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Revisiting the 'national animus': understanding nationalism and
militarism in Turkey
by Hüsrev Tabak*
ILLUSTRATION: Orhan Nalın
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-302545-revisiting-the-national-animus-understanding-nationalism-and-militarism-in-turkey-by-husrev-tabak-.html
30 December 2012 / ,
It is worth questioning the reasons why Turkish nationalists (both
national socialists and conservatives) in Turkey are prone to
deploying the military in dealing with minority and Kurdish issues and
why they show a tendency to speak of the "enemies" of the Turkish
nation.
As I have personally experienced many times, both academic and
everyday political conversations with nationalists on minority issues
tend to diverge into either talk of deploying the military or the
presence of Turkey's historical enemies. Similarly, raising critiques
on the army's disproportionate use of power or on republican-era
policies that facilitated such problems make the commentator a foe, if
not an enemy, of "Turkishness" and the "Turkish nation" in the eyes of
nationalists. There appears to be a long-internalized and embedded
rhetoric in Turkish nationalist discourse that thrives on the presence
of "enemies" and on the necessity to use military force in dealing
with the issues related to those enemies. The trails of this rhetoric
can be traced back to the domestic politics of the late republican
era.
The Turkish nationalist intellectual circles of the mid-20th century
were actively debating irredentist Turkism as a survival strategy for
not only Turkey but also Turkish populations abroad. The Turkish
nationalist intellectuals of those days held strictly that Turkism and
Turkish nationalism hinge on the legendary heroic warriorship of the
Turkish nation. Thus, Turkey's international pacifism at the time was
in contradiction to the "warrior" nature of the Turkish nation and
concomitantly paralyzing the willingness and eagerness of the Turkish
nation to go to battle. The Turkish nation had to be ready for war
and, accordingly, pacifism was a core menace to the nationalist
belief. Therefore -- as Fethi Tevet, Nejdet Sançar, Hıfzı Oğuz Bekata,
Reha O. Türkkan, Nihal Atsız, Hüseyin N. Orkun and Yusuf Ziya Ortaç
wrote extensively on -- to maintain the readiness, keenness and
motivation for warriorship within the Turkish nation, the "national
animus" that had long been suffocated in those times needed to be
rejuvenated. The presence and maintenance of the national animus was
subsequently regarded as a remedy to overcome the unwanted pacifism.
Perhaps the oppressive and ferocious militarist measures taken by the
nationalists in republic governments were due to the national animus
at work.
Creating a discourse of militarism
It is my belief that it was this mentality that produced a language
and provided various vocabularies for Turkish nationalists to embark
on, incentivize and justify lawful or unlawful militarism in Turkey
since then.
The consequence was, for instance, the lauding of unlawful efforts of
the deep state (derin devlet), police special ops teams (polis özel
harekat) and the gendarmerie intelligence organization (JİTEM) in the
mid-1990s. Such actors committed public criminal acts, murdering
hundreds of Kurds in the Southeast, yet Turkish nationalist circles in
response were, if not happy, certainly not questioning the
rightfulness of those atrocious acts. By the same token, a world of
evidence still could not convince them of the presence of an unlawful
organization known as Ergenekon. And it was because of the
aforementioned mentality that the murderer of Hrant Dink, an
Armenian-Turkish journalist, was also heroized. This Turk of Armenian
descent, along with Kurdish citizens, was a "traitor" who had to be
destroyed and erased from existence on the altar of the Turkish
nation, at all costs. The nationalists were willingly and eagerly
upholding this task. And the national animus was active and targeting
the traitors.
Another example would be a recent incident: the death of 34 civilians
in Uludere, in southeast Turkey, on Dec. 28, 2011. The incident
occurred when F-16s fired at Kurdish smugglers erroneously. They were
thought to be (or the security forces were informed that they were)
militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The result was the
death of citizens of Kurdish descent, all of whom were civilians. It
was a very sorrowful incident, yet the more upsetting and unpleasant
issue was how so-called nationalists conceived and interpreted the
incident. For instance, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet
Bahçeli remarked that "the state did what has to be done. It was a
rightful act, and a 1 percent possibility of facing a terrorist attack
is more than enough for the army to eliminate the suspected targets.
Therefore, the Turkish army acted rightfully in the incident." This
stance is not merely held by the MHP; social media was full of
discussions and comments glorifying the military operation those days.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) interior minister alike
defended the act.
Similar concerns arose when the Peace and Democracy Party's (BDP)
deputies joined a hunger strike embarked upon by imprisoned members of
the PKK, demanding improvements on the Kurdish issue in early November
of this year. For instance, the editor-in-chief of the
national-socialist journal Türk Solu called for all involved to "let
the strikers die." To the editor, the strikers were PKK supporters and
had long deserved to die, and the hunger strike was a clear and
clean-cut way to get rid of them. He sarcastically invited other BDP
members and jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan to participate in the
strike and publicly declared his support for the protest. What we see
here is certainly a form of militarism, one that sees the death of
both militaristic and political participants of the Kurdish movement
as a remedy for solving the Kurdish issue.
In the reactions by nationalists to all these events, the
justifications and legitimizations were not engendered by temporary
inspiration, nor spawned by a state of reaction. They were due to the
constructed and reconstructed "national animus" suggested by mid-20th
century Turkish nationalist intellectuals.
Politically speaking, altogether, the Turkish nationalist wing
(spanning the MHP, the Rights and Equality Party [HEPAR] and segments
of the AKP) concentrates its anger, resentment and hatred on the PKK
and the BDP (and other minorities who ask for their rights). In the
same vein, when we listen to retired Turkish generals such as Ramiz
İlker and Osman Pamukoğlu (also leaders of HEPAR), we see an
antagonism against the PKK and the BDP in exactly the same tone that
the MHP, Türk Solu or other nationalists enjoy. They code formal
Kurdish (or minority) presence in the country as a threat to the
Turkish state or even the existence of the Turkish nation.
Endorsing the concept of national animus
So, how should this problem be handled? Turkish nationalists
prominently address the "legendary heroic warriorship of the Turkish
nation" in dealing with the enemy. To engender and stimulate this
warriorship, it appears that the concept of national animus is
underscored. Consequently, militarism or the use of the army in
dealing with societal issues is legitimized.
This explains why Turkish nationalists hinge on militarism. The
national animus sparks the "legendary heroic warriorship of the
Turkish nation" and accordingly militarism. Here, the nationalist
stance, discourse, policymaking, etc., rely on a target for anger,
hatred, enmity and antagonism and one which will keep those feelings
alive. This holds true for contemporary Turkish nationalists, although
Alparslan Türkeş, the founding father of the MHP, denounced the
concept of national animus and argued that Turkish nationalism is
antagonistic towards those defined as the "others." At this juncture,
we see that concepts of the legendary heroic warriorship of the
Turkish nation, the maintenance of national animus and the militarism
involved in invigorating the national animus mutually constitute and
reinforce each other in nationalist discourse.
In conclusion, whether or not the contemporary nationalists
deliberately hold onto the legacy of mid-20th century Turkish
nationalists, it is obviously beyond doubt that they share in the
basic platform expressed above. Subsequently, these basic principles
continue to constitute and shape the daily discourse of Turkish
nationalists, thus providing justification for "just and rightful"
military acts against the "traitors" of the country.
*Husrev Tabak is the deputy general director of CESRAN International,
cesran.org.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
militarism in Turkey
by Hüsrev Tabak*
ILLUSTRATION: Orhan Nalın
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-302545-revisiting-the-national-animus-understanding-nationalism-and-militarism-in-turkey-by-husrev-tabak-.html
30 December 2012 / ,
It is worth questioning the reasons why Turkish nationalists (both
national socialists and conservatives) in Turkey are prone to
deploying the military in dealing with minority and Kurdish issues and
why they show a tendency to speak of the "enemies" of the Turkish
nation.
As I have personally experienced many times, both academic and
everyday political conversations with nationalists on minority issues
tend to diverge into either talk of deploying the military or the
presence of Turkey's historical enemies. Similarly, raising critiques
on the army's disproportionate use of power or on republican-era
policies that facilitated such problems make the commentator a foe, if
not an enemy, of "Turkishness" and the "Turkish nation" in the eyes of
nationalists. There appears to be a long-internalized and embedded
rhetoric in Turkish nationalist discourse that thrives on the presence
of "enemies" and on the necessity to use military force in dealing
with the issues related to those enemies. The trails of this rhetoric
can be traced back to the domestic politics of the late republican
era.
The Turkish nationalist intellectual circles of the mid-20th century
were actively debating irredentist Turkism as a survival strategy for
not only Turkey but also Turkish populations abroad. The Turkish
nationalist intellectuals of those days held strictly that Turkism and
Turkish nationalism hinge on the legendary heroic warriorship of the
Turkish nation. Thus, Turkey's international pacifism at the time was
in contradiction to the "warrior" nature of the Turkish nation and
concomitantly paralyzing the willingness and eagerness of the Turkish
nation to go to battle. The Turkish nation had to be ready for war
and, accordingly, pacifism was a core menace to the nationalist
belief. Therefore -- as Fethi Tevet, Nejdet Sançar, Hıfzı Oğuz Bekata,
Reha O. Türkkan, Nihal Atsız, Hüseyin N. Orkun and Yusuf Ziya Ortaç
wrote extensively on -- to maintain the readiness, keenness and
motivation for warriorship within the Turkish nation, the "national
animus" that had long been suffocated in those times needed to be
rejuvenated. The presence and maintenance of the national animus was
subsequently regarded as a remedy to overcome the unwanted pacifism.
Perhaps the oppressive and ferocious militarist measures taken by the
nationalists in republic governments were due to the national animus
at work.
Creating a discourse of militarism
It is my belief that it was this mentality that produced a language
and provided various vocabularies for Turkish nationalists to embark
on, incentivize and justify lawful or unlawful militarism in Turkey
since then.
The consequence was, for instance, the lauding of unlawful efforts of
the deep state (derin devlet), police special ops teams (polis özel
harekat) and the gendarmerie intelligence organization (JİTEM) in the
mid-1990s. Such actors committed public criminal acts, murdering
hundreds of Kurds in the Southeast, yet Turkish nationalist circles in
response were, if not happy, certainly not questioning the
rightfulness of those atrocious acts. By the same token, a world of
evidence still could not convince them of the presence of an unlawful
organization known as Ergenekon. And it was because of the
aforementioned mentality that the murderer of Hrant Dink, an
Armenian-Turkish journalist, was also heroized. This Turk of Armenian
descent, along with Kurdish citizens, was a "traitor" who had to be
destroyed and erased from existence on the altar of the Turkish
nation, at all costs. The nationalists were willingly and eagerly
upholding this task. And the national animus was active and targeting
the traitors.
Another example would be a recent incident: the death of 34 civilians
in Uludere, in southeast Turkey, on Dec. 28, 2011. The incident
occurred when F-16s fired at Kurdish smugglers erroneously. They were
thought to be (or the security forces were informed that they were)
militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The result was the
death of citizens of Kurdish descent, all of whom were civilians. It
was a very sorrowful incident, yet the more upsetting and unpleasant
issue was how so-called nationalists conceived and interpreted the
incident. For instance, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet
Bahçeli remarked that "the state did what has to be done. It was a
rightful act, and a 1 percent possibility of facing a terrorist attack
is more than enough for the army to eliminate the suspected targets.
Therefore, the Turkish army acted rightfully in the incident." This
stance is not merely held by the MHP; social media was full of
discussions and comments glorifying the military operation those days.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) interior minister alike
defended the act.
Similar concerns arose when the Peace and Democracy Party's (BDP)
deputies joined a hunger strike embarked upon by imprisoned members of
the PKK, demanding improvements on the Kurdish issue in early November
of this year. For instance, the editor-in-chief of the
national-socialist journal Türk Solu called for all involved to "let
the strikers die." To the editor, the strikers were PKK supporters and
had long deserved to die, and the hunger strike was a clear and
clean-cut way to get rid of them. He sarcastically invited other BDP
members and jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan to participate in the
strike and publicly declared his support for the protest. What we see
here is certainly a form of militarism, one that sees the death of
both militaristic and political participants of the Kurdish movement
as a remedy for solving the Kurdish issue.
In the reactions by nationalists to all these events, the
justifications and legitimizations were not engendered by temporary
inspiration, nor spawned by a state of reaction. They were due to the
constructed and reconstructed "national animus" suggested by mid-20th
century Turkish nationalist intellectuals.
Politically speaking, altogether, the Turkish nationalist wing
(spanning the MHP, the Rights and Equality Party [HEPAR] and segments
of the AKP) concentrates its anger, resentment and hatred on the PKK
and the BDP (and other minorities who ask for their rights). In the
same vein, when we listen to retired Turkish generals such as Ramiz
İlker and Osman Pamukoğlu (also leaders of HEPAR), we see an
antagonism against the PKK and the BDP in exactly the same tone that
the MHP, Türk Solu or other nationalists enjoy. They code formal
Kurdish (or minority) presence in the country as a threat to the
Turkish state or even the existence of the Turkish nation.
Endorsing the concept of national animus
So, how should this problem be handled? Turkish nationalists
prominently address the "legendary heroic warriorship of the Turkish
nation" in dealing with the enemy. To engender and stimulate this
warriorship, it appears that the concept of national animus is
underscored. Consequently, militarism or the use of the army in
dealing with societal issues is legitimized.
This explains why Turkish nationalists hinge on militarism. The
national animus sparks the "legendary heroic warriorship of the
Turkish nation" and accordingly militarism. Here, the nationalist
stance, discourse, policymaking, etc., rely on a target for anger,
hatred, enmity and antagonism and one which will keep those feelings
alive. This holds true for contemporary Turkish nationalists, although
Alparslan Türkeş, the founding father of the MHP, denounced the
concept of national animus and argued that Turkish nationalism is
antagonistic towards those defined as the "others." At this juncture,
we see that concepts of the legendary heroic warriorship of the
Turkish nation, the maintenance of national animus and the militarism
involved in invigorating the national animus mutually constitute and
reinforce each other in nationalist discourse.
In conclusion, whether or not the contemporary nationalists
deliberately hold onto the legacy of mid-20th century Turkish
nationalists, it is obviously beyond doubt that they share in the
basic platform expressed above. Subsequently, these basic principles
continue to constitute and shape the daily discourse of Turkish
nationalists, thus providing justification for "just and rightful"
military acts against the "traitors" of the country.
*Husrev Tabak is the deputy general director of CESRAN International,
cesran.org.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress