Table Of ContentTurkey
The Quest for Identity
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Turkey
The Quest for Identity
Feroz Ahmad
For my sister Ameena, and to the memory of my brother
Farid, 1935–2000
TURKEY: THE QUEST FOR IDENTITY
Oneworld Publications
(Sales and Editorial)
185 Banbury Road
Oxford OX2 7AR
England
www.oneworld-publications.com
© Feroz Ahmad 2003
All rights reserved.
Copyright under Berne Convention
A CIP record for this title is available
from the British Library
ISBN 1–85168–241–4
Cover design by Design Deluxe
Typeset by Saxon Graphics, Derby, UK
Printed and bound in Finland by WS Bookwell
NL08
Contents
Preface
viii
Acknowledgements
xi
Notes on transcription
xii
Abbreviations
xiii
Maps
xvi
1
THE OTTOMANS: FROM STATEHOOD TO EMPIRE,
1
1300–1789
The emergence of the house of Ottoman
1
Growth of the military
3
Early Ottoman conquests and expansion
5
Mehmed the Conqueror and his influence
8
Expanding Ottoman possessions
11
Süleyman the Magnificent
12
An age of revolution
16
The janissary–ülema alliance
20
Growing European influence
21
2
FROM REFORM TO REVOLUTION, 1789–1908
25
Reform of the military
25
The Sublime Porte and Mehmed Ali
29
The movement towards Westernization
31
Emergence of a new middle class
32
Tanzimat (restructuring)
33
The Young Ottomans movement
36
Bankruptcy and upheaval: unravelling of the Ottoman
39
empire
From autocracy to constitutionalism
41
Emerging traditionalism
44
3
THE CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION: REFORM
49
AND WAR, 1908–1918
Restoration of the constitution
49
Counter-revolution
52
The accession of Mehmed V
54
Balkan wars and Ottoman defeats
57
The repercussions of defeat
60
Alliance with Germany
63
The Ottoman role in the First World War
65
4
THE KEMALIST ERA, 1919–1938
75
Atatürk’s background and rise to power
75
The birth of the national liberation movement
80
Birth of the republic
85
Republicanism takes root
87
Atatürk’s influence on the new republic
90
5
TOWARDS MULTI-PARTY POLITICS AND DEMOCRACY,
95
1938–1960
İnönü’s new presidency
95
War in Europe
97
The aftermath of the Second World War
99
The formation of the Democrat Party
100
The general elections of 1946 and 1950
102
The Cold War and its effects on Turkey
104
Domestic politics
107
Economic concerns
113
The army enters the fray
115
6
MILITARY GUARDIANS, 1960–1980
119
Government by junta
119
National Unity Committee: interim government
121
vi TURKEY: THE QUEST FOR IDENTITY
The ‘Second Republic’
122
Economic reforms
124
Changing societal structures
126
The formation of new political parties
127
The new politics and the wider world
128
The Cyprus question
129
Political fragmentation
132
The memorandum regime and after, 1971–1980
134
The general election of 1973
138
Coalition government: RPP–NSP
140
Turkey’s renewed strategic importance
145
Mounting economic gloom
146
7
THE MILITARY, THE PARTIES AND GLOBALIZATION,
149
1980–2003
Restructuring the political system
149
The establishment of new political parties
152
The general election of 1983
153
Former political leaders re-emerge
155
Economic problems return to the fore
158
Turkey’s changing social and political landscape
161
The Kurdish question
163
Turkey and the EEC
167
Turkey’s political malaise
167
New political coalitions
168
Continuing political instability and its effects on the
170
economy
Secularists and Islamists
172
The increasing importance of EU entry
175
Chronology of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey
185
Glossary
207
Index
211
CONTENTS vii
Preface
The Ottomans were a rare imperial people who had no homeland
to retreat to as their empire waned in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Other imperial peoples had returned to various home-
lands: the British to their island base when they were forced to
decolonize; the French to France, the Spanish to Spain, and so on.
By the twentieth century, the Ottomans had no homeland for they
had originated as tribal peoples who, for a variety of reasons, had
been forced to migrate from the steppes of Central and Inner Asia
and went in different directions. Some of these tribal confedera-
tions, including the ones who came to be known as Ottoman
(Osmanl�) adopting the name of their leader, Osman (d.1324),
migrated into the Islamic world and adopted Islam.
These peoples came to be described as ‘Turks’ by the people they
intermingled with. But they themselves were called by the name of
the head of their tribal confederation: thus the Seljuks, the
Dani�mend, the Mente�e and the Osmanl� or Ottomans. The
Ottomans reserved the name ‘Turk’ for the nomadic tribesmen and
peasants who continued to live under their rule but were as yet
untamed or ‘uncivilized’. The merchants from the Italian city states
of Venice and Genoa who came in contact with the Ottomans
nevertheless called them Turks or Turque, as did the English and
the French respectively. The Greek Orthodox described the rule of
the Ottomans as ‘Tuorkokratia’, the rule of the Turks. For
Europeans and Christians, the term ‘Turk’ was synonymous with
Muslim; thus when Christians converted to Islam, they were often
said to have ‘turned Turk’. Turkey was also the English-language
synonym for the Ottoman Empire; thus when Lord Byron wrote to
his mother from Ottoman Albania in November 1809, he noted
that ‘I have been some time in Turkey: this place [Prevesa] is on the
coast, but I have traversed the interior of the province of Albania
on a visit to the Pasha.’ It was common for Europeans to speak of
the Balkan provinces of the Ottoman Empire as ‘Turkey-in-
Europe’ and of Asia Minor and the Arab provinces as ‘Turkey-in-
Asia’, when they described the geography of the empire.
The idea of nationalism made inroads into the Ottoman Empire
after the French Revolution, first among the non-Muslim commu-
nities of the empire, and then among a minority of Muslim intellec-
tuals who became conscious of their ‘Turkishness’, their language
and their roots. But nationalism remained a concern of the
minority, for the majority was still determined to maintain a multi-
ethnic, multi-religious empire, right until the final defeat in 1918
during the First World War.
Only after total defeat and the realization that the victors were
going to partition the empire and promote self-determination did
the Ottomans realize that they too had to determine their identity
on the basis of nationalism and ‘nationhood’.
When the nationalists created their republic in 1923, they were
careful to call it the Republic of Turkey, a territorial and therefore
a patriotic description, and not the Turkish Republic, which would
have defined the republic ethnically. Nevertheless ‘Türkiye
Cumhuriyeti’ is often rendered incorrectly as the ‘Turkish
Republic’ and not the ‘Republic of Turkey’, and the assembly in
Ankara as the Turkish Grand National Assembly and not the
Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The nationalists were aware
of the difference in meaning and chose their words with care.
There was even a discussion about describing the people of the new
Turkey as ‘Türkiyeli’, as the land of Turks, Kurds, Arabs,
Circassians, etc., reserving the term ‘Turk’ for the ethnically
Turkish. Turk was retained but with the same kind of meaning as
‘British’ or ‘American’. As with other national movements, having
succeeded in creating the territorial state of Turkey and gaining it
universal acceptance at Lausanne in 1923, the nationalists began
the task of creating the nation of Turkey and the Turk.
PREFACE ix
By the late 1930s, the nationalists had partially succeeded in
creating a new identity for most of the population of Anatolia,
with only the Kurdish population in the east and the Alevis of
central Anatolia remaining disaffected, the former on ethnic-
linguistic grounds and the latter on religious grounds. These
problems of identity remained dormant until the early 1960s when
they began to emerge in the more liberal political environment
created by the new constitution of 1961. They remained unre-
solved, though progress was made during the nineties when the
state began considering the liberalization of the regime and the
reforms that were required by the European Union in order to meet
its criteria for membership. The new Justice and Development
Party (AKP) claims to be more determined than ever to introduce
and implement these reforms after its efforts to gain admission
were foiled at the EU summit in Copenhagen on 12–13 December
2002.
x TURKEY: THE QUEST FOR IDENTITY
Acknowledgements
This book has grown out of a long-standing involvement with the
history of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey. Since it is a
work of synthesis, I stand on the shoulders of the scholars who
have inspired me over the years, as well as students who forced me
to reconsider the subject with questions I had not thought to ask.
I should like to thank the two readers who read the work for
Oneworld while it was in draft form and made helpful comments;
my editors, Rebecca Clare and Judy Kearns, at Oneworld for their
professionalism and patience; and my colleagues, especially Leila
Fawaz, at the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at
Tufts University, for their encouragement and support. However,
I alone remain responsible for any errors of fact or omissions.
Notes on transcription
I have used the official modern Turkish when transcribing Turkish
words and names in Roman script. Some indications on pronunci-
ation are given to assist the reader not acquainted with Turkish.
c
j as in jam
ç
ch as in church
�
soft g lengthens the preceding vowel and is not sounded, thus
Erdo�an is pronounced Erdoan
�
(dotless i) something like u as in radium
ö
French eu as in deux
�
sh as in shame
ü
French u as in lumière
Abbreviations
AFU
Armed Forces Union
AK Parti
The Justice and Development Party founded in
and AKP
August 2001
ANAP
Turkish acronym for the Motherland Party founded
in 1983
COGS
Chief of the General Staff
CUP
Committee of Union and Progress
DLP
The Democratic Left Party founded by Bülent
Ecevit’s wife when he was banned from politics
DP
Democrat Party and Demokratik Party after 1969
DISK
Turkish acronym for the Confederation of
Revolutionary Workers’ Unions of Turkey
EEC, EU
The European Economic Community, later the
European Union
FP
The Felicity (Saadet) Party founded in 2001 as the
party of political Islam
FRP
Free Republican Party
GNAT
Grand National Assembly of Turkey
GNP
Gross national product
HADEP
People’s Democracy Party formed by moderate Kurds
in May 1994
IMF
International Monetary Fund
JP
Justice Party founded in 1961
MÜSİAD
Turkish for the ‘Association of Independent
Industrialists and Businessmen’, though the ‘M’ was
said to stand for ‘Muslim’ not ‘Independent’
NATO
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NSC
National Security Council – established in 1961, it
gave senior generals a political role; also the body
that governed after 12 September 1980
NUC
National Unity Committee, the junta that governed
after the 1960 coup
NOP
National Order Party – founded in 1969, it was the
first party representing political Islam
NSP
National Salvation Party, founded in 1972 after NOP
was closed down
NAP
Nationalist Action Party
NDP
Nationalist Democracy Party founded in 1983
NGOs
Non-governmental organizations
NTP
New Turkey Party founded in 1961; another party
using the same name was founded in 2002
OYAK
Turkish acronym for the Army Mutual Assistance
Association created in 1961
PKK
Kurdish initials that stand for the ‘Workers’ Party of
Kurdistan’
PRP
Progressive Republican Party founded in 1924
RPP
Republican People’s Party
SHP
The Social Democratic People’s Party after it merged
with the Populist Party
SODEP
Turkish acronym for the Social Democratic Party
founded in 1983
SPO
State Planning Organization established in 1960
TPP
True Path Party founded to replace the banned Great
Turkey Party in 1983
Türk-İs
Turkish acronym for the Confederation of the
Workers’ Union of Turkey
TÜSİAD
Turkish acronym for the Association of Turkish
xiv TURKEY: THE QUEST FOR IDENTITY
