But everyone thought it was normal because these were sites of creation. When one reads about the days of creation, the week when God was at work, everything, the whole universe looked messy and disorderly. But then a divine order was put to work. Today Turkey also looks messy and disorderly. But then these are the days when a new Turkey is in the making. The old order is being dismantled. For the minds and souls that know no other, this is dissolution. For those who have vision and the perception that old ways and means are inadequate to carry Turkey to a new age, these are interesting times of creation. At the time of the declaration of the republic (1923), several vital decisions had to be made. In ideal-typical terms nations are created around a marketplace or by state/executive prerogative. Some call it by the “power of the sword.” At the time when the Turkish nation-building process started, there was no national market around which a nationwide division of labor would be built. So the founders built a political nation with no economic foundation that connected various groups through a network of relations based on work and production. Conditions of partaking in the marketplace are on the whole decided consensually and rules of economic engagement are voluntary. It can be said that the rule of law grew out of the marketplace.
Nation building in the absence of a national market obliges the founders to use political means. However, decisions as to who will constitute the nation are vital. In the Turkish case, nationhood was based on a clear ethnic choice and Sunni Muslim. Hence, ethnic Turks and Sunni Muslims who accepted this identity without too much resistance became the backbone of the Turkish nation. The rest felt they were left out and in time victimized by practice and laws based on this selective nationality. The reason why there is so much friction and disunity within society is because the main mission of the republic, namely nation building, has not been successful enough.
We have to embark on another process of nation building now that there is a national market. However, this is not the time of nation-markets. The marketplace and capital are internationalized. Forging a nation when the means of production and the workforce (at least the most qualified) is internationalized would not be the same as before. First of all, the diversity within the population that occupies the “national territory” has to be acknowledged and afforded with legal legitimacy. This means their equality must be legally accepted and guaranteed. Their participation in politics and economic activities must be facilitated. Their right to be different provided that they bear allegiance to the state whose adherence to the rule of law and righteousness is acknowledged must be the rule rather than the exception.
What do all these mean? Well it means that a new nation has to be forged that is not the creation of the state, according to the vision of the ruling elite of the “ideal society.” Secondly, it must not be a political nation whose basic quality is uniformity and obedience to the state elite. The nation and the national economy must be thought of as being a part of the international community and global economy. Hence both have to be consonant with international standards. Only then will we cease to be a “state nation” rather than a nation-state that is part of the international community.
