The New Anatolian, Turkey
Feb 17 2007
The Hrant Dink assassination and neo-nationalism (ulusalcilik) in
Turkey
Onder Aytac & Emre Uslu
17 February 2007
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Nationalism has been a powerful force in Turkish politics since the
founding of the republic. Lately, however, nationalist activists have
become unusually strident in their rhetoric, and they have coalesced
around various radical political platforms to seek the ousting of the
Justice and Development (AK) Party regime, either through the ballot
box, or by violent means.
As nationalist themes gain more prominence in Turkish political
discourse, a radical new nationalist movement has emerged: the
ulusalcilar, or neo-nationalists, whose influence appears to be
spreading to the highest levels of state and society. This movement
is not an organized group with an established doctrine. Its various
components have their philosophical differences. Nevertheless, we can
distinguish three fundamental elements in ulusalci thought: the
externalization of Islam from Turkish nationalism, uncompromising
anti-Westernism and ethnic exclusionism.
Although the nationalism adopted by the founders of the Turkish
Republic had a distinctly secular tone, it internalized Islam as
psychological glue to ensure that ethnically different populations
within the boundaries of the new Turkey remained united. Ulusalcilar
however, prioritize symbols of Turkish nationalism and the Turkish
race, and accord secondary importance to Kemalism and secularism.
They oppose leftist ideologies, broad applications of democracy, and
minority rights whenever the homogeneity of Turkish nationalism might
be threatened.
If orthodox nationalists have adopted anti-European and anti-American
positions on foreign policy issues, Turkey’s neo-nationalists
absolutely reject Westernization as an operating principle.
Achieving "honorable and equal" status in the "world society of
nations" requires shunning all formal association — political,
military, or economic — with the Western world, not merely the EU
and the "strategic partnership" with the U.S. A review of ulusalci
manifestos and policy statements reveals a common "Turkey for the
Turks" theme. Turkish natural resources must belong to the citizens
of Turkey, not to foreign capitalists. "Globalization" is a
particularly ugly word in the neo-nationalist vocabulary. For
neo-nationalists, the Kurds, whether in Turkey or Iraq, are agents of
American imperialism. Therefore, the usual formulae offered to
"solve" the Kurdish problem are without foundation.
Inevitably, the Bush administration’s unstinting support for Israel
has led fringe media commentators, including and some ulusalci
outlets, to charge that the U.S. government is "in the hands of the
Jews," and therefore, they suggest, Erdogan, as a handmaiden of U.S.
policy in the Middle East, is at the same time an agent of Zionism.
Why has ulusalcilik blossomed into such a potent political force
today?
The fundamental causes were, first, the overwhelming victory of the
Justice and Development (AK) Party in the 2002 general elections,
which enabled the AK Party to establish a single-party government;
and second, the AK Party government’s implementation of the fast
forward reformation process toward membership in the European Union.
Turkey’s state elites — the civil service, judiciary and military —
are rigidly secular. They have never trusted Erdogan, and believe
that he and the AK Party have a "secret agenda" to introduce elements
of Sharia into Turkey’s legal and constitutional system. Elitist
discontent lies more in Erdogan’s appointment of individuals loyal to
the AK Party to senior bureaucratic posts, occupied throughout
previous republican history by the secular establishment. Also, to
meet the EU’s Copenhagen criteria, AK Party legislation has reduced
the military’s influence in the National Security Council (MGK) and
eliminated military membership in the security courts and the Board
of Higher Education (YOK). Hence the disempowered civilian secular
elite view the military as allies in the struggle against Erdogan and
his presumed Islamist program.
In addition, the AK Party’s liberal economic policies have created a
thriving private sector and stimulated increased foreign investment.
Nationalists accuse the AK Party (as they did earlier governments led
by Turgut Ozal) of reviving the "capitulations" the West imposed on
the Ottoman Empire and violating Ataturk’s principle of etatism.
Furthermore, Turkish nationalists came late to an understanding that
the EU accession process involved the sacrifice of much of their
status and ideology. For the country to qualify for EU membership,
the AK Party regime, taking advantage of their overwhelming majority
in Parliament, swiftly passed a broad series of major reform
measures. Many of these enhanced individual freedoms, and thus
implicitly threatened the authority of the powerful state
bureaucracy, which had for so long served as the power base of
secular nationalism. That the reform legislation was being promoted
by a political party with an agenda far different from their own was
further cause for alarm.
Who are the ulusalcilar?
As stated, the neo-nationalists have no political party or
overarching command structure, but there are a number of activist
organizations that can be identified as ulusalci, based on their
members’ shared acceptance of the movement’s principles.
Activist neo-nationalist organizations include the purposefully named
Kuvaiye Milliye Hareketi (Nationalist Forces Movement) and the
Vatansever Kuvvetler Guc Birligi Hareketi (Patriotic Forces United
Movement, VKGB). The VKGB, led by senior retired military officers,
claims more than 100 branches in 46 cities and towns. The Kemalist
Thought Association (ADD), led by former Gendarmerie Commander Sener
Eruygur, has sought preeminence in the movement on doctrinal and
ideological matters. Its roster of founders includes an impressive
number of professors and PhD’s, and it claims a nationwide membership
of 4,852. Better known is the Buyuk Hukukcular Birligi (the Great
Union of Jurists) and its leader, Kemal Kerincsiz. It is Kerincsiz
and his organization that have been responsible for the numerous
lawsuits brought under the notorious Article 301 against Turkish
intellectuals and writers — most famously Nobel Prize-winner Orhan
Pamuk and Armenian-origin journalist Hrant Dink for "insulting
Turkishness."
The neo-nationalists boast an impressive array of media outlets. They
control one daily newspaper, Yeni Cag; several periodicals, among
them the bi-weekly Turk Solu and its youth magazine, Ileri; Yeni
Hayat; Turkeli, a publication of the VKGB, and the weekly Aydinlik,
the mouthpiece of the Turk Isci Partisi (Turkish Labor Party) and its
venerable Marxist leader Dogu Perincek, who has lately reinvented
himself as a staunch Kemalist. There are two neo-nationalist TV
channels: KanalTurk and Mesaj TV.
Additionally, Istanbul daily Cumhuriyet, favored by the older
Kemalist intelligentsia, frequently voices ulusalci themes.
Cumhuriyet was once the most respected newspaper in the country, but
through its venomous attacks against AK Party leaders and their
policies it has lost any claim to objectivity. Additionally, several
mainstream newspapers carry the columns of ulusalci pundits alongside
more orthodox commentators — among them Emin Colasan (Hurriyet) and
Melih Asik (Milliyet). (Yeni Cag’s lead columnist is the popular
hard-lining nationalist and former president of the TRNC, Rauf
Denktas.)
Turkish neo-nationalists have their own underground network,
involving both active and retired military officers, significant
elements of which were exposed in a series of startling revelations
in the middle of last year. Police investigations into last May’s
murder of a Court of Appeals judge revealed that the murderer had
been under the control of a neo-nationalist group of retired military
personnel and that the shooting was probably a "black" operation
intended to look like the work of religious reactionaries. Another
series of arrests revealed the existence of the Atabeyler Gang,
composed largely of low-ranking active Special Forces officers, who
possessed diagrams apparently intended to support assassination
attempts against Erdogan and his chief foreign policy advisor, Cuneyt
Zapsu. More worrisome still, a third clandestine outfit neutralized
by the police, the Sauna Gang, which specialized in blackmail and
extortion, included both ulusalci military and ex-military personnel
and members of the Turkish mafia.
The Hrant Dink assassination
Ulusalcilik provided the ideological context for last month’s
assassination of Armenian newspaper editor Hrant Dink; and the
lawsuit against Dink, brought under Article 301 by Kemal Kerincsiz,
head of the neo-nationalist Istanbul Lawyers Union, made him a likely
target of extremist violence. It appears the 17-year-old assassin,
Ogun Samast, was merely a member of a small gang of adolescents who
had gathered around a braggart with vague but strongly expressed
extremist and xenophobic views. Some believe this small, apparently
independent gang is representative of a new and nasty phenomenon.
They call themselves, nationalist, ulusalci or anti-imperialist, find
their like-minded friends through the Internet, and select their
targets. These people are horizontally organized, loosely connected
and more secretive than the traditional terror groups. Dink received
death threats from notorious neo-nationalist bullies, like retired
Col. Veli Kucuk, who allegedly is the leader of these ulusalci
mafia-rings, but there is no evidence that links these unsavory
elements to his murder.
Nationalist and ulusalci commentators have engaged in a shameless
campaign to gain propaganda capital from this heinous crime. Various
columnists have hinted darkly at the involvement of Western
intelligence services. Several saw the motivation for the
assassination in the likelihood that it would smooth the passage of
the Armenian "genocide" resolution through the U.S. Congress, and
Tercuman newspaper actually claimed that Samast was an ethnic
Armenian! Inevitably, some, including senior spokesmen of the
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), explicitly blamed the CIA, Mossad,
or both. Meanwhile, a neo-nationalist columnist with an established
reputation for uncovering elaborate conspiracies on the basis of
minimal evidence linked the location of Samast’s gang in his native
Trabzon to a certain "U.S. Black Sea project." This project, the
author alleged, is intended to project American influence in areas
east of Turkey and involves, as a key element, securing Trabzon as an
American base. Of the leading ulusalcilar, only the man most
responsible for this dreadful affair, Kerincsiz, showed any
contrition, condemning, in a public statement shortly after the
crime, the use of violence to achieve political ends. Ulusalci
bellwether Turk Solu, however, in its editorial written by Gokce
Firat, placed the conspiracy closer to home, describing Dink’s
assassination as a propaganda ploy by Turkey’s "Kurdish-Islamist
fascist dictatorship" to maintain themselves in power. Firat,
demonstrating the ability to harbor two contradictory opinions at the
same time, is also cheered by the assassination. "Turkey has lost an
enemy!" he advised his readers, with evident happiness.