Mideast: Between Turkish Secularism and an Islamist Oriented Erdoganism

Alexis Mitas / Stringer

Since 2016, the presidency of Recep Erdogan in Turkey and with it the political behavior of the Turkish state has moved into a decidedly non-secular direction. A far cry from the future of Turkey imagined by founding Mustafa Kemal Ataturk'. Turkey is split between those who favor secularism and those who favor the machinations of Erdogan and what can be deemed an Erdoganism pivoting towards a sort of political Islam unique to Turkey. What will the outcome of this factioning be, and is there any hope for a secular Turkey? 

Ataturk, literally the father of the Turks, once exclaimed “Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him act against the liberty of his fellow men.” A decidedly non-religious man, his personal ideology and the ethos that guided the formation of a modern Turkish state is a far cry from the sentiments of the current Turkish leader Recep Erdogan who said in a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in 2019 “we should unite and act as one in matters that concern the Ummah’s [the world’s Islamic community’s] permanence. Short-term interests shouldn’t take precedence over medium and long-term interests on subjects that threaten the Islamic world’s and humanity’s common future.” His phrasing of a ‘Islamic world’ is a telling difference between the ideology of these two leaders. And currently within Turkey there is a split in opinion between the progressive secular ideology of Ataturk and the current conservative Turkish-Islamic nature of the current Erdogan administration. A discourse really centered on tensions between the cult-following Ataturk has gained as the ‘creator’ of Turkey and the networks of influence Erdogan has sought to create in the country to displace the secular ethos of Turkey’s founding father. 

Erdogan’s Erdoganism  

After the 2016 coup attempt on Erdogan’s government, the government of Turkey has increasingly pivoted towards a more conservative and Islamist-centered approach to domestic and international politics. A term has come out to describe Erdogan’s current regime: ‘Neo-Ottomanism’. A controversial term really left undefined; it has come to designate a rather reductionist approach to viewing the Erdogan government. With that said, it can at least explain the sort of aesthetic the current Erdogan government is using to frame its future for the Turkish state. Appealing to a glorious Ottoman past to further a national mythos that can palatably frame incursion into neighboring countries to a Turkish citizenry as a sort of positive irredentism,  rather than the economic minded realpolitik that is really at the heart of Turkey’s regional geopolitical strategy. Erdogan’s style of ‘Neo-Ottomanism’ can be explained better with another term: Erdoganism. According to scholars, Erdogan’s can be boiled down to four main attributes: (1) electoral authoritarianism, (2) neo-patrimonialism, (3) populism, and (4) political Islam as the dominant ideology of the state. Of the most important to discourse on secularism versus political Islam are obviously the latter two. Indeed, when speaking about the outcome of these two diverging views the importance of recent political developments under Erdogan’s administration cannot be overstated. That is the reason why secularism versus political Islam is frequently viewed in terms of Ataturk versus Erdogan. Erdoganism cannot be separated from a Turkish styled political Islam which in turn contrasts with the Turkish secularism championed by Turkey’s founding father and which continues to struggle against the ideology of political Islam within Turkey. 

Place of Minority Groups 

One large minority stands in a precarious position as discourses on secularism versus Islamic-centered Neo-Ottomanism rage in Turkey, the Kurdish citizenry of Turkey. Indeed while both sides, secular and non-secular, claim the mantle of Turkish nationalism (although in differing styles), Kurdish nationalism and self-expression within Turkey continues to undermine the utopian visions both parties have a unified Turkish polis. Human rights violations against Turkey’s Kurdish population coupled with discrimination and persecution of minority groups, complicates the supposedly ‘modernist’ underpinnings of a Turkish secular future; serving as a reminder that a secular Turkey may have trouble staying nationalist if its nationalism continues to undermine minority groups, who like the Kurds struggle to maintain their own sense of culture as the Turkish state continues a campaign of forced assimilation. And one need not go into detail about the dangers faced by Kurds and other minorities, especially Turkey’s Christian Armenian, Greek Orthodox, and Syriac, Chaldean, and Assyrian population. The recent appropriation of the Hagia Sophia by the Turkish government serves as a stark illustration of this. 

A Secular Future in Turkey? 

With all this said, a 2019 survey revealed that a younger generation of Turks are becoming more secular and indeed wish to ‘modernize’. Perhaps a secular future for Turkey is indeed possible. This may indeed be a product of the conservative Erdogan government. According to some, a increasingly secular and progressive younger generation is a reaction to the more traditional and religion-oriented government that currently reigns supreme in the country. Perhaps it is possible that when Erdogan steps down from power his style of Neo-Ottomanist Edoganism will go with him. The institutions and patronage networks that Erdogan has created in Turkey through his AKP Party and interactions with other Turkish institutions however, coupled with international pockets of influence, may remain an obstacle to a secular post-Erdogan Turkey. With that said, in the battle between Ataturk versus Erdogan it is clear that the latter remains hardly as popular as the former. As one article put it “Erdogan is temporary, but Ataturk is forever.” But one wonders if his legacy remains alive because of the secular ideology which he espoused, or because of a hollow cult of personality that sees him more of an idol than an ideological leader to look to towards for a future for Turkey. Both possibilities remain normatively moot however if Turkey’s minority groups continue to face discrimination and persecution. Ultimately, secularism can not be deemed a synonym for pluralism and democracy. After all, Ataturk himself cannot be said to be absolved from discrimination and persecution himself. His role in the Armenian genocide is still debated, and for many of Turkey’s minorities he is hardly the progressive icon that some continue to make him out to be.