Conspiracy Theories in Turkey

Conspiracy Nation

Doğan Gürpınar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367727703
• eBook ISBN: 9780429670466
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Conspiracy theories are no longer just a curiosity for afficionados but a politically salient theme in the age of Trump, Brexit and "fake news". One of the countries that has been entrapped in conspiratorial visions is Turkey, and this book is the first comprehensive survey in English of the Turkish conspiratorial mind-set.

It provides a nuanced overview of the discourses of Turkish conspiracy theorists and examines how these theorists argue for and legitimize their worldview. The author discusses a broad range of conspiracy theories, including some influenced by Kemalist and Islamist perspectives as well as those of the ruling Justice and Development Party. The most influential authors, books, references and images within the conspiracist milieu are all examined in detail.

This book will be an important source for scholars interested in extremism in Turkey and the societal and political impact of conspiracy theories.

1 The Turkish conspiratorial setting

The national narrative

This chapter provides an outline of the underpinnings and the cultural and ideological frames of the Turkish conspiratorial universe and its master narrative. Comparable to other national patterns, Turkish conspiracy theories (CTs) are deeply grounded within a specific historicity and discursive space. Their emergence, dissemination and preponderance are possible only if they comply with preexisting ideas and sentiments. Rather than providing a list of CTs, this chapter presents a brief overview of the making of modern Turkey and the unfolding incipient Turkish nationalist mind. Examining and deliberating on the traumas revolving around the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the chapter explains the origins and fantasies of Turkish nationalism in pursuit of lost past grandeur under the shadow of the imperial retreat.¹

This discursive framework is built on the Turkish nationalist metanarrative, the rise of which, like any other incipient nationalist narrative, was based on an array of preconceptions in which Turkishness has been perceived as an organic and fixed entity throughout the course of history. Nations were considered as scientifically proven organic entities with their own lifetimes, rises and falls, with interests that would inevitably clash with others in a zero-sum world entangled within a permanent Darwinian struggle to survive and dominate. Time is merely another dimension in the universe of eternal nations, and the nation is an unchanging entity throughout the course of history against which threats are also perpetual and omnipresent. In the Turkish account, Value-loaded historical references, such as the Crusades, the Holy Alliance and Byzantium, serve to corroborate and affirm these premises, demonstrating the perpetuity of animosities.² These preconceptions and fantasies of nationhood lead to a conspiratorial framing of not only current politics but also history, positing historical episodes and themes within the larger conspiratorial setting.

The demise of an empire: the Ottoman legacy

It is a fact that the Ottoman Empire collapsed. This is not a conspiracy theory but a basic truth, yet from the armchair historian’s perspective with the hindsight of a century, the causes of its demise seem very different to those propounded by the Young Turks (and later by the Kemalists). The Ottoman Empire epitomized the golden age and the zenith of Turkishness in the eyes of the early generation of Turkish nationalists. This past glory assured its potential, despite the present-day gloom and promised national rejuvenation at a time of national decay. Once militarily invincible, the empire deteriorated for many reasons that were economic, cultural, intellectual and military in nature. The first Turkish nationalists (who were modernists) laid the blame for the present-day backwardness on the self-serving, rotten Ottoman state elite, whom they believed had been corrupted by sycophancy of the court, yet it was not only the Ottomans who were to blame, as other conspirators also contributed to the imperial deterioration. It is also necessary to be aware of all these if one is to understand today and tomorrow, and remain attentive to the enemies that are eternal and perpetual. This national meta-narrative that was inculcated in the late 19th century, at a time of imperial decay, was followed by the imperial collapse in a few decades.

This perspective presumed that the Ottoman Empire had been partitioned as a result of the collaboration between the Christian/imperialist powers and the political unreliables within. The nation’s foes were thus twofold, being international and domestic: the international foes were (no surprise) the great European powers – first and foremost arch-imperialist Britain (which, in fact, does not corroborate with the historical truth, as it was Russia that posed the greatest threat to the Ottoman Empire), while domestically, the enemies of the nation were the non-Muslims, who were being steered and manipulated by their political and religious leadership; ethnic separationists, including Muslims; and rootless liberal (cosmopolitan) intellectuals who had fallen under the spell of Western propaganda, along with other subversives. All the enemies of the empire were thus amalgamated, tightly associated and rendered as extensions and accomplices of the overarching global plot. Denying them any political and ideological agency, domestic enemies were perceived not only as willing fifth columnists but also as on the payroll of a mastermind.

Unsurprisingly, the non-Muslims, as the usual suspects, were affirmed as the main enemies within the nation’s borders, harboring agendas, predispositions and interests that not only complied with but also collectively contradicted the interests of the Ottoman state. The non-Muslims grew rich throughout the 19th century, acting as middlemen between the incoming European merchants and the local peasantry.³ Their complicity with the encroaching European capitalism ensued their self-interests diverge from those of the Ottoman state. Their enrichment was evidence of their treachery in the eyes of those who considered the economy to be a zero-sum game, presuming that the non-Muslims should have grabbed the wealth of the Muslims in the first instance.⁴ The elusive “cosmopolitans” (kozmopolitler) also had a share in the Ottoman retreat, as by being ideologically depraved and unreliable, they were influential in the dissemination of perilous ideas with the potential to weaken and corrupt national awareness and vigilance.

The 19th-century Ottoman reformation (known as the Tanzimat era, initiated in 1839) had sought to create an inclusive political Ottoman community based on civic principles, the assurance of basic rights and liberties and the maintenance of sustainable imperial peace and order.⁵ Yet the project failed for many reasons, not only because the Ottoman state and bureaucracy were reluctant to implement the due measures and to grant and expand civil rights but also because no sense of affinity could be forged between the two parties. The more rights given or conceded, the more rights the non-Muslims demanded.⁶ This was both a perception and a reality and couldn’t be otherwise unless a sense of Ottoman common super-identity could be spawned.⁷ It was, however, beyond the reach of the insufficiently flexible Ottoman state elite to engender an Ottoman political community and a political contract.

The empire thus became a battleground for a number of militarized separationist movements, including the Armenians in Eastern Anatolia and the Bulgarians in Macedonia. Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909) opted to abandon the relatively lenient policies of his reformist predecessors and to apply brazen iron-fisted policies that crushed the Armenian insurgency but failed gravely in Macedonia.⁸ The distrust between the non-Muslim communities and the ruling elite could not be overcome and had become insurmountable by the late 19th century, while the troubles in Macedonia grew as the Ottoman gendarmerie failed to respond effectively to the notorious and violent Bulgarian rebels (known as the committadji) who had taken effective control of the Macedonian countryside. This they had achieved despite being countered also by Greek and Serbian groups who were voicing their own claims on Macedonia based on their ethnic presence in the region. In short, the Ottoman state failed to wield authority over its sovereign territories. The sultan Abdülhamid II not only ruled the empire with an iron fist but also introduced a pervasive culture of conspiracy. Suspecting subversion at every instance, he designed a surveillance state obsessed with collecting information by informants within the empire and by embassies abroad, further feeding his mistrust.⁹ Hamidian culture of conspiracy was inherited and appropriated by Young Turks who had dethroned the sultan.

As the unruly Macedonia continued to be a crucible of sedition, the brightest young cadets, upon graduation from the Ottoman Military Academy, were sent to the Third Army based in Salonica to fight and subdue the Bulgarian militancy. These officers on duty nurtured a love/hate relationship with their nemeses, being spellbound by the brutal efficiency and discipline of the Bulgarian guerillas and their self-taught erudition, patriotism, selflessness, commitment and readiness to sacrifice themselves for their nation.¹⁰ As the Ottoman state continued failing in its efforts to establish order and governance, the Russian czar Nicholas II and the British king Edward VII met in Reval (Tallinn) and agreed to launch and international intervention. This move unnerved young Ottoman cadets who subsequently rebelled against Sultan Abdülhamid II to upend the otherwise imminent Ottoman retreat from the Balkan lands. The young officers had long been critical of the sultan for the enduring miserable state of the empire, believing that it was his lack of capacity, resolve and patriotic commitment, as well as those of his cronies – the octogenarian pashas with no modern education, who were in complete contrast to the well-trained young officers from the military academy and their Prussian instructors – who were responsible for this humiliation. They further believed that once the cohort of young officers took over the Ottoman state, they would restore order, deliver efficient governance and assure military prowess.

One recurrent contention among the Young Turks in opposition revolved around the possibility of cooperation with non-Muslim dissidents against Abdülhamid II, while a second intra-debate involved the acceptability of any possible collusion with the European powers to overthrow the despised sultan. In a congress convened in Paris in 1902, the flamboyant Prince Sabahaddin advocated cooperation with the Armenian Dashnaks, who were demanding autonomy and expansion of civil rights rather than independence, as the Armenians were not in the majority over any sizeable territory. Yet Sabahaddin’s efforts remained marginal and ineffective; as for the overwhelming majority of the Young Turks, the anti-sultanic dissent was an intra-Turkish matter, and such proposals were dismissed outright.¹¹

The early Young Turks pursued neither an ethnic agenda nor priorities, and many of the Young Turks were not actually ethnic Turks, coming from Albanian, Kurdish or Circassian backgrounds. Yet, regardless of their ethnic identity, they perceived the survival of the imperial center and its continuation as intact and firmly centralized as the only possible alternative to total destruction and doom for their well-being as any alternative would ensure Christian preponderance. For these reasons, the endurance of the dynasty was imperative for them, not because they were monarchists but because no other scenario could secure and sustain their preponderance. They thus became intransigent champions of the increasingly Turkified, centralized and discriminatory empire.¹² This was a modern nationalized empire, having transformed from a premodern one in which ethnic loyalties were deemed irrelevant as long as political loyalty was assured, into one in which ethnic loyalties mattered, given the failure of the empire to generate other, more solid allegiances.¹³

For these reasons, after Abdülhamid II’s deposition, following a swansong of Ottomanism laden for a few months with romantic appeal and optimism, the Young Turks in power drifted toward radical Turkist and authoritarian policies, despite their hitherto rhetoric of rights, liberties and freedom.¹⁴ For the Young Turks, it was crystal clear that non-Muslims were only heinously exploiting the rights and liberties rhetoric while deviously pursuing agendas that were in diametric opposition to the interests of the imperial center and the gullible Turks. It was only ethnic Turks whose self-interests coalesced with those of the imperial center, as all the other ethnic groups sought to look after their own interests in a prospective imperial collapse, and this would bring the national obliteration of Turks, who would be defenseless at the hands of avenging enemies. For this reason, the Young Turks’ gravitation toward Turkish nationalism could be considered as being based on the incompatibility of the priorities, concerns and allegiances of the imperial center with those of non–Turkish Ottoman ethnic groups.¹⁵ Only the Turks had sufficient reason to maintain allegiance to the imperial center, which resulted in severe mistrust and resentment towards the non-Turkish communities, who were considered no less than traitors and therefore deserving of their fate.

The Young Turks also had good reason not to trust the European powers. Britain was mistrustful of the Young Turks, seeing them as the henchmen of the Germans, and had long perceived the Ottoman Empire to be a power on the verge of collapse, resulting in a reluctance to invest. The British, rather, sought to increase their military buildup, first, to counter the impending Russian advancement and, later, to “contain German restlessness”¹⁶ on the southern tier of the Ottoman Empire, from the Persian Gulf to Egypt. The imperialist European powers were already preparin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The Turkish conspiratorial setting: the national narrative
• 2 The Islamist counternarrative
• 3 The neo-Kemalist conspiracy theories (2000–2010)
• 4 Deep state: reality, discourse, conspiracy theory
• 5 Islamist conspiracy theories in power (2002– )
• Conclusion
• Index