Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

the tempering of the kemalist revolution 61oYcialdom.” 2 The DP articulated the power and voices of associations of protocivilsociety. These included provincial business associations, extended families(a7iret), and Nurcu and Nak7ibendi groups. These associations wanted a sayin political life and state policies. With the DP victory, the social bases of Turkishpolitics began to change, and for the Wrst time a large segment of popularsociety had a voice at the center. Although the CHP, the army, and the civilbureaucracy sharply criticized the DP‘s close ties with the ostracized informalreligious networks, 3 the structural transformation (urbanization, political participation,and education) since the 1920s had empowered the marginalized sectorsof Turkish society and facilitated their return to politics, the marketplace,and education. The return of religious activism and religiously framed movementwas not a fearsome “return of the repressed” but rather an attempt tovernacularize modernity.The DP relied on these local informal networks, and this, in turn, reproducedand consolidated authoritative, hierarchical patron-client relations—thatis, people exchanged their votes in return for expected favors. 4 The DP was supportedby the rural population that had suVered under the World War II taxsystem, while the urban bourgeoisie had prospered from its ties to the Republicanelite. During the 1950s these people became conscious of the power of theirvotes, and this awareness helped them to internalize democracy as a way ofredeWning state-society relations. Thus a sense of citizenship began to evolvearound the DP, with the concomitant feeling that the state could, for the Wrsttime, be made responsive to the needs of the people. 5 By establishing new linkagesbetween the center and the periphery and bringing the views and aspirationsof the periphery closer to the center, the DP presented politics for the Wrsttime as having deliberative aspects rather than being simply an administrativemeans to implement an elite-deWned civilizational project. The Kemalist elite,which saw only state-guided reforms as modern, did not know how to respondto the emerging social groups, since a goal of Kemalism was to create a classlesssociety. The DP thus diVerentiated itself from the CHP by recognizing thenewly emerging bourgeoisie, rather than the state, as the agent of modernity.On the basis of actual DP policies toward Islam, one must conclude thatthe party’s leadership was still quite ambiguous on the subject of allowing openexpression, despite claims of both their supporters and their critics in the CHP.The DP policies were conditioned by the secular state structure and the leadershipof the DP, which was dominated by secular politicians. The originalDP leadership included Celal Bayar, Adnan Menderes, Fuat Köprülü, FatinRü7tü Zorlu, and ReWk Koraltan. On the whole, they remained prosecular andfully supported the Kemalist programs. For instance, Celal Bayar told a cheeringcrowd in 1947: “We will not let sharia live on.” 6 Therefore, it was not theDP leadership but rather the DP’s popular grassroots supporters who forcedthe DP to pursue a more confrontational policy toward militant secular injunctions.Thus DP policies for the normalization of the status of religion vacillated.One main reason for this vacillation was the critical opposition of theCHP, which charged the DP with “undermining secularism.” For example,