Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

the tempering of the kemalist revolution 65AP to form a coalition under the leadership of 8smet 8nönü, then head of theCHP. Nevertheless, the AP proved to be more popular than the CHP, primarilybecause it was based on the same informal networks as the DP and increasinglychallenged the role of nonelected state agencies in the exercise of sovereignty. 19The AP dominated the Turkish political scene between 1963 and 1970 andhelped to achieve the integration of the rural and provincial populations intourban life with its policies of building bridges between society and the state,including the mutual interpenetration of state and society mediated by politicalparties, associations, and interest groups. 20 Moreover, the AP developed a morenuanced approach to secularism by arguing that the state “must be secular” butnot the individuals. In a way, it oVered a way of blending personal religious pietywith political secularism and the market economy. Süleyman Demirel, the headof the AP, deWned Islam as a respectful form of personal piety and treated it asan antidote to the leftist movements. He developed close ties with the Nur movementto enhance his pious credentials against those of the MGH of Erbakan.Despite the return of civilian government, the system designed by the militaryleaders could not address the political and economic problems of society.Leftist views even became increasingly more dominant in autonomous state institutionssuch as the universities. When the AP government failed to cope withthe problems of ethnopolitical polarization, the military forced all parties to forma national unity government from 1971 to 1973. The military purged itself ofpossible left-leaning oYcers and declared martial law to deal with leftist associationsand intellectuals. The coup leaders asked the Constitutional Court toclose the MNP and the pro-Marxist Turkish Workers Party (T8P: Türkiye 87ciPartisi).The victories of the CHP in the 1973 and 1977 elections did not give it amajority in Parliament. From 1973 to 1980, therefore, Turkey had unstablecoalition governments that failed to address the growing structural problemsof the country. In the 1970s, political divisions were mostly based on ideologicaldivisions between the Left and Right. These ideological divisions, however,relied on the cultural cleavages they helped to politicize. Societal polarizationinevitably was reXected in electoral politics. The formerly statist CHP after 1971defected to the left and became an advocate for ethnic (Kurdish) and religious(Alevi) minorities. Indeed, as Arnold Leder aptly puts it, “conXicting solidaritygroups may dictate party aYliation.” 21 This transformation helped the CHP tocontain Kurdish and Alevi identities within the universal framework of socialistsolidarity. In a way, left-wing ideology became a container for ethnoreligious(Kurdish-Alevi) identities.The Emergence of the Alevi Communal IdentityThe Alevi community, whose membership is deWned by descent and which waspreviously known as K1z1lba7 and Bekta7i, represents approximately 15 to 20percent (approximately 10–12 million of 64 million) of Turkey’s population. 22The community is divided along ethnic (Turkish, 8–9 million; Kurdish, 2–3