POLITOLOGY OF RELIGION: A BIANNUAL CONFERENCE 2018 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS lims in Bulgaria and Greece, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 1, 1999. Lazić, M., Čekajući kapitalizam. Nastanak novih klasnih odnosa u Srbiji. Beograd, Službeni glasnik, 2011. Perica, V., Balkan idols: Religion and nationalism in Yugoslav states, Oxford University Press on Demand, 2004. Roudometof, V., Nationalism and identity politics in the Balkans: Greece and the Macedonian question, Journal of Modern Greek Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1996. Roudometof, V., From rum millet to Greek nation: Enlightenment, secularization, and national identity in Ottoman Balkan society, 1453-1821, Journal of Modern Greek Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1, 1998. Roudometof, V., & Robertson, R., Nationalism, globalization, and orthodoxy: the social origins of ethnic conflict in the Balkans (Vol. 89), Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. Schermelleh-Engel, K., Moosbrugger, H., & Müller, H., Evaluating the fit of structural equation models: Tests of significance and descriptive goodness-of-fit measures, Methods of psychological research online, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2003. Šušnjić, Đ., Religija, Čigoja, Beograd, 1998. Tabachnick BG, Fidell L.S., Using Multivariate Statistics, Boston, Pearson Education Inc., 2007. Todorova, M., Balkan identities: nation and memory, NYU Press, 2004. Tomka, M., The Changing Social Role of Religion in Eastern and Central Europe: Religion Revival and Its Contradictions, Social Compass, Vol. 42, No. 1, 1995. Vukomanović, M., Religija, konflikt, identitet. Filozofija i društvo, XVI, Centar za Filozofiju i društvnuTeoriju, Univerzitet u Beogradu. Beograd, 2000. Wilmer, F., Identity, culture, and historicity: The social construction of ethnicity in the Balkans, World Affairs, Vol. 160, No. 1, 1997. 78 Özgür Olgun Erden1 Middle East Technical University Turkey UDC 32:2(560) TURKISH MODEL: A NEW APPROACH TO DEBATES ON POLITICS AND RELIGION IN THE POST-1980 TURKEY Abstract This paper focuses on new discussions related to politics and religion arising in the post-1980 period. It addresses and disputes Turkish model at the heart of these discussions. In doing this, it will mostly prefer a historical and descriptive explanation of the discussions at issue on religion and politics in the post-1980, and of the Turkish model. Having been presented as an alternative to other Muslim countries, this model has been at the centre of the current debates as to how it played an active role relationships between Islam and politics in the JDP period. For this, firstly, it tries to put forward the historical background of Turkish model. Later on, taking this historical background into account, the paper attempts at displaying the connections between this model and the Justice and Development party (JDP). It fundamentally debates whether the JDP has undertaken an active role or not during both the building of Turkish model and its failure, by considering these connections. Keywords: Religion, Politics, Turkish Model, Turkey Introduction Turkish model, presented as an alternative to Muslim countries, particularly located in the Middle East, by arising in consequence of Turkey’s long historical political and economic experiences, has been a quite popular concept with the JDP’s coming to power in 2002. What brings this popularity has been the JDP’s radical initiatives at political and ideological level, which consisted of the political and economic reforms, on the basis of a variety of steps to strengthen Turkey’s regional position, and also revised its ideology. As an Islamist-rooted party, the Justice and Development party (JDP), founded by a group of ‘innovationist’ separated from the Islamist National View tradition2, has been argued to become a 1 2 Dr. Özgür Olgun Erden serves as Reserach Associate at the Middle East Tehnical University, Sociology Department, and also gives some lectures as instructor in Sociology Department at Usak University. Contact E-mail: ozgurerden1871@yahoo.com, ozgurolgunerden@gmail.com. This tradition is known as Milli Görüş in Turkish, National View in English. It is an independent and highly important Islamist movement in the history of Turkey, which was led by Necmettin Erbakan, the founder of the movement in question. Its ideological 79 POLITOLOGY OF RELIGION: A BIANNUAL CONFERENCE 2018 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS good example of the model with its initiatives. Also for this, first of all, the party has asserted to be a conservative-democrat party, not a religious-Islamist one. It has expressed to see religion, religious identity and belonging as an essential part of democracy and pluralism. In Turkish politics, by entirely dissociating from its former Islamist past, its political-ideological position has grounded on the acceptance of secularism and defined religion as an individual and private matter. In his one speech, the leader of the party, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has denoted that “Before anything else, I’m a Muslim, and as a Muslim, I try to comply with the requirements of my religion. I have a responsibility to God, who created me, and I try to fulfill that responsibility. But I try now very much to keep this away from my political life, to keep it private…. A political party cannot have a religion. Only individuals can. Otherwise, you’d be exploiting religion, and religion is so supreme that it cannot be exploited or taken advantage of.”3 As a result of all these, he has laid emphasis on the compliance of being both a pious Muslim and secular simultaneously. With that new position, based on democratic and secular political implications, in a sense, the party leadership has advocated that democracy and Islam can coexist, and in one respect, that they can create a quite compatible togetherness in modern political system. To be sure, the JDP has not been alone while introduced as a good example of Turkish model to Muslim countries in its own region, including Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Libya. Some surveys has explicitly showed this. For instance, in 2011, a study by the University of Maryland’s Shibley Telhami suggested that Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan has currently been one of the most prominent and popular leaders among Arabs, and that the ‘Turkish model’ has been the most desirable political system.4 In international arena, the model has attracted an 3 4 80 bases laid in the end of 1960s. However, it should also be stated that the concept National has been more often used such as ‘view tradition’, ‘outlook movement’ or ‘view movement’ in literature. In other words, it seems that the literature has sometimes prefered to use ‘National View tradition’, ‘National Outlook movement’ or ‘National View movement’ for defining this political group. For more detailed discussions with regard to this political tradition, see William Lale and Ergun Özbudun Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey: The Case of the AKP, New York, Routledge Publications, 2010, pp. 10-29; Ümit Cizre (edit.), Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey: The Making of the Justice and Development Party, New York, Routledge Publications, 2008, pp. 3-201; Hakan Yavuz, Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 45- 50; Yıldız Atasoy, Turkey, Islamists and Democracy: Transition and Globalization in a Muslim State, New York, I. B. Tauris Publications, 2005, p. 115; Banu Eligur, The Mobilization of Political Islam in Turkey, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 88-230; Angel Rabasa and F. Stephen Larrabee, The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey, National Defense Research Institute, 2008, p. 40; Tanıl Bora & Murat Gültekingil, Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce (6): İslamcılık, İstanbul: İletişim, 2011, pp. 544-575; Yalçın Akdoğan, Ak Parti ve Muhafazakâr Demokrasi, İstanbul, Alfa, 2004, pp. 91- 103; Ahmet Yıldız, Politico-Religious Discourse of Political Islam in Turkey: The Parties of National Outlook, The Mulism World, Vol. 93, No. 2, 2003, pp. 187-190; İhsan Dağı, Transformation of Islamic Political Identity in Turkey: Rethinking the West and Westernization, Turkish Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2005, pp. 1-16; Bilal Sambur, The Great Transformation of Political Islam in Turkey: The Case of Justice and Development Party and Erdogan, European Journal of Economic and Political Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2009, pp. 117-127; İhsan Yılmaz, Beyond Post-Islamism: Transformation of Turkish Islamism Toward ‘Civil Islam’ and Its Potential Influence in the Muslim World, European Journal of Economic and Political Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2011, pp. 245-280. Sontag Deborah, The Erdoğan Experiement, The New York Times, May 11, 2003, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/magazine/the-erdogan-experiment.html (accessed 18.12.2018) Tol Gönül, The “Turkish Model” in the Middle East, Current History, Vol. 111, No. 749, December, 2012, p. 350. Özgür Olgun Erden, TURKISH MODEL: A NEW APPROACH TO DEBATES ON POLITICS AND RELIGION IN THE POST-1980 TURKEY • (pp 79-89) intense attention with its political image. Particularly, right after several shocking political events, such as the September 11 terrorist attacks in America, this attention gradually increased. President George W. Bush, joining to the İstanbul NATO Summit in June 2004, clearly uttered it. In the meeting, he told that “I appreciate very much the example that your country has set on how to be a Muslim country which embraces democracy, rule of law and freedom”. He glorified Turkey’s record of development and suggested Turkey as a “model” for the rest of the Muslim world.5 The emerging of a Turkish model is not, of course, limited to the JDP’s new image and ideological-political formulations. It has associated directly with the rapid economic growth and development, the improvement of relationships with the European Union, and the reforms, which were launched by the JDP leadership for meeting EU requirements. Apart from those, based on the rejection of the rigid secularism and anti-Arab stance defended by the Kemalist elite, other steps from business and investment to trade relations have been also taken which aims at enhancing its power in the region. It is likely that the JDP has been a leading political actor of Turkish model owing to its political, economic and regional initiatives and/or steps. However, this model is not a product of those carried out in the period when the JDP has been in power. Once, it should be remarked that the aforementioned model has a long historical background, shaped around a variety of intellectual and religious contributions and a range of economic and political transformations and developments realizing in Turkey. It is surpassingly difficult to understand this model, regardless of all these mentioned above. For this reason, this paper is to make a historical and descriptive explanation for defining Turkish model and indicating why it has expressed a new situation in changing the relationships between religion and politics a certain period later, particularly the 1980s, in Turkey. For this, firstly, it will debate the historical background in question which provides a basis for Turkish model. Secondly, it will deal with the JDP period transforming it to a political fact and experiencing this model as the main political actor of Turkish model. Lastly, in conclusion part, this paper will be ended by taking the latest discussions concerning the present situation of Turkish model into consideration. The Historical Background of Turkish Model: Turkish Islam As stated earlier, Turkish model is not a debate appeared with the JDP period, though it has been an essential part of the debates tied with it due to being a political actor of the model in question. Also, it has also had a historical background, which paved the way for the building of such a model, with the arguments referring to intellectual and religion-inspired formulations and/or contributions and new economic and social conditions rising in Turkey. This background has two 5 Altunisik Meliha Benli, The Turkish Model and Democratization in the Middle East, Arab Studies Quaterly, Vol .27, No. 1-2, 2005, p. 46 81 POLITOLOGY OF RELIGION: A BIANNUAL CONFERENCE 2018 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS major arguments: one, the debates regarding Turkish Islam, a new religious interpretation, which reformulates the relationships between politics and religion; other, a neoliberal economic restructuring to form a basis for new economic and social conditions in Turkey since the 1980s. However, the notion Turkish Islam can be in general argued to have been a quite comprehensive one in forming a frame for Turkish model. One reason for this would be that it has politically and ideologically involved far-reaching intellectual contributions and a different understanding of religion. Lastly, the other would be that it has had a long historical-economic background, which laid the bases of an export-promotion oriented economic development and growth and the formation of a new capital class with the religiously-conservative disposition, and also provided the aforesaid class’ adaptation to neoliberal economic order grounded on a full market-economy, minimal state, deregulation, and privatization from the 1980s’ onwards. Before giving the historical background of Turkish Islam, comprising political, religious and economic dimensions and setting the stage for Turkish model, on the whole, it should be highlighted that this concept expresses historically the Turks’ experiences with Islam. The first of those experiences have been composed the intellectual-political contributions appeared in Turkish political history. Most scholars have differently explained the contributions in question. But, in their ideas, the main argument is that these contributions have been a product of the close ties established between Islam and Turkish nationalism, culture and tradition.6 On this point, Özdalga, for example, has much explicitly stated that. According to her, Turkish Islam is an output of a broad Turkish nationalist discourse based on the idea that Turkish culture, history and religion have been assumed to be not only unmatched, but also superior to other cultures. It was formulated by an association, Aydınlar Ocağı –the Hearth of the Enlightened- established around nationalist right-wing intellectuals, who had laid the foundations of Turkish-Islam synthesis during the 1970s.7 The main assertion of this association was that there is no antagonism and contradiction between being nationalistic and religious. Thus, religion has been a significant force that gradually motives popular expressions of nationalism in Turkey8, highlighted by nationalist-rightist intellectuals taking the state’s support, which was politically and ideologically redesigned following the 12 September military coup carried out in 1980. In a similar vein, having pointed out that this nationalist perspective can be dated back to the late Ottoman era, Etga propounds that it was affected by the European ideas of nationalism and the precedence of national symbols, 6 7 8 82 This claim is openly expressed by the scholars’ studies, quoted in this paper to make Turkish Islam clear. Some have argued that what lies behind it is a synthesis of Turkishness and Islam. Others have more referred to Turkish modernization history, including the late Ottoman period. But yet, generally, it is required to add that all scholars have attached a separate importance to the last decades of the Ottoman Empire. Özdalga Elisabeth, The hidden Arab: A critical reading of the notion of ‘Turkish Islam’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 42, No. 4, 2006, pp. 551-552, 556. Armstrong William, Turkish Nationalism and Turkish Islam: A New Balance, Turkish Policy Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 4, 2012, p. 134. Özgür Olgun Erden, TURKISH MODEL: A NEW APPROACH TO DEBATES ON POLITICS AND RELIGION IN THE POST-1980 TURKEY • (pp 79-89) namely language, culture and religion. In spite of not being accepted Islam as a major element in Turkish culture for a while, especially the early Republic period, this argument did not get much support among the intellectuals, and even was severely objected by masses. For this, as exactly opposed to that argument, a nationalist perspective was envisaged which had been less radical and more harmonizing concerning Islam and Turkish nationalism and culture.9 Likewise, by drawing attention to the Ottoman modernization in the shaping of Turkish Islam, Akyol has also asserted that it created its own peculiar understanding of Islam, entirely differentiated from Arab or Salafi Islam, which has more fundamentalist and radical conceptualization of religion. It made a basic contribution to the formation of ‘Turkish-Islamic exceptionalism’ arising as outcome of a long historical process since the late Ottoman period.10 This modernization-friendly understanding of Islam would be at the same time a way out for fundamentalist and puritanical interpretations. What makes it possible is that this understanding transformed and reconstructed Islamic thoughts and assertions according to modern conditions. Rather than the imposition of ‘objective’ measures of modernity, it has been a product of a mutually constitutive relationship between Islam and modernity.11 Another form of the Turks’ experiences with Islam is religious-rooted. This experience points out the presence of an Islamic group and/or movement, too far from being fundamentalist and radical, differently from other Muslim countries. Containing no radical and Salafi elements in itself such an understanding of Islam has been mostly originated from Sufism. In Turkey, Sufism and/or sufistic traditions, including Ahmet Yesevi, Mevlana Jeladdin Rumi, Hacı Bektaş-I Veli, and Nakshbandi Sufi order, have strongly influenced Islamist groups and movements. Thus, Islam has been more comprehended and experienced in a sufistic frame. A Turkish experience with Sufism clearly displays itself in quite a few Islamic traditions and movements at present. As a result of this, Turkish Islamism has never taken an interest in Islamist movements and politics in other Muslim countries. Nor has it sympathized to them owing to their Islamist discourses. Morality and respect for tradition have formed the main arguments of Turkish Islamism. Moreover, in Turkish political history, the political Islamism, which emerged in the late 1960s under the leadership of Necmettin Erbakan, the founder of National View tradition, was established with a Sufi leader’s support, Mehmet Zahid Kotku, being one of the most leading figures of Nakshbandi religious order.12 However, 9 Uğur Etga, Intellectual roots of ‘Turkish Islam’ and approaches to the ‘Turkish model’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2004, pp. 335-336. 10 Akyol Mustafa, What Makes Turkish Islam Unique?, Turkey’s Accession to the European Union: An Unusual Candidacy, Constantine Arvanitopoulos (ed.), Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2009, pp. 183-184. 11 Uğur Etga, Ibid, pp. 338-339 and Özdalga Elisabeth, Ibid, p. 560. 12 Uğur Etga, Ibid, pp. 332-333. Also see for this debate, Şerif Mardin, Türkiye’de Din ve Siyaset Makaleler 3, Mümtaz’er Türköne and Tuncay Önder (eds.), İstanbul, İletişim Yayınları, 1991; Hakan Yavuz, Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey, Cambridge University Press, 2009; Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey, Oxford University Press, 2003; Angel Rabasa and F. Stephen 83 POLITOLOGY OF RELIGION: A BIANNUAL CONFERENCE 2018 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS most of the scholars principally refer to the Nur Movement, the founder of who is Said Nursi, and particularly its foremost follower, Gülen movement led by Fethullah Gülen who was a preacher in İzmir in the 1970s, in order to form a frame for Turkish Islam. Gülen movement has been one of the strongest Islamist groups in Turkey, though having its roots in the right-wing nationalism of the 1950s and 1960s. It has defined Islam as having the following characteristics: tolerance, piety inspired by Sufism, ambition to be of service to others (hizmet), inclination to embrace all humanity with love (humanism), flexibility and openness to change, secularism, and loyalty to the existing political powers. Özdalga argues that compared with other so-called ‘fundamentalist or radical’ Islamist groups, this movement’s outlook on Islam has been amazingly rather liberal and tolerant, given fact that the major argument of ‘Turkish Islam’ has been moderation.13 Having suggested that there is no Islamist movement which involves revolutionary elements and promotes violence, Akyol denotes that this Sufi movement, expressed as Nur or Nurculuk, has basically advocated a synthesis of Islam and democracy, and requested a democratic ruling based on respect for religious freedoms. For this, the leader of the movement, Nursi refused political radicalism and concentrated his efforts on constituting a religious worldview and moral framework in accordance with modern world. Being a quite popular and prominent follower of the Nurculuk, Gülen movement has, too, created a more liberal and cosmopolitan discourse and interpretation in line with Said Nursi’s views on Islam, as stated above.14 Ultimately, it seems that both Nursi and Fethullah Gülen focus on individual in their teachings and shape their own philosophies around love and tolerance, besides a powerful emphasis on faith.15 In the light of those religious opinions and interpretations, particularly, the Gülen movement played an active role in formulating a Turkish Islam by Islamizing the Turkish nationalist ideology and Turkifying Islam.16 Basically, what guides such an idea of Islam, Turkish Islam, is that these two movements have had a more liberal and tolerant attitude and rejects a radical and revolutionary political stance by preferring moderation. Lastly, in a historical-economic context, the wide-ranging processes like globalization, and neoliberal economic policies, launched throughout the world since 1970s, have been immensely efficient in the emergence of a Turkish Islam. Especially, as an outcome of historical and social conditions, market forces and new technologies, and new global discourses with regard to democracy and human rights have had different influences in many regions of the world. Globalization has created two contradictory processes, including homogenization and fragmentation. Either processes caused to the formation of an understanding 13 14 15 16 84 Larrabee, The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey, National Defense Research Institute, 2008. Özdalga Elisabeth, Ibid, pp. 559-560. Akyol Mustafa, Ibid, pp.188-189, 190. Uğur Etga, Ibid, p. 333. Özdalga Elisabeth, Ibid, pp. 561-562. Özgür Olgun Erden, TURKISH MODEL: A NEW APPROACH TO DEBATES ON POLITICS AND RELIGION IN THE POST-1980 TURKEY • (pp 79-89) of Islam entirely differentiated from one another in the Arab and Muslim world, without excepting Turkey. For instance, a more liberal and market-friendly Islam dominated the countries such as Turkey and Malaysia. An exact opposite situation came into existence in Pakistan and some Arab countries.17 In the shaping of divergent understandings of Islam, the historical-transforming thresholds might vary from one country to other. This threshold for Turkey has been the September 12, 1980 military coup. At this point, Akyol propounds that with transition to democratic elections, the next years were ‘the Özal decade’ that would symbolize a revolutionary age of liberalization during which an Islamo-liberal synthesis was formulated.18 The main driving force behind such synthesis was that new economic opportunities had arisen, and that economic policies had changed toward a neoliberal restructuring. Yavuz remarks that all these shifted ‘the character and evolution of Islamic demands and activism’. Most of all, market conditions and the formation of the middle class with the devout-conservative appearance paved the way for the formation of a civil society. Additionally, given the fact that market conditions necessitate competition and differentiation, they laid the bases of the emerging of different understandings of Islam. Turkish Islam has been merely one of them. For this reason, in his view, these factors have provided a basis for the emergence and evolution of a liberal and pluralist form of Islam. More importantly, this is to be backed by the fact that Turkish Islam, rooted in Sufism, is pluralistic and liberal.19 For, Turkish Islam predicates on democracy, secularity, pluralism, and even capitalism. It firstly owes this to Özal and his neoliberal economic policies. The Özal years, grounded on revolutionary and Reaganist reforms into effect in the course of the 1980s, changed the direction of Turkish economy by putting an end to import subsidization in favor of free-market economy. This new historical threshold created a fertile ground for the conservative-Muslim masses of Anatolia to lead up to a socio-economic boom. Called as ‘Anatolian tigers’, they were to represent a new class in the face of a largely state-created, long-established, privileged and highly-secularized ‘İstanbul bourgeoisie’. They discovered that ‘individualistic and pro-business currents have been compatible with Turkish Islam. Furthermore, with the Özal revolution they saw that their demands for religious freedom would be able to be carried by embracing western-style liberal democracy.20 In a sense, new economic conditions and class formation overlapped with the formulation of a Turkish Islam. All these have been a significant part of a Turkish Islam integrated with a neoliberal-capitalist economic order. The reason is that Turkish economy, starting to transform from the 1980s onwards, played an active role in the emerging 17 Yavuz Hakan, Is there a Turkish Islam? The Emergence of Convergence and Consensus, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2004, p. 214. 18 Akyol Mustafa, The Turkish Model: Marching to Islamic Liberalism, Cairo Review, Vol. 4, 2012, p. 74. 19 Yavuz Hakan, Ibid., p. 222-223. 20 Akyol Mustafa, Ibid, pp. 190-191 and also see: The Turkish Model: Marching to Islamic Liberalism, p. 75. 85 POLITOLOGY OF RELIGION: A BIANNUAL CONFERENCE 2018 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS of such idea of Islam. The conception of Turkish Islam has been constructed around some commendable liberal and democratic values, within which are tolerance, pluralism, reformism, peaceful political activism, and inward forms of religiosity. The fact that it has fundamentally a nationalist and ethnocentric character should not be overlooked.21 In other respects, such an understanding of Islam has at the same time accepted the existence and conservation of the state as a way to maintain the existence of Islam and the Muslim community. So, it would not be difficult to comprehend why Turkish Islam has so closely intertwined with nationalism as long as the aim is to protect the state.22 The JDP and Turkish Model Following the February 28 military intervention, described as a post-modern coup realized 1997, Turkish Islamism, organized around the National View movement under the leader of Erbakan, underwent a shocking transformation ending up with a party division. In the wake of the intervention, in the movement, which reorganized by founding the Welfare Party, a more moderate group attempted at developing a new political vision. Having gathered in the leadership of Abdullah Gül, this ‘reformist movement’, known as ‘innovationists’, embraced a Western-style democracy, and defended that ‘the state should be in the service of the people, rather than a holy state that stands far above the people’. That reformist group soon separated from the National View movement and established the Justice and Development Party (JDP) in August 14, 2001, by joining forces with Erdoğan.23 Turkey’s JDP was to be introduced as a democratic model for Islamist rivals in the Arab World. In a good number of Arab countries, notably Egypt and Tunisia, this party drew the leading some political groups, such as Muslim Brotherhood, to itself, because of developing Turkey’s democratic standards, economic performance and regional influence. Its attempts at initiating membership negotiations with European Union and taking steps to democratize the existing political system received an important support. With those attempts, its most critical success has been to end military tutelage by providing civilian supremacy over the strict secularist military, its history of which is full of several military interventions it realized against democratically elected governments.24 All these have been a part of democratization steps in Turkey. For, democratization was suggested as one of the most important constituents of the Turkish model. It was partially seen as an outcome of strong social demands for the abolishment of authoritarian 21 22 23 24 86 Özdalga Elisabeth, Ibid, p. 566. Yavuz Hakan, Ibid., p. 220. Akyol Mustafa, Ibid, pp. 190-191 and also see: The Turkish Model: Marching to Islamic Liberalism, p. 77. Taşpınar Ömer, The End of the Turkish Model, Survival, Vol. 56, No. 2, 2014, p. 49. Özgür Olgun Erden, TURKISH MODEL: A NEW APPROACH TO DEBATES ON POLITICS AND RELIGION IN THE POST-1980 TURKEY • (pp 79-89) policies. Besides civil society associations, powerful business organizations, like Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen Association (TUSIAD), which has adopted the founder secular and national principles of Turkish Republic and had secular attitudes and lifestyles, has also undertaken an active role in this process. As an output of democratization process, Turkish model has claimed that secularism is a required but not sufficient condition for democracy, and thereby emphasized that secularism is an essential and significant element of democracy. Having redesigned relationships between religion and politics with the above-mentioned steps it has taken for Turkey’s democracy, the JDP has become a prominent political actor for Turkish model as it proved the reconciliation of a party with Islamist roots with secularism and democracy.25 To be sure, as a crucial actor of Turkish model, the JDP did not merely become prominent with democratization steps. Differently from its predecessor, the National View movement, it has also adopted a new ideological-political position to change the relationships between religion and politics. Beginning from its foundation, it has stated that it is not ‘a political party with a religious axis’, and expressed its ideology as ‘democratic conservatism’.26 It has defined itself as a conservative party, which is absolutely in favor of European Union (EU), the West, globalization and democracy, by rejecting the Islamist arguments of the National View. The party has never described itself by religious terms.27 Its leader, Erdoğan, has expressed himself as conservative democrat in one interview as following: “We are not Muslim democrats, we are conservative democrats. Some in the west portray us as [Muslim democrats] but our notion of conservative democracy is to attach ourselves to the customs and the traditions and the values of our society, which is based on the family. This is a democratic issue, not a religious one.”28 With its new ideological-political position, the rise of the JDP refuses the anti-Islamic secularism and antiArab Westernism of the Kemalist elites and reunites Turkey with its regional and Muslim past. It refers to the evolution of Islamism in Turkey and the capacity for compromising democracy and Islam. In a sense, it symbolizes a form of Islamism in accordance with democracy in a country, where the most radical secularization steps were taken in the Muslim world. Its moderation would at the same time suggest a third way between secular authoritarian governments and radical Islamists. This way puts forward a model under which Islamist parties, by way of institutional limitations, would be able to take a more moderate stance and be interested in democratic process.29 25 Altunisik Meliha Benli, Ibid, pp. 51, 55-56. 26 Akyol Mustafa, Ibid, pp. 190-191 and also see: The Turkish Model: Marching to Islamic Liberalism, p.77 27 Sambur Bilal, The Great Transformation of Political Islam in Turkey: The Case of Justice and Development Party and Erdogan, European Journal of Economic and Political Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2009, p. 121. 28 Boland Vincent, Eastern Premise, Financial Times, 3 December, 2004, https://www.ft.com/content/4496c6ce-441b-11d9-a5eb00000e2511c8 (accessed 20.12.2018) 29 Tol Gönül, Ibid, pp. 350, 352. 87 POLITOLOGY OF RELIGION: A BIANNUAL CONFERENCE 2018 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS Conclusion: What happened the Turkish Model? Recently, one of the questions which is frequently asked has been regarding the fate of Turkish model. There have been other questions posed related to this model, outside of the question stated above. Among those are: Why is it a model and for whom? Who promoted this and for what purpose? What contributed to the formation of Turkish model? What kind of an Islamist interpretation did play an active role in the formulation of this model? How much an accurate interpretation has it been? In consideration of these questions, Taşpınar asserts that this model, which has been a product of Turkey’s historically political and economic experiences and presented as an alternative to other Muslim countries, particularly located in the Middle East, is gradually unfastening. The reason for this was that Turkey has become increasingly an authoritarian and unstable country. The merciless suppression of the Gezi protests during the summer 2013, increasingly restricted freedom of media and expression, and politicization of jurisdiction have been the most important signs of the authoritarianism in question. The positive image of the country with democratic institutions and economic model of high productivity and export-led growth ended with an authoritarian political ruling in domestic politics, nepotism, clientalism and corruption in economy, and impasses in foreign policy. As a matter of fact, the Turkish model was not approaching an end owing to a clash between Islam and secularism. Strictly speaking, the real battle has been between electoral democracy and liberalism. In this sense, the failure of Turkish model can be told to have originated from not being adapted to liberal-democratic system and violating its basic principles, ranging from individual rights and liberties and an independent media to the separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers.30 A same view has been differently expressed by Tuğal, a Turkish scholar and sociologist. Towards the end of summer 2013, new images, which symbolized an authoritarian political system in a sense, anymore began to arise in media. Coming among those into prominence was the tear gas used against peaceful Turkish protesters and gas masks which is a part of everyday accessories. Likewise, global circles started to ask questions similar to above: what happened to Erdoğan’s liberalizing political party, which has so far enable to so many freedoms in the country? Or have liberal Muslims gradually become more conservative?31 All these questions interrogates whether a Turkish model, led by Erdoğan’s JDP, has come to an end. Generally speaking, their replies have been ‘yes’, because of ever-increasing authoritarian tendencies in domestic politics and foreign policy. 30 Taşpınar Ömer, Ibid, pp. 49-50. 31 Tuğal Cihan, The fall of the Turkish Model: How the Arab Uprisings Brought Down Islamic Liberalism, Verso, London-New York, 2016, p. 9. 88 Özgür Olgun Erden, TURKISH MODEL: A NEW APPROACH TO DEBATES ON POLITICS AND RELIGION IN THE POST-1980 TURKEY • (pp 79-89) References Akyol Mustafa, What Makes Turkish Islam Unique?, Turkey’s Accession to the European Union: An Unusual Candidacy, Constantine Arvanitopoulos (ed.), Springer-Verlag Berlin-Heidelberg, 2009. Akyol Mustafa, The Turkish Model: Marching to Islamic Liberalism, Cairo Review, Vol. 4, 2012. 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