The Impacts of Iran’s Islamic Revolution upon Islamism in Turkey(1)

Introduction:

There is no doubt that one of the major political and social changes in the twentieth century and specifically in its last decades, was the phenomenon of Islamism and the resurgence of political ideas based on the holy religion of Islam and its teachings. The scientific and journalistic bodies referred to this movement which specifically gained extraordinary power and speed from the late 1970s and after Iran’s Islamic Revolution, by different names such as Islamic fundamentalism, radicalism and so on. Likewise, many people and centres are making efforts to theorize and apply different theoretical and practical research. The notable issue is that before the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, we also witnessed the activities of the Islamic movements in other countries. Nevertheless, after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, apart from the emergence of some new movements and groups, we witnessed faster, more regulated and powerful Islamic movements, in most Muslim countries and especially in the Middle East region. The Arab Spring too, which happened in the last two years in some countries, depicts some kind of influence of Iran’s Islamic Revolution on these popular movements.

In the meantime, Turkey, which almost 99% of its population are Muslims, is a case worth being studied due to its different reasons. At the beginning of the 1990s, some political analysts referred to Turkey as a successful government epitome desired by the West for the other Islamic countries. According to them, the political system of Turkey which had promoted secularism and laicism for almost eight decades had taken the issue of religion under its control and had prevented the religious forces from threatening the American interests and those of the internal allies. While a series of changes and matters which took place in this country from the mid-1990s depicted that the efforts of the secular elements in Turkey for separating religion from politics and the full secular sovereignty upon the different aspects of people’s lives, not only failed to weaken the religion but also led to the increase of its appeal among the different strata of people.

Following the changes such as the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Islamist groups and parties of Turkey gained extraordinary popularity. The resurgence of the Islamists in the political arena of Turkey in the last two decades despite the pressure from the military forces and the rigidity of the secular structure that ruled this country necessitated the study of this subject and the influential factors upon it as a need for the country’s scientific and political circles.

In this research, other than talking about the process of the movement of Islamism in Turkey after the death of Atatürk, we have also endeavoured to answer this question; what impact did the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 have in the development of Islamism and Islamist movements in Turkey?

1. The history of Islamism in Turkey: From the time of Atatürk until now

In Turkey, Islamism is a deep-rooted course. The Turks consider themselves to be the inheritors of the Ottoman Empire which used to rule a large part of the Islamic countries for many centuries. Before embracing the religion of Islam, they were considered to be desert tribes and neither had any particular history nor civilization. Nonetheless, when they embraced the religion of Islam and joined the Abbasid government, they gradually developed and attained remarkable success by adopting Islam as their religion.

The powerful Seljuq Empire and the great Ottoman Empire are some of the results of this course. Based on such authority of the Turkish Muslims, presently, they consider the origin of their history and real identity to date back from the time that they embraced the religion of Islam. During the six-hundred-year rule of the Ottoman Empire, the religion of Islam and its teachings used to play a vital role as a significant part of the life of the Turks; this is in such a manner that even the most important decision of the government was supposed to be verified by the highest religious authority, that is, the Shaykh al-Islam. Although most of the decisions did not have a real religious basis, however, they implied that religious regulations played a central and important role. (Ahmad Yaqi, 2010: 30-110)

This process continued until the republican period (until the time that Atatürk, by taking over the affairs, struggled to run the Republic of Turkey with the focus on nationalism and Westernization). He used to view religion as a hindrance towards his goals and made great efforts by use of force and pressure to completely extinguish Islamism amongst the people and create a pure secular republic. During the reign of Atatürk, the decline of Islamism in Turkey is apparently seen. However, an interesting point is that the Islamic movement during this reign and several years after this reign carried out its struggles and activities on an underground level due to the fear of the dictatorial rule in Turkey. (Kuseh, 2000: 8)

This reality implied that despite the extensive pressure on Islamism, again General Mustafa Kemal Atatürk did not manage to eradicate this significant part from their identity and erase it from the social scene. A little while after the death of Atatürk, a relative space of freedom was created in Turkey and during the reign of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, the Islamic movement reemerged in the society and most of the Islamic rites returned to the social scene. Even though with the coups of 1960 and 1971, the military showed that they are steadfast in preserving the idealistic goals, nonetheless, this matter must be noted that despite the presence of the coups and the closure of the Islamist groups and the imprisonment of their leaders, the Islamic movements did not stop their activities and went ahead with their goals by new methods and in different forms. (Zara, 2008: 100-220)

With the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, the Islamists stepped into the Turkish society with great confidence and doubled their efforts. This matter developed to such an extent that it led to unrest and the holding of several gatherings in Turkey; this was in such a manner that the military carried out a coup in 1980 due to the feeling of uneasiness and ruled the country for almost three years. (Zara, 2008: 100-220)

The limitations that were created by the military after this coup towards the Islamists and the changes in the constitution all implied the great fear of the secular government from the inception of another revolution in Turkey similar to the Iranian revolution. Needless to say, the secular government also concluded that they must offer some religious needs and cultural demands to the Muslims to advance some of their aims. From 1983 onwards, we witness the political environment in Turkey steadily opening up to a great extent and the democratic values gained significant growth. (Hakimpour 2010: 131). This matter helped the resurgence of Islamism; this was because the experience from the several coups and the forces from the secular institutions had led the Islamists to represent the political parties in the election competition in the form of political parties.

“The continuity of this process resulted in the Islamist groups being able to turn into the most powerful and biggest groups in Turkey in a very short period (the Welfare (Refah) Party in the 1990s) and Islamism gained legal and formal aspects in this country; this was such a way that with the significant number that the Islamist representatives had in the parliament, they managed to elect an Islamist Prime Minister named Necmettin Erbakan. (Kazemi, 2010).

Although his reign did not take very long and was overthrown by a military coup, however, it showed that the capacity of the Islamists in this country had reached such an extent that they could count on the number of their parliamentary seats. A matter that the internal and external political experts had deemed an impossible feat. Apart from the fact that the military coup of 1997 failed to reduce the power and ambition of the Islamic movement, it also made this group continue with their activities with more precision and experience. This matter clearly showed its fruits in the parliamentary elections of 2002; it happened in a such way that for the first time, an Islamist party won the most seats in the parliament. This matter went further to such a level that after a little while, the representatives of this group began to explicitly talk about the right of people to religious freedom and amendment of the constitution. Likewise, they implemented special efforts to materialize their words.

The overwhelming re-election of the Islamists in the parliamentary elections of 2007 and after that the election of Abdullah Gül, an Islamist, as the President of Turkey amidst the amazement and protest of some of the secular institutions, was a confirmation stamp that Islamism had extraordinary power and influence and special popularity in Turkey. This matter was again consolidated when the Justice and Development Party won the parliamentary elections of 2012 for the third time.

In general, by considering the above-mentioned explanations, the Islamic movements in Turkey passed different stages which can be generally categorized into four stages:

One: The stage of scattered popular combats and uprisings (the stage of political and single party predominance) from 1933-1950.

Two: The stage of parliamentary and political struggles (the stage of opening up of the political environment and warming up of the electoral competitions) from 1950-1994.

Three: The awakening stage for the sake of reaching the peak of sovereignty. (Premiership and presidency) 1998-2002.

Four: Moving and achieving the peak of sovereignty. From 2002 until now. (Rastgar, 2006: 34)

1. The realm of the Islamic political groups and parties

Just as we had mentioned earlier, Islamism in Turkey achieved more development in the 1970s in comparison to the other decades. To cite an example, the Islamist Welfare Party (RP) under the leadership of Necmettin Erbakan, managed to form a coalition government for the first time in the history of Turkey. “This process gained even more progress with the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. The slogans of the Islamic Revolution for fighting against oppression and injustice were taken into consideration by the Islamists and even the radical leftists” (a dialogue with Marjaninejad on July 16, 2011, in Tehran); this was in a way that Sabri Sayari explicitly states: “The leftists in Turkey were greatly influenced by the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution and the fall of the American pro-regime in this country. They have softened their positions on Islam and the Islamists.” (Sayari, 1997: 106)

Nevertheless, the nature of the Islamic and religious system that was formed by the Iranians under the leadership of Imam Khomeini immensely influenced the awareness and confidence of the Islamists in Turkey. The religious rule in Iran eradicated the long-standing feeling of an inferiority complex against the laicism and the leftist forces and also eliminated the mentality that had limited religion in the moral conscience of people; a mentality that used to consider any kind of social and political activity and the formation of a government based on a religious platform in the present world, to be impossible.

In reality, during the late 1970s and the early 1980s, we have witnessed that the Islamist movements in Turkey have activated their sleeping potential from a dormant state to an actual state under the influence of the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. It compelled the Turkish military to use tools of violence and coups to block their ways. This violence also originated from the secular government.

On the verge of the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the Turkish officials were very worried about the changes taking place in the neighbouring countries. These officials –

mostly military – believed that Iran’s Islamic Revolution will end to the detriment of Turkey and the Western block Other than that, the fear of Iran’s disintegration and the increase of the influence of the Soviets were among the worries of the Turkish officials. Of course, the social-democratic government under the leadership of Mustafa Bülent Ecevit (The Republican People’s Party) stepped forward in a move to open ties with the revolutionary government of Iran and strengthening the relationships of the two countries. Nevertheless, the defeat of Ecevit in the grand parliamentary elections of 1979 and the coming into power of Süleyman Demirel, who, in regards to the remarks of Imam Khomeini who had stated: “If the Muslim countries including Turkey are not under intense pressure, they will opt for an Islamic government,” reacted by recalling the families of the Turkish diplomats in Iran. (Mohammadi, 2006: 377)

2. Holding demonstrations on al-Quds Day and the preventive action by Turkish troops

By paying heed to the developments of holding al-Quds Day in Turkey and its impacts on the Islamic awakening of the people and also the reactions of the secular government against them, can be considered as the most influential day in the Islamist movement of the Turkish people. The demonstrations on al-Quds Day on September 2, 1980, in some cities including Bursa (the place where Imam Khomeini lived in exile in 1965, and Sakarya and Konya (the burial site of Mawlana Rumi and one of the vital centres for extremism laws in Turkey) were conducted in a very spectacular manner. This happened in a manner that these demonstrations and the Islamic slogans which were against secularism were concrete attacks towards the basic foundation of the regime. Concerning this important ceremony; it is necessary to note this point that first of all, almost 500,000 people took part in those demonstrations.

3. The coup of September 1980

The matter of coups was no longer a new thing in Turkey. Nonetheless, the coup of 1980 took place under special conditions and was different from the other coups. This coup took place on September 12, 1980, under the leadership of General Kenan Evren, exactly six days after the demonstrations in Konya. In a book that was published after the coup, by making great emphasis on the ever-increasing progress of the religious forces, the military coup, considered the demonstrations on September 6 in Konya, showed the consequence of forming a religious government and the elimination of laicism. They explicitly declared that they carried out the coup to prevent the inception of an Islamic Revolution, similar to what happened in Iran since there was a group of people who were trying to prepare its preliminary foundations. The people carrying out the coup even attacked the Iranian embassy and clearly announced on the Turkish television that they had attacked the Iranian embassy and had found documents there that showed that the Iranians had a serious relationship with the Islamist political movements in Turkey and were seeking to carry out a revolution in Turkey. (Namur Haqqiqi, 1993: 35)

Nonetheless, suppose we don’t say that Iran’s Islamic Revolution was the only influential factor in the 1980 coup, we can say that the problem is that military move to strike and the bloodless coup never fully extinguished the Islamic potential of the people. This is because we have witnessed the coming into power of the Islamists in the following years.

Archive of The Thought of the Islamic Revolution