Rethinking Modernity And National Identity In Turkey

In the first two decades after W.W.II, social scientist heralded Turkey as an exemplar of a 'modernizing' nation in the Western mold. Images of unveiled women working next to clean-shaven men, healthy children in school uniforms, and downtown Ankara's modern architecture all proclaimed the country's success. Although Turkey's modernization began in the late Ottoman era, the establishment of the secular nation-state by Kemal Ataturk in 1923 marked the crystallization of an explicit, elite-driven 'project of modernity' that took its inspiration exclusively from the West. The essays in this book are the first attempt to examine the Turkish experiment with modernity from a broad, interdisciplinary perspective, encompassing the fields of history, the social sciences, the humanities, architecture, and urban planning. As they examine both the Turkish project of modernity and its critics, the contributors offer a fresh, balanced understanding of dilemmas now facing not only Turkey but also many other parts of the Middle East and the world at large.

Architectural historian and philosopher Bozdogan began planning this study while she was researching her book on Turkish architect Sedad Hakki Eldem. Now based in Boston, she situates Turkish architecture during the early decades of the 20th century within the contexts of nationalist impulses and modern architecture in western culture generally. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

A Moveable Empire examines the history of the Ottoman Empire through a new lens, focusing on the migrant groups that lived within its bounds and their changing relationship to the state's central authorities. Unlike earlier studies that take an evolutionary view of tribe-state relations -- casting the development of a state as a story in which nomadic tribes give way to settled populations -- this book argues that mobile groups played an important role in shaping Ottoman institutions and, ultimately, the early republican structures of modern Turkey. Over much of the empire's long history, local interests influenced the development of the Ottoman state as authorities sought to enlist and accommodate the various nomadic groups in the region. In the early years of the empire, maintaining a nomadic presence, especially in frontier regions, was an important source of strength. Cooperation between the imperial center and tribal leaders provided the center with an effective way of reaching distant parts of the empire, while allowing tribal leaders to perpetuate their own authority and guarantee the tribes' survival as bearers of distinct cultures and identities. This relationship changed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as indigenous communities discovered new possibilities for expanding their own economic and political power by pursuing local, regional, and even global opportunities, independent of the Ottoman center. The loose, flexible relationship between the Ottoman center and migrant communities became a liability under these changing conditions, and the Ottoman state took its first steps toward settling tribes and controlling migrations. Finally, in the early twentieth century, mobility took another form entirely as ethnicity-based notions of nationality led to forced migrations.

From the early Attaturk years, Turkish radio broadcasting was seen as a great hope for sealing the national identity of the new Turkish Republic. Since the inaugural broadcast in 1927 the national elite designed radio broadcasting to represent the 'voice of a nation'. Here Meltem Ahiska reveals how radio broadcasting actually showed Turkey's uncertainty over its position in relation to Europe. While the national elite wanted to build their own Turkish identity, at the same time they desired recognition from Europe that Turkey was now a Westernized modern country. Ahiska shows how these tensions played out over the radio in the conflicting depictions and discrepancies between the national elite and 'the people', 'cosmopolitan' Istanbul and 'national' Ankara and men and women (especially in Radio drama). Through radio broadcasting we can see how Occidentalism dictated the Turkish Republic's early history and shaped how modern Turkey saw itself.

Examining Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s Büyük Nutuk (The Great Public Address), this book identifies the five founding political myths of Turkey: the First Duty, the Internal Enemy, the Encirclement, the Ancestor, and Modernity. Offering a comprehensive rhetorical analysis of Nutuk in its entirety, the book reveals how Atatürk crafted these myths, traces their discursive roots back to the Orkhon Inscriptions, epic tales, and ancient stories of Turkish culture, and critiques their long-term effects on Turkish political culture. In so doing, it advances the argument that these myths have become permanent fixtures of Turkish political discourse since the establishment of Turkey and have been used by both supporters and detractors of Atatürk. Providing examples of how past and present leaders, including Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a vocal critic of Atatürk, have deployed these myths in their discourses, the book offers an entirely new way to read and understand Turkish political culture and contributes to the heated debate on Kemalism by responding to the need to go back to the original sources – his own speeches and statements – to understand him. Contributing to emerging discourse-based approaches, this book is ideal for scholars and students of Turkish Studies, History, Nationalism Studies, Political Science, Rhetorical Studies, and International Studies.

National and State Identity in Turkey uses the concepts of national and state identity to examine Turkey’s domestic and international politics and explain how the country’s position in the international system has changed over the last ten years. State identity is understood as the end result of a transformed national identity, linking both domestic and international levels. Toni Alaranta argues that there has been a radical reformulation of Turkey’s national identity, interest, and positioning in the world since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002. This transformed identity has helped the country renegotiate its status in the world. He first examines the changing nature of Turkey’s national identity before looking at the struggle between two extreme positions—secularism and Islamism. He then explains how the “New Turkey” discourse is part of an Islamic-conservative ideology that targets the notion of the “domestic other,” or minorities, versus the Turkish-Muslim “self.” This discourse is transforming not only the notion of national identity but also Turkey’s relations with the rest of the world, and particularly with the European Union.

This book evaluates the Turkish nation-building process from the Ottoman Empire to today, considering the role of Islam in this process. It gives insight into what has changed and not changed in this process. The book explains to readers that the Islamisation of the country is not a coincidence. Rather, Islamism has been grown symbiotically with the secular Republican regime through the organizational power of Islamic sects and with the assistance of the West. How we live as a nation today is not a revolution of Islamists, as some scholars have remarked. Rather, it is a continuation of the Turkish nation-building process with further Islamisation.

Since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey has seen a complete re-imagining of its political, cultural and social landscape. Burce Celik argues that technology has been integral to this transformative process, showing how take-up of modern technologies, such as the cell or mobile phone, has been embraced particularly by those who most easily absorbed new ideals about Turkey and modern Turkishness. While many studies on the cultural significance of mobile technology focus on its rational uses and incentives, A elik draws on cultural theory, psychoanalysis and the philosophy of technology to explore the bonds, desires and dependencies that Turkish citizens have in relation to the cell phone. She ultimately links a collective post-empire melancholia with a desire to re-imagine a new, ideal Turkish national identity through technology.