Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

the enduring ottoman legacy 45colleges from 4 to 32. The founders of the modern Republic in fact were educatedin these very schools. Abdülhamid II also brought the German GeneralColmar von der Goltz to train new military cadets. During a twelve-year period(1883–1895), von der Goltz formed a new cadre of army oYcers in accord withthe Prussian model, and this cadre would play a major role in the formation ofthe secular nation-state beginning in 1923. 27New personnel hired from these Hamidian schools in order to expand statepositions placed the mark of Islamic culture on their oYces. In other words, inthe process of transforming society, the state itself was transformed by societalforces. SuW orders were able to penetrate diVerent levels of the state. This reciprocaltransformation of the state and society, which was an outcome of themutual redeWnition of state and society, created a new state-identity, and thisidentity in turn shaped the “national interest” of the state.One may argue that the seeds of the Kemalist nationalist project ironicallywere planted during the Hamidian period. The nationalist struggles of 1919–1922 were fought in Anatolia at the popular level as a war in defense of the faith.In fact, the Islamic layer of identity was heightened and used by Mustafa KemalAtatürk to mobilize the population against the occupying powers that sought toimplement the Sevres Treaty of 1920, which divided much of what is now Turkeyamong European powers, and carved an independent Armenia andKurdistan in eastern Anatolia. The Turks were left only with Ankara and a swathof land around central Anatolia. This humiliating treaty raised Islamic politicalconciousness against the occupying European powers by bringing the externalother (the West) into actual contact with a defeated and now technically subordinatedMuslim population. The ulema played a key role in this mobilization;in the Wrst Turkish parliament, 20 percent of the deputies were ulema. 28 Thefounding charters of the Turkish Republic and the decisions of the Erzurumand Sivas conferences constantly refer to those “Muslims who form one nation”or “all Islamic elements of the population.” These charters hardly mention the“Turkish nation” as a separate entity and always include “Kurd” alongside“Turk.” 29 In other words, it was not a “Turkish” war of liberation, as claimed inthe oYcial historiography, but rather a war of “Muslim elements” to free thecaliphate from the occupation. During the opening speech of the Grand NationalAssembly (Büyük Millet Meclisi) in April 1920, Atatürk said: “It should not beassumed that there is only one kind of nation from the communities of Islaminside these borders. Within these borders, there are Turks. There are the Çerkes;as well as other Muslim communities.” 30During the war years, Atatürk deWned the nation in Islamic terms and arguedthat “the nation that we are trying to protect similarly not only consists ofone community. It is composed of diVerent Muslim communities.” 31 Under theleadership of Atatürk, the Muslims of Anatolia defeated foreign armies. The 1923Lausanne Treaty recognized Turkey’s new borders and scrapped Sevres. 32 AlthoughSevres is not remembered by many Europeans, Turks turned it into amajor trauma and a living document to understand European policies towardTurkey. This preserved “chosen trauma” is a powerful tool that has been usedto delegitimize European criticism of Turkey’s human rights record.