability to pursue goals for selfrealisation and empowerment).8 By uncritically adopting these power definitions, the discussion in IR until recently was about how one can exercise power-over in order to increase power-to: through coercion9 or through persuasion.10 These allegedly ‘scientific’ definitions of power were built upon the Western political philosophy principle about one’s (individual, ‘man’ and state) quest to realise ‘his’ ends through exerting influence on others through coercion or persuasion. The second reason why power is inherently connected to the normative/theoretical assumptions of Politics scholars is because power ‘defines the realm of political action and its justification. As such, attributing power is not innocent, but implies that things could have been otherwise’.11 This critical approach to power questions ‘what does power do?’ In other words, it investigates performances of power in micro- and macropolitics and the effects of power on those who exercise power and on those upon whom power is exercised. Power (re)produces individual subjectivities through performances diffused into social relations. This corresponds to ‘productive power’ in Barnett and Duvall’s instructive typology of power.12 In Barnett and Duvall’s typology, in addition to productive power, three other types of power are conceptualised. Whereas ‘compulsory power’ refers to the direct coercion of an actor over another (such as physical coercion), ‘institutional power’ concerns the control of an actor over another through using institutions that meditate between them. ‘Structural power’, on the other hand, explains how the positions that actors occupy in a particular structure enable them to exercise power over others by determining their ‘social capacities and interests’.13 This type of power, as Barnett and Duvall rightly argue, is about shaping the self-identification of actors through structures, and thus is close to productive power. However, the latter is diffused into social relations. Productive power facilitates an analysis of the generative effect of power relations on individuals and social groups operating at multiple levels of political life.14 Deriving primarily from Foucault and also Bourdieu, many critical studies unpack performances of power that repeatedly constitute ‘subject’ and ‘object’ positions, for instance how relations of power as domination have been reconstructed through the participation of those
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who are objectified by power.15 In particular, many feminist works, some of which are found in the area of post-colonial feminism, extensively highlight how gendered subjectivities are positioned as objects.16 They have successfully showed the benefits of this Foucauldian approach, which reveals the productive interaction between practices of power and subjectivities.17 By removing the boundaries between public and private, political and pre-political, mind and body, and through its ability to diffuse to all spheres of life, power shapes, produces and is reproduced through performances of subjects and objects.18 A fundamental reason why productive power is chosen in the present feminist analysis is that it offers a critical prism to study power from the perspective of the objects of power: those who are objectified by power and then produce power through their performances as subjects. Compulsory, institutional and structural powers point to very crucial dimensions of the workings of power in the West/non-West context. As will be discussed in the following chapters on Turkey, the West sometimes exercised direct coercive power over Turkey, such as during the period of the imperial dissolution, and sometimes used Western institutions to influence Turkey’s policies. Structural power is often visible; Turkey’s prime minister I˙smet I˙no¨nu¨ was reminded by US president Johnson in 1964 of Turkey’s vulnerable position in a bipolar international system without the protective umbrella of the US. These crucial workings of power will be revisited during the analysis. However, the main focus will be on productive power, because it enables an analysis of ‘what does power do’ to individuals, institutions and geographies. As Doty, who extensively employs productive power in her post-colonial analysis, argues, it ‘is a kind of power that produces meanings, subject identities, their interrelationships, and a range of imaginable conduct’.19 Therefore, the focus of productive power is not on already constructed unequal power relations, but on how individuals/institutions/communities/geographies are reproduced through performances as the rightful unit of exercising power over others, and power to define norms, rules and processes. In this analysis, the power hierarchy between the West (either as Europe or the US) and the non-West (Turkey) is considered to be historically (re)constructed through gendering Turkey (with its people, histories, politics and economy) as an object and subject. Turkey has been
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marked as subordinate, which generates a constant need to ‘catch up’ with the West, become ‘like the West’, or prove its worth to the West by highlighting its ‘difference’ along with its deep ‘dislike’ towards the West. Therefore, non-western subjectivities are not simply ‘objects’ but also ‘subjects’ in the production of West/non-West power relations. Turkey’s policy makers’ narratives and policy performances will reveal the ways in which these subject and object positions have been reproduced. Edward Said, when reflecting on Foucault’s power understanding, suggested that ‘it is sensible to begin by asking the following questions: why imagine power in the first place, and what is the relationship between one’s motive for imagining power and the image one ends up with’.20 The motive for studying power is analytical but more so normative and political. Feminists have been explicit about their motivation, which is to problematise oppressive gendered power hierarchies by unpacking how power works in patriarchal global politics. However, compulsory, institutional and structural powers are corollary to the productive effects of power. Understanding the West/ non-West power relations from the perspective of productive power contributes to de-normalising and de-essentialising hierarchies. Power hierarchies between the West and the non-West, or between the nonWestern state and its society, are not natural and essential. Rather, their generation and reiteration depends on the production of individual subjectivities, whose performances – narrative and political – situate particular geographies, institutions and individuals in subject and object positions. Gendering the non-West is a constitutive dimension of these productive processes through which power hierarchies are normalised and legitimised.
A Feminist Post-Colonial Look at Turkey’s Relations with the West: What Does it Offer? Gender operates in Turkey–West political and economic relations and, within this context, in state–society relations in Turkey. A problematisation of hegemonic relations between the West(s) and Turkey cannot be performed without critically questioning the hegemonic position of the state over society in Turkey and vice versa. This dual criticism should start with revealing how gender operates in relation to race, religion, ethnicity and class.
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In the literature focusing on the modernisation or Westernisation21 of Turkey, especially those works seeking to reveal the political dimensions of Westernisation, the general tendency has been to analyse and problematise the late Ottoman period, mainly the period until 1938 (death of Mustafa Kemal Atatu¨rk, the founder of the Republic in 1923) or 1939 (beginning of World War II).22 Without question, this period is the manifestation of a ‘radical’ or ‘authoritarian’ modernisation in which a strong state embarked upon a process of radical reforms to reconstruct the material (geography, economy, political institutions) and immaterial (a new national identity, new citizen, new imaginations about the West and non-West) components of the non-West.23 Indeed, the literature is rich in terms of the effects of Westernisation in Turkey in several areas from economy to architecture.24 Another strand of literature focuses on the post-Cold War period in Turkey and social unrest stemming from both Kurdish separatism and the rise of political Islam.25 These two dissident movements are generally considered as societal reactions to authoritarian modernisation and its subsequent effects on the country.26 Notwithstanding their immense contributions to understanding the processes of modernisation in Turkey along with its political, social, economic and cultural consequences, this analysis aims to differ in terms of the theoretical perspective it adopts and the way it studies Westernisation/modernisation. The objective is to understand how politics of gender feeds into Turkey’s insecurities vis-a`-vis the West in patriarchal global politics, and how societal insecurities are generated in Turkey’s policy makers’ attempts to position Turkey vis-a`vis the West(s). This objective requires contextualising Turkey’s Westernisation/modernisation process within its historical continuities.27 Therefore, the purpose is not simply to reveal the gender dimension of the early Republican modernisation and the domestic reactions to it, both in the 1920s and since the early 2000s, but to examine how ‘the West’ has been continuously reconstructed in Turkey’s policy makers’ security imaginations in subsequent historical periods. This historical perspective will exhibit how certain narratives are constructed by interacting with each other in changing conjunctures of global politics since the nineteenth century. As a result, the role of certain identity markers in Turkey’s international and domestic politics, such as
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‘Western’, ‘Middle Eastern’, ‘Muslim’, ‘role model’, ‘democratic’ and ‘liberal’, can be historicised, and the changes in the way that these markers are narrated and operationalised can be shown. These continuities and changes will be rethought with regard to Turkey’s gendered relations with the West. The analysis will underline the multiplicity of ‘Wests’ in Turkey in terms of the changing standards of the West’s hegemonic masculinities. It is a fact that as Chakrabarty argues with reference to Europe, the West in Turkey has been ‘an imaginary figure that remains deeply embedded in cliche´d and shorthand forms in some everyday habits of thought’.28 This symbolic, singular and monolithic image of the West has been used by policy makers in Turkey to justify their policies: ‘that is how it is done in the West’. That said, a deeper analysis reveals the plurality of Wests in Turkey. Again, as argued by Chakrabarty about Europe: Europe appears different when seen from within the experiences of colonisation and inferiorisation in specific parts of the world. Post-colonial scholars, speaking from their different geographies of colonialism, have spoken of different Europes.29 In different periods, ‘the West’ has been represented by adopting changing standards. ‘The West’ before World War II, during the Cold War, and in the neoliberal era do not necessarily coincide. As the ‘standards’ of the West change, non-Western policy makers’ perceptions of the West and what they should do to meet the continuously changing standards also transform, as their narratives in the empirical chapters will reveal. Therefore, Turkey’s modernisation through becoming a member of the West is not limited to the early republican era. Rather, it is a historical process that continues in the contemporary neoliberal period by articulating, interacting, relating and resisting alternative and contending West(s). What remains constant is Turkey’s political and economic Orientalisation by the West(s) through gendering, and the latter’s equally Orientalised reactions. Although this is not a historical analysis, a historical perspective offers advantages, such as revealing that Turkey’s ‘gendered ontological insecurity’ (see below, and Chapter 1) vis-a`-vis the West is not confined to the founders of the Republic. It is historically produced and
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reproduced and is still present in Turkey’s policy makers’ fear and desire for the West(s). The discussion in the following chapters will highlight that Turkey’s policy makers, from the late imperial to the contemporary period, have not abandoned the approach that in order to become a respectable member of the international society, Turkey should position itself within the West. Nevertheless, how they pursue this political project differs. Whether it is the authoritarian modernisation of the 1920s or the neo-Ottomanism of the 2000s, ‘the West’ has always been the reference point for designing both the international and domestic politics of Turkey. Therefore, this analysis considers modernisation or Westernisation as a modality that transcends the domestic/international division and reproduces non-Western subjectivities as subordinate to the West, prompted by the strong desire to be like the West but also different from it. Regarding the foreign affairs of Turkey, the discussion will operate based on two concepts. While Western-oriented foreign policy aims to position Turkey within the West by marking its ‘difference’ from the West, West-centric foreign policy renders Turkey an instrument of Western political interests in its own region. Western-oriented foreign policy has been adopted by policy makers from the left, right or Islamist lines of thinking; therefore, it has been an integral dimension of Turkey’s foreign policy. In some periods (such as the 1950s and early 1980s) West-centrism became dominant. As will be shown in the analysis, both have been justified on the account of being ‘realist’, ‘rationalist’, ‘unemotional’, ‘prudent’ or ‘democratic’, in line with these standards of hegemonic masculinities of the West. Being a good, equal and respectable member of the international society requires these types of justifications, although what policy makers articulate as ‘the West’ has differed. Similarly, in domestic politics the construction of the ideal society and model citizen, whether in the 1920s or the 2000s, obtains new meaning if these domestic processes are contextualised within the foreign policy objectives of the state elites. This will appear in three ways. Firstly, positioning Turkey within the West by convincing the West that Turkey is like them requires different models of society and citizenship, both politically (rational, modern, rationalist, nationalist, anti-communist and Muslim) and economically (liberal, consumerist, mercantilist and neoliberal), depending on the changing ‘standards’ of
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the West in Turkey’s policy makers’ understandings. Secondly, many domestic policies have been articulated in relation to foreign policy narratives of the elite. In particular, the ‘other’ in foreign policy can also be produced as the ‘other’ in domestic politics. Finally, the West is historically the reference point to justify domestic policies in Turkey. This policy can be the establishment of a secular education system in 1924, an increase in the budget of a religious institution in 1951, or alcohol-selling restrictions in 2012. The reference to the West is crucial to underline not simply whether these policy makers were genuinely adopting ‘Western’ thinking and political practices; instead, its importance lies in a non-Western thinking that upholds and reproduces the West’s epistemological hegemony. Their discourses reveal that policy makers adopted this type of narrative in order to legitimise their policies. They play into the societal idea that if a practice is from the West, then it is the right one. The West’s epistemological ‘hegemony’ over the non-West is not just about the superiority of scientific knowledge, but concerns daily political practices where the West is epistemologically rearticulated as the reference point, which feeds into its political hegemony. An interesting reverberation is that the West has appeared as a discursive tool that both ‘emancipates’ and ‘democratises’ society and oppresses it concomitantly. In both processes, non-Western society is articulated as an object of power through feminisation. The historicisation of Turkey’s quest for modernisation as a response to its gendered insecurities also enables the possibility to show how different political groups, such as Kemalists (see below) and Islamists, which are dichotomously presented in some literature as ultimate opposites, are actually similar in their ways of thinking about the West, non-West and domestic society.30 For example, similarities regarding hyperfeminisation processes (excessive and violent oppression of societal groups through engaging with communal identity construction projects and interfering with bodies) of the society between the 1930s and the 2000s are striking. Society as a whole should be in the same historical moment with the elite as one homogenised ‘nation’. Subaltern groups, using Chakrabarty’s approach,31 are represented as those who live in the past and are against modernisation, development, progress and wealth accumulation. In Turkey, these groups vary from the Kurdish population to
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left-wing movements in different historical periods. As a result, their otherisation, and thus marginalisation, is normalised. Similarly, in foreign policy the continuous hyperfeminisation of Greece, for instance, does not recognise the boundaries between right and left in Turkey. Instead of putting different political groups in dichotomist positions, the exploration of their similarities would provide a more accurate account of non-Western subjectivities in Turkey. This feminist post-colonial analysis does not adopt or reproduce problematic dichotomist categorisations. Instead, it leans towards I˙lhan Tekeli’s categorisation of ‘lines of thinking’ in Turkey in consideration of their positioning vis-a`-vis modernism.32 The first line does not question the project of modernisation. Its analysis is objective and scientific, and relies on the separation of the ruler and the ruled. If there are problems in society, it is because the project has not yet realised its potential. When modernisation generates a modern citizen, democracy will follow. Oppressive practices are legitimated for the good of the society. The second line of thinking does not question the modernity project but problematises its democratic legitimacy. According to this view, economic development and new market relations can disconnect individuals from their local cultural roots insofar as the process is managed in a democratic way instead of top-down. That is why it creates an image of ‘the elite’ that is oppressive and estranged from society, while policy makers from this group identify themselves with the people against the elite by invoking the discourse of milli irade (national sovereignty, see chapters on the Democratic Party (DP) and Justice and Development Party (AKP)). The third line of thinking rejects modernity and mystifies the past. Given the material success of the modernity project, it combines the material and technical dimension of modernity with the local and cultural dimension. The last line also rejects modernity but does not idealise the past. Instead, it attempts to move beyond the modernity project, the identities it imposes on individuals and its instrumental rationality. Tekeli’s categorisation offers a better way of evaluating policy makers in Turkey, because it is not based on a priori defined identities of political groups or the dichotomy between ‘core’ and ‘periphery’, ‘elite’ and ‘nation’. Instead, it paves the way for studying particular political actors in certain historical periods without falling into politically loaded identity traps. Therefore, it is possible to analyse how policy
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makers adopt one line of thinking while borrowing ideas and tools from the other lines. For example, there is a strong exchange between the first and the second lines of thinking. Similarly, the third line of thinking often complements the second. More interestingly, in the neoliberal era the second and third lines of thinking have been innovatively ¨ zal’s and Erdog˘an’s Muslim, Turkish, democratic and combined. O conservative citizen embodies this combination (see Chapter 5). Narratives will be useful to show these productive exchanges in changing historical circumstances. This productive exchange between lines of thinking in Turkey offers important advantages for the insecurities of the non-West vis-a`vis the West and how policy makers address these insecurities. When Turkey’s policy makers adopted the idea that Turkey is not meeting the gendered standards of the West, their reaction was a combination of the aforementioned lines of thinking. As the standards always change, their gendered ontological insecurity is permanent, so they construct innovative narratives in their exchange with the West. None of them has so far aimed to dissolve Turkey’s ties with the West; the West’s rationality, science, technology, economy and politics provide the standards. What they add in order to make the non-Western subjectivity hybrid differs. Why does this fluent perspective become necessary? The ‘pro-activism’ of AKP foreign policy in the last decade has led some IR scholars in Turkey to recreate certain dichotomist constructions. Some scholars define this pro-activism as an ‘axis shift’, an attempt to disconnect Turkey from the West. According to their analysis, this policy is the international dimension of reversing the modernisation process in favour of an Islamist and authoritarian government in Turkey.33 Those who argue against this point of view articulate the issue as a reflection of the democratisation of Turkey’s domestic politics in its international relations. ‘De-securitisation’ of certain issues (such as Cyprus, Armenia and the Middle East) is a crucial dimension of this process, where the government representing ‘national sovereignty’ acts on behalf of the nation (millet) at the expense of nondemocratic forces such as the military, judiciary and their aligned political parties.34 According to this line of thinking, the foreign policy of Turkey is a battlefield of political groups. Two groups are fundamental in making sense of Turkey’s foreign policy in this book.
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The first political group is the Kemalists, who are represented by the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) and most recently by the Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetc i Hareket Partisi, MHP). ‘Kemalists’ as the continuation of the Committee of Union and Progress (ITK) tradition are hypermasculinised as ‘aggressive’ and ‘authoritarian modernisers’, who seized power in the 1913 military coup and lost it to the ‘democratic’ forces of the 1950 elections. Since then they have not managed to rule Turkey by winning the elections, so they have used military coups and the judiciary to come to power. They are represented as ‘the elite’ that is disconnected from the rest of society. Society itself constitutes the ‘periphery’, which is articulated as the millet. Their reign depended on the oppression of the millet. They are narrated as oppressive isolationists and nationalists. Its essence is narrated as non-democratic, so its domestic and international policies are embodiments of this essence. According to this line of thinking, Kemalists are the ‘hypermasculinised other’ of the ‘liberal’ forces. The second political group, which is ‘the self’, is represented as the bearers of the contemporary standards of masculinity in Turkey. It consists of the so-called liberal, democratic and conservative forces and the representative of the periphery, the millet. The story is as follows: the periphery seized power through the election victory of the Democratic Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) in 1950. Whenever they came to power, the Kemalist establishment intervened and toppled them in non-democratic ways. The Justice Party (Adalet Partisi, AP), Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi, ANAP), True Path Party (Dog˘ru Yol Partisi, DYP) and, finally, the AKP have constituted the political parties of the periphery. Their motto is national sovereignty (milli irade). They all attempted to pursue a proactive multidimensional foreign policy. However, except for the AKP, none managed to operationalise this vision due to the Kemalist establishment. Their essence is narrated as democratic, liberal but also conservative, and their domestic and international policies reflect this essence. Their foreign policy is neither isolationist nor pro-West but multidimensional. Interestingly, this foreign policy does not have any ‘others’ apart from the hypermasculinised Kemalists. This dichotomist categorisation, however, is not only highly politicised, but also analytically and historically inaccurate. Its politicised character stems from a Schmittian understanding of politics
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where forces are in constant struggle, and ‘good’ and ‘evil’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are demarcated through clear boundaries. Through ‘scientific discourse’, hypermasculinising the domestic and international ‘others’ becomes a central trope of building ‘good’ and ‘evil’. Nevertheless, its analytical and historical inaccuracy points to greater misrepresentations. Firstly, a multidimensional and proactive foreign policy is not an exceptional novelty introduced by the liberal forces in general, and the AKP in particular, but a historical continuity in Turkey’s foreign policy. Since the War of Independence (1919– 22), positioning Turkey vis-a`-vis different countries from different regions and benefiting from this multidimensionality has been common practice. In fact, the most West-centric (i.e. US-centric) foreign policy was performed by the DP governments in the 1950s, defying the argument of a ‘liberal’ multidimensional foreign policy of the centre-right. Especially after the Johnson letter in 1964, different governments led by the centre-left CHP and Democratic Left Party (DSP), centre-right AP, ANAP, DYP and finally the AKP, repeatedly aimed to increase the foreign policy alternatives of Turkey. Moreover, as this analysis will show, all of them targeted the West, although they positioned Turkey within the West differently (also falsifying the ‘axis shift’ argument of the anti-AKP analyses). Turkey’s policy makers’ ‘proactive foreign policy’ is a way to define Turkey’s masculine subjectivity within the West. Secondly, the integration of security in the aforementioned approach is problematic. This thinking argues that Kemalists ‘securitised’ and the liberal forces ‘de-securitised’ several issues in Turkey’s foreign policy. 35 Surely this is in line with the hypermasculinised representation of the Kemalists. However, it is faulty because it fails to understand what types of security notions underlined various political parties’ domestic and international policies; in other words, if Kemalists launched an aggressive modernisation, the kind of security notion that motivated them was never questioned. In addition, this creates a misrepresentation that ‘the liberal forces’ do not have insecurities vis-a`-vis the West. On the contrary, this analysis will show that Turkey’s policy makers showed anxiety due to the gendered devalorisation of Turkey by the West. The ways they addressed this anxiety differ. Finally, the dichotomist categorisation obscures the possibility of considering that all policy makers from different sides of the political
INTRODUCTION
15
spectrum undertook the process of creating the model citizen: Kemal Atatu¨rk’s ‘modern, Western, secular and nationalist’ individual; Su¨leyman Demirel’s ‘developmentalist, modern, progressive, nationalist and conservative’ individual; Bu¨lent Ecevit’s ‘anti-imperialist, Western, ¨ zal’s ‘neoliberal, market-oriented, nationalist and secular’ individual; O conservative and nationalist’ individual; and Erdog˘an’s ‘neoliberal, consumerist and conservative’ individual are all examples which are scrutinised in the following chapters. In particular, despite attempts to represent the political line starting from the DP and ending with the AKP as liberal, open, inclusionary and democratic, the findings of this research are likely to prove that this line of thinking is based on ‘authoritarian liberalism’, which is a combination of capitalism and modernist conservatism built upon the principle of the centrality of the state rather than individual freedoms.36 In addition to its populist foundation and discursive reproduction of the party as the sole manifestation of national sovereignty, this line highlights strong similarities with the allegedly opposing ‘Kemalist’ line. Liberalism in Turkey (at least the so-called liberal political parties) borrows the authoritarianism of Kemalism and reproduces the paternal masculine state operating domestically and internationally. In the last decade, liberal authoritarianism has been reproduced as neoliberal authoritarianism. It must be highlighted that Turkey’s policy makers do not always refer to the same West in the formulation of their discourse and policies. The West of the DP in 1950 was not the West of the CHP in the interwar years. In addition to the historical changes within the West that differentiate the standards of hegemonic masculinity, Turkey’s policy makers’ imaginations of the West differ. The interesting point for this analysis is the way the West has become the reference point for contending political groups to justify their policies; yet, the West to which they refer is different. If one of the objectives of the studies on West/non-West relations is to read the West through the mirror of the non-West, the case of Turkey as being on the edge of the West will be telling. One of the implications of multiple West(s) in the non-West is the construction of multiple ‘others’. A crucially modern and Western security practice, as will be discussed in Chapter 1, is to construct certain ‘others’ who are ‘non-Western’ as being ‘against development’,
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‘bigoted’ and ‘communists’, to name a few. ‘The other’ can be regime opponents, dissidents, minorities or other non-Western units. In the case of Turkey, it will be argued that the hybridity of non-Western subjectivities (both ‘like’ the West and ‘different’ from the West) serves the construction of multiple ‘threatening others’ for different political groups. For example, being Turk and Muslim makes the nonWestern individual different from the West (for example, in the post1980 coup period), but also otherises non-Turks and non-Muslims as threats to this difference. These otherised groups varied: in addition to them, ‘communists’, ‘extreme left’, ‘anarchists’, ‘Kurdish separatists’, ‘Islamists’ and, more recently, ‘nationalists’ (ulus¸alcılar). In policy makers’ narratives, these others always have connections with the ‘outside’ in different historical periods. This is a legacy of the late imperial period that was reproduced during the Cold War and continues today. Likewise, the Western dimension of the hybridity sometimes otherises the very same groups as those who fail to understand science, modernity and rational thinking, and therefore hinder the progress of the country. Kurds in the 1920s, communists in the 1950s, Islamists in the 1990s, and ulus¸alcılar in the 2000s are to name a few. As will be shown in the analysis, policy makers are gendering these groups to justify and normalise their marginalisation. Multiple others and multidimensional oppression has been the story of Turkey in its complex process of Westernisation that generates insecurities at the societal and individual level. With the objective of contributing to the literature on the nonWestern experience of the West and modernisation37 and to countrybased in-depth analyses of these experiences,38 this book argues that Turkey, represented as having a subordinated masculinity (feminised and hypermasculinised non-Western political unit), has been constructed and reconstructed in order to address this gendered insecurity through equally gendered security policies. The politics of security in this case is played out both internationally, at the level of Turkey’s state relations with other states (Western and non-Western), and domestically. The latter refers to the processes of how the state has been constructed, how societal identity has been narrated, how individual subjectivities have been produced and how bodies have become a political battlefield for modernisation. These complex and interrelated processes not only remove the already superficial
INTRODUCTION
17
separation of foreign and domestic policies, but also highlight that foreign and domestic policies are never-ending identity construction projects. These strategic operations uphold some stories, promote certain political interests and marginalise others. This feminist analysis will examine the insecurities of non-Western societies and individuals in the process of reproducing them as subservient to the foreign policy objectives of the non-Western state. The hyperfeminisation of society legitimises and normalises the state elite’s political and economic power over society.
Methodological Approach Feminist post-colonial analysis enables the study of how ‘others’ are constructed through gendering and how they have been dealt with in Turkey’s quest for the West. In such a complex picture, the nonWestern state stands out as the unit that mediates between the domestic and the international. This mediation, however, is not a neutral performance. Non-Western policy makers perceive the gendered insecurity vis-a`-vis the West, generate security policies towards the West and non-West and launch processes of social engineering. This analysis will borrow some key concepts from the works of Sankaran Krishna and Roxanne Doty. The methodological approach will be based on these concepts, as explained below. The first concept is worlding, which ‘sees East and West, Orient and Occident, First and Third Worlds, metropole and post-colony, North and South, as spaces that are non-foundational and constantly reproduced in relational terms.’39 The reproduction of the non-Western state’s masculinity as a feminised and hypermasculinised entity, and therefore excluded from the club of hegemonic Western masculine states, is a historical and political process at the centre of which lies relationality. Depending on the social, political and economic conditions of a certain period, both Western and non-Western masculinities are relationally constructed. Furthermore, it is analytically inaccurate to assume that the West is reproduced monolithically and is fixed in non-Western contexts; this would be an Orientalist claim. For example, as a result of changing political conditions, the hegemonic masculinity of the West during the Cold War was different from that of the interwar period, while hegemonic masculinities of the West multiplied in the forms of the US
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and Europe. This means that the ‘standards’ to catch up to change constantly in non-Western policy makers’ imaginations. This plurality creates both difficulties (sometimes the standards of different Wests conflict) and opportunities for international and domestic political purposes. Non-Western masculinities are constructed in relation to the Wests’ masculinities and are as non-foundational as the latter. Worlding offers to examine this relationality. The relationality and nonfoundationality of both West and non-West and their gendered power relations defeat the presupposed, overarching identities of both sides. In the case of Turkey, types of masculinities intersubjectively constructed for Turkey show different, and sometimes conflicting, characteristics. Both the West and non-West are in constant reproduction; they are in need of constant reproduction. Non-Western state’s decision makers address feminisation and hypermasculinisation by telling stories about the Western and nonWestern state, society and individuals in a historical way. These stories constitute what Krishna refers to as modulations. This refers to ‘the way, under modernity, that social reality is understood in the form of replicable narratives or scripts that govern our actions and enable us to find our way in the world’.40 Through these modulations it will be possible to reveal representations of the West, non-West and Turkey, which are constitutive of power hierarchies.41 In the context of the nonWest, the modulation of social reality is gendered on two levels. Firstly, political representations at state level feminise society vis-a`-vis the non-Western state and hypermasculinise dissident groups within the society that challenge the modulation narrated by the non-Western state elites. Secondly, non-Western decision makers tell (conflicting) stories about the West. On the one hand, the West is represented as an ideal; therefore, the political, economic, social and scientific processes originating from the West are mystified. Subordination of the nonWest through gendering is not unidirectional, but intersubjectively produced and reproduced when non-Western decision makers internalise this gendered hierarchy as a ‘pupil’ who is in dire need to learn from the ‘teacher’, a desire to be like the West. On the other hand, social reality about the West is sometimes represented in a way that the West is acting towards the non-Western states with hostile, undermining and patronising intentions. This prompts non-Western decision makers to be different from the West in order to challenge it.
INTRODUCTION
19
Although the non-Western state pursues its security by showing a constant desire to become part of the West as a solution to its gendered insecurity, this objective is not achievable, despite reiterations of ‘Western-ness’ by the non-West state and society. Unlike Suzuki’s argument about the possibility of being accepted within the international society,42 this analysis will show that constantly changing standards of the Wests’ hegemonic masculinities and hybridity of the non-Western subjectivities obscure this possibility. Attempts to ‘catch up’ are part of a never-ending process: a process that involves ideologies such as modernism, anti-communism, developmentalism and, finally, neoliberalism, though Turkey can never truly ‘catch up’. Gendering normalises, legitimises and reproduces this hopeless quest, which, in fact, works for non-Western political elite’s power over society. It repeatedly reconstructs the position of the non-Western state as a dominant masculine actor, protector and saviour of a hyperfeminised non-Western society. That is why non-Western decision makers’ modulations of the non-Western state and society vis-a`-vis the West is a political process in which allegedly opposed political camps are united in this political practice. The logic of deference is hereby operational: The logic of deference secures the legitimacy of the postcolonial state by basing its historical role on the pursuit of certain desired futures. It situates state elites at the dangerous interstice of the domestic and the foreign, as they mediate this dialectic in the direction of security and development. It undergirds the legitimacy of the state by securing for it both time and space.43 The non-Western state’s statecraft is conditioned by the logic of deference: a process to achieve the goal of being Western by being different from it, and reproduction of the non-Western state as the masculine leader of the society in the context of modernisation/ Westernisation/development. Following from these concepts by Krishna and Doty, the present discussion will examine narratives of Turkey’s decision makers and their modulations during crucial moments of Turkey’s relations with the West, in order to reveal gendered representations of the West, non-West and Turkey. These moments, to name a few, are signature ceremonies (such as the Ankara Agreement with the European Economic
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Community (EEC) in 1963), military crises (such as the 1996 Imia/ Kardak crisis) and political crises (such as the opium issue with the US in 1974). Focusing on military crisis moments facilitates an understanding of how policy makers address these crises in relation to gendered ontological insecurity. This will reveal interesting interactions between non-military and military insecurities in the non-West. The moments will be contextualised within the broader discursive and non-discursive practices of policy makers. For example, Turkey’s policy makers’ stories with regard to the Cyprus operation in 1974 could not be grasped without laying out Turkey’s international and domestic politics in the 1960s and 1970s. These stories are narratives, which are the ‘primary way by which we make sense of the world around us, produce meanings, articulate intentions, and legitimise actions’.44 These narratives will reveal ‘political subjectivities’,45 their production and transformation. The method used is borrowed from feminist methodology in order to bring individual stories to the centre of the analysis.46 The individual narrations articulate the West and the non-West and, therefore, contribute to the construction of discursive formations in which identities are constructed and subjectivities are produced. Empirical facts, such as the Ankara Agreement between the EEC and Turkey or the 1974 military operation in Cyprus, are crucial for this analysis. However, ‘it is only when these empirical elements are transformed into discursive moments, within a historically specific discursive formation, that they are able to inscribe identities’.47 In this analysis, speeches of main foreign policy makers of Turkey, namely various presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers will be examined. These speeches, translated by the author, were retrieved from the minutes of parliamentary meetings and will serve two purposes. The first purpose is to understand how they articulate the West, non-West, and Turkey in relation to each other. In this way, a discursive formation constructed through articulations, in which Turkey’s decision makers address Turkey’s gendered subordination, will be explored. In order to narrow the methodological scope, the speeches delivered in the Parliament will be given most consideration, as well as several press statements to contextualise those speeches. Secondly, as stated above, these narrations will be narrowed down to the crucial moments of Turkey’s relations with the West. In these moments, gendered insecurities are crystallised and decision makers’ equally
INTRODUCTION
21
gendered attempts to solve Turkey’s gendered insecurities are intensified by either internalising feminisation or giving hypermasculine reactions. The limitations of this feminist post-colonial analysis must also be acknowledged. As will be seen in Chapter 1, the literature on West/ non-West relations primarily provokes scholars of IR to detect the relationality between the West and non-West, in other words their exchanges at multiple levels. The present analysis approaches the issue of relationality as worlding, in the form of changing masculinities and their hierarchical interactions in the West/non-West context. However, the concept opens more sites to explore. Relationality is fundamentally an analytical tool to prevent political examinations that centre either on the West or non-West as the ultimate self-containing political unit, without observing how their exchanges produce both. Neglect of relationality, therefore, contributes to mystification of the unit and erasures of the ‘other’. However, as the following chapters will show, the analytical focus will be mainly on Turkey, rather than on how Turkey’s gendered positioning in the West/non-West relations and its reactions would be perceived and articulated within the West. There is a developing literature concerning IR and its constitutive effects on West and non-West power hierarchies.48 This literature rightly urges the scholars of IR, especially those from the non-West, about the possibilities of being ‘a native informant’ for the discipline’s Western political credentials and epistemological underpinnings.49 Theorising based on the non-Western experience and knowledge is not within the scope of this analysis. However, the explorations of the multiple Wests in non-Western policy makers’ modulations about the Wests are included. Acknowledging the risks highlighted above, this analytical practice has three objectives. First, if, as Tickner and Blaney argue following Hamati-Ataya, ‘the West also exists in ‘the other’’,50 explorations of multiple ‘Wests’ in the non-West ‘other’ contribute to deconstructions of IR knowledge (both from the West and the non-West in the form of ‘national schools’) that repeatedly construct ahistorical self – other dichotomies. The production of temporal and spatial knowledge would potentially transcend West/ non-West dichotomies by unpacking both in the context of the non-West. Second, extrapolating the link between international and domestic politics in the case of Turkey through the medium of
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non-Western policy makers can contribute to deepening understandings of domestic political issues in the non-West. The focal point hereby is that the West can be reproduced within non-Western states as an ideal to be reached, an example to follow, and sometimes a threat to be feared. At least in the case of Turkey, the West(s) have been an integral part of domestic politics. Third, politics of gender operates internationally and domestically in the production of West/nonWest power hierarchies. The stimulating results of this practice will highlight the attempts of Turkey’s policy makers to gender other non-Western states in order to position Turkey within the West internationally and domestically, and will show how the West has been narrated to hyperfeminise society. Therefore, the analysis, which aims to reveal gendered articulations of the West in a broad historical period in Turkey’s foreign and domestic politics, will underline a plurality of conceptions of the West in Turkey. It will also show how these conceptions conflate or contradict each other. The West is a source of fear, anxiety, desire and praise; a tool of liberation, emancipation, oppression and exclusion. Rather than contrasting the non-West with the West and exoticising the former through ‘reverse Orientalism’,51 this practice can demystify them by exhibiting the plurality of their articulations. ‘Reverse Orientalism’ prioritises non-Western uniqueness against the West while exaggerating the dichotomies of the West and non-West, both rational/spiritual and modern/traditional.52 It results in a twoway discursive strategy: proving the non-West’s value to the West by underlining the parochialism that makes it different, and marrying this difference to the West’s ‘universal standards’ such as rationality, scientism, positivism and development. Addressing its gendered ontological insecurity in relation to its subordinated masculinity, this dual narrative has often been narrated by Turkey’s policy makers up to the present. Another limitation is that the analysis will focus specifically on policy makers who were part of the government at certain historical moments. The West’s productive power in relation to the non-West diffuses into social life, from politics to economy and from art to scientific knowledge production. For example, in the case of Turkey, there are invaluable sources about Westernisation in architecture, art and the economy. The fundamental reason of limiting the analysis to
INTRODUCTION
23
policy makers lies in methodological rather than ontological or epistemological reasons. The focus on policy makers enables the detection of a constitutive relationship between foreign and domestic politics that both post-colonial and feminist approaches purport through monitoring how the same policy maker articulates the West in foreign and domestic politics (similarly or differently). Therefore, policy makers do not simply have non-Western subjectivities that reproduce power hierarchies, but also form a useful medium through which to study the domestic and international interrelationship. Finally, similarly to the previous point, the analytical focus on the non-Western state does not stem from its ontological or epistemological prioritisation. In contrast, this analysis problematises the non-Western state as a source of insecurity for non-Western societies and individuals and as a contributor to the reproduction of the West(s), even while resisting it.
Outline of the Book In the first chapter, the theoretical foundation of the book will be constructed by recourse to a discussion of post-colonial and feminist literatures in IR. The empirical chapters are divided with reference to three hegemonic masculinities of the West(s). Chapters 2 and 3 discuss the period when the West’s hegemonic masculinity defined the standards of ‘civilisation’. Chapter 4 examines Turkey’s relations with the West(s) as Europe and the US, when Turkey’s policy makers were faced with Western Cold War hegemonic masculinity. Focusing on the last three decades, Chapter 5 explores how the West(s)’ neoliberal hegemonic masculinity has been appropriated in Turkey’s recent conflicts and contradictions. The theoretical foundation of the analysis – the examination of power hierarchies between the West and the non-West and the insecurity that this gendered hierarchy generates for the latter – will be laid out in Chapter 1. The argument of this chapter is that power hierarchies between the West and non-West are reproduced, normalised and justified through gendering the non-Western peoples, histories and geographies. This generates gendered ontological insecurity for non-Western policy makers, who become both objects and subjects of power. However, the policies they employ to address this gendered insecurity can become a source of insecurity for non-Western individuals and societies. Productive
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power operates both at the international and domestic level of nonWestern politics, resulting in a coercive power of non-Western masculine states over their hyperfeminised societies as objects of this power. The second chapter, which sheds light on the Young Turks period, is a foundational chapter to the analysis of the subsequent periods. This chapter will serve two main purposes. First, it will lay out the historical conditions under which the gendered power hierarchy between the Ottoman Empire/Turkey and the West was constructed by becoming a source of insecurity for the former. This power hierarchy, as will be examined in the following chapters, was constructed and reconstructed by conditions of international conjuncture. Second, Ottoman Empire/Turkey’s decision makers’ insecurities will be explored. These insecurities are not solely related to the West, but also focus on domestic non-Western societies, whose disorderliness and heterogeneity were regarded as threats to becoming ‘Western’. Feminised and hypermasculinised non-Western policy makers constructed a type of identity that positioned them as masculine modernisers/civilisers/protectors/leaders vis-a`-vis society. This paternal approach reproduced society as a hyperfeminised entity that was subservient to the masculine modernising state. The gendered ontological insecurity of the Ottoman Empire’s policy makers was so strong that many domestic policies were formulated as a response to it. Chapter 3 discusses the period from the Independence War (1919/20) to the beginning of the multiparty period in 1950. Carrying the legacy of the Young Turks’ period, the early republican policy makers adopted policies that aimed to position Turkey within the West as an equal and respectable member. This had a strong domestic policy dimension, in which a paternalistic state with a homogenous nation was constructed. It will be argued that although CHP policy makers adopted a multidimensional foreign policy during the Independence War with the objective of positioning Turkey within the West, the hyperfeminisation of society that had started during the ITC period continued and intensified. In Turkey’s international politics, aggressive and militarist foreign policy was abandoned (and reverse Orientalism along with it). Consequently, the hypermasculinised essentialisations of Ottomans/Turkey could not be reproduced in the West. Domestic politics, however, was administered
INTRODUCTION
25
in the trajectory of the construction of a modern society and a Western individual identity, giving rise to societal insecurities. As will be shown, gendered ontological insecurity shaped domestic politics in Turkey’s non-Western context. The Cold War challenged these processes and forced CHP decision makers to reformulate their articulations of the West. Chapter 4 covers the period that started in 1950 with the election victory of the Democrat Party and ended in 1980 with the military coup. The first 30 years of the Cold War witnessed the construction of several narratives about the West. The Cold Warrior masculinity became influential in this period, shaping both foreign and domestic politics. The DP policy makers’ heavy West-centrism was replaced by the West-oriented foreign policy of the post-1960 governments. The period 1960 – 80 can be described as the decades of West orientation in foreign policy and hypermasculine power conflicts in domestic politics, all between contending sub-modern fractions. In the area of foreign policy, both centre-right and centre-left governments (and political Islamists in various coalition governments) abandoned the DP’s Westcentrism stemming from the Cold Warrior masculinity. For the purposes of this analysis, the most important underlying reason for this shift was that West-centrism could not address the gendered ontological insecurity of Turkey vis-a`-vis the West. From the removal of the Jupiter missiles to the Johnson letter and the negotiations with the EEC, Turkey’s policy makers experienced Turkey’s differential treatment by the West(s). That is why the shock that the Johnson letter created in Turkey was less a concern of military insecurity vis-a`-vis the Soviets than a realisation that NATO membership did not render Turkey a member of the international society that would be treated with ‘equality and respect’.53 The devalorisation of Turkey in different moments, such as Cyprus in 1964 and the opium issue in 1974 (especially by the US), prompted Turkey’s policy makers to return to the multidimensional foreign policy of the early republican decades: repositioning and re-strengthening Turkey within the West but also presenting it as different. This difference stemmed from its geographical position, historical ties with the Middle East and being the ‘first’ example of anticolonial struggles. In domestic politics, particularly during the AP governments, Cold Warrior masculinity was operational.
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Chapter 5 shifts the discussion to the last three decades of republican Turkey, from the 1980 military coup to the AKP period in the age of neoliberalism, when aggressive market economy conflated with conservatism. In non-Western geographies like Turkey, the appropriation of ‘neoliberal masculinity’ cannot be thought of independently from its relations with the West. This period will be discussed through three sub-periods: the O¨zal years, the chaotic 1990s and the AKP decade. In foreign policy, ontological insecurity vis-a`-vis the West continued to be a dominant feature. Policy makers have repeatedly addressed this insecurity by integrating Islam into the foreign policy narratives as Turkey’s valuable ‘difference’. The reflection of this approach in domestic politics resulted in the Turkish – Islamic synthesis, which prepared the foundation for neo-Ottomanism. The neoliberal/Ottomanist decades in Turkey have been the stage of extreme hyperfeminisation of society.
CHAPTER 1 REPRODUCTION OF POWER HIERARCHIES
`
THROUGH DEVALORISING ' THE NON- WEST
The argument proposed in this chapter is that power hierarchies between the West and non-West are reproduced, normalised and justified through gendering the non-Western peoples, histories and geographies. This generates gendered ontological insecurity for nonWestern policy makers, who become both objects and subjects of power. The argument will unfold in three steps. In the first section, postcolonial approaches in IR will be discussed in order to show how they problematise the workings of power in West/non-West relations through their political and epistemological practices. The second section will explore the ways in which the West/non-West power hierarchies are reproduced, justified and normalised through gendering. Third World feminism and theory of masculinities have paved the way for understanding and problematising the reproduction of power hierarchies in the West/non-West context. Third, the politics of security in the gendered West/non-West power hierarchies will be discussed.
The Non-West as Subject and Object of Power The non-West with its peoples, histories, geographies, politics and economies, contingent and political as the West, has been studied critically not as an object, footnote or side-line to the West. Instead, it has been a centre of analysis for scholars of post-colonialism in IR. The
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contributions of scholars of post-colonialism to decentring ‘the West’, both ontologically and epistemologically, are useful for comprehending multifaceted political, social and economic processes in non-Western contexts. In these processes, the West appears sometimes as a political actor and sometimes as an idea, image or ideal. It is always involved in non-Western domestic and international politics of security. The following chapters will reveal and problematise the articulations of the West(s) in Turkey’s policy makers’ security imaginations in different historical periods. This fundamental problematisation opens up a myriad ways through which the West, the non-West and the relationality between them – ‘worlding’ – have been constructed against the backdrop of the interplay between domestic and international. Three analytical questions emerge from these constructions for the purposes of this analysis: how is the non-West represented in the West? How does the non-West internalise these representations and construct its own identity in relation to contending images of the West? What types of reactions does the non-West give to the West? These questions are closely related to the workings of productive power in West/non-West relations, where gender becomes a central trope according to which hegemonies and subordinations are reproduced. This examination will explain why the tools of post-colonial studies are vital for analysing Turkey’s relations with the West. Post-colonial studies reveal what mainstream and sometimes critical IR scholarship tend to overlook ontologically and epistemologically by using two conceptual sets of political analysis. The first set is the self/ other construction. Starting from subaltern studies and literature on Orientalism, and under the analytical influence of post-modernism, post-colonial approaches gaze on the West and the non-West from the prism of identity construction, where the West (self) is contrasted to the non-West (other). These identity construction processes are studied at individual (e.g. Western citizens versus non-Western migrants),1 societal (native/indigenous versus colonial/European)2 and supra-state levels (zones of peace/democracy versus zones of war/non-democracy, and ‘the West and the rest’).3 Post-colonial approaches examine how ‘West’ and ‘non-West’ identities are relationally constructed in diverse areas from ‘scientific’ knowledge production to daily activities. The second conceptual set is the temporal and spatial constructions of West/ non-West dichotomies. Post-colonial studies examine and problematise
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‘the non-West’ as an ostensibly ahistorical, apolitical and reified geopolitical space bestowed by certain (generally negative and gendered, as will be shown below) characteristics, as opposed to the West’s ‘civilised’, ‘developed’ and ‘liberal’ space. In other words, spatial constructions of the non-West are co-constitutive of the constructions of self/other dichotomies. By revealing the temporality of these spatial constructions, post-colonial approaches demystify the non-West, the ‘other’. Surely, ‘the colonial frontier was (and is) always shifting, blurring, and composed of multiple divisions’.4 Spacing the non-West constructs multiple ‘others’ in international and domestic politics, as will be shown in the case of Turkey. Through the matrix of these two conceptual sets, post-colonial studies ontologically decentre the West/ Europe by highlighting non-Western subjectivities and agency, and by epistemologically discrediting knowledge that stems from the West’s racialised and gendered representations of the non-West as an ahistorical, reified geopolitical space. In order to challenge the self/other dichotomy and temporal/spatial constructions, several ontological and epistemological moves have been made concurrently in post-colonial IR. These are challenging the erasures of the non-West and essentialisations of the West and nonWest; understanding relationality; problematising superiority/subordination between the two; prioritising resistance of the non-West; and revealing mutual fear and anxiety. The primary ontological move of post-colonial studies is to challenge the erasures of non-Western subjectivities, practices, values, ideas and experiences by West-centric political and ‘scientific’ discourses. The erasure of the non-West is an instrument to centre the West/Europe in historical processes as the focal point around which history, politics and science revolve. Doty identifies this as the process of negation that represents the non-West as ‘blank spaces waiting to be filled in by Western writing’.5 As a result, Western experiences, which formed under particular temporal and spatial conditions, can be universalised as the experiences, values and ideas of humanity. Agathangelou and Ling discuss the problem of erasure in relation to the historical constructions of ‘the self’ as opposed to ‘the others’. They argue that the progress of the West, which manifests itself as civilisation, modernisation, development, neo-liberalisation and, currently, ‘neo-colonialisation’ in different historical periods, is rendered global. Those who cannot ‘catch
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up’ with these political processes are either neglected at best or exterminated at worst. In the case of ‘the self’, the West ‘militarises daily life’ by inflicting violence on ‘the others’. In ‘the politics of erasure’, erasure of non-Western experiences can lead to its eradication.6 For post-colonial studies, the political erasure of the non-West has been strengthened by the ostensibly ‘scientific’ discourse on which IR has been built. Post-colonial studies problematise traditional and, to a certain extent, critical international relations scholarship, because they either erase non-Western episteme, or acknowledge the nonWest’s existence by turning it into a field to operationalise Westcentric social theories. Shilliam calls this a ‘geocultural cleavage’, which means that ‘non-Western thought might be considered as a legitimate object of modern inquiry, but not a source through which to construct legitimate knowledge of modern subjecthood’.7 This epistemological position contributes to a reproduction of subject and object positions in West/non-West power relations. ‘International theory has been formalised to reflect peculiar histories, memories, rationales, values, and interests, all bound by time, space, and specific political languages’.8 In turn, the erasure of non-Western experiences from scientific knowledge contributes to policies that aim to ‘civilise’ or ‘modernise’ those who are lost in emotions and who lack (masculine) values such as rationality and scientific thinking. As will be discussed below, one of the most important epistemological moves in feminist IR is to challenge the dichotomy constructed by social scientific discourse between facts and values, the emotional and the rational, and the observer and the observed. In these dichotomist constructions, masculinity is attributed to those who are allegedly rational observers of facts, whereas what is considered as ‘natural’ is feminised and subordinated epistemologically. The erasure of the non-West from Western scientific and political discourse enables essentialisations of the non-West. These essentialisations are generally negative: chaotic, backward, dangerous and barbaric (which renders the Western self safe, orderly and modern),9 underdeveloped and poor (which renders the Western self a model of development and wealth),10 reactionary, religiously fundamentalist (which renders the Western self secular, democratic and progressive),11 and sometimes positive, such as exotic, as Orientalism studies show. However, both types of essentialisations result in the
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mystification of the non-West through representations of the West. In this way, non-Western peoples, geographies and histories are confined in fixed temporal-spatial constructions as ‘the other’. The non-West is mystified as a geopolitical place without history and politics and with essential characteristics. Post-colonial studies challenge these essentialisations by demystifying the non-West through prioritising the experiences and values of the latter in the analysis: highlighting ‘differences’ of/in the non-West and how these differences are played out politically. However, this is not a relativist move ‘which seeks to leave each “place” as it is’, but a transnationalist move that ‘seeks to place disparate and interdependent places and cultures into possible conversations’.12 As a result, the West or Europe can be decentred ontologically and epistemologically. The post-colonial challenge to the erasures and essentialisations of the non-West is paralleled with another analytical move, which further decentres the West: understanding relationality between the West and non-West, which this study adopts as ‘worlding’. The neglect of the non-West and its essentialisation hinders the discovery of interactions and exchanges between the West and non-West. The important implications of insufficient accounts of relationality are brought to light by post-colonial studies. One is lack of understanding about political, social and technological developments in the non-West, and how these developments influenced the West and its progress. For example, as Hobson convincingly showed, long before West-centric globalisation there was an Eastern globalisation with a web of political, economic and cultural relations, which influenced Western travellers and merchants. For Hobson, overlooking this is a political move to essentialise the non-West as inferior, ‘an antithesis’ of the ‘rational’ West, and it enables the erasures and essentalisations discussed previously: The West was imagined as being inherently blessed with unique virtues: it was rational, hard-working, productive and sacrificial, as well as parsimonious, liberal-democratic, honest, paternal and mature . . . The East was then cast as the West’s opposite Other: irrational, arbitrary, lazy, unproductive, indulgent and exotic, as well as alluring and promiscuous, despotic, corrupt, child-like and immature . . . Another way of expressing this is to say that the
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West was defined by a series of progressive presences, the East by a series of absences.13 In the process of negation, this leads to the representation of the West as a leading civilised force that originates from ‘some special or primary feature of its inner socio-economic, political and cultural life’. The representation of the West as a model for progress for the non-West follows.14 This paternalistic look at the non-West is enhanced by equating modernity with equality and freedom and by presenting this as a recipe for progress,15 although the case of Turkey will show otherwise. The post-colonial perspective, as a result, sheds light on the fact that not only the non-West, but also the West is mystified through essentialisations. It demystifies the West by revealing its temporal spatiality, which involves encounters with the non-West. Hence, the self/other dichotomy is challenged. The mystification of both the West and non-West is a political act that (re)constructs and naturalises power hierarchies between the two, where the non-West is represented as subordinated to the West. Postcolonial studies acknowledge this power hierarchy articulated through race, class and gender, and explores how it has been constructed and reconstructed in changing social, political and economic conditions. One methodological choice is to examine the representations of the West and the non-West in different contexts, because ‘unveiling practices of power in IR requires at the very least an engagement with the problem of representation and its racialised and gendered implications’.16 This approach investigates how the power hierarchies between the West and the non-West are practised and, therefore, reproduced in local and global contexts. Erasures, essentialisations and mystifications are articulated in these representations that render the West dominant over the non-West. Another approach explores how post-colonial power hierarchies produce colonial and post-colonial subjectivities, which in turn reconstruct the hegemony of the West through discursive and non-discursive performances. The following contributions of Third World feminism and post-colonial feminism highlight succinctly that gendered constructions of individual subjectivities are instrumental to the construction of post-colonial societies and states. Thus, the West is repeatedly represented as a model and an ideal, and sometimes as a perpetrator or a threat.
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Power in post-colonial studies is a fundamental concept. Remembering Barnett and Duvell’s typology, it is not simply considered as coercive, institutional or structural power, although it has power-over effects on non-West states, societies and individuals. It is more so a productive power that produces non-Western subjectivities through discursive and bodily performances. However, it must be noted that some post-colonial scholars criticise postmodern power understandings that are mainly influenced by Foucault and Bourdieu. This is because in post-modern approaches, as Chowdry and Nair state, ‘power is never clearly locatable in the disembodied spaces of this postmodern realm; it is both everywhere and nowhere in such a representation of international relations, and may lead to further disempowerment of the already marginalised in IR’.17 Post-colonial studies aim to problematise the hegemonic understanding of the West that is transhistorical, immune to aberrations and ever-encompassing.18 The subsequent move is to bring resistance into the analysis, which bestows agency to the nonWest as a panacea of negation. While there are more traditional postcolonial studies that focus on nationalist revivals (such as Fanon), post-colonial feminism has offered an alternative way without falling into the trap of modernity’s violent methods and ideologies. Ling’s extensive focus on hybridity and mimicry and Moon’s feminist analysis reveal how modernisation is appropriated in local contexts, and are exemplars of post-colonial studies’ approaches to resistance.19 Resistance also takes an epistemological turn in the form of ‘rewriting IR’ by decentring Europe and the West, offering ontological and epistemological pluralism. Post-colonial studies and what they challenge politically and epistemologically is closely related to why the non-West is bestowed with insecurities vis-a`-vis the West. The ontological and epistemological move in post-colonial studies reveals mutual fear and anxiety between the West and non-West. A close look at how power hierarchies between the West and the non-West are constructed through gendered, racialised and class-based representations and practices indicates that these discursive and non-discursive practices are reasons and consequences of uncertainty about ‘the other’, and a certain fear and anxiety about what ‘the other’ can do to ‘the self’. However, there are two different modalities of fear and anxiety for the West and the
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non-West. In Western contexts, representations of the non-West manifest in multiple ways in different historical and geopolitical contexts. For example, for the colonisers in South America and Asia, the non-West and the peoples in it are represented as emotional, childlike and unpredictable, acting on their natural instincts, or as barbarians that are aggressive and invasive. In nineteenth-century European politics, the non-West was represented as a sphere of despotism, economic inefficiency, weakness and aggressiveness. Although during the Cold War it was a source of poverty where communism could flourish,20 in the post-Cold War neoliberal world the non-West is articulated as politically and economically inefficient and lacking in good governance and democracy. In other words, the non-West has often been represented as a source of uncertainty, fear and anxiety for the West.21 This has enabled the West to reproduce a self that is always under threat and should always be on guard. Consequently, it has legitimised aggressive practices to exterminate the threat. For the non-West, the modality of fear and anxiety is more reactionary and multifaceted. The following chapters will focus on a particular type that renders non-Western subjectivities ontologically insecure. This is mainly because non-Western subjectivities are produced in a way that multiple actors internalise the erasures and essentalisations that the West attributes to the non-West, discussed previously. They invoke their agency to react to this type of insecurity and challenge erasures and marginalisations by formulating diverse policies in international and domestic spheres. They appropriate civilisation, modernisation, development or neoliberalisation in their contexts.22 That is why non-Western policy makers are both objects and subjects of productive power in the West and non-West encounters. In the milieu of ontological insecurity, the West becomes a source of both desire and fear for the non-West. The non-Western desire to be like the West (note, the operation of productive power) is underlined by the desire to be accepted as equal by the West through adopting certain Western standards and appropriating them in their local contexts. As the case of Turkey will exhibit, fear of the West is related to actual and potential consequences of being excluded, undermined and rejected by the West through essentalisations, erasures and political and epistemological marginalisations. The role of gender in the processes discussed in this section will be analysed below.
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Gendering the West/Non-West Hierarchies Feminist IR challenges the ontological and epistemological foundations of the discipline by not only rendering woman and man visible as producers and effects of global politics, but also by revealing local and global gendered political processes, one of which is power hierarchies between the West and the non-West. Feminist IR questions how gender is interwoven with race and class and how masculinities are (re)produced dynamically by interacting with race and class. Female and male bodies become central to the reproduction of gendered relations, processes and structures. Hence, gender as an analytical category is introduced in a way that challenges the disciplinary confines of what exists in global politics and how the global and local can be studied. Furthermore, while problematising gendered structures and relations, feminist IR has also found sites of resistance and transformation within the marginalised and the silenced. Through these openings, feminism will contribute to substantiating the postcolonial arguments above: how certain hierarchies are produced, normalised and justified through gendering. Taking its roots from women’s movements and their experiences and resistances, feminism is an intellectual enterprise which flourishes on the ground of feminist praxis. This means that feminist theorising relies on the exchange between theory and practice and produces a type of knowledge to problematise, transform and change. Some scholars of feminism pursue this praxis by opening up the analysis to differences and localities;23 others focus on differences by adopting the idea of women’s emancipation more explicitly.24 The latter problematises lack of women or neglect of the existence of women at different levels of global politics.25 Feminist praxis is driven by the objective of revealing and questioning the gendered constitution of power hierarchies in global politics, whether they are between individuals, states, or the West and non-West. Similarly to post-colonial studies, their questioning starts with the epistemology of IR and reveals the gendered construction of knowledge, which reproduces and consolidates West/non-West power hierarchies. Although post-positivist openings in IR increasingly question ‘what constitutes knowledge?’ and problematise allegedly ‘objective’ and ‘empiricist’ knowledge claims, feminists have brought the gender
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dimension to the centre of epistemological claims by highlighting masculine or maleness constructions and reification of IR knowledge.26 Defining positivist knowledge in terms of masculinity can be performed by creating a male monopoly on scientific claims and by equalising men’s nature to human nature and male experience to human experience; more specifically, by accepting Western man’s experience as the experience of global human society. This generates scientific knowledge that is partial and inextricably masculine. Consequently, female experiences are not reflected in ‘scientific’ knowledge. Another way is to dichotomise masculine and feminine identities, while associating the former with objectivity and thus rendering it scientific.27 They strongly question the unreflective character of ‘orthodoxy’ in IR due to the artificial separation between theory and practice, subject and object, knower and known under the cloak of scientific objectivity.28 The separation of knower (subject) and known (object) relies on the association of masculinity with the ‘scientific, objective, asexual’.29 Binaries of object –subject, mind –body, knower – known, which define positivism, presume a gendered dichotomy between masculinity and femininity. However, one must note that: The appropriate metaphor is not A and B . . . It is A and not-A. ‘Man’, ‘masculinity’, and ‘male worlds’ are literally defined by their exclusion of (and disdain for) that which constitutes ‘women’, ‘feminine’ and ‘female worlds’. This has systemic implications for evaluating androcentric knowledge claims since the ‘zero-sum’ construction of A and not-A . . . suggests that A cannot be fully understood without knowledge and understanding of non-A, and vice versa.30 Feminist epistemological interventions have problematised the production, naturalisation and justification of the oppressive domination (power-over) of ‘scientific’ (rational, positivist and objective) knowledge on other types of knowledge claims by recourse to feminising the latter (assigning irrationality, emotionality and subjectivity).31 The masculinity of ‘scientific’ knowledge claims is an epistemological problem, which has strong political implications that shape West/non-West relations. Subordinated non-Western masculinities
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aim to address this subordination by adopting the ‘scientific’ knowledge of the West and reorganising political life based on this knowledge. As Chapters 2 and 3 aim to show, one of the most important modalities of Ottoman/Turkey’s modernisation and Westernisation was to privilege ‘science’ and ‘scientific, rational and objective’ knowledge over their alternatives. These alternatives were articulated and branded ‘backward’, ‘Eastern’, ‘emotional’ and ‘irrational’. The reproduction of non-Western subjectivities as ‘rational’, ‘scientific’ and ‘objective’ was conflated with their simultaneous reproduction as ‘Western’, ‘modern’ and ‘national’. However, it would be misleading to limit this epistemological reproduction of the West to the early Republican period. As will be shown, throughout republican history the West was considered as the source of ‘right’ and ‘legitimate’ knowledge, as are the ways and practices underlined by this scientific knowledge. Knowledge challenging the ‘national’ and ‘scientific’ claims adopted and produced by the state elite were feminised and hypermasculinised, and therefore silenced and marginalised at best; this was politics of erasure within the non-West. At worst, they were articulated as threats to national survival and the process of modernisation and development, threats that should be eliminated by employing the state’s coercive power. This constructs the modern state in the non-West as a masculine political institution. According to Peterson, the institution of the state is ‘strategic’ for feminists for three reasons: it acts as the ‘centralised main organiser’ of gendered power; it ‘exercises legitimate violence and defines what is illegitimate’; and it institutionalises and reproduces (through sanctions, cultural forms, education, policy, regulation and law) the legitimation of social hierarchy.32 In other words, the state is not only a product of gendered relations, but has also attained the role of perpetuating gendered power hierarchies. As a gendered institution, the state for feminists reflects the dichotomy between masculinity and femininity, which also manifests in other dichotomies created by the state such as internal/external, public/private and order/anarchy. In a nutshell, the modern state is the rational, objective and fair protector of society against internal and external threats. Order is one of the main functions the state serves. As will be discussed in subsequent chapters, order often appears in state-level narratives that relate to
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modernisation, Westernisation and development. Through the order that the state creates and maintains, society survives and the ‘good life’ can be built in the private sphere within internal borders. For Peterson, the contract between society and state ‘fixes the trade-off between internal unity/reason/politics and external difference/ irrationality/war’.33 The state by virtue of its functions of security and rationality emerges as a masculine institution.34 The feminisation of society starts with the public/private separation, but goes deeper in relation to the status of society vis-a`-vis the state. In this process, the state is considered responsible for the protection of the society, its well-being and its unity. Society is feminised in relation to the masculinised state as a protector, guardian and parent. This gendered hierarchy assigns particular roles to society such as protecting national unity and serving the needs of the state. The aforementioned feminist approaches reveal the gendered construction of the West with its politics and underlying epistemological foundation. However, there is relatively limited discussion about how these modern and Western institutions are appropriated in non-Western contexts, what types of power hierarchies are constructed between the West and non-West and between nonWestern state and society and, more fundamentally, how gender works in the construction of the West’s hegemony over the non-West. Gendering is a fundamental political practice that reproduces erasures and essentalisations of the non-West as a timeless space and constructs self/other dichotomies between the two. While Third World feminism integrates the non-West into feminist IR, masculinity theories will enable the understanding of ‘hegemonic’ and ‘subordinated’ positioning of the West and non-West accordingly. Third World feminism was primarily a reaction to the Westcentrism of feminist IR, in tandem with its tendency to universalise western women’s experiences and knowledge claims and its own liberal developmentalist/modernist assumptions. In relation to the former, Third World feminists have been critical towards western feminists for equalising western, middle-class, white women’s subjectivities and experiences as the female subjectivity and experience. This tendency is problematic on several levels. It primarily homogenises women’s experiences globally by assuming the existence of a universal category of women. In addition, it essentialises non-western women as
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‘subordinated’, ‘oppressed’ and ‘weak’, without acknowledging differences among them and their roles in public and private spheres of life.35 However, these are not simply analytical and empirical problems for feminist IR, but also important normative problems. According to critiques, without recognising subjectivities and experiences, west-centric feminists risk objectifying both the non-West and the women and men of the non-West by adopting nearly ‘colonising’ attitudes towards the nonWest.36 Its liberal developmentalist/modernist approach problematically seeks the emancipation of non-western women in liberal development and modernisation without acknowledging and challenging power hierarchies derived from race, class and ethnicity.37 The theoretical and normative commitment of Third World feminists to examining non-Western women’s (and men’s) experiences problematises the legacy of colonial practices and problems (and opportunities) of post-colonial modernisation processes in the nonWest. Importantly for the purposes of this book, this has led them to question the institution of the state and the implications of this gendered institution on the women and men of the non-West by furthering the aforementioned criticisms towards the state. For example, in her criticism for the United Nations document ‘Decade for Women (1976 –85)’, Goetz argues that the document ‘neither allows for an analysis of how the state itself, as well as the general direction of modernisation, might systematically obstruct the inclusion of women’s concerns. Both, too, are embedded in a western understanding of modernisation’. Goertz problematises the post-colonial state from the perspective of political economy.38 Alexander and Mohanty underline the political similarities between Western and non-Western states: 1) They own the means of organised violence that most often get deployed in the service of ‘national security’; 2) they are both militarised – in other words, masculinised; 3) they invent and solidify practices of racialisation and sexualisation of the population; 4) they discipline and mobilise the bodies of women – in particular Third World women – in order to consolidate patriarchal and colonising processes.39 Third World feminists, therefore, not only problematise the Westcentric universalisation of ‘women’ on the basis of Western women’s
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experiences, but also take a step further to problematise non-Western political and economic institutions and relations. By breaking Westcentrism in feminist IR, as Mohanty argues, ‘gender’ identity is released from the narrow analytical and political perspective that studies it exclusively and separately from other identity markers. It is increasingly understood (both epistemologically and politically) as an identity that is relational to race, class, nation and sex.40 As a result, with the introduction of Third World feminism, gender is understood as a fluid, plural, contextual and contingent identity. It contributes to demystifying the non-West and reveals its gendered constructions in/by the West (i.e. opening up the non-West to examining multifaceted political, social and economic processes in their own local contexts). It also reveals how the non-West can react to these constructions. In other words, Third World feminism paved the way for problematising the West/non-West power hierarchies and their gendered character. It must be noted that these hierarchies do not appear in a single, monolithic form. Western masculinity is presented as opposed to non-Western femininity, but also as an interaction among different masculinities where one (the subordinated) attempts to meet the standards of the other (the hegemonic). To make this point, the next section will discuss masculinities in global politics. R.W. Connell’s Masculinities has been regarded as a seminal work that triggered a vast body of literature in different disciplines of Social Science, including IR. For Connell, it is not accurate to think of masculinity as a monolithic and static identity. Rather, there are multiple masculinities in patriarchal structures and some of them hold a superior position over others. Hegemonic masculinity refers to a type of masculinity ‘that occupies the hegemonic position in a given pattern of gender relations’.41 Political actors that claim to represent hegemonic masculinity feminise or hypermasculinise other masculinities by ascribing to them particular gendered characteristics.42 In the case of feminisation, these characteristics are emotional, irrational, weak and passive; the latter case involves elements such as excessive aggression, unreasonableness, violence and barbarism. As gender ‘is unavoidably involved with other social structures’,43 it has also become important to unpack how masculinities interact with other markers of identity. In feminist IR literature, these complex relations have so far been studied in the contexts of West/non-West, North/South,
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citizen/non-citizen, heterosexual/homosexual, white/non-white and capitalist/non-capitalist.44 The introduction of theory of masculinities into feminist IR was performed in two phases. During the first phase, whose seminal work was The ‘Man’ Question in International Relations, feminist and other critical scholars in the discipline reflected on the fact that World Politics and IR as its epistemological justification were not only gendered, but their gendered character could not be framed in the form of a dichotomy between monolithic femininity and masculinity. Instead, they explored the multiplicity of masculinities in World Politics and IR. In different historical periods and political contexts, masculinities are transformed and adjusted to the novelties of the period and become instrumental for reproducing, justifying and legitimising political relations, structures and processes. For example, in Hooper’s taxonomy of masculinities, it is possible to detect at least four types of temporal characteristics of different political periods. Among them ‘the citizen-warrior masculinity’, revolving around aggressiveness, militarism and materialistic power accumulation, competed and sometimes conflated with ‘the bourgeois-rational masculinity’, which is more egalitarian and democratic and less aggressive.45 The latter is both a product and a producer of increased liberal economic relations. States are gradually gendered through this type of masculinity.46 However, in post-9/11 global politics, the citizen-warrior model, articulated as militarisation of exclusionary states in the form of ‘remasculinised’47 or ‘hypermasculinised’48 units, has become dominant, or hegemonic, over other masculinised identities of states. That said, it should be noted that the neoliberal masculinity of the last three decades involves more than ‘hypermasculinised’ aggressiveness, such as homo economicus, the ‘market man’ (Chapter 5). In Rethinking the Man Question, several contributors explore the multiple reproductions of masculinities and power in post-colonial and non-Western contexts. These reconfigurations of masculinities obscure assertions such as the hegemony of ‘white’ over ‘black’ masculinity or ‘heterosexual’ over ‘homosexual’ masculinity.49 The concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ has indeed provoked criticisms in feminist IR. Eichler’s analysis of militarised masculinities in post-Soviet Russia highlights the improbability of any masculinity obtaining a ‘hegemonic’ position when multiple subordinated masculinities
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constantly challenge it.50 It is also argued that different social, political and economic conditions obstruct an understanding of a timeless and monolithic hegemony of one masculinity over another (such as between heterosexual and homosexual masculinities). The new approach shows that what is traditionally considered as subordinated masculinity in Western contexts (such as homosexual masculinity) can occupy a hegemonic position in other contexts, either through articulating economic power or by mobilising racial superiority.51 In some cases, it is even possible to argue that individual homosexual masculine subjectivity cooperates with one type of heterosexual masculinity over another.52 These complex relations highlight that it is analytically inaccurate to talk about a strict power hierarchy between hegemonic and subordinated masculinities. As individual subjectivities are constantly in production, how they think and act constitutes a myriad of relations among different masculinities in changing contexts. These criticisms rightly underline the necessity of approaching masculinities cautiously ‘to avoid sliding into the practice of treating masculinities as singular, static, or decontextualised’.53 Yet, one type of masculinity, in spite of its changing content, can enjoy dominance over others because it provides the ‘standards’. As put by Hutchings: Standards are specified for what it means to be a proper state (man) in the context of international politics. These standards provide the parameters of what can count as a state (man) but enable discrimination between more or less stately (manly) attributes and actions.54 Gendered ontological insecurity is closely related to this point. This insecurity comes not only in the form of physical insecurity, but also, sometimes more strongly, in the form of an ontological insecurity. This is a type of insecurity that does not emerge, because some individuals and groups have ‘subordinated masculinities’. Rather, it stems from the subjectivity through which these individuals consider are themselves ‘subordinated’, namely not meeting the ‘standards’. In West/non-West relations, politics of masculinities feeds into the process of ‘othering’. In critical55 and post-colonial literature,56 these relations have been examined with regard to dichotomist identity construction processes. Some critical scholars expose the gendered
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dimension of these identity construction processes explicitly.57 However, the contribution of gender to the generation of identity dichotomies between masculinities both in inter and intrastate relations has only been studied by feminist IR.58 Post-colonial feminists perform an analysis of masculinities that construct hierarchical relations within the West/nonWest context through gendering. This is epitomised primarily, albeit not exclusively, in two ways. In the case of hypermasculinisation, the nonWest is represented and discursively reproduced as excessively authoritarian, barbaric, violent, reactionary and irrational (or sometimes possessing ‘cold rationality’).59 The feminisation of the non-West, on the other hand, constructs it as passive, emotional and weak.60 Reflecting the post-colonial matrix, gendering the non-West is essential for its spatial construction (‘geocultural cleavage’, see Introduction) as the other and as an underdeveloped, uncivilised, non-modern space that requires the West’s (the self) intervention to reorder.61 Post-colonial feminists argue that the ‘standards’ of what constitutes ‘man’ and ‘state’ are mainly provided by the West. They are also reproduced as the subject of power hierarchies through the performances of the non-West, and not simply as an object.62 In the context of West/non-West relations, the self-perception of nonWestern subjects that they fall short of meeting the ‘standards’ (or that they are articulated as such by the West) can be a source of insecurity, because they are positioned as ‘the feminised and hypermasculinised other’ of the West through mystifications, essentialisations and erasures, discussed in the previous section. More specifically, gendering can ‘naturalise’ the exclusion of the non-Western state from the international society by rejecting its equality with the West and undermining its sovereign right to conduct its domestic and international affairs independently. The question, however, remains: how does gendering work in the politics of masculinities during West/non-West encounters? Two answers are in order. One can be traced to the feminist critique of Orientalism. As has been versed prevalently so far, Said argues that the West reproduces ‘the self’ through Orientalising the East as ‘the other’.63 The East is monolithically essentialised as a geography of absolute power, corruption, violence, underdevelopment, oppression and sexual desire. Therefore, as argued by Slater previously, the West’s domination of and intervention in the East is articulated as ‘natural’ and even
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‘necessary’. Although this brief account does not do justice to the complexities of Said’s argument, it sufficiently shows that West/nonWest dichotomies are generated through continuous epistemological reiterations that reproduce both Western and non-Western subjectivities. The feminist critique of Orientalism, however, claims that sexualised representations of the East are not just part of latent Orientalism as opposed to the manifest one argued by Said;64 instead, they are one of the constitutive tropes of the process.65 This includes the representation of Eastern women as an object of desire, a victim to be liberated by the West.66 More importantly for the purposes of this analysis, it also involves conflicting sexualised representations of the East as ‘the other’. On the one hand, it is a woman who is exotically beautiful, aesthetic, an object of desire to be conquered and protected; on the other, it is a man who is excessively violent, aggressive, abusive, irrational and an object of fear. Following Bhabha, the coloniser is ambivalent towards the colonised. Fear and desire, dislike and affection, underestimation and appraisal ambivalently coexist.67 Concomitant feminisation and hypermasculinsation of the non-West as ‘the other’ reflect this ambivalence.68 The second answer to the question of how gendering works in the politics of masculinities during West/non-West encounters can be found in Peterson’s ‘devalorisation’. Peterson argues that feminisation is used to ‘normalise’ hierarchical power relations. The ‘cultural privileging’ of what is considered as masculine ‘(reason, agency, control, objectivity, etc.) at the expense of that which is stigmatised as feminine (emotion, passivity, uncertainty, subjectivity, etc.)’ articulates feminisation as a devalorising practice.69 ‘The more an individual or a social category is feminised, the more likely that their devaluation be assumed or presumed to be explained’.70 As a result, power hierarchies can be naturalised and legitimised through a feminisation of ‘the subordinate’.71 In other words, as there is no ‘natural’ or ‘essential’ ontology in power hierarchies between the West and the non-West, the feminisation of the non-West politically and epistemologically contributes to reproducing and naturalising the hierarchy through constructing a gendered ‘other’. Hinted yet not elaborated by Peterson, devalorisation as a naturalising and essentialising strategy of the non-West’s difference and subordination is closely related to hypermasculinisation. In post-colonial
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feminist literature, hypermasculinity is conceptualised as an indicator that both the coloniser and the colonised value excessive aggressiveness against each other.72 Ling gives a twist to the concept and uses it to explain the aggressive way that Asian economies react to recast ‘economic development into a retrieval of cultural-national manhood’ against the West.73 Similar to feminisation, hypermasculinisation can be considered as a devalorising practice, because the hypermasculinised non-West is represented as subordinate to the prudent, liberal, rational and democratic West, which is reproduced through the ‘bourgeois-rational’ type of masculinity stated above. This also paves the way for the naturalisation of the exclusion from the West and of Western intervention to ‘the hypermasculinised other’. This point leads the analysis to the gendered insecurity of the non-West vis-a`-vis the West.
Non-Western Insecurities in the West/Non-West Power Hierarchies Gendered power hierarchies between the West and the non-West are constitutive to non-Western notions of security, which refer to what security means and how it can be pursued in non-Western contexts. Therefore, it is necessary to reveal the notions of security for the nonWest that are constitutive to gendered power hierarchies: how hegemonic and subordinated masculinities are mutually constructed, leading to insecurities for the non-West, and how the non-West addresses these insecurities. In the context of West/non-West relations, security relations and processes operate in the intermeshing of state, society and individual levels of security. In this section, this threepronged interaction will be discussed. The first referent and agent of security analysis in the context of the non-West is the state. There are two ways in which the non-Western state is conceptualised as the agent and referent of security. The initial approach prioritises the non-Western state analytically and politically. This approach, which was pioneered by Ayoob, underlines the importance of the contextual differences between the non-Western and Western state.74 However, unlike the second approach below, this focus on difference from the West is not conceptualised as a marker of identity, but is presented as ‘lacking’ in Western experiences or as
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‘incomplete’ state formation. Through this thinking, the Western teleological history, whose story ends with the formation of the modern Western state, is reconstructed and re-mystified within the nonWestern context. In order to avoid being identified as a weak or failed state (i.e. feminisation), the non-Western decision makers are politically charged with following the steps of their Western counterparts. Therefore, this approach contributes to, instead of challenging, the power hierarchy between the West and the non-West. The reference and agency of the non-Western state expresses itself in an oppressive way in this thinking. Ayoob’s criticism to emancipation as security is expressive. He argues that emancipation as security,75 which basically refers to individual realisation of freedoms and rights, can be detrimental to the security of non-Western states.76 The foundational assumption of this thinking is that since the non-Western people can manipulate rights and freedoms to dissolve non-Western states, this can give way to chaos and insecurity in the pursuit of their security. This thinking feminises non-Western individuals and societies as weak, emotional and not ‘mature’ enough to enjoy freedoms responsibly. This reproduction of gendered individual subjectivities and communal identities is in direct contrast with the post-colonial challenge to the essentialisations of the non-West. In addition, the non-Western state, in order to replicate the Western state formation, is legitimised to control society and individuals. Therefore, resistance to this formation inevitably becomes a threat to the non-Western state. This approach can be detected repeatedly in the case of Turkey, where the state normalises the oppression of the ‘different’ in the name of modern state-building. Another approach, which centralises the non-Western state as an agent and referent of security, ontologically prioritises some nonWestern states’ experiences in challenging West-centric global politics.77 The main argument of this approach is that non-Western or post-colonial state security thinking is formulated in consideration with the colonial past through exploitation, oppression and imposition of Western values on societies. Here, the non-Western state emerges as an agent and referent of security, protecting the nonWestern ‘difference’ from the West by preventing external impositions from repeating history. Very similar to Western political philosophy, the non-Western state is conceptualised as an agent of
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security to ‘secure’ society from external (Western) influences. Although this approach is strong in terms of challenging erasures and problematising the power hierarchy, three concurrent problems can be observed. First, there is a risk of ‘reverse Orientalism’ (see Introduction). This leads to lack of questioning of the exaggerated difference of the non-West, and of how the ‘different’ non-West becomes a source of insecurity for domestic and other international non-Western groups. Second, resistance to the erasures and oppressive power of the West is primarily studied at the level of the state, but not society. However, as will be discussed in the following chapters, societies and individuals can easily be victimised by non-Western state policies to address erasures and essentalisations. Finally, this approach does not acknowledge the issue of relationality between the West and non-West; ‘worlding’ by excessive prioritisation of the nonWestern cultural differences. That said, it is possible to observe such ‘reverse Orientalism’ in certain moments in Turkey showing the logic of deference. There is another type of non-Western state insecurity that stems from not being accepted by the West. This insecurity results from gendered ‘devalorisation’ by the West, and prompts non-Western decision makers to meet the standards of the hegemonic masculinities in the West. The non-Western insecurity is not only articulated as a military threat but also as ‘non-military and non-specific’.78 Reflecting on Turkey, it is argued that ‘the non-specific and non-military security problem encountered by Turkey’s founding leaders was one of seeking a way to negotiate difference, given European/international society’s ambivalence toward their difference’.79 The possibility of exclusion from European/international society due to their ‘difference’ prompted Turkey’s policy makers to adopt policies of Westernisation, which ‘allowed Turkey’s leaders to claim the right to be treated equally and with respect’.80 In a more comprehensive analysis that compares the socialisation processes of Russia, Japan and Turkey to the international society, Zarakol discusses the issue by engaging with the concept of ontological insecurity. In the analysis of the empires defeated by the West, she argues that particular non-Western states attempted to enter the international society – defined in Westphalian terms – from a disadvantageous position as
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‘non-modern’ and ‘underdeveloped’, thus giving rise to ontological insecurity. ‘Once the peoples of the old empires started accepting this worldview, it was inevitable that they too would embrace its judgement: they found themselves as coming up short, not just materially but socially and culturally’.81 The result is the continuous efforts of the non-Western states to convince the West that they are catching up with the standards. This is ‘colonial modernity’, which is ‘an experience of subjugation that presses communities and individuals to reflect on and define their place in the world’.82 Attempts to meet the ‘standards’ of hegemonic masculinities of the West constitute performances of this productive reflectivity. ‘Non-Western ontological insecurity’ is generated through ambivalent gendered representations and reproductions of the nonWest. Ambivalent as it is, the hypermasculinisation and feminisation of non-Western masculinities reproduces non-Western subjects in a way that this ‘devalorisation’ paves the way for physical insecurity. It makes the non-Western space and subjects susceptible to the socalled ‘legitimate’ Western political and military intervention as the holder of the temporal standards of masculinity, in order to ‘civilise’, ‘modernise’ or ‘democratise’ those who could not meet the ‘standards’. Represented as emotional, passive, incompetent, in need of guidance and protection from the West and as excessively aggressive, militarist, non-modern and irrational, it reproduces the non-Western subject that desires both to be like the West and different from it. This demonstrates another ambivalence. Deriving from the aforementioned conceptualisations, a second type of insecurity is articulated as falling short of meeting Western masculinities’ political, economic and social standards. Therefore, it is excluded from the international society and deprived of respect and equality. The subsequent chapters will show that Turkey’s policy makers have almost always sought security by underlying their ‘difference’ in a way that this ‘difference’ and uniqueness renders Turkey useful for the West. The underlying reason for the non-West’s ambivalence is the hybridity that its spatial-temporal identity epitomises. Following Bhabha, Young argues that during the coloniser/colonised encounters, the colonised may construct a hybrid identity that involves elements from the coloniser’s identities in combination with local characteristics. The result is the generation of ‘polymorphously perverse
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peoples who are, in Bhabha’s phrase, white but not quite’.83 In the case of Turkey, as a response to its hypermasculinisation and feminisation policy makers of the Empire and Republic embarked upon a Westernisation process that aimed to reproduce the non-Western unit, including its geography and peoples, as ‘white’. However, it was revealed that there was a parochial dimension to this non-Western identity: ‘but not quite’. For policy makers, this dimension, which can be embodied in the form of nationalism, renders the non-West ‘different’ from the West.84 These performances produce non-Western policy makers both as objects and subjects of West/non-West gendered power hierarchies. In the literature on Turkey’s modernisation process, the issue of ‘difference’ is addressed by C¸ig˘dem. He traces the roots of ‘the Turkish difference’ in late Ottoman and early republican modernisers’ writings and argues that in some cases, ‘the Turkish difference’ based on ethnicity, religion and culture appears as a challenge to Western civilisation (inspired by Japan). However, it is generally accepted by Islamists, Westernists, nationalists and leftists that Westernisation or modernisation is also a process of exploring and building up ‘the Turkish difference’ from the West, but still remaining within the parameters of the West.85 As this analysis aims to illustrate in the case of Turkey, this difference can also emerge in the form of antiimperialism (1970s), a model country (1990s) and ‘the leader of its civilisational basis’ (2000s).86 This temporal ‘difference’ enabled Turkey’s policy makers to reposition Turkey vis-a`-vis the West; not as opposed to it, but as a different member of the West-centric international society that is built upon the (neo)realist/liberal epistemological foundation. In all three historical periods, Turkey’s gendered ontological insecurity was vehemently felt by policy makers. The danger of being represented as emotional, passive, irrational, weak or as a highly aggressive, authoritarian, militarist ‘other’ of the West was tackled discursively by highlighting Turkey’s hybridity and its unique value for the West. However, this ‘difference’ should be problematised in terms of its effects on identities: how does ‘difference’ construct new ‘others’ in the non-Western contexts? West/non-West power hierarchies produce subjects and objects in the domestic politics of Turkey. Chakrabarty’s reflection on ‘Indian history’ is enlightening in this regard:
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It is both the subject and the object of modernity, because it stands for an assumed unity called the ‘Indian people’ that is always split into two – a modernising elite and a yet-to-be modernised peasantry. As a split subject, however, it speaks from within a metanarrative that celebrates the nation state; and of this metanarrative the theoretical subject can only be hyperreal ‘Europe’, a Europe constructed by the tales that both imperialism and nationalism have told the colonised . . . Indian history, even in the most dedicated socialist or nationalist hands, remains a mimicry of a certain ‘modern’ subject of ‘European’ history and is bound to represent a sad figure of lack and failure.87 This subject mentioned by Chakrabarty was quite visible in the late Ottoman and early republican years. However, its legacy is still within Turkey, as policy makers’ performances through mimicking the West have repeatedly reproduced the split so as not to be ‘a sad figure of lack and failure’ or experience gendered devalorisation. This is the hyperfeminisation or gendered objectification of society by the non-Western state. When non-Western policy makers generate security policies to address ‘devalorisation’, they can become a source of insecurity for non-western societies and individuals. There are studies that investigate how the global West/non-West power hierarchies as well as the non-Western state and sub-state level security practices victimise others, and therefore become a source of insecurity for societies.88 In terms of the non-Western state and non-state security practices, societies are also generalised and reified with the political and economic purposes of these actors. Confined in sometimes ‘national’,89 sometimes ‘religious’90 and sometimes ‘civilisational’ identities,91 societies are ‘hyperfeminised’.92 This means that societies are generally but not exclusively constructed and reconstructed in the service of their states, which are in the process of modernisation, development and economic growth, or sometimes in resistance to the West. In both ways, society as a unit is considered instrumental to the challenge or reconstruction of West/non-West power hierarchies. Within the context of the non-West, individuals are again central and mostly instrumental to the non-Western states’ policy objectives vis-a`-vis the West. The non-Western states, which are in the process of
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modernisation and development to catch up with the standards of the West(s)’ hegemonic masculinities, tend to achieve these objectives through reproduction of gendered subjectivities of individuals. These subjectivities are produced at multiple levels. At one level, the appearances and daily practices of individuals are ‘Westernised’ through various reforms. This invokes the formal mimicry that Ling conceptualises following from Bhabha.93 However, this formal mimicry is not enough for the non-Western state. Man and woman as citizens of these states should perform their gendered roles as soldiers, workers, housewives and mothers. Individual subjectivities are therefore produced through substantive mimicry. Substantive mimicry gives rise to hybridity in individual subjectivities where the West is appropriated to local practices.94 This type of mimicry and hybridity is instrumental for the non-Western states’ security policies vis-a`-vis the West for three reasons: an individual is created for the nation and the state, this individual is not threatening to the parochial elements through which the non-Western state can be differentiated from the West (i.e. Turk, Islam, etc.) and, finally, the gendered roles are reiterated. Stemming from this discussion, the security analysis will be performed based on the following steps. In the following chapters, the analyses will start with discussing how policy makers in certain historical periods narrated Turkey’s foreign policy directly in terms of the West or as partially related to the West (e.g. foreign policy towards the Middle East during the Cold War). Although the policy performances will be explained, the main focus will be on how policy makers articulated a certain policy as a reason or solution to their gendered ontological insecurity. As will be examined, while some narratives by policy makers revealed gendered devalorisation and subsequent insecurity, others will show the ways in which policy makers interpreted Turkey’s foreign policy practices in order to position it within the West, but also as different from the West. As Turkey’s insecurity vis-a`-vis the West has been non-military in character and more about acceptance by the West, this discursive approach will be useful. However, when the analysis moves to third states from which Turkey perceived military insecurity, the discussion will focus on how policy makers articulated the West, the non-West (or the third state) and Turkey in such a moment of insecurity. Therefore, their narrations during the military
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crises will be examined with the objective of observing how the policy makers addressed the gendered ontological insecurity. Gendering the third state will often appear as a security policy. These moments will also involve processes of constructing self/other dichotomies at an internal level. Turkey’s policy makers’ attempts to address the gendered ontological insecurity will expand the analytical scope to domestic politics, namely how a non-Western state’s attempts to become ‘Western’ would reverberate into the construction of societal and individual identities. Both Third World and post-colonial feminisms enable scholars to examine the constitutive relationship between oppressive domestic and international structures and relations. Following this line of thinking, Turkey’s policy makers’ articulations of domestic policies and the West will be given special attention throughout the analysis. It will be shown how non-Western societies and individuals are targeted by the nonWestern masculine state for the purpose of foreign policy objectives. Domestic politics becomes a platform where new ‘others’ are continuously constructed against the domestic ‘self’. Furthermore, the ways in which the West(s) is articulated in domestic politics contributes immensely to the mystification of the West by reproducing West/nonWest power hierarchies. The focus on domestic politics also articulates non-Western individuals and societies as the referent of security. It will be argued that in the case of Turkey, the hyperfeminisation of society continuously reproduces ‘others’. Although these ‘others’ differ in reflecting international and domestic political developments, they have certain common characteristics. Primarily, they are often related to ‘the enemy’ outside or articulated as the internal extension of ‘external sources’. Secondly, ‘the others’ are represented as obstacles to modernisation, Westernisation, development and liberalisation in different historical periods. Here, in which West Turkey’s policy makers aim to position Turkey is crucial. Thirdly and similarly, the ‘others’ are constructed as deviants who challenge the ‘model’ society and individual that the State aims to engineer. Therefore, such a broad articulation enables policy makers to include/exclude groups differently in parallel with their objectives. Needless to say, policy makers pursue their domestic political objectives in these processes. However, this analysis will focus on how societal hyperfeminisation
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is performed in relation to foreign policy objectives, generating insecurities for individuals and social groups that challenge either the modernisation of the 1920s, or the Turkish – Islamist neo-Ottomanisation of the 2000s. Similarly to foreign policies, domestic policies also contribute to the reproduction of the West/non-West gendered power hierarchies.
CHAPTER 2 VIOLENT ENCOUNTERS WITH THE WEST: A GENDERED MODERN STATE IN THE MAKING DURING THE LATE OTTOMAN PERIOD
‘When all this is over, I will invite you to this place that is wild, pure, far from cunning Europe and still has frankness and loyalty’.1 Thus wrote one of the most important historical figures in Turkey’s history, Enver Pasha, on 11 December 1911 in Tripoli, Libya. He was writing to a German friend while orchestrating the defence of the last Ottoman territories in North Africa against the Italian forces. Although Tripoli was lost, Enver Pasha’s political career moved further among the ranks of the Committee of Union and Progress (I˙ttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti, ITC), a central organisation of the Young Turks’ movement. He was a member of the core group that launched an aggressive modernisation process in the dissolving Ottoman Empire so as to save it from ‘cunning’ Europe. Cunning as it was, Enver and many other Young Turks also admired the West; its politics, rationality, economy, science, social life, namely its whole civilisation. The price of not being part of this ‘superior’ civilisation was too high, hence many controversial policies were deemed necessary in the quest to be like the West. Enver’s modulations of the West point to the ontological insecurity of the non-Western subjectivity, enacted through the words of desire and dislike towards the West in Turkey.
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Gendered insecurities of Turkey’s decision makers vis-a`-vis the West originate from the historical conditions under which Turkey/ Ottoman Empire was mystified and essentialised as a non-Western geographical space. Through feminisation and hypermasculinisation by/in the West, this ‘devalorised’ non-Western space was also reproduced through Turkey’s policy makers’ discursive performances as a geography that is, on the one hand, underdeveloped, uncivilised, dogmatic, lazy and irrational, and on the other hand glorious, strong, honourable and victimised by the ‘monstrous’ West. This duality of non-Westernness as a source of all evil and good has continued throughout the decades, along with a dual imagination of the West. This was a non-Western ambivalence. While the West was reproduced as superior in civilisational, scientific, economic and political terms, it was also regarded as greedy, cunning, violent and unfair. Publications by leading Young Turks, such as Mizan, Osmanlı, ¨ mmet, will be examined in order to reveal Mes¸veret, I˙tihad c and S¸ura-yı U their narratives and reactions to subordination by the West’s (Europe) hegemonic masculinity, and what they thought about ‘catching up’ with its standards. The most important political actor in this analysis was the ITC, which involved diverging groups, hosted contending political ideologies and promoted conflicting social policies. This diversity, however, did not hinder the possibility of drawing on commonalities while giving necessary scrutiny to difference. This period was crucial for singling out the ideas and practices of the Young Turks, who were influential in the Ottoman state until 1919, and then joined the liberation movement led by Mustafa Kemal (later, Atatu¨rk), following the defeat of the Empire in World War I. In this security analysis the main focus will be on the Young Turk narratives between 1895 and 1914, not only because they fundamentally challenged the modernisation ideas of the previous decades by offering a new type of hybridity that combined modernism and Turkishness, but also because they immensely affected the formation of the republican individual subjectivities after 1923. As will be highlighted below, the ideological foundations of some political ideas and practices in the republican era were formulated in this period. Therefore, an understanding of the ways in which the West and the Ottoman state and society were identified in relation to each other, and how the
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state – society – individual relations were constructed within the wider context of Ottoman relations with the West, will facilitate the historicisation of Turkey’s gendered insecurity vis-a`-vis the West. In other words, the erasures and marginalisations that the West (in the form of Europe) unleashed on the Ottoman Empire were reproduced within domestic politics through marginalising certain societal groups, even erasing them occasionally from geography. The discussion will start from the nineteenth century by examining the first two generations of modernisers of the Ottoman Empire that preceded the Young Turks. This is because, unlike the previous attempts of the eighteenth century, the nineteenth-century modernisers aimed not only to transform the state, but also to rearrange society in order to address gendered devalorisation. The Young Turks and the ITC were highly affected by the ‘mistakes’ of the early modernisers. The second section will discuss narratives of ITC rulers and policy makers in order to understand their international and domestic political objectives. Events, ideas and concepts formulated in this period have been (re)constructed in republican history.
The First and Second Generation of Modernisers in the Ottoman Empire The Young Turk movement’s articulations of the West, and their gendered insecurity stemming from not being like the West, shaped the narrative of the decision makers of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. However, certain ideas of the Young Turks were first formulated by their predecessors, namely the first generation of reformers. The second generation, called ‘Young Ottomans’, initiated an extensive reform process during the nineteenth century. Two imperial rescripts (Tanzimat (‘reorganisation’) in 1839 and Islahat (‘reformation’) in 1856) and Kanun-i Esasi (1876), which was the first constitution in Ottoman history, were conventionally regarded as milestones in the reform process. This process was designed in the junction of the Ottoman Empire’s deteriorating image in the West as ‘barbarian’, an embodiment of Eastern authoritarianism, and the anxiety this created for the Ottoman elite and intelligentsia. It was also designed by the successive rebellions in both Rumelia and Egypt,
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which resulted in military insecurity about the survival of the state. The Young Ottomans argued that a reform process would address both physical and ontological insecurities. The analysis will not detail the reforms, as they have been comprehensively analysed historically in other works.2 However, it is important to examine how these initial reformers modulated the West, and how they tackled the problems stemming from devalorisation, in order to reveal the continuities and changes in the narratives of policy makers in the following periods. The late eighteenth and early nineteenth century were difficult for Ottoman decision makers. Greek (1820) and Serbian (1804) rebellions and their subsequent independence (1830 and 1878, respectively), the increasing power of local authorities (ayan) at the expense of central authority and the repeated defeats of the Ottoman army, mainly by Russia and the Egyptian army in Nizip (1839), were prominent sources of physical insecurity. The survival of the state was at stake. However, these domestic and international military insecurities cannot be thought of independently from how Western involvement therein was imagined by Ottoman policy makers. The West was sometimes considered as a source and facilitator of these military insecurities. Ottoman policy makers knew that the West continued to interfere in Ottoman domestic affairs with the pretext of protecting the rights of Christian groups in the Empire, and, therefore, undermining its sovereign right to govern its domestic politics. Thus, the subordination of the Empire through hypermasculinisation as representative of ‘oriental barbarism’ towards non-Muslims, as well as feminisation as incapability of governing its domestic affairs, interacted with and sometimes facilitated physical insecurity. The West, however, was also considered as a solution, thus intermeshing fear with desire. Ottoman policy makers sometimes sought European powers’ support against Russian aggression, which was growing at the expense of the Ottomans (such as the Crimean War, 1856). However, they knew that a militarily strong and modernised state was necessary to gain respect and equal treatment from the West. As part of the modernisation of the military, the Imperial Naval Engineering School and the Imperial Army Engineering School, which had previously been made redundant, were relaunched; the Imperial
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School of Medicine and Surgery and the School for Military Sciences were also founded in 1834.3 While the efforts to modernise the army were a solution to military insecurity in tandem with addressing the feminised representation of the ‘sick man of Europe’, the Young Ottomans heavily invested in the area of public diplomacy to fight the hypermasculinised image of the Empire in Europe. Indeed, one of the most important concerns of the Young Ottomans was the mystification and essentialisation of the Ottoman Empire in the West, especially after the Serbian and Greek rebellions.4 Hypermasculinisation of the Ottomans as aggressive and excessively oppressive towards non-Muslim elements as well as barbarian representative of Eastern authoritarianism were a source of anxiety among the Young Ottomans, especially for Mustafa Res¸it Pasha, the Grand Vizier of the Tanzimat period and Ottoman ambassador in London and Paris. This anxiety motivated Mustafa Res¸it Pasha to cope with the gendered reproduction of the Ottomans as ‘barbarians’. According to historian Karal, Mustafa Res¸it Pasha was uncomfortable with the representations of the Ottoman Empire in the European public opinion and attributed this negative representation to the inability of the Ottomans to become part of Western civilisation.5 This is one of the first examples of the Ottoman Empire/Turkey’s decision makers’ ontological insecurity stemming from the Empire’s hypermasculinised representation in the West. Moreover, this representation facilitated Western support to the sources of military insecurity for the Ottoman Empire. In the Ottoman policy makers’ mindset, these sources (be it Greece or Egypt) were considered Western or Westernised, ‘one of them’, while the Ottomans were otherised as barbarian and nonWestern. Pasha believed that European support for Egypt and Greece originated from the fact that they had entered Western civilisation.6 As will be discussed in the following chapters, especially during military crises, Turkey’s decision makers formulated a narrative to prove their Western credentials by otherising the military threat, especially Greece, in the eyes of the West. Mustafa Res¸it Pasha aimed to attract Mahmud II’s attention to a strong public relations campaign in Europe with the objective of changing the hypermasculinised (non-Western, uncivilised, barbarian, aggressive and authoritarian) image of the Ottomans. He had three recommendations:
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a. It is not sufficient to have a sole embassy in Paris to understand and control Western public opinion. New embassies shall be founded in big capitals such as Vienna, Berlin and St. Petersburg. b. Turkish ambassadors should know the importance of using the media to win over the public. c. The Takvim-i Vekayi, published by the state in Istanbul, shall be translated into French and sent to the relevant capitals in order to inform about the reforms in Turkey.7 As part of this public relations campaign, a result of the desire to catch up with the standards of rational-bourgeoisie Western masculinity, the first generation’s main objective was to ‘liberalise’ the Empire by reducing the power of the state in favour of individual freedoms. Mardin, in his analysis of Mustafa Res¸it Pasha’s political ideology, argues that Pasha saw the uncontrolled power of the Sultan and his oppression as the main source of problems in the Empire. Less oppression would result in more affection towards the Ottoman state, which should be ruled by law independently from individual intervention.8 Mardin rightly argues that these attempts also aimed to secularise the state, because just rule was not considered as a moral duty originating from Islam, but a necessity of natural law.9 For the first generation of modernisers, the role of the elite and intelligentsia was to contribute to limiting, criticising and enlightening the state in favour of the ‘people’; their moral duty came from reason, freedom and consciousness.10 The first generation of reformers was the first powerful intellectual elite that attempted to address the hypermasculinisation and feminisation of the Ottoman Empire in the West through launching a Westernisation process. Their approach was to challenge the hypermasculinised image of the Ottomans in Europe through a reform process and public relations campaign in the West. In this way, they believed, it would be possible to convince the West that the Ottomans were also civilised; therefore, Western interventions into domestic affairs would be unnecessary. Unlike many of the Young Turk fractions, this first generation was not reactive and aggressive towards the West, as this could easily legitimise hypermasculinised representations. They did not underline the ‘difference’ of the Empire, but prioritised its similarities with the West. In addition,
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their attitude towards state – society relations was very similar to the rational-bourgeois model of masculinity: limited state power, rule of law, and protection of freedoms against the patrimonialism of the Sultan. In this way, the Empire, they thought, could be saved: a construction of a ‘liberal’ modern state in a ‘non-liberal’ geography. Therefore, it can be argued that this period carried the seeds of a liberal ideology that shaped the second line of thinking in Tekeli’s categorisation (see Introduction). This first generation of reformers argued that it was possible to challenge the external and domestic pressures on the Empire by imitating the ways of Western states. This reflects Ling’s formal hybridity of non-Western subjectivities, where emulation of the colonial power is considered necessary to catch up with the latter’s ostensibly high standards. The first generation was followed by a second generation that was commonly known as the Young Ottomans. Zu¨rcher explains the emergence of the Young Ottoman movement by referring to Islamist reactions to the modernisation process, which, according to this movement, gave immense privileges to non-Muslim groups. Zu¨rcher argues that according to the Young Ottomans, ‘reforms should not be based on imitation of the West, but on a true and modern understanding of Islam, the premise being that Islam was a rational religion receptive to scientific innovation’.11 Differing from the formal hybridity of the first generation, the Young Ottomans presented a case for substantive hybridity that went beyond mere cosmetic imitation towards an enmeshing of local factors (in this case, Islam) with Western scientific thinking and rationalism. A re-articulation of Islam through Western values highlights the Young Ottomans’ desire to convince internal and external groups that although the Ottomans were ‘different’ from the West, their ‘difference’ did not clash with Western universal standards. They were also rational, even democratic. In this way, the Young Ottomans resolved the dilemma of being ‘different’ from the West, yet not subordinated, by appropriating the West’s standards to Islam. The substantive hybridity of the Young Ottoman subjectivity emerged as a survival strategy to address the non-Western ontological insecurity. This legacy still shapes policy makers’ narratives in Turkey. A good example of this thinking was Said Halim Pasha, an Islamist reformist and Grand Vizier (1913–17), who criticised the previous
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modernisation efforts by questioning the formal hybridity of previous modernisers: ‘We thought that to be happy in our country, it would be enough to take European laws and translate them. And we dreamed that a few changes to render them accepted and operable would be enough’. He then added that the source of all troubles was the imitation of Western civilisation without understanding its content.12 The solution, for him, was to nationalise the European civilisation.13 However, this ‘nationalisation’ was to be based on Islam, which was compatible with scientific thinking (ilim zihniyeti) and empiricism (tecru¨be usulu¨). Therefore, Islamic identity as the local, parochial non-Western dimension, which rendered the Ottomans different from the West, was to be articulated through the scientific technique of Western civilisation. This type of non-Western subjectivity also accepted the superiority of the Western civilisation over its ‘own’ civilisation. He stated that ‘it is quite comprehensible to benefit from a superior civilisation in order to advance our own’.14 Islam, however, gradually lost its prominence in this non-Western hybridity. As the Young Turks were replacing the Young Ottomans, Islam as a marker of difference was substituted by Turkishness. It must be added that the rational-bourgeois pro-Western approach of both the first and second generation of reformers aimed to construct a modern state, which revolved around the creation of a powerful central government at the expense of local authorities and a strong and modern military, and to replace the millet system (based on political groupings within society according to their religious affiliation) with Ottomanism as a ‘territorial political identity’.15 A strong masculine central government was considered necessary to conduct reform processes and the modernisation of the military and bureaucracy.16 With the Imperial Rescript of 1839, governmental control over society through the foundation of systematic taxation and periodical censuses was increased, similarly to Western states. Both, according to Turfan, were necessary for the creation of a modern military structure with an increased budget and conscription system.17 A parallel process was launched by the intelligentsia, which involved the soldiers that had graduated from newly established military academies. Ottomanism emerged as an ‘umbrella’ modern national identity that replaced the millet system, which politicised religion all over the Ottoman Empire by separating society based on religious differences.18 In this new societal project,
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social groups belonging to different religious and ethnic elements were expected to develop a common identity based on being Ottomans. The acceptance of universal conscription with the Imperial Rescript of 1856, which promoted the equality of Ottoman subjects before the law, opened the military to non-Muslims. Ideologically, Ottomanism was promoted along with the concepts of freedom (hu¨rriyet) and motherland (vatan), which repeatedly appeared in the works of the prolific poet of the Young Ottomans, Namık Kemal. These parallel processes point to a construction of a territorial imperial space with a unified society under a strong central modernising state, in spite of identity differences. Societal control through modern ways of governmentality by the non-Western gendered state made its first appearance in the Ottoman Empire during this period. Bureaucratisation for the purpose of modernising the state and military and mobilisation of the multi-ethnoreligious society required this control. Therefore, it can be argued that the Young Ottomans primarily developed two security policies vis-a`-vis the West. The first was to convince European states that Western intervention to regulate this ‘non-Western’ territory was unnecessary, as the Ottoman state was conducting its own reform process to protect the freedoms of its subjects. The second policy had strong hypermasculine elements. Although the military was considered as the medium of modernisation, governmental control and subjectification of society and the construction of individual identity along the lines of the official state ideology exhibited the first signs of a modern hyperfeminisation of society. Order inside territorial borders was considered vital. Domestic politics mechanisms were intensified during the ITC period; reactionary hypermasculine reverse Orientalism replaced the liberal non-Western masculinity.
The Young Turks (1895– 1919) In 1876, Abdu¨lhamid II came to power by promising to adapt the Constitution and convey an assembly. However, in 1878, he dissolved the Assembly and started an absolute reign until 1909, by arguing that political disputes in the Ottoman Assembly compromised the war efforts during the 1877/8 Ottoman– Russian Wars. Following the dissolution of the Assembly, the opposition to the Hamidian regime
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included many Young Ottomans and was increasingly concentrated in European capitals, such as Paris, London and Geneva, and in the Middle East, particularly Cairo and Damascus. The opposition formed several formal associations based on their ideological differences, but was united in one purpose: modernising the Empire in order to prevent its dissolution. Among these associations, the most important for the purpose of this analysis are the ITC, founded in Paris in 1895, and a more liberal group, the Ottoman Freedom Lovers’ Committee. Involving different and often conflicting political groups, the Young Turks represented an ideological heterogeneity whose roots went back to the Tanzimat and Kanun-i Esasi periods. The Freedom Lovers modulated a narrative that focused on modernisation and acquisition of Western political support against the oppressive Hamidian regime. The Tanzimat statesmen’s logic about modernisation was based on the adoption of Western methods of science and technology in statecraft (especially in the military and bureaucracy), while preventing Western ‘benign’ intervention through popular reforms. However, it was eventually replaced by an ideologically more reactionary and politically more pragmatic approach. This dimension was built upon more hypermasculine reactions against both the Hamidian regime and the West, as well as admiring the Western civilisation almost in its totality. The ITC was generally dominated by the supporters of this approach. At the first Congress of Ottoman Opposition in Paris in 1902, the ITC lost ground to the Ottoman Freedom Lovers, which was a proWest, liberal group comprising members of non-Muslim minorities opposing the Hamidian regime. However, following a failed coup attempt in 1903 orchestrated by the latter, the ITC became the most powerful opposition. It increasingly welcomed students and alumni of modernised military academies as well as bureaucrats and medical doctors. It was joined by the Ottoman Freedom Society, previously founded in Macedonia in 1907, which resulted in an increase in the number of soldiers in the Committee that had been trained in the military schools modernised by Abdu¨lhamid II. Its central committee members ruled the Ottoman state by the end of World War I, sometimes behind the curtain, especially between 1908 (when Abdu¨lhamid II restored the Constitution) and 1913. In April 1909, opposing groups to the ITC started an armed insurgency in Istanbul,
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known as the infamous 31 March Incident.19 This led the ITC to topple the Sultan and replace him with Mehmet Res¸ad. Due to the failures of the Balkan Wars (1912/13), another coup occurred in 1913, organised by the military members of the ITC. The 1913 Coup eliminated most civilian members of the organisation from the top decision-making level and rendered it the sole ruler of the Empire. This group accelerated the process of hypermasculine state-building with the purpose of Westernisation and, therefore, physical and ontological security. In spite of variations, the Young Turks’ articulations of the West and the ways in which a non-Western state and society can (or should) engage with the West point to certain common characteristics. This reveals the gendered insecurity of the Young Turks: on the one hand, feminisation of the Ottoman Empire by the West through interventions into its domestic politics and repeated denials of its territorial sovereignty; on the other hand, hypermasculinisation of the Empire as a barbaric, aggressive and oriental despot. For policy makers, physical and ontological insecurities conflated. The object of the West/Turkey’s gendered power hierarchies became the active agent of Westernisation in domestic politics. The gendered non-Western state ‘devalorised’ society in two parallel ways. It feminised the Muslims and Turks as underdeveloped groups who were articulated as incapable of ruling themselves because of their deficiencies, which were particular to the non-West. The role of the non-Western state was tailored as protector, saviour and moderniser of the parochial ‘essence’ of the nation: Turks and Muslims. A parallel process bestowed a hypermasculinised role to the state in relation to non-Muslim groups, which were deemed to have intimate connections with the ‘outside’ that rendered them risky at best and a threat at worst. The subordination of Ottoman non-Western masculinity vis-a`-vis the West’s hegemonic masculinity, which was generally represented by the Young Turks as rational, developed, rich and scientific, generated a sense of insecurity. This insecurity had both a material dimension, such as the gradual dissolution of the Ottoman state, and an ontological dimension, such as not being considered equal to the West. The Young Turks, as will be shown below, searched for the reasons of this gendered subordination:
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a. The Hamidian regime’s absolutism (mainly the Freedom Lovers); b. European imperialism characterised by greed and warmongering (mainly the ITC); c. Non-Muslim and non-Turkish elements in the Empire (ITC); d. Underdeveloped Muslim-Turkish groups that were set back by several factors including Islam, ignorance, indolence, inability to conduct trade, etc (both ITC and Freedom Lovers). In the first two reasons, hypermasculinisation of the Hamidian regime and Europe came forward concurrently. The last two, however, point to a powerful feminisation of societal groups. The Young Turks formulated the following gendered security policies: a. Obtaining the support of the West for performing reforms in the Ottoman Empire. These groups had a more conciliatory approach towards the West (Freedom Lovers). b. Westernisation as a method of preventing Western interference into domestic politics (reforms for all Ottomans, mainly supported by the Freedom Lovers). c. Westernisation as a method of becoming powerful so that the West would consider the Ottoman state and society as equals (particularly the ITC). d. Education of the ‘ignorant’, ‘unreliable’ masses through the guidance of the party/leader (elitism can be detected in all Young Turks). e. Militarism and order within the borders so the state can act strongly internationally (ITC). In light of the objectives of this analysis, the Young Turks’ narratives will be discussed in three areas. The first part explores the representations of the West in their discourses in order to understand how they positioned themselves vis-a`-vis the West. This section will explore the Young Turk ideology and its pluralism before they assumed power. The second section will focus on the Young Turksas an ITC-led government. The Young Turk outlook of international politics will be analysed because an understanding of their world politics will facilitate the explanation of their foreign policy practices for addressing the Empire’s ontological insecurity. Finally, the analysis will turn to
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domestic politics with the purpose of understanding ITC policy makers’ articulations of domestic society and their policies to objectify society in the West/non-West power hierarchies.
Gendered Representations of the West by the Non-West: Ambivalence of the Young Turks Historian Haniog˘lu argues that the Young Turks had multiple faces: ‘one for the Muslim-Turkish segment of the Ottoman society, one for its other segments and, finally, one for European public opinion. In addition, they had their own true agenda, which frequently conflicted with the other three’.20 Despite these different faces, it is possible to argue that they were all united behind the idea of saving the Empire, yet they adopted contending views about how to perform this saviour role. One of the main fault lines of the conflict concerned the West’s position in relation to the Empire, domestic society and the wider non-Western world. For example, the liberal group, which dominated the 1902 Congress, adopted a more conciliatory position towards the West: Abdu¨lhamid is familiar enough with Ottoman history to know very well that all collective foreign interventions occurring over the last 70 years have resulted in the maintenance of the state and the preservation of its territorial integrity, and in some elements receiving privileges. The Sultan knows this and becomes upset when he thinks about the fact that, this time, the foreign powers have decided to act collectively in order to put an end to the oppressive rule and iniquity of the present absolutist regime, which has been the cause of the suffering of the people; has posed an obstacle to modern progress; and presents a permanent threat to the balance of power.21 By redrawing the boundaries between the West and non-West in line with Orientalist articulations, this line of thinking fixed the Ottoman space as a geography of oriental authoritarianism with an oppressed non-Western society, and also as a source of instability for the ‘balance of power’ upon which West-centric international relations were founded. This liberal non-Western subjectivity was reproduced through
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otherising the Hamidian regime and, therefore, by reproducing the Ottoman liberals as the representative of the West in the image of the friend of the victimised society. As a result, they could articulate themselves as white, Western, liberal and as meeting the standards of the West’s hegemonic masculinity. This liberal narrative was also repeatedly produced during the Republican period vis-a`-vis other nonWestern states. According to the non-Western liberal line of thinking, the West, which provided the standards of civilisation, was a benign entity. However, it was provoked by non-Western forces that prevented the Ottomans from becoming Western/modern. However, as a manifes¨ mmet tation of multiple Wests in the mirror of the non-West, S¸ura-yı U as the central organ of the ITC hosted a different, more hypermasculine approach, fed by strong parochialism: Whenever the Great Powers intervened in our domestic affairs, they concluded their intervention by separating an element from us, or they obtained new privileges for profiteers and missionaries. They always diminished the strength of the Turk . . . As we observe, Europe, in every field, cares for her own interest. If she did not foresee a prodigious outcome for her own interest, she would never help us . . . Can we not see the fact that the smallest permission and privilege extended to foreign governments, even kindness and respect shown in a spirit of hospitality, later appeared as a prerogative in the treaties and capitulations? It is impossible to recall a privilege that was once granted even on a temporary basis. If Europe came to rescue us by accepting our invitation, she would at first try to separate the Armenians and Macedonians from us.22 ¨ mmet. Through Anti-imperialist ideas often dominated S¸ura-yı U narrating Europe as barbaric exploiters, the West was represented as the reason of the non-Western peoples’ demise. Importantly, Abdu¨lhamid II prepared the ground for such an intervention: ‘The Europeans who immigrated to America from Europe plundered the natives and exterminated them. There is no more wealth and property remaining in America to be looted and now they are wandering around. The Europeans now want to take advantage of the fear and madness of the
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Sultan.’23 For these Young Turks, Europe was ‘a raven of civilisation’ that only cared about its self-interest and feared being erased politically and economically from international politics. As a response, Ahmed Rıza, one of the civilian leaders of the group, proposed a boycott of European goods, as this ‘would be the most severe punishment for the money-worshipping Europeans’. If Turks were identified as ‘native’, it meant that Europeans could use the ‘civilising mission’ as an excuse for economic exploitation.24 Anti-imperialist discourse was often combined with the indifference of the West towards massacres of Muslims by Christians. The reason, as argued, was that these issues do not involve financial benefits for the West: As you know, the Times is published in the city that is the centre of trade affairs. It is the heart of trade and the vital newspaper of the capitalists. It can be said that the cogs that make the Times possible are the billions (money) that oppress the poor in the way that the heart cannot accept . . . These capitalists and newspapers enabled England to justify its presence in South Africa . . . Consider that Bulgarians burn villages and massacre children; if they do not disturb their interests, then they are not the concern of English capitalists and of the Times and the Standard.25 In Osmanlı, another Young Turk outlet, anti-capitalist criticisms were more visible. It was written that: The Sultan, because of his barbaric nature, is liked by those governments that are used by rich classes. The reason why we mention economics is because we know that the rhetoric of ‘Muslim fatalism’ (alleged inherent inability of Muslims to pursue economic development) is nothing more than a mask to hide attempts to ruin the lives of Ottomans, Turks, Arabs, Armenians and Greeks, and to humiliate them.26 European imperialists and Abdu¨lhamid II were represented as collaborators who tried to annihilate Eastern people (not only Muslim Turks). The military members of the ITC also shared this outlook.
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For instance, in November 1911, Enver Pasha’s anti-imperialism was noticeable when he connected capitalist Europe to its colonial policies: They (corpses of Italian soldiers) are enemies, but I pity them as a human. Why do we push them to a massacre? In order to fill the safes of Banco di Roma, isn’t it? In order to put extra millions in the savings of banks, they get the children of their land killed, they attack others’ happiness and motherlands and then they call it humanism and patriotism! This is only true for us because we defend ourselves, we have to defend ourselves.27 These hypermasculinised representations of the West were sources of dislike, fear and anxiety towards the West, and generated a military insecurity for the Young Turks. Reverse Orientalism was enabled through these representations and, therefore, justified and normalised militaristic and aggressive security policies, both domestically and internationally, to defend the non-West. This, for some Young Turks, imposed a masculine role on Turks. The words of another ITC member, Halil Mentes¸e, are important to show how the ITC positioned Turks vis-a`-vis both the West (in the embodiment of England) and the non-West, quite similar to previous Japanese positioning in South East Asia: England depends on the Eastern Empire, and Turks are the only productive, combative and organised nation in the East. They want to disarm them (Turks) and prison them in the steps of Anatolia. They will establish Greece in the West and Armenia in the East and they will use these as a gendarmerie. Whenever Turks move, they will attack them. When Turks are oppressed, the hope for salvation in other Eastern nations will fade away. Then they will smoke their pipes on their island and enjoy their lives without trouble.28 In underlining the ambivalence of the Young Turks towards the West, there were also several positive representations. These representations were motivated by admiration for Europe and acceptance of its civilisational superiority, always creating an incentive to become like them and to achieve the good life, similarly to the West. Productive
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power in West/non-West relations becomes hereby most visible. In September 1912, Enver wrote to a European friend from Tripoli. It is possible to observe admiration for European civilisation in his words as well as discontent about its qualities. His ambivalence is striking: I shall think about my life in Europe tonight. Who knows, I could have lived an easier life there if I did not know about the attractions of your culture . . . If these happy Arabs, who do not need anything and are content with very little, are civilised one day, I am sure they would lose all their qualities and get spoiled. Their current ways and ideals would not be enough for them. They would be unhappy, but this unhappiness would become a necessity for their lives. They would catch the disease called civilisation, yet they would not get medicine for treatment. Your civilisation is poison that awakens; one would not want to fall asleep again, one could not.29 At the same time, he wrote about women’s rights by revealing the hybridity of Young Turks’ masculinities: One day, for better or for worse, our women’s place in public life will be similar to yours. In addition, they will protect the right to live against men bestowed on them by Islam. However, I regret that only a very limited number of women would benefit from this new public life. They would suffer the same fate as low and middle class women in Europe. However, if I say that your civilisation is superior and we have to imitate this civilisation in order to survive, then the bad sides of this civilisation will also come to us, whether we like it or not.30 Falling short of meeting the ‘standards’ of the West gave rise to ontological insecurity. The attempts to convince the West became prominent in their narratives. In S¸ura-yı U¨mmet, the Young Turk’s programme was published with specific focus on the necessity to convince Europe that the Ottomans were civilised and, therefore, equal to the West. The objective was ‘to prove that in this century the Ottoman ummet does not lack the quality of being equal with the most
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developed nations in the eyes of foreigners and strangers’.31 One of the dimensions of the insecurity of the Young Turks stemmed from the representation of the Ottoman Empire as ‘uncivilised’, which enabled European powers to intervene to re-order this non-Western space. The geographical imagination of the Empire was partly built upon this insecurity. In Osmanlı, it was stated that ‘is it not unreasonable to claim that the Ottomans, who are positioned between Asia that reigns over the most fertile parts of the world . . . and Europe, which is the best embodiment of contemporary civilisation and development, are alien to civilisation?’32 This type of narrative would be reproduced repeatedly throughout the republican period. It aims to convince the West about the ‘civilisational’ credentials of Turkey and ‘Turks’. Admiration towards the West resulted in gendering the non-West as a feminised geography for several Young Turks, whose position towards European colonialism revealed that the problem was the inability of Muslim governments to accept Western superiority. Following the 1905 French occupation of Morocco, Abdullah Cevdet, a civilian leader of the ITC, argued that the contemporary civilisation that flourished in Europe destroyed all types of resistance against it. That is why, he stated, ‘the community of Muslims should refrain from resisting it. Their survival depends on submission to this force. Alas, we have to say, the government of Morocco, like other Muslim governments, was not only indifferent to contemporary progress, but also a fatal enemy of innovation’.33 It is possible to observe Westernliberal nuances that Orientalise the non-West in Young Turks’ ideas. In this approach, ‘the East’ was objectified, essentialised and spatially fixed: ‘the sickness of the East is the consequence of centralism. Everything becomes ‘official’: science, literature, art; even love of freedom and intellectual liberty are stamped by ‘the official’ . . . The weakness of the East primarily emerges from the combination of the power of intellectualism with brute force’.34 This Orientalist narrative was accompanied by attempts to write Turks as racially white, European and different from other non-Western peoples. Their insecurity was derived from not being considered as ‘white’, which eventually led to oppression. The French edition of Mes¸veret had many articles that showed the uneasiness of the writers about Turks being articulated in Western imagination along with
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non-white groups, because this articulation could lead to suppression of the Turks by white Europeans: The humiliating treatment . . . of the dark-complexioned and black races by the people of Western Europe, especially by the English and the Americans, is a well-known fact. Although most Turks are racially European, it suits the desire of many powers to claim that the Turks do not belong to the white race and are entirely Asian, because in the future this claim may be employed as an argument to drive us out of Europe entirely and preclude our rule over the Christian nations there.35 In the Young Turks’ narratives, the West and non-West had contending meanings. On the one hand, many of them admired the West, internalised as universal the standards it offered, and considered themselves subordinated to this superior civilisation. On the other hand, they disliked it because of its greedy, warmongering and aggressive approach towards those who were not part of it. The latter enabled the Young Turks to be the saviour of other non-Western peoples (a masculine role) and racialise Turks as ‘white’ in order not to be treated as other non-Western peoples. As will be discussed in the following chapter, articulating Turks as ‘white’ and as a source of civilisation paced up during the 1930s. In this way, Turkey’s policy makers were showing to the West that they were not ‘barbarians’ (contra to hypermasculinised representations) and should not be treated as subordinates.
The Foreign Policy of the ITC: Learning to be Western through ‘Realpolitik’ The ITC’s military leaders were students of realpolitik. This understanding was strongly influenced by Das Volk in Waffen by General Goltz from Germany (the book was translated into Turkish and widely studied in military schools). According to this book, which reflects social Darwinism and scientism, war is inevitable, and does not happen between armies but between whole nations. Therefore, it is the military’s responsibility to move beyond its traditional role towards preparing the nation for war.36 Many ITC members adopted
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this ‘modern’ knowledge, which tailored a paternal role for the state and a submissive role for the ‘nation’: a hypermasculine non-Western state in the making. For example, unionist Hu¨seyin Cahid stated that: ‘the disease of apathy is worse than war. War is an examination, an examination our nation took and failed, proving that it has been a lazy student, one who has not acquired the necessary knowledge to graduate. We now have before us two goals: to repair the ravages of war and to reform our administration’.37 This approach also underlined Enver Pasha’s thinking. In a letter written to a German friend in 1911, he said that ‘only a strong Turkey can guarantee the interests of Germany. Only Turkey can help Germany in a general war in Europe. Do you see, my friend, how Turks think? Let me repeat this: The reason why I like Germans is not emotional; on the contrary, they are not threats to my country. Our interests conflate and will continue to do in the future . . . What unites nations is not emotions, but interests.’38 In another letter, he said that: ‘True, I hate my European enemies, but I also admire them because they showed me that I was right during our conversations with Hans when I said “only interests matter in the game of nations, there is no role for emotions”’.39 Preparing the nation for war required the militarisation of society and the production of an individual subjectivity in a way in which ‘he’ considers ‘himself’ a member of a unified body, the nation. This narrative was accompanied by political performances. Enver Pasha himself established Boy Scouts in 1912. This was followed by the establishment of highly hypermasculinised, power-praising institutions such as the Ottoman Power Association and the Ottoman Young and Robust Association.40 When the ITC took power with a military coup in 1913, the Unionists believed that the exercise of military power would provide equality and respect from Europe. Hence, it was a tool of addressing the insecurity stemming from subordinated masculinity. A unionist wrote that ‘right can only be derived from power, civilisation only from power, happiness only from power. Power is everything’.41 Militaristic power accumulation and usage of this power were accepted as ways of being included in the West. Ahmad calls this ‘the quest for equality’.42 The target of this ‘realpolitik’ power approach was the West, even if the source of the military threat was not the West itself. The Balkan Wars were a traumatic experience for the
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Young Turks and especially for the ITC. The defeat in the hands of the former elements of the Empire and the loss of territories deepened ¨ ngo¨r argues the frustration of the majority of the ITC members. U that ‘the emotions of Young Turk elites expelled from their ancestral lands included humiliation, helplessness, anger, loss of dignity, lack of self-confidence, anxiety, embarrassment and shame: a toxic mix that, combined together, contributed to the growth of collective hate and destruction fantasies’.43 When the ITC came to power in 1913, it launched a campaign against Bulgaria in order to regain the territories that the Ottoman state had lost in the previous Balkan War. When some territories, including former capital Edirne, were recaptured, the feelings of anger and victory did not target Bulgaria, Serbia or Greece, but the West itself. Nationalist Ziya Go¨kalp celebrated the victory with a poem: The fear of revenge has seized the West. March! March! Turkish army! O Europe, from this calamity Whither shall you flee? At the hand of a second Attila Many tears shall you shed.44 Similarly, Mehmed Akif, author of the national anthem of the Republic, known for his Islamist credentials, wrote similar words about the victory: ‘The blood of politics is wealth; its life, force/oppressor Europe knows only one right; that is might/while the navy and army were moving in triumph/the ambassadors of the West were yearning to kiss their stirrups.’45 The political circles held the same target. When Enver Pasha visited the villages and towns recaptured from Bulgaria, he witnessed the persecution that the Turkish population was subjected to, and in April 1913 he again targeted Europe: ‘Nations of Europe! I swear to God I will take revenge for these people’.46 This position feminised the Balkan states, which used to be under the Ottoman rule, by reducing them to mere instruments of the West: emotional, irrational and ready to be provoked. This perception was surely formed during the decades when Britain, France and Russia actively supported the revolts of these groups. However, it also reduced non-Muslim and non-Turkish groups, both in the European and Anatolian territories of the Empire, to
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soft spots of the state. They were considered ready to be provoked and used by the West to further disempower the non-Western state. The same gendered narrative would be revitalised with reference to the Kurdish population in the 1980s during the heydays of the Turkish– Islamic synthesis (see Chapter 5). As will be discussed below, the population policies of the ITC in the post-1913 period, aiming to homogenise the Anatolian population, were formulated to tackle these ‘problems’. While German militarism fascinated the ITC officers by feeding their hypermasculinised reactions, their ultimate role model was Japan as a rising non-Western state. Anti-militarism was presented as a dangerous idea, because in the twentieth century a nation should be ready for war, just like Japan.47 The ITC was highly inspired by the Meiji reforms in Japan and the militaristic and aggressive foreign policy that followed these reforms. They wanted to be ‘the rising sun of the West’: ‘[W]e will arise shortly . . . with the same brilliance as did the Rising Sun in the Far East a few years before. In any case, let us not forget that a nation always arises from its own strength!’.48 This enabled them to pursue an expansionist, aggressive and militarist foreign policy and seek the same success that Japan had in the preceding decades in Asia. Being militarily strong, aggressive, active or, in short, hypermasculine was a way to regain the masculinity that the Ottomans had lost in the eyes of Europeans. ‘Instead of assuming the post as custodians of the sick man of Europe, the Unionists, their self-confidence restored, began to see themselves as the Meiji oligarchs [of Japan] of the Ottoman state: as leaders who, through their elite class and educational backgrounds, would choose policies and reform initiatives corresponding to those of Japan in order to guide their Ottoman nation into the modern world’.49 However, it must be noted that although this hypermasculine reaction was underlined by agony and dislike towards the West, it was also a product of scientific thinking, rationalism, social Darwinism and scientism. These underlined the Western civilisation in the Young Turk mentality. Therefore, the adoption of a realpolitik approach in foreign affairs enabled them to reproduce their subjectivities as Western, therefore addressing their devalorisation in foreign policy. A leading radical member of ITC, Bahaaddin S¸akir, made an interesting point by arguing that Muslims
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should do what ‘Far Eastern heroes’ did. They made Europeans ‘swallow a disguised pill’.50
The Hyperfeminisation of Society: Racialising and Gendering the Peoples of the Empire Another dimension of the process of addressing Ottoman gendered ontological insecurity and military insecurity was operationalised in domestic politics. Enver Pasha wrote in September 1912: As a soldier, I believe in the absolutism of the military. I also believe in a moderate constitution like yours. All the average heads who want to take a share from the government should be crushed. The French were right: ‘there was only one despot before the Republic, now there are hundreds of them because each Member of Parliament wants to increase his power’ . . . They cannot be wrong if they accuse us of not being tough enough towards the supporters of the old regime. I believe in the necessity of the Parliament to run the state, but the government should be tougher than Nero for internal peace. The government should do what Nero did for his pleasure to protect the order . . . Do you know, my dear, we are not very far off from the Middle Ages.51 This new ruling elite suppressed society by inflicting patriarchal oppression to ensure order.52 This was not surprising given the internalisation of positivism, social Darwinism, and realpolitik as epistemological foundations of the gendered non-Western modern state. Halil Mentes¸e, a prominent Unionist and then speaker of the Ottoman Assembly, told the story of the establishment of the ITC as follows: Ahmed Rıza Bey was a member of the Committee of Positivists founded by August Comte . . . Clemenceau and Ahmed Rıza were very close friends. Initially, Mes¸veret was printed in 1895 in French. Ahmed Rıza Bey put the positivits’ motto ‘Ordre et Progre`s’ under the title of the newspaper. Therefore, Mes¸veret became a newspaper for a positivist . . . Dr Nazım proposed the
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name ‘Progress and Union’ (Terakki ve I˙ttihad) . . . Ahmed Rıza Bey wanted the name ‘Order and Progress’ (Nizam ve Terakki), meaning that he wanted the positivist motto as the name of the Committee. He was convinced that an approach associated with atheism would not succeed in the country.53 The Comtian positivist-materialist approach was the primary dimension of the epistemological reproduction of the West’s hegemony and was thus shaping Ahmed Rıza’s writings. For them, in order to understand the order of things in the world, it is essential to understand the laws of nature that rule the relations between them. Ahmed Rıza stated that just like mountains and rivers are subjected to the laws of nature, humans inhabiting the world must obey laws of nature.54 The manifestation of positivist thinking as the epistemological standard of the West’s hegemonic masculinities in ITC foreign policy was realpolitik. In domestic politics it was operationalised as the construction of a modern society to enable progress towards civilisation. Individual subjectivities in this new society reflected hybridity as well. For example, in Mes¸veret’s French edition, the Young Turks’ political programme encourages ‘progress on the way of civilisation’, but without losing the ‘originality of Eastern civilisation’. It was also stated that not wholesale acceptance, but only those elements of Western scientific education that can be integrated fully and shed light on the nation’s way to freedom should be taken.55 What constitutes the ‘originality of Eastern civilisation’ and the ‘difference’ dimension was not religion, unlike the Young Ottomans. In fact, Islam as a social binding feature was important for the Young Turks insofar as it offered societal ties. Islam was praised because of its nation-building potential. It sometimes underlined the ITC leaders’ anti-imperialism. When Enver Pasha was fighting in Tripoli in 1912, Islam was part of his anti-Western narrative: ‘so this war is the crusade against Islam in the twentieth century. Do you see? I have been telling you that we are Muslims and this is the only mistake that Europe would not forgive. If a king tells his army that this is a crusade, then you should not be surprised that we are fanatics and barbarians.’56 In June 1912, he wrote that ‘the papers are again writing about a peace conference. The conferences are always at the expense of Muslims,
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I know.’57 Sometimes their frustration about the West was associated with Islam. Ahmed Rıza wrote: I made a mistake by not sufficiently examining the psychology and common norms of these nations . . . I could not imagine that those scientists, who were so thorough in their scientific endeavours, would sell their principles so cheaply. I have witnessed that those people whom I thought were emancipated from religious control were still under the influence of Christian metaphysics and ethnography . . . I realise that most European political ideas are stepchildren of interest, and are thus decorative.58 The role of Muslim intellectuals, then, was to enlighten the Muslim population to resist ‘the light, if it comes from the Christian world’.59 In spite of embracing Islam as a non-Western difference and as the marker of their identity, this ‘difference’ was also represented as the reason for Turkey’s gendered devalorisation and as an obstacle to addressing this subordination through modernisation. Mardin argues that through the positivist understanding of the ITC elite, secular ideas started to replace divine rules as the centre of modern politics. According to the new elite, the education of individuals and societies was vital so that they could get a grasp of the conditions they lived in objectively and rationally; progress was only possible after order within the domestic realm, and thus the ‘enlightenment’ of subaltern groups would be achieved.60 Without order and stability there was no possibility for development. Therefore, religious doctrines and representatives of religious authorities were represented as hindrances to educating individuals with the purpose of modernisation, so that they could perceive the world objectively and rationally.61 There was no role tailored for Islam in law, education, military or bureaucracy beyond the social role. Although Islam was used as a political tool and sometimes as a cultural cement that could sustain the Muslim units of the Empire, an othering Orientalist discourse towards other Muslim groups can also be observed among the Young Turks: Despite the Turk having done nothing but show respect and give good treatment to the Arab, the grudge of the Arab . . . originated
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from the fact that holy relics were in the hands of the Ottoman sultans, who were not descendants of the Arabs. Just as Western imperialist powers employed Catholic and Protestant missionaries to separate Armenians from the Empire, so various sheiks and leaders of religious orders were employed by them to make the Arabs curse the Turks.62 On the other hand, Muslims were essentialised as ignorant and lazy: ‘they say Muslims in Russia are being persecuted . . . The reason why they are being persecuted is not because they are Muslims, but because they are lazy and ignorant . . . The Russian government wants to make them learn Russian. Is it a bad thing? At least you do not have to sign a document you cannot understand anymore’.63 More than Islam, however, the ITC targeted the non-Muslim and non-Turkish millet of the Empire by discrediting the ideology of Ottomanism, which enabled the inclusion of these groups in the ¨ mmet, we can observe that ‘Turks’ increasingly Empire. In S¸ura-yı U replaced ‘Ottomans’ with highly negative tones about non-Turkish minorities: If there are among the Turks those who are hesitant to extend the right of citizenship to Christians, there are grounds for such hesitation. If a Christian happens to be a member of the Greek community, he looks toward Athens; if Bulgarian, to Sofia; if Armenian, he dreams about the establishment of an independent Armenia. Attempting to wrest from us a piece of our homeland, it was the Greeks who rebelled yesterday, and now the Bulgarians and the Armenians are engaged in armed rebellion. Turks are witnesses to all this and are naturally saddened and feel that the Christians have hurt them.64 The rhetoric of a ‘Union of Turks’ started to be told: ‘All regions from the Adriatic Sea to the Chinese Sea have a single faith. People living there speak a single language and belong to the Turkish race. Putting aside Africa and India, if only those who belong to the Turkish race were united, they would be able to establish the largest government in the world’.65 This ethnic nationalist and hypermasculinised narrative was first formulated in this period and prepared the ideological foundation
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for constructing a homogenous and unitary nation. The idea was revitalised by the political cadres of the Turkish – Islamic synthesis after the Cold War. This nationalist narrative excluded non-Muslim members of the Empire from the emerging new society mainly because of their increasing economic power at the expense of Muslim groups. This is one of the most crucial parts of the ITC narratives, where gender, race and class intersectionality can be observed. Enver’s reaction to the Tanzimat and Islahat reforms, which were perceived to be beneficial only for the Christians of the Empire, partly explains ITC’s pro-Turkish policies. In his autobiography he criticised the reforms before 1908 as follows: ‘European support to Christians created a reverse inequality in comparison to the past. Since the officials were only dealing with the business of Christians, no one was helping the rights of Muslims. Although an injustice against a Christian was punished at once, no one was talking about the rights of Muslims’.66 Despite the Islamist rhetoric, it must be noted that Turkish nationalism was at the deep core of the ITC.67 The words of Pertev Demirhan Pasha, who was Chief of Staff of the army that suppressed the 31 March Incident, revealed the Turkish nationalist reaction to nonMuslim elements: ‘Minorities, especially Greeks, Armenians and Jews, were benefiting from the reforms of the Constitution. It was necessary to work effectively to increase the level of the people of Anatolia, Turkish people, to the level of others.’68 The ITC leaders worked with the primary purpose of eradicating the ‘others’. Mentes¸e’s memoirs revealed that the ITC’s leading figures, such as Talat Bey, were convinced ‘to clean the country from the treacherous elements’. After the second Balkan Wars and the retaking of Edirne, this ‘cleaning’ was prioritised: With the Istanbul agreement, Bulgarians in Edirne, Kırkkilise and around were transferred to Bulgaria. Now it was the turn of Greeks in Thrace. However, this needed a careful approach because it could trigger a war. This was the policy: officially, governors and officials would not seem to be involved in the action and the organisation of the Committee would deal with it. Only the Greeks would be scared away. Greeks, whose morality was corrupted because of their treason during the Balkan Wars, were mobilised to migrate.69
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Mentes¸e continued that this policy was also applied to Greeks in Western Anatolia. Fuat Du¨ndar highlighted three methods to drive away the Greek population. The first method was to boycott the Greek shops and products so that their economic power would be diminished (for example, the Association of Turkish Customers and national banks were founded to this aim).70 The second was to resettle Muslim and Turkish immigrants from Macedonia in West Anatolia in order to overturn the Greek majority in certain towns. The third method was to arm local paramilitary groups to terrorise the non-Muslim population. From May to July 1914, around 126,000 Greeks were forced to migrate.71 According to Mentes¸e, the number of Greeks who migrated was 300,000 in total.72 Similarly, in eastern Turkey, the Armenian population was subjected to forced migration in parallel with the demographic politics of the ITC. Systematic massacres reached a level where several scholars identify the event as a genocide.73 It must be noted that the hypermasculinised reaction to society’s non-Muslim elements should be contextualised within two interrelated factors. The first was the unrest about the fact that non-Muslims, especially through their connections with western European countries, accumulated wealth and created the ‘Christian bourgeoisie’. New legal regulations allowed them to be tried in secular courts and enjoy commercial privileges. The gap between Christians and Muslims was deepening.74 Economic boycott and the establishment of nationalist consumer associations were not just a method of forcing non-Muslims to migrate, but also a class-based reaction. The second factor was linked to foreign relations. In order to construct Goltz’s Das Volk in Waffe, the ITC policy makers considered that a homogenous nation was necessary in order to create a modern state that could challenge the West and gain respect. One way of creating this was the eradication of non-Muslims; another way, discussed below, was national education. Before this, it is necessary to explore the ITC narratives about elite –society relations. One of the most striking dimensions of the Young Turk mindset was their Orientalist feminising approach to non-Western societies by justifying and normalising their marginalisation and subordination. This approach essentialised non-Western people as unenlightened, ignorant, in need of elite guidance, emotional and crude. The feminisation of society by the Young Turks through regarding them as ignorant masses was powerful in Mes¸veret:
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Once, people expected everything from fate and were trapped in the idea of ‘do not haste’. Then they got used to waiting for the government to give them their rights. These hopes and failures are all because of laziness. A human should create his own happiness and well-being through his own actions and morality. A society’s freedom and future can only be ensured if people understand this necessity . . . If the people are ignorant, they are prisoners, even if they are ruled by the most liberal laws.75 They also explained the failure of the constitution (Kanun-i Esasi) by recourse to the ignorance of the people, who could not understand the importance of ‘civilisational progress’. This type of feminisation of society, however, was somehow only reserved to Muslims and Turks: ‘we are saddened by the fact that Muslims that are subjected to British and French governments, and Turks that were separated from us after the Russian War, could not make the most of the system of free government and civilisational progress.’76 One of the ITC members reckoned the aftermath of 1908: The Committee had brought liberty to the nation. This was the big difference between the old and new era. Inability to see this difference was unfair. The people had forgotten the old era because they were not seriously enamoured of liberty; they could not appreciate the value of liberty, nor did they know how to use it.77 Hyperfeminisation of society found its most substantive manifestation in the Young Turks’ imagination of the elite, who were not solely intellectuals, to lead society on the right path of cultural development. A more political and aggressive role was also tailored for the elite that should pursue and maintain power and guide society through power on the way to development and modernisation. Ahmed Rıza’s words illustrated this point: Although liberal elites have duties (towards society), they also have rights, which can generally be won after a struggle. The primary right, which precedes others, is the right to govern. The elite, the genuine elite, refrains from governing . . . but if they leave the government in the hands of those who have average
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qualities and who are incompetent, the very case of development to which they dedicate their life and work is in danger.78 This almost sacred role of the elite to lead people to development cannot be played solely by relying on cultural revival or scientific education, unlike the previous examples in Mizan and Osmanlı. Ahmed Rıza’s Mes¸veret, with the infiltration of activists such as Bahaeddin S¸akir, adopted a hypermasculine attitude towards society: The motivation of enlightenment should be combined with practical force, which is necessary for developing the right and the good. The elite would become miserable if it let people with average qualities rule over it. Mediocrity would eventually destroy the elite and darken its great light. In order to survive, the elite should be invasive and conquering.79 Coercive brute power was considered not only a tool for international politics, but also a necessity in domestic politics. However, the problem for the ITC was also corrupt state officials who failed to disseminate ‘the right ideology’ to society. This can be clearly seen in Murat’s writings: ‘The state is definitely not a chemistry or physiology teacher. If the state pays the chemistry or physiology teachers, it is not because it wants to reveal the truth . . . The reason is to uphold public morality and the imperative to support state doctrines, which enables its survival’.80 ‘The right ideology’ for the masses was the one that provided them with national consciousness. The production of ‘national culture’ and its protection had already been supported by the Young Ottomans. However, as Mardin puts it, according to the Young Turks, what needed to be protected was not the Islamist character of the Ottomans but a semi-mystical ‘spirit’, ‘morality’ and ‘essence’ of the nation.81 The protection of the national essence through cultural reproduction was a necessary tool to construct an ‘efficient citizen’.82 This idea had begun to emerge as early as the rule of Abdu¨lhamid II. A criticism to the Hamidian regime was its inability to educate Turkish and Muslim people along the nationalist line: In the Armenian, Greek and Bulgarian schools, the pupils’ nationalist feelings are formed against the Turkish administration,
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whereas in our schools the students are not allowed to pronounce the term ‘fatherland’! The negligent, ignorant and treacherous absolutism of the present regime opens the doors of the country to violent attacks and to profiteering (by) foreigners. Isn’t this a great fault, a crime?83 After the fall of Abdu¨lhamid II, the problem of ‘national’ education remained a problem. For the ITC, ‘the education policy was often considered as a dimension of lack of national consciousness, which resulted in subsequent defeats. References were made to Bismarck’s words that underlined the importance of teachers in Prussia’s military victories in 1866 and 1870. The military successes of the Bulgarian and other Balkan states were tied to their superior education policies’.84 The importance of national culture was highlighted in S¸ura-yı U¨mmet for the ‘survival of the nation’: It is obvious that a nation with science, literature and language cannot be devastated . . . In our case, we cannot produce artefacts of our presence in places where we rule politically. We leave barracks behind when we withdraw. It can be seen that for the survival of the nation, the most protecting barracks are schools, the most impenetrable fortresses are universities.85 Enver wrote the following during the rebellion in Albania in April 1911, complaining about the underdevelopment in Ottoman territories: ‘Oh, dear friend, this is a great challenge we must deal with. This is only natural after the fall of the Sultanate which lasted for 30 years and devastated the country. We are working for a civilisation that is made possible by our armies. School teachers follow them’.86 To produce the nationalist individual, extensive educational policies were adopted. From 1908 onwards, kindergartens were opened; primary education was secularised and put under state control; in addition to Ottoman language and religion, mathematics, geography, history and physical education were added to the high school curriculum, as well as home economics for girls. Muslim foundations (vakıf) schools were transferred to the Ministry of Education. In 1914, foreign private schools were limited to those
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places where they held residency. They also had to add Turkish language, history and geography to their curricula, and these courses were to be instructed by Turkish teachers.87 As part of raising national consciousness, the coalition’s central organ also hosted the first attempts to prioritise the role of pure language in creating a nation that cannot be dominated by foreign powers: ‘do not Magyars living in Austria, French living in Germany and Poles living in Russia demonstrate that they are strong and vital communities that cannot be annihilated by becoming subjects of a foreign power? It is clear that a nation that has its science, literature and language cannot be annihilated’.88 The first examples of language purification from Arab influence appeared in Mizan with a frequent expression: ‘Do not forget your essence in imitation/do not underestimate your nation’.89 With the ITC government, language purification attempts were intensified, along with the creation of national consciousness. In 1910, the journal ‘Young Pens’ (Genc Kalemler) aimed to replace foreign words with Turkish words. It also praised the works of the German and Japanese modernisation processes while endorsing social Darwinism and idealising national myths.90 In 1912, the ‘Turkish Hearts’ association was founded as a semi-official social club that would make the first attempts to explore the role of Turks in the construction of civilisation.91 These ideas are important, as they are the first instances that explicitly reveal the position of the governing elites throughout Republican history. The elite was in between the incentive to modernise the country in order to ensure its physical survival and ontological security vis-a`-vis the West, and the people, whose heterogeneity, irrationality and emotionality should be ‘treated’ through inflicting coercive state power and national education policies to construct their individual identity as nationalist and statist. The Young Turk narratives showed that the subjectivity of a member of the governing elite was therefore divided into two conflicting feelings. The first was anxiety, fear and, in addition, mistrust; to the Western civilisation in general, to the Western governments and towards their own nonWestern society. Remembering Agathangelou and Ling’s argument that hypermasculinity masks a great insecurity, the ITC elite’s insecurity prompted them to construct a hypermasculine identity. This hypermasculinity not only targeted the West, but more so than the
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West it aimed to shape non-Western society. Force was considered a necessary tool. In this moment the role of the military and military officers became prominent. The ITC’s Orientalising attitude constructed a domestic ‘other’ nestled in ignorance, Eastern-ness, religiosity and irrationality as opposed to the leading, guiding and enlightened officer. This was the duty of the officers for Ahmed Rıza: ‘in a place where the snake charmer, fortune teller sheikh gets involved in the most important state business, it is an unforgivable crime to deprive the country of ideas and the government of capable and moral officers.’92 This short quotation was a perfect combination of the ideas published in Mes¸veret. On the one hand, it puts forward an image of a religious figure (sheikh) as a meddler, whose non-scientific, Eastern and immoral irrationality disturbs politics. As opposed to this representation, an enlightened, modernising, scientific and military ‘man’ emerges as the saviour of feminised society.
Conclusion This chapter discussed the historical background that led to the foundation of the Republic in 1923. The narratives about the West, non-West and domestic society in the trajectory of gendered ontological insecurity and military insecurity vis-a`-vis the West would subsequently be reproduced during the Republican period. The ambivalence of non-Western policy makers towards the West emerged in this period and led them to oscillate between a liberal approach desiring a rational-bourgeois Western masculinity, and a hypermasculinised reaction. Fear and desire towards the West (in the form of Europe) emerged hand in hand. Both lines of thinking were united in accepting the political ‘hegemony’ of the West, underlined by an epistemological hegemony. Positivism, social Darwinism and realpolitik were powerfully shaping Ottoman elite subjectivities. In foreign policy, hypermasculinised reactions towards the West were paralleled by a feminising attitude towards the non-West. In domestic politics, Muslim/Turks and non-Muslim/non-Turks saw the same but different faces of the non-Western state. The masculine state as the modernising authority targeted the first group and pursued policies of modernisation aiming to construct a homogenous society consisting of rational, scientific and statist individuals. However, non-Turkish and
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non-Muslim segments of society encountered a hypermasculine state. Military and gendered ontological insecurity vis-a`-vis the West were the underlying causes of these same but different faces. The ITC period was indeed a turning point in Turkey’s relations with the West. Their reactions towards both the West and domestic society set the tone for the republican policy makers.
CHAPTER 3 ENCOUNTERS WITH THE WEST ' S CIVILISATIONAL HEGEMONIC
MASCULINITY: THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY,
1923 — 50
With the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the terrifying scenario that the ITC policy makers had attempted to avoid through hypermasculine domestic and international policies came true. In 1918, Istanbul and Anatolia were occupied by the Allies. The Independence War, led by Mustafa Kemal (Atatu¨rk, the first president of the Republic from 1923 onwards) between 1919 and 1922, ensured the physical security of Turkey vis-a`-vis the West. However, the experiences of the last decades of the Empire showed that without efficiently addressing the ‘devalorisation’ of Turkey, military security would also be precarious. This chapter investigates the narratives of CHP policy makers in the period between 1923 and 1950, namely the beginning of the DP period. It will reveal the ways in which early Republican policy makers modulated the new Turkey, the West and the non-West in their narratives, both internationally and domestically, with the objective of addressing gendered devalorisation. At the end of this period, multiple Wests emerged in Turkey’s policy makers’ narratives. The West in the form of the US facilitated a productive exchange between the ‘Kemalist’ and ‘liberal’ lines of thinking, which led to the election victory of the latter in 1950.
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The War of Independence: Survival within the West Assured The Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October 1918 between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies, who occupied Istanbul on 13 November 1918. This was followed by the occupation of Mosul, Eskis¸ehir and Samsun by the British; many South West Anatolian cities, including the central Anatolian town of Konya, by the Italians; and Adana and the northern town of Zonguldak by France. Although the resistance was organised mainly by local leaders incorporating former ITC members who had started to flee to Anatolia as early as November 1918, the real mayhem and outrage across Anatolia was triggered by the occupation of Izmir (Smyrna) by the Greek army on 15 May 1919.1 Mustafa Kemal left Istanbul for Samsun (a northern Anatolian town) to join the resistance. National resistance came together in Erzurum (23 July – 7 August) and then in Sivas (4 – 12 September). In Sivas, all local resistance groups were united under the umbrella of the Committee of the Defense of Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia (Anadolu ve Rumeli Mu¨daafa-i Hukuk Cemiyeti). The increasing popularity of the resistance movement forced the Istanbul government to organise a meeting with Mustafa Kemal in November 1919. In the meeting, the parties agreed to re-convey the Ottoman Assembly (Meclis-i Mebusan) in Istanbul. Following the elections, in which the new Committee enjoyed a landslide victory, the Assembly was conveyed on 20 January 1920 and swore the national oath (Misak-i Milli), which protested the Ally occupation and declared the borders of the Ottoman Empire as those reached by the Ottoman forces at the end of the World War I. The Assembly was forcefully dissolved by the British occupation forces and many members were arrested and sent into exile. The dissolution of Meclis-i Mebusan also marked the end of the Ottoman period of Turkey’s history. In addition to its de facto legitimacy, political legitimacy also passed to Ankara with the launch of the National Assembly on 23 April 1920. The reaction of the Allies was to impose a peace agreement on the Istanbul government, which was signed on 10 August 1920 in Se`vres. The Ankara government categorically rejected the new agreement, rendering it the only peace settlement of World War I that was never implemented. Following the
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successive battles with the Greek occupation army, the War of Independence ended on 9 September 1922 when the Ankara government’s army reoccupied Izmir. This section does not aim to give a historical account of the War of Independence. Instead, it will highlight fundamental dimensions of the period that reveal how a non-Western political unit, the Ankara government, reacted in particular ways in the face of an imminent physical insecurity, while considering its gendered ontological insecurity towards the West. These dimensions include (a) the occupation by Greece as the face of the West, (b) gradual rapprochement with the West during the war, and (c) formulation of a multidimensional foreign policy. Each dimension carries characteristics from the previous decades and highlights how a non-Western modernising state would position itself vis-a`-vis the West after its survival was assured. It was not a coincidence that the occupation of Izmir by the Greek forces triggered an Anatolian-wide outrage among the Muslim-Turkish population. One of the most important dimensions of the emasculation of the Ottoman ruling elite was the defeat by those who lived under the Ottoman rule for centuries. This emasculation was marked by a sense of weakness, humiliation, outrage and agony towards former ‘subordinated’ elements that revolted against their paternal protector with the assistance of the West. As discussed in the previous chapter, the wealth accumulation by non-Muslim groups, the perception that they benefited more from the reforms than the Muslim-Turkish groups, and their continuous attempts to gain independence intensified frustration and anger. Before the Balkan Wars, the feeling of humiliation was already visible in the Young Turk press: Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Bosnia Herzegovina and Crete were lost. Right now, the grand Rumelia is about to be lost, and in one or two years Istanbul will be gone as well. Holy Islam and the esteemed Ottomanism will be moved to Kayseri. Kayseri will become our capital, Mersin our port, Armenia and Kurdistan our neighbours, and Muscovites our masters. We will become their slaves. Oh! Is not this shameful for us! How can the Ottomans, who once ruled the world, become servants to their own shepherds, slaves and servants?2
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The Se`vres Peace Treaty almost made true this bleak vision of the Ottomans. The greater Armenia was never realised due to the military successes of the Ottoman forces led by Kazım Pasha (Karabekir) against the attacks of Armenian forces in 1920. The subsequent agreements of Alexandropole (2 December 1920) with the Erevan Republic, the Moscow Agreement with the USSR (1 March 1921) and the Kars Agreement with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia (13 October 1921) stabilised the north-eastern borders. In the Alexandropole Agreement, the Ankara government imposed on another non-Western state, the Erevan Republic, similar terms that the Empire had received in the Se`vres Treaty. In the words of Tellal, the agreement was ‘Armenia’s Se`vres’3 by becoming an example of how a non-Western state learned to normalise its hegemony over another through feminisation and by putting Erevan under Ankara’s custody. Conditions such as permission for Turkey to intervene in Erevan’s domestic issues when necessary, as well as limitations imposed on the Armenian army, highlighted the fact that the Ankara government was imitating the West. The Kurdish population, on the other hand, was divided between those tribes who were concerned about the advances of a possible greater Armenia at the expense of their territories, and those who were resisting the ITC’s policies. The latter group had already been subjected to a forced population movement by the ITC in 1916.4 The majority of the Kurdish tribes supported the Ankara government. However, this was not the case for Greece. Greece was not only one of the former subordinated nations, but had also developed an intimate connection with the West. This connection served to create a mystification of Greece as the representative of the Western civilisation against Eastern barbarism. Romanticism in Europe gave the Greek state a ‘passport’ to be included in the West/Europe that no other Balkan state enjoyed.5 The words of Lloyd George, British prime minister in 1919, were illustrative of this intimate connection: ‘The Greeks are the people of the future in the Eastern Mediterranean . . . They represent Christian civilisation against Turkish barbarism’.6 As discussed previously, the hypermasculinised representation of Turks as barbarians was a source of ontological insecurity, especially among the Young Turks. This is not only because the representation as barbarian leads to subordination by what is modulated as civilised (in this case, Greece) in the West, but also the ‘civilised’ could claim the right to rule barbarian
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geography. This is because a hypermasculinised non-Western unit could not perform this ‘efficiently’. French prime minister Clemenceau revealed in 1919 that this gendered insecurity was real for Turkey’s policy makers: There is no case to be found either in Europe, or Asia, or Africa, where the establishment of Turkish rule in any country has not been followed by a diminution of material prosperity and a fall in the level of culture; nor is there any case to be found in which the withdrawal of Turkish rule has not been followed by a growth in material prosperity and a rise in the level of culture.7 Greece, therefore, was not simply another Balkan state trying to invade the Turkish ‘heartland’ or an instrument of the West in Anatolia. It was a member of the West, ‘the cradle of civilisation’, which enjoyed an intimate cultural link with the West. In Turkey’s policy makers’ articulations, this was one of the reasons why the West favoured Greece over Turkey. This anxiety towards Greece continued throughout the Republican era. It increased during the crises with Greece, and led Turkey’s policy makers to subordinate Greece through feminisation (irrational, emotional, ‘spoiled child of the West’) by writing it off the West’s standards of masculinity. The second dimension of the Independence War was also enabled by the Greek occupation: the Ankara government never had to confront the West militarily. The Allies’ occupation of Turkey did not go as planned, partly because of the strong local resistance to Italian, French and Greek forces, but mainly due to disagreements between the Allies (e.g. the rising influence of Britain in the Middle East disturbed France; and Italy was dissatisfied with the Greek invasion of territories promised to Rome during the war). Italy in 1920 and then France in 1921 established amicable relations with the Ankara government by withdrawing their occupation forces. Britain declared its impartiality in 1921. Without question, Mustafa Kemal’s diplomatic relations with the USSR and the military victories in the I˙no¨nu¨ and Sakarya wars (1920– 1) facilitated these amicable relations. An important point is that each military and diplomatic success moved Turkey closer to the West,8 rather than hardening its position against it, by generating hypermasculine reactions. Through defeating Greece in Anatolia,
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Turkey was restoring its relations with the West by starting to receive respect and a more equal treatment (especially from France and Italy). Given the Young Turk’s adherence to the ideal of becoming a member of Western civilisation, it would be difficult to expect otherwise. The third dimension is the multifaceted foreign policy that the Ankara government performed during the war. The Ankara government was primarily approached by Afghanistan and Indian Muslims. Mustafa Kemal repeatedly underlined the Islamic character of the resistance movement to this audience by making inextricable links with the Ottoman past. In an official state dinner for an Islamist leader from Libya in 1920, he defined Turkey as the ‘centre of the Islamic world’; in his address to the Afghan ambassador in Ankara in 1921, he stated that ‘Turkey has been fighting for Islam for centuries by itself. Now it will be joined by Afghanistan’.9 In November 1921, he underlined to the Azeri ambassador in the presence of the Afghan and USSR ambassadors that ‘our alliance (or unity) is not a pan-Islamist one, but one of the oppressed against the oppressors. I would be happy if Turkey became an example of anti-imperialist struggle’. This narrative would be revitalised vis-a`-vis Africa and Asia in the 1960s and 1970s.10 To the Soviet audience, with whom the Ankara government developed close financial and political relations, he stated that ‘our nation has become a target of vicious European imperialists due to its defense of Muslim countries’. By combining Islam and Bolshevism, ‘Bolshevism includes the most exalted principles and rules of Islam’.11 This multidimensional foreign policy is generally attributed to Mustafa Kemal’s pragmatism and rationalism which, in accordance with the conditions, enabled him to pursue Turkey’s independence based on realism and the balance of different powers.12 This argument is certainly accurate, given the adherence of the Young Turks to realpolitik, a game of nations based on realism and national interest, and Mustafa Kemal’s socialisation into these ideas during his military education.13 Indeed, this multidimensional foreign policy brought extensive political and material advantages to the Ankara government. In addition to the international recognition that forced the Allies to start negotiations with Ankara, considerable financial support was provided by both the USSR and Indian Muslims.14 However, it has generally been overloked that this is the first example of multidimensional foreign policy in the Republic’s history. As will be
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explored in the following chapters, during the periods when Turkey’s policy makers felt physical and ontological insecurity vis-a`-vis the West, they efficiently revitalised this policy. The policy aims to facilitate Turkey’s position within the West, but also exhibits to the West that Turkey’s difference allowed it to pursue non-Western foreign policy choices. This is the Western-oriented foreign policy of Turkey that employs its non-Western difference. Furthermore, increasing relations with other non-Western units was a natural consequence of the Young Turk outlook, and not simply because realpolitik demanded it. As discussed in the previous chapter, anti-imperialism was one of the dimensions of Young Turk ideology. References to the conquest and exploitation of the Americas, Asia and Africa, the fear that the imperialist West now set its eye on Turkey, and criticisms of capitalism (albeit primitive) highlighted this anti-imperialist position. Mustafa Kemal’s anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist narrative can be considered as a reproduction of Young Turk subjectivity as much as a result of rationalist interest calculations. Moreover, as admirers of the scientific thinking, religion was a tool for the Young Turks and especially for the ITC members to further the agenda of the elite in their quest to modernise society. It is not surprising that this instrumentalist approach to religion shaped the Ankara government’s relations with the Islamic world. Religion was supposed to serve the state’s interests both in domestic and international politics.
Positioning New Turkey in the West: International Politics of the Early Republic On 21 January 1923, Mustafa Kemal spoke to a French journalist: For centuries, our enemies spread feelings of grudge and enmity about us among European nations. These ideas, which settled in the mind of Europeans, created a special mentality. This mentality still exists, despite everything. And in Europe it is still thought that the Turk is against all sorts of progress, and that in moral and material senses he is incapable of developing. This is a huge misunderstanding. I will give you this example to simplify my answer: assume there are two men. One of them is rich and has all
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the equipment he needs; the other one is poor and has no equipment. Apart from lack of equipment, the latter has no inferiority and difference compared to the former in terms of his moral spirit. This is the situation between Europe and Turkey. The West has not only considered us as people who are destined to be inferior, but has also done everything in its power to destroy us. If the issue is to find two opposite mentalities as ‘West’ and ‘East’, we need to look at Europe to find its origins. This is the mentality we are fighting in Europe.15 The survival of Turkey was assured with the victory in the Independence War in September 1922. However, military security was not considered sufficient by the non-Western policy makers. As the aforementioned words revealed, the Ankara government felt the need to fight a certain ‘mentality’ that reproduced Turkey as an inferior non-Western unit and, therefore, as not entitled to equality. While Mustafa Kemal spoke the words above, the peace conference convened in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 21 November 1922 was dissolved, as the ‘mentality’ he spoke of still continued its reign. The Allies, led by British prime minister Lord Curzon, not only insisted on the continuation of capitulations and territorial demands from Turkey, but also the way the conference was organised was a reminder of the Ankara government’s unequal position. It included rejection of delegates from Turkey by the subcommittees, and the opening speech was delivered by Lord Curzon and not by I˙smet I˙no¨nu¨, first Prime Minister of the Republic. However, I˙smet I˙no¨nu¨ fought this Western orchestration by intervening with an opening speech, although it was not scheduled in the programme.16 The Ankara government’s motto during the conference, ‘not independence, but full independence’ reflected that unless Turkey was considered equal by the West and was subjected to the same standards of the international society, the fight against this ‘mentality’ would continue. The Ankara government indeed started to challenge the normalisation of Turkey’s subordination through gendered devalorisation in Lausanne, and intensified its efforts during the Republic to this end. For example, when Mustafa Kemal stated to a US journalist in December 1922 that ‘Turkey will not recognise any privileges for foreigners that are not recognised in France, Britain or America’,17 he underlined
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that in the new Turkey, ‘privileges’ that rendered Turkey ‘different’ from and subordinated to other members of international society would not be accepted. The Lausanne Treaty, signed on 23 July 1923, more or less accepted the boundaries determined by the Ankara government. It removed capitulations and the Western control of the economy and accepted the autonomous status of the Straits. The Ankara government achieved full political and economic independence in accordance with the legal standards of the international society. However, based on past experiences, the government knew that without the West’s acceptance of Turkey as a follower of the norms and values of the international society, Turkey could not be fully secured. One dimension of reconstructing Turkey as a member of the international society was to conduct a radical Westernisation process to convince the West that the ‘Turk’ was not against progress, and in moral and material senses ‘he’ was not incapable of developing. Keyman refers to this dimension as securing Turkey through a domestic reform process.18 The foreign policy dimension was, with new adjustments, the continuation of the foreign policy adopted during the Independence War: gradual positioning of Turkey within the West through a multidimensional foreign policy. One of the most important dimensions that differentiated the early Republican foreign policy from the ITC’s foreign policy was the adoption of a very prudent approach, so as not to evoke a hypermasculinised image of Turkey in the West. In 1923, Mustafa Kemal spoke to the foreign press and stated that the Republican government did not have any hostile feelings towards foreigners, and as long as the latter respected the freedoms of the Turks, they were always welcome in Turkey: ‘the Turks are friends of the civilised nations’.19 The struggle against the mentality that essentialised the Turks as barbarians and uncivilised peoples, which almost led to their erasures, prompted Turkey’s policy makers to refrain from using military force to achieve foreign policy goals, especially regarding two territorial issues that could not be solved in Lausanne: Mosul with Britain and Alexandria with France. The Mosul issue, following the League of Nations’ report in 1925, was solved in favour of Britain in 1926. The Alexandria (Hatay) issue was addressed with France, which was concerned with irredentism in favour of Turkey. Hatay became an independent republic
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in 1938 and joined Turkey with a plebiscite in 1939. In both cases, Turkey deployed military force to the borders but never used it, thus convincing Europe that Turkey was complying with the decisions of the League of Nations and keeping diplomatic channels open.20 In other words, Turkey was keen to prove that it was ‘playing by the book’.21 The early Republican foreign policy’s multidimensionality was operationalised in two ways. Firstly, Turkey’s policy makers continued to develop relations with the USSR as a balancing power. In the postwar period, the most important crisis with the West was the Mosul crisis with Britain. Mosul was considered a territory of the new republic by the Republican elite not only because the town was under Ottoman rule for more than 500 years, but also because the population was heavily Turkish, as they argued. The negotiations with Britain started immediately after Lausanne. In the Istanbul Conference of May– June 1924, Britain claimed territorial rights over Hakkari (which was already inside the borders determined by the Lausanne Treaty) due to the Assyrian population, and did not give up Mosul. In August 1924, the Assyrian Rebellion, supported by the British Air Force, erupted in Hakkari. This was followed by the Sheikh Said Rebellion in February 1925. When Britain took the Mosul issue to the League of Nations, it strongly argued that Turkey was persecuting Christians. On 16 December 1925, the League decided against Turkey and Mosul was given to Iraq.22 The League’s decision, underlined by the efforts of Britain, revived the memories of the late Ottoman years when the West repeatedly interfered on the side of non-Muslim groups against Istanbul. The decision resulted in an anti-British and anti-League atmosphere in Turkey.23 While President Mustafa Kemal claimed that the West was still in the pursuit of oppressing the East,24 the decision rendered Turkey suspicious towards the League as an instrument of Western interests.25 When Britain argued to the League that Turkey was persecuting Christians, Prime Minister I˙no¨nu¨ stated to the National Assembly on 12 December 1925: ‘Now it has become a trend that whenever diplomats want to make a disastrous political decision about Turkey, they start a propaganda about persecution of Christians in Turkey’.26 Echoing Mustafa Kemal’s words on the above ‘mentality’, the Mosul issue reproduced the understanding that despite all the efforts
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of Turkey, according to a Turkish law maker, ‘the West has still not given up its old ideas about Turkey’.27 In other words, while gendered devalorisation reproduced Turkey’s ontological insecurity, this hypermasculinisation could still be used to scramble territories from the new Turkey, just like the days of the Ottoman Empire. This resulted in a policy (formulated during the Independence War repeatedly employed after 1964) that when Turkey’s policy makers displayed this ontological insecurity (with possible repercussions on physical insecurity) and could not position Turkey within the West as an equal member, they approached another power. The day after the Mosul decision, on 17 December 1925, Turkey signed a Friendship and Impartiality Agreement with the USSR. However, this did not prevent Turkey from joining the League of Nations’ activities, as this type of international institution was a political platform to challenge Turkey’s subordination. As early as 1921, a member of a commission established by the National Assembly to prepare a report about the League stated that Turkey should attend international conferences, and that ‘a war of civilisation is not fought only by guns, and even the strongest nation sees the necessity of protecting their rights on such occasions. Moreover, if Turkey does not attend, they would spread lies about Turkey’.28 Therefore, Turkey attended the League’s activities, such as the 1928 Disarmament Conference in Geneva, and also signed the Litvinov Protocol in the same year. However, rather than create a sense of belonging with the international society, these activities did not sufficiently address the ontological insecurity, in spite of all the ‘new laws’ Turkey adopted. MP Sırrı Bey talked thus to the Assembly in May 1931: We are Europeans. But I would like to draw your attention to the fact that whenever they want to discuss their family issues, they do not consider us one of them, and only after our powerful friends convince them do they agree to invite us. We have the most perfect regime and laws. I would like to ask what kind of fault Europe sees in us so they hesitate to include us in their family.29 As the border problems with Britain and France were stabilised in 1926 (another agreement was signed with France), Turkey’s gradual
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positioning within the West was performed through increasing cooperation with Britain in the political and economic area.30 When Turkey was invited to join the League – Mustafa Kemal insisted that Turkey should be invited, not apply – the newspaper Aks¸am celebrated the event as proof of Turkey’s importance in the international arena. Following this event, Foreign Minister Ru¨s¸tu¨ Aras sent a letter to the Soviet counterpart stating that this would not hinder the Turkey – USSR cooperation. From 1932 onwards, each multilateral agreement was considered an opportunity to reproduce Turkey as a respectable and equal member of the international society. The 1934 Montreux Agreement, giving full sovereignty of the Straits to Turkey, was not simply an agreement fulfilling the objective of ‘not independence, but full independence’ of the new Republican decision makers. It also contributed to addressing their gendered ontological insecurity. Prime Minister I˙no¨nu¨’s words on the agreement are thought-provoking: The new agreement about the Straits is the document that reconfirms Turkey’s security and sovereignty internationally . . . Friends, each international document is an expression of its period. It can be argued that the new Straits agreement is the document that shows new Turkey’s politics and existence . . . Friends, another subject of the agreement that we are content about is the trust that Turkey receives in the international arena . . . Friends, it should be underlined that Turkey’s policies are of international importance. This not only gives us honour and happiness, but also reminds us of our responsibilities. In order to understand the politics of the new Turkey you need to know its mentality. Our mentality is completely different from all the perceptions and ideas that exist internationally about the Empire. When we are working for international peace and unity, we never hold a grudge and pursue revenge.31 I˙no¨nu¨’s narrative revealed crucial points. Firstly, it was an example of new Turkey’s constant reminder to the international society that it was not irredentist, aggressive and militarist. In addition, a demarcation between the Empire and the new Republic was clearly articulated. Therefore, in this way, new Turkey would be different from the hypermasculinised and feminised non-Western Empire. The agreement
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was the confirmation of this difference by the international society: Turkey now receives trust, is accepted as an important state, and is included in the international society. Gendered ontological insecurity was eased momentarily with an agreement that was a legal manifestation of Turkey’s importance in the international society. Indeed, in this period Turkey’s policy makers’ gendered ontological insecurity vis-a`-vis the West was relatively low. Relations with Britain, France, Germany and Italy were flourishing (until Mussolini’s aggressiveness in the Mediterranean became obvious). Politically, Turkey was working with Britain for Mediterranean security against possible Italian aggression (for example, in the 1937 Nyon Conference), and it signed the Ankara Pact with France and Britain in the summer of 1939, in the wake of World War II. Meanwhile, Turkey attempted to include the USSR in the agreement. The attempt to sign another common defense agreement with the Soviets continued until late September 1939.32 Economically, Turkey needed foreign capital for the industrialisation of the country; therefore, it played a very careful balancing game especially between Britain and Germany, with whom almost half of Turkey’s foreign trade was conducted in 1939.33 In other words, a multidimensional and active foreign policy was maintained during the interwar period, which witnessed the gradual positioning of Turkey in the West. This multidimensional foreign policy provided the necessary comfort that Turkey’s policy makers needed by making Turkey an accepted member of the international society. When Hatay became an independent republic in 1937, Prime Minister I˙no¨nu¨ declared: I can gladly state that countries from different poles of European politics supported our case. You may find the word ‘support’ too much. But I cannot recall any country that was not sympathetic to our cause. The German delegation was positive. The Italians listened to us very carefully and did not refrain from supporting us. It would be a mistake if our public opinion, when we were dealing with such an important national cause, was not impressed by the friendship of big European countries.34 Decades later, in 2012, political Islamist AKP’s foreign minister Ahmet Davutog˘lu echoed I˙no¨nu¨’s narrative about how Turkey was embraced by
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the international society vis-a`-vis the ‘other’ Syria (Chapter 5). When the three-lateral pact was signed among Turkey, Britain and France, the pact was not simply ‘a military and political agreement’ for Turkey, as Foreign Minister S¸u¨kru¨ Sarac og˘lu stated; instead, it was a manifestation of Turkey’s equality and importance in defeating the mentality of subordination that Mustafa Kemal had mentioned in 1923: From now on, Turkey is no longer the country that the two greatest and civilised countries (Britain and France) look down on with enmity. Likewise, Turkey is not a country for which these countries sympathetically wish progress and development. Rather, Turkey, with its science, knowledge and army is considered by the great British and French nations as the necessary country for civilisation, progress, peace and particularly for their own survival. The importance of this agreement lies in the prestige that Turkey is given. This is similar to what the British call ‘Common Law’: unwritten law based on norms and traditions, whose life is longer and its content more important than the written laws.35 The foreign minister’s statement was illustrative of how important it was for Turkey’s policy makers to be integrated into the West-centric international society. It was also a strong indication that Turkey was finally catching up with the ‘standards’ of Western hegemonic masculinity with its ‘science, knowledge and army’. Not enmity, not even a patronising attitude was shown to Turkey, but equality and respect. Throughout Republican history, such events, confirming Turkey’s Western credentials (be it agreements or membership to institutions), addressed the gendered ontological insecurity by institutionally situating Turkey within the West. Turkey’s relations with non-Western countries also pointed to Turkey’s attempts to reproduce itself as a member of the West. In this period, Turkey developed relations with Iran and, to a lesser extent, with Afghanistan. However, unlike the period of the Independence War, the new Republican elite did not establish these relations based on religion, which was privatised in domestic politics and removed from the country’s international affairs. For Turkey’s policy makers, a country that adheres to a scientific and rational foreign policy should not
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instrumentalise religion. Instead, relations with Iran and Afghanistan were founded on the commonality that these three non-Western countries were pursuing modernisation policies. As Iran’s Reza Shah was following the model of Kemalist modernisation in Iran,36 in 1937 Prime Minister I˙no¨nu¨ declared that ‘the Turkish nation is following with great admiration the steps taken in Iran for progress’.37 Similarly, Afghanistan’s Emanullah Khan visited Turkey in 1928 on his tour of Europe, during which he observed the modernised techniques of the government and military and exchanged ideas with Atatu¨rk.38 While the new Republic established relations with those non-Western states that were in the process of modernisation, it refrained from presenting Turkey as a blueprint for modernisation in other non-Western countries. In other words, the modulations regarding the non-West revolved around modernisation while refraining from imposing a ‘Turkish model’. World War II, however, changed the rules of the established game for Turkey. During the War, the multilateral balancing diplomacy of President I˙no¨nu¨ (1938– 50) relieved anxiety about whether Turkey was part of Western civilisation. However, in the immediate post-war period, Turkey’s policy makers faced multiple challenges that were related to Turkey’s position within the West. The foremost challenge was that what had been considered as ‘the West’ by Turkey’s policy makers before the war had now changed. Until this period, for Turkey’s policy makers the political leaders or ‘greatest states’ of the West were Britain and France. Now this role was taken over by the United States. In addition, the balancing diplomacy towards the West (such as France and Italy against Britain in 1921, and Britain and France against Germany in the 1930s) adopted by policy makers since the Independence War was no longer effective. Politically, until the late 1950s there was one West for Turkey’s policy makers and this was led by the US. Furthermore, the USSR, which had been a balancing power against the West since 1920, started to be articulated as a threat (see below). Foreign policy makers felt the necessity to align with the West in order to ensure the territorial/physical security of the country. However, this approach could bear the possibility that Turkey’s position within the West could be shifted from a respectable, equal, modern and ‘civilised’ member of the West to a weak and peripheral country that needed Western (US) protection, in return for allowing
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the West to use its strategic position. CHP policy makers’ ontological insecurity re-emerged through a feminisation of Turkey as the periphery of the West. Until the election victory of the Democrat Party in 1950, CHP policy makers were faced with the following task: to convince the new West, led by the US, that Turkey was meeting the new standards of post-war Western hegemonic masculinities and, related to this, to ensure Turkey’s reception in the West as an equal and respectable member. The most important strategy was to reproduce Turkey as a member of the new West by otherising ‘the others’ of the West. Turkey’s declaration of war against Germany and Japan by Prime Minister Sarac og˘lu in February 1945 was a succinct expression of Turkey’s new position on the side of ‘civilisation’ in the emerging system, and an articulation of a new concept, ‘democracy’, while denouncing racist ideologies: Friends, some people have appeared in the last few years of the history of humanity. They decorated their flags with nonsense such as ‘superior race’ and ‘sphere of life’. By violating all rules of justice they dominated small and innocent nations. Big states took up arms to protect humanity, civilisation, freedom and democracy, and with big sacrifices they managed to give hope to the world. From the very first moment, the Republic of Turkey has put its word, arms and heart on the side of the democratic nations. Today we will officially fill the place we have had on the side of the Allies in order to save humanity, civilisation, freedom and democracy. To this aim, in accordance with the interests of humanity as well as our national interests, we declare war against Germany and Japan.39 Although Turkey’s policy-makers made a move towards the West that was gradually articulated in terms of ‘democracy’ and ‘civilisation’, the reconstruction of domestic society in accordance with the foreign policy objectives of the state continued throughout the war years. Throughout the 1930s and during the initial years of the war German sympathy among the Turkish intelligentsia was considerably high. In addition to the close relations between the militaries of the two states, Germany’s attempts to create a pro-German public opinion through clientelist
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press, such as Tu¨rkische Post and Teutonia, coincided with the period when Turkey’s policy makers’ nation-building was formulated based on race and racial hierarchies.40 During this period the racist press became powerful, but when it became clear that Nazi Germany was going to lose the war, the newspapers and journals were shut down and journalists were prosecuted.41 Turkey’s policy makers increasingly made reference to democracy and ‘the free world’, both in their foreign and domestic political speeches (see below). The standards that the ‘civilised’ West provided before the War were now provided by the ‘democratic’ and ‘free’ West. Failure to meet these standards could result in exclusion from the West, and this resulted in both military (vis-a`-vis the USSR) and gendered ontological insecurity (vis-a`-vis the West) for Turkey’s policy makers. In terms of military insecurity, in 1945 the Soviets declared their will to renegotiate the status of Kars and Ardahan (the provinces that remained in Turkey with the 1921 Agreement) and the Straits. Although in the beginning the new West (first in Yalta and in then in the Potsdam meetings) seemed to allow Stalin to solve the territorial issues with Turkey, this changed when the US sent home the deceased ambassador of Turkey with the aircraft Missouri. The aircraft arrived in Istanbul in April 1946 and the event was presented by the Turkish press as the new manifestation of US support for Turkey’s ‘need for peace and security’.42 The 1947 Truman Doctrine further secured Turkey’s place in the West. Truman stated that an economically and politically stable Turkey was no less important than Greece for the free world and for stability in the Middle East in particular. Turkey was to receive $100 million in aid and military equipment to modernise the army. This generated praise in the Turkish press, such as Turkey becoming the outpost of the civilised West.43 The Truman Doctrine, however, led to another opportunity that Turkey’s policy makers had not utilised before: representing Turkey as a valuable asset for the West and, therefore, securing its place within the international society. For example, in 1947 Turkey defended its position for receiving more economic aid by arguing that although it had not joined the War, it had acted as the outpost of the West.44 The potential problem was that this could reduce Turkey to an instrument rather than an equal member of the West, and therefore it could result in an image
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of Turkey as a feminised periphery. CHP policy makers addressed this potential problem by requesting and receiving necessary changes in the aid agreement (such as replacing a US ‘aid administrator’ with a ‘chief of mission’ and rejecting unlimited access for US journalists to the facilities) that could potentially remind policy makers of the privileges of foreigners during the Imperial period.45 They also attempted to join post-war Western institutions such as the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), NATO and the Council of Europe. As a result, Turkey could be represented as an equal member within the West rather a feminised peripheral country. The reproduction of Turkey as a respectable and equal member of the international society was conflated with admiration towards the US. In the post-war world, the hegemonic masculinity of the West was strongly characterised by liberal values such as humanitarianism. This resulted in a reproduction of the West’s hegemonic position as wealthy, democratic, altruistic and liberal in political narratives. Turkey, with its desire to become like the West, did not waste any opportunity to write itself along these new standards. On the issues of Turkey’s payment to the US in the framework of the Lend and Lease Law (Turkey received $95 million in military equipment from the United States)46 and Turkey’s entry to UNRRA, Prime Minister Sarac og˘lu’s speech revealed Turkey’s post-war positioning within the West: Friends, we all remember that the world was burning in the fires of war and suffering. In those dark days, a great man achieved great work. The name of that man was Roosevelt. The name of the work was the Lend and Lease Law . . . It is our conscious duty to consider this debt as honorable and sacred . . . Friends, we were asked to pay only $4.5 million dollars of this debt. Our government accepted this without bargaining. I am sure that you will give permission to pay this debt as soon as possible, so that the Turkish nation and the Turkish state will become the first among the world’s nations to pay this sacred debt.47 In the second part of the speech, Sarac og˘lu represented Turkey’s pro-US foreign policy as a moral duty:
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We all agree that by paying this debt, we would only be paying the financial side. We also have a moral debt, and will try to pay it by taking the side of the US in defending justice, freedom and humanity. Friends, the second reason why we are here today is to ask your permission to pay TL 6 million to the UNRRA. We consider this amount as help to those people who are suffering. In spite of the economic troubles we have, we think that it is our debt to humanity to pay this amount and we will give it gladly. Until now, Europeans have used the expression ‘as strong as a Turk’; from now on, we want them to use expressions such as ‘as merciful as a Turk, as honest as a Turk and as honourable as a Turk’.48 Whereas Turkey’s policy makers aimed to position Turkey politically as an equal member within the West, membership in a Europe-based organisation was an institutional manifestation of Turkey’s belonging to Western civilisation, both politically and culturally. Thus, they continued the process of reproducing Turkey as a Western state and its people as Western people, which had started in the early Republican period. President I˙smet I˙no¨nu¨ spoke in the Parliament about Turkey’s objective to enter the newly formed Council of Europe: Turkey, which has secured its position in the community of Europe, will not hesitate to contribute the establishment of the Council of Europe . . . Turkey is being raised as an example of freedom and independence in the family of Western civilisation and culture.49 Foreign Minister Necmettin Sadak’s address to the Parliament about the Council of Europe, a month after I˙no¨nu¨’s speech, showed how CHP decision makers modulated Europe and the liberal role of the Council of Europe in post-war world politics: Those countries that have become members of the Council of Europe are united along the lines of a civilisation and culture. Their objective is to protect the common ideals of European nations against destructive currents. These countries apply democracy as it is understood in civilisation. They respect
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individual freedoms as a foundation of democracy . . . What makes the Council of Europe different is that it does not only connect politicians and statesmen, but unites European nations.50 Remaining outside this cultural and civilisational institution was unacceptable for Turkey, crystallising its ontological insecurity. It was clear that questions about Turkey’s Europeanness were disturbing policy makers, and membership to the Council of Europe would answer this question indefinitely, as President I˙no¨nu¨ stated: Everybody knows that there are certain questions about Turkey being a European state or an Asian state. This question was even asked in international meetings. Some newspapers wrote about it. Our membership to the Council of Europe would certainly remove this question . . . Without doubt, this was the result of Turkey joining European civilisation thanks to Atatu¨rk’s revolution, rather than geography . . . Turkey’s place among the Western democracies as a country with a democratic regime that respects individual and political freedoms is the proof of how much contemporary international politics respects its dignity.51 CHP policy makers aimed to institutionalise the position of Turkey within the West by participating in global post-war institutional arrangements, as well as in those in Europe. Therefore, becoming a member of West-centric institutions of the international society was a policy aimed to reproduce Turkey as a civilised, democratic and modern ally not of the West, but within the West and on the basis of equality. Another important consequence of this period was the emergence of the perception of Turkey’s instrumental value for the West. Especially the Menderes governments, discussed in the following chapter, would often use this. It would also re-emerge after the Cold War when Turkey was presented as a role model to the Middle East.
Reproducing the West in Domestic Politics 1923 –50: Construction of a ‘White but not Quite’ Nation Early Republican policy makers’ narratives about new Turkey’s foreign policy told new stories about Turkey and the West. They highlighted
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how different Turkey would be from the Ottoman Empire in terms of its dedication to Western norms, values and institutions. In the postWorld War II world, non-Western subjectivities were reproduced, giving birth to new narratives. As post-colonial and feminist literatures urge, it would be misleading to neglect the domestic politics of a non-Western geography. This is because narratives and political practices in domestic politics can be contextualised within Turkey’s ontological insecurity towards the West as a result of its devalorisation, and this contextualisation offers a new perspective for analysing how foreign and domestic politics interplay in the construction of West/non-West power hierarchies. The non-Western state’s coercive power was inflicted on society, thus victimising certain segments of society in the process of recreating Turkey as a Western space. In other words, the hyperfeminisation of society continued, as in the ITC period. The non-Western state, as the modernising paternal leader of society, launched an extensive and radical modernisation process involving centralisation of political authority, secularisation of the public sphere and transformation of bodies (such as the Dress and Hat Laws). This three-dimensional reform process was considered necessary to meet the standards of the West’s hegemonic masculinity, albeit provoking societal reactions. In February 1925, one of the biggest uprisings in the East (Sheikh Said Rebellion) paved the way for increasing the authoritarianism of Ankara. The rebellion, which was a Kurdish nationalist uprising blended with Islamic references, was suppressed by the I˙no¨nu¨ government in April. The government then took measures to suppress the opposition. In March 1925, the Law for the Maintenance of Order (Takrir-i Su¨kun Kanunu) was passed, giving extraordinary powers to the government to suspend liberties. In parallel, the Independence Tribunals (I˙stiklal Mahkemeleri) were founded, meant as special military courts to try the rebels and the ‘enemies of the regime’ (these types of special courts were repeatedly founded throughout the Republican history). These measures were justified in the context of Turkey’s modernisation. Against the criticisms of Kazım Karabekir, leader of the opposition Progressive Republican Party in 1925, Prime Minister I˙smet I˙no¨nu¨ defended the Law by recourse to enabling reforms in Turkey:
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The esteemed Kazım Karabekir Bey asked if we perform the reforms by relying on the Independence Tribunals. We can conduct the reforms by relying on security and order. This is my view. Just like other laws, the Independence Tribunals are the tools to establish and maintain, always maintain, security and order . . .52 The connection between progress, modernisation and reforms, and the necessity to preserve public order to enable the reforms, were established in I˙no¨nu¨’s address. In addition, an association of the opposition party with reactionary forces was also performed. He continued asking ‘while you are talking about reforms now, where was the opposition to defend the reforms when progress and renewal were outcried as “immorality’’?’53 Following this speech in March 1925, the Progressive Republican Party was shut down in June along with several newspapers, including Istanbul-based Vatan, for publishing pro-opposition articles. While the Ankara government was performing policies to restore public order, especially in eastern Turkey, the rebellions continued. Prime Minister I˙no¨nu¨ spoke to the Assembly in order to renew the Takrir-i Su¨kun Law. This time there was no opposition party among the audience. He again underlined how the rebellions were against reform and progress, and also gave a perspective about how the government saw the dissident intellectuals: The problem was not the movement that expressed itself as ‘Sheikh Said uprising’ two years ago. The real danger was the uncertainty and chaos that covered public life in our country. This has been the main trouble that has repeatedly compromised the country’s political life. This is the issue that prevented the country’s maturing and the efforts of all sincere reformists, and this is the doing of old intellectuals who are used to playing their ambitions, and of those politicians who manipulated freedom of consciousness to attack other people’s consciousness . . . This law removed the chaos that hindered the reforms provoked by the movement, not only in the East but in the entire country . . . Gentlemen, one of the most important benefits of Takrir-i Su¨kun was to enable reforms in our country that had been envisioned for centuries.54
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Indeed, the most radical modernisation reforms were performed from 1925 onwards. In 1926, the Swiss Civil Code and the Italian Criminal Code replaced S¸eriat and Mecelle. In the same year, the Hat Law was passed banning the fez. The Latin alphabet replaced the Arabic alphabet in 1928. These reforms, as will be discussed below, were important tools to construct a modern Turkish citizen and modern society. The important point here is that this type of modernisation was processed under the hypermasculinised pressure of the state over society. In 1929, Takrir-i Su¨kun’s last year in effect, I˙no¨nu¨ articulated the role of the Law by recourse to reforms and progress: Seeing the four years of Takrir-i Su¨kun solely from the perspective of security and the defense of the Republic is shortsightedness. Achievements that had not been accomplished in the last 400 years were accomplished . . . In addition, the emancipation of women from the social prison was also accomplished in this period. Although there were one or two confused examples in the beginning, Turkish women both in cities and villages protected their honorable place by earning her life in a decent way . . . Those who think that women deserved to live in a social prison will be considered as aggressors that try to hurt all Republican hearts. When women are rising to the highest levels of the state all around the world, we will not remain silent to the disrespectful treatment of Turkish girls, who raise the noblest heroes.55 While the country was in transformation, ‘the old’ and ‘the traditional’ Eastern provinces were resisting progress in order to protect their privileges against the equality that the Republic had brought. Following the Sheikh Said rebellion, Ankara adopted a highly hypermasculinised position towards the Kurdish population. A good example is the Report on Reform in the East (S¸ark Islahat Raporu), which determined a five-tier strategy: a ban on the use of Kurdish where Kurdish and Turkish populations co-existed, deportations of ‘risky’ families to western Turkey, building new railway lines and roads, establishing an inspectorate-general with extraordinary powers (the first was founded in January 1928) and a military regime in the East for the implementation of the measures.56 This was followed by
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relocation policies to respace geography. The Resettlement Law of 1926, which defined who would be an immigrant, resettled in eastern provinces many Turkish immigrants from abroad that accepted Turkish culture.57 In June 1927, the Law on the Transportation of Certain Persons from the eastern regions to the western provinces was passed. Consequently, many Kurdish families were forced to migrate to western towns including Balikesir, Aydin, Nazilli, Polatli, Antalya and Bolu.58 The 1934 Resettlement Law divided Turkey into zones that determined how Kurdish families or Turkish families that had ‘forgotten their culture’ could be resettled to facilitate their assimilation.59 Where is the West in this story? In 1930, following the suppression of the Ag˘rı Rebellion, I˙no¨nu¨ argued that the Republican government tried to replace the centuries-old order and the privileges it had created in the East.60 In 1937, Prime Minister Celal Bayar, who had replaced I˙no¨nu¨ and was considered one of the pioneers of the second line of thinking due to his liberal credentials, echoed I˙no¨nu¨ on the issue of the Dersim Rebellion (according to I˙no¨nu¨, this rebellion was against the ‘civilising’ efforts of the Republic):61 Friends, what does the Dersimli [person from Dersim] want? . . . He wants to steal, but he says you will not interfere. He wants to murder, but he tells you not to prosecute . . . He wants to walk around as a privileged person. Everybody should know the fact that the Republic does not recognise such a citizen . . . Dersim should hear our voice . . . Our voice has mercy as well as might. It is their decision to decide which they would like to have. Both our mercy and wrath are abundant.62 However, the Kurdish population was not the only target of the new hypermasculine non-Western state. While the Kurdish population’s uprisings were articulated as resistance to modernisation, the ITC’s otherising approach to non-Muslim groups as threats was maintained, especially towards the Armenians. In 1928, provincial Armenians inhabiting several eastern towns in Turkey asked for help from the Armenian Catholic Patriarchate in Beirut to ensure their religious freedoms. Following this, atrocities towards Armenians (by the hand police, gendarmerie or local gangs) increased; consequently, in 1929
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thousands of Armenians fled to Syria as a result of the indifference of Ankara towards the violence.63 The remaining Armenians were also subjected to relocation policies in the 1930s. The Armenians were considered as a dangerous population, and it was specifically asked that they not be resettled close to military installations and bases.64 Census with decreased number of Christian categories (excluding Assyrians and Jacobites) ‘lessened the chances of foreign intervention in their favour, an irritatingly frequent phenomenon during the late Ottoman period’.65 According to Cagaptay, ‘the Constitution needed to recognise Armenians, Jews and other non-Muslim groups as Turks-bycitizenship and not Turks-by-nationality’. However, he continues, around 1930 the role of accepting Turkish culture gained prominence (for example, party membership was limited to those who accepted Turkish culture) over the territorial approach.66 This approach was similar to Ottomanism, replacing ‘Ottoman’ with ‘Turk’ and rendering the latter as a supra-identity uniting ethnically different groups. Therefore, the ‘Turk’ as a supranational identity with a legal implication became a racial marker that defined who should be included and excluded from the political community. The 1931 CHP programme defined the nation based on unity of culture, language and ideals. Recep Peker, Secretary General of the Party, both included and excluded non-Muslims from the Turkish political community: ‘we need to voice our ideas on our Christian and Jewish citizens with equivocal clarity. Our party sees these citizens as full Turks on the condition that they participate in . . . the unity in language and ideals’. The non-Turkish Muslim groups could be considered Turkish if they did not express their own nationalism: ‘we accept those citizens in the contemporary Turkish political and social community as part of us, including those citizens who accepted ideas such as Kurdism, Circassianism and even Lazism and Pomakism. It is our duty to correct these false conceptions.’67 The elite’s highly negative attitude towards non-Turkish ethnic groups was underlined not only by the aim to construct a homogenous modern nation, but also by a deep historical insecurity. The Republican reforms were highly influenced by the fear that lack of national unity would lead to disasters such as the Balkan Wars. As early as 1923, this was revealed by Mustafa Kemal’s words:
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You know that there were endless struggles in Macedonia between Turks, Bulgarians and Serbs. Why were we fighting? I did not know back then, and so many others did not either. Those who fought most knew least. In fact, they were fighting to reveal their nationalities and prove their existence. And we were telling them: we are all Ottomans, and there is no difference among us. We were trying to beat them because they did not keep quiet. In the end, they beat us and chased us away. That is why the culture we will give (to our children) will be from this perspective . . . We will raise our children in a way that they will be capable of conducting this struggle.68 ‘Correcting the false conceptions’ required a cultural policy that involved a rearticulation of history with the objective of racialising society as a unitary nation that would meet the standards of the West. Between 2 and 11 July 1932, the first Turkish History Congress was conveyed in Ankara to discuss the origins of Turks, the history of Turkish civilisation and the anthropological characteristics of Turks. A ‘Turkish history thesis’ was presented, which concerned the origins of Turks in Central Asia and how they migrated to different directions in the world, spreading civilisation. The Congress also addressed the idea that Turks belong to the ‘yellow race’. The Turk, it argued, ‘is tall, has a long white face, a straight or arched thin nose, proportioned lips, often blue eyes, and horizontal and slanted eye lids’ and is ‘one of the most beautiful examples of the white race’.69 An important dimension of the thesis is that ‘it fought the idea that the Turks were incapable of establishing civilisations’.70 The ‘Turkish history thesis’ was one of the most important implications of the non-Western insecurity caused by devalorisation. In relation to domestic politics, it aimed to address the lack of national consciousness that was blended by a decades-old humiliation vis-a`-vis the West. In addition to the military defeats before the Independence War, the representations of Turks as barbarians and inferior to the white, developed, capitalist and modern West reproduced nonWestern subjectivities in a way that internalised this inferiority. In this sense, the thesis was based on the idea that the Turks also established ancient civilisations while belonging to the white race with their ‘brachycephalic skulls’. Therefore, rather than being
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ashamed, the Turks should be proud of their nation, as Republican textbooks often highlighted.71 An advantage that the thesis offered to the Republican policy makers was that ‘Turkish identity was to be founded not on the alien import of Islam but on this “scientific” theory of Turkish peoplehood’.72 In other words, the thesis served to construct a society and a nation based on science and, therefore, to replace Islam as a social bond. As a manifestation of reverse Orientalism, the thesis also aimed to prove to the West that the Turks were the people who established great civilisations, and that their migration from Central Asia to Europe, China and India spread civilisation. ‘In other words, the twentiethcentury Turk was a descendent of the race that first gave humankind fire, bread, clothing, tools and domesticated animals’.73 The Turks, instead of being subordinated as ‘inferior barbarians’, deserved respect from the West. An implication of this was that Turkey was challenging Greece with regard to the discourse of ‘the cradle of Western civilisation’, and was hence attempting to preempt Western favouritism of Greece over Turkey.74 With the thesis, the Republican elite also made a geographical claim. By rearticulating the Hittites and Sumerians as peoples of Turkish origin, they claimed the ancient ownership of Anatolian geography ‘so as to outsmart anyone who made historical claims on Anatolia’.75 Rearticulation of the new Turkish nation through the ‘history thesis’ provided certain advantages to the elite to underline the ‘civilisational’ credentials of the Turks, to grant them ancient ownership of Anatolia and to racialise the Turks as ‘white’, not ‘yellow’. This cultural reproduction of the Turks also brought on another cultural institution, as argued by Altınay: the ‘military nationhood’ (ordu-millet). The militarisation of society as a cultural institution had been launched by the ITC under the influence of Goltz’s military nation ideas (see Chapter 2). From the 1930s onwards, according to Altınay, militarisation was linked to the racial history of the Turks, which naturalised the military characteristics of the nation and therefore constructed a masculine society, feminising those challenging this militarism; by redefining the history of the Turks in terms of subsequent states (16 Turkish states in total; the Republic became the most civilised one), the Turks were never ‘barbaric’. Instead, they were always civilised with a state and a strong army.76
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Therefore, the nation – state – military triangle was formed historically in order to justify and naturalise how civilised the Turks had been, as a history textbook from the period revealed: Military training can be given in a matter of years, whereas military spirit is an oar that is born from the hammering of abilities and capabilities of humankind throughout centuries of experience . . . That is why the Turkish nation is the nation with the most developed military spirit . . . A nation with a high military spirit is a nation with a history of civilisation.77 According to this thinking, Turks had to historically fight for their survival, and this led them to found civilisations. The reproduction of non-Western subjectivity through militarism was useful to construct a national identity that valorises war, the state and the military as manifestations of their civilised, masculine ‘nature’. Militarism was constitutive to nationalism. In 1927, the CHP’s participation in the then international union of centre-left and leftist parties was rejected, because it would have led to the rewriting of school textbooks according to the principles of peaceful pacifism, thus contradicting nationalism.78 However, an interesting point is that such a hypermasculinised construction of society did not lead to aggressiveness in Turkey’s foreign policy. It was primarily used with the perspective of domestic politics: re-forging the link between society and state while marginalising those who resisted through feminisation as irrational, emotional and non-scientific. In the following decades, military nationhood would repeatedly appear especially during times of military crisis within domestic politics. It must also be noted that militarism did not lead to a participation of the military in domestic politics. CHP policy makers were cautious about keeping the military out of politics for several reasons. The founders of the Republic, especially Mustafa Kemal, were closer to the Franco-British political model, which discouraged the outcast of democracy in favour of military rule.79 The role of the military increased towards the end of the 1950s within the Cold War context. The 1960 coup inaugurated its prolonged stay in domestic politics. In addition to the ‘history thesis’, Republican policy makers also paid special attention to language, just like the ITC. Turkish was not
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only a condition of being a ‘Turk’; unity in language was considered as a precondition for becoming a unified and homogenous nation. Just like the rearticulation of history, language reforms addressed the problem of lack of civilisation and national consciousness by otherising what caused the ‘non-Westernness’ of Turks. In the Assembly, Refik Bey (MP of Konya) stated that ‘with this revolution, the Latin letters will lead the nation to the world of light by replacing the Arab letters that blocked the path of progress for centuries’.80 Mehmet Emin Bey (MP from Karahisar in the East) also blamed the Arab alphabet: ‘Arab letters could not take the voice of science and art to the people. They could not diffuse the spirit of progress and civilisation to the people’, and continued to highlight the national consciousness of the new Turkish alphabet: Just like Moses, who wrote the destiny of a tribe on tablets in old Hebrew letters, the Turkish nation’s destiny will be written in books. Just like Gutenberg, who prepared the new world’s culture and civilisation with his letters, the Turkish nation will create its own culture and civilisation. Just like God, who created the world, the skies, the creatures and human by using a few elements, with these new letters the Turkish nation will create new science, new art, new progress and a new universe.81 The new Latin letters indeed spread to society through the new schools and a sharp increase in the number of teachers. By 1940, the literacy rate had increased from 10 per cent to 20 per cent, the number of teachers by 133 per cent, and the number of students by approximately 300 per cent.82 The education efforts to construct national consciousness based on unity in language had been a Young Turk project, as discussed in the previous chapter. Furthermore, the Republican elite, particularly President Atatu¨rk, patronised the ‘sun-language theory’, which hypothesised that the source of Indo-European languages was Turkish. Turkish had spread with the migration of Turks from Central Asia, as put by the ‘history thesis’. Language purification campaigns were intensified with the first Turkish Language Congress, which was organised by the Society of Examining Turkish Language (Turk Dili Tetkik Cemiyeti, later Turkish Language Association) on 26 September 1932, to ‘bring out the genuine
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beauty and richness of the Turkish language and to elevate it to the high rank it deserves among world languages’.83 The Turkish government was enthusiastic enough to invite non-Muslim groups to participate in nation-building. The ‘Citizen, Speak Turkish!’ campaign of the 1930s was initiated by the Jewish community.84 The Turkish Association of Secular Christians (Tu¨rkiye Laik Hristiyanlar Birligi) was founded by non-Muslims in 1935.85 In domestic politics, ‘reverse Orientalism’ was paralleled with the reproduction of the epistemological hegemony of the West. The extensive focus on one nation and language in order to give a special role to Turkish were strategies of the non-Western elite to make the non-Western state ‘Western’, yet different from the West. This difference aimed to construct a special position within the West: a difference that rendered Turkey unique within the West. The difference used to be religion, but was then replaced by a unique nation that had been ‘scientifically’ proven as the source of civilisation and modern Western languages. Therefore, the Republican elite disseminated scientism into society with the goal of Westernisation. Quite intelligibly, this scientific endeavor also rendered the new society different from the West in their subjectivities. ‘White but not quite’ was manifested in these policies par excellence. However, there were also other policies that did not accept any exception to being ‘white’. What was considered ‘national’ here was not local but strictly Western. S¸u¨kru¨ Kaya Bey (MP of Mentes¸e) stated in the Assembly: Gentlemen, the national dress can only be seen in history and museums. Today all civilised nations’ dress is the same. We cannot separate a German youth from a British or French by looking at their appearance. They all more or less wear top hats and black ties. Yet, the national feeling is deeply entrenched in their hearts. We would like to witness the same in the Turkish nation and we will raise it in this way.86 In this moment bodies became important. In order to render Turkey ‘white’, the survival assured in the Independence War and the Lausanne Agreement was not adequate. The objective of making Turkey a respectable and equal member of civilisation was only possible if nonWestern bodies were produced as ‘Western’ in outlook. Orientalist
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depictions of the Turk (men wearing fez with moustache, veiled women) were exotic representations that articulated the Turks as ‘others’, different and somehow inferior. For non-Western subjectivities, this could be an important source of ontological insecurity by feeding a feeling of inferiority. This was particularly true for Mustafa Kemal, who ‘felt humiliated by his headgear, which he came to consider a mark of his inferiority’.87 In his famous August 1925 visit to Kastamonu, a relatively conservative town, he powerfully showed the necessity for non-Western people to convince the West about their civilisational credentials: Gentlemen, the Turkish people who founded the Turkish republic are civilised . . . but . . . the truly civilised people of Turkey must prove that in fact they are civilised . . . also in their outward aspect . . . A civilised, international dress is worthy and appropriate for our nation and we will wear it. Boots or shoes on our feet, trousers on our legs, a shirt and tie, jacket and waistcoat – and, of course, to complete these, a cover with a brim on our heads. I want to make this clear. This head cover is called a ‘hat’.88 Mustafa Kemal’s very detailed description of what a civilised Turkish ‘man’ should wear was underlined by non-Western insecurity stemming from devalorisation due to outlook: to convince Europe that the Turkish people were one of them. This bodily performance meant that Western and Turkish thinking were also similar that the latter could not be feminised and hypermasculinised nor subordinated because of outlook. Civilisation and modernisation required a modern body, and any opposition to it was considered reactionary ignorance. In Nutuk or ‘the Speech’ (the six-day long speech he read in the CHP congress in 1927), this gendered insecurity was clear: Gentlemen, it was necessary to abolish the fez, which sat on our heads as a sign of ignorance, fanaticism and hatred to progress and civilization, and to adopt in its place the hat, the customary headdress of the whole civilised world, thus showing, among other things, that no difference existed in the manner of thought between the Turkish nation and the whole family of civilised mankind.89
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In other words, not wearing a hat meant the reproduction of ‘the Turk’ as fanatic, ignorant and reactionary in the eyes of the West, and would risk furthering the otherisation of the Turks and eventually repeating the painful nineteenth century. This bodily performance concerned how non-Western individuals positioned themselves vis-a`-vis the civilisation that underlined scientism and empiricism. In 1925, he stated that not wearing Western dress also meant choosing ‘to live with superstitions and ideas from the Middle Ages, instead of embracing the civilisation that could dig holes in the mountains, fly in the skies and observe things ranging from molecules, which could not be seen with the naked eye, to stars’.90 As can be observed in the Assembly minutes, during the negotiations of the Hat Law, pro-Law MPs accused the opposition Progressive Republican Party of risking the progress and modernisation of the nation by rejecting the Law ‘in the name of freedom’.91 Just like men, women’s subjectivities and bodies were to be reproduced as Western, civilised and modern, and also as national, secular and moral. Women were at the centre of the process of adaptation. The Republican man tailored a dual role for the Republican woman. On the one hand, a Turkish woman should be ‘enlightened’ (mu¨nevver). This woman should think scientifically, rationally and nationalistically. She should work and have economic power; she should also participate in politics. On the other hand, she should also be a good mother and wife. A woman should be European. Falih Rıfkı Atay’s words about how the European Turkish woman should be are striking: ‘What the New Turk does not do is regress the woman towards Asia. That is reactionism (irtica). It actually makes them progress towards Europe, not boulevard Europe, but neighbourhood (mahalle) Europe; not stage Europe, but home Europe.’92 Atay clearly described the hybrid female subjectivity that the Republic aimed to construct. Going beyond imitation, a substantive hybridity, described by Ling, was supported: a Western Turkish woman who works for the objectives of the new Turkish society and the new Turkish state. In Mustafa Kemal’s thinking, the role of the new Turkish woman was to educate the new Turkish citizens by stating that ‘the most important duty of the woman is motherhood’; thus, it is crucial that ‘women should be enlightened. They should know science. They should have the
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same education as men and should walk with man in social life.’93 The reason of lack of progress for women was 600 years of Islam that forced Turkish women to veil themselves, but now it was their duty to raise soldiers.94 ‘The regime promoted an image of the new Republican woman: she was educated, nationalist, dressed in a civilised fashion, professional, secular and fully internalised l’esprit republicain’.95 Sabiha Go¨kc en, the first Turkish female pilot who participated in the suppression of the Dersim rebellion in 1937, and Afet I˙nan, the first Turkish female historian and one of the builders of the ‘Turkish history thesis’, were role models for new Turkish woman. In 1932, Keriman Halis (following the beauty pageant organised by the newspaper Cumhuriyet) became Miss World in Belgium. The wording and the content of the telegram Atatu¨rk sent strongly reflected the Republican spirit in the 1930s: The Turkish nation is sincerely greeting its beautiful child. Cumhuriyet pursued the claim that the Turkish race has a noble beauty among other nations and succeeded in proving this at the international level . . . Let me add this: since I historically know that the Turkish race is the most beautiful race in the world, I found it natural that a Turkish girl was greeted as Miss Universe. However, I feel myself responsible to remind the Turkish youth of this: . . . what you actually have to do, just like your mothers and fathers, is to lead internationally through high culture and morality.96 Hyperfeminisation of society was not only a political and social process. Reshaping the economy by the state in parallel with policy makers’ modernisation/Westernisation objectives was constitutive to social engineering. As discussed in the previous chapter, homogenisation of society along the Muslim-Turkish line was performed through economic policies that directly targeted the non-Muslim commercial classes during the ITC period. According to Keyder, this approach was also borrowed from the German model of neomercantilism that promoted a national bourgeoisie supporting the national army.97 The ‘friendly’ West in the late Ottoman period was articulated as Germany, and society was economically engineered in accordance with this articulation. However, with the Republic, foreign investment was
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invited to substitute the non-Muslim capital reflecting the AngloFrench model of the West. Hybridity was provided under the conditions of investment, such as quotas for Turkish citizen participants.98 Although political liberalism could not be realised, some level of capital accumulation and burgeoning of Turkish bourgeoisie was achieved.99 With the 1929 Great Depression, the crisis of liberalism transformed the West in policy makers’ imaginations towards the Italian model. The Central Bank was established in 1930, the Association for National Economy Parsimony was founded, and campaigns were organised in favour of frugality.100 The ‘new’ citizen was expected to be cautious in spending and consuming. By the time of World War II, the bureaucratic apparatus and the national bourgeoisie had almost merged. Notwithstanding the fact that the discussion above did not explain the political economy of the early Republican period, it is still possible to argue that, in economic policies, the ways in which Turkey’s policy makers articulated the West pointed at multiple Wests rather than a singular and monolithic one. Similarly, in foreign policy, the non-Western state changed its economic position in different historical contexts. Despite the fact that the West was considered a space of contending ideologies that provided some manoeuvring for the non-Western state, the referent of seeking economic development was still the West. What type of citizen they aimed to construct was also changing in tandem with the oscillations of the non-Western state. One day the citizen could be more liberal and consuming; the next day they were expected to be frugal. As in foreign and domestic policies, the economy represented an ambivalent hybridity: a Western modernising economy (British or German or Italian), yet still Turkish. Economic policies were used to target non-Muslim communities. One of the most important examples of hyperfeminisation of society was the practice of ‘Wealth Tax’ (Varlık Vergisi), issued in November 1942. In fact, the Law aimed to reduce the inflation rate by withdrawing money from the economy and preventing the capital accumulation stemming from the black market economy that had emerged during the War. Consequently, there was no clause about non-Muslims.101 Indeed Prime Minister S¸u¨kru¨ Sarac oglu did not explain the Law in terms of its effects on minorities in November
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1942;102 nor did he justify the law as Turkification of national capital.103 However, in practice it targeted non-Muslim minorities. ‘The result was that the tax was almost wholly paid by traders. In the big cities, notably Istanbul, the small non-Muslim communities, who were subjected to rates ten times higher than those of Muslims, paid 55 per cent of the total tax revenue. In addition, non-Muslims were not allowed to spread their payments, and as a result they often had to sell their businesses or properties to Muslim businessmen in order to pay’.104 Meanwhile, in the Istanbul press, news and caricatures appeared that depicted rich non-Muslim merchants. One newspaper wrote that they (non-Muslim merchants who could not pay the tax and were sent to a work camp in Askale, Erzurum) were wearing golf pants and snow glasses as if they were going to a ski resort.105 The Wealth Tax was one of the most explicit tools of otherisation of non-Muslim minorities. Its objective was to create a homogenous nation with a national bourgeoisie. Since the Young Turk era, the nationalisation of the economy through transferring the capital from non-Muslims to Muslim Turks was also a security policy to prevent foreign intervention due to non-Muslims’ connections with the European bourgeoisie. In addition, the ‘rich non-Muslim’ versus ‘poor Muslim Turk’ dichotomy was feeding anger towards Christians and Jews, as the period’s newspapers’ reactions showed. In this example, political identity dichotomies and class relations were interwoven in a way that non-Western Muslim Turkish subjectivities were reproduced as the ‘real’ owners of Turkey. The Wealth Tax was a part of a decadesold policy that aimed to nationalise territorial space and economy. It was also the predecessor of the violent attacks against Christians and Jews in the 1950s. It is interesting to note that in this period, while Turkey’s policy makers situated Turkey within the West, non-Muslims, who had been traditionally targeted because of their Western credentials and ‘superiority’ to Turks, were still otherised. However, this policy was not compatible with the post-war position of Turkey, which aimed to secure its place in the ‘democratic’ West. Following the request of Britain and the US, the Law was repealed.106 The hyperfeminisation of society was reflected in the relations between the non-Western state and the press. As mentioned above, several newspapers, such as the Vatan, were shut down from 1925 onwards. However, the 1931 Press Law became one of the most
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oppressive regulations against the free press. Prime Minister I˙smet I˙no¨nu¨ defended the Law: As you know, one of the main weapons today is propaganda. Freedom of the press has become more important than it was 100 years ago. It is not more valuable than it was 100 years ago. Instead, its danger has increased. Propaganda, if it finds a suitable atmosphere, can demolish the strongest foundations of the nation . . . If children and youth constantly read and hear that they are governed badly, that all is bad, that there is nothing great in the nation, they will become unhappy and hopeless. If these children that will rule the future of the nation grow up like this, we should be concerned about the future.107 Prime Minister I˙no¨nu¨ addressed the Assembly on the day of the Menemen incident, when a young soldier was beheaded by members of a religious order in their revolt in Menemen, Izmir. The incident was preceded by the Free Republican Party’s closure following the party’s Izmir meeting, which had turned into an anti-CHP revolt.108 Although, as Mazıcı argues, it would be difficult to draw a causation between the Izmir incidents and the 1931 Press Law, the Law definitely gave legal power to the successive governments to persecute dissident journalists: firstly, pro-opposition journalists, and then, with the defeat of the Nazi Germany, racist Turkish journalists and their publications, such as Bozkurt (Greywolf).109 At the beginning of the Cold War, leftwing journalists, such as Sabiha Sertel and Zekeriya Sertel, were persecuted, and their newspaper Tan was burnt down in 1945. Through hyperfeminising society, ‘the regime was determining the boundaries of democracy. And there was no place for the left in it’.110 As part of the efforts of Turkey’s policy makers to include Turkey in the West, the governments were more cautious to imitate Western ways in this area. For example, in 1949, Prime Minister S¸emsettin Gu¨naltay stated that: ‘our example will be the Western democracies, which protect the freedom of press at the highest level and the citizens’ honour and dignity at the same time . . . We will pay special attention to those vicious currents that would hurt the body of our young democracy’.111 What were these ‘vicious currents’? The immediate post-war years also witnessed the construction of two threats to Turkey’s positioning within
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the democratic West: communism and Islamist reactionism (irtica). These two threats would frequently be used to hyperfeminise society in the upcoming decades. In 1946, Prime Minister Recep Peker stated: While we need to protect the body from the poison called communism, we should not think that this poison’s antidote can be an equally poisoning Seriat. Are we not the generation who saw the Muhammedin Union during the second constitutional period and its destructive consequences (referring to the 31 March incident)? . . . Friends, we are surviving on a valley whose back, forth, left and right is surrounded by an abyss. On the left, a red abyss; and on the right, a dark reactionist abyss.112 Peker’s symbolism was not underlined simply by a securitised discourse, but was a reflection of a historically constructed mentality where threats, domestic and international, were imminent. Historically formed Islamist reactionism and contingently formed communism were parts of the non-Western subjectivities’ insecurities. They were threatening their attempts to become Western, which meant ‘civilised’, ‘free’ and ‘democratic’ in the post-war period. However, this resulted in the liberal dilemma of non-Western subjectivity: addressing the ideologies that could potentially hinder Turkey’s Western standards through illiberal ways could further obscure Turkey’s Westernisation, and ensuring freedom and democracy without compromising order and stability. Prime Minister Recep Peker stated that: We have to protect freedom against the enemies of freedom . . . The consequences of manipulation of freedom, which is the most sacred asset of a community, are dire and most dangerous . . . It should be remembered that living in freedom does not mean that we can hinder the freedoms of other citizens. The recent past is full of stories of countries that failed to accommodate freedom and the enemies of authority.113 In 1949, PM S¸emsettin Gu¨naltay’s words were a good example of the dilemma between ensuring freedom of consciousness as a democratic and Western state and addressing the threat of Islamist reactionism:
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Like other freedoms, we consider the freedom of consciousness sacred . . . But this does not mean that we will abandon secularism. Importantly, we will never allow the superstitions that put this nation to sleep for decades to re-emerge.114 Turkey’s policy makers had to face this dilemma in different historical periods. The ways in which the CHP governments reacted to these threats were different. In the immediate post-war period, as part of the efforts to construct Turkey in the new West, hundreds of newspapers and journals were published; trade unions were founded; and more than 25 political parties were born. President I˙no¨nu¨ declared his impartiality between the CHP and opposition parties on the day Turkey signed a military aid agreement with the US under the framework of the Truman Doctrine.115 In contrast, following increased tension with the USSR (while pushing Turkey towards the US), a witch hunt was launched against the left-wing elements of society from 1945 onwards. Several trade unions were shut down, scholars with leftist tendencies lost their university positions and left-wing printing houses were repeatedly vandalised.116 A caveat was that whereas the CHP and the following policy makers strongly narrated the democratic and liberal character of Turkey as a Western state, this did not mean that the US policy makers in the early Cold War years concentrated on Turkey’s regime. Rather, their focus was on the strategic location of the country, and stability was considered more important than possible instability stemming from democratisation. For example, during the unrest with the CHP in 1945 that led to the formation of the DP, Ambassador Edwin Wilson was concerned: While President [I˙no¨nu¨] sincerely desires and intends to proceed on the road to political democracy, the international situation, particularly relations with Russia, will make it inadvisable at the present time to risk throwing the country into possible confusion and agitation of direct elections free of the control by the People’s Party.117 The US preference for stability over democracy re-emerged in Truman’s famous speech in the Congress. While he was discursively
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prioritising democracy in relation to Greece, he underlined not the process of democratisation in Turkey, but the country’s strategic role in the region, mainly the Middle East.118 The Cold Warrior’s approach that privileged order and stability over freedoms in the nonWest had repercussions for Turkey, where order and stability were conventionally considered as necessary for progress under the modern state. Order and stability as necessities of Westernisation during the CHP period were now converting into the necessity of resisting communism. In particular, DP policy makers used these ‘necessities’ to supress freedoms, which prepared a succinct foundation for ‘authoritarian liberalism’. Similarly, they also frequently benefited from the ‘frontier state’ argument. These policies will be discussed in the next chapter.
Conclusion This chapter, which concentrated on the early decades of the Republic until 1950, argued that the new Republic’s policy makers targeted a certain ‘mentality’ in the West. This ‘mentality’ represented Turkey, with its geography, people and history as inferior to the West, because it presumed that it was falling short of fulfilling the ‘civilisational’ standards of the West. In other words, these policy makers relentlessly fought the devalorisation of Turkey as a hypermasculinised and feminised entity in order to receive equality and respect from the West. Turkey’s domestic politics were reshaped in parallel with the modernisation of society to address gendered ontological insecurity. The discussion aims to underline three conclusions in consideration of the narratives of policy makers regarding the international and domestic politics of the new Turkey. Firstly, even if military security is sustained, gendered ontological insecurity can be crucial for nonWestern policy makers’ subjectivities. As the object of the West/nonWest gendered power hierarchies, they had first-hand experience of what exclusion from the international society would mean for a nonWestern state. This rendered them subjects, as their performances reproduced these power hierarchies domestically and internationally. In order to understand this constitutive agency, it is essential to take gendered ontological insecurity vis-a`-vis the West into account. Secondly, the hypermasculinised policies of the early decades that
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objectified society (certain groups more than others) should be contextualised within the West/non-West power hierarchies. This is not to argue that these policies can be justified. This is, however, an attempt to show the role of ‘the West’ in the reproduction of post-colonial insecurities at the societal level. The gendered nonWestern state was almost in imitation of the Western counterparts in constructing a homogenous nation that was hostile to differences. Thirdly, after World War II, the standards of hegemonic masculinities of the West shifted from Europe to the US. This led Turkey’s policy makers to reformulate their narratives, while ‘Kemalist’ and ‘liberal’ lines of thinking started to exchange discourses about ‘threats’ and how they should be dealt with. As will be discussed in the next chapter, these exchanges would increase as the West in the form of the US offered different types of ‘standards’.
CHAPTER 4
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The end of World War II brought about new standards in the West’s hegemonic masculinities, and forced certain non-Western states to reposition themselves in tandem with the new standards underlined by US Cold Warrior masculinity. As discussed in the previous chapter, Turkey’s policy makers faced a certain challenge that rendered less helpful, if not futile, the pre-war strategies of reproducing Turkey according to the standards of the West’s masculinity. The two main reasons were what Turkey’s policy makers (the CHP was the ruling party between 1945 and 1950) observed that the political, social and economic ability to define the standards of the West shifted from Europe to the US. In their narratives, this shift impelled them to gradually replace ‘civilisation’ (a defining standard of the West as Europe) with ‘democracy’ and ‘free world’ (standard of the West as the US), and from state-controlled, austerity-centred economy to a liberal, open, consumerist and individualist economy. In other words, as their narratives will show, the ‘standards’ in their modulations of the West were transformed. In order not to be subordinated, they felt it necessary to reproduce Turkey as Western by proving their democratic and liberal credentials in the eyes of the new West. The second important change concerned the Soviet Union, which used to be the balancing power against the West, yet was now perceived as a source of military insecurity. Ontologically and militarily, Turkey’s policy makers found
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themselves in a milieu of insecurity, and the solution was, as in the previous decades, to reproduce Turkey as a Western state. This involved the reproduction of Turkey’s society and individuals in accordance with Cold War politics. CHP policy makers integrated the new standards of hegemonic masculinity in both their discursive representations and their policies. In international politics, membership in West-centric international organisations was modulated not only as a way of securing financial aid and protection against the Soviets, but also as a tool to reconstruct Turkey as an equal and respectable member of the West. Membership in these organisations would prevent Turkey from being perceived as a peripheral state of the West. Equality and respect from the West were still considered essential, as the legacy of the Independence War and Atatu¨rk’s foreign policy had shaped policy makers’ understandings of the West and of how Turkey should act in its foreign policy. Domestically, anti-communism and pragmatism towards religion as a political tool were wedded to render Turkey a Western state. It must be noted that religious freedoms started to be recognised (at least in rhetoric) as a matter of freedom of consciousness. With the election victory of the Democrat Party in 1950, led by Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, a new period was launched in Turkey’s domestic and international politics. In domestic politics, the hyperfeminisation of society was conducted by the masculine non-Western state through the oppression of the opposition and the construction of a new individual ‘Turkish’ identity: conservative, consumerist, religious and nationalist. In international politics, Turkey’s foreign policy became highly West-centric, unlike the previous decades’ West-oriented policy, through the reproduction of Turkey as a member of the West, a ‘frontier state’ and a ‘model’ for other non-Western states, especially in the Middle East. Turkey’s politics and economy were re-evaluated by successive US administrations that tailored a role for Turkey. DP policy makers were keen to play this role for multiple reasons that will be discussed in the first section of this chapter. The DP period was shaped by the new Cold War masculinity, and as long as DP policy makers met the relevant standards by playing their role in the US Cold War strategy, Turkey was represented as a member of the West. The US positioned Turkey as a role model for the Middle East; thus, Turkey’s ‘difference’ as a modernising, developing,
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liberal and Muslim country became an asset for the West. DP policy makers utilised this ‘difference’ to address gendered subordination. This highly West-centric period started to fade away after the 1960 coup. The CHP-led coalition governments showed signs of returning to the early Republican multidimensional foreign policy. However, this notable change may have been a result of the 1964 Johnson letter to Prime Minister I˙no¨nu¨. From 1964 until the 1980 military coup, Westcentrism was replaced by the previous decades’ West-oriented foreign policy. Turkey was represented as a ‘different’ member of the West, and this ‘difference’ was used to strengthen Turkey vis-a`-vis the West, rather than becoming a parochial ‘essence’ that otherised the West. Both the DP and the post-1960 governments aimed to position Turkey within the West; however, their strategies were different depending on what kind of Turkey ought to become a member of what kind of West. The ¨ zal era and was then followed role model approach reappeared in the O by post-Cold War governments, as will be discussed in the next chapter. In the domestic politics of 1960 –80 the hyperfeminisation of society continued.
The ‘Cold Warrior’ Hegemonic Masculinity of the West In order to understand the characteristics of hegemonic Cold War masculinity in Turkey, it is important to clarify hegemonic masculinity in the US during the early Cold War. This is useful because DP policy makers’ subjectivities were reproduced within a power hierarchy where Cold Warrior masculinity defined the standards of the hegemon. As has been widely discussed in cultural anthropological studies, the early Cold War hegemonic masculinity of the US was highly aggressive, rational and militarist, while at the same time economically liberal, conservative and religious.1 The main subordinated masculinities were those that adopted liberal and left-wing values. Those were feminised as weak, emotional and submissive, in other words ‘soft’ on ‘the red menace’.2 These gendered representations were reproduced through popular culture3 and were then spread to the world to be appropriated in both Western and non-Western contexts.4 Furthermore, gendered Cold War politics within the US also affected how US policy makers made sense of the world and, particularly important for this analysis, the non-West.5 ‘Cold War
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Orientalism’ primarily essentialised and spatialised the non-West as a geography that was fertile for the spread of communism due to bad economic management, weak or non-existing social policies and lack of liberal democratic institutions.6 If non-Western people and geography were already under communist rule, the general tendency was to feminise the non-western society against the hypermasculinised authoritarian non-Western regime.7 The mystification of the nonWest during the Cold War normalised and justified US liberal interventionism that played into Cold War US realist masculinity. The non-West, following decolonisation, was again reproduced as a space to be intervened in, re-ordered, corrected and liberated. In particular, from the beginning of the Cold War onwards, Turkey was of interest to several US policy makers and social scientists as a possible role model for Middle East countries. These groups argued that the authoritarian way to modernisation adopted by Turkey in the Atatu¨rk era could be a solution for re-ordering the Middle East, especially after Britain left the region in the mid-1950s. According to this approach, democracy was considered as an objective to be achieved, and authoritarianism was acceptable in this pursuit by the non-West.8
The Democrat Party 1950 – 60: West-Centrism Par Excellence Faced with the West’s Cold Warrior hegemonic masculinity, two almost concomitant gendering practices can be detected in the DP’s foreign policy narrative. The first is the hypermasculinisation of the Soviet threat to Turkey and the ‘free world’. This gendering practice was generally conducted in the form of ‘communism’ or ‘extreme right currents’ by avoiding any direct attack to the USSR. This was underlined by the idea of not provoking the Soviet Union. However, importantly for this analysis, it contributed to the mystification of communism and ‘communists’ both at home and abroad. Communism, or the communist threat, was narrated as excessively aggressive and militarist, rational to the point of cunningness and disrespectful to the norms and principles of the international society. Although these articulations could potentially be explained through the Soviet demands on Kars and Ardahan and the renegotiation of the status of
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the Straits, it must be noted that the Soviets did not repeat these demands after 1946; instead, they abandoned them in 1953 following the death of Stalin. However, the hypermasculinisation of the communist threat did not stop. From 1950 onwards it took the form of a global threat operating both internationally and domestically. Turkey was reproduced as an object of this hypermasculinised representation of communism, but at the same time policy makers were helped to modulate Turkey as a brave, selfless fighter for the West in Korea, Egypt and then Syria. Gendering the Soviet threat was adopted from the US and appropriated in the context of Turkey, so the latter could continue to secure its place in the West and receive financial aid along with the status of a member of the ‘free world’. The second gendering practice that justified and normalised Turkey’s position within the West was feminising the states that had declared neutrality during the Cold War. Given the hypermasculinised representation of the global communist threat as ‘the other’, any policy falling short of militarism and counter-aggressiveness would mean being ‘soft’ on this ubiquitous threat. Feminised representations of the neutral states, and therefore their subordination to Turkey’s Western hegemonic masculinity in the making, peaked during the Bandung Conference in 1955. As will be analysed below, according to DP policy makers (mainly Prime Minister Menderes and Foreign Minister Fatin Ru¨s¸tu¨ Zorlu), these states could not ‘realistically’ comprehend the severity of the communist threat. Their ‘philosophical’, yet irrational, approach was based on Gandhi’s worldview that was unsuitable for the dichotomy of Cold War politics: a state is either on the side of freedom and democracy or against it. Gendered otherisation of the neutral states would help DP policy makers to reconstruct Turkey as a Western state taking the side of the free world. The hegemonic masculinity of the Cold Warrior state in international politics was articulated as a combination of citizenwarrior and rational-bourgeois models of masculinity. On the one hand, the Cold Warrior policy maker was a militarist, if necessary an aggressive, active, non-emotional, rational and strategic man.9 Militarist aggressiveness was mainly a hypermasculinised response to communism modulated as excessively aggressive and militarist. In order to protect what he held dear against the devalorised ‘other’, such as democracy, freedom and the market economy, certain military
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practices became justified and normalised as the rational-bourgeois liberal masculinity came forward. This ‘rational-bourgeois’ man in arms defined his national security in terms of collective security measures that were (or ought to be) operational globally. Containment policy, the establishment of NATO, and the Eisenhower Doctrine became institutional manifestations of the Cold Warrior’s understanding of international politics. Liberalism and non-liberalism, prudence and activism, emotionality and rationality, idealism and realism all melded into each other in the Cold Warrior’s mind and body. A similar duality would be replicated in the neoliberal age (see Chapter 5). The question hereby concerns how Turkey’s policy makers adopted and operationalised this new hegemonic masculinity in the nonWestern context and its international relations. One of the first foreign practices of the DP government was to send troops to the Korean War (25 July 1950). This practice was generally (and rightly) interpreted as a strategic move to realise Turkey’s entry into NATO following the government’s re-application (and subsequent rejection) a week after the decision for Turkey’s participation in the war.10 However, the narrative about this decision also revealed how Turkey’s Cold Warriors internalised the US counterparts’ views about global politics, how they redefined Turkey’s security in the new context and how they attempted to reposition Turkey within the West by meeting the ‘standards’ of the US Cold Warrior. Foreign Minister Fuat Ko¨pru¨lu¨ defended the decision in Parliament as follows: For years, since the period of Atatu¨rk, we have relied on collective security measures. Since the League of Nations we have rendered collective security the main principle of our foreign policy. We cannot abandon it. Our understanding of the Korean issue and our actions are directly derived from this policy. In other words, here is our answer to the question of how we would provide the security of the country: the country’s security will be provided by increasing collective security and forces, not by demolishing the system of collective security.11 However, the collective security Ko¨pru¨lu¨ mentioned was distinct from the CHP governments’ approach (at least until the late 1940s) in two senses. Firstly, in accordance with the multidimensional foreign policy
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of the CHP, Turkey managed to maintain its relations with competing states and carefully avoided the construction of other Western and nonWestern states as threats. During the Cold War, the collective security underlined by Ko¨pru¨lu¨ was against the Soviets, which were articulated as communist and sometimes as extreme leftists. Secondly, the boundaries of Turkey’s military security were strictly defined in terms of its national borders during the CHP period. The pacts that the CHP governments signed with Middle East and Balkan states therefore concerned regional security independently from the West’s security interests – the West itself was divided into competing camps during the interwar years. This changed in the late 1930s, when Turkey sided with Britain and France politically while Germany remained its main economic partner. It also prevented Turkey from presenting itself as a model to the Middle East. On the contrary, the Cold War prompted the DP policy makers to redefine Turkey’s military security by transcending its national borders, starting, for example, in Korea. In their articulations, the West or the ‘free world’s borders were also borders of Turkey, and these borders had to be defended against communism. Through this representation they repositioned Turkey within the new West as the brave, respectable and reliable warrior of the free world, as Ko¨pru¨lu¨ added: During the most delicate period of the world, while all our friends and enemies are watching what we are doing . . . all the world respectfully appreciated our nation’s will and perseverance to send soldiers to Korea . . . The appreciation that the Turkish nation receives from the world is our moral power. The cynical propaganda that has been made for years: ‘Peace, at all costs peace . . .’ No, my friends! The Turkish nation is the most peaceloving nation in the world; however, it is not peace-loving at the cost of losing its honour, dignity and freedom.12 Ko¨pru¨lu¨’s words reflected that the respect and equal treatment that Turkey’s policy makers wished due to the country’s previous modernisation and Westernisation would not be received unless Turkey sided with and fought for the ‘free world’. This was a direct consequence of the changing standards of the West’s hegemonic masculinity and represented a partial paradigm shift in Turkey’s foreign policy.
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The productive power of the Cold War’s Turkey –West relations produced non-Western subjectivities in accordance with the characteristics of the new hegemonic masculinity as objects and subjects. In short, they desired to catch up with the new standards. This is because through not being modern, or failing to be a Cold Warrior, their gendered ontological insecurity could not be addressed. That was how Turkey was respected and appreciated. This could be seen in Foreign Minister Ko¨pru¨lu¨’s perceptions about the international politics of previous decades: Humanity, which faced the disasters of World War II because of the continuous mistakes of policy makers in the post-World War I era, is now faced with a third world war. Fascist imperialism is now replaced by communist imperialism. The latter is more cynical than the former and wears different masks to conceal its face and to adapt to different conditions . . . Appeasement and bargaining, never-ending negotiations, commissions, etc. will do nothing but encourage attack and invasion. Without forgetting the fact that the aggressive front has a regime that can make any decision, we should abandon the old diplomatic traditions and reorganise our foreign policies in accordance with the most pragmatic and realist principles.13 Ko¨pru¨lu¨ made this statement to the US-based International News Agency. His effort was to convince the US audience about how realist, rationalist and proactive Turkey was. If Turkey became aggressive, it would be because of the aggressiveness of the ‘other’ front. In DP decision makers’ narratives, hypermasculinisation of the amorphous communist front was accompanied by the feminisation of those countries that adopted a neutral position. In order to understand the feminisation of the neutral countries, it is important to clarify how the DP policy makers positioned Turkey within the Middle East, because this positioning became the process of reaffirmation of Turkey’s Cold Warrior Western masculinity. Although both Turkey and Middle Eastern states’ security concerns were articulated in the context of statehood and development, the latter pursued their security in non-alignment.14 In contrast, Turkey joined NATO in 1952, as efforts such as establishing a Middle East Command
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and Mediterranean Defence Pact did not succeed. However, even after entry to NATO, policy makers realised that Turkey was treated as a frontier state and buffer zone to withhold a possible Soviet attack and buy time for Europe to mobilise, rather than as an equal partner.15 Therefore, they focused on the role that NATO assigned to Turkey, and utilised it to represent Turkey as a country of utmost importance for NATO by being ‘a model’ for the Arab states. One of these attempts was the formation of a ‘northern tier’ against the Soviets containing Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. Prime Minister Menderes and President Bayar represented Turkey as the ‘backbone’ of the formation that could attract Arab states due to its political and economic stability and military superiority.16 As part of the US containment policy, and in order to fill the vacuum between NATO and SEATO, the US encouraged Turkey and Iraq to sign a mutual cooperation agreement, known as the Baghdad Pact, on 24 February 1955. The agreement was not received well by Egypt and Syria, which officially adopted a neutral position. Prime Minister Menderes spoke thus in the Parliament on 27 February 1955: Those in the Middle East who think that they are protecting their interests by being neutral should know that they owe their independence to the Freedom Front . . . Whatever policies are adopted by the ruling policy makers of certain Arab states today, historical and moral connections between Arabs and Turkey have a long history. These feelings will awaken one day. That is why we believe that today’s indignation will pass. We hope that our friends, who have been angered by this document of peace, will relieve themselves from this depression. We will not be angered by unfair attacks.17 Menderes’ narrative enabled him to position Turkey within the West vis-a`-vis the Middle East as a rational, peaceful and prudent Western state, which could not be provoked by the emotional and irrational attacks of non-Western countries. For Menderes, the Middle East ‘owed’ its freedom to the West. This neo-colonisation of the Middle East through feminisation was also supported by a US Cold Warrior strategy to separate the non-Western state from the non-Western society. The non-Western state could be authoritarian and misguided,
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but the non-Western society (Arabs) would realise what is right (‘will awaken one day’). At a time when Turkey’s paternal attitude towards the Middle East was fed by the Cold War masculinity that interpreted world politics as a struggle between the free world and hypermasculinised communism, Turkey – Syria relations were re-shaped in this masculine competitive context. In 1957, Turkey’s relations with Syria deteriorated. The crisis with Syria was a consequence of the Suez Crisis in 1956 and the increasing influence of the USSR in Syria following the retreat of Britain and France. Turkey responded to the Soviet military accumulation in Syria with a military deployment on the Turkey – Syria border. Prime Minister Menderes invoked the same narrative: Today’s events in the Middle East were not between Turkey and Syria, but between two blocs. We are tied to all Arab nations through historical, social, cultural and contemporary ties. Their well-being and independence . . . was also a guarantee of our national survival.18 However, the hypermasculinised attitude of the Menderes government, particularly towards Syria, created a reverse effect for Turkey in the West.19 In 1958, when the Iraqi government, a member of the Baghdad Pact, was toppled by a coup, the Pact members invited the US to intervene against this communist attack. Turkey was seriously considering a unilateral military intervention in Iraq, though the US and Britain stopped the Menderes government.20 This militaristaggressive approach of Turkey towards the Middle East continued with Turkey’s support of the US intervention in Lebanon, and Britain’s intervention in Jordan in July 1958, as ‘the operationalisation of the Eisenhower doctrine’, according to Foreign Minister Fatin Ru¨s¸tu¨ Zorlu.21 On 28 July 1958, Turkey signed an agreement with the US that stated that Turkey’s government would ask for US intervention in its own territories in the case of both direct and indirect attacks by communism. The agreement was interpreted as paving the way for US intervention in the case of domestic uprising in Turkey.22 As Hale puts it, ‘Adnan Menderes had a more Dullesian-than-Dulles phobia about the dangers of communist penetration in the Middle East, and his
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Western allies had to restrain him from taking a more aggressive stance in the region’.23 The internalisation of the Cold War hegemonic masculinity and the efforts to convince the West that Turkey was meeting Western standards by being both prudent and patient, and both aggressive and militarist, highlighted the complexities of non-Western insecurities vis-a`-vis the West during the Cold War. Their insecurities concerned military and physical survival against the communist threat. However, the Soviets had not ‘threatened’ Turkey since 1946 and abandoned their claims in 1953. In fact, the Soviets did not deteriorate their relations with Turkey, let alone threaten the country militarily, unless provoked by the latter. For example, the USSR gave diplomatic notes to Turkey only when Turkey began to host NATO bases on its territories in 1956.24 Turkey became an issue between the US and USSR in 1959 when DP policy makers accepted the deployment of the Jupiter missiles to Turkey, which became one of the main reasons of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Stemming from the above, this gender analysis aims to shift attention to the non-military dimension of Turkey’s decision makers’ insecurity. To address ontological insecurity, they formulated modulations that imitated the West as the US, which hypermasculinised communism in the most amorphous way. As a result, being militarily active and aggressive towards hypermasculinised communism was not considered an issue that could reinvoke a hypermasculinised representation of Turkey in the West, as in previous periods. The Cold Warrior’s masculinity facilitated this aggressive activism, and Turkey proved its Western credentials by being aggressive to a non-West that was susceptible to communism. While Turkey was represented as a model for the Middle East and even as an arm of the West for re-ordering the region, DP policy makers’ alternative way of constructing Turkey’s Cold Warrior masculinity was to ‘otherise’ the neutral states through feminisation. Foreign Minister Zorlu’s speech about the Bandung Conference in 1955 revealed this gendered devalorisation. In this speech, Zorlu first claimed that Turkey attended the conference following the request of its Western allies to support the West’s point of view. This proved true when Turkey supported nuclear armament and considered neutrality as a way to construct a geographical space where the USSR could spread. Indeed, Turkey fully adopted the US point of view in the conference,
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which severed Turkey’s links with the non-Western world. Feminisation of the neutral states followed: They depend on their philosophy, on Gandhi’s philosophy to protect peace: passive resistance. They say that in spite of their enmity we show friendship. Our friendship would defy their hostility. Friends, this philosophy does not fit with neither Turkish nor Muslim philosophies. We, as a nation, answer slap with slap, and a gun with a gun.25 According to his story, the neutral states could not comprehend the seriousness of the communist threat or the importance of joining the ‘free world’ (note the feminisation). Their ‘philosophy’ was one of weakness. Turkey attended the conference as a patient, paternal state to show them the ‘right way’ of conducting international politics during the Cold War and to explain why nuclear weapons were necessary. Through this representation, Turkey was continuously constructed as a ‘good’ member of the West. Should this be wedded in Turkey’s approach to the Middle East, the DP period was the first example of Turkey being represented as a model to the non-West that showed them how things should be done. This approach would re-emerge just after the Cold War, when Turkey’s policy makers were ambivalent towards the post-Cold War West. In both periods, a power hierarchy emerged by gendering Turkey and other non-Western states, so that the former could be written as a member of the West. Before moving to an analysis of the hyperfeminisation of society in Turkey through the Cold Warrior masculinity, Turkey’s relations with Greece regarding the issue of Cyprus should be discussed. As argued in the previous chapters, the Greeks as the revolting non-Muslim minority, and then Greece as a tool of the ‘civilised’ West to civilise Anatolia, occupied a special place in Turkey’s policy makers’ security imaginations. The victory in the Independence War and the population exchange (1922–6) first stabilised and then improved Turkey –Greece relations. In the post-war era, the equal treatment of Turkey and Greece in the Marshall Plan and their NATO membership prevented the reemergence of Western ‘favouritism’ of Greece over Turkey. Cyprus, which was under British mandate, was not a matter of disagreement between Turkey and Greece until the Church of Cyprus initiated an
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attempt for unification with Greece in 1949. Even then Turkey rejected the ‘problem of Cyprus’ until 1955, when Greece’s prime minister Papakos applied to the UN for the application of the self-determination principle in Cyprus. For Turkey, with an overwhelming Greek majority, this would mean enosis (unification of Cyprus and Greece).26 DP policy makers found themselves in a precarious position. On the one hand, conservative, nationalist and Islamist social engineering along with anti-communism and the anti-left (see below) prompted them to take a hypermasculinised position over Greece. For example, during the days of the London Conference in August 1955 between Greece, Turkey and Britain to discuss the status of the island, the Confederation of National Student Unions, which was influential in anti-communist societal campaigns and one of the provocateurs of the 6 – 7 September 1955 attacks against non-Muslims (see below), declared that: It can be seen that today the Church and communism have become victorious in Greece . . . Those who are dragged along the nonsense called enosis are running towards dreams and adventures and waiting for the day when their heads will be crashed on the rocks of Cyprus. There are in heedlessness . . . They have forgotten about the spears of mehmetcik (a generic name for Turkish soldiers). They have forgotten about the coasts of Izmir . . . Have they also forgotten the cries of mehmetcik, ‘Allah Allah’? Apparently they have missed them . . . You miserable Greek nation, we pity you as the Turkish youth.27 However, the DP could not be as aggressive and violent as the writers of the above declaration. Greece was a member of the collective security system that DP policy makers wholeheartedly adopted. In other words, they could not feminise Greece (unlike the Middle Eastern states). Consequently, they formulated a different feminisation strategy that rendered Turkey a rational, unemotional and prudent Western state. On his way to the London Conference, Prime Minister Menderes talked to the domestic and international media: Let me start with underlining the importance and value that we give to Greek friendship and alliance. In fact, I am giving this
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statement in order to prevent our Greek friends and allies from making an important mistake . . . We hope that reason and wisdom will prevail in Greece soon. We cannot explain through reason or consciousness the addition of such trivial problems to humanity, as if the problems it is struggling with are not enough. This would only make those who attack peace in the world happy . . . Of course there can be issues to fire up the excitement of a young nation. But it is necessary to use these excitements in a way that does not hurt themselves, neighbours and others in the world . . . The prudence and silence of our country as a response to the provocateurs’ cries reaching the sky does not mean a lot. We consider these cries as ardour and a matter of gaining prestige in domestic politics. Although it should be remembered that these pressures, going on for months, cannot be influential on a state’s foreign policy, what kind of government would bow to a priest of a county (referring to Makarios)?28 Menderes’ feminisation and, therefore, subordination of Greece, was constructed along the lines of the mature, paternal, rational, prudent and experienced (note ‘young nation’) Turkey as opposed to the emotional, irrational and child-like Greece, which could not comprehend the ‘real’ problems of the world. As a liberal teacher, Turkey was expecting Greece to act as a member of the ‘free world’. This feminising narrative about Greece re-appeared in 1974 and then in 1996, after the Cold War.
The DP’s ‘Cold Warrior’ Domestic Politics: Enemies Inside The discursive double-gendering foreign policy (hypermasculinising communism and feminising neutrality) reverberated onto Turkey’s domestic politics, which started immediately after the war but intensified during the DP period. In other words, US McCarthyism was appropriated in Turkey’s context. New laws were adopted to suppress freedom of expression (especially the press); academic freedoms were under attack and there was an increasing focus on Islam versus communism. Since communism was represented as cunning, events that disturbed order and stability within the country were attributed to ‘communists’ inside. Meanwhile, this new
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conservative, religious and nationalist Turkish ‘man’ was reproduced as a consumerist. In other words, the hyperfeminisation of society continued during this period, rendering certain segments of society insecure vis-a`-vis the masculine and protective non-Western state. In parallel, a resistance to hyperfeminisation started to appear as new classes and social groups emerged as a result of the economic policies of the DP. In order to clarify the model citizen that the DP government aimed to construct, it is useful to look at the first Menderes government programme (1950– 4). Economically, the DP defined the new liberal regime of Turkey as a market economy with limited state intervention: Our economic and financial views are based on limiting state intervention and extending private investments as much as possible. One of the most important implications of this is to allocate state resources only to areas where private entrepreneurs could not invest, or where the state is responsible for providing common goods. This is because in an economic regime based on private property and individual freedoms, the economic arena should only belong to the individual or to firms.29 The adoption of the economic characteristics of the hegemonic US Cold War masculinity took a different turn in the non-Western context due to the re-positioning of Turkey within the West as an agrarian country. Reports by US experts strongly recommended that Turkish and US decision makers focus on agriculture rather than industrialisation alongside the Marshall Plan. In a new economic model prepared in consultation with US experts, the focus was on agriculture, agriculture-based industry and infrastructural projects, instead of protectionism.30 The DP government made extensive investments in agriculture by giving subsidies, importing tractors and artificial fertilisers and giving huge credit to big land owners (especially those in the Adana region where cotton production was high, as the Korean War had increased global demand of cotton). The DP used the gold and foreign exchange reserves that the previous CHP governments had accumulated since the establishment of the Republic and the foreign credit for imports. GDP per capita, individual consumption and the ratio of foreign trade to GDP increased between
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1950 and 1953.31 The DP seemed to achieve the construction of ‘liberal man’ in an agrarian society with petty merchants. However, in 1954, bad weather conditions and the supply of US and Canadian cereals to the world market negatively affected agriculture. The new consumerist agrarian bourgeoisie continued to import luxury goods instead of investing in industrialisation. Inflation was increasing; the gold and foreign exchange reserves were exhausted and the DP was unable to obtain new credit.32 As a result of the foreign exchange crisis, the state could not import the necessary goods and equipment to sustain the new agrarian-liberal economy. Tractors that had been bought with Marshall aid could not be repaired; the autobahns built by the DP were empty. In 1958, when Turkey could not even import ‘a horseshoe nail’, an IMF programme was launched based on increasing taxes, restrictions on money printing and increasing prices for the common goods produced by the state.33 Therefore, a vicious cycle of chronic need for foreign exchange and credits, weak industrialisation, inflation and increasing debt followed by an IMF agreement began in Turkey. The failure to construct a liberal entrepreneur citizen, partly due to the West’s insistence to keep Turkey in the periphery as an agrarian country and party due to DP policy makers’ uncritical adoption of the US liberal model, generated crucial political and social consequences for the upcoming decades, such as the formation of an organic link between the centre-right and agrarian classes, migration from villages to cities, emergence of shanty towns and economic problems for military officers, whose purchasing power seriously diminished as a result of inflation.34 While the liberal economic man of the Cold War was failing nonWestern society, DP policy makers increasingly concentrated on conservative values, particularly religion, in parallel with a standard of US Cold Warrior masculinity. As early as 1950, the DP government programme emphasised the role of moral values to save the nation from despoilment in the Cold War period: However advanced they are in material terms, it is expected that a community that does not rely on unshaken national and moral principles and does not give importance to moral values in its soul, will surely fall into troubles in the contemporary chaotic world. The spread of science and technology would not be
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enough for a nation to survive as a free nation without an education system that educates its youth according to national and moral values.35 In accordance with the above statement, in November 1950 religion courses became compulsory in primary schools (the CHP had already introduced them as elective). The use of religion highlighted the differences from the previous CHP period. As discussed in the previous chapter, in parallel with re-positing of Turkey within the democratic West, the CHP allowed certain Islamist practices by putting religion under state authority and presenting communism and religious reactionism as threats to the state. In contrast, DP policy makers maintained the authority of the state over religion by using it as a weapon against communism. The Head of the Chairmanship of Religious Affairs declared that Islam rejects communism (note the shift from Mustafa Kemal’s combination of Islam with Bolshevism in Chapter 2) in August 1950.36 During the discussion of the budget of the Chairmanship in 1951, the link between Islam and the fight against communism became clear. Ahmet Gu¨rkan, DP Member of Parliament from Tokat, made interesting points that show how DP policy makers understood religion: Today we are taking measures against the most horrific enemy that the world has ever seen. As you know, this enemy is the red ideology. In order to fight its moral as well as material dimension, we must rely on both moral and material values. This is why we must evaluate the cultural institutions from the perspective of morality as well.37 He continued with a very remarkable statement that demonstrates the extent to which US Cold Warrior masculinity was internalised by Turkey’s Cold Warriors: Dear friends, look at America: the weapon that the nations of the new world have equipped to fight communism is religion. In 1938, the northern states – Finland, Norway and Sweden – came together to discuss the most effective tool against communism. They worked for months and decided that Islam
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is an institution that can defeat communism. They adopted ways of Islam to defeat communism. The number of churches in America increased from 199,000 in 1935 to 253,000 in 1945.38 Although the numbers given at the conference are questionable, the speech highlighted the perceived role of Islam in domestic politics during the Cold War. In this way, Turkey’s Cold Warriors imitated their US counterparts. That said, unlike the representation of Islam in the neoliberal context after the Cold War (see Chapter 5), in this period religion was not a factor that made Turkey different from the West yet still within the West. Rather, Islam’s difference melted down into a symbolic category called ‘religion’, which was a tool against communism in the West and, therefore, was appropriated as a tool in the non-Western context of Turkey. Surely the appropriation of Islam against communism should be contextualised within the hypermasculinised representation of communism as an amorphous threat, and of communists who were inside and outside and ready to take advantage of freedoms. Indeed, one of the most important dimensions of Cold War masculinity was to remove the boundaries between inside and outside and promote all measures to address the domestic extension of the external threat, which was cunning, rational and provocative communism. Menderes’ target was often the CHP, which was ‘as nauseating as Radio Moscow’.39 Government reactions to the left-wing opposition outside Parliament were stronger. When the Peace Lovers’ Society declared, on 30 July 1950, that Turkey should adopt the pacifist policy of India and not the aggressive foreign policy of Korea, Prime Minister Menderes’ reaction was a manifestation of how Cold Warriors comprehended the opposition. He accused the opposition party of being ‘soft’ on communism: We know that this society has international connections. We know what kind of peace these peace lovers love. While we are sending our troops to fight against communism, our public will surely understand the meaning of the similar threat inside . . . If the fight against these people is not successful, this would be because they found a friendly audience in the former government’s rankings.40
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A few days after the aforementioned statement, the leaders of the Society were arrested and charged with ‘acting against national interest’.41 The hypermasculinised communist threat was represented as ‘everywhere and waiting to take advantage of freedoms’. Therefore, as Prime Minister Menderes stated in 1951, ‘it is impossible for us to regard these associations, whose roots are international, as a matter of freedom of expression. Our legal reaction to those who act like a gang in the most secretive ways will be severe’.42 Similar to US Cold Warriors, Prime Minister Menderes understood freedoms as the weak point of democracies: ‘the time that communism waits for its victory will be the time when democratic freedoms are operational. The weapons they will use will be democratic freedoms’.43 Prime Minister Menderes said these words in 1951 during the parliamentary debate about the amendment of Articles 141 and 142 of the Turkish Penal Code, which determined crimes against the state. These non-liberal laws were articulated as a necessity for liberalising Turkey, as communism’s cunning rationality was regarded as the ultimate threat disguised in the form of other threats: We will not hesitate to take all necessary legal measures to fight the extreme left, which often uses reactionism and racism as a tool and appears under the disguise of these masks. We will not be blind to the extreme left because of the freedom of expression and consciousness. They who adopt extreme leftist ideas are not simply academic ideologists, but instruments of destructive currents. We believe in the necessity of determining rules and laws that expose these spies, whose main objective is to destroy freedom through blood and fire under the disguise of freedom of expression and consciousness. Only after this will we be able to protect the country from the press, which is obviously constituted of extreme leftists but operates under the masks of political satire and criticism.44 Hyperfeminisation of society was rearticulated in order to promote the fight against communism. Protests organised mainly by the proDP Confederation of the National Students’ Unions were organised in different cities where communism was considered equal to treason. They sent telegrams to Prime Minister Menderes to demand capital
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punishment for convicted communists.45 The journalists of newspaper Yeni Bas¸tan and the political satirist journal Hu¨r Marko Pas¸a were prosecuted. In fact, the DP had changed the Press Law in July 1950 by recognising the freedom of the press. Several regulations introduced by the CHP, such as obtaining permission from the government to print a newspaper, were replaced by more democratic laws. However, as the DP government’s economic performance was decreasing, one of the most oppressive press laws of Republican history was issued in 1954 in the name of protecting ‘order and stability’ against communism. Meanwhile, pro-CHP press was under political and financial pressure by the government, while progovernment newspapers were supported.46 In other words, the oppression of the free press started during the CHP period and was maintained during the DP period. For DP policy makers, cunning communism in domestic politics emerged on 5– 6 September 1955 in Istanbul and Izmir, when the people organised protests upon the rumours about a bombing of Atatu¨rk’s house in Thessaloniki. The crowd, provoked by the Turkish Association and Confederation of the Nationalist Students’ Union, attacked the properties of Greek and Jewish minorities. The two-day long purge was followed by a declaration of martial law. DP policy makers claimed that the event was triggered by communists. On 9 September arrests started against communists who had ‘provoked’ the events.47 In the parliamentary debates about the events, Vice Prime Minister Fuat Ko¨pru¨lu¨ argued along with several other MPs that in the history of Turkey there had been no case of attacking worshipping places; given that churches were attacked, this was evidently not the doing of Turks, but communists.48 Converting one of the most violent attacks against non-Muslim minorities into one orchestrated against the Turks, he stated: ‘those who are jealous of the Turks made an attempt against national unity. Their objective was to destroy the Turks’.49 In fact, the riots erupted during the period when a consistent policy of ‘un-mixing’ the population, or of ‘homogenising the nation’, successfully constructed non-Muslims as ‘others’.50 In the DP’s narrative, the Republican ‘others’ were represented as the ‘others’ of the Cold Warrior Turkey. Before concluding the discussion of the DP, a political narrative that emerged in this period should be mentioned: imitating the West in
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restricting some freedoms and invoking Turkey’s exceptionalism regarding certain freedoms and liberal laws in the West could not be applicable in Turkey because Turkey was different. For example, in the secret meeting about Turkish criminal law in 1951, Prime Minister Menderes justified the new restrictions by arguing that ‘even the ages-old countries of freedom have to sacrifice their freedoms to defend themselves against the great threat that communism poses’.51 In his answer to the question of why there was no Communist Party as in France, he stated that ‘we are a nation facing great danger and we have to secure our national survival’.52 In 1953, when the opposition demanded a more democratic law for freedom of assembly by giving examples from France and Switzerland, the prime minister’s reaction was that ‘neither countries nor constitutions are similar to each other’.53 Three years later, in 1956, the Freedom of Assembly Law was amended in a way that ‘ruled out all political party meetings except for electoral propaganda; submitted protest gatherings to governors’ permission; and gave the police the right to fire shots indiscriminately, should demonstrators fail to disperse upon warning’.54 Authoritarian liberalism would use this exceptionalist argument to invoke illiberal laws in the upcoming decades.
The Longest 20 Years, 1960 –80: Reconstructing Non-Western ‘Difference’ within the West The DP’s final years in office, particularly following the 1957 general elections, were shaped by a combination of economic problems (devaluation of the Turkish lira in 1958 following an austerity agreement with the IMF) and increasing political opposition. In the face of these problems, a method adopted by the Menderes government (1957– 60) was the formation of the ‘Motherland Front’ (Vatan Cephesi), a pro-DP societal organisation whose objective was to explain government policies to the society in tandem with anti-communism and religious propaganda, combined with a discourse of democracy and liberalism.55 The second method was much more drastic and provoked violent protests in Istanbul and Ankara: it instigated a parliamentary investigation into the CHP with the allegation that it was orchestrating a coup. Further protests were provoked when several governors attempted to prevent CHP leader I˙no¨nu¨’s election trips. Newspapers
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printed photos of an aged ‘hero’ of the Independence War and the former ‘national chief’ fiercely arguing with the governors. Until the 27 May 1960 military coup, CHP and I˙no¨nu¨ were the centre of societal opposition against the oppressive state. One of the most important characteristics of the DP was its discursive strategy of redefining the national sovereignty principle solely with the DP. In Turkey, national sovereignty (milli irade) has been appropriated to justify the oppression of the opposition (quantitatively, the opposition in Parliament, and qualitatively, the bureaucracy, judiciary, press and universities) by invoking the idea of majoritarianism. The opposition was otherised and marginalised as opposed to the forces that allegedly represented milli irade. Therefore, the ‘fetish’ of national sovereignty of authoritarian liberalism has long been a tool of hyperfeminisation of the society.57 In the late 1950s, by relying on the number of seats obtained in Parliament, ‘the DP increasingly believed that it solely and directly represented national sovereignty’.58 This approach contributed to the 27 May 1960 military coup. In other words, the DP was the first representative of ‘authoritarian liberalism’ to be in power. While they continued the practices of Kemalism in favour of a strong state, the Cold Warrior masculinity offered them the necessary ideological tools (anti-communism, religion and conservatism) to consolidate their power over society. In May 1960, the societal cleavages reflected in elite-level politics were, on the one hand, commercial bourgeoisie such as petty merchants, big landowners and subsidised farmers, and on the other, white-collar employees, manufacturing, urban and semi-urban bourgeoisie and intellectuals. In the latter group, white-collar employees included bureaucrats and army officers whose purchasing power had substantially decreased since the 1958 devaluation. The manufacturing bourgeoisie showed discontent with the reluctance of the DP governments to support the import substitution industrialisation model (ISI) in favour of big landowners, and the petty bourgeoisie that enjoyed clientalist relations with the DP. Finally, the intelligentsia consisted of a wide group of Kemalists, nationalists and socialists opposed to the increasing liberal authoritarianism of the DP. One of the main reasons why the 1960 military coup was referred to as a ‘national revolution’ was the existence of societal support; additionally, as will be shown below, the coup served as a requirement for relaunching the Westernisation of
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Turkey that had been disrupted by the authoritarian DP period, according to some CHP law makers. In other words, the coup was ‘an act of modernisation in line with the international socio-economic context; Turkey was catching up with the West through the leadership of a progressive coalition’.59 In the newly formed junta Committee of National Unity (Milli Birlik Komitesi), which included leftist soldiers, their influence (in partnership with the intelligentsia) immediately appeared in the writing of the new Constitution. For example, in the 1960 Constitution, the state was defined as a ‘welfare state’; individual freedoms were extensively granted; workers’ unions were afforded legal protection; and the collective right to strike was recognised. In addition, a new checks and balances system was created with the objective of preventing another authoritarian government. The 1961 Constitution ‘divided sovereignty between the Parliament, on the one hand, and the high tribunals and the newly created National Security Council on the other’, thus creating a ‘juridical’ democracy.60 Its centre was the Constitutional Court. The autonomy of ¨ zbudun, the state radio and television was also recognised. According to O given the socio-economic status of the officers coming from low- and middle-class backgrounds, ‘military leftism’ had emerged before the coup and had made an alliance with certain sectors in the intelligentsia. With the coup, they launched their agenda based on the combination of social justice and development linked to their class background.61 Although this new ‘progressive’ modernising move was hardly bottomup and remained at the elite level (in fact, leftists in the NUC were eventually purged),62 a gradual abandonment of the Cold Warrior mentality in favour of society and the introduction of a European welfare system based on new ‘liberal’ freedoms created some political space for societal resistance to hyperfeminisation in domestic politics. Likewise, as Aydın argues, Turkey’s foreign policy was also open to public discussion during this period.63
From the ‘Cold Warrior’ Back to Multidimensional Foreign Policy, 1960 –80: Repositioning Turkey in the West as a Non-Western State In the 1960 – 80 period, there were three parallel processes in Turkey’s foreign policy that aimed to reconstruct Turkey as within the West,
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yet still different. Firstly, Turkey’s gendered devalorisation by the West since 1964, mainly by the US, rendered Turkey’s policy makers ontologically insecure vis-a`-vis the West and physically insecure towards the USSR. Secondly, as a response to these insecurities, both the left and the right revitalised the multifaceted foreign policy. Relations with the Soviets, the Middle East, and Africa improved. In relation to the Middle East and Africa, the ‘role model’ and ‘bridge’ metaphors were employed for the first time. These metaphors helped policy makers to write Turkey in the West. Thirdly, during the first serious military crisis in Cyprus in 1974, Turkey’s policy makers constructed a complex discursive strategy that reflected Turkey’s Western credentials as opposed to the feminised representations of Greece. As a combination of these factors, Turkey’s foreign policy could be articulated as a Western-oriented hybrid non-Western identity. While multiple Wests started to appear in Turkey’s policy makers’ articulations, desire and dislike towards the West resulted in an oscillating foreign policy. In the immediate aftermath of the coup, CHP policy makers invoked the early Republican project that Turkey must be a part of Western civilisation in order to be treated equally to other Western states. This approach modulated the West as Europe and as a standard of civilisation in their narratives. In 1961, Prime Minister I˙no¨nu¨ underlined the crucial role that membership in West-centric institutions would play in constructing Turkey as a civilised Western country. These institutions included NATO, the Council of Europe and the EEC: NATO is a defence organisation that was founded by countries that aim to live freely and independently, spread the principles of Western civilisation and establish and protect democratic institutions in accordance with UN principles. We will continue to make every effort to maintain and develop our relations – not only political, but all relations, thanks to Atatu¨rk’s revolutions – with allies and friends based on the principles of equality and sovereignty. As a member of the Council of Europe, which was founded to improve the common Western civilisation and to serve the ideal of nations’ coming closer, we will not hesitate to act constructively according to our
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honourable place in the Western community. We sincerely hope to join the EEC, which represents the peak of European integration in the economic sphere and is closest to our country due to foreign trade links.64 In I˙no¨nu¨’s speech, the focus on ‘civilisation’ was associated with the desire of Turkey to be a Western state through equal membership in the West-centric institutions. Therefore, the post-coup period resembled the early Republican era in terms of how policy makers understood the West and Turkey as part of it. Despite the EEC’s representation in terms of economic benefits, when the Ankara Agreement was signed in 1963, the civilisational aspect was prioritised again.65 In the following part of his speech, I˙no¨nu¨ made another interesting point that was in direct contrast with the previous DP governments’ strong commitment to nuclear armament (Bandung Conference). CHP decision makers started to verbalise the necessity of nuclear disarmament as early as 1961, before the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, when the disarmament movement was burgeoning at societal level. He spoke in the Parliament 21 days after the first big women’s protest in the US against the nuclear armament race in November 1961: The subject of disarmament has great importance for establishing lasting peace and security in the world. The necessary policy is to adopt a general, gradual and balanced disarmament, covering both conventional and nuclear weapons. We think that it is compulsory to reach an agreement to stop the nuclear tests that threaten the well-being of current and future generations for the sake of humanity.66 This new approach was mainly a result of the rising left wing within the CHP and its endorsement by I˙no¨nu¨. This group would become the dominant power within the party in the following decades. It built up Turkey’s ‘difference’ and uniqueness, which rendered Turkey a ‘special’ state between the West and the non-West. Although Turkey started to show signs of returning to the multidimensional foreign policy of the early Republican decades, policy makers also endorsed Turkey’s role in ‘Western civilisation’. In February
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1962, CHP MP Cos¸kun Kırca justified the aforementioned argument that Turkey’s foreign and domestic politics in the post-war period specifically aimed to place it in the West. He argued that Turkish foreign policy has always upheld the values of Western civilisation, as the multiparty system was a tool to reproduce Turkey as a Western democracy. Moreover, the 1960 military coup (or ‘the 1960 revolution’) was a ‘necessity’ for Turkey’s Westernisation process: We show the world as clearly as possible that the 1960 revolution has reconstructed the foundation of Turkey’s reputation in its foreign affairs by stopping the regression that contradicts Western lifestyle. The Turkish nation will never give up human rights, democracy and Atatu¨rk’s revolutions. As a result of the Turkish Armed Forces’ deliverance of its honourable promise to the nation, the national will was re-instituted with a Constitution that strongly protects human rights, democratic institutions and Atatu¨rk’s revolutions, and provides the fairest electoral system. This gave our nation a formidable reputation in foreign affairs. Therefore, our Western allies and friends have the opportunity to understand that Turkey’s membership in the West is not simply a matter of strategic concern, but, most importantly, a matter of lifestyle.67 With these words, CHP policy makers revitalised the position of Turkey’s membership in the West as an issue of ontological security, and even a military coup could be justified to this end, contrary to the previous decades’ immense focus on the strategic value of Turkey for the West in the form of the US. However, they also adopted the DP’s Cold Warrior vision where Turkey, due to its geographical position, played an important role for the West ‘by protecting the Middle East and Africa as a shield against possible aggression’. In spite of this West-centric approach, Kırca’s following words revealed that the ‘difference’ of Turkey, which constructed its own hybridity, reappeared in this period. Regarding decolonisation, he stated that: It is not possible for Turkey, which fought colonisation and gained its independence by spilling its blood, not to understand these reactions (anti-colonial struggles). Furthermore, as a
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country that has had extensive experience with the West, Turkey should play the role of a bridge between the West and Africa – Asia. This is why, if necessary, we sincerely warn our allies in a friendly way and they listen to us. This may increase the reputation of the West in Asia – Africa.68 Although in the first instance this statement might appear as a contradiction to the ‘shield’ role that Turkey had adopted, the above statement is a manifestation of the argument pursued in this analysis that Turkey positioned itself in the West, yet was different from the West. This difference reinforced its Western-oriented position. In Kırca’s words, since Turkey also dealt with imperialism (its difference), it had a better understanding of anti-colonial struggles. Thus, the West could benefit from this difference. This is a Westernoriented approach, rather than West-centric one, as it positions Turkey ambivalently both within the West and also as a bridge to the nonWest. This discursive strategy would reappear in the post-Cold war era, and what rendered Turkey different would be Islam. Turkey’s ‘difference’ was not simply about positioning Turkey within the West by supporting Turkey’s multifaceted policy in the Middle East. In the DP period, relations with the Middle East were based on the West-centric approach. In the post-coup era, CHP policy-makers were keen to develop the first ‘role model’ argument for the Middle East. Bu¨lent Ecevit, prime minister in the 1970s, spoke in the Assembly that was established following the coup: Middle Eastern states should never think that we have ambitions of leadership in the Middle East . . . Our sole objective and hope for the newly independent states in the Middle East is to be a good example. Not just through our attitude, not just through our commitment to democracy and our success in consolidating democracy in Turkey; we aim to be an example of commitment to national independence that can coexist with being part of the Western alliance.69 Ecevit’s argument highlights the ‘difference’ argument that positions Turkey within the West, yet connects it with the non-West by virtue of being a ‘role model’.
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In parallel with the Middle East, Turkey’s multifaceted foreign policy in the 1960s first targeted the newly decolonised states in Africa by revealing Turkey’s ambivalence towards both these African states and the West. On the one hand, ‘Atatu¨rk’s Turkey’, because of its own liberation struggle against the West, celebrated the anti-colonial struggles in Africa and Asia and welcomed new states in the United Nations system. In Foreign Minister Erkin’s words, Turkey could develop good relations with the new states not as a Western state, but as a state that is ‘different’ from the West: Our nation’s victorious struggle for its liberation in the years preceding the Republic, a progress that the Turkish nation achieved thanks to the Atatu¨rk revolution, and the fact that our state does not rely on separation based on race and colour and, finally, our constructive role in the Asia– Africa group gives us the necessary leverage to continue and succeed in our policy towards African states, to which we attach great importance.70 Indeed, following the 1960 coup, Turkey worked with the Asia –Africa states in the UN, and in 1961/2 it supported Algerian independence in the UN. From 1962 onwards, it focused on developing political relations with African states by opening embassies. In 1962, Turkey had embassies in Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Nigeria, Sudan, Ghana and Ethiopia; these embassies were also representing Mali, Gina, Toga, Cameroon, the Central African Republic and Tanganyika; and negotiations were being finalised with Senegal. In March –April, goodwill committees were sent to several African states.71 In this way, the government’s attempt was very similar to the AKP’s African policy in the 2000s with no focus on ‘historical ties’ stemming from the Ottoman Empire. In the 1960s, the history that connected Turkey to Africa was anti-colonialism, not the imperial past. The other side of this policy, however, reflected Cold Warrior masculinity. Turkey shared the Western perspective that the new states should be prevented from falling into communism, given that ‘western imperialism’ had now ceased to exist.72 In other words, Turkey wanted presence in Africa as a member of the West with a particular history of liberation struggle. As Kirca’s words highlighted, this presence could be useful for the West. However, following the Johnson letter (see below), Turkey’s
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insecurity towards the West gave a new dimension to its multifaceted foreign policy. The Justice Party (AP) continued the same approach throughout the 1960s.73 The return to the early Republican foreign policy of the pre-Cold War was explicitly clear in the AP’s foreign policy by transcending the hypothetical opposition between Kemalistsnationalists and liberals: He [the speaker for the CHP] stated that they were against the mentality that considers Turkey as the watchman of NATO. I completely agree and we proceed in our foreign policy on the basis of this principle . . . We are neither a satellite of the USA nor an enemy of the Soviets. In fact, our ancestors formulated this policy much better than us: Atatu¨rk stated ‘peace at home, peace in the world’.74 However, in order to understand this ostensibly ‘anti-Western’ position, the Johnson letter event and its effects should be discussed. The following discussion will analyse the Cyprus issue and Turkey’s first military insecurity since the Independence War. One of the most important events of the 1960 – 80 period was Turkey’s military intervention in Cyprus in 1974. In Cyprus, Greek and Turkish communities lived under British administration until 1954, when Greek nationalists (EOKA) began to launch attacks against British posts. The status quo was changed by the attempt to unite the island with mainland Greece (enosis). The increasing tension between Greece and Turkey was mitigated with the intervention of Britain. In successive meetings in Zurich and London, the parties agreed for the foundation of a bi-communal independent Cypriot state in 1960. Britain, Greece and Turkey became the guarantor states of the independence of the Island. In 1964, the attempts of President Makarios to alter the Constitution prompted Turkey’s policy makers to use their guarantor state rights, as per the 1960 London Agreement, in order to preserve the status quo in Cyprus. As Turkey was sending jetfighters to fly over the island, the infamous ‘Johnson letter’ by US president Johnson halted its attempts to intervene. Developments on the Island in 1974 put Turkey’s policy makers in a precarious position. The government led by President Makarios was
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toppled by the Greek junta. The president fled and the Turkishspeaking community was considered to be in danger. Turkey intervened militarily in July 1974. In order to understand Turkey’s policy makers’ narratives during the military crises (also in 1996 and 2012, see Chapter 5), it is important to analyse the years preceding the crises. This analysis is likely to show that before the crises, policy makers were experiencing difficulties in reproducing Turkey as a member of the West and in formulating policies to prove Turkey’s value through its ‘difference’. In such a milieu of ontological insecurity, military crises erupted. The 1963 Ankara Agreement between the EEC and Turkey approved Turkey’s potential participation in the Customs Union with the perspective of full membership. Policy makers momentarily considered Turkey as an integral part of the West as Europe. According to Foreign Minister Ulvi Cemal Erkin, it was possible to derive that CHP policy makers considered the EEC as a predecessor to a political union. Erkin stated in Parliament that ‘our main objective is to be included in European economic integration and in the political integration that will follow the latter. It is easy to grasp the consequences of not joining such a union’.75 In January 1963 he stated in Parliament that Turkey’s desire to join the EEC was explained by ‘Turkey’s direction towards Western civilisation since the inception of the Republic’.76 When the Ankara Agreement was signed, Foreign Minister Erkin celebrated the event as the affirmation that ‘Turkey belonged to the West’.77 While Turkey’s ontological insecurity was eased momentarily, this conjuncture was changed by the letter of President Johnson to Prime Minister I˙no¨nu¨. Johnson urged the latter against a possible military operation of Turkey to Cyprus to protect the Turkish-speaking community. As the letter clearly stated that NATO would not take the side of Turkey in the case of military intervention and would not guarantee Turkey’s defence in the case of Soviet aggression, ‘once more it seemed that NATO did not see it fit to protect Turkish interests’.78 In addition, Turkey’s policy makers understood that when Turkey was in conflict with Greece, a ‘historical companion of the Western civilisation’, Turkey would be denied support.79 In fact, Turkey’s scepticism towards the West as the US had started with the removal of the Jupiter missiles in Turkey as part of the bargain between the US and the USSR during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
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Turkey eventually agreed to exchange Jupiter missiles with Polaris submarines. However, this issue disturbed many of Turkey’s policy makers. In 1970, I˙no¨nu¨ reflected back on the period: The Americans told us that Jupiters should be replaced because they are outdated. They would be substituted by Polaris submarines. However, we later found out that they bargained with the Soviets. This event shows that Turkish administrators should not allow Americans to lead Turkey into unwanted crises and should be more careful.80 This reflection of I˙no¨nu¨ highlighted that Turkey’s policy makers felt betrayed by their ‘ally’, because it had made secret agreements behind their back. In other words, Turkey was treated as a peripheral state that could be expendable for the West’s interests.81 The Johnson letter was interpreted as such. Turkey’s primary response was to develop relations with the Soviets, similar to the Independence War. It subsequently adopted a foreign policy that increased economic and technological cooperation with the USSR. In November 1964, Foreign Minister Erkin visited Moscow and signed several agreements with the USSR. The way he narrated the visit to Parliament was a manifestation of the objective that Turkey would stop being the front line state of NATO in favour of a more active role in world politics: They (the Soviets) informed us that states with different social systems could coexist peacefully . . . and we agreed that relations should be improved based on the principles of equality, independence and territorial integrity . . . Our government . . . is determined to surround Turkey with an area of peace, develop friendly relations with all neighbours, construct lively relations with Asian – African states, create the conditions for Turkey to increase its role in global politics, and gather international support for our national causes.82 The national cause he mentioned was the Cyprus issue, as Turkey could not achieve sufficient support for its position within the UN. The successive governments of Su¨leyman Demirel (centre-right Justice Party, AP, 1965– 71) adopted the same policy, and Prime Minister
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Demirel visited Moscow in September 1967.83 In 1965, the Demirel government had already decided to withdraw from the Multilateral Force, a naval force created under NATO. In a similar manner with the previous CHP policy makers, but in direct contrast with the DP governments’ devalorising attitude during the Bandung Conference in 1955, Foreign Minister I˙hsan Sabri C¸ag˘layangil declared in the Senate in 1966 that ‘there is no way other than ‘’peaceful co-existence’’ for humanity to avoid the disastrous effects of a nuclear war’. He also called for parallel disarmament and an immediate end to the Vietnam War that threatened world peace and security.84 In 1967, he declared in Parliament that communism, not the Soviets, was the AP’s enemy.85 In September 1965 Turkey voted in the UN against the use of force in Vietnam. Foreign Minister C¸ag˘layangil spoke at the UN General Assembly on 29 September 1966 and supported the selfdetermination of Vietnam without any type of foreign interference.86 During the 1967 Arab– Israeli war, Turkey supported the Arab states. In 1969, the US military bases in Turkey were re-regulated; as a result, the use of the bases was decreased and Turkish judicial competence over them increased. The 1971 military memorandum and the subsequent interim government ended with the 1973 coalition government between the CHP and the political Islamist National Salvation Party (MSP). The opium issue, which concerned the US request to ban opium production in Turkey, aggravated the tension between the two countries. Prime Minister Ecevit accused the US of ‘treating Turkey as a mandate state’, a statement reflecting the insecurity of not being accepted in the West as an independent sovereign state.87 At the beginning of July 1974, the Ecevit government allowed opium production. During these foreign policy practices to challenge the feminisation of Turkey, Turkey’s policy makers were addressing the West as the US and showed that Turkey, as a sovereign state with its own domestic and international interests, could not be treated as a peripheral state by the West. However, the same policy makers were also uncomfortable about de´tente, as it could destabilise Turkey’s position within the West. The oscillation of non-Western subjectivities and their ambivalence towards the West was hereby striking. Turkey’s policy makers’ gendered insecurity towards the West was felt before the Cyprus operation,
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mostly in relation to de´tente during the Cold War. In a very similar manner, during the immediate post-Cold War period in the early 1990s, the developing relations with the West and the Soviet bloc rendered Turkey’s policy makers anxious about Turkey’s military and ontological insecurities. After praising of de´tente for world security, Prime Minister Ecevit raised these concerns in 1974: If the security of a state depends excessively on common security measures taken because of tension in the world, de´tente can be problematic, even dangerous for this state. With de´tente, breakdowns and insufficiencies can appear in a foreign policy that has been shaped by tension and crisis. As a result, no matter how peaceful a state is, it can be anxious about the de´tente and its security and position in the world. We support de´tente and force reduction tendencies; however, we are concerned that these should not take a form that limits Turkey to an unsupported wing country in NATO.88 Ecevit’s perception that new relations between the superpowers could hinder Turkey’s position within NATO was underlined by an intriguing combination of military insecurity vis-a`-vis the Soviets as well as ontological insecurity vis-a`-vis the West. As de´tente could change the Cold War that Turkey’s policy makers were accustomed to, and, therefore, Turkey’s position within the West, Prime Minister Ecevit adopted a more active multidimensional foreign policy. In the following words, more than any previous policy maker Ecevit narrated Turkey politically as a European country and geographically as a Middle Eastern country, but never as a representative of the West in the Middle East: Turkey is both a Middle Eastern and European country because of its political connections, in spite of its geographical location. While it is trying to strengthen its position in western European democratic nations, it is also trying to benefit from its natural position for the betterment of the Middle East. However, in doing this we are also very cautious about one point: in our dealings with Arab states, we will never act as a speaker of the West in the Middle East.89
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While Ecevit was challenging the Cold Warrior masculinity, he also imagined a new, reinvigotating role for Turkey in the 1990s: a bridge between Europe and the Middle East. His understanding of a ‘bridge’ was in terms of economic relations: In my last visit (to Europe), I reminded our friends that Turkey should be involved, in one way or another, in their relations, negotiations and dialogue with Arab states. Furthermore, I witnessed that the statesmen I met appeared to accept that without Turkey’s participation, the economic cooperation between Europe and the Middle East could not move beyond certain level.90 Later in the 1990s, in another moment of anxiety about the international system, the bridge role re-emerged politically, as will be discussed in the next chapter. Another dimension of Turkey’s multidimensional foreign policy concerned Africa. Ecevit focused on Africa as a reaffirmation of Turkey’s ‘different’ place in the world by invoking anti-imperialist moral arguments: Today the condition of being powerful in the UN, which has become a world parliament, is to be friends with Africa . . . Turkey is the country that initiated the independence and liberation movements of this century. The independence movement started by Atatu¨rk and has spread to the whole world in waves, covering all of Africa. That is why Turkey considers it its own moral responsibility, and as an achievement of the movement it started, to see the success and continuity of the independence movements in Africa.91 Ecevit’s approach was more anti-imperialist than the previous decision makers’ approach and emphasised Turkey’s political and moral ownership of African anti-colonial struggles. Until the Cyprus intervention, the oscillation resulting from Turkey’s desire to be both in the West and different from the West shaped Turkey’s foreign policy makers’ representations of the West and non-West. While the West in the form of Europe reappeared as the
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standard of civilisation (desire), the West in the form of the US, which denied Turkey’s equality and respect through feminisation, became a source of resentment (these roles that Europe and the US had attained in foreign policy narratives would be reversed in the 1990s). The feminisation (especially by the US) of Turkey’s masculinity as a weak, passive, peripheral and ‘mandate’ state in need of Western guidance, and as a state that could not conduct its own domestic (e.g., the opium issue) and international affairs (e.g. Cyprus) independently, intensified the gendered ontological insecurity. The prospect of being a ‘devalorised other’ of the West prompted both right- and left-wing policy makers to reposition Turkey in global politics in order to convince the West that Turkey could conduct its affairs as a modern and sovereign state without Western intervention. The hybridity of Turkey’s identity was reflected by a multifaceted foreign policy to balance the West, and especially by Ecevit’s positioning of Turkey closer to the developing world: different from the West yet within the West-centric political and epistemological global order. The Cyprus operation was conducted in this context. In this moment of military insecurity, Prime Minister Ecevit adopted a strong West-centric attitude by devalorising Greece in order to reconfirm Turkey’s Western credentials. One of the most important tactics to represent Turkey as a democratic, liberal, rational and Western state was to ‘otherise’ the military threat through gendering. In 1974, Turkey’s policy makers’ narrative was to feminise Greece by ascribing irrationality, emotionalism, aggressiveness, authoritarianism and misguidedness. As a result, Turkey constructed itself as a paternal figure who was ready to teach the latter what was right and wrong; in other words, as a figure who was ready to help by being tolerant towards the emotional and irrational practices of the infant. Reflecting the (neo)realist/liberal epistemology, Ecevit praised Turkey’s realist and rational position as opposed to Greece’s irrationality: We are in a period when foreign policy cannot be based on emotion and revenge. The most unfortunate thing for Greeks is that they were educated based on dreams and fed by anger towards Turks . . . I do not think any Greek politician would say ‘I do not want enosis’ . . . On the contrary, in Turkey, no politician is talking about the invasion of Cyprus . . . No Turkish politician
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says ‘We should get Thessaloniki back’ as a response to a Greek saying ‘We should get Istanbul back’. Why are we like this? Because we are a more realist nation.92 The superiority of Turkey’s Western masculinity over Greece was formulated with reference to the dichotomy between democratic Turkey and authoritarian Greece, which was then ruled by a military junta. Turkey, as a result, even presented itself as a saviour of Greeks from the junta. In a press conference in London on 18 July 1974 to promote the peaceful intentions of Turkey, Ecevit stated: I have come here to seek out a peaceful solution to the problem . . . As a matter of fact, something happened today. During the lunch break I went out to see the bookstores. Greeks who knew me came and hugged me saying ‘save us from this regime’.93 In the immediate aftermath of the operation, he spoke to the Parliament and defined the operation as a victory of democracy over weakened dictatorial Greece: My friends, this is not simply the power of the Turkish nation. This is the power of democracy adopted by the honourable Turkish nation, as well as its power. Some well-intended people sometimes think that during times of turmoil, a nation can unite for a national cause under dictatorial regimes. They think that national unity for national causes cannot be achieved under the broad freedoms of thought, discussion and divisions allowed by democracy. There is no better example than what we face today to disprove this opinion. On the one hand, there is a divided Greece ruled by a dictatorship; on the other hand, there is one nation and one Parliament that are divided over economic and social issues, sometimes to the point where they have fights. However, when there is a national cause, they can become one mind, one heart, one body . . . This is the victory of democracy as well as the victory of our nation.94 As a paternal figure, Turkey claimed the right to remind Greece of the benefits of being a democracy, and similarly presented Turkey as a
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member of the democratic Western family. After the military operation, Ecevit spoke thus to the media: The most important reason why we had such a transparent and honest foreign policy (during the crisis) was Turkey’s strong democracy . . . In comparison to Greece, the virtue of democracy was proven true. Especially at the beginning of the crisis, one the most important weaknesses of Greek diplomacy was its lack of democratic character. It was under a dictatorial regime. Only after Greece became a democracy did it strengthen its diplomacy.95 Showing its democratic credentials, however, was not enough for Turkey’s policy makers to address their subordinated masculinities. They should have convinced the West that Turkey’s foreign policy is based on rationality and realism, not emotions, and is always considerate of the facts of international relations. Ecevit stated that: We live in such a world that no one can say ‘it is none of the others’ business’.96 No state can say ‘what is this United Nations to interfere?’ We cannot isolate Turkey from the world. That is why he said, ‘we must always consider the balance in the world when we are formulating our Cyprus policy. This is of utmost importance . . . We have always avoided emotional reactions and I think that the world has benefited from this.97 As a state that acts realistically in foreign policy, restraint was presented as a quality for Turkey. After the operation, Ecevit stated: ‘obviously our military forces could have done so much, could have gone so much further. However, as an army, as a state and as a nation we know exactly where to stop’.98 In the case of Cyprus, Turkey’s policy makers tried to reformulate the crisis at hand as an opportunity to address Turkey’s subordinated masculinity vis-a`-vis the West. Sometimes acting like a paternal and democratic figure that is ready to save Greeks from the yoke of authoritarianism, sometimes being a rational and realist state that was always respectful to international organisations and the values of international society, Turkey’s policy makers tried to cope with the military crisis without reaffirming its subordination to the West.
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They aimed to prove that Turkey was in complete harmony with Western values and institutions; it was not aggressive but peaceful. For example, when Turkish nationalists took to the streets during the crisis in support of the invasion of the entire island, Ecevit sent them a message warning not to ‘say anything to the world that may create doubts about the government’s foreign policy. Tell them to drop the meetings’.99 In spite of all attempts to position Turkey within the West, ties with the West were severed following the Cyprus operation. Firstly, the US launched an embargo against Turkey. In 1978, the short-term Ecevit government unilaterally froze its responsibilities towards the EEC after the latter rejected Turkey’s $8 billion credit request.100 During this period, relations with the Soviet Union and the Arab world progressed.101
Domestic Politics, 1960 – 80: The West as a Source of Freedom and Oppression From September 1962 onwards, societal unrest started to heat up domestic politics. Two opposite groups seemed to dominate street politics, which had pacified following the coup but was now reinvigorated. On the one side of the spectrum were university student groups supported by certain groups in the intelligentsia, urban middle class, and white-collar class. This wide constellation articulated the 1960 coup as a revolution to halt the ‘unlawful’ and ‘autocratic’ regime of the DP, which was represented as the enemy of the Kemalist revolutions. Therefore, the DP was an aberration in the process of Turkey’s westernisation; the 1960 ‘revolution’ put the country on the ‘right’ track. Ironically, as a reflection of non-Western hybridity, they also considered the ‘second republic’ (the members of the CNU’s description) as the revival of the Kemalist principle of independence from the West. Therefore, the DP was articulated as the group that ‘sold out’ the country to the US.102 On 10 October 1962, several student groups made a statement to protest the amnesty of former DP politicians and pro-DP press: To those unfortunate traitors who aim to lead Turkey back into the darkness: you will fail again. One day we will destroy the houses of microbes that spread the poison of reactionism and
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bigotry into the nation. We do not need any measures to be taken to protect our revolutions and Atatu¨rk’s principles. We are determined to defend them with our blood and life.103 This statement strongly associated the opposition with the reactionary forces of the early Republican years. An uneasy alliance was emerging between the leftist groups and the military where many in the former saw the latter as the ‘institution of Atatu¨rk’, protector of the Republic and its principles, and therefore a necessary instrument in Turkey’s Westernisation. In other words, a left-oriented Republican ‘self’ was constructed. As opposed to this, the main ‘others’ were the societal extensions of DP and their ‘nationalist’ allies. The opposite group was also an uneasy alliance, but they constructed one common ‘other’: communism. On the same day of the above declaration, the nationalists made the following statement: Oh, you, son of Turk, beware of the red spies who try to infiltrate our land with red imperialism by taking orders from well-known centres, those lands that have been soaked with our martyrs’ blood for centuries. Do not believe in the servants of communism, who are the enemy of your race, religion and tradition. Do not join those who are known today as leftists and cosmopolitans.104 By reviving the Cold Warrior masculinity, they ‘otherised’ the left-wing groups as the misguided and dangerous representations of communism. Both groups adopted excessive aggressiveness and, subsequently, violence towards each other. Although the ‘nationalist’ camp was hesitant to criticise the military, they targeted CHP leader I˙no¨nu¨ by stating that he was not ‘nationalist enough’.105 Prime Minister I˙no¨nu¨ retaliated in Parliament with the following words, which highlighted that he considered both groups as hindrances to Turkey’s Western character: Some people who are practising politics think that our country is not compatible with democracy. Some of them think that paternal and absolute monarchy, which was the philosophy of the Empire, still has importance. The other group consists of those who adopt extreme ideological currents, which are in contradiction to freedom and democracy. Those who follow the path of racism and
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fascism, among other ideological illnesses in our age . . . unite with communism on the principle that less developed countries cannot develop within the Western democratic system, and they are equally dangerous for us. In other words, the 1960s was a complex mixture of the previous decades’ political struggles in Turkey. Cold Warrior masculinity was meeting with the early Republican years’ modernising non-Western masculinity. The two press releases above were the foretellers of the upcoming two decades when Turkey’s domestic politics was shaped by encounters between two masculinities at the state and societal level: contending Orientalist reactions to Orientalism. In this period, the left was divided between the socialist Turkey’s Workers Party (Tu¨rkiye I˙s¸ci Partisi, TIP) and the National Democratic Revolution (Milli Demokratik Devrim, MDD), which identified the Soviets as ‘imperialists’ following the violent suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968.106 The TIP was shut down after the 1971 military memorandum, leaving the MDD as the most prominent left-wing organisation outside the Parliament. Its ideology deserves special attention, mainly because of its effect on future generations. The MDD’s ideology was a combination of the Kemalist revolutionary, secular and modernist principles that revolved around the idea of a modern state independent of the West but not excluded from it, and socialist principles. Members of MDD considered socialist principles based on equality and industrialisation compatible with the Kemalist modernisation project. They were suspicious towards the West and certainly highly critical to the US, but positioned Turkey within the West as a strong state with equal rights. After all, catching up with Western civilisation was a Kemalist objective. The military, or ‘Atatu¨rk’s army’, was a partner in this quest, given the progressive reforms followed by the 1960 coup.107 In other words, the MDD with its romanticism towards the early Republican period was presenting an intriguing version of past revivalism. Similarly to Demirel’s authoritarian liberalism (see below), the Kemalist modernist legacy was contributing to left-wing modernists. For both, the West was the place where Turkey should be. While the left was burgeoning during this period, the right was also divided. In addition to Su¨leyman Demirel’s Justice Party (Adalet
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Partisi, AP), two new parties were established that represented two lines of thinking in Turkey’s politics. The Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetc i Hareket Partisi, MHP) and the National Salvation Party (Milli Selamet Partisi, MSP) were nationalist and Islamist, respectively. Although for some commentators these two parties were considered as anti-centre formations,108 a closer look at their political practices suggests that they were also modernist political movements. The MHP was mainly the hypermasculinised face of the right and often took the side of the US when it considered Turkey’s policy makers’ challenges to the latter. The MSP, on the other hand, was more critical towards the US in particular and the West in general. However, their approach, rather than anti-Western and anti-modernist, was very similar to the Young Ottomans’ understanding of the West, which was discussed in Chapter 2 with reference to Sait Halim Pasha’s writings. According to this understanding, an imitation of the West was not only futile but also destructive to the Islamist essence of the nation (note MSP leader Necmettin Erbakan’s definition targeting other parties as ‘imitators’, taklitciler). What needed to be done was to adopt the West’s science and technology and utilise them to modernise the country without losing its cultural essence. Industrialisation was key in this process. In a famous press meeting in July 1976 (during the National Front government), Erbakan declared his objective of a ‘Heavy Industry Movement’ (Ag˘ır Sanayi Hamlesi). In this meeting, he argued that industrialisation based on assembly must be ended in favour of manufacturing in Anatolia. Although his vision was idealistic given the economic realities of the 1970s, this movement was reasonable, mainly because of the electorate base of the party. Dog˘u Ergil is worth quoting at length: The National Salvation Party proposed a program of Islamic puritanism and national capitalism. Conflicting though it might appear at first sight, these ideological guidelines were the defence strategies of the two different strata of the Anatolian pettybourgeoisie. The first stratum represented in the NSP structure is the declining traditional petty commodity producers (artisan, craftsmen) and small merchants of small Anatolian towns. For this stratum, religion is the ideology of equal competition, interdependence and social justice. Hence the religious
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conservatism of the threatened traditional petty-bourgeoisie is only a strategy to ward off the insurmountable pressures of dominant national and international corporations. On the other hand, national capitalism is the ideology of the rising industrial bourgeoisie of Anatolia.109 To put it differently, MSP ideology was sub-modern, similar to Kemalism and liberal authoritarianism. Islam was not an ideal life form that emerged more than 1,000 years ago and needed to be revived as opposed to modernity. Rather, it was the cultural and moral essence of the nation, which was neglected by imitators but needed to be appropriated under new, modern conditions. In such a West-oriented domestic context, ‘the West’ was represented in different forms, and in parallel with the political objectives of policy makers, by consolidating the state’s masculinity (both coercive and institutional) over society. The AP governments from November 1965 to the military memorandum on 21 March 1971, and the Nationalist Front coalition governments (AP–MSP –MHP) under the premiership of Demirel, served during a period when street politics in Turkey was on the rise. The left did not remain indifferent to the street. The CHP’s new generation, with the support of I˙no¨nu¨, defined the party’s position as ‘the left of the centre’. This was partly a strategic move against the newly formed Turkey’s Workers Party, which managed to gain 15 seats in the 1965 general elections. In addition, the CHP was observing rising anti-US feeling at a societal level, especially in the universities. Led by TI˙P, anti-US groups united under the slogan ‘Independent Turkey’ and considered NATO as the main institution of Turkey’s dependency and even subordination to Western interests.110 Anti-US sentiment was also strengthened by several criminal incidents at the bases where US personnel were involved. Although in 1969 the AP government attempted to increase Turkish authority over the bases, as stated above, the bases were regarded as the institutions of a type of ‘colonial power’ over Turkey.111 In some cases, the anti-US movement targeted US soldiers working at the US navy in Istanbul (throwing them into the sea, throwing red paint at them) between June 1967 and February 1969. On 6 January 1969, US ambassador Komer’s car was burnt down at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara.
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However, anti-US protests, which involved several currents from pro-Soviet groups to Kemalists, were articulated as ‘communist’ by the right-wing nationalist movements. On 16 February 1969, on ‘Bloody Sunday’, nationalists ‘as an example of an organised fascist attack’ moved against the leftist protestors, leaving two killed and more than 100 wounded.112 Following this event, throughout the 1970s anti-US feeling remained one of the front line issues between the left and right in street politics, while targeting US citizens less frequently.113 Before Bloody Sunday, nationalist students mainly organised under the institutions of ‘Association of the Struggle against Communism’ and the National Turkish Student Union (a reorganised version of the DPperiod Nationalist Students’ Confederation). Anti-communist sentiments had also been articulated by Prime Minister Demirel, who revived the Cold Warrior masculinity in the 1960s political context in Turkey. In the 1967 budget meetings in the Parliament, he re-invoked the ephemeral, sinister and cunning ‘communist threat’: I would like to underline an issue: fight against communism, a matter of protecting state security against extremist tendencies. There might be those who claim that communism is not a threat to Turkey. However, we need to consider this point carefully: what if it is? What if it is? . . . [If communism is not considered a threat] we will be devastated after the threat emerges and damages us. This attitude is not compatible with the discernment of being a state.114 He then continued by positioning Turkey in the West but also presenting it as immune to the weaknesses of Europe due to its ‘liberal’ characteristics: Esteemed members of the Parliament, the Turkish state is united. Whatever reason they use, income levels, beliefs or birth places . . . no one will be able to divide the Turkish nation. The Turkish state will devastate those who try to divide the Turkish nation . . . This has nothing to do with democracy. In France and in Italy the parties that belong to the same ideology have been adopting several methods to discredit the parliaments, to render them null. In contrast, the Turkish Parliament has been honourable since its
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establishment. It is one of the biggest assets of the Turkish nation and it is the duty of each citizen and each Parliamentarian not to allow anybody to speak ill of it.115 The unity of the state and nation was primarily a principle of the Kemalist and populist understanding, which denied ethno-national and religious differences within society and rearticulated the state as the manifestation of this homogeneity. Prime Minister Demirel intelligibly merged this thinking with Cold Warrior masculinity to hyperfeminise society within the new context. For Demirel, the West was an ambivalent concept, yet he always used ‘Turkey’s difference’ from the West to justify laws and regulations that hyperfeminised society further. He sometimes presented Turkey’s difference from the ‘liberal’ and ‘democratic’ West as a positive quality in the fight against communism, as shown in the above speech. However, Turkey’s difference was also articulated as a negative feature because Turkey was falling short of meeting the standards of the West. This negative representation presented the people of Turkey as less mature than Western peoples. Hence, oppressive practices towards society could be allowed until this maturity was achieved. This normalised a further hyperfeminisation of society. For example, in 1973, during Parliament negotiations about the establishment of the State Security Courts (special courts that dealt with crimes against the state), he stated that: State security concerns the ability to ensure the presence of the state and maintain its presence . . . In the contemporary world, providing security by deploying armies on the borders is almost out of date. In parallel, the strategy of dividing the country inside and provoking a system struggle within the state has been practiced successfully. The first example of this was Korea; the second one was Vietnam . . . Dear friends, the West has considered to allow communism free as a way of preventing communism. Protecting the regime is left to the hands of citizens who have consciousness and reason. In France, Italy and the United Kingdom communist parties were allowed . . . How did the UK do this (not a single member of the communist party in the House of Commons)? . . . It abandoned the thinking of ‘someone will come and trick my citizens and make them communist’. It made
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citizens responsible for the ownership of the state. Being a citizen comes with responsibility . . . I am very sorry to state that we do not know what it means to have a Republic and protect it.116 Special courts were considered necessary because citizens in Turkey were seen as not fully understanding what it means to be a citizen. Turkey’s negative difference from the West would be re-invoked continuously in different contexts in the upcoming decades. In the Cold War context, the hypermasculinised communist threat naturalised the hyperfeminisation of society, mainly targeting the left. In some cases the West became the reference point for naturalising the democratically problematic regulations. In November 1969, after Bloody Sunday and in light of increasing street violence, Prime Minister Demirel suggested the following: Even in the West, which is the cradle of democracy regarding the education of youth for the future responsibility of governing the country, the idea that the state, which is tasked with order and survival, cannot be excluded from the process, still exists. The duty of governments is not limited to deciding university budgets. Whatever its regime, no state would allow that its children, who constitute the future, be trained under the influence of partial indoctrination and against the principles of their state. In this light, our government aims to establish a ‘High Body of Universities’ without hindering the autonomous status of the universities. The majority of this body will consist of members elected by the universities, and it will also involve representatives of the government.117 Demirel’s narrative about domestic politics in the period 1960 – 70 is enlightening on many levels. Given the multifaceted foreign policy of the AP, which did not hesitate to go against US interests (see above), Demirel maintained a West-oriented foreign policy by positioning Turkey within the West but still as different from it. The West, and Turkey’s difference from the West, appeared in unusual ways. One the one hand, Turkey was articulated as different from the West (not mature enough); hence some institutions, such as State Security Courts, were represented as a necessity. On the other hand, the West
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was articulated as a model to be followed in the fight against communism. If ‘even the West’ had these non-liberal institutions, then it was normalised to imitate them in Turkey. This ambivalence cannot simply be reduced to Demirel’s pragmatic approach. Rather, in such a non-Western context where societal resistance was increasing, policy makers found that using the symbolism of the West in an ambivalent way was beneficial for re-ordering society. In domestic politics, the West was constructed and reconstructed as a reference point for formulating policies, because this specific reference would render the policies normal, acceptable, ordinary and necessary. The West was reproduced epistemologically as the source of the ‘right’ way of governing. Turkey’s economic relations with the West were often regarded as part of Turkey’s Westernisation process by AP policy makers. The AP’s famous election slogan ‘Greater Turkey’ primarily referred to rapid industrialisation and increasing annual GDP per capita.118 In other words, the AP was reproducing the DP’s ‘a millionaire in each neighbourhood’ discourse with a strong focus on industrialisation. In fact, Prime Minister Demirel himself was critical of both the DP’s economic policies and of US discontent about economic relations with the USSR, which he had accelerated to get credit for heavy industrialisation. In an interview he reflected back on the DP period and said: ‘The West did not want the industrialisation of Turkey, nor did it see it as probable. What we were suggested was agriculture’. He continued that ‘the US was disturbed by our increasing relations with the Soviets’.119 Indeed, technology and know-how, oil refineries, steel, aluminium and logging factories were founded in different cities of Turkey with Soviet capital (in addition to credit).120 Nevertheless, the biggest share of credit and loans came from the West as the US and EEC, and more than 60 per cent of Turkey’s foreign trade continued to be with the West (the US, West Germany, France, Italy, Britain and Switzerland).121 The flow of foreign investment was crucial for the AP’s economic model that was based on ISI. Therefore, opposition to the AP’s economic policies was discredited by appealing to the argument that the opposition did not want a Western, modern and developed country. For example, Demirel stated that ‘we consider the opposition to foreign investment as a behaviour which . . . does not wish our country to have strong economic, trade and
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technological relations with the West’.122 In 1970, Foreign Minister C¸ag˘layangil presented Turkey’s participation to the EEC as a matter of politics similarly to the CHP’s foreign minister, Erkin, in 1963.123 He stated that ‘the objective of the EEC is to create a political union. It is a path to Westernisation. Turkey is part of this enterprise. It is trying to secure its place in today’s united Europe’.124 In 1970, Turkey and the EEC negotiated the Additional Protocol, following the end of the fiveyear transition period determined by the Ankara Agreement in 1963. Turkey was expected to lower customs for certain products, which would eventually result in its full participation in the Customs Union. This was criticised by the opposition, both the Parliament and the press, by forwarding the argument that it would have devastating effects on the burgeoning manufacturing industry (thanks to ISI) and particularly on the agricultural sector. Foreign Minister C¸ag˘layangil spoke against the opposition in Parliament: I read an article in a French journal dated 31 January 1970, three days ago, entitled ‘The silent majority of youth’. It was talking about provocative and destructive activities in France, complaining about provocations diffused into universities and even high schools, sadly describing how educators led students astray. They asked the Minister of Internal Affairs. Here is what the Minister said: ‘creators of chaos, whatever position they have, should be crushed. Otherwise you cannot protect democracy.’ They asked the same question to the Minister of Education and he said: ‘we call all anarchist people leftists. This is wrong. I reject this. Although we are witnessing what they have caused, calling anarchists leftists honours them.’ In other words, the French Minister said that ‘we cannot explain this disgrace with communism as leftism’. True. A thousand times true . . . A leftist who is loyal to his nation, country, beliefs and honour can criticise the EEC. However, in order to use words that are popular nowadays, a person should have concealed and dirty ideas going beyond leftism.125 Similarly to Prime Minister Demirel, C¸ag˘layangil made the West a reference point in dealing with the opposition. Apparently it was a useful discourse to silence ‘the other’. However, the economy was not
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recovering. This was mainly because, as Ecevit clarified in 1974,126 Turkey’s model was promoting industrialisation based on assembly industry rather than manufacturing, and this increased dependency on the West in terms of capital and technology, and also rendered the economy more vulnerable to the fluctuations of oil prices.127 In addition, in the late 1960s, the new citizen of the AP was expected to consume luxury materials, such as washing machines, TVs and cars, albeit of low quality. Although the favourable economic conditions in the 1960s and the remittances of Turkish workers in Europe revived the economy for a while, in the mid-term these were not enough to cope with new consumerism in tandem with poor economic governance, including clientalist distribution of credits. While a new industrial bourgeois class was developing in Istanbul, the Anatolian-based trading bourgeoisie was leaving the AP in favour of an Islamist party. By 1970, Turkish citizens were consuming more than they were producing under the harsh working conditions of Turkey. On 15 –16 March 1970, the Confederation of Revolutionary Workers Union organised the biggest worker protests to that date. A year later, Demirel resigned following the military memorandum of 12 March 1971. In spite of his forceful resignation, Demirel created an interesting narrative that would be influential in the following decades. Demirel’s success in combining the Kemalist classless homogeneous national imagination with the Cold Warrior masculinity enabled him to otherise the opposition under the general rubric of communism. In the first decades of the Republic, the state and the nation were threatened by reactionary and fundamentalist forces. In the 1960–70 period, according to his narrative, the same monolithic nation was faced with the threat of communism. The nation state as well as the arguments about Turkey’s difference would shape the upcoming decades in Turkey’s domestic politics and would justify oppressive practices against societal and individual freedoms. Demirel was, if not the first, certainly the most successful policy maker in combining the Kemalist state tradition with the right-wing liberal line of thinking, thus recreating authoritarian liberalism. By 1974, the frontiers of Turkish politics were neatly formed. Ecevit’s CHP was appealing to urban dwellers, the working class, intellectuals, white-collar workers and university students. Meanwhile, Ecevit put a distance between the CHP and the military by rejecting the
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use of force against Kurdish separatism, which showed its first symptoms in the 1970s, and tried to increase civilian control over the military.128 With its new ideology, ‘the left-of-centre’ CHP attempted to reclaim the left-wing voters, especially those who were close to Kemalist populism, secularism, statism and revolutionism. In the Eighteenth Party Congress following the 1965 election defeat by AP, Ecevit had already conflated the left-of-centre with Kemalist principles: Those who reject the left-of-centre are in contradiction with Atatu¨rk’s principles. If a party places the land reform in its declaration, offers the right to strike and tries to nationalise petroleum, it is on the left-of-centre. As I˙no¨nu¨ said, the left-ofcentre concerns the consciousness of social renovation. It requires furthering statism. We are fighting against the foreign companies that try to securitise our oil . . . We did not lose the elections due to the left-of-centre. We lost them because we opposed domestic and international exploiters. We will oppose them because the salvation of the Turkish people lies here.129 This narrative articulated the left movement in the CHP as the modernised version of Kemalism and a way to revive the early Republican decades’ pro-independence, revolutionism and statist modernisation. Ecevit’s CHP, however, was not simply past revivalist. Instead, Ecevit rendered democracy as an essential component of Kemalist modernisation. Unlike the early Cold War attempts, Ecevit repeatedly defined this type of democracy as ‘liberal democracy’ that originates from Turkey’s own local and historical context and is, therefore, different from the West. Most importantly, he aimed to surpass the level of Western democracies. In 1974, he spoke thus to the Senate: We believe that the Turkish nation deserves the highest quality of democracy. We believe that neither our geographical position nor the conditions of contemporary world politics nor the deficiencies of our economy and education should require that we must be content with less freedom that real democracy offers. Our history with its rich state experience provides us with a level of political maturity that exceeds its level of economy and education. The development of Turkish society is
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inherent in its own social structure and history . . . Our objective as a government is not to fall behind the level of advanced democracies. Our real objective is to exceed that level by creating conditions where the people become stronger in government, a democracy that other nations can take an example by. We believe that when we reach the point that surpasses the level of modern democracy, we will also pave the way for our nation to reach and surpass the level of modern civilisation, as Atatu¨rk wished.130 Although it was still defined, justified and normalised through Atatu¨rk’s objective of modernisation, Ecevit’s rearticulation of democracy represented a new version, and probably the strongest one to the date, regarding its non-Western characteristics. He discursively constructed a type of democracy stemming from a non-Western context, not taking Western democracy as the ultimate level to be aimed for, but a ‘liberal democracy’ that neither the West nor the non-West could imitate. Unlike Demirel’s focus on Turkey’s difference from the West as a justification of oppression of freedoms in his authoritarian liberalism, in Ecevit’s narrative this difference (geography, culture, underdevelopment, etc.) was considered as a principle upon which ‘liberal democracy’ could be built. What is equally interesting and different in Ecevit’s narrative about democracy was his presumption that Turkey could not address its gendered ontological insecurity vis-a`-vis the West by imitating the West, remaining within the conditions of ‘modern social sciences’ and trying to become like the West. For him, the way was to construct ‘liberal democracy’ in Turkey’s own context: Dear friends, as the Honourable Parliament would concur, Turkey’s position within the community of Western democratic countries and its relations with them is crucial for its foreign policy. The most important condition to have healthy relations with these countries is to have a strong liberal democracy in Turkey.131 By making liberal democracy a condition of remaining within the West, Ecevit gave the very first example of a pro-EU narrative that would emerge in the 1990s, when the Maastricht political criteria
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became prominent in Turkey’s EU application process. Both the restrictions of freedoms by Demirel and the extension of freedoms by Ecevit aimed to keep within the West. A long-stayed tension between them underlined different faces of the West mirrored in the non-West. Similarly, the non-West also saw different faces when it looked at Turkey. In his foreign policy approach, Prime Minister Ecevit discursively and practically built a non-Western position that could say ‘No’ to the West, but without alienating Turkey from it, by adopting Western epistemological assumptions (as was discussed above with the Cyprus issue). The West and particularly Scandinavia was pictured as a benevolent unit that prioritised values over interests. That is why some Western states were concerned about the best interest of Turkey regarding democratic freedoms. Ecevit spoke about the criticisms of certain western European states, mainly Scandinavian states, about the state of democracy in Turkey: We never agree with these criticisms. In fact, the reason for the negative comments from Europe was the importance that West European and Scandinavian friends attach to liberal democracy and the perturbation they have with regard to the troubles that democracy in Turkey has experienced . . . In fact, we should be very happy [about this]. This is because in international relations, nations shape their foreign policies based on self-interest. Sometimes they give the impression that they value moral principles too, but this is always misleading. When there was conflict between interests and the principles that they claimed to be committed to, they always chose interests. Probably for the first time in the history of humanity, some nations start to prioritise some moral values and principles over their national self-interest. It is a pleasing phase for humanity, for democracy and for freedom.132 As opposed to Cold Warrior masculinity’s adherence to realism over idealism (see Fuat Ko¨pru¨lu¨’s previous comment from the early 1950s), Ecevit reversed the tables. This shows a non-Western ambivalence towards the West about democracy. Both the authoritarian liberalism and the ‘liberal democracy’ of the 1970s CHP took the West as the referent of their domestic and foreign
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policies. Both Demirel and Ecevit, and before them Menderes and I˙no¨nu¨, worked through the epistemological parameters of Western international and domestic politics. However, what made Ecevit’s liberal democracy different was his ambivalence. In foreign policy he was a realist, as in the case of Cyprus, as well as idealist to the point of being anti-imperialist regarding anti-colonial struggles. In domestic politics, Turkey’s difference from the West was praised because Turkey’s democracy should be home-grown. However, in order to construct the conditions of democracy that would surpass the equivalent Western level, it was important to listen to Scandinavian ‘friends’, as they represented a different form of international relations. No one in Ecevit’s government stayed in power long enough to implement ‘liberal democracy’.
Conclusion This chapter, covering the first 30 years of multi-party democracy in Turkey, aimed to highlight four points. Firstly, in this period Westcentrism in foreign policy was employed strongly and with material and immaterial expectations. The material expectations from the West were mainly physical security and economic aid. However, the DP policy makers adopted and used Cold Warrior masculinity to position Turkey within the West. However, when Turkey’s policy makers painfully recognised the precarious position of Turkey as a peripheral state from 1964 onwards, they returned to a multi-dimensional foreign policy with the objective of underlining Turkey’s difference from the West. In this way, they aimed to receive respect and equality from the West in the form of the US. An interesting finding of this chapter was that during the military crisis of 1974, the ‘difference’ was abandoned. Instead, sameness with the West was adopted by otherising Greece as a feminine and hypermasculine state, a state not meeting the West’s standards. Secondly, from a foreign policy perspective, it must also be underlined that Turkey’s policy makers started to deal with two different Wests during this period: the West in the form of the US that was treating Turkey like a ‘mandate state’, and the West in the form of Europe as a source of civilisation in which Turkey should be part. One of the most important conclusions from the domestic politics perspective was that Cold Warrior masculinity constituted a source of
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‘liberal authoritarianism’ in Turkey. Starting with the DP and continuing with the AP, the centre-right repeatedly used the Cold Warrior masculinity to hyperfeminise society and silence the opposition. The West as a justification and normalisation tool for both non-liberal practices and democratic reforms highlighted the multiplicity of its reproductions in non-Western domestic politics. Regarding this, the period between 1950 and 1980 was a precursor of the 1980s, which will be discussed in the next chapter.
CHAPTER 5 ENCOUNTERS WITH THE NEOLIBERAL MASCULINITY OF THE WEST:
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The significance of the period 1950–80 lay in the emergence of multiple modulations of the West in non-Western imaginations. In the early decades of the Republic, the West was geographically ‘Europe’ and, ideationally, Europe was the ‘civilisation’ that Turkey was longing to join. Membership to this civilisation was manifested in terms of joining West-centric intergovernmental political organisations and adopting a liberal economy. After World War II, the West started to be divided into two: the US and Europe. The former was prioritised over the latter and was mainly understood in economic and strategic terms. The DP’s discourse of creating ‘one millionaire in each neighbourhood’ and becoming the US representative in the Middle East underlined this approach. However, even in this period, Turkey’s membership to the Council of Europe and the EEC was articulated as the reaffirmation of Turkey’s place within the civilised West as Europe. Between 1960 and 1980, the emergence of potential EEC membership and the Ankara Agreement multiplied the representations of the West(s) in Turkey. When the first criticisms by Europe against Turkey about democracy and human rights started to appear, they were perceived as possible reasons through which Turkey’s Western credentials were denied. Hence, it is not surprising that Prime Minister Ecevit strongly connected democracy in Turkey to its position within the West. However, unlike the DP experience, he redefined Turkey’s democratic
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experience in terms of its own locality. This was an example of substantive hybridity. In the following decades, however, political criticisms from Europe remained a reminder of Turkey’s non-Western position and its ontological insecurity. The military coup of 12 September 1980, led by General Kenan Evren (president, 1982– 9), launched a new phase in Turkey’s relations with the West and a re-articulation of its domestic politics in relation to the multiple Wests. In particular, Turkey’s attempts to catch up with the standards of neoliberal hegemonic masculinity of the West(s) facilitated both opportunities and crises in Turkey’s foreign and domestic politics. On the one hand, in order to catch up with the liberal and democratic standards of the neoliberal hegemonic masculinity of the West(s), democratic reforms were launched. On the other hand, the conservative dimension of neoliberalism that reduces politics to economics undergird by nationalism, religion, xenophobia and antifeminism enabled the reproduction of the state as the paternal protector of society by victimising certain groups. Furthermore, this conservative neoliberalism was appropriated in Turkey’s local historical and political context, metaphors from the past such as ‘sick man’ and articulations of minorities as the ‘extensions of external enemies’ were revived. In this chapter, the 1980– 2013 period will be divided into three sub-periods. The first sub-period covers the decade starting from the coup and the end of the Cold War. Known as ‘O¨zal period’, it shows strong resemblance to the DP’s West-centrism and hyperfeminisation of society. In this sub-period, ‘the Turkish –Islamic synthesis’, supported by the neoliberal economy, was constructed and promoted by the state in Turkey’s politics so as to re-articulate Turkey as a reliable part of the ‘Green Line’ that the US had formulated against the Soviets. Prime ¨ zal himself was the manifestation of this synthesis: Turk, Minister O Muslim and a market man. The second period focuses on the 1990s, when Turkey’s policy makers felt strong ontological insecurity vis-a`-vis the West. On the one hand, the end of the Cold War and the debates about the position of NATO rendered policy makers anxious about Turkey’s position in this ‘new world order’. On the other hand, political criticisms by the EEC (from 1992 onwards, the EU) and Turkey’s exclusion from the EU based on these criticisms deepened ontological insecurity, thus bringing the historical memories of the late Ottoman period back into politics. As a
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result, Turkey’s policy makers started to focus on the ‘difference’ of Turkey from the West to prove Turkey’s value. Islam, blended with Turkish nationalism, was strongly integrated into the articulations of Turkey’s difference in policy makers’ narratives. In domestic politics, the Turkish – Islamic synthesis was fed with militarism and a distorted version of Kemalism. The last period spans from 2002, with the election of the AKP, to May 2013, when the Gezi protests took place. The AKP period showed similarities with its predecessors, both in foreign and domestic politics. While the focus on ‘civilisation’ emerged as a marker of difference in its foreign policy, in domestic politics the construction of a neoliberal, consumerist and conservative citizen, yet still subordinated to the state, was operationalised. Therefore, unlike some approaches in the literature, the AKP’s ideology and practices will be discussed as submodern and a continuation, rather than a rupture, of the previous periods’ trends regarding Turkey’s relations with the neoliberal West.
The Neoliberal Masculinity of the West(s) and its Appropriation in Turkey In the last three decades, global economic structures have evolved towards what is often referred to as neoliberal capitalism, characterised by privatisation, financialisation of the economy, commodification of material (i.e. urban and non-urban spaces) and immaterial goods (i.e. culture, art) and weakened state regulations of the market. This has replaced what Harvey calls the ‘embedded liberalism’ of the 1960s, when the liberal economy was restrained by laws and regulations.1 In many countries, the financialisation of the economy is paralleled by a boost in the real estate industry that was backed by the statesupported mortgage schemes. A similar process with its own peculiarities could be observed in the ‘developing world’, a geographical fixation of certain countries that were close to ‘catching up’ with the standards of neoliberal capitalism. To this aim, many ‘developing’ countries, including Chile, Argentina and Turkey since the 1980s, neoliberalised their economies supported by the IMF’s structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) and World Bank policies, and were repeatedly hit by economic crises. The neoliberal capitalist economy, which varies across different countries, operates on a basic principle
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stated by Joseph Stiglitz: ‘economic Darwinism’.2 In this economic articulation of ‘the survival of the fittest’ in the market of finance, individuals are left unprotected by the state, whose main institutions, such as Parliament and judiciary, and values such as democracy and democratic accountability, are designed to serve the financial interests of the few. This is what Alain Badiou calls ‘capitalo-parliamentarism’, a system based on the combination of the capital and ostensibly representative politics.3 The problem of democracy, however, is more complex and social than ‘capitalo-parliamentarism’. On the one hand, the neoliberal ‘Empire’, as Hardt and Negri powerfully argue, does not oppress differences, but accepts, legitimises, co-opts and governs them. This co-option is the fundamental way of maintaining the survival of neoliberal economic relations without being seriously challenged.4 It is a fact that several social movements, from LGBTQ rights to minority rights, have found strong backings from the state and international institutions in the post-Cold War ‘new world order’. Post-modernism as the cultural and ideological companion of neoliberalism diffuses the idea of ‘celebration of differences’ while rejecting any type of solidarity between them, because the inevitability of such ‘solidarity’ would lead to new hegemonies.5 On the other hand, neoliberalism needs a broad electoral basis, which ‘could be mobilised through the positives of religion and cultural nationalism and negatively through coded, if not blatant, racism, homophobia and anti-feminism’.6 To these exclusionary and violent ideologies it is possible to add xenophobia, anti-immigrant ideologies and anti-environmentalism. As a result, the neoliberal Empire is constantly reconstructed through reproducing conservative subjectivities, while keeping the potential resistant movements under control through diffusing post-modernist ideologies pertaining to nonsolidarity and non-alliance. Although the gender dimension of neoliberalism has been studied,7 the question of how neoliberal hegemonic masculinities are constructed or how a masculine neoliberal state can be identified has not been efficiently discussed. Neoliberal masculinity has two dimensions. Economically, the neoliberal ‘man’ is aggressive, entrepreneurial, riskprone and consumerist. He does not approve of state regulations that intervene into the market because they hinder the flexibility of ‘homo economicus’. Politically, while ‘individual freedoms’ is the keyword for
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performing politics universally, he has an ambivalent relationship with the concept of freedom. On the one hand, neoliberal masculinity categorically needs individual freedoms to reproduce itself ideologically. In the ‘new world order’, conventional communal ties (from totalitarian ideologies to solidarity movements) are allegedly replaced by a rational and universal individualism; therefore, neoliberal masculinity cannot make ideological claims against individual freedoms. On the other hand, the ‘neoliberal man’ is uncomfortable if individual freedoms form solidarity networks that challenge ‘capitaloparliamentarism’. In addition to the objective of forming a firm electoral basis, neoliberal masculinity promotes conservative values. In contemporary global politics, the Wests again represent neoliberal hegemonic masculinity. As the standards of West(s) hegemonic masculinity transformed from the Cold Warrior to the neoliberal market man, the non-West was faced with the challenge of catching up with these new standards. However, as discussed below, neoliberal Western masculinity has been appropriated in non-Western contexts in novel ways by interacting with the political conditions that are formed historically. Furthermore, Turkey’s policy makers’ neoliberal masculinity projects have enabled the revival of many oppressive practices of the previous decades. Economically, policy makers, especially from the centreright, redefined being ‘Western’ in terms of economic growth, market liberalisation and related policies such as supporting consumerism, private entrepreneurship and removal of restrictions on finance and privatisation. In foreign policy with the West and non-West, economic interpretations of foreign policy dominated. As a result, reconciliation, dialogue and democratic solutions to foreign policy problems are prioritised so that economic relations can flourish. In addition, in this period it became common practice to attempt to convince the West (specifically Europe) about Turkey’s economic value for the West as a ‘bridge’ and ‘energy hub’. The political dimension of non-Western neoliberal masculinity is, however, enmeshed with contradictions. As will be discussed below, while individual freedoms, human rights and democracy were often versed concepts for Turkey’s policy makers, failure to operationalise them was a source of ontological insecurity vis-a`-vis the West(s). Constant criticisms, especially from Europe, regarding minority rights,
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non-democratic practices and human rights violations revived the memories of the later Ottoman period; in policy makers’ narratives, Turkey was again feminised as incapable of conducting its own domestic politics, as well as hypermasculinised as an aggressive and militarist towards its own people and neighbours. This devalorisation had multiple effects on the international and domestic politics of Turkey. To address gendered subordination, Turkey’s policy makers used economic arguments (in line with the ‘homo economicus’) and Islam as the valuable difference between Turkey and the West. The Turkish – Islamic synthesis was the appropriation of the conservative standards of the neoliberal hegemonic masculinity of the West(s) in Turkey’s context. Islam, blended with Turkish nationalism, was the main conservative ideology that policy makers used to define Turkey’s difference from the West(s). Islam, therefore, was positioned at the centre of ‘white but not quite’. Paradoxically, the Turkish– Islamic synthesis resulted in human right violations by hyperfeminising society, which in turn fed the criticisms of the West. In the last decade, referred to as the AKP period, policy makers addressed some of these criticisms through extensive reforms. However, attempts to catch up with the neoliberal hegemonic masculinity of the West(s) continued in an increasing manner. When the state became an aggressive ‘market man’ expressing a Turkish –Islamic ideology, society eventually reacted over ‘a few trees’ in Gezi Park, Istanbul, in May 2013. The following discussion concerns Turkey’s encounters with the neoliberal hegemonic masculinity of the West(s).
Islam as Turkey’s ‘Valuable Difference’ for the West: Neoliberal Turkey’s Foreign Policy from the Green Line to the Greater Middle East Project Neoliberal hegemonic masculinity’s liberal democratic dimension required the promotion of human rights and democratic governance in Turkey. In particular, vocal criticisms against Turkey from the West as Europe about democracy and human rights violations caused uneasiness for Turkey’s policy makers. In their understanding, the West was subordinating and feminising Turkey by denying its basic rights of statehood. President Evren’s opening speech in Parliament in 1983 highlighted his uneasiness about the way that Turkey was treated by Europe:
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To a certain extent, I understand the criticisms of these countries about the slow return to democracy, even if they are unfair. However, it is not possible to associate certain practices, which have nothing to do with the return of democracy, with their good intentions: cutting economic aid, interfering with the decisions of independent courts instead of condemning the attacks targeting our diplomatic representations, making decisions as if they are encouraging these attacks, making statements as if there was a separate ethnic group and they were treated discriminately in Turkey and, more sadly, making demands to send committees to monitor whether the aid to help our citizens after the earthquake was sent to its recipients. These actions delay the return to democracy.8 Evren’s uneasiness had two dimensions. First, he was uncomfortable that the West as Europe had become a reminder and challenger of what the post-coup policy makers aimed to construct: a homogenous nation without differences that served the interests of the state. Although this project had a strong political and historical legacy since the late Ottoman period, it contradicted the standards of neoliberal masculinity of the West. The second dimension was more consolidated than the first. It concerned the gendered devalorisation of Turkey by the West as incompetent in its domestic affairs, following the earthquake in Erzincan in October 1983 amid news about the inability of the Turkish state to organise post-disaster international aid. His deeper concern was about Europe’s demands regarding the reconsideration of capital punishment in Turkey. He continued: In a telegram sent to me from a group from the Council of Europe, whose name I cannot say, they asked me to reconsider a decision of a court, which, according to them, was brutal. Those who sent me this telegram, do they think that Turkey is ruled by the law of nature? If they think so, why do they keep Turkey in the Council of Europe? Do they not know that Turkish courts are independent and recognise no higher authority? Of course they do. They do, but they still think that they have the right to interfere in Turkey’s domestic affairs and even in its independent courts.9
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The insecurity articulated by Evren about the gendered devalorisation of Turkey as a subordinated non-Western state to Europe was more evident in his aforementioned words. In the pre-coup period, Prime Minister Ecevit had a similar concern about the US, as it was treating Turkey as ‘a mandate state’. The denial of territorial sovereignty was an important source of gendered insecurity for the non-Western states; however, policy makers within the same state can give different reactions. Ecevit’s reaction was far from hypermasculine, but was still firm towards the US. Criticisms about democracy in Turkey from Europe had enabled Ecevit to imagine, albeit not pursue, a democratisation agenda. Evren’s reaction towards Europe was, in contrast, hypermasculinised, and very similar to some Young Turks’ modulations of the West. He found his answer to the question of why Europe continued to subordinate Turkey throughout history: Since the last period of the Ottoman Empire, these countries have not given up, unfortunately, seeing Turkey as a sick man, creating obstacles in each and every instance and thinking that they have the right to interfere into Turkey’s domestic affairs. Interestingly, these practices have become their habit.10 Evren’s reference to the declining period of the Ottoman Empire and to European interference in the Empire’s domestic affairs can be explained as a strategic and political move to delegitimise the criticisms from Europe in domestic politics. However, the crucial dimension of his approach for this analysis lies in the productive effect of this narrative originating from the late Ottoman period. Evren defended Turkey’s internal sovereignty not by referring to the norms of the international society, but by linking the historical experience of the Empire to contemporary politics. He argued that the European states never gave up their intentions over Turkey. Showing that hypermasculinity cloaks insecurities, the post-coup policy makers suffered from gendered ontological insecurity, which motivated them to pursue ‘reverse Orientalism’ in their narratives. Their security policy was to essentialise Turkey’s difference and construct a citizen that was expected to be sceptical towards the West as Europe (see the Turkish – Islamic synthesis discussion below). Interestingly, the conservative politics of neoliberal masculinity facilitated such a practice.
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The non-Western ambivalence towards the West as Europe was obvious in President Evren’s narrative. In 1987, he stated the desire to become part of the EEC, the formation of the very countries he criticised above, by linking the issue to the Kemalist modernisation process: One of the main objectives of our foreign policy is to become a full member of the EEC. Secular Turkey shares the same democratic ideals with the members of the Community and endeavours to pursue its economic development policy in harmony with the general principles of the Community. Integration into the EEC will be the consequence of the Westernisation process that the Turkish nation has been pursuing in the last 150 years. We believe that Turkey’s membership will provide an important economic, political and cultural dimension to the Community.11 ¨ zal government (Motherland Party, ANAP, 1983– 9) applied for The O full membership to the EEC in 1987. Reminding of Menderes’ decision in 1959 (see Chapter 4), Prime Minister O¨zal explained the reason for the application as gaining leverage against Greece.12 Turkey’s policy makers strongly desired to become a full member of the Western institution with which Turkey had economic and political relations, and in which Greece enjoyed veto power.13 Falling behind Greece in becoming ‘Western’ enabled policy makers to pursue attempts to convince Europe about Turkey’s valuable difference, albeit undergird by non-Western ambivalence. For example, Foreign Minister Vahit Halefog˘lu argued that Turkey’s participation would enhance Europe culturally and politically and would ‘facilitate the EEC’s relations with the Middle East’.14 Turkey’s Parliament defined the European Parliament (EP) as a tool in the hands of those who scheme against ‘Turkey’s territorial unity’ in the face of subsequent reports by the EP about the Kurdish problem and the Armenian question.15 One of the primary reasons why Turkey revitalised its interest in the EEC was that trade with the Middle East countries had started to decline, and imports from the EEC countries had increased to around 40 per cent.16 This reasoning was a mimicry of the neoliberal masculinity’s tendency towards economic political processes. However, messages from the West as Europe were not positive.
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Nevertheless, Prime Minister O¨zal tried to dismiss the exclusion of Turkey from the EEC due to problems of democracy by arguing that the real reason why the EEC had rejected Turkey was the high competitiveness of Turkey in certain industries such as textiles.17 By ¨ zal’s neoliberal economic reasoning, a comment from a falsifying O member of the European Commission had the potential to inflame Turkey’s policy makers’ ontological insecurity. By essentialising both Western and non-Western cultures, the comment referred to the ‘different’ and Islamic culture of Turkey and its incompatibility with Europe.18 In this context, the first examples of the utilisation of Islam as Turkey’s difference from the West and an asset for the latter emerged. Turkey’s modulation as a ‘bridge’ between the West and the Middle East constituted the geographical and cultural dimensions of this new asset role. In 1983, O¨zal stated that: We believe that our ties with the Western world and our increasing relations with the Middle East and Arab countries are complementary to each other. On the one hand, Turkey’s geographical position as a bridge between the West and the Middle East, and on the other, our common historical and cultural heritage prompt us to pay special attention to the Islamic world.19 The bridge metaphor was re-used politically and economically after Ecevit in order to geostrategise Turkey’s geography as an essential state for the West. According to Foreign Minister Halefog˘lu, in an unstable Middle East and East Mediterranean region, Turkey had ‘responsibilities’ and expected its ‘Western friends and Middle East brothers’ to understand this.20 As will be discussed below, the main ‘responsibility’ of Turkey, in Turkey’s policy makers’ narratives, was to contribute to stability in line with US interests and to facilitate Europe’s relations with the Middle East, both politically and economically. It must be noted that the bridge metaphor was highly related to the desire to adopt the neoliberal masculinity of the West that reasons politics with economy. Foreign Minister Halefog˘lu argued that ‘Turkey had a very special place in the Middle East and Islamic world’ that would contribute to increased economic relations with them.21 Economically, as President Evren argued:
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We should not forget that there is a fierce economy war in the world today. We need to develop our economic relations with all countries, but especially with Middle East, Arab and Muslim countries and neighbours. We should lessen the bureaucratic obstacles and formalities in exports.22 Indeed, in this period, following the neoliberal ideology, the ANAP governments removed the obstacles for non-Turkish bank investments in Turkey; the share of the Saudi capital increased in the Turkish ¨ zal’s banking system through institutions such as Al-Baraka Tu¨rk (O brother was one of the board members) and Faisal Finance, which funded more than 50 Islamist publishing houses, journals and newspapers.23 With the contribution of the isolation from the West due to the coup and concomitant efforts to encourage export through devaluations of the Turkish lira, exports to the Middle East increased sharply from 18 per cent to 40 per cent.24 In order to have a better understanding of centre-right ANAP policy makers’ articulations of the West and the Middle East, the neoliberal understanding of modernisation that O¨zal adopted and operationalised should be emphasised. Catching up with Western standards of hegemonic masculinity was dominated by discussions about ‘civilisation’ or being a Cold Warrior. The new standards were articulated in relation to economic growth, development and free-market economy. With his roots in political Islam, the new conservative and liberal prime minister of the post-coup period articulated Westernisation and modernisation primarily economically and then politically (for pragmatic reasons), but not ¨ zal, was less Europe and more culturally.25 That is why the West, for O US. In the 1988 annual budget negotiations, he stated in Parliament: ‘In the last four years we made very important changes, very important structural changes in Turkey. What was the point of this? Why was it done? Our nation has had this inferiority (eziklik) in the last 100 years, a feeling of inferiority, a complex in relation to the West’.26 Some members of the opposition parties challenged him by stating that ‘you are insulting the nation’ and ‘do you feel inferior to the Greeks, Mr Prime Minister?’27 ¨ zal continued: However, O Different governments since the times of the Ottomans practiced several policies to address this problem and adopted various
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reforms . . . In the end, the Republic was founded and the great Atatu¨rk said that the most important goal is to achieve the level of contemporary civilisation and even surpass it. How do we do this? How do we surpass that level?28 ¨ zal defined three types of countries in the world: agricultural Then, O countries, raw material producers and industrialised states. His example was South Korea, which, according to him, became industrialised under a dictatorship, although Turkey achieved this with democracy. ‘Finally, Turkey solved its decades’ old problem of inferiority and became an industrialised country’, he concluded.29 O¨zal’s economic development as modernisation was articulated as a solution to Turkey’s gendered ontological insecurity: Because we diagnosed the problems correctly and moved to a free market economy, the labels attached to us more than 150 years ago, such as ‘the sick man’, ‘Turks cannot do anything, only the Westerners can do whatever needs to be done’ are now gone. In economic, social and administrative areas, many reforms were conducted . . . Turkey has become an island of peace and stability in its region . . . My dear citizens, let us put an end to the misery of the Turks lasting more than 400 years . . . The 21st century will be the century of the Turks.30 ¨ zal revitalised the ‘sick man’ It is not surprising that Prime Minister O metaphor used by Evren and argued that the ‘sick man’ was healed thanks to the free market economy. This is an interesting manifestation of how politics of masculinities operate by constructing peculiar ¨ zal tried to address the feminisation of Turkey when combinations. O Europe was modulated as ‘civilisation’ by mimicking the standards of contemporary neoliberal masculinity. In the case of non-West, where devalorisation has a historical legacy, catching up with the contemporary standards of the West(s)’ hegemonic masculinities should be thought in relation to this legacy. During the ‘treatment’ process of ‘the sick man’, in line with the new neoliberal touch on liberal authoritarianism, the ANAP governments pursued intensive privatisation and de-bureaucratisation of the state by integrating new individuals that were educated
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¨ zal and had worked in the banking system in the US.31 Although O considered these new members as ‘modern’,32 as a conservative nationalist his economically liberal approach was underlined by a staunch nationalism. In the post-Cold War world he was talking about ‘the Turkish world from the Adriatic to the Chinese Wall’, which primarily appeared during the hypermasculinised Young Turk period and was re-brought to light by Fuller.33 The image of ‘greater Turkey’ was emerging in the post-coup policy makers’ narratives as the economic and financial crises were addressed, and with the neoliberalisation of trade shortages it became a memory of the 1970s. Turkey was like a European country (note O¨zal’s words above), not a ‘sick man’. The return to the late Ottoman metaphors did not simply mark the deeper ontological insecurity vis-a`-vis the West due to political and economic instabilities. Hypermasculinised reactions to the West stemming from reverse Orientalism also became normalised, particularly in domestic politics (see below). However, in foreign policy, while the West as Europe excluded Turkey, Turkey’s neoliberal policy makers’ turned their eyes towards the West as the US, which gave rise to a momentary West-centric foreign policy in the 1980s. Turkey’s increasing relations with the Middle East prompted some ¨ zal abandoned ‘Kemalist isolationist policies scholars to argue that O ¨ zal’s ‘neo-Ottomanist’35 foreign towards neighbouring countries’.34 O policy was very much related to economic interests and the role that the West as the US tailored for Turkey in the Middle East. Until the Gulf War, Turkey’s relations with the West as the US were designed in a way in which Turkey would support the US position in the Middle East by protecting stability in the region. In the immediate aftermath of the coup, several thorny Turkey – US issues of the 1970s (such as Greece’s re-entry into NATO’s military flank, which Turkey had repeatedly vetoed before the coup, and limitations in the use of US bases in Turkey) were resolved. Furthermore, Turkey became a geostrategic asset for the US, and the ANAP governments were keen to benefit from this position to receive more financial aid, as in the 1950s.36 With the objective of ‘deterring aggression in the Persian Gulf’, the US created a rapid deployment force to be situated in some Gulf states but also in Turkey.37 In the Turkey-centred literature, this strategy was called ‘the Green Line’ (Yes¸il Kus¸ak), because the dominantly Muslim-populated
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states were part of the strategy against the ‘red’ menace.38 According to ¨ zal stated during his visit in Washington DC Uzgel, Prime Minister O in March 1985 that a strong Turkey could be effective in the Middle East. In November, new military agreements were signed and military airports were built in the East Anatolian towns of Mus¸ and Batman.39 While the government publicly denied that Turkey was cooperating with the US in the Middle East, according to the rapid deployment force strategy of the US military in the Middle East, Turkey seemed to be provided the necessary infrastructural support.40 West-centrism reappeared in Turkey’s foreign policy for the first time since the DP. However, in the 1980s, the West was divided between the US and Europe in Turkey’s decision makers’ modulations of the West. This was partly derived from the dualities of the neoliberal hegemonic masculinity of the West(s). Economically market-oriented and militarily and politically US-centric, Turkey was reviving the DP model of the 1950s in the 1980s neoliberal context. Europe, however, remained as a reminder that Turkey did not belong to the West in the form of Europe due to failing the democratic-liberal dimension of neoliberal masculinity. In other words, different standards of neoliberal hegemonic masculinity of different Wests were emerging, and this put Turkey’s policy makers in the precarious position of not wishing to be subordinated. In fact, these dualities first emerged during the 1970s and were crystallised in the neoliberal period. In this context, the changing world politics and the approaching Gulf War was both a source of crisis and opportunity for Turkey in 1990. Although Turkey’s position within the West as Europe was questioned more and more, and the fate of ¨ zal attempted to use NATO was open to discussion, Prime Minister O the crisis with Iraq as an opportunity to position Turkey within the West by connecting it to the Middle East: It is a fact that changing world politics has broadened the parameters of our foreign policy. A good example of this is that Turkey rapidly started to practise economic embargo (against Iraq) immediately after the resolution of the Security Council. This increased the global reputation of our country and put us in front of many others. A delay in this decision would decrease any positive effect and would create the impression that we made the decision under pressure . . . Esteemed members of Parliament,
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Turkey is a powerful country and the provider of stability in its region; it is an indispensable country for both the West and the East, a bridge between the two.41 By the end of the 1980s and the 60-year long Cold War period, Turkey’s policy makers were in an ambivalent position vis-a`-vis the West(s), as it was not possible to perceive one West. This was also the case during the Cold War. However, the West as Europe continued to reject Turkey’s Western credentials, while the West as the US tailored specific roles for Turkey. As a non-Western state, Turkey was in an ambivalent position and was heading towards the most serious military crisis since 1974: the Kardak/Imia crisis in 1996 with a NATO ally and the ‘historical face of the West’, Greece. What was the context of Turkey’s reaction to the crisis? It can be best described as anxiety originating from the end of the Cold War, which disturbed Turkey’s traditional role as a ‘frontline state’ that was replaced by the modulation of Turkey as a neoliberal ‘market man’. However, this does not necessarily mean that Turkey’s policy makers’ historical uneasiness about Greece disappeared. Instead, historical insecurities were appropriated in a neoliberal context. Greece had applied for full membership to the EEC in 1975 and gained full membership in 1981. In 1978, Prime Minister Ecevit froze Turkey’s responsibilities for completing the Customs Union with the EEC, and the 1980 military coup led the European Parliament to freeze ¨ zal, Turkey relations with Turkey. Under the premiership of O reinvigorated relations with the EEC. The application of Turkey for full membership in April 1987 was rejected in December 1989. To deepen the perception of the unconditional Western (i.e. European) support to Greece – because the latter was considered ‘one of them’ – Turkey’s policy makers started to look at the problems with Greece from the prism of inclusion and exclusion from Europe.42 Greece’s inclusion in the West was institutionalised whereas Turkey remained an outsider. During the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, Turkey’s policy makers’ insecurity vis-a`-vis the West as Europe further intensified due to the highly critical stance of the EU towards the democracy and human rights record of Turkey.43 Turkey was represented as a hypermasculinised (aggressive, non-democratic and oppressive) state, which conflicted with the liberal democratic neoliberal masculinity of
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the West in the ‘new world order’.44 While Turkey’s position within the EEC/EU was perilous, the post-Cold War period deepened the problem of ontological insecurity on the side of NATO. Turkey’s policy makers historically represented Turkey’s Western credentials with heavy reference to its NATO membership. With the end of the Cold War discussions about NATO’s place in the new global order, policy makers were put in a precarious position.45 Their insecurity about ‘Turkey’s relevance for the West’ increased when NATO seemed determined to strategise European security through the western European Union, of which Turkey was not a member.46 Similarly to the period after the Johnson letter, Turkey developed a multifaceted foreign policy as a response by increasing relations with the newly independent central Asian states and the Middle East.47 This first led Turkey’s policy makers to redefine Turkey’s geographical position. The centre-right True Path Party (Dog˘ru Yol Partisi, DYP) led by Su¨leyman Demirel and the centre-left Social Democratic Populist Party (Sosyal Demokrat Halkc ı Parti, SHP) (1991–3) formed the coalition that led Turkey to the end of the Cold War. Hikmet C¸etin from the SHP became foreign minister and defined Turkey’s geography as a new opportunity, a new valuable geostrategic role: Turkey is no longer the frontline state of the Cold War, but has acquired a central position in the new map to define new international power balances. Indeed, our country is situated on the focal point of multiple sensitive balances, from the western shores of the Atlantic to the borders of China. In comparison to the past, this creates more opportunities for Turkey to deepen international peace and security and contribute to international cooperation in a wider sphere.48 According to this representation of the geographical position of Turkey, the end of the Cold War released Turkey from the confinements of being a frontline state. Now Turkey was a strategically important state thanks to its geographical position, according to policy makers’ modulations of Turkey in the post-Cold War context. Prime Minister Demirel suggested the establishment of a ‘Union of Turkic states’, encouraged the new states to adopt the Latin alphabet and made Turkey the ‘bridge’ that supplied Caspian energy sources to the world market.49 These
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policies were underlined by the incentive to create a ‘Turkish model’. Meanwhile, Turkey and Russia took the initiative of establishing the Black Sea Economic Cooperation in 1992 in parallel with flourishing economic, scientific, educational and cultural relations between these two states situated on the edge of the West.50 Turkey became the first NATO member to purchase military equipment from Russia for use against the PKK.51 Nearly three months after this speech, Foreign Minister C¸etin defined the same geography differently and tailored a role for Turkey in this ‘unstable’ area: With the end of the Cold War, the sources of instability have shifted from central to Eastern Europe, in other words to the Balkans and Caucasus. If we take risks and uncertainties in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey lies at the juncture of an area that has several risks and uncertainties, and needs stability and cooperation. The need for stability and cooperation in such a broad geographical area increases the importance of Turkey’s peaceful policies . . . Our government considers developing ties with new democracies in central and Eastern Europe . . . We will continue to share our experiences in development and the free market economy with these countries and contribute to solutions to their problems.52 This narrative about Turkey in the post-Cold War area as an ‘experienced’ democracy with a free market economy became a recurrent representation of Turkey as meeting the new standards of neoliberal hegemonic masculinities of the West(s). This narrative would re-emerge with the crisis in Greece (see below). However, criticisms from the West as Europe about the state of democracy in Turkey challenged this representation and prompted C¸etin to argue that Turkey would make the reforms not for the EU, but for its people.53 Related to this narrative, another policy was strongly re-underlined by attempts to convince the West about Turkey’s ‘unique value’ as a role model. The coalition government programme of the DYP and the SHP, led by DYP’s Tansu C¸iller (1993– 5), stated that ‘Turkey has a special position within Europe and Eurasia. We are with the Western world. We are a secular, democratic and modern member of the Islamic world. We are a model country.’54 The problem of this approach was that the central
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Asian states, which had just been freed from the Soviet domination, were not comfortable with the ‘big brother’ role that Turkey had claimed for itself.55 Therefore, the DYP –SHP governments invoked economic reasoning to prove Turkey’s value for the West and continued Turkey’s efforts to increase relations with its neighbours, especially with central Asian states, showing ‘intention to become an “energy hub”, a role that only a “bridge state” can play’.56 In 1995, the EU confirmed Turkey’s accession to the Customs Union, starting from January 1996. Before the accession, Turkey’s ontological insecurity about the West was powerful. In March 1995, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly accepted a very critical report about the Kurdish problem and Turkey’s military incursion to northern Iraq against the PKK. Erdal I˙no¨nu¨, foreign minister from the SHP, reflected on Turkey’s ontological insecurity by stating that Turkey was not being treated as ‘one of them’: It is unacceptable that the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly is questioning the unitary regime in Turkey. I admit that it is difficult to explain this attitude with their benign intentions. Which Western European country would invite an investigatory committee for the solution concerning a problem in its domestic affairs? . . . We expect the Council to respect the political unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of a country that has been its member for 46 years.57 With such anxiety derived from devalorisation, Turkey signed the Customs Union agreement. Prime Minister C¸iller was represented in the Turkish media as the leader that ‘made Turkey European’: a nonWestern desire for the West.58 However, the rise of political Islam emerged as an obstacle to fulfilling this desire by challenging the model country representations. Before 9/11, hypermasculinised representations of political Islam59 as violent, excessively aggressive, oppressive and reactionary shaped Turkey’s domestic and international affairs. For example, during the 1995 election campaign, C¸iller represented herself as the modern and liberal panacea of the political Islamist Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, RP). Her election would secure Turkey’s place in the West.60 However, this did not prevent an election defeat in December 1995 when the RP came first
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and the DYP second. None of the parties could form a government single-handedly and the DYP was refraining from forming a coalition with RP, which claimed that Turkey’s place was not in a ‘Christian Union’.61 Messages from the EU about ‘rising Islamism’ in Turkey and the improbability of the EU accepting a possible Islamist government in Turkey rendered centre policy makers anxious about reverberations of an Islamist government on Turkey’s relations with the West.62 While Turkey was struggling with the government crisis, the ‘flag race’ of several Turkish and Greek journalists on the islets of Imia/Kardak in the Aegean Sea, whose status was disputed, triggered a military crisis between Greece and Turkey. Turkey’s policy makers perceived the issue as a violation of territorial waters. Both sides deployed small-scale special military units to the rocks. The crisis was averted by a US diplomatic intervention. The problem that Turkey’s policy makers were faced with was the difficulty of dealing with such a military crisis, which provoked hypermasculinised reactions in domestic politics without reconstructing aggressive, irrational and emotionally subordinated non-Western masculine identity, when neoliberal hegemonic masculinity of the West(s) suggest dialogue, diplomacy and reconciliation. For the West(s)’ neoliberal hegemonic masculinity, political aggressiveness was not acceptable, and problems in democracy and human rights had already recreated an image of aggression and militarism. Turkey’s policy makers had to address this image. First, as in the case of Cyprus, Greece was discursively constructed as an irrational, aggressive and hard-headed state, whereas Turkey rationally looked for opportunities for peaceful solutions to the problem. This can be observed in the words of President Su¨leyman Demirel: The relations are getting tense. We are on the side of peace but the other side is not keen on it. It is necessary to look for and find peaceful solutions. Principally, Greece should remember that we are neighbours. Not all problems are handled through conflict. We should keep calm.63 In other words, Greece’s irresoluteness left no option for Turkey but to send special units to the adjacent islets on account of Greece’s irrational and even emotional foreign policy. Feminising Greece’s masculinity by
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attributing irrationality and emotionality can also be observed in Nu¨zhet Kandemir’s statement, Turkey’s ambassador to Washington. He argued that following the military intervention in Cyprus in 1974, Greece’s emotional foreign policy was successful thanks to the Greek lobby in the US, as opposed to Turkey’s realistic and rational foreign policy that upheld international law. He continued: This time, however, in the Kardak case, the international community insisted upon a resolution grounded in universally accepted principles that did not rely on religion, race or historical vengeance. The United States and the European Union asked Turkey and Greece to settle their dispute peacefully and within the prescribed legal framework. In Turkey’s view, this even-handed reaction of our allies was encouraging and further set an example for others to follow . . . There is no other option for the established democracies but to act as a role model in this regard and to begin by applying international rules amongst themselves first.64 He starts with feminising Greece. However, he continues, this irrational and emotional foreign policy was not welcome in the international community ‘this time’. This resulted in what Turkey had been longing for: equal treatment from the international community. In the last part, he writes Turkey (and Greece) within the group of ‘established democracies’, takes a paternal attitude towards Greece and encourages it to act like a democracy: ‘What other hope is there for the emerging nations if we fail?’65 Needless to say, all these positive developments were rendered possible by ‘Turkey’s resolute response’.66 ‘Turkey’s resolute response’ was to send special military units to the rocks. According to Turkey’s media of the period, Prime Minister C¸iller told Holbrooke that ‘Turkey would never give concessions about its sovereignty. Kardak is our territory . . . How could I give up a territory belonging to us?’67 She also added that a ‘decisive image’ is important in foreign policy. While this narrative is a reminder of the hypermasculinity of the ITC and contradicts the neoliberal standards of international politics, given the hypermasculine reactions in the Parliament, she did not have any other option. For example, an MP stated that ‘skirt-wearing Greek soldiers should leave the rocks at
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once’. Another argued that Turkey should remind Greece of what happened in 1974 and ‘should not hesitate to slap it again’.68 Although these MPs were from different political parties, national unity was achieved in relation to feminising Greece as opposed to a strong, active and dominant Turkey. Following the crisis, an RP – DYP coalition government was formed. The political Islamist party as the biggest partner of the coalition was in power for the first time, but did very little to pursue the pre-election rhetoric on Islamic NATO or sever ties with the EU. On the contrary, challenging its historical position, Prime Minister Erbakan strengthened military and economic ties with Israel and revealed that the anti-Western narrative of the RP was for domestic consumption.69 The coalition government resigned following the post-modern coup of 28 February 1997. The coalition governments that followed were formed by the centre-left Democratic Leftist Party (Demokratik Sol Parti, DSP) led by Bu¨lent Ecevit, the ANAP and the MHP. Foreign Minister I˙smail Cem from the DSP redesigned Turkey’s strategy towards the West by highlighting that Turkey was part of the West, yet still different. However, this difference did not stem solely from Islam, Turkishness or the anti-imperialism of previous decades, but from the unique blend of the West and East that Turkey represented. In this period, the question of which dimension of the West’s neoliberal hegemonic masculinity would be utilised to render Turkey a member of the West did not replace the ‘homo economicus’ approach of O¨zal; instead, it was accompanied by one that appealed to the liberal, democratic and pluralist standards of the neoliberal man. History was invoked to underline Turkey’s valuable difference and how it could contribute to the ‘pluralist West’. In fact, Cem’s approach had multiple pillars and strongly shaped the later AKP governments’ narrative towards the West. One of the pillars he underlined was Ottoman history. In this way, he articulated Turkey’s political and cultural value for the West. In December 1997, Cem spoke the following in Parliament: Our Turkey is a country with great historical depth, cultural heritage and history of art, and has contributed to the development of many societies. If this foreign policy relies on its own society’s heritage and its own society’s personality, it will
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be successful . . . Sometimes we debated ‘are we European? If we enter the European Union, we will be European’. This is wrong because as Turkey’s people, we are Europeans. We do not need to get confirmation from anyone about our personality, our European character. We are European historically. We built our history in Konya, Kayseri and Diyarbakır as much as in Edirne, Manastir and Skopje. We are European geographically . . . Regarding this cultural issue, if the European culture, as they always claim, concerns democracy, pluralism, republicanism, gender equality and secularism, but not race and religion, of course we share the European culture.70 Cem’s narrative legitimised in a two-fold way Turkey’s desire to catch up with the neoliberal ‘European’ hegemonic masculinity built upon cultural and democratic pluralism and freedoms in the post-Cold War era. Owing to Turkey’s history and geography, Turkey was building a pluralist culture that had combined Western and non-Western values since the Ottoman Empire. Additionally, Turkey had adopted the political values of Europe (here, Cem conflated political values with culture). Therefore, questioning Turkey’s Europeanness was unnecessary. This narrative was the primary example that Turkey’s difference was highlighted not in terms of Islam, anti-imperialism and nationalism, but its unique culture. This ‘privilege’ rendered Turkey crucial for the new international politics of the post-Cold War, according to Cem: We have a characteristic that not many other countries are blessed with: we are Europeans but also Asians . . . Changes in world politics have prioritised a concept called Eurasia . . . We are about to enter a phase in which our foreign policy achieves successes as long as we recognise our history, personality and identity.71 In parallel with this rewriting of Turkey’s Western credentials through its ‘unique value’, Turkey’s foreign policy continued to become more multidimensional. Turkey’s policy makers aimed to prove their Western credentials by employing a foreign policy that was compatible with the standards of the international society. Just before the US bombardment of Iraq in early 1998, Foreign Minister I˙smail Cem initiated ‘the Turkish Neighbourly Peace Initiative’, and President Su¨leyman
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Demirel called for a ‘Neighbourhood Forum’. Turkey was willing to even assume a mediator role in the Middle East conflict.72 These initiatives had two dimensions. Firstly, they aimed to increase regional cooperation through confidence-building measures (CBMs), similar to the experiences in the Organization of Economic and Security Cooperation in Europe (OECD). The second dimension was to increase cooperation through economic interdependence and free trade between neighbours.73 Invoking the EU’s functionalist experience, Foreign Minister Cem stated to his Syrian counterpart that ‘first we should examine what we can do economically between the two countries. Once the countries become economically interdependent, the resolution of political problems is easier’.74 Turkey’s policy makers were adopting Western experiences in their neighbourhood.75 The year 1999 was the point at which Turkey’s efforts to construct itself as an economic asset for the West succeeded. Regarding Central Asia and Caucasus, Turkey continued its efforts to become an ‘energy hub’, as put by C¸iller in 1995. ‘In November 1999, the Baku–Tbilisi– Ceyhan pipeline agreement was signed, followed by the signing of a protocol in March 2001 whereby Turkey agreed to purchase natural gas from Phase I of the Shah Deniz Project in Azerbaijan’.76 Turkey’s EU candidacy was accepted at the 1999 Helsinki Summit. During the days of the summit, Foreign Minister Cem’s article appeared in multiple dailies in Europe: The EU is now deciding on its enlargement process. One important decision is what role to offer Turkey, which provides Western Europe’s main historical, cultural and economic links to eastern horizons. The choice that the EU makes will either provide the EU with a crucial bridge of conciliation with different civilisations, or will be discriminatory and have none or even negative effects on the persisting dichotomies.77 Cem built his narrative about Turkey’s EU candidacy by appealing to the conventional ‘bridge’ argument. Turkey’s difference, therefore, was articulated as an asset for the EU. However, the most important dimension of the speech lies in the second part. Cem represented Europe and Turkey as belonging to ‘different’ civilisations, which led to the perception that the EU’s political mission depended on the inclusion of
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a state that was ‘different’ from Europe. This conflicted with Cem’s previous accounts that defined European culture in relation to democracy and human rights (that Turkey already shared). Turkey’s civilisation was ‘different’, and the EU could benefit from this. It also reflected Turkey’s policy makers’ ontological insecurity about exclusion based on culture. This narrative would become prominent during the AKP era. Another pillar of Cem’s narrative, reproduced as the AKP’s foreign policy ‘strategic depth’, was his articulation of ‘historical geography’. In 2000, Cem pointed to Turkey’s ‘historical geography’: Turkey’s historical geography is the geography of the peoples with whom Turkey shared history; the geography where we shared the same beliefs and a parallel culture and language. This is a great heritage for our Turkey . . . The historical geography covers the areas of the Balkans, Caucasus, Central Asia, Middle East, North Africa and even Sudan and Yemen in Africa, the geography of the people we shared the same characteristics with for hundreds of years.78 This expression was the first manifestation of what would be called ‘strategic depth’ by AKP’s FM Davutog˘lu. Cem hereby defined Turkey’s sphere of activity, if not influence, based on the territories ruled by the Ottoman Empire for centuries. What made Turkey different from the West was this ‘historical geography’, an imperial legacy. It also deserves to be highlighted that Africa was back in Turkey’s policy makers’ narrative. However, this time Turkey did not appear as the state that fought the first anti-imperialist struggle, but as the successor of the Ottoman Empire. With the government of AKP (rooted in political Islam, right-wing, single party governments since 2002), Turkey’s relations with the West were in a process of transformation, which was sometimes negatively viewed as an ‘axis shift’ from the West to the East. In fact, AKP policy makers, including Abdullah Gu¨l (prime minister in 2002–4, foreign minister in 2004–7, and president in 2007–14), Recep Tayyip Erdog˘an (prime minister in 2004–14), and Ahmet Davutog˘lu (foreign policy chief advisor in 2002–9, foreign minister in 2009–14) were continuing the foreign policy activism launched by the previous centre-left and
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centre-right governments.79 This policy was sometimes coloured by antiimperialism, similar to Ecevit’s in the 1970s; sometimes it became more conciliatory towards the West (e.g. centre-right party governments). This activism also generated questions about Turkey’s ‘axis shift’ from the West to the East. For example, in 1967, when then prime minister Demirel was asked by a New York Times correspondent about the ‘axis shift’, Demirel’s reaction was: ‘What axis shift? . . . We are anticommunist. Just because we buy something from Russia does not mean that we get closer to it’.80 In the post-Cold War era, Turkey’s hybridity was often used as a positive value for the West: it offered a way to confirm Turkey’s ‘difference’ by repositioning it within the West. What differentiates the AKP’s ‘multidimensional’ foreign policy from previous centre-right and left governments is that it ‘cast Turkey as the leader of its own civilisation, with the implication that Western civilisation is not Turkey’s own’.81 The borders of this civilisation are determined as the former territories of the Ottoman Empire.82 Although the search for an ‘alternative path’ for Turkey can be explained by political Islamist parties’ anti-Western stance, this rhetoric has never matched practice.83 Another explanation that this analysis pursues is that AKP policy makers attempt to address the historical feminisation of Turkey by the West. In Strategic Depth, Davutog˘lu stated that ‘Turkey made a serious and radical decision in terms of its international position: choosing to become a regional power under the umbrella of the hegemonic Western civilisational basin over being the weak leader of its own civilisational basin’.84 For Davutog˘lu, Turkey was feminised (and Turkey’s policy makers accepted it) as a country needing Western guidance and authority in its foreign policy, which could only become a regional power in the Western world order. This devalorisation, however, does not correspond to Turkey’s cultural-historical heritage, which could offer more than being a regional power. Yanık argues that Davutog˘lu’s formulation is also built upon the hybridity through which multiculturalism renders Turkey a ‘centre state’ rather than a bridge; in other words, not only a value for the West but also an advantage for Turkey vis-a`-vis the West.85 The question hereby is, to what extent can Davutog˘lu’s approach be identified as antiWestern? Three points can be made to argue the contrary. First, as a scholar of International Relations, Davutog˘lu appears to look at global politics from the prism of the masculine neorealist– neoliberal
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nexus. The recurrent themes throughout Strategic Depth are the primacy of national interests in interstate relations, ‘the right to survival’, a rationalist understanding of global politics and the importance of material power underlined by soft power.86 Therefore, Davutog˘lu epistemologically reproduced West-centric global politics.87 This epistemological perspective is fed into AKP foreign policy. Second, he did not adopt a politically revisionist position. In the part where Davutog˘lu criticised the West’s policy in the Yugoslav Civil War, for example, his criticism was not towards the United Nations system, but towards the failure of the West to uphold its principles. Finally, Davutog˘lu did not imagine a role for Turkey beyond the West-centric global order. On the contrary, he supported Turkey’s integration into the West in the post-9/11 era by using Turkey’s hybridity as a strategic value for the West. The ‘civilisational dialogue’ that Davutog˘lu vehemently supported88 has been materialised as a project of Westcentric neoliberal world order on the ‘Alliance of Civilisations’, cochaired by Turkey and Spain (2005). The AKP’s ‘multidimensional’ foreign policy based on ‘strategic depth’ has been discussed as a paradigm shift that refers to the dismissal of the Cold War mentality in cognisance of its history and geography.89 Furthermore, there is a tendency to explain the AKP’s ‘multidimensional’ foreign policy with reference to changes in domestic politics (such as de-securisation of Islam leading to closer relations with Iran), which was ‘Europeanised’ and ‘democratised’.90 According to this line of thinking, this enabled Turkey to rise as a peace-building actor in the ‘greater Middle East’.91 As O¨nis¸ rightly argues, AKP policy makers successfully represented themselves as ‘conservative globalists’ while discrediting opposition parties as isolationist-nationalist.92 The epistemic counterparts of this type of representation were quick to make the sweeping ahistorical association of the CHP with Kemalism, isolationism and authoritarianism, and of the DP, AP and AKP with liberalism and openness.93 The analysis has so far shown that such ahistorical generalisations could not be put forward, as all political parties in Turkey adopted sub-modern ideologies that rarely challenged the epistemological and political assumptions of modern international relations as well as its implications for domestic politics. In fact, the concepts through which the AKP’s foreign policy was praised (such as peace-builder, Europeanisation of foreign policy, etc.) reflected how
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Turkey under the AKP has tried to meet the neoliberal standards of the West’s hegemonic masculinity. In this sense, the AKP does not represent a change, but a strong continuation of the previous governments including the DP governments and the post-12 September ANAP governments. As discussed above, one of the most important discursive moves of the AKP policy makers was to combine Western democratic values with Islam. This move coincided with the US’ ‘Greater Middle Eastern Project’ covering the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. The project was prioritised from 2003 onwards and offered democratisation as a solution to the problems in this extensive geography. In order to prove that liberal democracy is not incompatible with Islam it offered Turkey as a model.94 This was finally the affirmation, if not acceptance, of the role model argument of Turkey’s policy makers through its ‘difference’. In the post-9/11 neoliberal context, Turkey was articulated as a strategic partner of the West as the US, through which neoliberal political and economic values and practices could be spread in combination with Islamic difference. In Shared Vision and Structured Dialogue to Advance the TurkishAmerican Strategic Partnership, dated July 2006, ‘Turkey and the United States pledge themselves to work together on all issues of common concern, including promoting peace and stability in the broader Middle East through democracy . . . and contributing to stability, democracy and prosperity in the Black Sea region, the Caucasus, Central Asia and Afghanistan’.95 In parallel with the role tailored for the model country in the neoliberal context, in 2006/07 Turkey acted as a mediator between Syria and Israel, and then between Iran, P5 and Germany. In 2007/2008, reconciliation efforts with Armenia were intensified.96 These practices not only helped to address Turkey’s hypermasculinised representations, but also showed Turkey’s neoliberal merit, in that economic relations were the prime target of foreign policy. The AKP’s neo-Ottomanist foreign policy’s most important manifestation was the developing relations between Africa and Turkey, albeit with strong economic incentives. In fact, AKP policy makers continued the process launched by previous Turkish governments. After the end of the Cold War, Turkey’s foreign policy started to re-target Africa along with Central Asia, the Balkans and the Middle East.97 In 1998, the ‘Opening to Africa Action Plan’ was announced. The plan’s
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objectives were to improve political, economic and cultural relations between Turkey and African countries. Another objective was to increase the number of Turkish diplomatic representations in Africa, high-level diplomatic exchange, humanitarian aid, membership to the Africa Ex-Im Bank, business trips and donor status to the African Development Bank (ADB).98 AKP policy makers also highlighted the importance of economic factors. In 2003, the undersecretary of foreign trade prepared a ‘Strategy for Improving Economic Relations with African Countries’. In 2005, Turkey obtained observer status in the African Union (AU). The same year was declared as ‘Year of Africa’ in Turkey. In January 2008, Turkey became an AU ‘strategic partner’, a non-regional member of the ADB and a member of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development Partners Forum. By 2008, Turkey’s trade with sub-Saharan African countries had increased to $5.7 billion.99 According to 2012 figures, while steel and iron products represented the highest share of Turkey’s exports to sub-Saharan Africa, valuable stones were the main imports. During the AKP period, economic relations have always been the main leitmotif and incentive to engage with Africa (particularly sub-Saharan Africa). In short, similar to the previous centre-left and right governments, AKP foreign policy aims to address Turkey’s gendered devalorisation by the West in the context of the neoliberal age. This approach has been underlined by the use of Turkey’s hybridity as an identity that exists politically within the West, rather than in opposition to it. AKP policy makers attempted to use Turkey’s difference as a way of inclusion in the West as Europe. Prime Minister Erdog˘an argued in 2004 that: We would surely like to obtain the additional benefits of the EU for our economy. However, this is not the main reason that drove us towards membership. Our main objective is to benefit from the combined development experience of the continent of Europe and to enrich the colours of Europe by adding our own colour.100 Following domestic reforms, accession negotiations were started with the decision of the 2004 Brussels European Council. The negotiations, however, were slow. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gu¨l mirrored the prime minister’s words in 2007:
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Turkey’s EU membership will mean that Europe has achieved such maturity that it can incorporate a major Muslim country into its fold. And this EU stands for common values and institutions rather than common religion. For Turkey, EU membership will mean anchoring more than a century-old western vocation into the highest standards of democratisation, good governance and economic integration. For the world, this would evidence that civilisations line up in terms of their democratic vocation instead of religion.101 That is why comments from some EU states about the Muslim character of Turkey and its cultural incompatibility with ‘Europe’ provoked Erdog˘an to state that: Those who are talking about ‘axis shift’, unless they have a secret agenda, are the ones that cannot understand Turkey’s multidimensional foreign policy. We, this government, started the accession negotiations with the EU . . . If the EU is not a Christian union, it should accept Turkey. In fact, that is the only thing to prove that the EU is not a Christian union. But you (referring to the EU) are too extreme to understand this.102 Similar to Demirel’s reaction regarding the ‘axis shift’ in 1967, Erdog˘an’s words are indicative of how non-accession to the EU can not only be a rejection of Turkey’s hybrid identity within the West, but also a factor that contributes to AKP policy makers’ gendered ontological insecurity: a devalorised, ‘different’ Turkey, excluded from the West. It must be noted that this insecurity was partly derived from contradictions within neoliberal masculinity, where the promotion of universal individual liberties is blended with exclusionary conservative ideologies. At this time a military crisis erupted with Syria. During the AKP era, Turkey’s relations with Syria had flourished.103 The bilateral relationship reached a level where visas were removed and Turkey acted as a mediator in the Syria–Israel disagreement. However, relations were hampered by the civil war in Syria. Turkey’s policy makers took the side of the opposition against the Assad regime. In 2012, two military crises occurred. Initially, on 22 June 2012, a Turkish jetfighter was shot down very close to Syrian air space. Then, on 3 October 2012, a border town in south-east
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Turkey was hit by a bomb launched from Syrian territory and five Turkish citizens were killed. On the following day, a parliamentary act that allowed the government to send the army abroad was issued. Unlike the other two moments, Turkey had been engaging not with a member of the West, but with a state that was considered a problem by the West. On various occasions Turkey reaffirmed its conflating interests with the US; for instance, it became an active member of the ‘Friends of Syria’ meetings, the second of which was held in Istanbul on 1 April 2012. The interesting point is that despite this concord, policy makers’ narratives were very similar to the previous moments. A similar ‘enlightened democratic paternal’ figure can also be observed in 2012 vis-a`-vis Syria. In the words of Prime Minister Erdog˘an, the AKP government first chose to convince the regime to start the reform process. This, however, failed. He expressed a paternal approach in the following words: We have good intentions and sincerity, without expecting anything in return . . . When the Arab Spring started in different countries, we approached the Syrian regime to help. We made recommendations to Bashar al-Assad and showed the way. However, the Assad regime preferred to put us off, instead of listening to what we were telling them.104 Similarly, in 2012, Erdog˘an’s primary reaction was to separate the Syrian people from the Syrian regime and adopt a saviour role, as in the case of the 1974 junta regime in Greece. Erdog˘an stated that: Our only goal is to see the Syrian people freed from oppression and persecution and reaching peace and prosperity. Should we leave women, children, all these people to the mercy of the Assad regime? Is this acceptable for Turkey? Is this acceptable for the Turkish nation?105 In 2012, although policy makers reconfigured Turkey’s masculinity as a paternal figure towards the Syrian regime and society, they also constructed Turkey as a state that values restraint and patience in spite of the (hypermasculinised) provocative aggressiveness of Syria. This enabled them to depict an identity for Turkey as a respectable member
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of the international community. When Turkey’s jet fighter was shot down, Foreign Minister Davutog˘lu stated: In the last nine months, we tried to stop it [the Syrian regime] through direct engagement. This even reached the point where we begged them . . . We acted with the international community . . . Look at the attack on our plane and the attitude we showed! Turkey reacted with extraordinary restraint through active diplomacy.106 Similar discourse was adopted by Erdog˘an after the bomb incident: This was not the first attack on Turkey by Syria. There have been seven similar attacks, yet without casualties. We were patient after every attack. In spite of our diplomatic note, Syria did not step back . . . As Turkey, our only objective is peace and security. We shall never have an objective of creating war.107 Turkey was continuously presented as a rational actor that was respectful of the values of the neoliberal international society, where diplomacy, prudence and restraint are upheld. Davutog˘lu’s words are indicative: Being very experienced in statecraft, we never act in anger. We never act based on incomplete information. We first lay down our options [and then decide] . . . The Security Council and the international community will all be informed . . . The international community will see the photo we took. Our extensive state experience requires this. Turkey’s practices as a ‘good citizen of international society’ were rewarded by easing gendered insecurity. Reflecting his neorealist/ neoliberal lenses, Davutog˘lu stated that Turkey was backed by the international community against the irrational, aggressive, authoritarian and ‘devalorised’ Syria: All states expressed their condolences and, in the light of the information we shared, they underlined their solidarity with
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Turkey . . . They thanked us for our restraint and tempered attitude, from the Secretary General of the United Nations to Russia . . . Turkey has the capacity to protect its interests within the rules of international law.108 This lengthy discussion of Turkey’s foreign policy since 1980 constitutes the last phase of this feminist post-colonial analysis and highlights fundamental issues characterising Turkey’s gendered foreign policy stemming from its historical legacy in the neoliberal age. The main conclusion of this discussion is the introduction of Islam as a marker of Turkey’s difference from the West, but also as a valuable asset for the West(s). Unlike the Cold War period, during which Islam was predominantly utilised as a tool of anti-communism, the post-coup policy makers rearticulated Islam as the essence of the homogenous nation (along with Turkishness), and tried to convince the West as the US and Europe that this non-Western difference should secure Turkey’s place within the West as a respectable and equal member. In particular, amid the increasing criticisms from the West as Europe regarding human rights and democracy in Turkey, Turkey’s policy makers occasionally gave hypermasculinised reactions by rearticulating history from the late Ottoman period. Secondly, neoliberalisation as a new standard of the West’s hegemonic masculinities strongly shaped Turkey’s relations with the West and non-West during this period. An understanding of modernisation in terms of neoliberalisation became predominant in the authoritarian liberal line of thinking, which maintained the cultural essence of the nation. In this way, Turkey’s policy makers tried to create a space for Turkey in the West by recourse to its difference, neoliberal market economy, ‘energy hub’ and unique character, as often underlined by Cem. The feminisation and hypermasculinisation of Turkey (a nonWestern state with chronic political and economic crises, human rights violations, ill-treatment of minorities, etc.) by the Wests were addressed through these neoliberal political and economic narratives. Finally, the AKP’s ‘new foreign policy’ was built upon this authoritarian liberal legacy with strong neoliberal tendencies. The AKP’s foreign policy was the continuation of reconstructing Turkey’s valuable difference for the West so that it could receive respect and equality from the latter.
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Mosques and Malls: Hyperfeminisation in the Age of Neoliberalism The months preceding the military coup of 12 September 1980 were politically and economically chaotic. Politically, weak coalitions or single party minority governments were failing to maintain political stability. The strife between CHP’s Ecevit and AP’s Demirel removed the possibility of establishing a grand coalition between the parties to address political and economic problems. In addition, the Parliament could not elect a new president to replace Fahri Korutu¨rk, despite more than 100 turns. Street violence and political assassinations became a daily routine. Economically, high inflation and unemployment were exacerbated by a lack of basic commodities and a growing black market of consumable goods. Economic problems trickled into societal cleavages. In a societal background where the expansion of shanty towns hosted conflicting ideologies, the CHP became more populist, with Ecevit still failing to establish strong ties with the labour unions. The petty bourgeoisie was getting closer to conservative nationalist and Islamist parties; the urban bourgeoisie was wary of the mismanagement of economy.109 On 24 January 1980, Turgut O¨zal, who ran for Parliament with the political Islamist MSP in the 1973 elections and was later appointed as Undersecretary of the State Planning Organisation, declared the infamous ‘Decisions of 24 January’, reflecting the Washington consensus that was to be coined in 1989. Empowering ‘the invisible hand of the market’, the Turkish lira was devalued, the fluctuation of interest rates was allowed, measures were taken to encourage imports and exports to replace the narrowing domestic market and shocking increases in price of public goods were ¨ zal, discussed in the introduced.110 The neoliberal modernisation of O previous section, was in effect. While the economy was being restructured according to neoliberal principles, the authoritarian aims of the early Republican decades were introduced politically with a strong emphasis on the Turkish–Islamic synthesis. The West(s) became a source of desire and dislike in this new political structure. The political system of the 12 September junta created a hierarchical political system on the top of which was a masculine state. This hierarchy strongly shaped the post-coup decades, including the AKP period, and set up a type of democracy whose limits were defined by the
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state. Therefore, this contextual non-Western democracy was closer to Demirel’s understanding, leading to exceptionalism, than Ecevit’s understanding, which could create a model that other states could imitate (see previous chapter). In May 1981, coup leader Kenan Evren told a BBC reporter that ‘I shall not refer to the restoration of democracy. The “restoration of democracy” would mean going back to pre-September 12 democracy’.111 If so, then what did this ‘democracy’ look like? On the ladder of the democracy of the junta, people were at the bottom; not only as a passive, waiting-to-be-enlightened society of young Turks, but also as a unitary and homogenous group similar to the early Republican modernisers’ view. The ‘nation’, for Evren, had intimate relations with the military, which had established the Republic and modernised the country. People adored the military, as they always preferred ‘authority’ over disorder. He stated in an interview: It was the military that established the Republic and brought democracy. Whatever new came to Turkey after the abolition of the (Ottoman) dynasty, and even before it, it was brought through the channels of the army . . . For this reason people placed trust in the military. The soldiers do not behave partially (they are not partisan). Besides, there is a tradition as result of a military service experience. People want authority and do not like disorder.112 Considering Evren’s idiosyncratic reading of modernisation in Turkey and the role of the military therein, as well as his gendered understanding of society that was gained through military service, it can be seen that the focus of policy makers on order and stability since the Young Turks’ period was re-introduced as an essential quality of the people. However, for Evren, the same people were also feminised; they were open to exploitation and could thus be manipulated. Therefore, they needed to be ‘saved’ and protected from the group occupying the second step on Evren’s ladder of democracy, political parties. According to the organisers of the coup, political parties and their severe competition, embodied as the rivalry between Ecevit and Demirel, weakened the state. Therefore, they made the state and nation vulnerable to terrorist groups.113 ‘Indeed, in the eyes of the Turkish
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officers, political parties are gatherings of undisciplined individuals, most of whom subordinate national interest to their personal and group interest’.114 Evren even asserted that the opposition was happy to see terrorism continue, because it would fail the party in government.115 This is a somewhat cynical perception of civilian politics that led the junta to redesign politics in Turkey through new political parties. While the AP, CHP and other political parties were shut down and their leaders were banned from politics, new parties under the close scrutiny of the junta were formed. Among them, Turgut O¨zal’s Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi, ANAP) would win the 1983 general elections. On the top of the ladder was the state as protector, and main representative of the state, the military. The 1961 Constitution created institutions such as the Senate and the Constitutional Court to check, prevent and pre-empt another DP-like experience. It also became possible to construct a political space for civil society as defined in liberal democracies. However, the 12 September coup changed the tide. As Toprak argues, ‘if the 1960 coup was staged to protect civil society from a repressive state under the control of elected governments that used its mechanisms to thwart the very logic of competitive politics, the rationale of the 1980 coup was to strengthen the state against civil society’.116 The difference of the post-coup period lied in the fact that the state emerged as an authoritarian and monolithic entity that monitored the entire political life, detected the divergent, and exterminated the different. Political life was rebuilt upon the principle of the survival of the state.117 This highly hypermasculinised representation of the state was similar to the early Republican articulations in terms of its oversight role and its mission to create a certain citizen and society (see below). However, the Franco – British model that the founders adopted managed to keep the military out of politics and attempted to start multiparty politics twice. In contrast, the post-coup state redrew the boundaries of legitimate democratic activities by keeping the ‘privileged position of the military’.118 This ladder of democracy strongly shaped state –society relations. The junta and the following governments, especially the O¨zal governments of 1983–9, aimed to construct an apolitical but strongly nationalist and conservative patriotic citizen, who was subservient to a state undergoing a neoliberal economic transformation. Because of these characteristics, this period was similar to the DP period of 1950–60. As a
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reminder, in the post-war period the West was heavily articulated as the US with its Cold Warrior masculinity and the economic model imposed on Turkey by the Marshall Plan. In symbolic politics, the ephemeral communist threat removed the boundaries between domestic and international politics, and nationalist and Islamist values were prioritised against this ‘threat’. Demirel and his coalition partners, in the Nationalist Front governments of the 1960s and 1970s, represented this view with modifications. After the coup, the ideology was comprehensively introduced. As the West as Europe became more critical to Turkey on the account of democracy and human rights violations, the US was increasingly defined as ‘the West’ for post-coup policy makers. Similarly to the DP administrations, Turkey was positioned within the strategic ‘Green’ front and was thus determined by the US as a neoliberal and anti-communist state in the Middle East. In the post-coup period, Turkey’s policy makers appropriated neoliberal masculinity mainly in economic terms, while the liberal democratic dimension suffered greatly. Nevertheless, the conservative dimension of neoliberalism fit perfectly into the historical legacy of dislike towards the West(s). The political component of neoliberal structuring was to instil the Turkish – Islamic synthesis, which successfully combined the oppressive dimensions of hyperfeminisation of the previous decades and, therefore, constructed multiple ‘others’ within the essentialised Muslim-Turkish society. With regard to the strong emphasis on Turkishness, this ideology embraced the early Republican modernising nation-building tool by imagining a monolithic nation united for the general good. As Heper argues, the junta prioritised the communal general interest over particular interests that had poisoned party politics before the coup. Additionally, the general interest defined in terms of Atatu¨rkist thought became ‘a justification for the state elites’ to take upon themselves the responsibility of ensuring that the general interest is not given short shrift’.119 The ‘grotesque and inflationist use of Atatu¨rkism’120 by the new regime created a cult of Atatu¨rk that was supposed to represent national unity by subsuming differences and ‘taking precedence over ideological issues’.121 The general interest defined by the new elite required homogeneity that subsumed ethnic, religious and class differences. In relation to this, ideas about Kurdish people as an ethnic group in Turkey, which started to appear during the 1970s, were
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suppressed.122 In 1983, a law passed stating that ‘it is forbidden to express, diffuse or publish in any language other than the [first] official language of the states recognised by the Turkish state’.123 While the post-coup hyperfeminisation of society assumed one united nation subservient to the state, this ideology also differs significantly from the earlier models. Unlike the early Republican model, the synthesis did not presume rational, proactive and conscious ‘modern’ citizens, and consequently challenged the modernisation processes that society underwent during the Republican era.124 The DP period witnessed the birth of right-wing authoritarian liberalism and the hyperfeminisation practices it entailed. The 1960s and 1970s were the decades of societal resistance, which amounted to hypermasculine power conflicts. Until 1980, however, the modern society and citizen that the Westernising Republic aimed to construct was not challenged, neither at state nor societal level. The post-coup state-level political actors halted the process of state and civil society binary formation that the modern liberal democracy necessitated in favour of the state. This put this period’s decision makers in an uneasy position in relation to the West, which led to increasing alienation from the West as Europe. The second way in which the Turkish –Islamic synthesis differed from the Republican model was the role of Islam in the formation of the nation. From the Young Turk period until the Cold War, the political role of Islam was generally considered as a uniting factor, especially against the non-Muslim minorities. However, the secular character of the state privatised Islam by removing it from the public sphere. During the DP period, as a mirror image of the US Cold Warrior, it was converted into an anti-communist strategy that aimed to prevent communist infiltration into society by assuming an Islamist essence that would reject such ‘alien’ infiltration. The post-coup policy makers ¨ zal was not a stranger to the idea that attached a similar value to Islam. O Islam could be useful for national unity as long as it was under state control.125 It was quite common for Evren to use quotes from the Qur’an in his public speeches.126 The DP’s approach, however, did not adopt a culturalist approach and kept the political role of Islam as a strictly anti-communist tool, not as a discourse of reverse Orientalism. The post-coup policy makers not only assumed a Turkish– Islamic ‘essence’, which was constantly represented as threatened by ‘alien’ factors such as Western culture; they also attempted to rearticulate
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modernisation as adopting the technology and science of the West by conserving the Turkish–Islamic essence. Hence, they replicated the Young Ottomans’ approach and strongly affected the later AKP governments’ domestic policies. One of the main documents of the synthesis was prepared in 1983 by a committee that worked for the State Planning Institution. The name of the report was Report on National Culture, consisting of approximately 600 pages. The following were the main ideological tenets of the Turkish– Islamic synthesis: a. Reason for ‘chaos’: Turkey is under a cultural attack by foreign and domestic enemies. Western imperialism tries to dismantle our national culture. The Westernisation policies following Atatu¨rk did not protect our culture. b. The essence of culture: National culture consists of historical and unchanged qualities that bind individuals and create a nation. This culture should be spread to individuals, otherwise national unity cannot be preserved. c. Essential values and Islam: our national culture stands on two pillars, the ‘essential values’ that we brought from Central Asia, and Islam. d. Development/catching up with the West: in order to modernise, it is important to adopt the science and technology of the West, but not its culture. National culture does not change; it becomes enriched by maintaining its essence. Japanese development was an example of this. e. Restoration through the hand of the state: it is of utmost importance to restore the national culture that was sullied through the hand of the state. The state is responsible for protecting it. The survival of the nation depends on this.127 The synthesis, as argued in the Report, was built upon a culturalist essence of the nation that is to be protected. Therefore, it challenged the linguistic approach that had been adopted since the inception of the Republic (see Chapter 3). It combined this culturalist approach with certain characteristics that emerged during Cold War domestic politics. The ephemeral threat was expanded from narrowly defined communism to an unlimited phenomenon that included communism, and other cultural infiltrations from the West such as humanism. Again, similar
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to the Cold Warrior model, the threat was considered both internally and externally. In domestic politics, post-coup policy makers aimed to diffuse the ‘siege mentality’ of society by reproducing individual subjectivities, which constantly operate upon external threats. As discussed above, this anti-Western essentialist approach did not result in an anti-Western foreign policy. Rather, it was used by various policy makers to resist certain demands from the West as Europe by invoking the argument of ‘Turkish exceptionalism’. The synthesis, whose objective was to create a democratic but highly conservative neoliberal market man, was operationalised during the neoliberal ANAP governments. It was adopted in a meeting in June 1986 with the participation of President Evren and Prime Minister ¨ zal as the ‘national cultural policy’.128 The post-coup policy makers O accelerated what the DP did during the Cold War by using the same tools: religious courses and the Chairmanship of Religious Affairs (Diyanet I˙s¸leri Bas¸kanlıg˘ı, DIB). Similarly to the DP, which introduced ¨ zal declared in the government elective religious courses, in 1983 O programme that ‘in order to train a balanced generation with high moral standards, we believe that religious education should be taught in ¨ zal’s ‘balanced generation with primary and secondary schools’.129 O high moral standards’ pointed to the idea that before the coup, the youth was not properly trained in religious education, which led them to ‘anarchy’. Before O¨zal came to power, the junta rendered religious courses compulsory for Grades 4 and 5 of primary schools, and the 1982 Constitution introduced compulsory religion courses to high schools.130 Meanwhile, the number of students enrolling in I˙mam Hatip schools increased from 62,000 in 1980 to 100,000 in 1990 and 162,000 in 1994.131 The other institution was the DIB. Article 136 of the 1982 Constitution defined the objective of the DIB as ‘facilitating national unity’. By 1990, the budget of the DIB was 1.5 times that of the budget of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and seven times that of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security; 1500 mosques were built annually, and the DIB started to declare fetwas (religious directives) on various social issues.132 Furthermore, the synthesis was statist. This was another contradiction in the process of catching up with the neoliberal masculinity of the West(s). Although the role of the state in economics was significantly reduced, its dominance in politics was greatly
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increased. The state was articulated as an end in itself: without the state, no democracy, human rights and freedoms were possible, according to Evren: While trying to enhance and protect human rights and liberties, the state itself has certain rights and obligations as far as its continuity and future is concerned. We do not have the right to put the state into a powerless and inactive position. The state cannot be turned into a helpless institution to be governed by private associations.133 In the hierarchical democracy model of the post-coup policy makers, ‘private associations’ of political parties and civil society organisations were not put on equal footing with the state. If the state turned into a helpless institution, as it was during the pre-12 September period, the future of the country was at stake. That is why freedoms and rights should have limits, according to Evren: Citizens should know that freedom of thought and consciousness exists. There are, however, limits to these freedoms; there is also a state founded by individuals that together make up a collectivity. The state in question protects the individuals. This state, too, has a will and sovereignty of its own. Individual freedoms can be protected to the extent that the will and the sovereignty of the state are maintained. If the will and sovereignty of the state are undermined, then the only entity that can safeguard individual freedoms has withered away.134 Evren’s aforementioned words were a narrative about the state, which occupied the highest position in the political hierarchy, and therefore challenged the West(s)’ neoliberal hegemonic masculinity that privileged individual freedoms. This narrative had similarities with how AP’s Demirel defined the state during the 1970s, as discussed in the previous chapter. This narration entailed that the state had a right to protect itself, and even before the threats become imminent the state should intervene. That is why the junta and the following governments created institutional mechanisms to privilege the state in politics.
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Within the privileged position of the state over society, the military was tasked with overseeing politics and taking the necessary measures to protect Atatu¨rk’s principles and revolutions against any possible threat inside and outside,135 as ‘the ultimate guardian of the state’.136 The National Security Council (Milli Gu¨venlik Kurulu, MGK) was the main body through which the military exercised its authority. The Council, which was originally founded as the Supreme Council of Defence in 1949, consisted of the Chief of General Staff, high-ranking generals, the prime minister, and other relevant ministers, and was a product of the Cold War. Similarly to the Cold Warrior masculinity, it was reproduced in accordance with militarist state policies. In the postcoup MGK, the military members outnumbered the civilian members and the Council of Ministers was to give ‘priority consideration’ to the ‘recommendations’ of the MGK. Its role was widely defined as ‘determining the necessary measures preserving the constitutional order, providing for national unity and integrity and orienting the Turkish nation around the national ideas and values by uniting around Kemalist thought (and) Atatu¨rk’s principles and reforms’.137 ‘Orienting the Turkish nation’ was performed through the adoption of the Turkish – Islamic synthesis as the state’s cultural policy (increased role for the DIB, compulsory religious courses and definition of Turkish ‘essence’ originating from Central Asia). Reverse Orientalism’s other tool was the national security courses taught at high school and instructed by a military officer. In her insightful analysis of these courses, Altınay found that the common themes of the course were ‘games played on Turkey by the West’, ‘internal and external enemies who are cooperating with each other’ and that ‘Turkey does not have any option other than being strong’.138 In short, individual subjectivities were reproduced through educational performances that highlighted cultural essentialism and the siege mentality.139 While citizen subjectivities were reproduced through the siege mentality, the post-coup policy makers created other institutions through which the state could oversee politics. Firstly, the presidency was bestowed with new powers to balance or co-act with the legislative and executive branches.140 The new regime also targeted what they considered as the source of the pre-coup chaos: universities. As discussed in the previous chapter, a higher body that would coordinate universities with the participation of state officials was proposed by
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Demirel. The post-coup put the idea into practice and established the ¨ g˘retim Kurumu, YO ¨ K) to Council of Higher Education (Yu¨ksek O 141 Such state monitor universities, thus crippling their autonomy. authority over universities was deemed necessary, as the Turkish – Islamic synthesis along with Atatu¨rkism was expected to shape the raison d’eˆtre of universities. As such, Article 5 of Law 2547 of the Constitution described the role of the universities as training students to ‘be deeply attached to Atatu¨rk’s nationalism’, ‘to feel pride and honour in being Turkish’ and ‘to hold the interest of society above that of individuals’.142 In addition, several academics were expelled from their jobs as a result of Article 1402 of the Martial Law.143 Another institution that constructed a masculine coercive state of the neoliberal age, again proposed by Demirel in 1973 but annulled by the Constitutional Court in 1975, were the State Security Courts, which became operational on 1 May 1984. These courts were designed to charge a wide array of crimes against the state, from terrorism to forming political organisations. Because of their special practices and competence (restrictions regarding legal counsel and defence, secrecy clauses, prolonged detention periods, etc.) they were considered as ‘political courts’.144 Similarly to the DP period, the suppression of the press was performed either through increasing the price of paper or persecuting journalists (around 800 journalists between 1980 and 1990), banning books (237 between 1980 and 1983, 195 between 1983 and 1990), and shutting newspapers and journals (260 between 1983 and 1990).145 The ANAP governments also adopted other tools against newspapers. For example, state banks halted advertising in some newspapers and the government sharply increased newsprint prices. S¸ahin Alpay argued that this happened because the newspapers were revealing the shortcomings of the government.146 As the Turkish– Islamic hypermasculine grip of the state was tightening over society, in November 1984 the first attacks by the PKK were launched in provinces of the south-east. The Kurdish problem in Turkey is a complex historical and political issue, which falls beyond the objectives of this analysis. How the problem was articulated by Turkey’s policy makers, how it was used in the process of hyperfeminisation of society and, finally, how the West was integrated into their narratives, are the main questions that this discussion will focus on. When the ¨ zal addressed the Parliament as follows: PKK attacks started, O
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In the last 15 years, terror has been used as a global strategy. The ‘hot war’ was replaced by the Cold War and the Cold War has been replaced by war with terrorist organizations. All around the world, this method has been practised to trouble states and to divide countries . . . In countries with democratic regimes that hold rights and freedoms sacred, measures are limited . . . For this reason, although it is a disturbing situation, terror could not be completely eradicated and prevented . . . Unfortunately, terrorist activities have been supported by some countries in the name of democracy. To put it differently, they use ‘defending democracy’ as a cloak to justify a behaviour that cannot be associated with civilisation and humanism. And some countries do not even use this excuse directly. Esteemed Members of Parliament, without doubt, as we get stronger, they will create new obstacles for us. This has historically been the case. As Turkey gains progress and becomes greater, they will be jealous of us.147 A strange combination of the Cold Warrior and Young Turks’ masculinities can be observed in O¨zal’s narrative. O¨zal’s narration of the attacks was a continuation of the Cold Warrior’s narrative that highlighted how the ‘enemy’ was diffused inside the borders. During the Cold War, the international and internal threat was communism and its extensions. In contrast, the new internal threat was articulated as overarchingly and all-encompassingly as possible and was put under the umbrella of terrorism. Surely, in that specific historical moment, Prime Minister O¨zal was referring to the PKK and the Armenian organisation ASALA, which targeted Turkey’s diplomats and their families abroad. Still, the name and the face of the threat were blurred and its ephemerality was high. ¨ zal articulated that because of democratic freedoms, In addition, O terrorism could not be completely deteriorated. One of the most important points of his speech was that in the continuum that he identified (from ‘hot war’ to terrorism), Turkey was targeted for the first time not because it was a member of the West, as was the case during the Cold War, but because it was getting ‘greater’ and stronger. Other states that were ‘jealous’ of Turkey supported terrorism. His sentence ‘they will create new obstacles for us’ highlighted not only terrorism as a threat, but also the face and the name of the ‘international sources’ that fed terrorism in Turkey, which became blurry and more ephemeral.
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Therefore, the narrative that had been integrated into Turkey’s domestic politics since the Young Turks’ period and the international sources with their domestic extensions (i.e. European states and non-Muslim minorities, the USSR and left-wing movements) were carried to a broader level. The external source could be Europe, Greece, Syria, Armenia or Iran; its domestic extensions could be any group that challenged authoritarian and conservative neoliberalism. MP Pertev As¸cıog˘lu, who spoke in Parliament in the name of governing party ANAP, echoed the prime minister’s ‘siege mentality’: There is always a vicious enemy, hostile to Turkey and aiming to dismantle the Turkish motherland, lurking under the ground. This beast makes itself visible sometimes outside borders and sometimes inside, just like a root whose branches extend above the ground. The root of the branches outside (referring to Armenian lobby in the US) and inside (referring to Kurdish separatists) is the same. In other words, the enemy of our nation and state is the same . . . The hand that shot at our diplomats before the 12 September coup and now shoots at our soldiers is in fact the same hand. The unity and integrity of the country and the indivisibility of the nation is under the threat of this vicious hand . . . Throughout history, there has been enmity towards the existence of the Turkish nation and the independent Turkish state, and there will always be.148 ¨ zal’s speech, MP As¸cıog˘lu also underlined the unity of the external As in O and internal threats. The symbolism was enlightening. For him, there was a vicious root whose place was unknown, hence it could be named strategically. Its branches reached both inside and outside, surrounding and strangling the Turkish motherland. An ‘invisible hand’ was holding the gun that shot the diplomats and soldiers. Most importantly for the purposes of this analysis, this has always been the case: the Turkish states (note, plurality) have historically been targeted viciously and cunningly. The new threat was a new episode in this history. Yet, the MP continued his speech by positioning Turkey within the West: I would like to state to the world that it was the same bomb that exploded in Hakkari yesterday as the one that targeted Her
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Majesty’s Prime Minister at the Grand Hotel in Brighton. It was the same gun that martyred the gendarmerie private Mu¨rsel Ulunc and shot at Margaret Thatcher . . . The attacks against the American representations in Beirut, the bomb targeting Margaret Thatcher, explosions in Paris and the bullets targeting Mehmetc ik in Eruh and S¸emdinli are not isolated incidents. This is the proof that terror does not know boundaries and that it is necessary that the world cooperates.149 The interesting point was the ambivalence towards the West: a West in which Turkey is a member against the common enemy of terrorism, and another West that always targeted ‘Turks’. During the years of the Iran– Iraq war, the PKK used northern Iraq as a base to launch attacks into Turkey. In August 1986, the Parliament passed a parliamentary act to allow the Turkish army to operate outside the territorial borders of Turkey. Interior Minister Yıldırım Akbulut, who would become PM after the election of O¨zal as president in 1989, defended the Act as follows: As you all know, for more than 1000 years there have been external forces that divide the Turkish states in Anatolia and deteriorate Turkish domination in Anatolia. These forces have been adopting cunning and treacherous methods, but because of the strong composition of the Turkish nation with its high moral values and power, it would be impossible to push the Turks away from Anatolia. These sources have been practising separatism over our citizens in south-east Anatolia as they are the easiest target for abuse because of their geographical and ethnic situation.150 In combination with the duality of ‘international sources and their domestic extensions’, such a historical narration of the Kurdish problem in Turkey enabled policy makers to associate states and regions that the Ottoman Empire/Turkey fought over with the Kurdish issue, mainly through their support to Kurdish separatism. Through this narrative they would be able to argue that the West, ‘Europe’ in general and Greece in particular, was trying to achieve what they had not achieved before through supporting internal chaos in Turkey. This narrative would become very powerful when the EU’s criticisms towards Turkey
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in the area of human rights and democracy intensified. Later on, these ideas would provide the foundation of the ‘Se`vres syndrome’ of the 1990s. Another significant dimension of Akbulut’s speech was his representation of the Kurds in Turkey. The representation was not simply a denial of the Kurdish population in Turkey. The underlying idea of the narrative was to represent the Kurds as the weak spot of the allegedly unified nation, with ‘high moral values’ due to the latter’s ‘geographical and ethnic’ difference. This narrative shared strong resemblance with the late Ottoman period policy makers’ understanding of non-Muslim minorities, whose difference from the rest of the nation made them vulnerable to ‘foreign’ exploitation. These ‘foreign sources’ (note that he refrained from giving these sources a name or face) were using this weak spot to generate domestic chaos. Therefore, Akbulut essentialised and subordinated the Kurdish population through a two-fold feminisation: firstly, their difference prevented them from becoming a part of the whole that enjoyed ‘high moral values and power’, and secondly, their agency was denied and reduced to the intervention of unknown, unnamed ‘sources’ that had been trying to chase the Turks away from Anatolia for more than 1,000 years. This feminisation, and therefore subordination, of the Kurdish population to the Turkish nation differed from the early Republican policy makers’ approach to the Kurdish rebellions. As a reminder, the latter hypermasculinised the rebels as the objectors of modernisation, central authority and equality among citizens: those who remained in the past. They were extremely cautious in not linking these rebellions to European states, although there was evidence that Britain supported at least one rebellion in the region. The post-coup policy makers, however, discursively constructed the separatist movement as a ‘tool’ of ‘international sources’, partly recovering the Cold Warrior masculinity’s way of understanding domestic disturbances. Just like the early Republican period’s inspectorate-generals, the post-coup policy makers created the position of governors with extraordinary powers, appointed by Ankara to provinces that were highly populated by Kurds. Another common practice was to drop leaflets from aeroplanes that included verses from the Qur’an that suggested obedience to authority. The Turkish – Islamic synthesis was indeed put into practice.151 In addition
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to the militarist approach, the ANAP governments considered the issue as a problem of regional underdevelopment. The regions with ‘priority in development’ were defined, and most were in south-east Turkey. In these regions, the state was expected to be involved in economic activities: public investment in 1985 in these regions was around 25 per cent along with irrigation projects, road construction, investments in electricity, etc.152 The post-coup policy makers’ reductionism of modernism to neoliberal economic development was not specific to the way Kurdish separatism was handled. It was part of the articulation of Turkey in relation to the West. It can also be seen in the type of society that the ANAP, and specifically O¨zal, aimed to construct. Kalaycıog˘lu is worth quoting at length: ¨ zal) seemed to argue for a traditional society, a social He (O structure that [would] still be dependent upon moral and religious (Sunni) values of the past, while simultaneously proposing dramatic changes to the economy and prosperity of the country. The majority would still be Allah-fearing, mosqueattending souls, taking pride in the competitive strength of their companies in the international market, and care for the downtrodden through charitable contributions to the newly ¨ zal wanted a modern established autonomous funds of the state. O society held together by conservative values.153 ¨ zal was standing between the Young Ottomans/political This vision of O Islam tradition in Turkey (the heavy industrialisation move of Erbakan) and the later AKP’s aggressive neoliberal formula.154 The citizen of this neoliberal authoritarian model was politically subordinated but economically pragmatist, proactive and enterprising, not bound by bureaucratic formalities and/or political considerations. The exportoriented neoliberal model underlined by the political authoritarianism of the state required this type of citizen; and those who lacked the economic means to pursue their interests were constructed as ‘consumers who have the right to buy higher-quality goods at cheaper ¨ zal’s mind in the government prices’.155 This was the West in O programme of 1987: ‘Now we can find all sorts of goods everywhere, just like a European country’.156 ‘Homo economicus’ could get equal
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treatment from the West(s) as a strong country. However, the West as Europe was more challenging than the West that was constructed by ¨ zal in domestic politics, as the liberal ‘market man’ continued to O contradict with the ‘conservative man’. Turkey was at a stage of political and economic chaos in the 1990s. The short-lived coalition governments were accompanied by subsequent economic crises. Three economic crises (1994, 1998 and 2001) resulted in economic contractions, increased foreign debt and a considerable level of foreign capital exit. Coupled with corruption (especially in the banking sector), the IMF, World Bank and EU were pushing Turkey to adopt strong economic measures, starting from the adoption of an extensive privatisation programme.157 Prospective membership to the EU became an economic necessity. In the 1990s, as Turkey’s policy makers realised that EU membership unquestionably depended on freedom of expression, the ban on the Kurdish language in the press was lifted, although the Anti-Terror Law was still effective and criminalised expressions of ‘propaganda against the indivisible unity of the state’.158 In the process of catching up with the standards of the West(s)’ neoliberal hegemonic masculinity in the ‘new world order’, the 1990s also witnessed a new phase in Turkey’s press freedom. Many holdings bought newspapers and opened TV channels. These new media, owned by big business, developed patronage relations with the state. Two competing main newspapers belonging to two holdings started to support two competing centre-right parties, Mesut Yılmaz’s ANAP and Tansu C¸iller’s DYP, although they were united in expelling even mainstream journalists from their media group when the latter were critical of the state or military.159 This new phase in the mainstream media decreased the necessity of oppressive press laws insofar as the media adopted the practice of self-censorship. A similar formation also emerged in ‘alternative Muslim broadcasting’, or in self-referential terms ‘nationalist-moralist’, ‘nationalist follower of the Holy’ or ‘conservative Muslim’.160 Holdings that were close to different religious orders established their own TV channels and newspapers, among which Channel 7 established close ties with the RP.161 In the 1990s, while this alternative media struggled with the Atatu¨rkist secularism dimension of the post-coup ideology, they acted as the voice of the Turkish – Islamic synthesis’ objective of constructing a
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nationalist and conservative Muslim society and citizens as ‘Islamic Turks’.162 How did such a conservative media emerge? Political Islam found fruitful soil to grow in the Turkish–Islamic synthesis. As discussed above, during the 1980s Islam was pumped into the education system and politics as a panacea of pre-coup ‘ills’ in a country that belonged to the US’s Green Line. In addition to the deteriorating economy, the dissolution of the centre-right into DYP and ANAP and the centre-left SHP’s accompanying role in the successive coalition governments pushed voters to the RP’s leftist discourse of just order (adil du¨zen). In the 1995 elections, the RP won the main metropolitan municipalities, including Istanbul and Ankara, and in 1996 it became the main coalition partner with Ciller’s DYP. The Turkish– Islamic synthesis seemed to construct a societal group that would not show a tendency to communism. However, this group was ‘radicalised’ in a way that Atatu¨rkism would not tolerate. Religious reactionism (irtica) made its return to the threat list of the National Security Council in the 1990s, as it was contradicting Atatu¨rkism and secularism. ‘The West Working Group’, formed within the military, was tasked with determining the threat level of irtica and announced it to the public.163 ¨ K was fulfilling its duties according to the Constitution Meanwhile, YO by monitoring the ban on the headscarf in universities. Following the 28 February 1997 ‘post-modern coup’, the coalition government resigned. In 1998, the RP was shut down by the Constitutional Court and was replaced by the Virtue Party (Fazilet Partisi, FP). In contrast, societal groups associated with Atatu¨rkism as identified by the post-coup policy makers perceived a double threat, one from irtica and another from Kurdish separatism. In this way, two main threats of the 1920s, discussed in Chapter 3, were revitalised. In spite of their significant differences, Atatu¨rkists, political Islamists and nationalists agreed in their scepticism towards the West. As discussed above, one of the main themes of the Turkish– Islamic synthesis was the culturally critical stance to the West. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, ‘games played on Turkey’ was one of the main subjects of the National Security Knowledge courses. For Atatu¨rkists, the increasing influence of Western institutions on the economy and the rising demands from the West as the EU favoured more freedoms for ethnic groups, and was thus seen as a game that the West had always been playing on Turkey. The ‘Se`vres Syndrome’164 was articulated as the
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siege mentality prompted by the post-coup governments. For political Islamists and nationalists, the West had infiltrated into the cultural essence of the nation through their ‘alien’ ideologies.165 The West that both groups were critical of was Europe rather than the US. Although political Islamists as the RP made certain moves towards Middle East countries, a Eurasianist perspective started to become influential within the Atatu¨rkist line of thinking.166 Non-Western alternatives could empower Turkey against the West. The DSP-led coalition governments, especially Foreign Minister Cem’s conciliatory approach that brought the West and the East into the geography and political identity of Turkey, countered these attempts in foreign policy. When Turkey was hit by an earthquake in 1999 and an economic crisis in 2001, the central parties were discredited. The AKP as a moderate Islamist party, or in Prime Minister Erdog˘an’s words, a party of ‘conservative democrats’ with an EU membership perspective, won the 2002 elections in that political context. The AKP aimed to address Turkey’s devalorisation by catching up with the liberal democratic dimension of neoliberal hegemonic masculinity. It is difficult to make generalisations about the AKP period, as it involved conflicting characteristics deriving from the adoption of the neoliberal hegemonic masculinity. It is a fact that, especially until 2005 and 2006, very important democratic reforms were performed with an EU membership perspective. National Security Courts were abolished; the status of National Security Council was reduced to advisory; the Press Law was liberalised; and radios and TVs were allowed to broadcast in languages other than Turkish.167 In addition, there was progress in returning the assets of the minority foundations that had previously been confiscated by the state. The liberal democratic dimension of neoliberal masculinity was operationalised by rendering the West in the form of the EU as a source of freedoms. In contrast, human rights violations continued: the National Security Courts were replaced by Special Courts (also abolished in 2013); Armenian journalist Hrant Dink (assassinated in 2007) and Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk were tried for ‘denigrating Turkishness’; the European Court of Human Rights continued to sentence Turkey on account of freedom of expression; and restrictions on websites such as Youtube and Google were intensified.168 According to a New York-based watchdog, Turkey surpassed China regarding the number of journalists in prison and
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became number one in the world.169 Meanwhile, while post-coup institutions that provided military oversight in politics were reformed, ¨ K and the 10 other institutions of the 1982 Constitution, such as YO per cent national election threshold, remained intact. The AKP period is a new phase in Turkey’s history during which society has been hyperfeminised by constructing a specific national identity and citizen subjectivity based on the legacy of the post-12 September ideologies, as well as by rejecting certain segments of the Republican legacy. In line with Bakıner, the following analysis argues that neo-Ottomanism is a project of constructing a societal identity and model citizen in domestic politics.170 Starting from the O¨zal period and in parallel with the Turkish – Islamic synthesis, this line of thinking has pursued Ottoman pluralism, which entails the peaceful coexistence of different ethno-religious and cultural groups under a political community. Ottoman pluralism in line with neoliberal politics of promoting individual freedoms was constructed as a part of neo-Ottomanism, combining the traditional Ottoman form of pluralism and modern liberal multiculturalism with the perspective of formulating ‘a common, superior identity encompassing all Turkish citizens within a religious-ethnic affliation’.171 This neoOttomanist project was operationalised in the neoliberal context. In other words, the AKP aimed to perform a truly neoliberal turn in Turkey’s domestic politics. ¨ zal’s neoliberalism In the economic realm, the AKP reintroduced O with an aggressive approach. With the political stability provided by single party governments, the economy seemed to recover: GDP and GDP per capita increased and inflation decreased. This economic ‘miracle’, however, depended on the construction bubble, which in the short term created employment opportunities along with a high income for those who invested in it. Shopping malls were built all over Turkey to attract consumption and privatisation continued. However, this economic miracle did not result in manufacturing production in Turkey. Urbanisation plans as commodification of urban spaces were important parts of the new economy.172 When the AKP government announced the Taksim Pedestrian Project in 2011, their plan was to reconstruct the Topc u barracks in Gezi Park, which, in fact, would be a shopping mall in the cloak of old barracks. The attempt triggered the mass protests called ‘Gezi protests’, first in Istanbul and then in other
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provinces in Turkey, as a resistance against the AKP’s neoliberal economic and politically conservative policies. Regardless of economic ‘development’ in some sectors, development without production, which was based on construction and consumerism and embodied as shopping mall inflation (in 2011 there were 279 in Turkey, 109 only in Istanbul),173 did not address the unemployment problem, especially graduate unemployment. According to official statistics in Turkey, the recent unemployment rate has been approximately 9 per cent (13 per cent in 2009, decreased to 9 per cent in 2013). The unemployment rate in the non-agricultural sector, which comprised the main participants of the Gezi protests, was approximately 10 – 11 per cent annually.174 The Gezi protests were partly a succinct reaction to the economic policies of the AKP, which aimed to catch up with the standards of the neoliberal hegemonic masculinity of the West(s). With the AKP, neoliberal authoritarianism made its strongest presence since 1980 with the Turkish – Islamic synthesis. For example, there were significant improvements regarding the right of minorities in Turkey, which was what the liberal democratic dimension of neoliberal masculinity demanded. In parallel, Islamist attempts to define the nation continued. Prime Minister Erdog˘an stated the following: The one nation consists of Turks, Kurds, Laz, Georgians (referring to the offspring of Georgian refugees that came to the Black Sea region during the Ottoman Empire), C¸erkez, Abkhaza, Bosnians, and Romani.175 This narrative was in direct contrast to the early Republican languageand ethnic-based approach. Referring to predominantly Muslim segments of society, and excluding Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians and Jews, to name a few non-Muslim groups, was the revitalisation of the Ottoman millet system. In contrast to the legacy that sees religion as a glue for society, this approach defines the nation in terms of religion.176 The self –other dichotomy was so prominent that Erdog˘an stated that ‘they called me Georgian, and even worse, they called me Armenian’.177 In this narrative, historical antagonism towards the Armenians was appropriated to the conservative dimension of neoliberal masculinity.
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It is interesting that neoliberal masculinity allows both, as its reproduction depends on both liberal and conservative politics. In addition to the aforementioned social engineering practices, the AKP introduced controversial regulations and laws that manifest how the non-Western state in Turkey is becoming a bio-political state, which claims authority over the lives of individuals. These included regulations on selling alcoholic beverages, smoking laws, and efforts to pass a law banning abortion. For the former, Prime Minister Erdog˘an adopted the protective ‘father’ role who considered himself responsible for protecting the citizens from their own destructive behaviours, and more importantly protecting the interests of the nation.178 Abortion and caesarean sections were considered as ‘planned’ attempts to stop the population growth of Turkey, which is the source of its power.179 The commonality of both practices, however, is not just the role of the prime minister as father of the nation and regulator of the bodies of citizens. Erdog˘an often made references to the West to justify these practices. For example, he argued that ‘there is a big struggle against abortion in America. There are laws. It is the same in many Western societies’.180 In this way, Erdog˘an adopted the narrative of Turkey’s policy makers that some policies should be justified because that is how it is done in the West. Similarly to the previous decades, the West was articulated as both a source of freedom and of restrictions. The AKP as a hegemonic project of appropriation of political Islam within the parameters of a neoliberal model was a social engineering project.181 It reframed society, cut ties with the Kemalist social engineering project and its history, promoted shopping mall consumerism, reproduced subjectivities along the new neoliberal project, and turned bodies, especially female bodies, into political objectives to be conquered. Surely, an important dimension of this project was (and is) spatial reproduction. According to Gu¨rcan and Peker, ‘one of the main pillars of the AKP government in the last decade has been the massive reorganisation of space along neoliberal lines through infrastructural investments, construction projects and the wholesale restructuring of urban landscapes, such as Canal Istanbul (an artificial canal connecting Marmara Sea and Black Sea), TOKI˙ (Housing Development Administration) projects, shopping malls, highways, etc.182 ‘Islamising’ Taksim was an integral part of this culturaleconomic policy by building barracks, a mosque and a mall replacing
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the Republic’s Taksim square.183 In May 2013, these attempts gave birth to the Republic’s biggest civil resistance protests.
Conclusion This last chapter argued that attempts to catch up with the contradicting standards of neoliberal hegemonic masculinity of the West(s) resulted in a prioritisation of economic liberalisation, financialisation, lessening state regulations and forming trade links internationally. These were accompanied by hypermasculinised reverse Orientalism, especially in domestic politics. Neoliberal masculinity contributed to reproducing the hegemonic coercive power of the state over society. This new neoliberal state is appropriated in Turkey’s historical conditions. Regarding Turkey’s gendered ontological insecurity vis-a`-vis the West(s) in the neoliberal age, it is notable that the role of Islam was highlighted. More than ever, in this period Islam was integrated into the foreign policy narrative as a valuable ‘difference’ from the West. It was valuable in the sense that it could render Turkey a member of the ‘Green Line’ of the Carter administration, and a bridge (combined with geostrategic place) and role model (combined with democracy and secularism) after the Cold War and during the post-9/11 ‘civilisational’ politics. In other words, the arguments about an ‘axis shift’ in AKP foreign policy due to an Islamist focus should be approached cautiously. This was a historical process that had been shaped in the previous three decades. Notwithstanding this ‘hybridity’ that often dominated the narrative, during the military crises Turkey’s policy makers chose to present Turkey as a good, rational and realist member of international society. In addition, the process was accompanied by the narrative framing domestic politics: the Turkish– Islamic synthesis. The synthesis can be described as the domestic implication of reverse Orientalism that exaggerated non-Western difference, assumed a high cultural essence for non-Western society and constructed a powerful state to protect this essence. Anti-Western as it was, it was reminiscent of the Young Turk hypermasculinised approach towards the West, which had reverberations on society, especially on non-Muslim and nonTurkish groups. It was similarly reminiscent of the last three ‘neoliberal’ decades in Turkey. In other words, within the context of historical experiences, the appropriation of neoliberal masculinity in Turkey has
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enabled conservative, xenophobic and oppressive politics at the expense of individual freedoms. In spite of the limited improvements, society has remained hyperfeminised by the state. The early Republican period’s homogenous nation and the Cold Warrior’s nationalist/Islamist social engineering projects were combined with neoliberal conservative ones. In addition, similarly to the early Republican period, the state reappeared as the institution that intervened in the bodies of individuals as manifestations of social engineering. While society was divided into multiple ‘others’, the West constantly and contradictorily appeared as a ‘historic enemy’, but also as an objective to reached. Ambivalence towards the West was most visible during this period.
CONCLUSION GENDERED SUBORDINATION OF THE NON- WEST AND BEYOND
This book is a product of ‘feminist curiosity’. It concerns the types of constitutive, productive and challenging roles that ‘gender’ and ‘gendering’ play in the constitution of political, economic and social relations and structures. More specifically, it aimed to shed light on the role of gender in the (re)production of West/non-West power hierarchies within the interplay of domestic and international politics. Feminist curiosity examines the complex politics and power hierarchies unfolding at the interrelated levels of individual, community, nation, state and international. During the early years of the Republic, when jetfighter pilot Sabiha Go¨kc en and historian Afet I˙nan were promoted by the new regime as the bodily representations of the women of the Republic, it was reproducing the modern, Western Turkey (its geography, its people, its past and present) in the bodies of these women. Decades later, in the 2010s, when the neoliberal AKP regime targeted women to regulate their bodies through the infamous proposals to criminalise abortion and support the three-child policy, policy makers were again instigating a social engineering project that supported the neo-liberal/neo-Ottomanist ideology. The above examples introduce gender empirically by examining the construction of women and womanhood in the case of Turkey. Yet, this book also brings gender into the discussion analytically. According to Spike Peterson, understanding gender analytically ‘refers to how gender operates as a governing code that conceptualises gender as differentiating
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hierarchically between masculinised and feminised identities, qualities and characteristics.1 The preceding chapters aimed to show the ways in which gender operates in the construction of West/non-West power hierarchies by producing ‘others’ internationally and domestically in the case of Turkey. ‘Devalorisation’ in terms of feminisation and hypermasculinisation was employed with the objective of unfolding the ontological insecurity of non-Western policy makers. This insecurity, which renders the non-West (people and politics) anxious, is not simply a question of ‘where Turkey belongs’. It is more a question of power: not receiving respect from and not being treated equally by the West leads to subordination. Gender interacting with race, religion, ethnicity and class is one of the central tropes through which this hierarchy has been historically reproduced. Policy makers are produced as its objects and subjects. The fundamental objective of this book was to show the ways in which gender operates in the reproduction of West/non-West power hierarchies. Devalorisation as feminisation and hypermasculinisation drives non-Western policy makers to adopt narratives and employ political practices through which this gendered subordination can be addressed. In patriarchal global politics, devalorisation of masculinities normalises and justifies the subordination of certain groups, geographies, histories and institutions. It becomes a source of ontological insecurity for the devolarised, so that they often feel the necessity of convincing the West about their masculine credentials. In this way, the hegemonic masculinities of the West(s) are produced and reproduced. From the public relations campaigns of Mithat Pasha in European capitals in the nineteenth century to the role model argument of the AKP, non-Western policy makers in Turkey always wanted to show the West that they should not be treated as subordinate. From the ITC regime to the neoliberal regime of the AKP, Turkey’s policy makers have adopted narratives that have shown both how they felt about this gendered ontological insecurity and how they chose to deal with it. In foreign policy, the ‘West-oriented’ approach has been predominantly utilised (with a brief moment of the DP’s West-centrism in the 1950s). Putting multidimensionality at the heart of foreign policy, Turkey’s policy makers have continuously engaged with
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exploring new options. In different historical moments, the adopted narrative highlights that these options were used to construct a certain identity for Turkey as a state and geography: a different state within the West so that the latter could benefit from this difference. Gendered devalorisation has been attempted to be addressed through becoming ‘a member of Western civilisation’, ‘frontier state’, ‘bridge’, ‘role model’, ‘centre state’, and so on. All these identities, however, construct their own ‘others’ in foreign policy. Turkey’s foreign policy offers only one dimension to understand this gendered ontological insecurity, which has also been addressed through the construction of a masculine non-Western state since the early nineteenth century. It has also engaged in social engineering projects in parallel with foreign policy objectives. Highlighting the logic of deference, the hypermasculinised state in domestic politics targets those groups that challenge the quest of becoming Western. Intersectionality appears in the form of hyperfeminisation of nonMuslim and non-Turkish groups. From the ‘modern Turkish race’ to the Cold Warrior nation to the ‘Turkish – Islamic synthesis’, ‘the others’ in Turkey’s domestic politics sometimes conflate with the ‘others’ in the West. Therefore, their silencing and marginalisation could become legitimate and politically acceptable. However, the objective of creating a modern state and nation often constructs its own domestic others. A non-Western incentive to differentiate itself from the West by highlighting its own parochial difference victimises certain societal groups. The present analysis argued that ‘dual otherisation’ is performed in the construction of hybrid non-Western identities with specific reference to Turkey’s policy makers’ articulations of Europe as a source of desire and dislike. The first process concerned those societal groups that were represented by the state elite as ‘enemies’ of Westernisation, modernisation and development. In the case of Turkey, these ‘others’ are historically Kurds, ‘communists’, ‘left-wing’ groups, political Islamists and environmentalists. However, parochial dimensions render Turkey’s identity hybrid vis-a`-vis Europe: ‘white, but not quite’. Depending on the ruling political group, the parochial dimension varies from ‘leader of anti-imperialist struggle’ to ‘unique combination of Islam and democracy’. Therefore, the second process of otherisation concerns ‘others’ that challenge what makes Turkey
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unique and different from Europe. These groups include, albeit not exclusively, non-Muslim and non-Turkish groups and political liberals. In conclusion, deriving from hybridity, dual otherisation historically enables the state elite to marginalise and oppress several societal groups by rearticulating their opposition either to Turkey’s sameness with Europe or to Turkey’s difference from Europe. The West as ‘civilisation’, Cold Warrior and neoliberal ‘homo economicus’ are the three primary hegemonic masculinities that Turkey’s policy makers have faced historically. This highlights that the hegemonic masculinities of the West are not static, monolithic and fixed, as the discussion underlined. There is no ‘West’; instead, there are ‘Wests’ offering different standards to catch up with. If representations as discursive performances are productive of identities, geographies, peoples and histories, representations of the West in Turkey’s policy makers’ narratives in changing historical moments shed light on multiple Wests in the non-West. In Turkey’s policy makers’ representations, the West in the early twentieth century emerged as ‘Europe’ and ‘civilisation’; with the Cold War, the US became ‘the West’. On the one hand, Turkey’s policy makers’ desire to become a participant in ‘civilisation’ was articulated in the form of Turkey’s desire to join Eurocentric institutions such as the EEC/EU. On the other hand, the West in the form of the US offered a different type of ‘West’: one that valued stability and order in non-Western geographies in the Cold War context. In the post-Cold War neoliberal context (including the post-9/11 era), ‘the role model’ or ‘bridge’ identities were often articulated by Turkey’s policy makers in parallel with US interests in the Middle East, while membership to the Eurocentric institutions remained on the agenda. The modulation of multiple Wests, representing changing hegemonic masculinities, gives rise to three conclusions. First, the analysis highlighted that the non-Western state’s inclusion in Westcentric international society is unlikely; at any rate, there is no ‘successful membership’. This is partly because the hybridity of the non-Western unit’s identity always involves a parochial ‘essence’ (albeit what constitutes this essence changes): Turkishness, Islam, anti-imperialism, nationalism and neo-Ottomanism. Another reason concerns the constantly changing standards of the hegemonic masculinities of the West(s). Therefore, non-Western policy makers
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always find themselves in need to ‘catch up’ with the new standards. In this way, the West/non-West power hierarchies are (re)produced in different historical periods. Second, because the West(s) project different and sometimes conflicting standards, ‘the West’ can be modulated as a justification of both ‘liberal’ and ‘illiberal’ policy performances. Ecevit’s West in the form of Europe (Scandinavia) in the 1970s was articulated to support democratisation policies, whereas Demirel’s West in the form of Europe (Britain) was used to justify problematic practices such as the establishment of the State Security Courts in 1974. It is necessary to avoid generalisations about the West as the supporter of democracy and liberalism in non-Western contexts and to look at how the West was articulated in these contexts. Finally, Turkey’s policy makers often ‘pick’ which ‘West’ they should rely on in their domestic political practices based on their political agendas. CHP policy makers’ longstanding narrative about Europe as the standard of civilisation is the legacy of the early Republican era. The authoritarian liberal right (including the AKP) prioritise the US and its economic and political standards. The construction of multiple Wests does not solely concern changing standards of hegemonic masculinities in different political contexts. The West(s) are also reproduced politically and epistemologically in the mirror of the non-West. For non-Western policy makers, power in the West/non-West hierarchies is productive of subject and object positions. Although they are the object of the hegemonic masculinities of the West(s), they are also important subjects that reproduce gendered hierarchies through their modulations. Their desire to become like the West (whichever West they are referring to) has political implications both in international and domestic politics. Exclusion of Turkey from the non-aligned movement in the 1950s, feminisation of third states as irrational, emotional and undemocratic during the moments of military crises, and internalising the role that the West had tailored for Turkey as a ‘model’ for the Middle East are basic examples in foreign policy. In domestic politics, state –society relations, economic policies and social engineering projects are often processed in parallel with Turkey’s desire to receive respect and equality from the West(s). This political reproduction of the West(s) is accompanied by an epistemological reproduction. Representation of the
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West as the ‘right’ way of doing things is used to justify several political practices, some very controversial. The last conclusion regarding the study of West/non-West power hierarchies in the case of Turkey is that the concept of hybridity should be approached carefully. In many cases, as discussed in the empirical chapters, Turkey’s policy makers’ narratives articulated the desire for the West in tandem with a parochial dimension. This dimension sometimes revealed a dislike towards the West that amounted to reverse Orientalism. However, it is unlikely that hybridity can become a challenge to the reproduction of the West/ non-West power hierarchies. Nadarajah and Rampton’s recent critique to the concept of hybridity as a way to reproduce the liberal peace in the context of ‘post-liberal peace’, rather than challenging liberal hierarchies, can be transferred to the West/non-West contexts.2 Indeed, what makes the non-Western identity hybrid in the case of Turkey does not challenge subordination, although there is a wave of dislike towards the West(s). For example, race politics of the 1930s aimed to convince the West about Turkey’s ‘civilisational credentials’. By the same token, the anti-imperialist narrative of the 1960s and 1970s was almost always supported by the argument that Turkey could help the West in Africa and South East Asia because of its difference. In the post-Cold War neoliberal era, Islam has been playing a similar role. This feminist post-colonial analysis has aimed to raise questions about Turkey – West relations in the interplay of international and domestic politics. Hence, many ‘givens’ of current politics and academic literature can be challenged. One of the ‘givens’ this analysis challenges is the simplistic, binary oppositions (such as Kemalists versus liberals) with regard to Turkey’s politics. The preceding chapters have highlighted that Turkey’s gendered ontological insecurity, its quest for modernisation and respect from the West and countless authoritarian political practices are not limited to the early Republican era. From CHP to DP, from ANAP to AKP, policy makers in Turkey were the subjects and objects of West/non-West power relations. It is a fact that the way in which they dealt with gendered subordination differs depending on political agendas, representations of the West(s) and international and domestic contexts. Different lines of thinking have been in productive
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exchange. Authoritarian liberalism was built upon the hypermasculine modernising state; the ways that the AKP used to shape its relations with society had contours from the ITK period. The narratives and policy performances have exhibited that it is more accurate to look at political lines of thinking in Turkey as sub-modern non-Western ideologies rather than as complete opposites. Ultimately, they are Orientalist reactions to Orientalism.
The Next Step: Non-Western Societal Resistance in the Making By focusing on the narratives of policy makers, the analysis has revealed the modulations of the West(s) in non-Western politics and how these modulations have been played out internationally and domestically. As underlined above, these political practices have historically constructed multiple others. These ‘others’ challenge and delegitimise state projects that aim to construct a ‘nation’ in accordance with their foreign and domestic political objectives. In order to receive respect and equal treatment from the West(s), the groups that challenged the modernisation of the early decades of the Republic, as well as the anti-communism quest of the Cold War or the neoliberal-conservative restructuring, faced the coercive power of the non-Western masculine state. They were silenced and marginalised until May 2013. In May – June 2013, the ‘others’ of the last two centuries talked to the state, the West and, most importantly, to each other. When the AKP government announced the Taksim Pedestrian Project in 2011, their plan was to reconstruct the Topc u barracks in Gezi Park, which, in fact, would be a shopping mall in the cloak of old barracks. This project was the crystallisation of neoliberal masculinity in Turkey. On the one hand, conservative and Ottomanist ideology would mark its presence in the most famous square in Turkey. On the other hand, there would be a shopping mall for consumerism. The mall would be the crown jewel of the ‘mosques and malls’ process of the neoliberal age in Turkey. A small protest launched by a group of environmentalists spread across Turkey in two days, giving rise to the most comprehensive social resistance movement in the history of Turkey.
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The pluralism of the Gezi protests has been one of the most striking dimensions of the movement.3 From communists to nationalists (ulusalcılar), Kurdish movements to minorities, young unemployed individuals to women and LGBTQ movements, a variety of social groups or ‘the others’ of Turkey came together. Many were there citing the problem of youth unemployment while also exhibiting discontent towards the masculine, paternal non-Western state engineering. This is visible in a protestor’s statement: I am fighting for my dignity. I do not want to be controlled by a condition of employment that does not correspond to my aspirations. I am also participating in the events because I do not want to be told by the government how I should behave in my private life, how I should behave in the street or when I see my friends.4 Resistance to hyperfeminisation as a source of insecurity for societal groups was enabled by the realisation of solidarity among these groups, which were faced with the masculine non-Western state in different periods. A secular protestor, Nermin, stated that ‘I am not against Islam. I am for individual freedoms for all. If a girl wants to wear the veil at the university, I fight so she can do so’. Another protestor from the ‘Anti-Capitalist Muslims’ movement revealed why they were there: ‘We hope for a new social life based on solidarity and not neo-liberalism imposed by the government’.5 Identity dichotomies that had been constructed in Turkey over decades, such as Islamist/secular, Kemalist/Islamist, Turk/Kurd and men/women were abandoned in this particular space and time. Another protestor, Gu¨ndu¨z, concurred with this revelation: I am living a very important experience. I learnt to talk to others, I do not fear them anymore, I do not need to defend myself, they do not oppress me. We debate in this forum about our freedom to live as we wish to, without being afraid of the rulers.6 The protestors transcended the boundaries of ‘self’ and ‘other’ by constructing pluralist democratic platforms, such as forums. Through
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interactions with the ‘others’, solidarity was deepened. For example, a member of the LGBTQ movement, Yurdakul, stated: There are cases when transvestite funerals cannot include a burial. Yet, I have never seen so much support for these people as during the Gezi Park protests. When people tasted firsthand the experience of what it is like to become the ‘other’, they better understood the challenges of these suppressed people, and the heterosexual community has developed a sincere empathy for them. I am more hopeful for the LGBTQ community than I have ever been prior to May 31.7 In such a pluralist and democratic movement, the hypermasculinised resistance of the 1970s was abandoned in favour of new methods, as a protestor stated: I think the masculine protesting style of the left was broken. It showed that it is also possible to protest by reading books. All this may be understood as passive resistance, but it turned into something like ‘we can resist by dancing as well’.8 Concluding this feminist post-colonial analysis by focusing on the individual accounts of the Gezi protestors might be unusual, especially since the entire analysis was built upon the narratives of policy makers. However, these limited narratives from the Gezi protests are useful for underlining that the insecurities of society, stemming from state projects to catch up with the standards of the West(s), can be addressed by forming solidarity among the ‘others’ in Turkey. Feminist post-colonial approaches can find new sources of non-Western resistance beyond the state-level hypermasculinised reactions to the West(s) or Orientalist responses to Orientalism. ‘Feminist curiosity’ refuses hypothetical boundaries between the ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, ‘domestic’ and ‘international’, ‘individual’ and ‘community’, ‘self’ and ‘other’, ‘public’ and ‘private’. Thinking in terms of binaries is a form of gendered thinking in which one side is devalorised because of what it lacks, not because of what it has. It justifies and normalises oppression and marginalisation and, in some cases, violence. It silences. It fixes peoples, histories and geographies as
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timeless and spaceless homogeneous units. The West and non-West is a gendered binary that produces complex insecurities. This book problematises the gendered thinking in the case of Turkey’s foreign and domestic politics. It is an attempt to provoke more feminist research so that binaries of violence can be addressed politically and epistemologically. Feminist IR has arrived in Turkey; now it is time to make feminist sense of Turkey’s foreign and domestic politics.
NOTES
Introduction Gendered Power Hierarchies between Turkey and the West(s): A Case for Feminist Post-Colonial Analysis 1. S¸u¨kru¨ Haniog˘lu (ed.), Kendi Mektuplarında Enver Pas¸a (I˙stanbul, 1989), p. 76. 2. Ibid., p. 235. 3. Bu¨lent Ecevit, Tu¨rkiye Cumhuriyeti Bas¸bakanlık, Bas¸bakan Bu¨lent Ecevit’in Televizyon Konus¸ması 17 Ag˘ustos 1974 (Ankara, 1974), p. 11. 4. Barry Buzan and Thomas Diez, ‘The European Union and Turkey’, Survival xli/1 (1999), pp. 41–57; Bahar Rumelili, ‘Constructing identity and relating to difference: understanding the EU’s mode of differentiation’, Review of International Studies xxx/1 (2004), pp. 27–47; Pinar Bilgin and Ali Bilgic , ‘Turkey and EU/rope: Discourses of inspiration/anxiety in Turkey’s foreign policy’, Review of European Studies iv/3 (2012), pp. 111–24; Viatcheslav Morozov and Bahar Rumelili, ‘The external constitution of European identity: Russia and Turkey as Europe-makers’, Cooperation and Conflict xlvii/1 (2012), pp. 28–48. 5. Keith Dowding, ‘Why should we care about the definition of power?’, Journal of Political Power v/1 (2012), pp. 119– 35. 6. Barry Hindess, Discourses of Power: From Hobbes to Foucault (Oxford, 1996). 7. Jonathan Hearn, Theorizing Power (Basingstoke, 2012). 8. Hearn, Theorizing Power, p. 7. 9. Kalevi J. Holsti, ‘The concept of power in the study of International Relations’, Background vii/4 (1964), pp. 179– 94; Tara McCormack, Critique, Security and Power (London, 2010). 10. Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (Washington, DC, 2004); Steven Lukes, ‘Power and the battle for hearts and minds’, Millennium Journal of International Studies xxxiii/3 (2005), pp. 477– 93;
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11. 12.
13. 14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19. 20.
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Richard N. Lebow, ‘Power, persuasion and justice’, Millennium Journal of International Studies, xxxiii/3 (2005), pp. 551– 81; Peter van Ham, Social Power in International Politics (London, 2010). Stefano Guzzini, ‘The concept of power: a constructivist analysis’, Millennium Journal of International Studies xxxiii/3 (2005), pp. 508 (495 – 521). Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall, ‘Power in global governance’, in M. Barnett and R. Duvall (eds), Power in Global Governance (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 13 – 22. Ibid., p. 18. Michel Foucault, ‘The subject and power’, in J. Scott (ed.), Power: Critical Concepts (London, 1982), pp. 786– 90; Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York, 1977), p. 29; Michel Foucault, ‘Two Lectures’, in C. Gordon (ed.), Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972– 1977 (New York, 1980), p. 97. Patricia Amigot and Margot Pujal, ‘On power, freedom, and gender: a fruitful tension between Foucault and feminism’, Theory and Psychology xix/5 (2009), pp. 646 – 69; Didier Bigo, ‘Pierre Bourdieu and International Relations: power of practices, practices of power’, International Political Sociology v/3 (2011), pp. 225 – 8; Helen M. Kinsella, ‘Securing the civilian: sex and gender in the laws of war’, in M. Barnett and R. Duvall (eds), Power in Global Governance (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 249 – 72; Himadeep Muppidi, ‘Colonial and postcolonial global governance’, in M. Barnett and R. Duvall (eds), Power in Global Governance (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 273 – 93. Anna M. Agathangelou and L.H.M. Ling, ‘Power and play through Poisies: reconstructing self and other in the 9/11 Commission report’, Millennium Journal of International Studies xxxiii/3 (2005), pp. 827 – 53; Anna Agathangelou and L.H.M. Ling, Transforming World Politics: From Empire to Multiple Worlds (London, 2009); Anna M. Agathangelou and Heather Turcotte, ‘Postcolonial theories and challenges to “First World-ism”’, in L. Shepherd (ed.), Gender Matters in Global Politics: A Feminist Introduction to International Relations (London, 2010), pp. 44 – 58; Laura Shepherd, ‘Sex or gender? Bodies in world politics and why gender matters’, in L. Shepherd (ed.), Gender Matters in Global Politics: A Feminist Introduction to International Relations (London, 2010), pp. 3 – 16. M.E. Bailey, ‘Foucauldian feminism: contesting bodies, sexuality and identity’, in Caroline Ramazanoglu (ed.), Up Against Foucault: Explorations of Some Tensions between Foucault and Feminism (London, 1993), pp. 116 – 17. Nancy Fraser, ‘Foucault on modern power: empirical insights and normative confusions’, in N. Fraser (ed.), Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (Minneapolis, 1989), p. 18. Roxanne Lynn Doty, Imperial Encounters (Minneapolis, 1996), p. 4. Edward Said, ‘Foucault and the imagination of power’, in D.C. Hoy (ed.), Foucault: A Critical Reader (Oxford, 1986), p. 151.
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21. In the case of Turkey, the West has been the face, idea and political manifestation of the modern. That is why throughout the analysis ‘Westernisation’ and ‘modernisation’ are used interchangeably. ¨ mit U¨ngo¨r, The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern 22. Ug˘ur U Anatolia 1913– 1950 (Oxford, 2011); Rene´e Worringer, ‘“Sick Man of Europe” or “Japan of the Near East”?: Constructing Ottoman modernity in the Hamidian and Young Turk eras’, International Journal of Middle East Studies xxxvi/2 (2004), pp. 207– 30; Soner C¸ag˘ıs¸tay, Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who is a Turk? (London, 2006); Serpil Sancar, Tu¨rk Modernles¸mesinin Cinsiyeti (Istanbul, 2013); Meltem Ahiska, Occidentalism in Turkey: Question of Modernity and Turkish National Identity in Turkish Radio Broadcasting (London, 2010); Ayse Zarakol, After Defeat How the East learned to live with the West (Cambridge, 2010). Mainly focusing on the early republican period are Metin Heper, The State and Kurds in Turkey: The Question of Assimilation (Basingstoke, 2008); Anna Frangoudaki and Caglar Keyder, Ways to Modernity in Greece and Turkey’s Encounters with Europe, 1850– 1950 (London, 2007); and Levent Ko¨ker, Modernles¸me, Kemalizm ve Demokrasi (I˙stanbul, 2013). 23. Touraj Atabaki and Erik J. Zu¨rcher, Men of Order: Authoritarian Modernization under Ataturk and Reza Shah (London, 2004). 24. Sibel Bozdog˘an and Resat Kasaba, Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey (Seattle, 2000); Celia Kerslake, Kerem Oktem and Philip Robins (eds), Turkey’s Engagement with Modernity: Conflict and Change in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke, 2010). ¨ ncu¨ and Heinz Kramer (eds), Turkey and the West: 25. Metin Heper, Ays¸e O Changing Political and Cultural Identities (London, 1993); Birol Ali Yes¸ilada, ‘Problems of political development in the Third Republic’, Polity xxi/2 (1988), pp. 345– 50; Mu¨ge Aknur (ed.), Democratic Consolidation in Turkey (Boca Raton, FL, 2012); Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin (eds), State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s (Berlin, 1988); Emel Akc ali and Mehmet Perinc ek, ‘Kemalist Eurasianism: an emerging geopolitical discourse in Turkey’, Geopolitics xiv/3 (2009), pp. 550 – 69. 26. Demet Yalc ın Mousseau, ‘An inquiry into the linkage among nationalizing policies, democratization, and ethno-nationalist conflict: the Kurdish case in Turkey’, Nationalities Papers xl/1 (2012), pp. 45 – 62; Sena Karasipahi, Muslims in Modern Turkey Kemalism, Modernism and the Revolt of the Islamic Intellectuals (London, 2008). 27. There are excellent studies that discuss particular issues through historicising them. For the issue of ethno-religious problems in Turkey, see S¸ener Aktu¨rk, Regimes of Ethnicity and Nationhood in Germany, Russia and Turkey (Cambridge, 2013); for the issue of citizenship, Bas¸ak I˙nce, Citizenship and Identity in Turkey from Atatu¨rk’s Republic to the Present Day (London, 2012). 28. Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton, 2008, 2nd edition), p. 4.
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29. Ibid., p. 16. 30. For example, see Hasan Ko¨sebalaban, Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikasi: I˙slam, Milliyetcilik, Kuresellesme (Ankara, 2014). 31. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, p. 7. 32. I˙lhan Tekeli, ‘Tu¨rkiye’de siyasal du¨s¸u¨ncenin gelis¸imi konusunda bir u¨st anlati’, in T. Bora and M. Gu¨ltekingil (eds), Modern Tu¨rkiye’de Siyasal Du¨s¸u¨nce: Modernles¸me ve Batıclık (I˙stanbul, 2007, 4th edition), pp. 40 – 1. 33. For example, Nur Bilge Criss, ‘Dismantling Turkey: the will of the people?’, Turkish Studies xi/1 (2010), pp. 45 – 58. 34. For example, Bu¨lent Aras and Rabia Karakaya Polat, ‘Turkey and the Middle East: frontiers of the new geographical imagination’, Australian Journal of International Affairs lxi/4 (2007), pp. 471– 88, and ‘From conflict to cooperation: desecuritization of Turkey’s relations with Syria and Iran’, Security Dialogue xxxix/5 (2008), pp. 495– 515. 35. Aras and Polat, ‘From conflict to cooperation’, p. 478. 36. Nilgu¨n Toker and Serdar Tekin, ‘Batıcı siyasi du¨s¸u¨ncenin karakteristikleri ve evreleri: kamusuz Cumhuriyet’ten kamusuz demokrasi’ye’, in T. Bora and M. Gu¨ltekingil (eds), Modern Tu¨rkiye’de Siyasi Du¨s¸u¨nce: Modernles¸me ve Batıcılık (I˙stanbul, 2007, 4th edition), p. 105. A similar concept would be Zakaria’s ‘illiberal democracy’ to define procedural democracies with a high level of human rights violations. However, because of its implicit endorsement of Western liberalism, it will not be used. See Fareed Zakaria, ‘The rise of illiberal democracy’, Foreign Affairs lxxvi (1997), pp. 23 – 43. 37. Stephen Chan, Peter Mandeville, and Rolan Bleaker (eds), The Zen of International Relations: IR Theory from East to West (Basingstoke, 2001); Geeta Chowdhry and Sheila Neir (eds), Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations: Reading Race, Gender and Class (London, 2004); Branwen Gruffydd Jones (ed.), Decolonizing International Relations (London, 2006). 38. Shogo Suzuki, Civilization and Empire: China and Japan’s Encounter with European International Society (London, 2006); Seungsook Moon, Militarized Modernity and Gendered Citizenship in South Korea (Durham, NC, 2005); Jongwoo Han and L.H.M Ling, ‘Authoritarianism in the hypermasculinized state: hybridity, patriarchy, and capitalism in Korea’, International Studies Quarterly xlii/1 (1998), pp. 53 – 78. 39. Sankaran Krishna, Postcolonial Insecurities: India, Sri Lanka and the Question of Nationhood (Minneapolis, 1999), p. xxi. 40. Ibid., p. 5. 41. Doty, Imperial Encounters, pp. 10 –11. 42. Suzuki, Civilization and Empire, pp. 29 –30. 43. Ibid., p. 17. 44. Annick Wibben, Feminist Security Studies: A Narrative Approach (London, 2011), p. 2. 45. Laura McLeod, ‘Back to the future: Temporality and gender security narratives in Serbia’, Security Dialogue xliv/2 (2013), pp. 165– 81.
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46. Maria Stern, ‘Racism, sexism, classism, and much more: reading securityidentity in marginalized sites’, in B. Ackerly, M. Stern and J. True (eds), Feminist Methodologies for International Relations (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 174 – 98. 47. Randolph B. Persaud, ‘Situating race in International Relations: the dialectics of civilizational security’, in G. Chowdry and S. Nair (eds), Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations: Reading Race, Gender and Class (London, 2002), p. 67. 48. Arlene B. Tickner and David L. Blaney (eds), Thinking International Relations Differently (London, 2012); Robbie Shilliam (ed.), International Relations and non-Western Thought (London, 2011). 49. Arlene B. Tickner and David L. Blaney, ‘Introduction: thinking difference’, in A.B. Tickner and D.L. Blaney (eds), Thinking International Relations Differently (London, 2012), p. 8. 50. Ibid., p. 10. 51. Fred Dallmayr, ‘Western thought and Indian thought: comments on Ramanujan’, Philosophy East and West xliv/3 (1994), pp. 529 –30. 52. Ryoko Nakano, ‘Beyond Orientalism and “reverse Orientalism”: through the looking glass of Japanese humanism’, in R. Shilliam (ed.), International Relations and Non-Western Thought (London, 2012), p. 125. 53. What is meant by ‘treatment with equality and respect’ will be explained in Chapter 1.
Chapter 1
Reproduction of Power Hierarchies through ‘Devalorising’ the Non-West
1. Randolph B. Persaud, ‘Situating race in International Relations: the dialectics of civilizational security in American immigration’, in G. Chowdry and S. Nair (eds), Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations: Reading Race, Gender and Class (London, 2002), pp. 56– 81. 2. J. Marshall Beier, ‘Beyond hegemonic state(ment)s of nature: indigenous knowledge and non-state possibilities in International Relations’, in G. Chowdry and S. Nair (eds), Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations: Reading Race, Gender and Class (London, 2002), pp. 82 – 114. 3. Tarak Barkawi and Mark Laffey, ‘The imperial peace: democracy, force and globalization’, European Journal of International Relations v/4 (1999), pp. 403 – 34; L.H.M. Ling, ‘Cultural chauvinism and the liberal international order: “West versus Rest” in Asia’s financial crisis’, in G. Chowdry and S. Nair (eds), Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations: Reading Race, Gender and Class (London, 2002), pp. 115–41. 4. Robbie Shilliam, ‘The perilous but unavoidable terrain of the non-West’, in R. Shilliam (ed.), International Relations and Non-Western Thought:
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12. 13. 14. 15.
16.
17. 18.
19.
20. 21.
22.
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Imperialism, Colonialism and Investigations of Global Modernity (London, 2012), p. 17. Doty, Imperial Encounters, p. 11. Anna M. Agathangelou and L.H.M. Ling, Transforming World Politics: From Empire to Multiple Worlds (Abingdon, 2009), pp. 16 – 17. Shilliam, ‘The perilous but unavoidable terrain of the non-West’, p. 13. Siba N. Grovogui, Beyond Eurocentrism and Anarchy: Memories of International Order and Institutions (New York, 2006), pp. 16 – 17. Mark B. Salter, Barbarians and Civilization in International Relations (London, 2002). David Slater, Geopolitics and the Post-Colonial: Rethinking North – South Relations (Oxford, 2004), p. 9. Shampa Biswas, ‘The “new Cold War”: secularism, Orientalism, and postcoloniality’, in G. Chowdhry and S. Nair (eds), Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations: Reading Race, Gender and Class (London, 2002), pp. 184 –208. Ibid., p. 23. John M. Hobson, The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation (Cambridge, 2004), p. 7. Slater, Geopolitics and the Post-Colonial, pp. 10 – 11. Branwen G. Jones, ‘Anti-racism and emancipation in the thought and practice of Cabral, Neto, Mondlane, and Machel’, in R. Shilliam (ed.), International Relations and Non-Western Thought: Imperialism, Colonialism and Investigations of Global Modernity (London, 2012), p. 50. Geeta Chowdry and Sheila Nair, ‘Power in a postcolonial world: race, gender, and class in International Relations’, in G. Chowdry and S. Nair (eds), Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations: Reading Race, Gender and Class (London, 2002), p. 16. Ibid., p. 9. A good example of this problematisation is the critique of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire by Anna M. Agathangelou and L.H.M. Ling, Transforming World Politics: From Empire to Multiple Worlds (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), pp. 2– 3; Tarak Barkawi and Mark Laffey, ‘Retrieving the imperial: Empire and International Relations’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies xxxi/1 (2002), pp. 109–27. L.H.M. Ling, ‘Cultural chauvinism and the liberal international order’; Seungsook Moon, Militarized Modernity and Gendered Citizenship in South Korea (Durham, 2007). Slater, Geopolitics and the Post-Colonial, p. 124. Ali Bilgic , ‘Hybrid hegemonic masculinity of the EU before and after the Arab Spring: a gender analysis of Euro-Mediterranean security relations’, Mediterranean Politics xx/3 (2015), pp. 322– 40. Sankaran Krishna, Postcolonial Insecurities: India, Sri Lanka, and the Question of Nationhood (Minneapolis, 1999).
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35 –37
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23. Christine Sylvester, Feminist International Relations: an Unfinished Journey (Cambridge, 2002), p. 15; Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism without Borders: Decolonising Theory, Practicing Solidarity (London, 2006). 24. Ann J. Tickner, Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security (New York, 1992). 25. Jill Steans, Gender and International Relations: an Introduction (Cambridge, 1998); Ann J. Tickner, Gendering World Politics: Issues and Approaches in the Post-Cold War Era (New York, 2001); Ann J. Tickner, ‘Hans Morgenthau’s principles of political realism: a feminist reformulation’, Millennium xvii/3 (1988), pp. 429– 40. See also Ann J. Tickner, Gender in International Relations, especially Chapter 1; Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (Berkeley, 2001, 2nd edition). 26. It should be noted that not all feminist analyses are post-positivist, see Sandra Harding, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women’s Lives (Ithaca, 1991); Mary Caprioli, ‘Democracy and human rights versus women’s security: a contradiction?’, Security Dialogue xxxv/4 (2004), pp. 411 – 28. 27. Spike Peterson, ‘Introduction’, in S. Peterson (ed.), Gendered States: Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory (Boulder, 1992), pp. 12 –13. 28. Steans, Gender and International Relations, pp. 43 – 5. 29. Ibid., p. 55. 30. Peterson, ‘Introduction’, p. 9. 31. Making visible the masculinity of scientific knowledge also revealed another underlying positivist mentality: the domination of nature. Control and subordination of nature in positivism generates the idea that whatever is considered ‘natural’ necessitates similar control and subordination, while recognising the necessity of ‘natural’ for reproduction, both biological and social. ‘Nature’ or ‘the control of nature’ is an important phenomenon in the construction of male-biased knowledge, the subordination of which is considered as feminine. According to Peterson, the Enlightenment philosophy in tandem with the rise of empiricism constructed ‘man’ as a subject entitled to rationalise, know, examine, discover and subsequently control ‘nature’ as an object for the purpose of human progress. Nature as female is sometimes passive and sometimes active, but always ‘out there’ to be discovered, and always to be controlled and dominated by the rational and scientific mind. Since nature is the feminine ‘other’, the masculine ‘self’ can be defined as opposed to what it is not. See Spike Peterson, ‘Whose rights? A critique of the “givens” in human rights discourse’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political xv/3 (1990), pp. 183– 206; see also Nancy Hartsock, ‘The barracks community in Western political thought: prolegomena to a feminist critique of war and politics’, The Women’s Studies International Forum v/3– 4 (1982), pp. 283 –6. 32. Spike Peterson, ‘Security and sovereign state security and sovereign states: what is at stake in taking feminism seriously?, in S. Peterson (ed.), Gendered
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33.
34. 35.
36. 37.
38. 39.
40. 41. 42.
43. 44.
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States: Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory (Boulder, 1992), p. 39. Ibid., p. 47; Anne Sisson Runyan, ‘The ‘‘state’’ of nature: a garden unfit for women and other living things’, in S. Peterson (ed.), Gendered States: Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory (Boulder, 1992), p. 124. Steans, Gender and International Relations, pp. 46 – 9. Monica Lazreg, ‘Feminism and difference: the perils of writing as a woman on women in Algeria’, Feminist Studies, xiv/1 (1988), pp. 81 – 107; Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘French feminism in international frame’, in G. Spivak (ed.), In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (New York, 1987). Chandra Mohanty, ‘Under Western eyes: feminist scholarship and colonial discourses’, Feminist Review xii/1 (1984), pp. 333– 58. Anne Marie Goetz, ‘Feminism and the claim to know: contradictions in feminist approaches to women in development’, in R. Grant and K. Newland (eds), Gender and International Relations (Buckingham, 1991), pp. 133– 57. Goetz, ‘Feminism and the claim to know’. M. Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Mohanty, ‘Feminist genealogies, legacies, movements’, in M.J. Alexander and C. Mohanty (eds), Feminist Geneologies, Colonian Legacies, Democratic Futures (London, 1997), p. xxiii. Mohanty, ‘Under Western eyes’. Robert W. Connell, Masculinities (Berkeley, 2005, 2nd edition), p. 76. The theory of masculinities attracts both support and criticism. Some studies argue that the theory does not effectively reveal and reflect counter-hegemonic resistance, and others highlight the failings of the theory to recognise complex interactions between institutions, daily practices and cultural representations. While acknowledging the gaps, proponents argue that rendering masculinities ‘visible offers a challenge to existing power relations and their continuing reiteration’. Understanding how masculinities as gendered identities are constructed has become central for feminism, which aims to reveal gendered dimensions of power relations and transform them. See Mike Donaldson, ‘What is hegemonic masculinity?’, Theory and Society xxii/5 (1993), pp. 643– 57; Stephen Whitehead, ‘Hegemonic masculinity revisited’, Gender, Work and Organization vi/1 (1999), pp. 335– 56; Jeff Hearn, ‘From hegemonic masculinity to the hegemony of men’, Feminist Theory v/1 (2004), pp. 49 – 72; Christina Beasley, ‘Rethinking hegemonic masculinity in a globalizing world’, Men and Masculinities xi/ 1 (2008), p. 87. For the importance of studying masculinities see J.K. Gardiner, ‘Men, masculinities, and feminist theory’, in M. Kimmel, J.S. Hearn and R.W. Connell (eds), Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities (Thousand Oaks, 2005), p. 36. Connell, Masculinities, p. 75. Lahoucine Ouzgane and Daniel Coleman, ‘Postcolonial masculinities: introduction’, Jouvert: A Journal of Postcolonial Studies ii/1 (1998), pp. 1 – 10; L.H.M Ling, ‘Hypermasculinity on the rise, again: a response to Fukuyama on women and world politics’, International Feminist Journal of Politics ii/2 (2000),
NOTES
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46. 47.
48. 49.
50.
51. 52.
53.
54.
55. 56.
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pp. 277– 86; Jongwoo Han and L.H.M Ling, ‘Authoritarianism in the hypermasculinized state: hybridity, patriarchy, and capitalism in Korea’, International Studies Quarterly xlii/1 (1998), pp. 53 – 78; J.H. Maruska, ‘When are states hypermasculine?’, in L. Sjoberg (ed.), Gender and International Security: Feminist Perspectives (London, 2010), pp. 235– 55; A. Kronsell, ‘Gendered practices in institutions of hegemonic masculinity’, International Feminist Journal of Politics v/2 (2005), pp. 280– 98. Charlotte Hooper, ‘Masculinist practices and gender politics: the operation of multiple masculinities in IR’, in M. Zalewski and J. Parpart (eds), The ‘Man’ Question in International Relations (Oxford and Boulder, 1998). C. Hooper, Manly States: Masculinities, International Relations and Gender Politics (New York, 2001), p. 98. Saskia Stachowitsch, ‘Military privatization and the remasculinization of the state: making the link between the outsourcing of military security and gendered state transformations’, International Relations xxvii/1 (2013), pp. 74 – 94. Maruska, ‘When are states hypermasculine?’, pp. 235– 54. Glen S. Elder, ‘Somewhere, over the rainbow: Cape Town, South Africa, as a “gay destination”’, in L. Ouzgane and R Morrell (eds), African Masculinities: Men in Africa from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present (Basingstoke, 2005), pp. 43 – 60; Kevin Dunn, ‘Interrogating white male privilege’, in J.L. Parpart and M. Zalewski (eds), Rethinking the ‘Man’ Question: Sex, Gender and Violence in International Relations (London, 2008), pp. 47 – 69. Maya Eichler, ‘Russian veterans of the Chechen Wars: a feminist analysis of militarized masculinities’, in JA Tickner and L. Sjoberg (eds), Feminism and International Relations: Conversations about the Past, Present and Future (London, 2011), pp. 123– 40. Elder, ‘Somewhere, over the rainbow’. Jamie Munn, ‘National myths and the creation of heroes’, in J.L. Parpart and M Zalewski (eds), Rethinking the ‘Man’ Question: Sex, Gender and Violence in International Relations (London, 2008), pp. 143– 61. Cynthia Enloe, ‘When feminists explore masculinities in IR: an engagement with Maya Eichler’, in J.A. Tickner and L. Sjoberg (eds), Feminism and International Relations: Conversations about the Past, Present and Future (London, 2011), p. 141. Kimberly Hutchings, ‘Cognitive short cuts’, in J.L. Parpart and M. Zalewski (eds), Rethinking the ‘Man’ Question: Sex, Gender and Violence in International Relations (London, 2008), p. 32. Iver B. Neumann, Uses of the Other: The ‘East’ in European Identity Formation (Manchester, 1999). David Spurr, The Rhetoric of the Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing and Imperial Administration (London, 1993); Roxanne Lyn Doty, Imperial Encounters: The Politics of Representation in North – South Relations (Minneapolis, 1996).
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57. John M. Hobson, The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation (Cambridge, 2004); Mark B. Salter, Barbarians and Civilization in International Relations (London, 2002). 58. Ouzgane and Coleman, ‘Postcolonial masculinities: introduction’, pp. 1 – 10; L.H.M. Ling, ‘Hypermasculinity on the rise, again’, pp. 277 – 86; Han and Ling, ‘Authoritarianism in the hypermasculinized state’, pp. 53 – 78; Maruska, ‘When are states hypermasculine?’; A. Kronsell, ‘Gendered practices in institutions of hegemonic masculinity’, pp. 280 – 98. 59. Anna M. Agathangelou and L.H.M. Ling, ‘Power, borders, security, wealth: lessons of violence and desire from September 11’, International Studies Quarterly xlviii/3 (2004), pp. 517– 38. 60. Han and Ling, ‘Authoritarianism in the hypermasculinized state’, pp. 60 – 2. 61. Slater, Geopolitics and the Post-Colonial, p. 223. 62. Ling, ‘Cultural chauvinism and the liberal international order’, pp. 115– 41; Agathangelou and Ling, Transforming World Politics, p. 2. 63. Edward Said, Orientalism (Harmondsworth, 1978). 64. Ibid., p. 206. 65. Meyda Yegenoglu, Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism (London, 1998), p. 26; Lila Abu-Lughod, ‘Orientalism and Middle East feminist studies’, Feminist Studies xxvii/1 (2001), pp. 101– 13. 66. Melika Mehdid, ‘A Western invention of Arab womanhood: the “Oriental” female’, in H. Afshar (ed.), Women in the Middle East: Perceptions, Realities, and Struggles for Liberation (New York, 1993), pp. 18 – 58; Maryam Khalid, ‘Gender, Orientalism and representations of the ‘other’ in the war on terror’, Global Change, Peace and Security vol. xxiii (2011), pp. 15 – 29. 67. Homi Bhabha, ‘The Other question: difference, discrimination, and the discourse of colonialism’, in H.A. Baker Jr, M. Diawara and R.H. Lindeborg (eds), Black British Cultural Studies: A Reader (Chicago, 1996), pp. 87 – 106; H. Bhabha, ‘Of mimicry and man: the ambivalence of colonial discourse’, October xxviii (1984), pp. 125–33. 68. In this case, sexualisation and gendering appear as conflated processes. 69. V. Spike Peterson, ‘Gendered identities, ideologies, and practices in the context of war and militarism’, in L. Sjoberg and S. Via (eds), Gender, War and Militarism: Feminist Perspectives (London, 2010), p. 18. 70. V. Spike Peterson, ‘Interactive and intersectional analytics of globalization’, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies xxx/1 (2009), p. 35. 71. Peterson, ‘Gendered identities’, p. 19. 72. Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism (Oxford, 1983). 73. Ling, ‘Cultural chauvinism and the liberal international order’, p. 118. 74. Mohammed Ayoob, The Third World Security Predicament: State Making, Regional Conflict, and the International System (Boulder, 1995).
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75. Ken Booth, ‘Security and emancipation’, Review of International Studies xvii/4 (1991), pp. 313– 26. 76. Mohammed Ayoob, ‘Defining security: a subaltern realist perspective’, in K. Krause and M.C. Williams (eds), Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Cases (Minneapolis, 1997), pp. 121– 46. 77. Himadeep Muppidi, ‘Postcoloniality and the production of international insecurity: the persistent puzzle of US – Indian relations’, in J. Weldes, M. Laffey, H. Gusterson and R. Duvall (eds), Cultures of Insecurity: States, Communities and the Production of Danger (Minneapolis, 1999), pp. 119–46. 78. Pinar Bilgin, ‘The securityness of secularism? The case of Turkey’, Security Dialogue xxxix/6 (2008), pp. 593– 614.; see also Pinar Bilgin, ‘Securing Turkey through Western-oriented foreign policy’, New Perspectives on Turkey xl (2009), pp. 105– 25. 79. Bilgin, ‘The securityness of secularism?’. 80. Pinar Bilgin and Ali Bilgic , ‘Turkey and EU/rope: Discourses of inspiration/ anxiety in Turkey’s foreign policy’, Review of European Studies iv/3 (2012), p. 112 (111 –24). 81. Ays¸e Zarakol, After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West (Cambridge, 2011), p. 39. Italics original. 82. Gerard Aching, ‘On colonial modernity: civilization versus sovereignty in Cuba, c. 1840’ in R. Shilliam (ed.), Non-Western Thought and International Relations: Retrieving the Global Context of Investigations into Modernity (London, 2012), p. 44. 83. Robert Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race (London, 2005), p. 166. 84. For this argument, see Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? (London, 1986). 85. Ahmet C¸ig˘dem, ‘“Tu¨rk batılılas¸ması”nı ac ıklayacı bir kavram: Tu¨rk bas¸kalıg˘ı batılılas¸ma, modernite ve modernizasyon’, in Modern Tu¨rkiye’de Siyasi Du¨s¸u¨nce: Modernles¸me ve Batıcılık, Vol. 3 (I˙stanbul, 2007, 4th edition), pp. 68–81. 86. Bilgin, ‘Securing Turkey through Western-oriented foreign policy’. 87. Chakratbarty, Provincializing Europe, p. 40. 88. Han and Ling, ‘Authoritarianism in the hypermasculinized state’, pp. 53–78; Moon, Gendered Citizenship in South Korea; Krishna, Postcolonial Insecurities. 89. S. Moon, Gendered Citizenship in South Korea. 90. Agathangelou and Ling, Transforming World Politics, pp. 16 – 21. 91. Randolph B. Persaud, ‘Situation race in International Relations: the dialectics of civilizational security in American immigration’, in G. Chowdhry and S. Nair (eds), Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations: Reading Race, Gender and Class (London, 2002), pp. 56 – 81. 92. Ling, ‘Cultural chauvinism and the liberal international order’. 93. Ibid., p. 116. 94. Ibid., p. 117. On another level, hybridity is discussed in relation to liberalism in world politics and how diasporas are produced as hybrid
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subjects. On the one hand, diasporas are ‘taxpayers’ or ‘freedom fighters’; on the other, they are ‘extremists’. Surely this hybrid representation of individual subjectivities works politically for hybrid liberalism: ‘in positing a division of the world between order and disorder, equating the former with its tenets, and arrogating to itself a mission to transform the latter into its semblance, that a hybrid liberalism assures itself of its existence’. See Mark Laffey and Suthaharan Nadarajah, ‘The hybridity of liberal peace: states, diasporas and insecurity’, Security Dialogue xliii/5 (2012), p. 416.
Chapter 2 Violent Encounters with the West: A Gendered Modern State in the Making during the Late Ottoman Period 1. S¸u¨kru¨ Haniog˘lu, Kendi Mektuplarında Enver Pas¸a (I˙stanbul, 1989), p. 105. 2. For a detailed historical explanation of the reforms in the later Ottoman Empire, see Stanford Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey 1808– 1975 (Cambridge, 2002, 8th edition), pp. 55 – 172. 3. Naim Turfan, Rise of the Young Turks (London, 2000), p. 56. 4. For Western depictions of the Ottomans as ‘Oriental despots’ and oppressors, see Asli Cirakman, From the ‘Terror of the World’ to the ‘Sick Man of Europe’ (New York, 2005, 2nd edition), pp. 132– 164. 5. Enver Ziya Karal, ‘Gu¨lhane Hatt-ı Hu¨mayunu’nda Batı’nın Etkisi’, in H.I˙nalcık and M. Seyitdanlıog˘lu (eds), Tanzimat: Deg˘is¸im Su¨recinde Osmanlı I˙mparatorlug˘u (Ankara, 2006, 2nd edition), p. 74. 6. Ibid., p. 74. 7. Ibid., p. 75. 8. S¸erif Mardin, ‘Tanzimat Fermanı’nın Manası: Yeni Bir I˙zah Denemesi’, in H. I˙nalcık and M. Seyitdanlıog˘lu (eds), Tanzimat: Deg˘is¸im Su¨recinde Osmanlı I˙mparatorlug˘u (Ankara, 2006, 2nd edition), p. 112. 9. Ibid., p. 119. 10. Mehmet Kaplan, ‘Mustafa Res¸id Pas¸a ve Yeni Aydın Tipi’, in H. I˙nalcık and M. Seyitdanlıog˘lu (eds), Tanzimat: Deg˘is¸im Su¨recinde Osmanlı I˙mparatorlug˘u (Ankara, 2006, 2nd edition), p. 337. 11. Eric Jan Zu¨rcher, The Young Turk Legacy and Nation Building: From the Ottoman Empire to Atatu¨rk’s Turkey (London, 2010), p. 68. 12. Said Halim Pas¸a, Buhranlarımız ve Son Eserleri (Istanbul, 1991), pp. 14 and 18. 13. Ibid., p. 76. 14. Ibid., p. 77. 15. Kemal Karpat, ‘Historical Continuity and Identity Change or How to be a Modern Muslim, Ottoman and Turk’, in Kemal Karpat (ed.), Ottoman Past and Today’s Turkey (Leiden, 2000), p. 7. 16. Turfan, Rise of the Young Turks, p. 56. 17. Ibid., p. 57.
NOTES TO PAGES 61 –73
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18. Mahmood Mamdani, ‘An African reflection on Tahrir Square’, in A.M. Agathangelou and N. Sog˘uk (eds), Arab Revolutions and World Transformations (London: Routledge, 2013), p. 13. 19. In the official historiography of Turkey, the Incident is identified as an Islamist reactionary uprising. However, Zu¨rcher argues that the insurgency was orchestrated by an alliance between the liberals (their central newspaper was Ahrar) and the Islamists against the ITC. The ITC leaders and the republican policy makers often referred to the Incident as a constant reminder of the Islamist reactionary threat to the modern Turkey. See Zu¨rcher, The Young Turk Legacy, pp. 73 – 83. For an example of the official reading of the event and its alarmist political remifications for contemporary Turkish politics, see Cemal Kutay, Laik Cumhuriyet Karsısında Dervis¸ Vahdediler Cephesi 31 Mart’ın 90. Yılında (Istanbul, 1999, 2nd edition). 20. S¸u¨kru¨ Haniog˘lu, Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902– 1908 (Oxford, 2001), p. 7. 21. Ibid., p. 12. 22. Ibid., p. 34. 23. Ibid., p. 35. 24. Ibid., p. 179. 25. S¸erif Mardin, Jo¨n Tu¨rklerin Siyasi Fikirleri (Istanbul, 2006, 13th edition), p. 288. 26. Ibid., p. 159. 27. Haniog˘lu, Kendi Mektuplarında Enver Pas¸a, p. 98. 28. Halil Mentes¸e, Osmanlı Mebusan Meclisi Reisi Halil Mentes¸e’nin Anıları (I˙stanbul, 1986), p. 203. 29. Haniog˘lu, Kendi Mektuplarında Enver Pas¸a, p. 186. 30. Ibid., pp. 191– 2. 31. Mardin, Jo¨n Tu¨rklerin Siyasi Fikirleri, p. 256. 32. Ibid., p. 175. 33. Ibid., pp. 238– 9. 34. Ibid., p. 133. 35. Haniog˘lu, Preparation for a Revolution, p. 36. 36. S¸u¨kru¨ Haniog˘lu, Atatu¨rk: An Intellectual Biography (Princeton, 2013), p. 34. For another analysis of the effect of the book on the Young Turks, see Fuat Du¨ndar, Modern Tu¨rkiye’nin S¸ifresi: Ittihat ve Terakki’nin Etnisite Mu¨hendislig˘i 1913–1918 (I˙stanbul, 2008), pp. 66–7. 37. Turfan, Rise of the Young Turks, p. 321. 38. Haniog˘lu, Kendi Mektuplarında Enver Pas¸a, p. 61. 39. Ibid., p. 235. ¨ rgu¨tleri’, Bog˘azici 40. Zafer Toprak, ‘I˙ttihat ve Terakki’nin Paramiliter Genc lik O ¨ Universitesi Bes¸eri Bilimler Dergisi vii (1979), pp. 95 – 113. 41. Quoted in Mustafa Aksakal, ‘The limits of diplomacy: the Ottoman Empire and the First World War’, Foreign Policy Analysis vii/2 (2011), pp. 200–1. 42. Feroz Ahmad, The Young Turks: The Committee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics 1908– 1914 (Oxford, 1969), p. 257.
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¨ mit U¨ngo¨r, The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern 43. Ug˘ur U Anatolia 1913– 1950 (Oxford, 2011), p. 46. 44. Turfan, Rise of the Young Turks, p. 335. 45. Ibid., p. 394. 46. Haniog˘lu, Kendi Mektuplarında Enver Pas¸a, p. 240. 47. Haniog˘lu, Preparation for a Revolution, p. 304. 48. Quoted in Rene´e Worringer, ‘“Sick man of Europe” or “Japan of the Near East”?: Constructing Ottoman modernity in the Hamidian and Young Turk eras’, International Journal of Middle East Studies xxxvi/2 (2004), pp. 207 – 30. 49. Ibid., p. 213. 50. Haniog˘lu, Preparation for a Revolution, p. 160. 51. Haniog˘lu, Kendi Mektuplarında Enver Pas¸a, p. 174. 52. Erik Jan Zu¨rcher, Turkey: A Modern History (London, 2007), p. 111. 53. Halil Mentes¸e, Osmanlı Mebusan Meclisi Reisi Halil Mentes¸e’nin Anıları, pp. 111 –12. 54. Mardin, Jo¨n Tu¨rklerin Siyasi Fikirleri, p. 185. 55. Ibid., p. 99. 56. Haniog˘lu, Kendi Mektuplarında Enver Pas¸a, p. 206. 57. Ibid., p. 141. 58. Mardin, Jo¨n Tu¨rklerin Siyasi Fikirleri, p. 213. 59. Ibid., p. 236. 60. Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe (Princeton, 2008, 2nd edition), p. 101. 61. Mardin, Jo¨n Tu¨rklerin Siyasi Fikirleri, pp. 186–7. 62. Haniog˘lu, Preparation for a Revolution, p. 42. 63. Mardin, Jo¨n Tu¨rklerin Siyasi Fikirleri, pp. 237–8. 64. Haniog˘lu, Preparation for a Revolution, p. 40. 65. Ibid., p. 159. 66. Haniog˘lu, Kendi Mektuplarında Enver Pas¸a, p. 264. 67. Du¨ndar, Modern Tu¨rkiye’nin S¸ifresi, p. 76. 68. Kutay, Laik Cumhuriyet Karsısında Dervis¸ Vahdediler, p. 281. 69. Halil Mentes¸e, Osmanlı Mebusan Meclisi Reisi Halil Mentes¸e’nin Anıları, pp. 165–6. 70. Mustafa Genc er, Jo¨nturk Modernizmi ve ‘Alman Ruhu’: 1908–18 Tu¨rk-Alman I˙lis¸kileri ve Eg˘itim (I˙stanbul, 2003), p. 90. 71. Du¨ndar, Modern Tu¨rkiye’nin S¸ifresi, pp. 207– 10. 72. Halil Mentes¸e, Osmanlı Mebusan Meclisi Reisi Halil Mentes¸e’nin Anıları, p. 166. 73. For a detailed historical narration of the event, based on archival research and personal histories, see Ug˘ur U¨mit U¨ngo¨r, The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia 1913–1950 (Oxford, 2011), pp. 55 – 100. For the effects of the event on Turkish politics, see Taner Akcam, From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide (London, 2004). 74. Zu¨rcher, The Young Turk Legacy, p. 111. 75. Mardin, Jo¨n Tu¨rklerin Siyasi Fikirleri, p. 194.
NOTES
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82 –92
261
76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90.
Ibid., p. 194. Turfan, Rise of the Young Turks, p. 227. Mardin, Jo¨n Tu¨rklerin Siyasi Fikirleri, p. 217. Ibid., p. 217. Ibid., p. 137. Ibid., p. 120. Ibid., p. 123. Haniog˘lu, Preparation for a Revolution, p. 41. Genc er, Jo¨ntu¨rk Modernizmi ve ‘Alman Ruhu’, p. 91. Mardin, Jo¨n Tu¨rklerin Siyasi Fikirleri, p. 272. Haniog˘lu, Kendi Mektuplarında Enver Pas¸a, p. 40. Genc er, Jo¨ntu¨rk Modernizmi ve ‘Alman Ruhu’, p. 104. Haniog˘lu, Preparation for a Revolution, p. 43. Mardin, Jo¨n Tu¨rklerin Siyasi Fikirleri, p. 117. Murat Belge, ‘Genc Kalemler and Turkish Nationalism’, in C. Kerslake, K. Oktem and P. Robins (eds), Turkey’s Engagement with Modernity: Conflict and Change in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke, 2010), pp. 27 – 37. 91. Genc er, Jo¨ntu¨rk Modernizmi ve ‘Alman Ruhu’, pp. 89 – 90. 92. Mardin, Jo¨n Tu¨rklerin Siyasi Fikirleri, p. 220.
Chapter 3 Encounters with the West’s Civilisational Hegemonic Masculinity: The Republic of Turkey, 1923 –50 1. Baskın Oran, ‘Mondros silah birakismasi’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), pp. 110 – 12. 2. Nader Sohrabi, ‘Global waves, local actors: what the Young Turks knew about other revolutions and why it mattered’, Comparative Studies in Society and History xliv (2002), p. 64. 3. Erel Tellal, ‘Sovyetlerle ilis¸kiler’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (Istanbul, 2013, 18th edition), p. 153. ¨ mit U¨ngo¨r, The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern 4. Ug˘ur U Anatolia 1913–1950 (Oxford, 2011), pp. 108– 22. 5. Alexis Heraclides, The Greek – Turkish Conflict in the Aegean: Imagined Enemies (Basingstoke, 2010), p. 6. 6. Quoted in S¸u¨kru¨ Haniog˘lu, Ataturk: an Intellectual Biography (Princeton, 2011), p. 124. 7. Harry N. Howard, The Partition of Turkey: a Diplomatic History 1913– 1923 (Norman, 1931), p. 237. 8. I˙lhan Uzgel and O¨mer Ku¨rkc u¨og˘lu, ‘I˙ngiltere ile ilis¸I˙kiler’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸indan Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (Istanbul, 2013, 18th edition), p. 147.
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9. Sadi Borak, Atatu¨rk’u¨n Resmi Yayınlara Girmemis¸ So¨ylev, Demec, Yazisma ve So¨ylesileri (I˙stanbul, 1997, 2nd edition), pp. 132 and 134. 10. Ibid., p. 139. 11. S¸u¨kru¨ Haniog˘lu, Atatu¨rk: An Intellectual Biography (Princeton, 2013), pp. 105 –6. 12. Baskın Oran, ‘Do¨nemin bilancosu 1919– 1923’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸indan Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), pp. 104 – 8. 13. Haniog˘lu, Ataturk, pp. 31 – 47. 14. For diplomatic and economic relations with the USSR, see Erhan Bu¨yu¨kakıncı, ‘Sovyetler Birlig˘i ile I˙lis¸kiler’, in H. C¸akmak (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi 1919 – 1980 (Ankara, 2008), pp. 120 – 7; for relations with the Middle East, see Atay Akdeveliog˘lu and O¨mer Ku¨rkc u¨og˘lu, ‘Orta Dog˘u ile ilis¸kiler’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸indan Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919 – 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), pp. 194 – 212. 15. Kemal Atatu¨rk, Atatu¨rk’u¨n So¨ylev ve Demecler (I˙stanbul, 1945), p. 314. 16. Baskın Oran, ‘Lausanne barıs¸ antlasması’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸indan Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), pp. 104– 8. 17. Haniog˘lu, Atatu¨rk, p. 219. 18. Borak, Atatu¨rk’u¨n Resmi Yayınlara Girmemis¸ So¨ylev, p. 155. 19. Fuat Keyman, ‘Atatu¨rk ve dis¸ politika vizyonu’, in H. C¸akmak (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi 1919– 2008 (Ankara, 2008), pp. 160– 1. 20. Kemal Atatu¨rk, Atatu¨rk’u¨n So¨ylev ve Demecleri, p. 64. 21. The only revisionist policy was about the status of the Straits. In this case, instead of a unilateral attempt to nationalise the Straits, it aimed to address the issue at an international conference following the possibility of Italian aggression in the Mediterranean in 1935. On 20 July 1936, the Montreux Agreement recognised Turkey’s sovereignty over the Straits, see Kudret O¨zersay, ‘Montreux Bog˘azlar so¨zlesmesi’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸indan Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), p. 371. 22. Melek Fırat and O¨mer Ku¨rkc u¨og˘lu, ‘Fransa ile ilis¸kiler’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), p. 291. 23. Information was gathered from I˙lhan Uzgel and O¨mer Ku¨rkc u¨og˘lu, ‘I˙ngiltere ile ilis¸kiler’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), pp. 259 –67. 24. Mehmet Seyfettin Erol, ‘I˙ngiltere ile ilis¸kiler’, in H. C¸akmak (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi 1919– 2008 (Ankara, 2008), p. 169. 25. Uzgel and Ku¨rkc u¨og˘lu, ‘I˙ngiltere ile ilis¸kiler’, p. 265.
NOTES
TO PAGES
97 –109
263
26. I˙lhan Uzgel, ‘Ulus¸lararası gu¨venlik sorunları ve Tu¨rkiye’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), p. 310. 27. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 2, Cilt: 20 (12 December 1925). 28. Yusuf Hikmet Bayur, Tu¨rkiye Devletinin Dis¸ Siyasası (Ankara, 1973), p. 150. 29. Serpil Su¨rmeli, ‘Cemiyet-i akvam’a mu¨zaheret cemiyeti – Tu¨rkiye’de ¨ niversitesi Tu¨rk I˙nkılaˆp Tarihi Enstitu¨su¨ kurulus¸u ve Prag Konferansı’, Ankara U Atatu¨rk Yolu Dergisi (2000), p. 190. 30. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 4, Cilt: 1, Ic tima: 2 (9 May 1931). 31. Uzgel and Ku¨rkc u¨og˘lu, ‘I˙ngiltere ile ilis¸kiler’, p. 272. 32. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 5, Cilt: 12, I˙ctima: 81 (31 July 1936) 33. Uzgel and Ku¨rkcu¨og˘lu, ‘I˙ngiltere ile ilis¸kiler’, pp. 275– 6. 34. Ibid., pp. 272– 3. 35. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 5, Cilt: 15, I˙ctima: 30 (29 January 1937). 36. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 6, Cilt: 6, I˙ctima: 3 (8 November 1939). 37. Atay Akdeveliog˘lu and O¨mer Ku¨rkc u¨og˘lu, ‘Orta Dog˘u ile ilis¸kiler’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition). 38. Ibid., p. 364. 39. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 7, Cilt: 15 (23 February 1945), p. 131. 40. I˙lhan Uzgel, ‘Almanya ile ilis¸kiler’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), p. 306. 41. Nurs¸en Mazıcı, ‘1930’a kadar bas¸ınin durumu ve 1931 Matbuat Kanunu’, Ankara U¨niversitesi Tu¨rk I˙nkılap Tarihi Enstitu¨su¨ Atatu¨rk Yolu Dergisi, Vol. 5 (1996), p. 153. 42. S¸uhnaz Yılmaz, ‘Turkey’s quest for NATO membership: the institutionalization of the Turkish–American alliance’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies xii/4, pp. 483 (481–95). 43. Cag˘rı Erhan, ‘ABD ve NATO ile ilis¸kiler’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), p. 532. 44. Yılmaz, ‘Turkey’s quest for NATO membership’, p. 487. 45. Ibid., p. 486. 46. Mustafa Aydın, ‘I˙kinci Du¨nya Savas¸ı ve Tu¨rkiye’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), p. 411. 47. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 7, Cilt: 23, I˙ctima: 48 (8 May 1946). 48. Ibid. 49. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 8, Cilt: 21, I˙ctima: 1 (1 November 1949). 50. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 8, Cilt: 22, I˙ctima: 16 (12 December 1949). 51. Ibid. 52. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 2, Cilt: 15, I˙ctima: 69 (4 March 1925).
264
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109 –118
53. Ibid. 54. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 2, Cilt: 30, I˙ctima: 39 (2 March 1927). 55. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 3, Cilt: 9, I˙ctima: 40 (4 March 1929), italics added. 56. Soner Cagaptay, Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who is a Turk? (London, 2006), p. 22. 57. Ibid., p. 85. 58. U¨ngo¨r, The Making of Modern Turkey, pp. 141–2. 59. Cagaptay, Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey, pp. 88 –90. 60. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 3, Cilt: 9, Ic tima: 81 (22 September 1930). 61. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 5, Cilt: 19, Ic tima: 76 (14 June 1937). 62. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 5, Cilt: 26, Ic tima: 83 (29 June 1938). 63. Cagaptay, Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey, p. 35. 64. Ibid., p 92. 65. Ibid., p. 67. 66. Ibid., p. 15. 67. Ibid., p. 45. 68. Borak, Atatu¨rk’u¨n Resmi Yayınlara Girmemis¸ So¨ylev, pp. 212–13. 69. Quoted in Cagaptay, Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey, p. 51. 70. Cagaptay, Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey, p. 53. 71. Haniog˘lu, Atatu¨rk, pp. 162– 3. 72. Ibid., p. 163. 73. Ibid., p. 165. 74. Ibid., p. 166. 75. Ibid., p. 28. 76. Ays¸e Gu¨l Altinay, The Myth of the Military Nation: Militarism, Gender and Education in Turkey (Basingstoke, 2004), pp. 24– 9. 77. Quoted in Altinay, The Myth of the Military Nation, p. 29. 78. Mete Tunc ay, ‘Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi 1923– 1950’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi (I˙stanbul: I˙letis¸im, 2013), pp. 2021 (2019 – 24). 79. For a discussion of this idea, see Ergun O¨zbudun, ‘The nature of the Kemalist ¨ zbudun (eds), Atatu¨rk: Founder of a political regime’, in A. Kazancıgil and E. O Modern State (London, 1981). 80. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 3, Cilt: 5, I˙ctima: 1 (1 November 1928). 81. Ibid. 82. Stanford Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey 1808– 1975 (Cambridge, 2002, 8th edition), p. 387. 83. Cagaptay, Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey, p. 54. 84. Ibid., pp. 57 – 8. 85. Ibid., p. 60. 86. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 2, Cilt: 19, I˙ctima: 14 (25 November 1925). 87. Touraj Atabaki and Erik J. Zu¨rcher, Men of Order: Authoritarian Modernization under Ataturk and Reza Shah (London, 2004), p. 213. 88. Quoted in Atabaki and Zu¨rcher, Men of Order, p. 214.
NOTES
TO PAGES
118 –126
265
89. Quoted in Atabaki and Zu¨rcher, Men of Order, p. 228. 90. Quoted in Haniog˘lu, Atatu¨rk, p. 60. 91. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 2, Cilt: 19, I˙c tima: 14 (25 November 1925). 92. Serpil Sancar, Tu¨rk Modernles¸mesinin Cinsiyeti (Istanbul, 2013), p. 116. 93. Ibid. 94. Haniog˘lu, Atatu¨rk, p. 38. 95. Ibid., p. 209. 96. Kemal Atatu¨rk, Atatu¨rk’u¨n So¨ylev ve Demecleri, in N. Unan (Ankara), p. 133. 97. C¸ag˘lar Keyder, State and Class in Turkey: a Study in Capitalist Development (London, 1987), pp. 53 –4. 98. Ibid. 99. Ibid., p. 94. 100. Ibid., p. 98. 101. Baskın Oran, ‘1939 – 1945 Do¨nemin Bilancosu’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), p. 392. 102. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 6, Cilt: 28, I˙ctima: 3 (11 November 1942). 103. TBMM Zabıt Dergisi, Do¨nem: 7, Cilt: 1, I˙ctima: 3 (17 March 1943). 104. Erik J. Zu¨rcher, Turkey: A Modern History (London, 2005, 7th edition), p. 200. 105. For a detailed historical analysis of the Wealth Tax based on personal stories in Turkish see Ridvan Akar, Askale Yolculari: Varlık Vergisi ve C¸alıs¸ma Kampları (I˙stanbul, 2009). Another historical work based on official documents is Rifat Bali, The Wealth Tax Affair: Documents from the British National Archive (Istanbul, 2012). 106. Zu¨rcher, Turkey: a Modern History, p. 200. 107. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 4, Cilt: 3, I˙ctima: 22 (5 July 1931). 108. Nursen Mazıcı, ‘1930’a kadar basinin durumu ve 1931 Matbuat Kanunu’, Ankara U¨niversitesi Tu¨rk I˙nkılap Tarihi Enstitu¨su¨ Atatu¨rk Yolu Dergisi, vol. 5 (1996), pp. 145 (131 – 54). 109. Ibid., p. 153. 110. Tevfik C¸avdar, ‘Demokrat Parti’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi (I˙stanbul, 2013), pp. 2062 (2060 – 75). 111. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 8, Cilt: 15, I˙ctima: 36 (24 January 1949). 112. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 8, Cilt: 3, I˙ctima: 22 (23 December 1946). 113. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 8, Cilt: 3, I˙ctima: 3 (14 August 1946). 114. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 8, Cilt: 15, I˙ctima: 36 (24 January 1949). 115. Tunc ay, ‘Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi 1923– 1950’, p. 2024. 116. Baskın Oran, ‘Do¨nemin Bilancosu 1945– 1960’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), pp. 492– 3. 117. Barın Kayaog˘lu, ‘Strategic imperatives, democratic rhetoric: the United States and Turkey, 1945–52’, Cold War History ix/3 (2009), p. 326 (321–45). 118. Ibid., p. 327.
266
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130 –136
Chapter 4 Encounters with the ‘Cold Warrior’ Masculinity of the West: Turkey on the Frontline of the Free World 1. Kyle A. Cuordileone, Manhood and American Political Culture in the Cold War (London, 2005); Michael Davidson, Guys Like Us: Citing Masculinity in Cold War Poetics (Chicago, 2004); Robert D. Dean, Imperial Brotherhood: Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy (Amherst, 2003); Geoffrey S. Smith, ‘National security and personal isolation: sex, gender, and disease in the Cold-War United States’, The International History Review xiv/2 (1992), pp. 307 – 37. 2. Kyle A. Cuordileone, ‘Politics in an age of anxiety: Cold War political culture and the crisis in American masculinity 1949– 1960’, Journal of American History lxxxvii/2 (2000), pp. 515– 45. 3. Robert Genter, ‘“With great power comes great responsibility”: Cold War culture and the birth of Marvel Comics’, Journal of Popular Culture xl/6 (2007), pp. 953– 78. 4. Uta G. Poiger, ‘A New, “Western” hero? Reconstructing German masculinity in the 1950s’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society xxiv/1 (1998), pp. 147–62; Lesley Gill, ‘Creating citizens, making men: the military and masculinity in Bolivia’, Cultural Anthropology xii/4 (1997), pp. 527–50. 5. Michelle Mart, ‘Tough guys and American Cold War policy: images of Israel, 1948– 1960’, Diplomatic History xx/3 (1996), pp. 357 – 80. 6. Christina Klein, Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination 1945– 1961 (Berkeley, 2003). 7. Cuordileone, ‘Politics in an age of anxiety’. 8. Nathan J. Citino, ‘The Ottoman Legacy in Cold War Modernization’, International Journal of Middle East Studies xl/4 (2008), pp. 579 – 97. 9. For Cold Warrior masculinity at decision-making level, see Dean, Imperial Brotherhood. For how the Cold War’s strategic man thinks, see Carol Cohn, ‘Sex and death in the rational world of defense intellectuals’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society xii/4 (1987), pp. 687– 718. 10. Cameron S. Brown, ‘The one coalition they craved to join: Turkey in the Korean War’, Review of International Studies xxxiv/1 (2008), pp. 89– 108. 11. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 9, Cilt: 3, I˙ctima: 17 (11 December 1950), p. 167. 12. Ibid., p. 169. 13. Ayın Tarihi, 23 August 1950. Available at http://www.ayintarihi.com/turkce/ date/1950-8-23. 14. Pınar Bilgin, ‘Security in the Arab World and Turkey: differently different’, in A.B. Tickner and D.L. Blaney (eds), Thinking International Relations Differently (London, 2012), p. 30. 15. John M. Vander Lippe, ‘Forgotten brigade of the forgotten war: Turkey’s participation in the Korean War’, Middle Eastern Studies xxxvi/1 (2000), p. 98.
NOTES
TO PAGES
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267
16. Ays¸egu¨l Sever, ‘The compliant ally? Turkey and the West in the Middle East 1954– 58’, Middle Eastern Studies xxxiv/2 (1998), p. 75. 17. Milliyet, 27 February 1955, p. 7. 18. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 11, Cilt: 1, I˙ctima: 10 (4 December 1957). 19. Sever, ‘The compliant ally?’, p. 77. 20. Melek Fırat and O¨mer Ku¨rkcu¨og˘lu, ‘Orta Dog˘u ile ilis¸kiler’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bugu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 Volume I (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), pp. 629– 34. 21. Milliyet, 16 July 1958, p. 5. 22. C¸ag˘rı Erhan, ‘ABD ve NATO ile ilis¸kiler’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bugu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 Volume I (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), p. 569. 23. William Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy 1774– 2000 (London, 2002), p. 128. 24. Erel Tellal, ‘SSCB’yle ilis¸kiler’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bugu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919 –1980 Volume I (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), p. 514. 25. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 10, Cilt: 10, I˙ctima: 44 (25 February 1956), p. 737. 26. For this information and a more detailed discussion see Melek Fırat, ‘Yunanistan ile ilis¸kiler’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bugu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919 –1980 Volume I (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), pp. 576– 614. 27. Milliyet, 28 August 1955, p. 7. 28. Milliyet, 25 August 1955, p. 7. 29. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 9, Cilt: 1, I˙ctima: 3 (25 May 1950). 30. C¸ag˘lar Keyder, State and Class in Turkey: a Study in Capitalist Development (London, 1987), p. 119. 31. Information retrieved from Baskın Oran, ’Do¨nemin Bilancosu 1945–1960’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), p. 488. 32. Dog˘u Ergil, ‘Class conflict and Turkish transformation 1950– 1975’, Studia Islamica xli (1975), pp. 138– 41. 33. Oran, ‘Do¨nemin Bilanc osu 1945 –1960’, p. 490. 34. Ibid., pp. 489– 91. 35. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 9, Cilt: 1, I˙ctima: 3 (25 May 1950). 36. Oran, ‘Do¨nemin Bilanc osu 1945 –1960’, p. 493. 37. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 9, Cilt: 5, I˙ctima: 1 (22 February 1951). 38. Ibid. 39. Feroz Ahmad, Demokrasi Su¨recinde Tu¨rkiye 1945– 1980 (Istanbul, 1994), p. 68. 40. Milliyet, 29 July 1950, p. 5. 41. Milliyet, 2 August 1950, p. 1. 42. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 9, Cilt: 6, I˙ctima: 58 (30 March 1951). 43. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 9, Cilt: 10, I˙ctima: 7 (21 November 1951).
268
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146 –154
44. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 9, Cilt: 5, I˙ctima: 1 (22 February 1951), pp. 1 and 7. 45. Ays¸e Hu¨r, ‘Matbuat kamilen meddah oldu!’, Radikal, 15 June 2013. Available at http://www.radikal.com.tr/yazarlar/ayse_hur/matbuat_kamilen_ meddah_oldu-1137792. 46. Milliyet, 7 August 1950, pp. 1 and 7. 47. Ays¸e Hu¨r, ‘Matbuat kamilen meddah oldu!’. 48. Milliyet, 9 September 1955, p. 1. 49. Milliyet, 13 September 1955, p. 7. 50. Milliyet, 17 September 1955, p. 7. 51. Ali Tuna Kuyucu, ‘Ethno-religious “unmixing” of “Turkey”: 6 – 7 September riots as a case in Turkish nationalism’, Nations and Nationalism xi/3 (2005), p. 364. 52. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 9, Cilt: 10, I˙c tima: 6 (19 November 1951). 53. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 9, Cilt: 10, I˙c tima: 7 (21 November 1951). 54. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 9, Cilt: 24, I˙ctima: 115 (23 July 1953). 55. Kıvanc Atak, ‘Whose democratization? Periods of transition and voices from below in Turkey’, COSMOS Working Papers Series (August 2012), p. 19. 56. Tevfik C¸avdar, ‘Demokrat Parti’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi (I˙stanbul, 1996), p. 2069. 57. Ahmad, Demokrasi Su¨recinde Tu¨rkiye, p. 56. 58. I˙lkay Sunar, ‘Demokrat Parti ve popu¨lizm’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi (I˙stanbul, 1996), p. 2084. 59. Aslı Daldal, ‘The new middle class as a progressive urban coalition: the 1960 coup d’e´tat in Turkey’, Turkish Studies v/3 (2004), p. 75. 60. Metin Heper, ‘Bureaucrats: persistent elites’, in M. Heper, A. O¨ncu¨ and H. Kramer (eds), Turkey and the West: Changing Cultural Identities (London, 1993), p. 39. 61. Ergun O¨zbudun, The Role of the Military in Recent Turkish Politics (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 23– 8. 62. Ergil, ‘Class conflict and Turkish transformation 1950 –1975’, p. 144. 63. Mustafa Aydın, ‘Determinants of Turkish foreign policy: changing patterns and conjunctures during the Cold War’, Middle Eastern Studies xxxvi/1 (2000), p. 118. 64. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 1, Cilt: 1, I˙ctima: 13 (27 November 1961). 65. For a more detailed discussion, see Pinar Bilgin and Ali Bilgic , ‘Turkey and EU/rope: discourses of inspiration/anxiety in Turkey’s foreign policy’, Review of European Studies iv/3 (2012), pp. 114– 15. 66. Ibid. 67. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 1, Cilt: 2, I˙ctima: 52 (21 February 1962), p. 151. 68. Ibid., p. 156. 69. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 1, Cilt: 4, I˙ctima: 2 (22 December 1961), p. 192.
NOTES 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79.
80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92.
93. 94. 95. 96. 97.
TO PAGES
155 –164
269
TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 1, Cilt: 10, I˙ctima: 27 (9 January 1963), p. 633. Ibid. Ibid., p. 632. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 5, Cilt: 33, I˙ctima: 44 (7 February 1966), p. 179. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 6, Cilt: 38, I˙ctima: 26 (1 February 1967), p. 378. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 1, Cilt: 9, I˙ctima: 14 (7 December 1962), p. 637. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 1, Cilt: 10, I˙ctima: 27 (9 January 1963), p. 640. ‘Ortak Pazar antlasmasi imzalandı’ [Common Market agreement signed], Milliyet, 13 September 1963, p. 1. Erik Jan Zu¨rcher, Turkey: A Modern History (London, 2007), p. 275. M. Seyfettin Erol, ‘I˙smet I˙no¨nu¨ hu¨ku¨meti dıs¸ politikası’ [Foreign policy of the governments of I˙smet I˙no¨nu¨], in H. C¸akmak (ed.), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası 1919– 2008 (Ankara, 2008), p. 576. Quoted in Erhan, ‘ABD ve NATO ile ilis¸kiler’, p. 684. Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, p. 136. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 1, Cilt: 33, I˙ctima: 12 (24 November 1964), pp. 532 –3. Baskın Oran, Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bugu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2001), p. 676. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 5, Cilt: 33, I˙ctima: 44 (7 February 1966), p. 177. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 6, Cilt: 38, I˙ctima: 26 (9 January 1967), p. 374. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 6, Cilt: 38, I˙ctima: 26 (1 February 1967), p. 381. Bu¨lent Ecevit, Dıs¸ Politika ve Kıbrıs dosyası [Foreign Policy and the Cyprus dossier] (I˙stanbul, 2011), pp. 134– 5. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 4, Cilt: 6, I˙ctima: 105 (3 July 1974), p. 363. Ibid., p. 368. Ibid., p. 377. Ibid., p. 366. Bu¨lent Ecevit, Tu¨rkiye Cumhuriyeti Bas¸bakanlık, Bas¸bakan Bu¨lent Ecevit’in Televizyon Konus¸ması 17 Ag˘ustos 1974 [Prime Minister Bu¨lent Ecevit’s Televised Speech 17 August 1974] (Ankara, 1974), pp. 10 – 11. Bu¨lent Ecevit, ‘C¸o¨zu¨m ic in Zaman Dar’, Milliyet (19 July 1974), p. 10. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 13, Cilt: 13, I˙ctima: 3 (20 July 1974), p. 9. Ecevit, Tu¨rkiye Cumhuriyeti Bas¸bakanlık, Bas¸bakan Bu¨lent Ecevit’in Televizyon Konus¸ması, p. 4. Ibid., p. 17. Ibid., p. 7.
270 98. 99. 100. 101.
102.
103. 104. 105. 106.
107.
108.
109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124.
NOTES
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Ibid. Ibid., pp. 5 – 6. Bilgin and Bilgic , ‘Turkey and EU/rope’, p. 116. O¨mer Ku¨rkc u¨og˘lu, Turkiye’nin Arap Orta Dog˘u’suna Kars¸ı Politikası (1945 – 1970) [Turkey’s Foreign Policy towards the Arab Middle East] (Ankara, 1972). Later in the decade, the same criticism would be directed at the DP’s successor, the Justice Party, and its leader Su¨leyman Demirel, or ‘Morrison Su¨leyman’, reminding of the firm Demirel worked before his political career. ‘Genc ler af ve gerici basın aleyhinde yu¨ru¨yu¨s¸ yaptı’, Milliyet, 10 October 1962, pp. 1 and 7. Ibid., p. 7. ‘Politikacılar Mecliste Ikaz Edildi’, Milliyet, 25 September 1962, p. 1. Baskın Oran, ‘Do¨nemin Bilanc osu 1960– 1980’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dis¸ Politikasi: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bu¨gu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1919– 1980 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), p. 670. ¨ zgu¨r Mutlu Ulus, The Army and For a detailed analysis of MDD, please see O the Radical Left in Turkey: Military Coups, Socialist Revolution and Kemalism (London, 2011), pp. 92 –114. Birol Akgu¨n, ‘Twins or enemies: comparing nationalist and Islamist traditions in Turkish politics’, Middle East Review of International Affairs vi/1 (March 2002), p. 20. Ergil, ‘Class conflict and Turkish transformation 1950 –1975’, p. 149. Nasuh Uslu, Tu¨rk– Amerikan I˙lis¸kileri (Ankara, 2000), pp. 196– 8. Amy Austin Holmes, Social Unrest and American Military Bases in Turkey and Germany since 1945 (New York, 2014), pp. 44 – 59. Feroz Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy: 1940– 1975 (Boulder, 1977), p. 381. Nur Bilge Criss, ‘Mercenaries of ideology: Turkey’s terrorism war’, in B. Rubin (ed.), Terrorism and Politics (New York, 1991), pp. 123– 50. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 21, Cilt: 13, I˙ctima: 55 (16 February 1967), p. 158. Ibid., p. 155. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 3, Cilt: 38, I˙ctima: 126 (13 June 1973). TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 3, Cilt: 1, I˙ctima: 4 (7 November 1969). Tevfik C¸avdar, ‘Adalet Partisi’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi (I˙stanbul, 1996), p. 2092. C¸etin Yetkin, Tu¨rkiye’de Askeri Darbeler ve Amerika: 27 Mayıs, 12 Mart ve 12 Eylu¨l’de Amerika’nın Yeri (Ankara, 1995), p. 113. Tellal, ‘SSCB’yle I˙lis¸kiler 1960– 1980’, p. 782. Oran, ‘Do¨nemin Bilanc osu 1960 –1980’, p. 673. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 2, Cilt: 1, I˙ctima: 5 (3 November 1965). Bilgin and Bilgic , ‘Turkey and EU/rope’, p. 115. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 9, Cilt: 56, I˙ctima: 37 (3 February 1970).
NOTES 125. 126. 127. 128.
129. 130. 131. 132.
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Ibid., p. 276. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 4, Cilt: 6, I˙ctima: 105 (3 July 1974), p. 370. C¸avdar, ‘Adalet Partisi’, p. 2093. For a more detailed discussion, see Masaki Kakizaki, ‘The Republican People’s Party and the military in 1970s’ Turkey’, International Journal of Turkish Studies xix/1– 2 (2013), pp. 57 – 73. Tevfik C¸avdar, ‘Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (1950– 1980)’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi (I˙stanbul, 1996), p. 2033. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 13, Cilt: 13, I˙c tima: 25 (1 February 1974), p. 353. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 4, Cilt: 6, I˙ctima: 105 (3 July 1974), p. 362. Ibid., p. 365.
Chapter 5 Encounters with the Neoliberal Masculinity of the West: Non-Western ‘Market Man’ Rising 1. David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford, 2007), pp. 11 – 12. 2. Joseph Stiglitz, ‘The world wakes’, in A. Schiffrin and E. Kircher-Allen (eds), From Cairo to Wall Street: Voices from the Global Spring (New York, 2012), p. 11. 3. Alain Badiou, The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings (London, 2012), p. 40. 4. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 198– 201. 5. Ibid., p. 143. 6. Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, p. 50. 7. Penny Griffen, ‘Development insitutions and neoliberal globalization’, in L. Shepherd (ed.), Gender Matters in Global Politics: A Feminist Introduction to International Relations (London, 2010), pp. 218– 32. 8. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 17, Cilt: 1, I˙ctima: 5 (7 December 1983), p. 27. 9. Ibid., pp. 27 – 8. 10. Ibid., p. 27. 11. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 18, Cilt: 1, I˙ctima: 1 (14 December 1987), p. 9. 12. Pınar Bilgin and Ali Bilgic , ‘Turkey and EU/rope: discourses of inspiration/ anxiety in Turkey’s foreign policy’, Review of European Studies iv/3 (2012), p. 116. 13. C¸ag˘rı Erhan and Tug˘rul Arat, ‘Avrupa topluluklarıyla ilis¸kiler’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bugu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1980– 2001 (I˙stanbul, 2013), p. 96. 14. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 17, Cilt: 39, I˙ctima: 89 (14 April 1987), p. 138. 15. Bilgin and Bilgic , ‘Turkey and EU/rope’, pp. 116– 17.
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16. Lerzan O¨zkale, ‘Dıs¸ ticaret’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi, Vol.12 (I˙stanbul, 1996), p. 329. 17. I˙hsan D. Dag˘ı, ‘Human rights, democratization and the European Community ¨ zal Years, 1983–87’, Middle Eastern Studies xxxvi/1 in Turkish politics: the O (2001), p. 25. 18. Canan Balkır, ‘Tu¨rkiye – AT ilis¸kileri’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi, Vol. 11 (I˙stanbul, 1996), p. 75. 19. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 17, Cilt: 1, I˙ctima: 10 (19 December 1983), p. 83. 20. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 17, Cilt: 4, I˙ctima: 77 (12 June 1984), p. 282. 21. Ibid., p. 283. 22. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 17, Cilt: 1, I˙ctima: 5 (7 December 1983), p. 28. 23. Hasan Ko¨ni, ‘Saudi influence on Islamic institutions in Turkey beginning of the 1970s’, Middle East Journal lx/1 (2012), p. 102. 24. Baskın Oran, ‘Do¨nemin bilanc osu 1980– 1990’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bugu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1980– 2001 (I˙stanbul, 2013), p. 31. 25. The synthesis assumed cultural uniqueness and value in being Turk and Muslim. 26. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 18, Cilt: 6, I˙ctima: 45 (4 April 1988), p. 109. 27. Ibid., p. 110. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid., pp. 113– 14. 30. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 18, Cilt: 63, I˙ctima: 1 (1 September 1991), pp. 5 – 8. 31. Metin Heper, ‘Bureaucrats: persistent elites’, in M. Heper, A. O¨ncu¨ and H. Kramer (eds), Turkey and the West: Changing Cultural Identities (London, 1993), p. 63. 32. Ibid. 33. C¸ag˘rı Erhan, ‘Tu¨rkiye Ortadog˘u’da ABD ne istediyse yaptı’, in H. O¨zdal (ed.), Mu¨lakatlarla Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası (Ankara, 2009), p. 62. 34. Muhittin Ataman, ‘Leadership change: O¨zal leadership and restructuring in Turkish foreign policy’, Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations i/1 (2002), p. 130. 35. The concept was used in Sedat Lac iner, ‘Turgut O¨zal period in Turkish foreign ¨ zalism’, in USAK Yearbook of International Politics and Law, vol. 2 policy: O (2009), p. 177. 36. I˙lhan Uzgel, ‘ABD ve NATO ile ilis¸kiler’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bugu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1980– 2001 (I˙stanbul: 2013), p. 50. 37. Melvyn P. Leffler, ‘From the Truman Doctrine to the Carter Doctrine: lessons and dilemmas of the Cold War’, Diplomatic History vii/ 4 (1983), pp. 245 – 66.
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38. Uzgel, ‘ABD ve NATO ile ilis¸kiler’, pp. 36– 7. 39. Ibid., pp. 50 – 2. 40. S¸u¨kru¨ Sina Gu¨rel, ‘1980 ertesinde Tu¨rk dıs¸ politikası’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi, vol.12 (I˙stanbul, 1996), p. 357. 41. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 18, Cilt: 47, I˙ctima: 1 (1 September 1990), p. 12. 42. Ziya O¨nis¸, ‘Greek – Turkish Relations and the European Union: a critical perspective’, Mediterranean Politics vi/ 3 (2001), p. 37. 43. Bilgin and Bilgic , ‘Turkey and EU/rope’, pp. 116– 17. 44. For Turkish policy makers’ ‘binary positions’ specifically towards the EU, see Bilgin and Bilgic , ‘Turkey and EU/rope’. 45. Faruk So¨nmezog˘lu, II. Du¨nya Savas¸ı’ndan Gu¨nu¨mu¨ze Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası [Turkish Foreign Policy from World War II to Today] (I˙stanbul, 2006), p. 480. 46. Cem Karadeli, ‘Dog˘u blog˘unun c o¨kmesi ve Tu¨rk dıs¸ politikasına yansımasi’ [The fall of the Eastern bloc and its effects on Turkish foreign policy], in H. C¸akmak (ed.), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası 1919 – 2008 (Ankara, 2008), p. 796. 47. Gencer O¨zcan, ‘Sog˘uk savas¸ sonrası do¨nemde Tu¨rkiye’nin Ortadog˘u politikasi’ [Turkey’s Middle East policy during the post-Cold War era], in H. C¸akmak (ed.), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası 1919–2008 (Ankara, 2008), pp. 798–805. 48. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 19, Cilt: 2, I˙ctima: 20 (25 December 1991), pp. 284 –5. 49. Mustafa Aydın, ‘Foucault’s pendulum: Turkey in Central Asia and the Caucasus’, Turkish Studies v/2 (2004), pp. 5 – 6. 50. S¸ener Aktu¨rk, ‘Turkish – Russian Relations after the Cold War (1992 – 2002)’, Turkish Studies vii/3 (2006), pp. 340 (337 – 64). 51. Gareth M. Winrow, ‘Turkey and the newly independent states of Central Asia and the Transcaucasus’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, i/ 2 (1997), p. 2. For a view on Turkey geopolitical competition, see Duygu Bazog˘lu Sezer, ‘Turkish – Russian relations: the challenges of reconciling geopolitical competition with economic partnership’, Turkish Studies i/1 (2000), pp. 59 – 82. 52. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 19, Cilt: 7, I˙ctima: 55 (19 March 1992), pp. 400 and 408. 53. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 19, Cilt: 2, I˙ctima: 20 (25 December 1991), p. 288. 54. The government programme of DYP– SHP (in Turkish). Available at http:// www.tbmm.gov.tr/hukumetler/HP50.htm. 55. Mustafa Aydin, ‘Kafkasya ve Orta Asya ile ilis¸kiler’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bugu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1980 – 2001 (I˙stanbul, 2013), p. 394. 56. Pinar Bilgin and Ali Bilgic , ‘Turkey’s “new” foreign policy towards Eurasia’, Eurasian Geography and Economics lii/2 (2011), p. 186.
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57. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 19, Cilt: 85, I˙ctima: 107 (2 May 1995), pp. 374 –5. 58. Milliyet, 8 March 1995, p. 1. 59. Anna M. Agathangelou and L.H.M. Ling, Transforming World Politics: From Empire to Multiple Worlds (Abingdon: 2009), pp. 15 – 30. 60. Tansu C¸iller, Tu¨rkiyem (Ankara, 1995). 61. The Welfare Party’s election booklet. Available at http://www.tbmm.gov. tr/eyayin/GAZETELER/WEB/KUTUPHANEDE%20BULUNAN%20 DIJITAL%20KAYNAKLAR/KITAPLAR/SIYASI%20PARTI%20YAYIN LARI/199601072%20RP%20SECIM%20BEYANNAMESI%201995/1996 01072%20RP%20SECIM%20BEYANNAMESI%201995.pdf (in Turkish). 62. Ekavi Athanassopoulou, ‘Blessing in disguise? The Imia crisis and Turkish – Greek relations,’ Mediterranean Politics ii/3 (1997), pp. 80 – 1. 63. Derya Sazak, ‘ABD’nin Uyarısı’, Milliyet, 30 January 1996, p. 15. 64. Nuzhet Kandemir, ‘Turkey –Greece Relations’, Fordham International Law Journal, xix/5 (1995), p. 1854. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid., p. 1853. 67. Fikret Bila, ‘Tansu C¸iller: Balkan Savas¸ından Do¨ndu¨k’, Milliyet, 1 February 1996, p. 14. 68. ‘Meclis Kararlı’, Milliyet, 31 January 1996, p. 17. 69. Kemal Kiris¸ci, ‘Post-Cold War Turkish security and the Middle East’, Middle East Review of International Relations i/2 (1997), p. 7. 70. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 20, Cilt: 40, I˙ctima: 32 (20 December 1997), p. 658. 71. Ibid., p. 659. 72. M.B. Altunıs¸ık, ‘Worldviews and Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East’, New Perspectives on Turkey xl/1 (2009), p. 184. 73. I˙smail Cem, Turkey in New Century (Nicosia, 2001), pp. 80 – 1. 74. Quoted in Altunıs¸ık, ‘Worldviews and Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East’, p. 183. 75. Zarakol argues that ‘the stained’ tries to become a member of the groups that previously stained it, by supporting the latter’s interests and reflecting their values and principles vis-a`-vis those who are also stained. 76. Bilgin and Bilgic , ‘Turkey’s “new” foreign policy towards Eurasia’, p. 186. 77. Quoted in Bilgin and Bilgic , ‘Turkey and EU/rope’, p. 118. 78. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 21, Cilt: 31, I˙ctima: 82 (18 April 2000), p. 1999. 79. Bilgin and Bilgic , ‘Turkey’s “new” foreign policy towards Eurasia’. 80. Fuat Purtas¸, ‘Su¨leyman Demirel’in dıs¸ politika felsefesi’ [Foreign policy philosophy of Su¨leyman Demirel], in H. Cakmak (ed.), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası 1919– 2008 (Ankara, 2008), pp. 798– 805 and 579. 81. Bilgin and Bilgic , ‘Turkey’s “new” foreign policy towards Eurasia’, p. 192.
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82. Alexander Murinson, ‘The strategic depth doctrine of Turkish foreign policy’, Middle Eastern Studies xlii/6 (2006), pp. 945–64. 83. Hasret Dikici Bilgin, ‘Foreign policy orientation of Turkey’s pro-Islamist Parties: a comparative study of AKP and Refah’, Turkish Studies ix/3 (2008), pp. 407 –21. 84. Quoted in Bilgin and Bilgic , ‘Turkey’s “new” foreign policy towards Eurasia’, p. 182. 85. Lerna K. Yanık, ‘Constructing Turkish “exceptionalism”: discourses of liminality and hybridity in post-Cold War Turkish foreign policy’, Political Geography xxx/2 (2011), p. 8. 86. For a detailed discussion of this, see Faruk Yalvac , ‘Strategic depth or hegemonic depth? A critical realist analysis of Turkey’s position in the world system’, International Relations xxvi/2 (2012), pp. 165– 80. 87. His neorealist understanding of world politics also manifests in Ahmet Davutog˘lu, ‘The clash of interests: an explanation of the world (dis)order’, Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs ii/4 (1997 – 8). 88. Quoted in Murinson, ‘The strategic depth doctrine of Turkish foreign policy’, p. 950. 89. Yasin Aktay, ‘Politics at home, politics in the world: the return of the political in Turkish foreign policy’, Mediterranean Quarterly, xxi/1 (2010), pp. 61 – 75. 90. Bu¨lent Aras and Rabia Karakaya Polat, ‘Turkey and the Middle East’, Australian Journal of International Affairs lxi/4 (2007), pp. 471– 88; Bu¨lent Aras and Rabia Karakaya Polat, ‘From conflict to cooperation: desecuritization of Turkey’s relations with Syria and Iran’, Security Dialogue xxxix/5 (2008), pp. 495– 515. 91. Bu¨lent Aras, ‘Turkey’s rise in the greater Middle East: peace-building in the periphery’, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies xi/1 (2009), pp. 29 – 41. ¨ nis¸, ‘Conservative globalists versus defensive nationalists: political 92. Ziya O parties and paradoxes of Europeanization in Turkey’, Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans Online ix/ 3 (2007), pp. 247– 61. 93. Hasan Ko¨sebalaban, Turk Dis Politikasi (Ankara, 2014), pp. 31 – 67. 94. O¨zlen C¸elebi, ‘1990’lardan 2000’lere Tu¨rk dıs¸ politikası ve ABD ile ilis¸kiler: stratejik ortaklıktan model ortaklıg˘a’, in Y. Demirag˘ and O¨. C¸elebi (eds), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası: Son On Yıl (Ankara, 2011), p. 54; see also I˙dris Bal and Ayfer Selamog˘lu, ‘Bu¨yu¨k Ortadog˘u projesi: ABD, AB, Tu¨rkiye ve bo¨lge’, in I˙. Bal (ed.), 21.Yu¨zyılda Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası (Ankara, 2006). 95. Available at http://turkey.usembassy.gov/news_06052006a.html. 96. Yelda Demirag˘, ‘Tu¨rk dıs¸ politikasında Gu¨ney Kafkasya’, in Y. Demirag˘ and O¨. C¸elebi (eds), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası: Son On Yıl (Ankara, 2011), p. 119. 97. Altunıs¸ık, ‘Worldviews and Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East’; Bilgin and Bilgic , ‘Turkey’s “new” foreign policy towards Eurasia’.
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98. Sibel Utku, ‘Turkey inaugurates Africa action plan’, Hu¨rriyet Daily News, 8 October 1998. Available at http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/default.aspx? pageid¼438&n ¼ turkey-inaugurates-africa-action-plan-1998-08-10. 99. Data retrieved from Ministy of Foreign Affairs website. 100. Quoted in Bilgin and Bilgic , ‘Turkey and EU/rope’, p. 119. 101. Ibid. 102. ‘Erdogan: AB Hristiyan Kulu¨bu¨ deg˘ilse . . .’, NNTMNBC, 12 June 2010. Available at http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/id/25105673/. 103. Meliha B. Altunıs¸ık, and O¨zlem Tu¨r, ‘From distant neighbors to partners? Changing Syrian – Turkish relations’, Security Dialogue xxxvii/2 (2006), pp. 229 –48. 104. Recep Tayyip Erdog˘an, Full Transcipt of the Speech at the Party Assembly of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdog˘an, 2012. Available at http://www. akparti.org.tr/site/haberler/basbakan-erdoganin-9-ekim-tarihli-tbmmgrup-toplantisi-konusmasinin-tam-met/32191. 105. Ibid. 106. ‘Davutog˘lu: uc akta mes¸ru olmayan unsurlar Var’ [Illegitimate materials on board], Hu¨rriyet, 10 October 2012. 107. ‘Bas¸bakandan Suriye ac ıklaması’ [Prime Minister on Syria], Haberaktif, 4 October 2012. Available at http://www.aktifhaber.com/basbakandan-suriyeaciklamasi-670484h.htm. 108. Ibid. 109. C¸ag˘lar Keyder, State and Class in Turkey: a Study in Capitalist Development (New York, 1987), pp. 197– 222. 110. Tevfik C¸avdar, ‘Adalet Partisi’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi (I˙stanbul, 1996), p. 2100. 111. Quoted in Metin Heper, The State Tradition in Turkey (North Humberside, 1985), p. 132. 112. Quoted in Tanel Demirel, ‘The Turkish military’s decision to intervene: 12 September 1980’, Armed Forces and Society xxix/2 (2003), p. 270. Italics original. 113. Heper, The State Tradition in Turkey, p. 133. 114. Ali L. Karaosmanog˘lu, ‘Officers: Westernization and democracy’, in M. ¨ ncu¨ and H. Kramer (eds), Turkey and the West: Changing Cultural Heper, A. O Identities (London, 1993) p. 27. 115. Demirel, ‘The Turkish Military’s decision to intervene’, p. 263. 116. Binnaz Toprak, ‘Civil Society in Turkey’, in A.R. Norton (ed.), Civil Society in the Middle East (New York, 1996), p. 94. 117. Birol Ali Yes¸ilada, ‘Problems of political development in the Third Republic’, Polity xxi/2 (1988), pp. 345– 50. 118. U¨mit Cizre Sakallıog˘lu, ‘The anatomy of the Turkish military’s political autonomy’, Comparative Politics xxix/2 (1997), p. 153. 119. Heper, The State Tradition in Turkey, p. 143.
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120. Tanıl Bora and U¨mit Kıvanc , ‘Yeni Atatu¨rkc u¨lu¨k’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi, Vol.13 (I˙stanbul, 1996), p. 777. 121. Ahmet Evin, ‘Changing patterns of cleavages before and after 1980’, in M. Heper and A. Evin (eds), State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s (Berlin, 1988), p. 212. 122. Demet Yalc ın Mousseau, ‘An inquiry into the linkage among nationalizing policies, democratization, and ethno-nationalist conflict: the Kurdish case in Turkey’, Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity xl/1 (2012), pp. 52 – 3. 123. Metin Heper, The State and Kurds in Turkey: The Question of Assimilation (Basingstoke, 2007), p. 164. 124. Nazif Mandacı, ‘Turkey’s unfinished transition to democracy’, in M. Aknur (ed.), Democratic Consolidation in Turkey: State, Political Parties, Civil Society, Civil-military Relations, Socio-economic Development, EU, Rise of Political Islam and Separatist Kurdish Nationalism (Boca Raton, FL, 2012), p. 84. 125. Levent Ko¨ker, ‘Turgut O¨zal: siyasi ideolojik bir portre’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi (I˙stanbul, 1996), p. 205. 126. Mandacı, ‘Turkey’s unfinished transition to democracy’, p. 84. 127. Bozkurt Gu¨venc , Gencay S¸aylan, I˙lhan Tekeli, and S¸erafettin Turan, Tu¨rk – I˙slam Sentezi (I˙stanbul, 1994). 128. I˙lhan Uzgel, ‘Tu¨rk– I˙slam Sentezi’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bugu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1980– 2001 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), p. 22. 129. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 17, Cilt: 1, I˙ctima: 10 (19 December 1983), p. 67. 130. Baskın Oran, ‘Do¨nemin Bilanc osu 1980– 1990’, p. 22. 131. Mu¨mtaz’er Tu¨rko¨ne, ‘I˙mam-Hatip Liseleri’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi Volume 12 (I˙stanbul, 1996), p. 467. 132. Ibid., p. 23. 133. Heper, The State Tradition in Turkey, p. 131. 134. Ibid. 135. Mehmet Ali Birand, Shirts of Steel: An Anatomy of the Turkish Armed Forces (London, 1991). 136. Metin Heper, ‘State and society in Turkish political experience’, in M. Heper and A. Evin (eds), State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s (Berlin, 1988), p. 7. 137. Quoted in Steven A. Cook, Ruling but not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria and Turkey (Baltimore, 2007), p. 102. 138. Ays¸egu¨l Altınay, The Myth of the Military Nation: Militarism, Gender, and Education in Turkey (Hamphsire, 2004), p. 39. 139. Cizre also underlines the other ways in which the military exercises authority over political life: a presidency with augmented powers, autonomy of the military in its modernisation and senior promotion processes, determining the military
278
140.
141.
142. 143. 144. 145. 146.
147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152.
153.
154. 155. 156. 157.
158.
NOTES
TO PAGES
221 – 228
budget and, also, its role in internal intelligence gathering. See Sakallıog˘lu, ‘The anatomy of the Turkish military’s political autonomy’, pp. 158–62. For the powers of the president in the 1982 Constitution, which created a mixed system, see Ergun O¨zbudun, ‘The status of the President of the Republic under the Turkish Constitution of 1982: presidentialism or parliamentarism?’, in M. Heper and A.Evin (eds), State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1988), pp. 37 – 45. ¨ ktem and I˙lter Turan, ‘University governance in Turkey’, in C. Kerslake, K. O P. Robins (eds), Turkey’s Engagement with Modernity: Conflict and Change in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke, 2010), p. 153. Ibid., p. 152. Fatma Go¨k, ‘Yu¨kseko¨g˘retim ve YO¨K’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi (I˙stanbul, 1996), p. 464. ¨ zdog˘an, ‘Devlet gu¨venlik mahkemeleri’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Zeynep Sedef O Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi (I˙stanbul, 1996), pp. 628– 9. Orhan Kolog˘lu, ‘Liberal ekonomi du¨zeninde basın rejimi’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi (I˙stanbul, 1996), pp. 134– 5. S¸ahin Alpay, ‘Journalists: cautious democrats’, in M. Heper, A. O¨ncu¨ and H. Kramer (eds), Turkey and the West: Changing Cultural Identities (London, 1993), p. 84. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 17, Cilt: 7, I˙ctima: 13 (17 October 1984), p. 394. Ibid., p. 408. Ibid., p. 409. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 17, Cilt: 31, I˙ctima: 2 (2 February 1986), p. 79. Oran, ‘Do¨nemin Bilanc osu 1980 –1990’, p. 23. PM O¨zal’s 1984 speech in the Parliament about the PKK incidents were mainly about economic development plans to address the problem. For the speech see TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 17, Cilt: 7, I˙ctima: 13 (17 October 1984). Ersin Kalaycıog˘lu, ‘The Motherland Party: the challenge of institutionalization in a charismatic leader party’, in B. Rubin and M. Heper (eds), Political Parties in Turkey (London, 2002), p. 46. For the expression ‘Mosque and Mall’ to explain AKP’s domestic policies, I would like to thank Clemens Hoffmann. Alev O¨zkazanc , ‘Tu¨rkiye’de yeni sag˘’, in Cumhuriyet Do¨nemi Tu¨rkiye Ansiklopedisi (I˙stanbul, 1996), p. 1221. TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, Do¨nem: 18, Cilt: 1, I˙ctima: 3 (25 December 1987). Baskın Oran, ‘Do¨nemin bilanc osu 1990– 2001’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bugu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 1980– 2001 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), pp. 215– 18. S¸ahin Alpay, ‘Two faces of the press in Turkey: the role of the media in Turkey’s modernization and democracy’, in C. Kerslake, K. O¨ktem and P.
NOTES
159. 160.
161. 162.
163. 164. 165.
166. 167. 168. 169.
170.
171. 172.
173. 174.
TO PAGES
228 –232
279
Robins (eds), Turkey’s Engagement with Modernity: Conflict and Change in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke, 2010), p. 376. Ibid., pp. 377 – 8. Ays¸e O¨ncu¨, ‘Rapid commercialization and continued control: the Turkish ¨ ktem and P. Robins (eds), Turkey’s media in the 1990s’, in C. Kerslake, K. O Engagement with Modernity: Conflict and Change in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke, 2010), p. 398. Ibid., p. 399. Christine Ogan, Communication and Identity in the Diaspora: Turkish Migrants in Amsterdam and Their Use of Media (London, 2001), p. 167. See also M. Hakan Yavuz, ‘Media identities for Alevis and Kurds in Turkey’, in D. Eickelman and J. Anderso (eds), New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere (Indianapolis, 1999), pp. 180– 99. Ibid., p. 221. Ibid., p. 219. Nergis Canefe and Tanıl Bora, ‘The intellectual roots of anti-European sentiments in Turkish politics: the case of radical Turkish nationalism’, Turkish Studies v/1 (2003), pp. 127– 48. Emel Akc alı and Mehmet Perinc ek, ‘Kemalist Eurasianism: an emerging geopolitical discourse in Turkey’, Geopolitics xiv/3 (2009), pp. 550 – 69. Zeynep Alemdar, ‘“Modelling” for democracy? Turkey’s historical issues with freedom of speech’, Middle Eastern Studies l/4 (2014), pp. 578 – 9. Ibid., pp. 579 – 84. Baskın Oran, ‘Do¨nemin bilanc osu 2001– 2012’, in B. Oran (ed.), Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası: Kurtulus¸ Savas¸ından Bugu¨ne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar 2001 – 2012 (I˙stanbul, 2013, 18th edition), p. 118. Onur Bakıner, ‘Is Turkey coming to terms with the past? Politics of memory and majoritarian conservatism’, Nationalities Papers: Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity xli/5 (2013), p. 698. Yılmaz C¸olak, ‘Ottomanism vs. Kemalism: collective memory and cultural pluralism in 1990s Turkey’, Middle Eastern Studies xlii/4 (2006), pp. 587 – 8. A good overall analysis (in Turkish), Refet Gu¨rkaynak, ‘Gezi olayları ve Tu¨rkiye ekonomisi’, Bilim Akademisi Derneg˘i, vol. 34 -179/148 (2013). Available at http://bilimakademisi.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/GeziOlaylari-ve-Turkiye-Ekonomisi.pdf; for ‘construction fetishism’ of neoliberal Islamists in Turkey see Ismail Dog˘a Karatepe, ‘Islamists, state and bourgeoisie: the construction industry in Turkey’ (paper presented at World Economics Association (WEA) Conferences, No. 4, Neoliberalism in Turkey: A Balance Sheet of Three Decades, 28 October –16 December 2013). Available at http://turkeyconference2013.worldeconomicsassociation.org/ wp-content/uploads/Karatepe_wea_application.pdf. ‘Tu¨rkiye’nin AVM haritası ac ıklandı’. Available at http://www.evagyd.com/ WebSite/HomeItems.aspx?HomeItemID¼24. Data retrieved from http://www.tuik.gov.tr/UstMenu.do?metod¼temelist.
280
NOTES
TO PAGES
232 –243
175. ‘Erdog˘an: Ku¨rt sorunu yoktur’, Haber7, 30 April 2011. Available at http:// www.haber7.com/partiler/haber/739081-erdogan-kurt-sorunu-yoktur. 176. For an excellent discussion of this, see Cenk Sarac og˘lu, ‘I˙slami-Muhafazakaˆr milliyetc ilig˘in millet tasarımı: AKP do¨neminde Ku¨rt politikası’, Praksis, xxvi/2 (2011), pp. 31–54. 177. ‘Erdog˘an: Benim ic in affedersin ‘Ermeni’ dediler’, Radikal, 5 August 2014. Available at http://www.radikal.com.tr/politika/basbakan_erdogan_canli_ yayinda_sorulari_yanitliyor-1205259. 178. Available at ‘Bas¸bakan Erdog˘an: alkolu¨ yasaklamadık’, Bugu¨n, 31 May 2013. Available at http://gundem.bugun.com.tr/erdogandan-alkol-aciklamasihaberi/646902. 179. ‘Gereksiz sezeryana ceza geliyor’, Milliyet, 26 May 2012. Available at http:// www.milliyet.com.tr/gereksiz-sezeryana-ceza-geliyor/siyaset/siyasetdetay/ 26.05.2012/1545469/default.htm, italics added. 180. ‘Erdog˘an: ku¨rtaj yasasını cıkartacag˘ız’, Radikal, 29 May 2012. Available at http://www.radikal.com.tr/politika/erdogan_kurtaj_yasasini_cikartacagiz1089484. 181. The neoliberal and neo-Ottomanist project has been studied extensively, even before the Gezi Park protests in 2013. See Pınar Bedirhanog˘lu and Galip L. Yalman, ‘Neoliberal transformation in Turkey: state, class and discourse’, in A. Saad-Filho and G. Yalman (eds), Economic Transitions to Neoliberalism in Middle-Income Countries Policy Dilemmas, Crises, Mass Resistance (London, 2010); Selen Korad Birkiye, ‘Changes in the cultural policies of Turkey and the AKP’s impact on social engineering and theatre’, International Journal of Cultural Policy xv/3 (2009), pp. 261– 74; Corey Blad and Banu Koc er, ‘Political Islam and state legitimacy in Turkey: the role of national culture in neoliberal state-building’, International Political Sociology vi/1 (2012), pp. 36– 56. 182. Efe Can Gu¨rcan and Efe Peker, ‘Turkey’s Gezi Park demonstrations of 2013: a Marxian analysis of the political moment’, Socialism and Democracy xxviii/1 (2014), pp. 70– 89. 183. Ibid., p. 77.
Conclusion
Gendered Subordination of the Non-West and Beyond
1. Spike Peterson, ‘International/global political economy’, in L. Shepherd (ed.), Gender Matters in Global Politics: A Feminist Introduction to International Relations (London, 2010), p. 205. 2. Sutharan Nadarajah and David Rampton, ‘The limits of hybridity and the crisis of liberal peace’, Review of International Studies xli (2015), pp. 49 – 72. 3. Irem Inceoglu, ‘The Gezi resistance and its aftermath: a radical democratic shift?’, Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture lvii (2014), pp. 23 – 34.
NOTES
TO PAGES
243 –244
281
4. Ibid., p. 180. 5. Both accounts from Antimo L. Farro and Deniz Gulce Demirhisar, ‘The Gezi Park movement: a Turkish experience of the twenty-first-century collective movements’, International Review of Sociology xxiv/1 (2014), pp. 183 – 4. 6. Ibid., p. 184. 7. Tulin Dalog˘lu, ‘LGBT Turks seek to capitalize on Gezi good will’, Al-Monitor, 2 July 2013, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/tr/originals/2013/07/turkeylgbt-gezi.html. 8. Gu¨ls¸en I˙s¸eri and Soner C¸etin, ‘LGBT “There is no violence where the state isn’t present”’, I˙nsan Haber, 20 August 2013, http://everywheretaksim.net/ins an-haber-lgbt-there-is-no-violence-where-the-state-isnt-present/.
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WEST
C¸olak, Yılmaz, ‘Ottomanism vs. Kemalism: collective memory and cultural pluralism in 1990s’ Turkey’, Middle Eastern Studies xlii/4 (2006), pp. 587– 602. Connell, Robert W., Masculinities (Berkeley, 2005, 2nd edition). Daldal, Aslı, ‘The new middle class as a progressive urban coalition: the 1960 coup d’etat in Turkey’, Turkish Studies v/3 (2004), pp. 75 – 102. Doty, Roxanne Lynn, Imperial Encounters (Minneapolis, 1996). Ergil, Dog˘u, ‘Class conflict and Turkish transformation 1950– 1975’, Studia Islamica (1975), pp. 137– 61. Grovogui, Siba N. Beyond Eurocentrism and Anarchy: Memories of International Order and Institutions (New York, 2006), pp. 16 – 17. Han, Jongwoo and Ling, L.H.M, ‘Authoritarianism in the hypermasculinized state: hybridity, patriarchy, and capitalism in Korea’, International Studies Quarterly xlii/1 (1998), pp. 53 – 78. Haniog˘lu, S¸u¨kru¨, Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902– 1908 (Oxford, 2001). Harvey, David, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford, 2007). Heper, Metin, O¨ncu¨, Ays¸e and Kramer, Heinz (eds), Turkey and the West: Changing Political and Cultural Identities (London, 1993). Hobson, John M., The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation (Cambridge, 2004). Hooper, Charlotte, ‘Masculinist practices and gender politics: the operation of multiple masculinities in IR’, in Zalewski M. and Parpart J. (eds), The ‘Man’ Question in International Relations (Oxford, 1998). ——— Manly States: Masculinities, International Relations and Gender Politics (New York, 2001). Kerslake, Celia, Oktem, Kerem and Robins, Philip (eds), Turkey’s Engagement with Modernity: Conflict and Change in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke, 2010). Keyder, C¸ag˘lar, State and Class in Turkey: A Study in Capitalist Development (London, 1987). Krishna, Sankaran, Postcolonial Insecurities: India, Sri Lanka and the Question of Nationhood (Minneapolis, 1999). Kronsell, Annica, ‘Gendered practices in institutions of hegemonic masculinity’, International Feminist Journal of Politics vii/2 (2005), pp. 280– 98. Ling, L.H.M., ‘Cultural chauvinism and the liberal international order: “West versus Rest” in Asia’s financial crisis’, in Chowdry, G. and Nair, S. (eds), Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations: Reading Race, Gender and Class (London, 2002), pp. 115– 41. Maruska, Jennifer H. ‘When are states hypermasculine?’, in Sjoberg L. (ed.), Gender and International Security: Feminist Perspectives (London, 2010), pp. 235 – 55. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, Feminism without Borders: Decolonising Theory, Practicing Solidarity (London, 2006). Muppidi, Himadeep, ‘Postcoloniality and the production of international insecurity: the persistent puzzle of US– Indian relations’, in Weldes, J., Laffey, M., Gusterson, H. and Duvall, R. (eds), Cultures of Insecurity: States, Communities and the Production of Danger (Minneapolis, 1999), pp. 119– 46. Nakano, Ryoko, ‘Beyond Orientalism and “reverse Orientalism”: through the looking glass of Japanese humanism’, in Shilliam, R. (ed), International Relations and Non-Western Thought (London, 2012).
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INDEX
31 March Incident, 64, 80, 124 Abdu¨lhamid II, 62, 63, 67, 68, 84 Akbulut, Yıldırım, 225, 226 ambivalence, 47, 121 Armenia, 12, 69, 79, 91, 224 Atatu¨rk, Mustafa Kemal, 55, 93, 98, 99, 101, 118, 119, 115, 116 Atatu¨rkism, 216, 222 Baghdad Pact, 136 Balkan Wars, 64, 73, 80, 90, 112 Bandung, Conference, 132, 138, 152, 159 bridge, metaphor, 190, 151, 154, 161 Britain, 74, 92, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 122, 131, 134, 137, 140, 156, 173, 226, 240 C¸ag˘layangil, I˙hsan Sabri, 159, 174 Cem, I˙smail, 201, 202, 203, 204, 212, 230 Cevdet, Abdullah, 71 C¸iller, Tansu, 197, 1988, 200, 228, 229 Committee of Union and Progress, 54, 63, 64, 65, 69, 72 foreign policy of, 72 – 5
communism, 34, 124, 126, 131, 132, 134, 137, 138, 141, 144, 145, 146, 147, 155, 159, 166, 167, 170, 171, 173, 174, 175, 218, 223, 229 anti- 19, 129, 140, 149, 212, 252 Council of Europe, 105, 106, 107, 151, 181, 187, 198 Crimean War, 57 Cyprus, 20, 25, 139, 140, 151, 156– 9, 162, 164, 199, 200 Darwinism, economic, 184 social, 72, 75, 76, 85, 86 Davutog˘lu, Ahmet, 204, 205, 206, 211 Demirel, Su¨leyman, 15, 158, 159, 167, 170, 172, 173, 174, 178, 196, 203, 205, 214, 222, 240 Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP), 25, 88, 103, 125, 126, 129– 33, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146– 50, 152, 153, 154, 159, 165– 6, 170, 173, 179– 80, 182, 194, 206, 207, 215, 216, 217, 219, 131 Democratic Leftist Party (Demokratik Sol Parti, DSP), 14, 201, 230
288
TURKEY, POWER
devalorisation, gendered, 14, 44, 47, 48 Ecevit, Bu¨lent, 1, 154, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 175, 176, 177, 178 Eisenhower Doctrine, 133, 137 empire, as concept, 184 energy hub, 185, 198, 212, 238 Enver Pasha, 1, 54, 69, 70, 73, 76 Erbakan, Necmettin, 168, 201, 227 Erdog˘an, Recep Tayyip, 12, 15, 208, 210, 211, 230, 231, 232, 233 European Community/Union, 19, 20, 151, 152, 181, 196, 200, 202 Evren, Kenan, 182, 187, 188, 189, 190, 214, 220 femininity, 36, 37, 40, 41 feminism, 35 Third World, 27, 32, 38, 40, 52 post-colonial, 5, 33, 52 gender concept, 2, 6, 40–1, 80, 138, 184, 236 -ing, 3, 16 – 19, 35, 38, 43, 44, 76, 131, 132, 139, 141, 162, 236 Germany, 72, 73, 85, 100, 102, 103, 104, 120, 123, 134, 173, 207 Gezi Park, protests, 231, 244 Greece, 11, 58, 74, 90, 91, 92, 104, 139, 140, 141, 156, 162, 163, 164, 179, 189, 195, 199, 200, 201 Green Line, 182, 193, 229, 234 hybridity, 16, 19, 33, 49, 55, 70, 77, 121, 153, 162, 165, 182, 239– 41 formal, 60, 61 Imia, see Kardak Independence Tribunals, 109 I˙no¨nu¨, I˙smet, 5, 95, 97, 100, 102, 106, 108, 110, 111, 123, 130, 152, 179
AND THE
WEST
insecurity gendered, 12, 17, 24 – 5, 42, 45, 48, 51, 90 – 1, 100, 108, 126, 162, 177, 188, 192, 211 Iran, 101, 102, 136, 206, 207, 224 Iraq, 97, 136, 1377, 206, 207, 224 Islahat, 56, 80 Islamists, 9, 10, 12, 16, 25, 74, 80, 124, 168, 191, 229 political Islam, 159, 198, 213, 230, 238 Japan, 75, 103, 218 Justice Party (Adalet Partisi, AP), 13, 156, 167 Kanun-i Esasi, 56, 63, 82 Kardak, crisis, 20, 195, 199 Kemalism, 15, 149, 169, 179, 183, 206 Ko¨pru¨lu¨, Fuat, 133, 147, 178 Kurd, 7, 10, 91, 110, 198, 225, 227 rebellions, 108– 11, 226 Marshall Plan, 139, 142, 143, 216 masculinity, 3, 13, 16 – 17, 30, 59, 60, 62, 92, 162, 210 Cold Warrior, 128– 30, 137, 138, 139, 155, 166, 178, 216, 221 concept, 36 –42 hegemonic, 55, 64, 67, 101, 105, 129, 132, 182, 186, 191, 199, 207 hypermasculinity, 85, 188 neoliberal, 181– 5, 216, 230, 232 politics of, 2, 3, 42, 44, 48, 202 subordinated, 16, 22, 30, 32, 42, 45, 72 – 3, 118, 188, 199, 226, 227 Menderes, Adnan, 129, 132, 136, 137, 140, 145, 146 millet, system, 61, 79, 232 mimicry, see hybridity model, Turkish, 154, 173, 175
INDEX modernism, 11, 19, 55, 227 post- 28, 184 modernity, 11, 16, 18, 32, 33, 48, 50, 169 modulation, 18 – 19 Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi, ANAP), 13 – 14, 23, 189, 191–3, 207, 215, 219, 222, 224, 227, 228, 239, 241 Mustafa Res¸it Pas¸a, 58, 59 narrative approach, 12 Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetc i Hareket Partisi, MHP), 13, 168, 169, 201 NATO, 25, 105, 133, 135, 136, 138– 9, 151, 157, 159, 182, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197 Ottoman, Assembly (Meclis-i Mebusan), 62, 76, 89 Empire, 1, 7, 24, 37, 49, 50, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 64, 65, 71, 75, 88, 89, 98, 108, 164, 188, 202, 204, 205, 225 Freedom Lovers, 63, 65 Freedom Society, 63 Ottomanism, 61, 62, 79, 90, 112 neo- 9, 26, 231, 239 Orientalism, 22, 24, 44, 47 ¨ zal, Turgut, 12, 15, 130, 182, O 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 213, 219, 224, 225, 227, 231
289
Dersim, 111, 120 Sheikh Said, 97, 108, 109, 110 Report on Reform in the East (S¸ark Islahat Raporu) 110, 111 Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), 13, 15, 24, 25, 26, 88, 103, 105, 106, 107, 112, 115, 118, 123, 125, 126, 128, 130, 133, 134, 142, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 166, 169, 174, 175, 176, 206, 213, 215, 240 SEATO, 136 secularism, 176, 229 security, 45 – 52 ontological, 12, 48 see also insecurity Se`vres Syndrome, 226, 229 Stalin, Josef, 104, 132 sun-language theory, 116 Syria, 112, 132, 136, 137, 203, 207, 209, 210, 211
PKK, 197, 222, 223 post-colonialism, theory, 27 – 38 post-modernism, see modernism power, as concept, 3 – 6
Tanzimat, 56, 58, 63, 80 True Path Party (Dog˘ru Yol Partisi, DYP), 13, 14, 196–9, 201, 228, 229 Truman Doctrine, 104, 125 Turkey’s Workers Party (Tu¨rkiye I˙s¸ci Partisi, TI˙P), 167, 169 Turkish History Thesis, 113, 120 Turkish – Islamic synthesis, 75, 80, 182 –3, 186, 188, 213, 217 –19, 222, 226, 228, 229, 231, 232
realpolitik, 72, 73,75, 76, 77, 86, 93, 94 rebellion, Ag˘rı 111
US, 5, 17, 88, 128, 130, 138, 173, 179, 191, 193, 216, 239 USSR, 91 – 3, 97, 99, 100, 125, 131, 138, 151, 157
290
TURKEY, POWER
Wealth Tax, 122 Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, RP), 198, 199, 201, 229, 230, worlding, 17 –18, 21, 28, 31, 47 World War I, 63, 88, 89, 135 World War II, 100, 102, 108, 121, 127, 128, 135, 181
AND THE
WEST
Young Ottomans, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 77, 83, 168, 218, 227 Young Turks, 24, 55, 56, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72 Zorlu, Fatin Ru¨s¸tu¨ 132, 137, 138
‘Ali Bilgiç shows us here why asking smart gender-analytical questions is so crucial if IR practitioners hope to be useful and reliable. Turkey, Power and the West reveals the ways in which masculinities are wielded by the US, the EU and current Turkish officials of the Erdoğan government.’ – Cynthia Enloe, author of Bananas, Beaches and Bases
Ali Bilgiç is Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations, Bilkent University, Ankara, and the author of Rethinking Security in the Age of Migration: Trust and Emancipation in Europe (2013).
Cover image: Word leaders at the NATO summit in Brussels, May 1988. (L–R) Turgut Özal, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan. (Photo by Diana Walker/Time Life Pictures/ Getty Images)
Ali Bilgiç
www.ibtauris.com
– Terrell Carver, Professor of Political Theory, University of Bristol
Turkey, Power West
From the Ottoman Empire to the present day, the book constructs an image of Turkish foreign policy as reflecting a gendered insecurity – one of a ‘non-Western’ Turkish masculinity subordinated to a ‘Western’ hegemonic masculinity – and shows how Turkey’s ‘subordination’ has in turn been internalised by its own politicians. Across a diverse range of sources, Bilgiç takes advantage of new theories such as critical security studies (CSS) to paint a picture of a Turkish republic anxious to make its mark on the world stage, yet perennially insecure about its position as a global power. Turkey, Power and the West is essential for students and researchers interested in Turkish politics and the international relations of the Middle East, as well as those with an interest in gender and identity studies.
‘This is a superbly written and thoroughly researched original study that contributes in highly significant ways to three literatures not normally brought together: foreign policy studies, gender/feminist research, and post-colonial perspectives through which the East/West binary is reimagined.’
and the
During the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP, the Turkish government shifted from a ‘reactive’ to an ‘activist’ foreign policy. As a result, many in the West increasingly began to see Turkey as a key actor in the international relations of the region, and indeed the wider global stage. Turkey, Power and the West offers a unique approach to this transformation and considers questions of Turkish national identity and its relations with the West through the lens of gender studies.
Gendered International Relations and Foreign Policy
Turkey, Power and the West Gendered International Relations and Foreign Policy
Ali Bilgiç