Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

212 islamic political identity in turkeyThe MSP’s main characteristics were its hybrid populism and representationof hitherto peripheral forces (new merchants, intellectuals, and shop owners)wanting an increased say in the aVairs of the state. Its populism was basedon a program of economic nationalism and cultural and religious mobilization,which was to be accomplished by invoking an Ottoman-Islamic ethos to providemoral stability and a framework for a society suVering from the dislocationcaused by state-led industrialization and corporatization of economicactivities. The MSP developed a new conservative ideology based on Islam tochallenge the hegemonic forces and secular discourse in Turkish society. Thiscampaign was articulated against the secular state, which was seen as becomingincreasingly detached from society. However, the MSP never was able todevelop an eVective patron-client network, since it hardly beneWted from therewards of government oYce. The total period during which the MSP remainedas a coalition partner in three diVerent coalition governments was only two years.MSP Identity and IdeologyThe main ideological contribution of the MSP was the revitalization of theOttoman-Islamic liberal reformist tradition that had been dominant in Turkishsociety until the radical Kemalist-positivist revolution of the 1920s. The Ottoman-Islamic reformers had posited that Turkish society could adapt European institutionsand technology and at the same time preserve the many positive andvital aspects of its Islamic culture and religion. The MSP platform thus was adirect protest against the radical Kemalist project. Although the MSP was notthe Wrst political articulation of Islamic resistance to the Kemalist reforms, forthe Wrst time it institutionalized Islamic protest within a semidemocratic politicalsystem. The MSP formulated its social contract as the National Outlook (MilliGörü7), which was deWned according to four pillars: culture, industrialization,social justice, and education. 25 Because of the Kemalist ban on overtly religiouspolitical platforms, subtle Islamic symbols and norms were interpreted andpresented within the concept of culture rather than of religion. In this sense,the MSP played a key role in the diVusion of Islamic norms through sharedcultural tropes. By cultural revival the MSP did not mean an explicit program ofIslamic revival but rather the reconstruction of Ottoman-Turkish norms andassociations to challenge the alienating aspects of the Kemalist project of radicalpositivism. When the MSP was a partner in the Ecevit-led coalition, it openedmore 8mam Hatip schools and added to the high school curriculum a new courseon ethics that borrowed from Islamic principles.With the National Outlook platform, the MSP expanded the boundaries ofpolitical debate in society and integrated Islamic discourses into the politicalsphere. This in turn fueled the democratization of society by integrating the previouslymarginalized voices of the periphery that could claim to represent the bulkof the country’s population. In addition to its focus on culture, the MSP stressedthe material dimension of society and brought the issue of industrialization to