Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

1Notesintroduction1. The 1997 military coup is commonly known either as the “softcoup” or the “February 28 process.” It is called a “soft coup” because themilitary mobilized the major business associations, media cartels, universityrectors, and judiciary long subservient to its commands to engineer ananti-RP drive to force the recently elected Erbakan government to resign.Behind this public campaign was the unmistakable message that therecently elected Erbakan government would “voluntarily” resign or beforced out by the generals. The coup posed Islamic identity as a nationalthreat and proposed a number of directives to cleanse the Islamic presencein public spaces where it had been present even in the most reactionaryperiod of Kemalist zeal. It is also known as the “February 28 process”because the coup was not limited only to the removal of the RP-ledgovernment but also was a process of monitoring, controlling, andcriminalizing all Islamic activism as a security threat and institutionalizinga permanent legal framework for ostracizing devout and active TurkishMuslims from the market, educational, and political spheres.2. See, for example, Tarìk Zafer Tunaya and Niyazi Berkes, whopresent modern Turkish history as the story of conXict between secularismand religion, progressive forces and reactionary (religious) forces. Bothinterpreted almost all social movements opposing state control as “reactionary”threats to the modernizing reforms of the state. Tunaya, 8slamcìlìkAkìmì, 2nd ed. (Istanbul: Simavi Yayìnlarì, 1991); the Wrst edition of thisinXuential book was printed in 1962. Berkes, The Development of Secularismin Turkey, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 1998); 1st ed. 1964. The Turkishversion of this book caters more rigidly to Kemalist expectations than theEnglish edition.3. Daniel Lerner concluded that the emergence of the “new Turk”(secular Turk) was inevitable and this “new Turk” chose “mechanization”