Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

islamic social movements 25tute but also emerges from these movements. These movements open up newspaces outside the control of the state and form a counterpublic sphere. 42 Theytranscend rigid class lines by framing the everyday issues of women, children,youth, and minorities in popular religious terms.Economic growth fueled by the export-driven market has led to the dynamismand proliferation of opportunity spaces, as seen in the explosion of magazines,newspapers, television channels, the Internet, cultural foundations, anda private education system. These new opportunity spaces opened up new possibilitiesfor Muslim actors to have their own distinct voice and institutionalnetworks in public discussions. Thus Islamic movements, like civil rights andlabor movements, involve participation in a rational game to carve out spaceand seek recognition vis-à-vis the state. Islamic groups strategically use neweconomic and political opportunities to create counterhegemonic spaces anddiscourses that are autonomous in relation to the secular state. These opportunityspaces have helped to form a new sociopolitical consciousness, and this, inturn, has become a source for social change in Turkish society. It should bestressed, however, that the immediate and primary goal of Islamic movementssuch as those of the Nurcus and the Nak7ibendis has not been control of thestate. Rather they seek the reconstitution of everyday life by transforming personalidentity and consciousness by means of societal microinteractions thattake place through contact with SuW orders, the media, printed texts, and localcommunities. The construction of an Islamic political identity is the story ofthe transformation of macrostructures through microinteractions. Islamicmovements transform these issues into a contest with the state over control ofsocial and cultural spaces. But Islamic social movements are less about the resurgenceof religion and mostly about “communal/empowerment,” the introductionof a new moral language and the reconstitution of a “repertoire of action”that is very much dependent on opportunity spaces. 43 New opportunity spacesand the dominant discourse of privatization of social life have helped people tolive as they wish outside the Wxed patterns of the state. This privatization andpluralism of fashion, journalism, new tastes, architecture, and music have allowedmultiple Islamic forms to become public. At the same time, these spaceshave empowered economically and culturally excluded groups vis-à-vis the state,allowing excluded communities a means by which to bring their ethnic, religious,regional, and linguistic diVerences to the forefront and to attempt to shapethe policies of the state. Those who have beneWted from the access to foreigncapital and markets have formed thousands of associations and foundations thatattempt to recast “Islamic” discourse completely in valorizing civil society, pluralism,technology, capitalist consumerism, and the market.Turkey’s new Islamic intellectuals are not rooted in state positions but ratherare advisors to major private companies or are well-paid essayists in newspapersand journals. The formation of this new class represents a shift from theSuW lodge (tekke) to the printed text, or from oral culture to print culture. As aresult of these changes, one encounters democratization of religious knowledgeand a shift of authority from traditional ulema to new urban intellectuals. Theseyoung and very popular Islamist intellectuals are engaged in serious debates