Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

90 islamic political identity in turkeydiverse impacts on the goals and strategies of Islamic political movements. Asa result of the economic expansion, class cleavages have begun to emerge as asource of internal division within the Islamic groups and to shape their competingpolitical alliances. Indeed, those who have not beneWted from economicliberalization are embittered toward those who have. This has become a majorsource of tension in the interpretation of political Islam in relation to issues ofsocial justice, equity, and economic redistribution. Those who have beneWted,such as the Nak7ibendi and Nurcu groups, supported parties of the center-right(ANAP and DYP) that favor economically liberal policies and stress a culturaland ethical Islam, as opposed to a more overtly political Islam. These right-ofcenterparties have become much more socially conservative as their constituentshave come to hold Islam as the guiding ethic of social life. On the otherhand, those who felt the negative brunt of the 1980s economic policies tendedto support the RP of Erbakan because that party allowed for social mobilitythrough Islam and stressed a platform of social justice and economic redistributionled by the state.The power of Islamic factions within particular political parties has dissipatedbecause each group seeks a diVerent economic reality. These ideologicalrifts over the correct economic policies led the RP to draw back from its earlierenthusiasm for state intervention in the economy. The Turkish state, caught atthe intersection between a Xuid international economy and a restless domesticsociety, has had to restructure itself to respond to these pressures. It has had toWnd a balance between economic growth and decentralization; foreign investmentand national industry; Islamism and secularism; local interest and nationalinterest; rural and urban needs; security and freedom. Moreover, in order to becompetitive in the global market, Turkey has had to achieve domestic stability.This in turn requires a large degree of political decentralization, recognition ofthe political rights of the Kurds and the cultural rights of Alevis, and toleranceof broad-based democratic institutions so that a culturally diverse nation cancooperate in meeting the challenge of globalization.Political Islam and Competing Loyalties:SuW Brotherhoods and Hometown SolidaritiesIn the “get rich quick” environment of the 1980s, “proWt” often became an endin itself. Even love of God was quantiWed by the amount of money one gave tocharity. This atmosphere created for many a sense of fraying in the moral fabricof society. This perceived moral crisis led some to argue that society must workto emphasize ethical and moral values. Individuals joined religious associationsand SuW orders both to sanction capitalist proWts and to alleviate their moralunease over social inequality by placing stress on charity and social justice. Inother words, liberalization and industrialization have helped foster the emergenceof a form of the Protestant ethic along with Islamic communalism, thatis, a common political and economic ethos that may be expressed and containedwithin religious aYliations. This communalism has allowed provincial capitals