Name- Sayan DasGupta (-01816910)

HSTR 468 The Making of Modern Turkey Paper 2 # Fragments of Culture

The successes and contradictions within Turkeys Islamic Movement

The articles We Pray Like You Have Fun and The Islamist Paradox are compared and contrasted
to establish the fact that re emergence of Islam in modern Turkey is legitimized by the commodification
of cultural markers and that this broad populist movement cannot be studied with understanding the
interactions between class, gender, education and experience that play a part in shaping the culture.
The spread of Islam in the 1980s and 1990s was preceded by Turkey opening its markets and ending
years of Kemalist corporatism. With the advent of globalization, consumerism gained greater prominence
in Turkish life. As the state's influence eroded, the Islamic movement became more pronounced in all
facades of life. The secularists often made a conscious effort to paint Islamic youth merely as a
conglomerate of political faith instead of it being an overarching cultural phenomenon with the revival of
religion resembling a new way of life. The movement was often categorized as a critique of modernity.
Ayse Saktanber in her article We Pray Like you Have Fun disagrees with this precept. She
emphasizes that this resurgence was not simply a radical political identity, but rather encompassed
cultural and economic aspects of Turkish life and it was spread through commerce: small media, movies,
Islamic hymns, artwork, and literature and through religious motifs and symbols. With the
commercialization of conventional symbolism, the constant dissemination of the Islamic message became
easier. A political discourse by itself cannot be sufficient to sustain any social practice (Saktanber, 256).
The youth was the biggest consumer of this commodity, reinterpreting the old Islam and creating
new forms of social structure that would elevate their status. Jenny White's similar interpretation of the
Islamic subculture being used by new Islamic activists as a social ladder is also discussed later:
Individuals or groups that desire to change their positioning in society may attempt to do so by

strategically manipulating cultural symbols to vie for status and legitimacy (White, 191). White however
goes deeper into the divide between political Islam and cultural Islam.
But first, we must delve into the factors leading to the re-emergence of Islam in modern Turkey
and how the commodification of Islamic symbols fueled its resurgence. As the state loosened its
restrictions on media, Islamic cinema became the focal point of spreading traditional Muslim values and
roles. This is very similar to the extravagant puppet shows which were a distinct form of entertainment
during the Ottoman period, only to be transformed into a state propaganda mouthpiece of sorts during
CUP rule and early days of the Republic; ironically spreading westernization and secularism. The Islamic
movies often revolve around the suffering of Muslims at the hands of an unjust and repressive regime: the
famous film Minyeli Abdullah was much more explicit in its theme of suffering for the struggle to
maintain one's Muslim faith (Saktanber, 263).
The success of Islamic art forms lie in their closeness to the shared experiences of the people: an
aesthetics of popular life is created which meets the cultural experience and social aspirations of the
people ( Saktanber, 265). Islamic popular culture is a unique refuge for these people who have a desire
for upward mobility and frustrations with the western lifestyle promoted by the dominant few.
Saktanber interviewed three female university students who form a subculture within political
Islam. They had faith on the fact that the conscious form of Islam they practiced was the true path toward
emancipation. They were social achievers, breaking out of their traditional roles, but at the same time
remaining true to their religious customs. They attempted to curve out a niche of being a modern woman
in the western sense, and yet rejecting western lifestyle for religious intellectualism and self-development.
It must be concluded that the re-invigoration of Islam highlighted social contrasts between various
groups like the secularists, the poor masses, the female activists, staunch traditionalists etc., each trying to
preserve their own identity. Jenny White calls this contrast the Islamic paradox: Islamists are faced
with the paradox of trying to create an elite Islamist identity within a populist movement (White, 191).

This brings us to The Islamist Paradox, author Jenny White echoes Saktanber's sentiment that
Islamic identity politics is inseparable from the broader cultural movement fostered by factors like class,
gender, education and experience. The author visits the Virtue Party rally in Izmit to view the struggle
between the rapidly radicalizing populist Islamic movement and the educated activist Muslims (especially
women) who consciously chose their lifestyle, much like the female students interviewed by Saktanber.
A prominent example of this radicalization was the head of the Virtue Party, Recai Kutan's
hesitance to shake White's hands: some Islamists refused to shake hands with women for reasons of
religious purity (White, 200). There was a carefully tailored attempt to maintain the illusion of a
movement empowering women. The press showed photographs of three women (one veiled and the
others not) seated behind the party leaders. In reality, these females would be lost in the sea of men
actually attending the rally.
The popular Erdogan, who was Mayor then, spoke under wild applause and clearly set forth the
Justice Party agenda. He equated democracy with respect and protecting one's rights. There was no
missing the two pillars in his speech: populist appeal and using symbolism for legitimacy. The centerpiece of this argument was of course the right to attend university wearing a headscarf(White,202).
The Virtue Party thrived off the Ottoman past. The rally was a prospering example of Saktanber's
analysis of the importance of consumerism to propagate Islam. The mass commodification of Ottoman
symbolism was used by the party to provide validity to their Islamic agenda and unite the populace
through shared history: The public expression of shared cultural values is an important factor in the
success of contemporary Muslim popular movements because it overcomes, or at least disguises,
community factional and class divisions (White, 209).
The new Muslim movement tries to bridge the gap between elite Islamic activists and rural masses
through symbolism and rhetoric of unity among all in a classless society. White reiterates Saktanber's
previous observation about the power of symbolism and how they were placed to manipulate mass psyche

and legitimize the ruling party. Almost a century ago Ataturk did the same thing with his secularist agenda
with things like the Hat Law. By creating a common Turkish identity among people, often immigrants
from places as distant as the Balkans and the Middle East, Ataturk ensured Turkey would not disintegrate.
The most significant feature of an Islamic rally is the total segregation of the sexes. Another
conscious effort was made to not use any demarcation of social class to solidify the personalized, grassroot nature of the Islamic movement. The Justice Party was clear in its portrayal of Muslim women
uniting in their modesty, a 'virtuous majority' eclipsing elitism: The classless modestly covered women
at the rally provided a severe visual reprimand to the wealthy women in low-cut dresses... (White, 205).
This itself was symbolism at play.
Thus the Virtue party successfully politicized womens clothing, but in the process giving rise to a
deeper conflict between Islamic populism and intellectual activism. Saktanber also identified this divide
when he pointed out that the new Islamic culture cannot be explained without the prism of class and
gender differences. This difference in experience provided people with separate motivations (the
radicalized masses vs. those striving to create an intellectual identity through Islam) to collectively unite
behind political Islam. She calls it oscillation between intellectualism and popular culture.
This conflict starts when the educated crust of young Turkish conservative women claim their brand
of Islam is a conscious practice manifested through reason and research, distinct from traditional roles :
By means of veiling, women tries to free themselves from the given conventional patterns of life and yet
to differ from traditional Muslim women (White, 206). They do not favor cheap radicalism, and hope to
differentiate their elite cultural Islam, wielding their freedom by exercising their right to wear the
headscarf. For them, Islam was a promise of upward social mobility through the eradication of class
barrier.
However, the majority of less-educated, working class, conservative men attending the rally have no
notion of this empowering Islam. They are strict and often primitive in their interpretation of the

traditional female roles in a Muslim household; on modesty, honor, caring for the husband, veiling to
preserve themselves from the 'male gaze', sometimes even in their support for polygamy or having severe
reservations on whether women should be allowed to work outside.
Under such an inherently unequal system, progress is hard to come by. There is a constant push back
against Kemalist secularism and modern reforms. The Welfare Party shut down People's Schools' that
made poor women self-sufficient through handicraft; they are closing the doors of refuges for battered
women organized by feminist groups. With the chances of financial independence slimming down, these
women are being subjected to the vicious cycle of dependence in all walks of life: Many male
activists...shared this desire for Sharia, although each projected onto it his own preoccupation: sharia to
bring legal justice, sharia to stamp out corruption, sharia to stop economic exploitation, sharia to protect
women from exploitation' (White, 213).
This is in stark contrast to the positive image painted by the university students interviewed by
Saktanber. White paints a contrasting picture of educated professional women forced to stay at home after
marriage. Some male activists of the Welfare Party openly claim that, that even educated womens first
priority is husband, home and children, and that they should stop working at marriage or after the birth of
a child (White, 211).
Even though the Virtue/Welfare Party supports working women, in reality women have become a
novelty within the party itself, with no power to influence the continued male dominated practices. The
employees are veiled and segregated. In the rallies token and marginal women are photographed smiling
behind the leadership, while women's path to economic advancement is thin and more and more women
are being subjugated to the traditional male-dependent roles led by their mothers: Change is severely
limited by lack of money and education, but also by conflicting gendered desires that are projected onto
the political screen as unequal hierarchies of power (White, 214).

White talks about how in the early days of the republic, education made it possible for rural people
to get into the bureaucracy. These people had values and lifestyles different from the Kemalist elite. They
were devout Muslims living in a secular state, much less adhered to western cosmopolitanism. It is the
growing influence and political clout of this class of people that contributed to the success of the restored
multi-party system many of which eventually became the organ of Islam. They were responsible for the
creation of an alternative urban culture through their own Islamic institutions: Subordinated groups
resisted economic exploitation by the dominant classes through selective use of Islamic ideology and
institutions (White, 193). Saktanber argues that the popularity of this culture and the rapidity of its
spread were made possible when the youth embraced it.
Thus no matter how much the Islamist parties try to downplay social-economic dynamics in favor
of societal unity and solidarity, it must be concluded that this new Islamic belief and behavior is refracted
through class interests foremost. Identity politics itself is not sufficient enough to mobilize the Islamic
wave. Social hierarchies and aspirations to climb the status ladder, along with conflicting views on gender
play a major role in this mobilization process. This is the Paradox of a new Islamic culture distant from
traditional Muslim values.

Bibliography:
Kandiyoti, Dennis. Ayse Saktanber. Fragments of Culture: The Everyday of Modern Turkey. New York:
I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd., 2002