CIAO DATE: 05/2013
A publication of:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
In the absence of a politically influential aristocracy and the entrepreneurial middle class, the political and economic transformations in Republican Turkey have been the handiwork of the political elites. Thus, late Dankwart A. Rustow talked of the cultural revolution of Atatürk, the democratic revolution of İsmet İnönü, and the economic revolution of Turgut Özal. The first two transformations were top-down revolutions and have not had a considerable impact on the social and economic stratification in the country. In contrast, with the Özal revolution a new entrepreneurial middle class began to flourish. Furthermore, during the current Recep Tayyip Erdoğan period, the peripheral social groups led by the entrepreneurial middle class have become influential players in Turkish polity.
Turkey has inherited from its Ottoman times a cultural center-periphery divide. The Westernization reforms undertaken in the early Republican decades were aimed at the modernization of the center, while the periphery was left to its own devices. Even after the transition to multi-party politics in the 1940s, in the eyes of the Republican establishment, the periphery for the most remained "backward" in cultural terrms. Under these circumstances, the periphery could not play a significant role for several decades, except in the ballot box beginning in 1950. Despite the fact that several road blocks were laid in their path, Turgut Özal in 1983-1993 and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from 2002 to the present (2013) have managed to bring the periphery into the center, thus, eventually enabling it to begin to play a major role in the Turkish economy and polity. The present essay is an introduction to that saga.
Turgut Özal's Story
Turgut Özal (1927-1993) was Turkey's eighth Pesident of the Republic. After having attended secularly oriented primary and secondary schools, Özal graduated from Istanbul Technical University, and thenstudied economics in the United States. He headed twice the State Planning Organization (SPO), worked at the World Bank and at the Sabancı Holding Company. In 1983, Özal formed the Motherland Party, served as Prime Minister until 1989, and was the President of the Republic for another four years. Özal had a deep attachment to Islam. His father, Mehmet Sıddık, was a devout Muslim, having played a significant role in Özal's religious beliefs and practices. At different periods in his life, Özal regularly attended the Naksibandi Brotherhood's İskenderpaşa Dergahı (Seminary) in Istanbul. Özal had connections with Mehmet Zahit Kotku (1897-1980), who was the Shaykh of the İskenderpaşa Dergahı. Kotku had an extraordinary sensitivity to modernity. He had played a significant role in the forming of the National Order Party (Milli Nizam Partisi-MNP) in 1969; the MNP was the first of the five religiously oriented political parties established in Republican Turkey.
For Özal, Islam had remained a significant personal reference. He publicly expressed his Muslim identity. This particular orientation to Islam on the part of Özal, however, did not prevent him from leading a modern life-style. Indeed, Özal occasionally consumed alcoholic drinks in public, so did his wife Semra Hanım. Mrs. Özal had never covered and was even known to smoke cigars. The Özals were often seen showing affection in public by walking hand in hand.
Özal was an idealist with far-fetched dreams, as he set for himself grandiose goals, believing that he had a "calling," a "divinely ordained mission," and Allah would help him to achieve that mission. Despite the fact that he increasingly sought Allah's help and direction, his primary means to realize his goals remained secular. He was a Western oriented engineer with a secular mind-set. When he was faced with an important issue, he used rational thinking rather than turning to religious texts. Also as he was a pragmatic person, Özal took his distance from closed-minded secular ideologies. Neither did he allow Islam or his loyalty to a particular Islamic group to shape his decisions and policies. For instance, while prime minister, he did not tap into the Islam-friendly private sector. He based the allocation of resources solely on objective economic criteria.
Moreover, Özal's particular take on Islam must have played an important role in why he kept a distance not only from secular (closed-minded) ideologies but also from radical Islam, advocated by Arab, Persian, and Pakistani Islamists such as Sayyid Qutb (1906-1979), Ali Shariati (1933-1977), and Mawlana Mawdudi (1903-1979). Rather, Özal's views were more inclined towards the Islam of certain Turkish Muslim intellectuals like Necip Fazıl Kısakürek (1904-1983) and Nurettin Topçu (1909-1975) as well as Sufi groups such as the followers of Fethullah Gülen. The latter thinkers and groups do not subscribed to radical Islam and thus they have not embraced political Islam. This means they are not a group of thinkers that promote a return of a state based on religion. Prime Minister Özal even lifted the ban on Fethullah Gülen's preaching because he wanted to employ Gülen's views and activities against radical Islamic groups.
Although Özal opposed certain Republican ideals and policies, his reservations about those ideals and policies were not informed by religious considerations. Particularly in the early Republican period, the Ottoman past had been relegated to the attic of Turkish history, as those centuries were considered a complete failure. In contrast, Özal's held the Ottoman past in high-regard. On a completely different cultural topic, Özal even argued in support of the growing popularity of Arabesk music, a Turkish folk music genre with a mix of Western popular and Egyptian elements, as it was frowned upon by the Republican establishment. Özal held the view that the Republican establishment had no right to pass value judgement on popular pleasures and consumer choices. More significantly, Özal challenged such taboos in Turkey as the long-standing Kurdish problem. He opined that all possible solutions to deal with that problem, including federalism, should be freely debated.