NECMETTIN ERBAKAN IDENDITY, POLITICS AND FOREIGN POLICY

Abstract

Modern Turkish Politics was built upon the absolute power of dominant military-civil-bureaucrat and elite class that inherited from İttihat Terakki Partisi (Party of Union and Progress). These dynamics upon which Turkish modernization was based formed a secular field and did not allow faith and moral preferences to be a political actor. The training of faith and moral determinants was tried to be carried out over bureaucratic tools. In this sense, it is likely to say that bureaucratic transcendentalism lies in the basis of the ongoing conflicts in Turkish political life. In the administration of national identity, the sense of despite the public for the public starting with the army-national will unity and the bureaucratic elite moving together with the public in the war of independence after that conflicting with the national values was adopted. The insufficiency of Kemalist paradigm in 1970s increased the emergence of Milli Görüş1 in Turkish political life. In the Kemalist national state system where religious identity was marginalized from social and political arena, the movement of Milli Görüş exhibited a case getting stuck between the religious identity and his roots with a political discourse. Milli Görüş appeared in the political arena together with a new language and “conceptualization” that could protect its political legitimization and transmit its message to the community within “the repressive limits”. Within this content, the architect of Milli Görüş movement, Necmettin Erbakan, developed a line comprising a multidimensionality and versatility with his political discourse paradigm. The language, expressions and party slogans Erbakan used in politics had a reference to the roots forming a nation as a subject rather than vague and uncertain discourses. In the current study, the political sense and leadership characteristics of Necmettin Erbakan, who determined the ideal of “The Greater Turkey Once Again” and “A New World” in the construction of Turkish political identity as a direction and target in Turkish Foreign Policy, and also the founder of D-8s (Developing Eights), was analysed in a multi-purposed way and the foreign policy in the period of Erbakan’s prime ministry was investigated.Modern Turkish Politics was built upon the absolute power of dominant military-civil-bureaucrat and elite class that inherited from İttihat Terakki Partisi (Party of Union and Progress). Keeping the rural area in the centre, this structure took over the function of protecting a political mission continually rather than being a practitioner of politics. With the abolition of Caliphate, Turkey adopted policies suitable for its new identity and got away rapidly from the Islamic world. Turkish modernization in multi-party era both during and following World War II kept its structure which was perceived as westernization and nonreligious position as a whole. The theses on which Turkish modernization depend are as follows in short: with the revolutions having a basis on the insufficiency of Islam, Ottoman Turkish community must be secularized and a generation must be grown with an ideology of western culture. Mind must be kept out of the control of religion, religion must be made up of dogmas and a percept not allowing to a critical thinking must be dominant. Religion must only be peculiar to faith and moral issues and it must not be allowed in politics. Economic resources a political power must be formed in a way that they must be controlled by certain people and a new alignment must be realized with a change of identity at the state. In this way, Turkish revolution is a real cultural revolution. Institutions and departments were redesigned over the effect of cultural imperialism and a social transformation was aimed. It is likely to say that bureaucratic transcendentalism lies in the basis of the ongoing conflicts in Turkish political life. The efforts of bureaucracy and intelligence to turn the temporary transcendentalist state into a bureaucratic permanent transcendentalist state lasted in the multi-party era between 1950 and 1980. The military coup attempts between the years 1960 and 1980 appeared in the form of the confrontational tensions between the right and left wing, not being able to democratize in politics, instability, and polarization and not being able to become civil. In the administration of national identity, the sense of despite the public for the public starting with the army-national will unity and the bureaucratic elite moving together with the public in the war of independence after that conflicting with the national values was adopted. In the process of Turkish modernization, it was aimed to force a “westernization” in the sense of social engineering with western theses by ignoring one-thousand-year history. The thesis of “imaginary modernization” emerging the project of modernizing a non-modern community by institutionalizing the secular realities of modernization at one night aimed at building a society out of history over the relationship of affirmation or refusal of one party and one leader. In this period, the seeking for a political opposition by disturbed and suffered mass was getting increased because of the fact that Islam was regarded as out of system. Kemalist ideology presented the form of modern, secular belonging of the state to the community as “the European Identity”. With this structure isolating political differences, Turkey was in a new position where it could not replace a new ideology when Kemalist paradigm was insufficient in 1970s. In this period, Milli Görüş emerged in Turkish politics as a different discourse from the ideologies of Westernization and Nationalism. In such an atmosphere, the coalition government of MSP (National Salvation Party) and CHP (Republican People’s Party) set up at the end of the general elections in 1973 had a protective impact against political polarizations despite some basic discrepancies. At that time, political communic

Özet

Modern Türk siyaseti İttihat ve Terakki Partisi'nden tevarüs eden, egemen asker-sivil-bürokrat ve aydın sınıfın mutlak iktidarı üzerin inşa edilmişti. Türk modernleşmesinin dayandığı bu dinamikler; seküler bir alan inşa etmiş, inanç ve ahlaki tercihlerin siyasi bir aktör olmasına müsaade etmemiştir. İnanç ve ahlaki belirleyicilerin terbiyesi de bürokratik aygıtlar üzerinden gerçekleştirilmeye çalışılmıştır. Bu bağlamda Türk siyasal hayatında süregelen çatışmaların temelinde bürokratik aşkıncılığın yattığı söylenebilir. Ulus kimliğin yönetilmesinde, ordu-milli irade bütünlüğü ile başlayan ve milli mücadelede halkla birlikte hareket edebilen bürokratik elit, sonrasında toplumsal değerlerle çatışan, halka rağmen halk için anlayışını benimsemiştir. 1970'lerde Kemalist paradigmanın yetersizliği Türk siyasetinde Milli Görüş'ün doğuşunu hızlandırmıştır. Dindar kimliğin toplumsal ve siyasal alandan ötekileştirildiği Kemalist ulus devlet sisteminde Milli Görüş hareketi, siyasal söylemi ile dindar kimliği ve kökleri arasına sıkışan bir durum sergilemiştir. Milli Görüş "yasakçı sınırlar" içinde siyasi meşruiyetini koruma ve mesajını topluma iletebilecek yeni dil ve "kavramlaştırmalar" ile siyasal alanda tezahür etmiştir. Bu kapsamda, Milli Görüş Hareketinin mimari Necmettin Erbakan, siyasal söylem paradigması ile çok boyutluluk ve çeşitlilik içeren bir çizgi geliştirmiştir. Erbakan'ın siyasette kullandığı dil, ifade ve parti sloganları muğlak ve belirsiz söylemler olmaktan çok bir özne olarak milleti var eden kökleri referans almıştır. Bu çalışmada, Türk siyasi kimliğin inşasında, "Yeniden Büyük Türkiye" ve "Yeni Bir Dünya" idealini Türk Dış Politikasında yön ve hedef olarak belirleyen, D-8'lerin (Developing eights) kurucusu Necmettin Erbakan'ın siyaset anlayışı, liderlik özellikleri birçok yönden analiz edilmeye çalışılarak, Erbakan'ın başbakanlığı dönemindeki dış politikası incelenmiştir