Europeanization and Tolerance in Turkey: The Myth of Toleration

274 Pages·2013·1.631 MB·English

by  Ayhan Kaya (auth.)

IdentitiesandModernitiesinEurope
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Titlesinclude:
SenemDüzgit
CONSTRUCTIONSOFEUROPEANIDENTITY
DebatesandDiscoursesonTurkeyandtheEU
AtsukoIchijo
EUROPE,NATIONSANDMODERNITY
RobertMillerandGrahamDay
THEEVOLUTIONOFEUROPEANIDENTITIES
BiographicalApproaches
AyhanKaya
EUROPEANIZATIONANDTOLERANCEINTURKEY
TheMythofToleration
IdentitiesandModernitiesinEurope
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Europeanization and
Tolerance in Turkey
The Myth of Toleration
Ayhan Kaya
IstanbulBilgiUniversity,Turkey
©AyhanKaya2013
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-0-230-30034-7
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This book has been published under the auspices
of the ACCEPT PLURALISM project Tolerance,
PluralismandSocialCohesion:Respondingtothe
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Contents
ListofFiguresandTables viii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
ListofAbbreviations xii
Introduction 1
1 MultipleModernitiesandTurkishModernity:
AContinuousJourneyofEuropeanization 28
2 ToleranceandCulturalDiversityDiscoursesinTurkey 71
3 TheKurdishQuestion:100YearsofSolitude 101
4 AKP’sAleviInitiative:LimitsofTolerance 132
5 TheHeadscarfIssue 157
6 Nation,EuropeandModernity:SocialCritiqueofthe
‘HolyTrinity’(Sunni-Muslim-Turk) 175
Conclusion 210
Notes 222
Bibliography 234
Index 257
vii
Figures and Tables
Figures
1.1 ModernityandIslamicvalues 61
1.2 2007generalelectionresults(%) 63
1.3 IdentitiesinTurkey 66
Tables
1.1 Generalelectionresultsin1950,1954and1957 46
1.2 AlternateprojectsforEurope 70
6.1 LevelsofanalysisinTurkeywithregardtothenotionsof
nation,Europeandmodernity 201
viii
Preface
This book is partly a result of the two EU FP7 projects IME (Identities
andModernitiesinEurope,SSH-CT-2009-215949)andAcceptPluralism
(Tolerance, Pluralism and Social Cohesion: Responding to the Chal-
lenges of the 21st Century in Europe, SSH-CT-2010-243837). While
working on these projects, I had the chance to conduct in-depth
interviewswithmembersoftheKurdishandAlevicommunities,aswell
aswithheadscarvedwomenandseveralotherrelevantpolitical,societal
and individual actors, which enables this book to represent a holistic
treatment of the debates on the Kurdish question, the Alevi question
andtheheadscarfissue.
Theterms‘Europeanization’and‘tolerance’haveaverylonghistory
in Turkish political culture. While the term ‘Europeanization’ is often
used in an interchangeable manner with the terms ‘modernization’,
‘Westernization’and‘secularization’,theterm‘tolerance’ratherisused
by many intellectuals, politicians, bureaucrats and private individuals
tounderlinetheIslamic,orientalandauthenticcharacteroftheTurkish
nation. In other words, the former corresponds to attempts by Turkish
nation-builderstocatchupwiththematerialcivilizationlevelofEurope,
and the latter corresponds to the authentic culture of the Turks, which
they want to preserve. Hence, these two terms bear a tension because
they refer respectively to material civilization and culture, in the same
manner that a tension between the body and spirit exists. However,
Iclaimthatbothtermshaverecentlybecomecomplementaryintheage
of neoliberalism when the European political elite have become more
engaged in culturalizing what is materially civilizational in a way that
reducesthecausesofsocial,politicalandeconomicphenomenatocul-
tural and religious factors. The principal premise of this work is that
civilizationalrhetoricandthediscourseoftolerancehavebecomecom-
plementary during the leadership of the pro-Islamist AKP – a political
partywhichbearsseveralsimilaritieswiththeconservativepoliticalelite
ofthememberstatesoftheEU.
In this work, I will argue that neoliberal forms of governmentality
have been in existence for more than two decades, and that it is these
kindsofagencieswhichhavecontributedtotheculturalization,ethni-
cization and Islamization of social-economic and political phenomena
in Turkey. I will also claim that ethnocultural and religious forms of
ix