Are New Sufis “Grey Turks”? Urbanite National Identities and Religious Reconfigurations

“Are New Sufis “Grey Turks”? Urbanite National Identities and Religious Reconfigurations by Marta Dominguez Diaz, University of St.Gallen ecularism is a central aspect to Turkey’s the new ideological project were soon disem- Sidentity as a nation. It has been and still is a powered, discredited for their backwardness driving force for political action and it also is a and lost as a result their social and economic central element in shaping the societal dynam- status and, ultimately, their public authority. ics of modern Turkey. In 1923, Mustafa Kemal In contrast to them, the change of system Ataturk (1881-1938) permitted the develop- was resolute to estab- ment of a new elite, sup- lish a nascent Turkish portive of the Kemalist nation as a republi- project that benefitted can secularist state, economically from these and with that view his political transforma- government instilled tions. Thus, a new privi- a series of reforms.1 leged class emerged. Through legal and They looked at Europe institutional change, for sources of cultural secular systems of law and political inspiration and education were Catching Europe in Istanbul: in a conscious attempt Yunus Emre Yildirim, student in Industrial Enginee- set up, and during the ring, Kadir Has University, Turkey: of trying to disconnect transformation a series „My aim in this picture was to emphasize diversity in Istan- themselves from the Ot- bul; in this case, religious diversity. I thought it would be a of measures targeted good combination to capture an orthodox patriarchate and a toman past. For the new the hitherto position minaret together. I took the photo in Fener (very close to our class of Kemalist sup- university). It also fits with the European image in my mind of power tradition- because Christianity symbolizes Europe, and Islam symbo- porters, the ethnic diver- ally held by the ulama lizes Istanbul since 1453, but apart from my point of view, sity of the country and people can understand very different things.“ within the state admin- © Yunus Emre Yildirim the all-pervading nature istration.2 Religion was of Islam (i.e. with a ten- to be relegated to the dency to manifest itself private sphere. Those among the former elites in all aspects of social life) were perceived as who could not or were not willing to embrace important impediments to social progress.3 In contraposition to “traditional” values, they of- 1 Atatürk’s programme of reforms ten came to identify themselves with a newly (commonly known as Atatürk Devrimleri) is a subject extensively dealt with by scholars of a variegated emergent urbanite culture, a “de-ethnicized” range of disciplines. For an introductory analysis identity with cosmopolitan aspirations and see, for example, Zurcher (2004) and Landau’s scarce sympathy for the social expression of (1984) edited volume. Islamic religiosities. 2 The term ulama refers to a diversity of For many Turks who were not part of this religious scholars that exist in Muslim societies. privileged minority, not only the turning to- In Turkey some of the most prominent religious institutions (e.g. sufi tekkes and Islamic schools) were abolished by the secularizing project. For a 3 For the Kemalists’ approach to race, more nuanced approach to the changing role of religion and ethnicity in the first years of the Turkey’s ulama see Amit Bein (2011). Republic see Cagaptay (2007). Euxeinos 10 (2013) 23 Marta Dominguez Diaz wards westernized modes of thought and life- purported arrogance towards other social ac- styles but also their often disenfranchised atti- tors and political factions, an attitude some tude towards the rest of the nation were viewed say may threaten the pillars of democratic rule as proof of the elite’s rejection and disapproval they are supposed to endorse. of Turkey’s cultural and religious roots and of The arrival to power of the religious and the actual identity of its current population. conservative Justice and Development Party The pejorative term Beyaz Türk (White Turk)4 (AKP) of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2002 with is since then often used to refer to the Kemalist an overwhelming support of the Black Turk supporters. However, as the Kemalist project majority vote meant a radical change in the consolidated, Beyaz Türk’s discourses were no position traditionally occupied by the secu- longer the pejorative stance of a minority but lar middle and upper classes, who began to an issue that threatened to divide the country lose the prominence they have held since the over issues of national identity. Over time, a advent of the Republic.5 In line with these substantial part of the fast growing urbanite political developments, a new social class of middle class have come to identify themselves economically influential Turks who are eager with White Turks’ political choices and views to publicly manifest ethnic and religious affili- of society. The once loosely defined as a rich, ation have contributed to further heating up educated, Westernized urbanite minority, the the debate on national identity issues centered Beyaz Türk, have more recently come to be as- around the question who better represents the sociated with a wider sector of society, who values of Turkey’s “modernity”? Among them seem to hold a negative attitude towards other there are public figures who, for example, do Turks. The political scientist Maya Arakon not hesitate to speak Turkish using specific (2011) has described White Turks as those who accents previously associated with the ru- sympathize with Kemalist ideology and who ral world or with the “periphery” and/or by often are uneasy with Kurds and religious wearing religious symbols like the headscarf people. According to her, White Turks believe in places originally reserved to the secular, de- ethnic particularism and public religious ex- spite persisting discrimination (SES Türkiye, pression should be eradicated through educa- 2012). The discursive monopoly held by Ke- tion and modernization. Arakon argues that malist supporters until recently needs to begin despite their modernizing appeal White Turks nowadays to accommodate or to learn to co- have started to be questioned on the very basis exist at least with other new identity projects. of the values they are supposed to defend, be- Hence, there is a new class of influential cause today, they are often criticized for their Muslims who currently appear more often in the media andintend to make their “Islamic 4 The term “White Turk” was first used by visibility” a symbol for the nation’s endorse- journalist Ufuk Güldemir in his 1992 book to refer ment of democratic values – in claiming re- to those who opposed to the presidency of Turgut Özal, the country’s first non-soldier president and a religious man of Kurdish origin. Turgut Özal’s 5 Erdogan himself is a Black Turk, to better background was questioned with regard to his understand how the Black/White Turks dyad appropriateness as a successor to Atatürk as the pictures into the transformation of national politics leader of the country and top commander of the in Turkey led by Erdogan and his party see Heper military. and Toktaş (2003). Euxeinos 10 (2013) 24 Marta Dominguez Diaz spect primarily for the expression of religious choice to the White Turks’ sustained attempts identity. The case evidences that such disputes at mirroring themselves in the West. Now may not only have political implications, but the binary opposition between cosmopolitan- need to be also seen as a power struggle over secularist versus local Muslim identities is who holds the monopoly over the discursive no longer tenable. Here there is a new set of formation of meanings in relation to cultural religious ideologies that can be understood values and national identity. The dispute indi- as being partly foreign and partly imported, cates that religious issues and lifestyle choices yet not with a westernizing rather an Islamiz- are not trivial matters of mere individual con- ing agenda. They are to be viewed as modern cern, but explanatory windows into an intri- reconfigurations of religious traditions with cate network of social intersubjectivities; they innovative ways of looking at the nation-reli- are illustrative of how notions of identity re- gion dyad, the pursing of agendas that chal- late to and are intertwined with social stratifi- lenge both traditional interpretations of Islam cation, and social and political representation and of Turkishness and the identity project of and power. Kemalist modernities. In this regard, it is fair to suggest that modern Islamism is attempting * * * to develop cultural and political deconstruc- tions of fundamental identity markers, such Most of the more recent Islamist trends as the categories of “Turk” and “Muslim.” By in the Turkish religious market of public dis- renaming and re-conceptualizing central as- courses imply in the national context a pro- pects of religious ethos vis-à-vis new ways of found rethinking of Turkishness and Muslim articulating discourses of national belonging, identity. These Islamisms in their diverse Islamisms constitute a critique to traditional expressions can themselves be seen as ideo- Turkish categories of Muslim identity, includ- logical hybridizations between tradition and ing those elaborated by the tarikat (Sufi Or- modernity, between religion and secularism, ders) (Yavuz, 2003; Zubaida, 1996).7 between cosmopolitanism and locality. In Tur- believers, that is to say, to all the Muslims peoples key, they are both heirs and opponents of the from across the world. Therefore, the ummah is for Kemalist tradition. The new Islamist counter- Muslims a supra-national community of people elites epitomize this paradoxical and ambiva- with a common religion and whom they hold a lent nature: despite significantly owing their sense of a shared history. educational and professional identity to the 7 A Sufi Order is a religious organization state educational system, they are those who hierarchically organized in which devotees commit to perform a series of ritual practices regularly more fiercely oppose the attempts to threaten with the ultimate aim of attaining union with God.

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