Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

70 islamic political identity in turkeyand Alevis on the one hand and Kurdish nationalists and the Turkish State onthe other. They established a new Department of Propagation (8r7ad Dairesi)within the D8B in 1981 to Wght against Kurdish nationalism in southeast Anatolia.Since then, the department regularly has organized conferences and lectures inthe region to inform people about the dangers of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party(PKK: Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan) and its Marxist-nationalist ideology. 35 Themilitary government apparently preferred to exploit religious sentiment andtraditional allegiances rather than encourage pluralism and participatory democracyto achieve political stability and national unity. According to Arif Soytürk,the deputy head of the the D8B, since 1980our national and religious feelings are interwoven, the D8B seeks toconsolidate and cultivate national and religious consciousness atthe same time. Our task is not conWned to religion only but it alsoincludes preservation of Turkish nationalism. The Turk in Germanyneeds to know the history of the War of Independence alongwith Islam. 36The D8B has tried to expand its power and legitimacy within the state by becomingthe bastion of Turkish nationalism. It deWned itself as the institutionthat was to “protect and preserve Turkish national identity” and protect the newgeneration against “communist and atheistic” ideologies. As the D8B used nationalismto consolidate and expand its position within the state, the militaryused religion to expand its legitimacy within society and enhance Turkish nationalism.This alliance between nationalism and Islam is what diVerentiatedthe 1980 coup from previous military interventions. General Kenan Evren evenestablished a close relationship with Mehmet K1rk1nc1, a prominent nationalistNurcu leader in Erzurum. 37Evren’s IslamGeneral Evren, a son of an imam and the leader of the coup, set the policies ofthe military government. He employed Islam to promote his secular ideas andpolicies as well as to expand the social base of the military government. Evrenbelieved that there is an enlightened Islam that is open to change and secularism.He used religious arguments for raising national consciousness, socialresponsibility, and health concerns, promoting birth control and social cohesionof the Turkish society to overcome its ethnic and ideological divisions. He underlinedthe rational nature of Islam to promote modernity and stressed religion’srole as a unifying agent or social cement. His goal was to free Islam from backwardinterpretations and political inXuences. For Evren, Islam “is the most rationalreligion, and it has high regard for knowledge and science.” 38 His speechesand policies demonstrated the compatibility of Islam and Kemalism.During the coup, in order to demonstrate the compatibility of Islam andKemalism, the military redeWned Kemalism and published a three-volumework, Atatürkçülük (Ataturkism). 39 These volumes constitute a major new in-