1.1 The Origins of CenterâPeriphery Relations
The relations between the center and the periphery have been greatly influential in shaping past and contemporary political and social developments as well as discourses on the self and the other in Turkey. The terms were first applied to the Turkish context by sociologist Ćerif Mardin in âCenterâPeriphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?â published in 1973. In his article, Mardin engages in an historical periodization of centerâperiphery relations which date from the pre-modern stages of the Ottoman Empire to the modern Republic of Turkey in the mid-twentieth century. According to Mardin , the initial tensions between the societyâs center and its periphery were established between the Ottoman Sultan and his officials and Anatoliaâs segmented societies since the pre-modern and early modern periods (Mardin 1973, p. 171). Centerâperiphery relations during the Ottoman Empire entered a new stage in the nineteenth century, when Ottoman officials undertook reforms for modernization in the course of establishing a nation-state. During this period, modernization attempts constituted a strong bureaucratic center as the core of the nation-state that sought to achieve further social transformation: the integration of non-Muslims and peripheral populations to Ottoman nation-state identity (Mardin 1973, p. 175).
The creation of a bureaucratic elite as well as the development of a military and an intellectual generation, which maintained close ties with the French tradition of nation-state building, paved the way for the decline of absolute monarchy, which ended in 1908 with the Young Turk Revolution and the establishment of the constitution (Mardin 1971, p. 201). Between 1908 and 1918, the Young Turk movement continued its attempts at modernization and the empowerment of the nation-state based on Turkish nationalism (ZĂŒrcher 2004, p. 3). Yet this period was marked by a series of traumas experienced by the Empire, particularly with the loss of Balkan territories during the Balkan Wars (1912â1913) and Middle Eastern lands during World War I (1914â1918). During this period, the periphery was a geographical region that the Empire clung to with insistent and costly efforts, a process that ended up with the partitioning of the Empire by the Allies after World War I. This era also signified a transformation in defining the periphery. With the separation of many of its non-Muslim and non-Turkish populations of the Empire, including the Arabs, Armenians and Greeks, Anatolia remained as the central locus for a potential resistance . Eventually, with the occupation of Istanbul in 1918, the central government lost its effectiveness and an alternative national parliament was established in Ankara , which organized the National War of Independence against the occupation of Anatolia (1919â1922). Led by Mustafa Kemal AtatĂŒrk , the national struggle managed to defeat the Allies troops, which resulted in the Treaty of Lausanne in July 1923, determining modern Turkeyâs political territories, and paving the way for the declaration of the Republic on October 23, 1923. By this time, the 623-year-old monarchy had already been removed (in November 1922), a revolutionary step reflecting the governmentâs goals to constitute a modern and a secular democracy .
1.2 New Dynamics of CenterâPeriphery Conflict in the Republican Era
With the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire , the definitions of the center and the periphery were somehow inherited by the newly founded Republic, whose political dynamics were, to a great extent, dominated by the inclinations toward the cultural other. In the early stages of the Republic, there existed two major political groups in the national assembly: the Republican Peopleâs Party (RPP) led by Mustafa Kemal AtatĂŒrk , and the âSecond Group,â which consisted of diverse political and regional members opposing RPPâs secularist tendencies with a religious emphasis (Mardin 1973, p. 180). The Second Group was soon mobilized in the Progressive Republican Party , which was shut down for promoting religious fundamentalism and supporting the Kurdish independence movement after the Kurdish Sheikh Said Rebellion in 1925 (Jenkins 2008, p. 103). The following years solidified Kemalism as the stateâs official ideology , characterized by a state-imposed set of reforms to create a secular, Western-type society (Yavuz 2003, p. 31), with various reform acts including the admission of the civil code, inspired by the Swiss code, in 1926 (Arat 2010, p. 39) and the alphabet reform that switched the Arabic script to Latin in 1928 (Hurd 2009, p. 66). Attempting to establish democracy with a multi-party system, AtatĂŒrk encouraged the foundation of an opposition party in 1930, the Liberal Republican Party . After the Menemen Incident that took place in Izmir, resulting in an uprising of religious fundamentalists murdering a Turkish soldier named Kubilay, the party was considered as a potential alternative through which anti-Kemalist ideology could mobilize and was consequently shut down (Azak 2010, p. 21). The country was ruled by RPP governments until 1950 when the Democrat Party (DP) was victorious in elections, changing the government after a 27-year reign (Carkoglu and Kalaycioglu 2009, p. 18).
The political and social tensions of the early Republican era were greatly influenced by the centerâperiphery dichotomy. According to Mardin (1973, p. 183), during this era the Kemalistsâ core aim was to strengthen the center over the periphery in order to regain the stateâs power to actualize radical transformations on the social sphere. In this regard, the RPP elite failed to connect with the peripheral populations . Although the party acknowledged peasants as âfundamental Turksâ with historical values and traditions that they continue with, the RPP focused on reproducing symbols of nation...