Turkey in the maze of ideologies

It is clear that today classical ideologies, such as liberalism and conservatism, are declining in the context of globalization and the widespread destruction of the institutional structures that are so familiar to us, though they appeared typical only at the turn of the 20th century (the nation-state, society and public policy).  The need for new ideas, which would correspond to the new social reality, becomes evident in this situation. This is particularly true in countries where the expansion of Western values inevitably conflicted with local traditionalism.

 Thus, in the Middle East, Iran (after the revolution in 1979) and, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia appealed to religious identity. A similar phenomenon can now be observed in the Maghreb countries. Countries where the opposition between the old and the new is not that acute (i.e. Turkey)  find themselves at a crossroads. In the Turkish case, we are talking about three ideological directions - traditional Pan-Turkism and Pan-Islamism, as well as a younger Turkish nationalism.

The first two ways of state and social orientation took shape in the second half of the 19th century and developed in parallel, competing with each other. In Ottoman times, pan-Islamism often outweighed the pan-Turkic aspect, because it allowed to smooth ethnic conflicts in a multinational empire. For example, Turkey entered World War I under the slogan of a jihad against the "infidels."

Yet the religious component, as well as the idea of Muslim unity, had never been very strong in Turkish society. This is connected to the peculiarities of ethnogenesis (the initially weak Islamization of Turkic nomads) and the relatively early for the region (at the end of the 18th century) penetration of Europeanization into the Ottoman Empire. In addition, a strong incentive for the turn to the Turkic vector was the fact that the Turks were surrounded by a polyethnic environment when, in the words of European authors, even at home the Turks had to use at least two languages.

The collapse of the Empire after the First World War and the economic intervention of the great powers made the Turks ready for new ideas. At this time of socio-political upheavals, Turkish nationalism came to
 the fore; it stemmed from pan-Turkism, but was in fact in opposition to it. Instead of uniting all Turks into one political body it proposed the idea of a homogeneous Turkish state. In this case, the old concept of Islamic identity was perceived by the reformers as "colourless and having no reference to nationality." Thus, spiritual integration gave way to integration in the secular sphere.

The rhetoric of pan-Turkism came back in the early 1990s. Thus, in February 1992, Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel called for the creation of a Turkic world "from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China." Several organizations appeared to implement this thesis, including the Turkish Agency for Cooperation and Development, the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the Turkic states, the Association of Turkish culture and arts. Significantly, pan-Islamic slogans have not been developed, as Turkey did not want to give up on integration with other Turkic people just because they were not Muslims.

The revival of pan-Turkic ideas not coincidentally was connected with the break-up of the Soviet Union. The Turkic republics of Central Asia were at first temporarily politically disoriented, and then found themselves at the center of the geopolitical competition of four forces - Nato, Russia, China and the Islamic world. Further events of the 1990s showed resistance of the Soviet atheistic tradition in one country (Kazakhstan), and a clash of civilizations, with unpredictable consequences for other countries (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan). In this period, Turkey for the first time tried to become a foreign partner to solve the complex problems in Central Asia.

Initially, Turkey's presence was based largely in the humanitarian field, in particular, the opening of schools (both high schools and universities) with a Turkish educational component. There were preferences for students from Turkic countries in Turkish universities. Out of  more than 2000 projects implemented in the 1990s by the Agency for Cooperation and Development, 63% were in education and culture.

The political leadership in Turkey in the last decade of 20th century included mainly supporters of nationalism (such as Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit) and Turkism (Suleyman Demirel), except for a brief dominance of supporters of Islamic orientation in 1996-1997. They also wanted to take the path of constructive cooperation and parity interaction with Europe. Thus, during the premiership of Tansu Chiller (1993-1996), a trade agreement with the EU was signed.

For Nato (and the U.S. in particular) the turn of Turkey to Turkic ideas was not the best option, but generally was compatible with the desire to prevent a distortion of Turkey towards the Islamic world. This attitude of the Turkish leadership provoked far greater concern in Central Asia. It is known that Uzbek President Islam Karimov recalled 2500 Uzbeks students from Turkey. In this sense, Turkey's economic instability in the 1990s played into the hands of the Central Asian republics, which became more estranged from Turkey after their stabilization.

Summing up the ideological Millennium, Turkey was disappointed with the low results of cultural integration at stake. Furthermore, the increasing Turkish activity in Central Asia and the rise of far-right organizations both in Turkey and in the large Turkish diaspora in Europe threatened to worsen relations with the EU and the U.S. Russia was also showing concerns about it.

The beginning of the 2000s was marked by the renewed rivalry of pan-Turkic and Islamic ideas: after the coming to power of Recep Erdogan and Abdullah Gul, the religious vector again started prevailing in ideology, while cooperation with Central Asia has become much more pragmatic. According to some estimates, direct Turkish investment in Kazakhstan in mid-2000 amounted to $1 billion. To Uzbekistan for the period 1997-2003 it amounted to about 0.25 billion dollars. Turkish business in Central Asia became zoned and very versatile. In Kazakhstan, it is present in the largest segments of the construction and telecommunications sectors, in Kyrgyzstan in the food industry. On the other hand, at the same time Turkey was actively trying to become an economic and strategic corridor to the east for the EU and Nato, linking (not least by means of transport of hydrocarbons), the Central Asian and Caucasian regions under its auspices.

Obviously, going from one to the other ideological currents, Turkey aims to simultaneously sit on several chairs, maintaining good relationships and strategic partnerships with all the surrounding forces. In this case, if the former pan-Turkism caused concerns among potential allies, the current religious rhetoric is not entirely supported in Turkey itself by Turks.


 It remains unclear why the ideological arsenal of the Turkish government does not have a civic nationalism based on universal European values, which were once planted in Turkey by Mustafa Kemal. After all, the current co-existence of unproductive Turkic and Islamic ideas requires, on the one hand, ongoing financial support for stakeholder relations in the Caucasus and Central Asia and, on the other, active diplomatic and political maneuvering in the dialogue with the Middle East, Russia, Nato and the EU. This multi-vectoral composition looks like a maze, and a maze is a place where one can get lost.