TURKISH NATIONALISM THROUGH THEORETICAL EVOLUTION

INTRODUCTION

Turkish nationalism rose during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It promotes and glorifies the Turkish people. Nationalism is thus based on the national, ethnical, cultural who based on its own heritage. The advocates of Turkish nationalism add their own interest over other influences including religious ones.

At this time the multi ethnic, multi religious Ottoman Empire was transformed into a collection of nation-states in the Balkans and the Middle East. This was the result of social and economic developments and cultural changes brought about by internal and external forces at work in the empire. Although the reforms of the Tanzimat era (1839-1876) streamlined the empire’s administrative and financial institutions and established new ones, it also actually helped advance ethic awareness.

The policies of Ottoman-ism perused during the 1870s and 1880s with the concept of citizenship replacing an individual’s status as subject of the sultan, were unable to retain the loyalty of the various ethnic groups in the European provinces of the empire. After the loss of most of the Balkan places and increasing European political and financial control of the ottoman government’s affairs, sultan Abdul Hamid II’s policies were affected accordingly.

YOUNG OTTOMANS

The new intelligentsia was represented in the 1860s by the young ottoman society. In the name of a synthesis of ottoman tradition and ottoman reform, young ottomans such as Namik Kamal(1840-88), Ibrahim Shinasi ( 1826- 71), and Zia pasha 1825-80) were committed at once to the continuity of the ottoman regime, to the revitalization of Islam, and to modernization along European lines. First the young ottomans, dazzled by the success of Britain, favored a constitutional regime. They believed tat the ultimate value of the empire was measured by its contribution to the inherent rights of its citizens, to the security of life and property, to justice, and to the reconciliation of Christiana and Muslims. In their view, the empire could not survive unless it became rooted in the masses.

Moreover, a constitutional regime was the natural expression of the political and moral values which they held to be inherent both in Islam and in European culture. Thus the young ottoman thinkers were, without the name, modernist Muslims. They held that Islam properly understood, was compatible with a modern organization of society and a constitutional government. They stressed the aspects of the Islamic heritage which encouraged scientific and technical learning, the value of reason above blind faith, and the importance of an active striving for individual and social improvement. Along with their commitment to Islam, the young ottomans also espoused the use of a simplified version of the Turkish language to bridge the gap between the ottoman elite and the mass of their subjects, a reform which must have been particularly appealing to upwardly mobile intelligentsia. Thus they attempted to reconcile the Muslim ottoman identity with the technical, political, and more demands of modernization. While criticizing the program of Tanzimat at religiously and socially insensitive, they were nonetheless committed to a modernized ottoman society.

The young ottoman period of the 1860s and 1870s was followed by a reaction and by the dominance of an authoritarian and dictatorial regime opposes to young ottoman constitutional and modernist principles

Young Turk movement was the first nationalist effort that had any broad support in the Middle East. Founded in 1889, the committee for union and progress, or young Turks, was made up of elites coming from the ottoman army and intellectuals living in Europe. Their original objective was to preserve the empire while reorganizing it multi cultural nature of the empire, they flirted with the ideas of basing the empire on loyalty to Ottoman-ism.

ZIYA GOKALP AND NATIONALISM

Main figure of Young Turk nationalists Zia Gokalp focused on two ideas that of the nationality and civilization. According to him civilization consisted of the technological and cultural implements which a number of societies could share. Nationality was another component of the western system of states, and this Gokalp linked to concept of culture. A culture was the latent pattern of values, beliefs and institutions which defined a people. Whenever such a people had been incorporated within a multi-ethnic, plural state, its values had remained in the back ground. As to Islam, Gokalp indicated that a number of items which were accepted as integral aspects of religion particularly the commands associated with the proper Islamic organization of society- were in fact aspects of Arabic culture which had nothing to do with pristine Islam. Islam, there for e, was a religion that demands of its follower’s faith and I did not confine its followers to any form of social organization.

Zia Gokalp’s blueprint for the future- which never emerged as a complete proposal-was to draw out the latent Turkish culture of the Turkish nation, to establish a Turkish state based on it, to accept western civilization and to make Islam a matter of conscience, a private belief. A memorandum Zia Gokalp had written for the young Turks in 1916 concerning the role of Islam in turkey was implemented by the young turn spit led to the exclusion of the Seyhul-Islam the highest religious courts and their attachment to the ministry of justice, the placing of the administration of pious foundations under the authority of a member of the cabinet, and the separation of the madrassa from the Seyhulislamate and their administration by the ministry of education.

KAMAL PASHA AND NATIONALISM

Kamalist nationalism’s goal of creating a new turkey and Turkish citizen in total discontinuity with the ottoman- Islamic past seems to offer a perfect case study for the constructivist school. Indeed, for the republican intelligentsia, nationalism, together with secularism represented tickets to modernization and westernization, for the purposes of constructing a modern state, nationalism, therefore, became the principle ideological tool of modernization during the republican era. In that sense, Mustafa Kamal and his supports seemed to have been thinking of ‘Turkishness ’increasingly in a functional manner .for them ‘Turkishness’ would become a basis o a new national identity that would be need d to transform a traditional society inherited from the ottoman empire into a modern one.

Two ideologies emerged in the 1930s which were expected to promote national identity; the so called ‘Turkish history thesis’ and the ‘sun-language’ theory. The Turkish history thesis was built on the idea that Turks had contributed to civilization long before they had been incorporates into the Ottoman Empire. They had originated an urban civilization in central Asia from which many other civilizations had sprung. They had maintained their cultural identity even after becoming a minority in multi- national empire. It was from this found that an identity could be drawn for the citizens of republican turkey.

‘The sun language’ theory was an attempt to rationalize a development which had been taking place I ottoman literature since the middle of the 19th century, namely the increasing use of the vernacular instead of the flowery and allusive language of the Ottoman Empire. it was now proposed that pure Turkish was an ancient language of the central importance in the history of languages. It was claimed that many other languages had been built on this foundation and that once could find guidance for the reform of linguistic usage if one studied this early Turkish language. In 1937 the principle of laicism was introduced into the constitution, together with five other guiding principles of the kamalist party- republicanism, nationalism, statism, populism and reformism.

KAMALISM AND ITS IMPACTS

A list of reforms undertaken during the initial years of the new republic indeed reveals a radical transformation of Turkish society from an Islamic to western setting. In chronological order, these reforms were the following:

1. The abolition of the sultanate in 1922 by a decree of the grand national assembly (prior to the establishment of the Turkish republic in 1923)

2. The abolition in 1924 of the caliphate, which had symbolized the unity of the Muslim Ummah. The origins of the caliphate went back to the period after the death of prophet Muhammad sultans had assumed the title o f caliph in the sixteenth century

3. The abolition in 1924 of the office of Seyhul- Islam, the highest religious authority in the administration of the Ottoman Empire, one of whose functions had been to oversee the suitability of political decisions to Islamic law.

4. The abolition in 1924 of the ministry of religious affairs and pious foundation

5. The abolition in 1924 of the Shariah courts, religious courts basic on Muslim law

6. The abolition in 1924 of the madrasa which had been important centers of religious learning in the Ottoman Empire.

7. The interdiction of religious brotherhood (tariqat) in 1925 and the ban on all their activities.

8. The passage of a law in 1925 outlawing the fez in favor of the western hat, the republican regime also discouraged the veil for women, although it did not outlaw it.

9. The adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1925, replacing the Lunar Hijri and Solar Rumi calendars.

10. The adoption of the Swiss civil code in 1926, giving equal civil rights to men and women

11. The adoption of European numerals in1928.

12. The change from Arabic to Latin script in 1928

13. The deletion in 1928 of the 1924 constitution, which stated Islam to be the state religion

14. The granting of political rights to women, first in municipal elections I 1932, later in national elections in1934.

15. The creation of the Turkish language society in 1931, starting the ongoing process of elimination of words of Arabic and Persian origin from the Turkish language

16. The adoption of the metric system in 1931.

17. The change of the weekly holiday from Friday to Sunday in 1935

CONCLUSION

Kamalism blamed the religions for opposing the spirit of Islam, and effectively reinterpreted religion and its role in the society according to nationalist ideas. After all, he disestablished the then existing political, legal and educational institutions of Islam, replacing them with adaptation of western models. Turkish nationalism substituted itself for all loyalties and values earlier expressed through religion, and thus became the ideology of republic.

REFERENCES

1. encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim world v: II
2. encyclopedia of survey of Islamic culture, V:19
3. Joseph N Weatherby, the middle east and north Africa a political primer
4. Omer Taspinar, Kurdish nationalism and political Islam in turkey–kamalist identity in transition
5. the modern middle east: a reader ( edited by Albert Hourani, Philip s. Khoury and Mary c. Wilson
6. Ira. M. Lapidus, a history if Islamic societies
7. world Islam critical concepts in Islamic studies, V:IV ( edited by Andrew Rippin)