Table Of ContentIdentitiesandModernitiesinEurope
SeriesEditor:AtsukoIchijo
TheIdentitiesandModernitiesinEuropeseriesexaminesoneofthecentralissues
inthesocialsciences,modernity,bywayofacomparativestudyofprocessesof
Europeanisation.ArisingfromaEuropeanCommissionfundedFP7project,‘Iden-
titiesandModernitiesinEurope’,aninternationalcollaborativeresearchproject,
theseriesbringstogetherthelatestresearchfindingsintomodernitycarriedout
bycutting-edgeresearchersacrossEuropeusing‘identity’and‘Europe’asaway
intothestudyofmodernity.
In the post-Cold War, 9/11 and Lehman Brothers era, which is also marked by
a rapid pace of globalisation, questions concerning ‘Europe’ and identity are
becoming more and more urgent and the debates are heating up. With the
unfolding of the euro crisis, both ‘Europe’ and European identity are earnestly
interrogatedonadailybasisbyawiderangeofpeople,notonlyattheperiph-
ery of ‘Europe’ – both member states and non-member states of the European
Union–butalsowithintheeuroarea.Infactthequestionof‘Europe’hasnot
been so pertinent for a long time since the inception of the EU. This is taking
placeagainstawiderbackgroundofrapidglobalisationwhichisaccompanied,
perhaps paradoxically, by an increasingly fragmented world. In such a suppos-
edly fragmenting world, identities inevitably attract more and more attention.
Identitiesareamodernconcernand‘Europe’isthebirthplaceofthecurrently
dominant form of modernity, and therefore these existential questions about
‘Europe’ and identities eventually lead to the questioning of modernity as we
knowit.Theseriesendeavourstoaddresstheseconcernsbygatheringlatestand
interdisciplinary research results about the idea of Europe, European identities
andEuropeanisation.
Thevolumescollectedintheseriespresentoriginalresearchgroundedinhistory,
sociologyandanthropologyonthequestionof‘Europe’,identityandmodernity.
Somecontributorspresentacomparativeanalysis;otherspresentaone-country
basedcasestudy.ThegeographicalareascoveredintheseriesgobeyondtheEU
andincludeTurkey,CroatiaandJapan.Variousdimensionsabout‘Europe’,iden-
tityandmodernityareexplored:Europeanisationandmodernisation,tolerance,
discursiveconstructionofEurope,religion,nationalism,collectiveidentitycon-
structionandglobalisation.Avarietyofmethodstocollectdataareemployed:
in-depth interviews, discourse analysis, civilisational analysis and biographical
interviews.Eachvolume’snuancedanalysiswillcometogethertohelprealisea
morecomprehensiveunderstandingof‘Europe’,identityandmodernity.
Titlesinclude:
SenemDüzgit
CONSTRUCTIONSOFEUROPEANIDENTITY
DebatesandDiscoursesonTurkeyandtheEU
AtsukoIchijo
EUROPE,NATIONSANDMODERNITY
RobertMillerandGrahamDay
THEEVOLUTIONOFEUROPEANIDENTITIES
BiographicalApproaches
AyhanKaya
EUROPEANIZATIONANDTOLERANCEINTURKEY
TheMythofToleration
IdentitiesandModernitiesinEurope
SeriesStandingOrder:HBK:978–0–230–30860–2 PBK:978–0–230–30861–9
(outsideNorthAmericaonly)
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a
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usattheaddressbelowwithyournameandaddress,thetitleoftheseriesand
theISBNquotedabove.
Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills,
Basingstoke,HampshireRG216XS,England
Europeanization and
Tolerance in Turkey
The Myth of Toleration
Ayhan Kaya
IstanbulBilgiUniversity,Turkey
©AyhanKaya2013
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-0-230-30034-7
Allrightsreserved.Noreproduction,copyortransmissionofthis
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This book has been published under the auspices
of the ACCEPT PLURALISM project Tolerance,
PluralismandSocialCohesion:Respondingtothe
Challengesofthe21stCenturyinEuropewhich
hasbeenco-fundedbytheEuropeanCommission,
DG Research and Innovation, Seventh Framework
Programme:SocialSciencesandHumanitiesintheperiod2010–2013(Grantagreement
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Contents
ListofFiguresandTables viii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
ListofAbbreviations xii
Introduction 1
1 MultipleModernitiesandTurkishModernity:
AContinuousJourneyofEuropeanization 28
2 ToleranceandCulturalDiversityDiscoursesinTurkey 71
3 TheKurdishQuestion:100YearsofSolitude 101
4 AKP’sAleviInitiative:LimitsofTolerance 132
5 TheHeadscarfIssue 157
6 Nation,EuropeandModernity:SocialCritiqueofthe
‘HolyTrinity’(Sunni-Muslim-Turk) 175
Conclusion 210
Notes 222
Bibliography 234
Index 257
vii
Figures and Tables
Figures
1.1 ModernityandIslamicvalues 61
1.2 2007generalelectionresults(%) 63
1.3 IdentitiesinTurkey 66
Tables
1.1 Generalelectionresultsin1950,1954and1957 46
1.2 AlternateprojectsforEurope 70
6.1 LevelsofanalysisinTurkeywithregardtothenotionsof
nation,Europeandmodernity 201
viii
Preface
This book is partly a result of the two EU FP7 projects IME (Identities
andModernitiesinEurope,SSH-CT-2009-215949)andAcceptPluralism
(Tolerance, Pluralism and Social Cohesion: Responding to the Chal-
lenges of the 21st Century in Europe, SSH-CT-2010-243837). While
working on these projects, I had the chance to conduct in-depth
interviewswithmembersoftheKurdishandAlevicommunities,aswell
aswithheadscarvedwomenandseveralotherrelevantpolitical,societal
and individual actors, which enables this book to represent a holistic
treatment of the debates on the Kurdish question, the Alevi question
andtheheadscarfissue.
Theterms‘Europeanization’and‘tolerance’haveaverylonghistory
in Turkish political culture. While the term ‘Europeanization’ is often
used in an interchangeable manner with the terms ‘modernization’,
‘Westernization’and‘secularization’,theterm‘tolerance’ratherisused
by many intellectuals, politicians, bureaucrats and private individuals
tounderlinetheIslamic,orientalandauthenticcharacteroftheTurkish
nation. In other words, the former corresponds to attempts by Turkish
nation-builderstocatchupwiththematerialcivilizationlevelofEurope,
and the latter corresponds to the authentic culture of the Turks, which
they want to preserve. Hence, these two terms bear a tension because
they refer respectively to material civilization and culture, in the same
manner that a tension between the body and spirit exists. However,
Iclaimthatbothtermshaverecentlybecomecomplementaryintheage
of neoliberalism when the European political elite have become more
engaged in culturalizing what is materially civilizational in a way that
reducesthecausesofsocial,politicalandeconomicphenomenatocul-
tural and religious factors. The principal premise of this work is that
civilizationalrhetoricandthediscourseoftolerancehavebecomecom-
plementary during the leadership of the pro-Islamist AKP – a political
partywhichbearsseveralsimilaritieswiththeconservativepoliticalelite
ofthememberstatesoftheEU.
In this work, I will argue that neoliberal forms of governmentality
have been in existence for more than two decades, and that it is these
kindsofagencieswhichhavecontributedtotheculturalization,ethni-
cization and Islamization of social-economic and political phenomena
in Turkey. I will also claim that ethnocultural and religious forms of
ix
