AS IAN AND AFRICAN STUDIES .- Summer 1976 Vol. 11 No. 1 JOURNAL OF THE ISRAEL ORIENTAL SOCIETY JERUSALEM ACADEMIC PRES~ JERUSALEM ISRAEL THE NATIONAL SALVATION PARTY IN TURKEY IACOB M. LANDAU LIST. OF ABBREVIATION S DP- THE DEMüCRATIC PARTY IP- THE JUSTICE PARTY NAP- THE NATIONALlST ACTION PARTY NP- THE NATION PARTY NSP- THE NATIONAL SALVATION PARTY PNO- THE PARTY FOR NATIONAL ORDER RPP- THE REPUBLICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY RRP - THE REPUBLICAN RELIANCE PARTY TUP- THE TURKISH UNION PARTY INTRODUCTION In the general elections held in Turkey on 14 October, 1973, a new party succeeded in winning 11.8% of the vote for the National Assembly and 48 of its 450 seats. This group - the National Salvation Party (further: NSP) - owed much of its success to an electoral campaign of a marked religious character. lts electoral success and its joining a coalition cabinet, as a junior but essential partner, may at first seem unexpected. In fact, however, this was the culmination of a long process in which Islamism - that is, activist Islamic ideologies - penetrated Turkey's ~ politics with growing effectiveness. In the fallawing pages we shall attempt, first, to analyse this process, grosso modo, then to deseribe and evaluate the National Salvation Party itself, mainly in the first two years of its existence. JACOB M. LANDAU is Professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalern. He has published rnany books and articles on the political and cultural history of the Middle East, especially Egypt, Israel and Turkey. His most recent " book is Radical Politics in Modern Turkey, published in 1974. 2 JACOB M. LANDAU The increasing political involvement of Islamism In retrospect, Turkey's secularization proved less effective than was generally believed. Initiated in the 1920's by Mustafa Kem~I and anchored in a series of new laws, 1 secularization w as mo re successful in the cities than in Turkey's numerous, scattered villages. Mustafa Kemal's death in 1938 was a serious setback, which became obvious after the end of the Second World War. The move from a one-party to a multi-party regime in 19462 proved to be an opening through which the religious sentiments of the masses were courted by the competing political parties as a vote-catching device. Scholars familiar with the Turkish scene noted a striking revival of Islam in the 1950's.3 One might say, however, that , strong Islamic sentiment had been · there all the time,4 but that its manifestations became niore apparent during the relatively permissive rule of Democrat Party governments from 1950 onwards. One of the most obvious ways for Islam to assert itself in Turkish public life was in its increasing share in education throughout the country.5 A spate of inexpensive books for religious courses was published, along with many others designed to instruct the public in the rites of Islam and to defend its virtues. Islam was presented as a desirable way of life, cansonant with Turkish values, morality and progress. The same themes were elaborated in a number of dailies and periodicals, on various levels of sophistication.6 1. E.E. Hirsch, 'Laizismus (Layıklık) als verfassungsrechtlicher Begriff in der Türkisehen Republik', Orient (Hamburg), no. 15, September 1974, pp. 106-12. 2. K.H. Karpat, Turkey 's politics: the transition to a multi-party system, Princeton, N.J., 1959. · 3. L.V. Thomas, 'Recent developments in Turkish Islam', The Middle East Journal, vol. 6, 1952, pp. 22-40; B. Lewis, The emergence of modern Turkey, London, 1961, pp. 410 ff; U. Heyd, Revival of Islam in modern Turkey, Jerusalem, 1968. 4. As already shown by T.Z. Tunaya, İslamcılık cereyanı, Istanbul, 1961; Ç. Özek, 100 soruda: Türkiye'de gerici akımlar, Istanbul, 1968; H.A. Reed, 'Religious life of modern Turkish Muslims', in R.N. Frye (ed.), Islam and the West, The Hague, 1957, pp. 108-48. 5. G. Jaschke, 'Der Islam in der neuen Türkei', Die Welt des Islams, N.S., vol. 1, 1951, pp. 1-174; R.D. Robinson, 'Mosque and school in Turkey', The Muslim World, vol. 51, April 1961, pp. 107-10; J.S. Szyliowicz, Education and modernization in the Middle East, Ithaca and London, 1973, pp. 331-2. 6. Examples in J.M. Landau, Radical politics in modern Turkey, Leiden, 1974, pp. 177-82. THE NATIONAL SALVATION PARTY IN TURKEY 3 No less significant was the increasing activity of Islamİst associations. Thousands of these were scattered throughout Turkey;7 in 1968 their number reached 10,730, or 28.4% of all associations in Turkey. They were mainly philanthropic or educational in character, but were bound to have 8 some political significance in time - even though they prudently disclaimed any political intentions; avowing such aims would immediately have invited legal sanctions. This however did not prevent their providing a framework for recruiting religious-minded people, and for providing the necessary organization to prepare cadres with an Islamİst character to intervene in politics at some future time. More militant stili were the cadres to be found in other, larger and more tightly-knit Islamİst movements, some of which continued to exist in the Turkish Republic, despite their illegality and the fact that they were occasionally investigated by the police, which from time to time arrested their leaders and brought them to court. Of these, probably the largest and most militant was - and is - that of the Nurists, so called because of their doctrine of Nur (Light). The Nurist movement,9 set up by its leader Saidi Nursi in the early days of the Republic, cautiously kept underground until the beginning of the multi-party era. Then it came into the open with a doctrine aiming at an Islamic way of life as its immediate target, its ultimate objective being the establishment of a theocracy in Turkey. The movement's leaders organized courses, and meetings at which they preached. Many of Saidi's lectures - he preached indefatiga­ bly until his death in 1960 - were printed and circulated, despite being banned by the authorities. These lectures give us an idea of what the Nurists wanted. They equated secularism with irreligion and, by implica­ tion, condemned the Turkish Republic and its political leadership. Starting with the premise that Islam comprised everything, the Nurists held that it ought to be the sole basis of the state: the Koran sufficed for 7. As shown by A.N. Yücekök, Türkiye'de örgütlenmiş dinin sosyo-ekonomik tabanı 1946-1968, Ankara, 1971. 8. N. Abadan-Unat and A.N. Yücekök, 'Religious pluralisrn in Turkey', The Turkish Yearbook of International Relations (Ankara), vol. 10, 1969-1970, pp. 24-49. 9. Tunaya (footnote 4, above), pp. 232-39. N. Arrnaner, İslam dininden ayrılan cereyanlar: Nurculuk, Ankara, 1964. Özek (footnoote 4, above), pp. 180-94; C.-U. Spuler, 'Nurculuk', Bonner Orientalische Studien, vol. 27, 1973, pp. 100-82. 4 JACOB M. LANDAU a constitution, and the Şeriat (Muslim religious law) for Turkey's !ega! system. The President of Turkey and the members of its National Assembly ought to be orthodox Muslims. Religious schools, offering instruction courses in Arabic, ought to be established. One does not have reliable data about the number of the Nurists and their activities, to better gauge their impact; most publications are either apologetic10 or attack them.U However, from reports in the press, one feels that they were quite active in many parts of Turkey in the Iast twenty-five years, and certainly kept alive interest in Islamism as a patent force in public affairs. The Party for National Order Islamİst associations and movements such as those mentioned above could not organize in political parties, for the simple reason that they would have been ciased down instantly as inconsistent with secularism as affirmed by Turkey's constitution. Nonetheless, Islamİst activity prepared the ground for the establishment of such a party early in 1970. Earlier, the military intervention of 27 May, 1960, had ousted the rather authoritarian rule of the Deroacrat Party and opened a decade of relatively liberal government. Many political groupings, some of them quite extreme in their socio-economic outlook, used this set-up to propagate their views. It was not surprising that a party with a barely-disguised Islamİst orientation should have seized the opportunity to become involved in national politics. Since the new grouping was barred from proclaiming itself formally as Islamist, it assumed the name of the Party for National Order (further: PNO), or Milli Nizarn Partisi. 12 However, there was little doubt in Turkey of the new party's commitment to furthering the cause of Islam. From its establishment on 26 January 1970, the religious-minded press h!liled the party and supported it unequivocally. To judge from this press, this was 10. Like B. Berk, İlmi ve hukuki açıdan Nurcu/ılk davası, Istanbul, 1971. ll. Such as Y. Çetiner, İnanç sömiiriicüleri: Nurculuk arasında bir ay, Istanbul, 1964; F. Güventürk, Din ışığı altında Nurculuğun içyüzü, Istanbul, 1964. 12. The party's anthem proclaimed: 'We shall write a national order as the constitution of the Turks'. See Yankı (Ankara), 10-16 September 1973. THE NATIONAL SALVATION PARTY IN TURKEY 5 the party of all those who revered the values of Islam. Its leaders were Necmettin Erbakan and a smail group of dedicated politicians with whom we s hall dea! in more detail below. The Party for National Order convened its first national congress on 8 February 1970, after which it started establishing branches throughout the country: Although the exact number of its members is not known, it apparently found support in the sınaller towns and the villages, particular­ ly among religious-minded circles; 13 unconfirmed reports had it that Nurists joined the party.