The MHP’s nationalism was shaped during the Cold War era. All strands of nationalism had supporters for some time in Turkey. The MHP’s nationalism is a synthesis of a variety of Turkish nationalisms. Today, this nationalism is the biggest obstacle in front of any solution to the Kurdish issue. The MHP is waging the toughest opposition to the democratic initiative. The MHP assumes that if it continues with this strong opposition, it will be able to block the solution and other parties will be influenced by its attitude.
The MHP’s leader
Keeping the nature of the political competition among parties and leaders aside, Devlet Bahçeli is a point of balance both for the MHP and Turkey. Even the artificiality of his booming speeches makes a good contribution to the delicate balance in Turkey. Most importantly, he manages to silence and stop the masses who prefer fighting to talking.
Let us be fair to Bahçeli. He alone put an end to the ethnic animosity that Ergenekon has been trying to produce through massive provocations. Back in 2005, when a group of provocateurs burned a Turkish flag in Mersin -- which later turned out to be the work of Ergenekon -- Bahçeli’s warnings and cautions prevented the people who rushed to the streets in protest from going to further extremes. The circular he issued in late October poured caution and judiciousness into the minds of the easily flammable grass roots of his party in the face of the “anti-democratic interventions,” the provocations by Ergenekon and the calls for fights and brawls. This painstaking care afforded by Bahçeli in this sensitive time Turkey is going through should be acknowledged. Although he booms and shouts and uses harsh and angry sentences, Bahçeli manages to keep a madding crowd away from violence.
The MHP has undergone at least three main changes throughout its 40-year-old past. Of course, the party still has the relics of the strict ideological polarizations of the Cold War era. One of these relics is the disciplined party organization and leadership, which today resemble the oligarchic structures that exist in other parties. The fact that the left wing, one of the sides of conflict 1970s, completely dissolved in the post-Sept. 12, 1980 period while the MHP survived by becoming stronger each day can be explained with reference to the sociological foundations on which it relies. Like anywhere else in the world, nationalism is an ideology that helps the peripheral masses who feel as though they have been cast aside integrate with the center, thereby strengthening social integration. Thanks to Bahçeli’s leadership, this sociological base has expanded. With a success that even the legendary leader of the party, Alparslan Türkeş, cannot parallel, Bahçeli recruited masses to the party, and this can only be explained with reference to his personality profile that is in accord with a party that appeals to the masses.
The democratic initiative
There are a number of reasons why the MHP is conducting such harsh opposition to the democratic initiative. One of the immediate reasons is the recent party congress. Bahçeli knows well that if he does not represent the surging anger of his party’s grass roots, his leadership will be disputable. The real reason is that the MHP wants to make sure that its weight is felt during the initiative process which they think will make progress through negotiations and bargaining. Bahçeli is aware of the fact that this process is a state project approved by the military. When the process is subject to political competition, the MHP steps in to fill the gap vacated by the military. However, the MHP confuses two different things. The democratic initiative is intended both to settle the Kurdish issues and to put an end to terrorism. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) issue is becoming increasingly autonomous from the Kurdish issue, and achieving greater independence. In order to curb the PKK issue, the Kurdish issue must be settled. Those who tended to describe the issue as a terrorism issue for many years are now having difficulty in distinguishing between the two. The PKK problem is one that needs to be solved and the Kurdish problem is one that needs to be ended.
Now that he has managed to preserve his leadership in the party congress held in early November, Bahçeli is now free from the pressures coming from the party’s local organizations with respect to the democratic initiative. Thus, we can expect a certain softening in his opposition. The outcome will be a calmer and more patient initiative policy, or more correctly, opposition to the initiative.
Xenophobia and the MHP’s nationalism
Xenophobia is nothing but modern societies’ search for a “scapegoat.” There are always problems that modern societies face. No one is inclined to assume responsibility for these problems. Instead, they attribute them to other people, accusing them so that they can feel comfortable. To this end, they start to look at those who are different and then become hostile towards them just because they are different. Xenophobia means building an “us” feeling that is exclusively based on the “animosity against the other.” This “us” does not have many common denominators, and even in a social life that is broken up into pieces, everyone lives inside this “us” without ever realizing the “me” inside themselves. When things start to go wrong, the “other” is needed in order to create “us.” And this “other” is chosen from among those who are few in number within the majority. Those who are few in number, those who have diverse lifestyles, those who speak a different language, or those who have a different faith are transformed into scapegoats as the common enemy that will help to create the “us” feeling.
The difference between patriotism and nationalism can be explained in this way. Patriotism is in essence a sort of nationalism. If you accept sharing a common homeland as the value that makes a group of people a nation, and if you place emphasis on the land where everyone lives collectively, this is called patriotism. The word “citizen” implies that nation-states tend to define nation as the people living in the same homeland. Using a word that underlines a locality instead of a group of people is an informed preference.
The MHP is the place where the most heated debates on nationalism are held in Turkey. These debates have flared up again due to the nature of the democratic initiative and the Kurdish issue. Kurds are the subject of the rising xenophobia in Turkey. Interestingly, the emergent xenophobia in Turkey is coming not from the MHP’s nationalism, but from the modern and secular groups in society. The MHP’s nationalism is essentially an ideology of modernization. On the other hand, xenophobia is an attitude specific to the modern world. Those who show hostility to Kurds are individualized groups in society.
Turkey is a place where all sorts of nationalism ranging from fascism to soft patriotism found an opportunity to flourish at some time in the past. As problems increase, the need for an enemy also increases because people tend to get rid of these problems as soon as possible without investigating their causes. The magnitude of the economic crisis is making the settlement of the Kurdish issue all the more difficult. To overcome the hostility against the other -- which rises abnormally as we discuss the democratic initiative today -- we need to dispense with our search for a scapegoat.
The hostility against Kurds which rises in the form of xenophobia in Turkey is not the sort of nationalist reaction that the MHP has produced. The MHP is only trying to ride the political wave that this reaction has created. What is being done is not nationalism, but xenophobia specific to modern societies. Naturally, the strand of patriotism can be supposed to reduce this hostility.
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