[Lgpolicy-list] [lg policy] Erdogan vs. Ataturk in a battle for Turkey's soul

Wed Dec 10 15:48:52 UTC 2014

 It's Erdogan vs. Ataturk in a battle for Turkey's soul

Analysis: Moves to reintroduce Ottoman language and script reflect a
culture war over Turkish identity
 December 10, 2014 4:45AM ET
 by Joseph Dana <http://america.aljazeera.com/profiles/d/joseph-dana.html>
@ibnezra <http://www.twitter.com/ibnezra>

With his vociferous call on Monday to elevate an older form of Turkish in
the national school curriculum, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is
attempting to dismantle the linguistic cornerstone on which modern Turkey
was built — and challenge the legacy of its master builder. If 20th century
Turkey had been modeled on the obsessively secularist “modernizing” vision
of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Erdogan has revealed the extent of his ambition
to root the country’s future in the image of its imperial Ottoman past.

Erdogan’s comments came on the heels of a decision last weekend by Turkey’s
National Education Council to make Ottoman language classes compulsory for
the religious vocational high schools that train imams and elective for
secular high schools across the country. The council’s position was widely
criticized by Turkey’s secular opposition parties. But Erdogan made clear
where he stands in a Dec. 8 speech in Ankara.

“Whether they want it or not, Ottoman [language] will be learned and taught
in this country,” Erdogan said. “There are those who are uneasy with this
country’s children learning Ottoman.”

The Ottoman language, which was abolished by Ataturk’s decree in 1928, is a
predecessor to modern Turkish. It was written in Arabic script, and can
still be found on monuments and buildings throughout Turkey. Added Erdogan,
“They say, ‘Will we teach children how to read gravestones?’ But a history
and a civilization is lying on those gravestones."

Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have never concealed
their intention to uphold traditional notions of piety and establish a
regional power base that would act as a counterweight to Western influence
in the Middle East and Central Asia. The government lifted a decades old
ban on Muslim headscarves
<http://rt.com/news/190032-turkey-headscarf-schools-ban-amendment/> in
state high schools in September, and Erdogan’s political allies on the
education council recently voted to ban bartending classes
<http://www.todayszaman.com/national_council-decides-to-axe-bartending-classes-at-tourism-high-schools_366225.html>
in
tourism-industry vocational high schools. Last Thursday, Erdogan lashed out
at the United Nations Security Council for being a “Christian body”
<http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.630124>that didn’t properly
represent the interests of  Muslim nations.

But changing the Turkish language is different; it is striking at the heart
of the grand transformation ushered in by Ataturk in the 1920s. When
Ataturk came to power as the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of World
War I, the language spoken in Turkey had been a rich tapestry of Arabic,
Turkish and Farsi woven together in flowing Arabic script. As part of
Ataturk’s scheme to “modernize” Turkey, Arabic script was replaced with the
Latin alphabet. Arabic and Farsi words were systematically replaced with
German and French.

All of Ataturk's reforms, from the political reorganization of the empire
to the adoption of the Saturday-Sunday Sabbath, pivoted Turkey towards
European patterns of life. But the language reforms were the ones most
profoundly felt every day. Seemingly overnight, an entire society was
rendered illiterate and forced to rewrite its stories in an unfamiliar
European script. Decades later, modern Turkish is a rich and expressive
language, reaching its apotheosis in 2006 with the awarding of the Nobel
Prize in literature to Orhan Pamuk for his novels written in modern Turkish.

With parliamentary elections slated for early 2015, Erdogan’s embrace of
Ottoman Turkish is a preview of how he intends to spend the political
capital he has accumulated over the past decade in power. If the
AKP maintains its parliamentary mandate, Erdogan will not face elections
for another four years and will have ample opportunity to make more
fundamental changes to the way Turkey is governed.

The past year has seen Erdogan confronted by protesters angry with his
increasingly authoritarian leadership and the ongoing corruption scandal
that has embroiled his closest political confidants. His relationship with
the West remains deadlocked over how to handle the crisis in Syria and
Iraq. Still, Erdogan’s party won crucial municipal elections across the
country and he became Turkey’s first directly elected president. He is now
the most powerful Turkish politician since Ataturk, and is setting his
sights on reorienting Turkish society through conservative educational
reforms.

Turkey’s opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has criticized the
proposed language policy as yet another sign that Erdogan is stuck in the
past
<http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/ottoman-language-classes-to-be-introduced-whatever-they-say-vows-erdogan.aspx?pageID=238&nid=75329&NewsCatID=338>.
“Even the Ottomans would not make these decisions,” CHP Deputy
Parliamentary Group Chair Akif Hamzaçebi said on Dec. 8. But nostalgia has
always been a part of Erdogan’s political appeal. His regular complaints
that pious Turks are “subjected to all kinds of criticism, insult and
abuse” serve to remind Erdogan’s base that he remains, at heart, a son of
the Anatolian heartland.

In his canny use of cultural codes, however, Erdogan has much in common
with Turkey’s great modernizer. Ataturk was often photographed in public
drinking raki, a popular anise-flavored alcoholic drink, to demonstrate
that secularism had come to the nascent Turkish state. Erdogan has crafted
a different image — in the grandiose presidential palace he recently
constructed and in the remaking of Istanbul as an imperial city through myriad
mega-infrastructure projects
<http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/12/turkey-erdogan-palacescandal.html>
ranging
from a new five-runway airport to a third bridge spanning the Bosphorus.

For much of the 20th century, the term Ottoman carried a negative
connotation. The Ottoman Empire had been the "sick man of Europe"
demolished by the Kemalists in order to build the modern Turkish state.
Attempts to reconnect with Ottoman history, especially in literature by writers
such as Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar
<http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/03/19/how-the-time-regulation-institute-became-a-global-bestselling-book/>
and
Pamuk, were viewed as suspect, overly romantic and obsessed with failure.
Erdogan has challenged all of that, recasting everything Ottoman as a
source of pride for Turks and even as a symbolic inspiration for his
foreign policy. His careful attempts to rebrand Turkish identity as rooted
in Ottoman glories cast Erdogan as a latter-day sultan challenging
Ataturk’s once unassailable position as the father of the nation. And it’s
on that symbolic battlefield that the latest struggle over the Turkish
language will be waged.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/12/10/remodelling-turkeyinerdogansimage.html

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