THIS NATIONALIST WAVE IS NOT TEMPORARY
Cengiz Aktar

Turkish Daily News, Turkey
Nov 7 2006

There are various interpretations concerning the rise of nationalist
sentiment. Most believe this wave is temporary and is mainly due
to the elections that will be held next year. It is believed that
the reactions won’t go beyond calls like "Europe, Europe hear our
voice." In my opinion, the issue goes much deeper, and the rising
nationalism we are witnessing is new and more permanent and structural
than ever before.

The sources that feed today’s nationalism are multiple. Our education
system is certainly one of these. But, the most important factor
is our country opening up and integrating with the world and the
consequent mindset that reacts to this development. Actually, when
a country that was closed to the world until the 1980’s is opened
up so fast it causes a deep social transformation and means new
traditions will enter our lives. For the last 25 years, Turkish
people have begun to see themselves in the mirror and this mirror
constantly shows the deficiencies and deformities of our country,
compared to developed countries.

Actually such a depressing self-evaluation is something that can happen
in any developing and changing country, but the European Union and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) processes add to it a substantial
and different meaning.

This twin process has been dominating our daily lives in almost
every way since 1999. Moreover, the achievements on the economic
front thanks to the IMF process are definitely not being reflected
in the way ordinary people live. This failure results in the process
being perceived only as more taxes and unemployment. On the other
hand the EU process is a fabulous Pandora’s box, whose lid is wide
open. It involves a relationship with the EU that allows Turkey to
come face to face with the fact that the innumerable political and
social problems it has tried to solve its own way or to ignore over
the years are simply not being resolved.

We also need to add the realities of the post-Sept. 11 world, the
regional repercussions of the irrational reaction the United States to
the events of Sept. 11 and the natural uproar against the U.S. reaction
to the twin process mentioned above.

Today’s nationalism feeds on the fear of change, is reactionary
and contains no constructive aspects. Its multitude of versions
is discriminatory, isolationist, rejectionist and hate-filled. The
reactions generally abide by the rule of an eye for an eye. If someone
mentions the Armenian genocide, a statute that shows that the real
victims were Turks is erected. If a cartoon about the Prophet Mohammed
appears in Danish dailies, a Catholic priest is shot in Trabzon.

Politicians who are aware of this public mood feed it with political
populism. The IMF discipline has limited the number of economic tools
for populism and this leaves nationalism as the last trump card. The
latest example is the insistence not to amend Turkish Penal Code’s
(TCK) Article 301 that protects the Turkish world from insults.

Just have a look at the public expressions of the nationalist wave:
The "national" reaction against Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk; books
and movies that glorify Turks, such as "Cýlgýn Turkler" (Those
Crazy Turks), "Metal Storm" and "Valley of the Wolves Iraq," as
opposed to the "antinational" books of Elif Þafak and Orhan Pamuk;
the insults directed against the Greek Orthodox Patriarchy and
the ecumenical patriarch; the incredible lies and accusations that
flood the Internet; the race to produce the biggest Turkish flag;
anti-Jewish and anti-Western sentiments, which have always secretly
existed in our society, spewed at every opportunity and much more.

If we assume Turkey’s transformation process as structural and
impossible to wind back, we come to the conclusion that today’s
nationalist reactionism is equally structural. If we fail to properly
define the reasons behind the variety of nationalist sentiments voiced
by the most coarse or the most intellectual, the classic rightists or
within the Republican People’s Party (CHP), by those who come up with
a Turkish-Islamic synthesis or the secularists, it will become harder
to deal with them in the future and this will increase the possibility
of the country being whisked away to other unpleasant shores.

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