Members of the sample group were graduates of prestigious national or international schools, high-level professionals, upper or upper middle class individuals with a high level of income and modern lifestyles who are deemed to be bearers of republican, modern and secular values.This group distinguishes itself from the rest of society as the standard-bearers of the basic values of the republic and true followers of the founding fathers of the republic. This elite position distances them from diverse social groups who do not look, act, live or think like them. They are the elite, but they do not see themselves as the representatives of the people as much as the embodiment of the republican regime. However, the republic they are referring to no longer exists. It is the republic of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, or at best the regime of the single-party era that survived until 1950.
This is the year when their control over the state and society and the pace of social change began to slip out of their hands. There were no peasants in the cities nor politicians of the countryside crowding the bureaucracy and the legislature. In the absence of competition from below, this elite group focused on their better education and did not follow up on their learning in the years that followed. Their static world did not require improvement over what they learned in their elite schools. So the world slipped by and they remained aloof, if not ignorant, of global developments. They paid more attention to their hobbies and professional careers than innovations and change around them.
They read newspapers that reinforced their motivations and beliefs about life and society and made rounds in smaller conversation groups that further isolated them from the rest of society and global change. They have faint knowledge of the Alevis, the Kurds, ethno-religious minorities and socio-cultural currents in the society, which they perceive as great threats to social stability. They dislike the incumbent Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government and are skeptical about the ongoing Ergenekon case, which they perceive to be a plot against the established order and basic institutions (especially the armed forces) which they see as pillars of the regime.
Their resistance to learning and coming to grips with cultural diversity and social change is due to the fear of losing faith in their ideologies, based on the primacy of the state over the society and the control of the state apparatus by the elite. The reason why they do not like electoral politics is because it acts as a ladle that scrapes the bottom of the social boiler and brings up the scum. The covered women in the presidential or prime minister's mansion are indicative of a world lost to the “commoners” that they had always despised and stayed away from. Interviews reflect the awe and agony of the old elite discovering that the “commoners” are the majority and that they are now the minority. And there is nothing they can do about this scary fact. They began to believe that the(ir) republic is nearing its end.
Another concern they voice is the proliferation of the number of commoners within the bureaucracy. They view this fact as the conquest of bastions they have so far held. “The downtrodden, insignificant people are climbing to positions of power; this is dangerous.” “Putting too much emphasis on religion means our exclusion, and this is because of the AK Party.” “Only an authoritarian regime can put an end to this dangerous development.” “Values like Kemalism, modernity and republicanism are on the decline.” These people [the AK Party] say they have changed, but they are still fundamentalists.”
How big a group is this? According to public opinion polls, about 25-30 percent of the electorate are adamantly against the AK Party. The “republican elite” is among the ranks of this population group. They live like Westerners and were once the vanguards of Westernization in this country. However, in the last few decades, they began to see the West (read the US and the EU) as bad company because they advocate human and minority rights and the power of civil society over state tutelage. All of these modern values are contrary to the “old guard's” values of state control of the society and authoritarian centralism under their guidance.
The intolerance they demonstrate against the “others” is ironic while they accuse the religious people of threatening their way of life. They accuse the Kurds of undermining the monolithic state rather than demanding certain rights that have been denied to them thus far. They even believe that the Armenians, the Greeks and the Jews of the country should go to their respective nation-states if they want further rights. And they are not aware of the chauvinistic and divisive nationalism they espouse.
If the military document that recently (April 2009) surfaced in the media exposing a fresh initiative to bring down the AK Party government and slandering religious civil society initiatives is authenticated, we will have a better idea of the “republican elitist” mentality behind anti-democratic and unlawful actions against the regime.
