Guest Contributor
Ceren Şengül, Researcher, Centre Maurice Halbwachs (Ecole Normale Supérieure)
Justice and Development Party of Turkey (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) that has been in power since 2002 has adopted populist policies by positioning itself as the “others” of the Kemalist state, the nation-state that was founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk with strict Kemalist principles such as the French-inspired “laïcité” and the Western understanding of modernisation. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the founder of AKP and the current President of Turkey, often mentions the year 2023 as the landmark date to finish his project of a “new Turkey”. As I have discussed elsewhere, the concept of a “new Turkey” is a myth as there are significant continuities between the “ideal Turkey” in Erdoğan’s mind and the “old Turkey” of the Kemalist leaders. One of the significant changes between the “old” and the “new” Turkey, however, is Erdoğan’s blatant use of a populist rhetoric, as opposed to the Kemalist regime that actually thrived on being “above its people”. By internalising the “orientalist” (most famously stated by Edward Said) dichotomies of a “good and modern” West vs. a “backwards and bad” East, the Kemalist leaders were obsessed with creating a “modern”/Western, secular Turkish nation-state. Until 2002, this Kemalist establishment was “successful” in maintaining this order with the help of the Turkish Armed Forces, which was, until recently, considered the “vanguard of the Kemalist state”.
AKP has overturned this establishment by eliminating the Kemalist forces within. Compared to the elitist and “white Turks” constructed by the Kemalist state for decades, Erdoğan has proudly announced himself as a “black Turk” and the “true offspring” of Turkey. The elitist outlook that the Kemalist leaders have adopted was also reflected in their approach towards their citizens living outside Turkey. For decades, the Kemalist foreign policy approach has conveniently ignored its citizens outside Turkey, especially the large population of “guest workers” that have migrated to Western Europe in the 1960s and the ‘70s. AKP has largely embraced these gurbetçis, a Turkish term referring to those living outside Turkey in a highly romanticised way, and made them a very significant part of its “yerli ve milli” discourse.
What and who are “yerli ve milli” citizens of AKP? Literally meaning “local and national”, “yerli ve milli” is an AKP-constructed term that can refer to anything that represents the AKP values, whatever they are. Thus, there can be “yerli ve milli” cars produced by AKP, “yerli ve milli” MPs representing the AKP values, and “yerli ve milli” citizens living in the way that AKP, more specifically Erdoğan, wants them to. In accordance with its pragmatic approach that has defined AKP throughout the years, these “yerli ve milli” citizens are not fixed, meaning that “yerli ve milli” citizens of today can easily become the “terrorists” of tomorrow. In fact, in Erdoğan’s Turkey, only two types of citizens exist: those who are “yerli ve milli” and those who are “terrorists”. A “necessary but not sufficient” condition of being considered a “yerli ve milli” citizen of AKP is to be an openly practising Sunni Muslim. In Kemalist Turkey, being a Sunni Muslim was desired but the obsession with the Jacobin-inspired secularism meant that the “ideal citizens” were secular and non-practising but nevertheless Muslims. In AKP’s Turkey, being a Sunni Muslim became publicly visible, and moreover, the visibility of Sunni Muslims became necessary to be considered “yerli ve milli” citizens. Being a publicly practising Sunni Muslim is not sufficient, however. In fact, the most important criterion to be a “yerli ve milli” citizen is the loyalty to AKP, or more specifically, to Erdoğan. This was most obvious when the collaboration between AKP and the Gülen movement, a liberal Islam movement under the leadership of the Sufi scholar Fethullah Gülen, started to crack in 2013. Since the coup attempt on July 15, 2016, however, the Gülen movement has been officially recognised as a “terrorist” group, pronounced with the acronym FETÖ. This has been mainly due to Erdoğan’s allegations of the Gülen movement being responsible for the coup attempt. Despite the ideological similarities with AKP, the Gülen movement has “fallen from grace” due to its non-loyalty to AKP and, more specifically, to Erdoğan.
This “yerli ve milli” approach of AKP also extends to the immigrants from Turkey. It is no coincidence that two new institutions, targeting specifically the Turks living abroad, were established during the AKP period: the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (Yurtdışı Türkler ve Akraba Topluluklar Başkanlığı, YTB) in 2010, and Yunus Emre Institutes (Yunus Emre Enstitüsü) in 2009. It was also AKP that has made it easier for Turkish citizens living outside Turkey to vote in the general elections in Turkey. They had the right to vote since 1987, yet they needed to go to the ballot boxes stationed at the border controls and airports. The new regulation introduced by AKP allowed them to vote in the polling stations in their country of residence. The referendum of 2017, which granted AKP the power to modify the constitution to adopt the presidential system, and the first-ever presidential elections of Turkey in 2018 were both victories for AKP, and the votes of these gurbetçis played a significant role in both these victories1. Within Turkey, the support that AKP, and more specifically Erdoğan, receives from the gurbetçis outside Turkey is already well-known (mainly through the very frequent street interviews done with them on their holidays in Turkey). For people within Turkey who do not vote for AKP, it is mainly a source of frustration to see those who do not live in Turkey voting for AKP. They are frustrated since they argue that they should “come back and live in Turkey if the government is so perfect”. The gurbetçis argue, on the other hand, that those within Turkey and who do not vote for AKP are “ungrateful because Turkey is a rising star in the world”. The division is clear.
The three-monthly journal of the YTB and the bi-monthly magazine of the YEE accurately portray which types of immigrants are included in their “yerli ve milli” diaspora construction. The issues of these journals overwhelmingly refer to “us Muslims”, the Muslim ummah, the Turkish-speaking communities in the former Ottoman provinces such as the Balkans, the holy places such as Mecca and Jerusalem, and the Turkic communities who are citizens of other states such as Crimean Tatars of Ukraine or Gagauz Turks of Moldova. Erdoğan’s fantasy of creating his own “neo-Ottoman Empire” means reaching out to Muslim communities all around the world and to those Turkish-speaking communities within former Ottoman provinces. Applying this to the citizens of Turkey living abroad means that non Sunni-Muslim communities of Turkey such as Alevis are officially excluded from this “Empire”. This is reflected in the structure of religious institutions outside Turkey: while mosques that are frequented by Turkish Muslims outside Turkey are established and funded by the Directorate of Religious Affairs of Turkey (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı), cemevis (houses of worship for Alevis) and Alevi associations are usually affiliated with the federations of their host countries. The only time when the AKP is actively involved in Alevi citizens’ inclusion in their “Empire” is when Alevi dedes (religious leaders of Alevis) are appointed by the Turkish state to preach that Alevism is a form of Islam. The only way that Alevis, one of the “notorious others” of both the Kemalist and the AKP Turkey for being “infidels”, can become part of a “yerli ve milli” diaspora is having them converted to “true Islam”. As mentioned earlier, however, being a practising Muslim is not sufficient to be a “yerli ve milli” citizen. Outside Turkey, the situation is similar. If we look at the issues of the YTB journal and the YEE magazine after 15 July 2016, we see special issues dedicated to this coup attempt. It is understandable that such a traumatic event would be a dominant theme within the AKP discourse. What these journal and magazine issues have done with this event, however, has been to perpetuate Erdoğan’s allegations about the Gülen movement regarding the coup. These institutions also frequently call for “FETÖ schools” abroad to be handed over to the Turkish state, and frequently state that these schools carry out activities against Turkey. By equating being against them as being “against Turkey”, AKP justifies its use of the term “terrorist” for anyone or any organisation that is not “yerli ve milli”.
AKP’s “yerli ve milli” Empire, then, is not built across the traditional state borders: being a practising Sunni Muslim and being loyal to AKP and to Erdoğan act as the most significant boundary markers across all the borders, regardless of whether that individual is a Turkish citizen or not. This helps us understand Erdoğan’s appeal amongst Muslim communities all around the world and also the opposition within Turkey.
1. Sinem Adar shares the numbers with regards to voter turnout rate of Turkish citizens living in Germany, showing a significant increase from 18.93 percent in 2014 to 45.70 percent in 2018 elections. She also provides the main political parties’ voting share within Germany. Her article can be accessed here.