The Mosque as a Divisive Symbol in the Turkish Political Landscape

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The Mosque as a DivisiveSymbol in the Turkish PoliticalLandscapeSefa Şimşek a , Zerrin Polvan a & Tayfun Yeşilşerit a

a Yeditepe University , Istanbul, TurkeyPublished online: 25 Jan 2007.

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Turkish StudiesVol. 7, No. 3, 489–508, September 2006

ISSN 1468-3849 Print/1743-9663 Online/06/030489-20 © 2006 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/14683840600891166

The Mosque as a Divisive Symbol in the Turkish Political Landscape

SEFA

[SCEDIL]

IM

[SCEDIL]

EK, ZERRIN POLVAN & TAYFUN YE

[SCEDIL]

IL

[SCEDIL]

ERIT

Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey

Taylor and Francis LtdFTUR_A_189039.sgm10.1080/14683840600891166Turkish Studies1468-3849 (print)/1743-9663 (online)Original Article2006Taylor & Francis73000000September 2006Sefa[Scedil]im[scedil][email protected]

A

BSTRACT

This study explores the impact of two controversial mosque projects. The firstproject was intended for Göztepe Park and the second for Taksim Square in Istanbul. Theseprojects are considered in the broader context of a general Islamist bid over the last fewdecades to re-conquer the Turkish political landscape and public opinion. These attempts onthe part of Islamist movements reflect their desire for legitimacy, power, prestige, and elitestatus that were monopolized by the republican elite throughout modern Turkish history.However, these projects elicit a very negative response among secularist circles, both at thestate and civil society levels. Both sides see themselves as in a continuous tug-of-war forcontrol over the public sphere. It seems that in the long run, this struggle may moderate bothpolitical Islam and puritan secularism in Turkey, creating more spaces for their coexistenceas well as dialogue and mutual respect—if not consensus—between them. However, thepotential for further polarization between the two sides is also not completely out of the realmof possibility.

Introduction: A Fierce Public Debate over the Construction of a Mosque in Göztepe Park

On September 15, 2005, under the chairmanship of the proxy mayor, Idris Güllüce,the Council of the Metropolitan Municipality of Istanbul passed a formal decisionby a majority vote, proposing the construction of a mosque in Göztepe Park.According to the decision, the mosque would be built on one-fourth of the park’sland, a plot with a total area of 10 acres (10.000 m

2

). A parking lot would also beincluded in the project. Turkish public opinion, not unfamiliar with such projectssince the 1950s, was, as usual, divided into two opposite camps. One camp reactedpositively, while the other protested. The latter argued against the legitimacy of thedecision, for it was taken during the absence of the mayor himself, Kadir Topba

[SCEDIL]

.Upon returning to his office, the mayor declared that the decision was both legiti-mate and valid, explaining that according to a legal document, Idris Güllüce waschosen to be his substitute during his absence.

1

The mayor of the Kadıköy District (to which Göztepe is administrativelyannexed), Selami Öztürk, took the case to the relevant administrative court in the

Correspondence Address:

Sefa

[SCEDIL]

im

[SCEDIL]

ek, Nisbetiye cad., 3 sok., no. 32/4, Rumeli Hisarustu, Bebek,Istanbul, Turkey. Email: [email protected]

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hope that it would issue a verdict of cancellation. To the same end, the KadıköyMunicipality offered advisory assistance to those who wished to bring suit againstthe project as individuals.

2

The vice mayor of Kadıköy, Gürsel Tekin, made an official statement criticizingthe project:

The mosque project in Göztepe is a political decision … There are surveyresults that show the AKP has lost support in metropolises. As in the case ofbuilding a mosque in Taksim Square, they coveted religious motifs to compen-sate for this loss. Their concern about the ballot led them to make an artificialagenda out of the mosque issue. In fact, the residents of Göztepe do not havesuch a need. Were there such a demand, we would be informed in the first placeas the local government …

3

Meanwhile, on December 3, 2005, a civil platform including 171 NGOs held ademonstration in front of the park. The platform named itself “the Movement of theSensitive Urbanites.” They used slogans including “

betona hayır

!” (“no concrete!”)and “

ye

[SCEDIL]

ile evet

” (“welcome green”). As the spokesperson of the platform, the headof the Environmental Council of Istanbul ( stanbul Çevre Konseyi Ba

[SCEDIL]

kanı), Türk-sen Ba

[SCEDIL]

er Kafao

[GBREVE]

lu, read the press release. The representatives of other NGOs alsoaddressed the crowd, stressing the common need to protect the green areas of thecity, on the grounds that they served as a site of refuge at times of natural disasterssuch as earthquakes, and also provided the residents with clean air and mental andphysical well-being.

4

In reply to these criticisms, Kadir Topba

[SCEDIL]

stated that the CHP (RepublicanPeople’s Party) members of the municipal council had not raised objections duringthe talks over the project before the final decision; once the decision was taken,however, they started to provoke people against the mosque project.

5

Rıza Saka, therepresentative of the AKP (Justice and Development Party) members in the KadıköyMunicipal Council, put the blame on Selami Öztürk:

Selami Bey [“Bey” being the rough equivalent of “Mr.” in English] has prob-ably got different agendas. That the CHP members of Kadıköy Municipality,who had not objected to the project before the final decision, added fuel to theflames aims at dismissing the allegations of impropriety and corruption inKadıköy Municipality out of public agenda.

6

Amid this state of dust and smog, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo

[GBREVE]

an visitedthe Topba

[SCEDIL]

administration. He dismissed Idris Güllüce from his office, although hehad appointed him to that position as his right-hand man. Erdo

[GBREVE]

an’s consultants toldhim that their party was losing support in Istanbul due to the impression of a double-headed administration, one that for too long had created confusion and weakness inurban management.

How does a local issue such as this become a full-fledged national concern? Whydoes it have so much impact on the political landscape and public opinion of the

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The Mosque as a Divisive Symbol

491

country? Why does the construction of a mosque in a Muslim-majority country(where many mosques are being built every day without any dispute or controversy)incite so much political clash? This article aims to find proper answers to suchquestions. However, in order to do so we have to walk through a long road, boththrough the past and present.

To that extent, this article first considers the wider impact of the project on thenational political agenda and public opinion. Second, it gives a narrative account ofa similar but more shattering project that was levered in the last decade, the projectof Taksim Mosque. Third, the article looks at the Islamist bid to re-conquer Istanbulas a strongly relevant and more encompassing symbol; one which possesses a kindof ordinal continuity and inclusiveness like the Russian

matrusk

.

7

Fourth, the articleexamines the radicalization of Islam and the construction of the official/secularpublic sphere to shed light on the later developments. Lastly, we present the under-pinnings of Islamist reclamation over the public sphere as the means to achieve theirdesires for legitimacy, recognition, access to proportional power and elite statusthrough controlling space, urban design and toponymy (names given to places andsites).

As may be seen, our methodology is somewhat entangled and spiraled rather thansimple and linear in that we move back and forth on both the diachronic andsynchronic axes. Additionally, we combine a number of different techniques, fromethnography to historical narrative to political semiotics.

From a Local Issue to a High-Profile National Debate

Religious symbols are generally known to be elements of unity and solidarity inalmost all societies, from primitive to advanced.

8

This is usually true in Turkey, aslong as they are kept within their traditional and vernacular bounds. However, whenthese symbols are used at unusual times and places, they lose their religious denota-tions, and gain powerful political connotations. Once their intrinsic meanings aretranslated into the language of politics, they also become targets or instruments ofpolitical game and struggle.

The Göztepe project far exceeded the normal competitive agenda of incumbentpoliticians of local governments in Istanbul and of the central government in Ankarawithin a few days. It became the chief concern of newspapers, columnists, televisionprograms, professional associations, social movements and NGOs.

Critiques and commentators who lent support to the project raised a commonargument: they stated that the nearest mosque to the Göztepe Park, Galip Pa

[SCEDIL]

aMosque, was often overcrowded; and particularly during weekends, this situationcreated enormous traffic jams. There was a need for a larger mosque with a parkinglot in the same neighborhood. In light of this consideration, the project should nothave been perceived as political.

On the other hand, those who opposed the decision suggested that green areasshould be sustained and that the mosque project was a political investment. Thedetractors opined that the inhabitants of Göztepe were against building a mosque in

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the park area because they were happy to use the park as a place of recreation innature. Although they confirmed the traffic problem around the Galip Pa

[SCEDIL]

a Mosque,they argued that the green park was not the appropriate place to build a mosque.They said that they would not object to the project, were it put into effect someplaceelse.

Internet sites did not miss the chance to avail themselves of the popularity putforth by the issue. They immediately conducted surveys among their visitors tounderstand their attitudes concerning the project. We surveyed nine Internet ques-tionnaires. The average consent to the mosque project was 55 percent, while theaverage opposition was 45 percent.

9

Many sites also invited their visitors to submittheir opinions. Like politicians, people, too, were divided into two camps—either infavor or against the project. Those who were in favor viewed the mosque project asa social and religious need. The dissidents, on the other hand, were further dividedinto two sub-categories. One category claimed that the construction of a mosque hadnot grown out of any common need, while the other opposed its constructiondirectly in Göztepe Park. Here are the examples of each position:

I share the belief that there is need for a mosque in Göztepe … In Göztepe,especially during religious holidays and the Friday public prayers, the existingmosques have become insufficient.

10

The surroundings of the Göztepe Park do not have a need for a new mosque …In nearly every neighborhood there is a mosque. Do we, in fact, have enoughschools? Instead of building mosques, please open new schools.

11

Those who visited the park know very well that there are enough mosquesaround. It is true that our worship sites are the mosques; of course, the mosqueshould be constructed; I do not say it shouldn’t be. But everywhere has alreadybecome concrete and stone; since we have scarce green areas, please leavethem with us.

12

One of the present authors interviewed the leaders of two different civil initiativegroups that are highly active in environmental and urban issues. Ayla Aydındoyum,the leader of the Caddebostan Environmental Volunteers’ Platform, told us that theneighborhood residents do not have any need for extra sanctuaries; she noted thatthere are already four mosques around the park: Tütüncü Mehmet Efendi Camii,Galip Pa

[SCEDIL]

a Camii, Selamiçe

[SCEDIL]

me Camii, and Fenerbahçe Camii. Aydındoyum furtheropined:

We believe that these mosques meet the needs of the neighborhood. Peoplehere keep their prayers with themselves. They do not perform fake prayers.Hence, there is a multitude of religions here along with Islam. Only during thereligious holidays and the month of holy Ramadan are the mosques full. Atother times they are sparsely used.

13

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Aydındoyum says that she observed that the usual mosque attendants are porters,guards, and other apartment workers. She complained that there are even peoplewho used the mosque solely to use the toilet. The reason why the owners of tradesaround the park want the mosque, Aydındoyum explained, is that there will be morepeople shopping and spending money. She listed the negative aspects of the projectas follows: its potential to aggravate the traffic problem, the likelihood that theincidents of theft will increase, and most importantly, the green will die out. In heroverall evaluation, Aydındoyum said, “I do not see the mosque project as an inno-cent act. It is an entirely political event. As social democratic voters make up anoverwhelming majority here, the mosque decision is an act to punish them.”

14

Ye

[SCEDIL]

im Menderes, the leader of the Kadıköy Health Solidarity Foundation(KASDAV), also stated that the people of the neighborhood do not need new mosques.She added that they collected signatures against the project, and that the signatureswere attached to the petition of the Kadıköy mayor, Selami Öztürk, who brought suitagainst the project in the local administrative court. Like Aydındoyum, Menderes,too, addressed the potential traffic density, the scarcity of green areas, and so forth.She stressed that they would object to any construction in green areas, be it a mosque,a school, or a hospital. On the political quality of the project, she opined as follows:

Beneath the project lies the desire to take over Kadıköy, because the constitu-ency here has since long been politically social democratic. The Prime Minis-ter, especially prior to the last elections, said, “I want Kadıköy.” However, thesocial democrats once again won the elections by a landslide victory.

15

The mosque project in Göztepe and the political disputes revolving around itserve to remind us of a similar decision to build a huge mosque complex in TaksimSquare more than a decade ago, one that shook the political landscape of Turkeymore thoroughly for many years.

The Taksim Project: The Mosque Challenges Secular and Global Symbols

The Taksim project elicited more lasting and serious debates than the Göztepe issue,based not on the loss of green, but on the allegations that the Islamist Welfare Party(RP) was challenging the cardinal values and symbols of the Turkish Republic’ssecularist establishment. Taksim Square is a locus of multiple symbols, includingthe Atatürk Monument, Atatürk Culture Center, Greek Orthodox Church, MarmaraEtap Hotel, McDonald’s, historical water distributor (Maksem), and many more. Itis one of the favorite official public spheres of secular Turkey, like the Kızılay andUlus Squares in Ankara, and the Konak Square in Izmir.

However, the Taksim project had already occupied the Turkish political agenda anumber of times before the Islamists reawakened it in 1994. Thus, before being aninstrument of Islamic revivalism, it was used as a capital investment of politicalpopulism by the center-right parties such as the Democratic Party (DP) of AdnanMenderes and the Justice Party (AP) of Süleyman Demirel.

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The history of the mosque project in Taksim Square dates back to the early 1950s,during the beginning of the multi-party system in Turkey. Unlike the precedingsingle-party period, this new era witnessed the return of religious symbols anddiscourse to public life. The Association for Monuments of Turkey (Türkiye AnıtlarDerne

[GBREVE]

i) made the first proposal for constructing a mosque in Taksim. The IstanbulMunicipality, to which the application had been submitted, rejected the proposal onthe grounds that there was no suitable place for the mosque in the Taksim area. Themunicipal government was occupied by the secularist CHP at the time.

16

Themilitary coup of 1960 not only dethroned the Menderes government but also pushedthe mosque project off the policy agenda indefinitely.

The second attempt to build a mosque in Taksim started in 1968 when the AP wasin power, yet could only be formalized in 1977, during another reign of Demirel,this time as the head of a coalition government. Demirel’s Minister of Cultureapplied to the Supreme Council of Monuments (Anıtlar Yüksek Kurulu) for theconstruction of the mosque on May 13, 1977. The Council approved the project onJuly 9 on the condition that it would not damage the historical Maksem. The projectincluded a huge mosque, a set of underground markets, a branch of Turkey’sAgricultural Bank (Ziraat Bankası), and a parking lot.

17

The mosque was to be builtnear the Maksem. This lot was owned by different institutions such as the StateTreasury, Bank of Agriculture, and the General Directorate of Pious Foundations(Vakıflar Genel Müdürlü

[GBREVE]

ü) with varying number of parcels. Thus, the lot first hadto be united under a single legal status, and then opened to construction. To that end,the Ministry of Public Works passed the necessary legal amendments that wouldmake the construction of the mosque possible.

18

The military coup of 1980, like its forerunner in 1960, cancelled once again themosque project indefinitely. The General Directorate of Pious Foundations, one ofthe supporters of the project, was astute in pursuing the construction of the mosque,and brought suit against the cancellation in the Council of the State. The latter,however, rejected the suit on December 26, 1983, on the grounds that the zone nearMaksem was not suitable for the mosque and the project was of no public benefit.

19

The mosque project, as a trump card, was reshuffled and opened anew by theIslamist RP in 1989 during the campaigns for the upcoming local elections. Theproponents of the project established a foundation to sustain and institutionalizetheir cause.

20

When the metropolitan and many district municipalities in Istanbul, aselsewhere, were taken over by the Welfare candidates after the 1994 local elections,Recep Tayyip Erdo

[GBREVE]

an (the current Prime Minister) assumed the office of mayorand put the mosque project at the top of his agenda. On June 21, 1994, Erdo

[GBREVE]

ansubmitted his project to the Municipal Council. The Beyo

[GBREVE]

lu Municipality, takenover also by a RP candidate, had already given its consent. In the meantime, theprotocol enabling the Chamber of Architects and Engineers to inspect the construc-tion projects before the municipality’s final decision was rescinded. Although theproject was approved by the metropolitan municipality, the Protection Council(Koruma Kurulu) countered it on the grounds that the zone nearby the Maksem wasa historical site including many valuable residues. The Welfare then revised the

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project, and chose the Gezi Park (Promenade Park) as the new zone for the mosque.The official decision to that end was issued by Beyo

[GBREVE]

lu Municipality on January 21,1997.

21

In order to add further legitimacy to the project, the metropolitan municipalityopened an adjudication called the “Urban Design Project for Taksim” on March 11,1997. The Consortium of Infra Gesellschaft Fur Umveltplnung Mbh-Yapi Sa

[GBREVE]

li

[GBREVE]

iwon the adjudication. Following the approval of the Exchequer and Audit Depart-ment (Sayı

[SCEDIL]

tay), the project was submitted to the Supreme Council of Monuments,but was declined on March 12, 2001. The metropolitan municipality of Istanbul thenbrought suit against the Ministry of Culture but lost the case immediately.

22

The Taksim project could not be realized, nor is it likely to be done so in the fore-seeable future. However, its repercussions still remain in Turkish political memoryand gain further vividness when similar issues, such as the Göztepe project, are onthe national agenda. Still, this elicited significantly more political tension than theGöztepe debate among the politicians of the time and public opinion.

The confrontation of the Islamist and secularist circles over the project can beclearly observed in the mass media of the time. Radical Islamist press organs suchas daily

Akit

fervently supported the mosque project, while the mainstream secular-ist press, such as the daily

Hürriyet

, opposed it, with each side justifying its positionon different grounds. One position in favor of the mosque project stated:

Those who counter the mosque project saw last Friday, as every Friday, thatthe few mosques around Taksim could not sufficiently accommodate the pray-ing community. Although there are many churches in the area, we have onlytwo small mosques along Istiklal Caddesi [main street of Beyo

[GBREVE]

lu district].That is why people here have to perform their public prayers especially onFridays in the streets.

23

Meanwhile, the secularist position against the mosque project was reflected in thefollowing:

Those who come to Taksim Mescid-î

[SCEDIL]

erif for public prayers on Fridays gatherin the courtyard. Choosing not to go to A

[GBREVE]

a Camii [a mosque], which is only afew hundred meters away, they put their prayer rugs on the tramway rails inTaksim Caddesi. They pray under rain in the open air to give this message:“You see the Mescid [mosque] is too small for the community; a new mosqueis of urgent need.” They deliberately ignore the nearby A

[GBREVE]

a Camii.

24

Both the Taksim and Göztepe projects became important public issues, whichdemonstrates both the dynamism of Turkish political culture and its perennial fault-lines. However, they can be better understood within the broader context of Islamicresurgence that has marked the political transformation in Turkey since the 1980s.Since that time, the Islamist movements and political parties have demandedincreasing visibility in the official public sphere, more legitimacy and higher elite

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status in the hierarchy of Turkish democracy. Such efforts within the context ofIstanbul were viewed as an act of re-conquest. Thus, both mosque projects havegrown in importance as an integral part of this broader process.

The Aura of Islamic Re-conquest

The concept of re-conquest or second conquest has been forged relative to theconquest of Istanbul in 1453 by Mehmet II. Islamist circles in Turkey believe thatFatih (conqueror) turned the city into a genuine site of Ottoman and Islamic civiliza-tion. However, in their view, the Westernization currents during the late imperialarea and the radical reforms of the early republican period disengaged the city of itsTurco-Islamic authentic identity, and made it a sham. Thus, leaders of politicalIslam in Turkey made the re-conquest, or Islamization, of the city their top priority.

When after the local elections in 1994 the Welfare Party candidates became themayors of many metropolises and other important cities, they tried to make somedifference in the name of Islamic recuperation. One such act was adopted by thegreater municipality of Ankara to replace the city logo, an octagonal Hittite sun,with an Islamic icon inscribed onto city buses in 1994. One author describing thechange wrote, “The city buses carried a blue and white logo: a mosque cupola like ahelmet, a minaret on either side, the whole bending inwards into a sickle moon witha Roman column and a large star in its pincers.”

25

However, greater dreams of Islamizing urban topography, as a challenge to thecity’s Christian past and secularist present, were had in Istanbul. Among such granddreams were the projects to convert the Hagia Sophia Museum into a mosque, toclear the outer Byzantine walls surrounding the old city, and to build a huge mosquein Taksim Square. The famous Hagia Sophia, which was originally a ByzantineChurch, was initially converted into a mosque by Fatih Sultan Mehmet as a symbolof Ottoman hegemony and Islamic establishment. However, the secularist Atatürkregime turned it into a museum in 1935 as a result of its exclusionary policy towardIslamic symbols situated in the public sphere.

26

As one author succinctly stated,“While for most secularist Turkish visitors, Ayasofya [Hagia Sophia] represents amuseum of ‘a time past,’ an Islamist visiting Ayasofya would most likely be lament-ing its former state as a mosque.”27

Also striking was the use of toponymy (specifically name changes) as an instru-ment of Islamic re-conquest. The attempt to change the name of Sarıgüzel Street inthe Fatih neighborhood, one of the most conservative areas in Istanbul, to be namedafter Mehmet Zahit Kotku, a popular Nakshibendi sheikh, brought out seriouscontroversy in the political arena. The mayor of Fatih district, Sadettin Tantan, whowas a member of the Motherland Party (ANAP), asked the court, and received, anorder of cassation.28

The restoration of historic Islamic works of architecture was yet another policyadopted by the Erdo[GBREVE] an administration in metropolitan Istanbul in order to revive anIslamic aura. This was indeed a logical result of Islamist theory that Turco-Islamicculture and symbolism had been under incessant attacks since the establishment of

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The Mosque as a Divisive Symbol 497

the Turkish Republic. The RP-led municipality was determined to restore andpreserve those assets with great dedication.

To that end, in Eyüp, another district well known for its Islamic splendors, theAdile Sultan, Hüsrev Pa[SCEDIL] a, Baba Haydar, Pertev Pa[SCEDIL] a, Mihri[SCEDIL] ah Valide Sultan,Ferhatpa[SCEDIL] a, and Abdurrahman Pa[SCEDIL] a tombs, as well as the Saçlı Abdülkadir and ZalMahmut Pa[SCEDIL] a mosques, were included in a comprehensive restoration project. TheEyüp Sultan mosque was first restored and illuminated during the night, togetherwith the nearby historical fountain. The Kuyuba[SCEDIL] ı Emin Baba dervish lodge inEdirnekapı was also added to the list for restoration. In the Yıldız neighborhood, asite belonging to the new city, a renovation project was conducted for the historicalHamidiye Mosque. The Malta and Çadır villas situated within the Yıldız PalaceComplex, one of the chief symbols of the Ottoman Empire, were also restored.Likewise, the restoration of the Pink, Yellow, and White villas in Emirgan wascompleted, and these sites were opened for public use.29 However, besides theselegitimate efforts of restoration from 1994 through the present, the Islamic under-standing of public works also constructed unlicensed sanctuaries within many ofthese historical sites without the permission of the Protection Council.30

The Welfare Party administrations, while demanding the end to the ban on wear-ing headscarves in public institutions, granting equal access of religious high-schoolgraduates to universities, and other like-minded policies, moved beyond pressing forfreedoms and equality and started to impose certain interdictions in urban publiclife. The mayor of Beyo[GBREVE] lu, for instance, forced the hanging of opaque curtains onthe windows of restaurants in Beyo[GBREVE] lu that used to serve alcohol, as if they were thesmoky bars of Amsterdam. The greater municipality stopped the sale of alcohol inthe premises under its control. Erdo[GBREVE] an prohibited billboards from advertisingfemale swimsuits. He also deemed ballet to be an immoral performance and with-held his financial and cultural support from this art. Thus, municipal guards soonbegan to hunt across public places such as parks and beaches along the Bosphorus inorder to deter people from drinking alcohol in public.31

Religious and cultural activities such as festivals, festive events, commemorationobservances, and celebrations of remarkable events constituted another vein of there-conquest efforts. For instance, Erdo[GBREVE] an was sworn into office as mayor by citingthe first sura of the Koran, Fatihah—one that is generally recited after a persondies.32 Since 1994, Islamist mayors have made the anniversary of Istanbul’sconquest an official holiday to be celebrated with an Islamic glory and magnifi-cence. They also set up tents and pavilions (Ramazan Çadırı) during the holy monthof Ramadan in order to provide food, drink, entertainment and other religious activ-ities to believers every year in some of the most popular and favorite public spacessuch as the Gezi Park in Taksim and the Sultan Ahmet Square on the peninsula.During the International Habitat II Conference, sessions were opened with a showperformed by the Ottoman team of musicians to demonstrate that Istanbul had infact an Ottoman-Islamic identity.33

Other individual attempts, such as painting curb-stones in green and white (majorIslamic colors), encouraging the use of headscarf in municipal places, making work

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hours more flexible when Ramadan falls in the fall or winter months (especially inDecember when the time for breaking the fast corresponds to the evening rush hour)all completed the aura of RP’s attempts to re-conquer the social landscape.

In addition, new forms of Islamic symbolism are continually being created andinserted into the urban public sphere. One such recent project of the Topba[SCEDIL] admin-istration is to erect a huge Mevlevi statue performing the whirl (semazen) in themost appropriate place of the city as a contribution to UN’s declaration of the year2007 as the World Mevlana Year.

These trajectories of Islamic re-conquest were further intensified by the overtlypolitical slogans of Islamist politicians such as Necmettin Erbakan (the veteranleader of political Islam in Turkey). Many of his statements caused an unending tug-of-war between Islamists and secularists in the national political landscape. Thesestatements included: “University rectors will show reverence to the headscarf” (as ifthey were soldiers standing respectfully to receive their commander’s salute on aparade ground); “Shari’a will become the rule of governance in Turkey, with orwithout bloodshed”; and Erdo[GBREVE] an’s renditions, “One cannot be a true Muslim andsecular person at the same time,” and “Celebrating the [calendar] New Year is aforeign custom.” Islamist attempts to re-conquer Istanbul and reclaim the publicsphere, however, can best be understood relative to the nation-building process inthe early Republican era, the formation of national identity and official ideology aswell as the constitution of secular public sphere in Turkey.

The Constitution of National Identity and Official Ideology

The roots of the unending struggle between Islam and secularism in Turkey shouldbe sought in the formative phases of national identity and official ideology. Afterthe collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Atatürk regime tried to establish a viablenation-state with a unitary political and territorial system according to Western stan-dards. However, religious, ethnic, and cultural diversity in Anatolia was not easy toaccommodate under a unitary state establishment and a societal homogeneity orcohesion. This was, and continues to be, a nearly universal problem in the MiddleEast.34

The Ottoman Empire, as a host of numerous religious, ethnic, and culturalcommunities, was more successful than the republican regime in accommodatingidentity problems. First of all, religion was the major bridge between the centralgovernment and local communities. Religious and economic bonds were the mainaxes of state–society relations. Both Muslim and non-Muslim communities, alike,were allowed to run their intra-community affairs freely, such as civil code, justice,education, religious leadership and political succession. The central state legiti-mized its authority on the basis of Sunni Orthodox Islam. The local communities,too, derived their rights and legitimate demands in the face of the central govern-ment from religious sources. The latter, however, were diverse and heterodox innature. Relative compartmentalization and isolation characterizing the communitylife led to tensions both amongst communities and between these communities and

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the imperial power. This system, widely known as the millet system, did not forceany national homogeneity or uniform identity. Millet was used within the Ottomannomenclature to denote “ethno-religious community.” However, Republican Turkeychanged this word to mean “nation.”35

The modest identity and ideological compatibility between the imperial centerand communitarian periphery reminds us of the concepts of “great tradition” and“little tradition,” originally formulated by Robert Redfield during his fieldworkamong various rural–urban networks of communities such as the Yucatan in Mexicoand Guatemala. According to Redfield, great tradition consists of the ideology,science, philosophy, artistic works and cultural elements produced by elite rulersand intellectuals, while the little tradition includes the arts, emotive characteristicsand religious beliefs of ordinary people.36 Although ordinary people never practicegreat tradition in its entirety, they tend to see it as an ideal model for themselves.

The channels of communication between the two traditions that were functioningin relative stability during the Ottoman rule broke down altogether when the Kemal-ist regime adopted Western culture, civilization, secularism and Turkish nationalismas the anchors of its great tradition. The traditional Muslim majority, the ethnicKurds, and non-Muslim minorities, who were the loci of little tradition, felt excluded,alienated and marginalized by the new regime and its official ideology (or great tradi-tion). Islam, which once constituted the cement of both great and little traditions, hadbeen pushed into the domain of little tradition by more coercive and derogatorymechanisms. As a result, Turkey became a divided country, on the one hand possess-ing an elitist and authoritarian center, characterized by Westernism, modernism andsecularism, and on the other hand focusing on a more traditional, rural, and religiousperiphery dominated by its vernacular, local and authentic culture.37

In the process of nation-building, the Kemalist rule established new institutionssuch as the Turkish Historical Society, Turkish Language Society, Nation Schools,People’s Houses, Village Institutes, and new universities in order to formulate itsofficial identity and diffuse it all over the country. It exercised a strict surveillanceover these institutions. It either closed down or rehabilitated the pre-existing institu-tions such as the Turkish Hearths. It made all civil society organizations, from sportsto education and from art to charity, the satellites of the ruling party (CHP).38

The ruling elites engaged themselves in a comprehensive secularization projectthrough numerous reforms imposed from above. The first pillar of this project waspolitical secularization that replaced the Ottoman Sultanate with a modern republicand the Caliphate with a state-sponsored office of religious affairs. The second pillarwas institutional secularization that imposed the adoption of Western patterns in alarge spectrum, from education to law and from economy to the family. The thirdpillar was cultural secularization that forced the adoption of various new styles inart, dress, leisure, and manners. The last pillar of secularization forced the transfor-mation of public and national symbols from flag to anthem, from toponymy tospatial symbolism.39

The new regime placed utmost importance on the construction of its official publicspheres and on restructuring the established centers as the sites of its visibility,

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symbolism, hegemony and power. Authoritarian and totalitarian regimes havehistorically used this to make their mark on the public space in more concentricfeatures compared to pluralistic and democratic governments. This tendency, in theireyes, provides them with an organic bond with the society they need, and with afeeling of popular legitimacy.40

The Construction of the Republican Public Sphere and the Racialization of Islam

The notion of the “public sphere” is perhaps one of the most sophisticated conceptsimbued with multiple and situational meanings in the social and political sciences.Hence, it is no doubt one of the least agreed upon tests for the basic criterion used toregulate the balance of relations between state and society, as well as religion andpolitics. Still, it is a major determinant for the scope and degree of secularism inmodern political systems.

First of all, the public sphere is a terrain of visibility: “Only in the light of thepublic sphere did that which existed become revealed, did everything become visibleto all.”41 From ancient Greece to the present, all valuable resources such as wealth,power, virtue, popularity, honor, prestige and valiance had to receive public consentto gain validity. This consent was only to be obtained in the public sphere. Accordingto Habermas, “[T]he virtues, whose catalogue was codified by Aristotle, were oneswhose test lies in the public sphere and there alone receives recognition.”42

The use of power, the exercise of sovereignty or autonomy, and the state oflegitimacy are defined through mutual relations between the holders of these quali-ties, and those who give informed consent to them. Therefore, these relations canonly be handled in a public domain. In Habermas’s analysis, the concept is used inthree different but virtually related meanings. First, the public sphere is the locus ofprivate transactions on the market; this is called the “bourgeois public sphere.”Second, the public sphere means the official domain determined, regulated, andused by public people as attached to the state establishment. State rules are dictatedalso for the actions of private people in these official sites. Such places may becalled as the official public sphere, and are most akin to strong state traditions withauthoritarian and totalitarian regimes rather than pluralist liberal democracies.Third, the public sphere also means those elements of public opinion that encom-passes private and public foci such as the mass media, professional associations,civil society organizations, unions, and voluntary groups that build up and controlthe public agenda.

In Turkey, there is not a strong tradition of the bourgeois public sphere due to histor-ical reasons, such as the absence or weakness of an autonomous bourgeois class inthe Western sense. Further, the public sphere in the sense of public opinion is a rela-tively recent phenomenon, based on important domestic and global developmentssuch as liberalization, privatization, and transnationalization. When we say “publicsphere” in Turkey, one should understand that to mean a state-attached and -dominatedpublic sphere that is highly formal, elitist, and restrictive, as well as staunchly secular.

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From the outset, the republican regime started to invest large sums in constructinglarge monuments, statues, and other symbolically condensed artifacts, such asAtatürk’s mausoleum in Ankara and the Atatürk Cultural Center in Istanbul. Topon-ymy was an asset used ubiquitously to reflect and impose national identity, officialideology as well as Western and secular culture of the new regime. In almost everyurban settlement, whether large or small, there are numerous Atatürk, Inönü,Cumhuriyet and Istiklal boulevards, streets, squares, stadiums, neighborhoods,bridges, schools, etc. Large enterprises such as airports, dams, universities, farms,and other big projects express through their names and symbolic designs the zealand irresistibility of the republican loftiness.

All public places such as parks, and squares, and all public institutions from stateoffices through schools to village administration rooms are decorated with varioussymbols of the republican regime such as Atatürk busts and photos. In fact, theproduction of republican symbols evolved as one of the earliest and largest sectorsin Turkey. For larger projects such as monuments and big statues, foreign artistswere hired while subsequently a group of national artists such as Ibrahim Çallı andMehmet Inci were encouraged to develop into figures who could fashion futureworks.43

Islamic, Kurdish, and to some extent non-Muslim identities were ousted from theconstruction of national identity and official ideology. The dervish lodges, religiousseminaries and sects were all closed down and banned indefinitely. The Kurdishtoponomy was likewise replaced by Turkish translations and equivalents. Thenames of few Ottoman figures were given to public institutions. The most popularfigures included Namık Kemal, [SCEDIL] inasi, Ahmet Vefik Pa[SCEDIL] a and Mustafa Re[SCEDIL] it Pa[SCEDIL] a,all of whom pioneered the Westernization movement during the late Ottomanperiod. Ottoman sultans such as Faith Sultan Mehmet, Yavuz Sultan Selim, andKanuni Sultan Süleyman were accorded some place within the official ideology andpublic sphere while Abdülhamid II, Said Nursi, Fethullah Gülen, and Mehmet ZahitKotku—who were associated with Islam—were kept out of the public domain. Onlysome well-known representatives of heterodox Islam such as Yunus Emre, Mevlanaand Ahi Evran were given some place within the official public sphere.

Indeed, the more radical Islamic forces went underground, while the moderateswere pushed into the margins of public life. During the single-party period, even thevillagers visiting Ankara were directed to use side and back streets instead of boule-vards and central public places due to their traditional appearance, one that was notseen as compatible with modern secular tenets of the ruling elitie.44 Ever since,traditional people were asked to undress their vernacular local headgears andscarves in state institutions such as courts, police departments and military premises.Even today, people are asked to bring photos of themselves with their headsuncovered when they apply for official documents, such as university entranceexams and passports.

The secularist establishment has thus not only kept the lid closed on Islam, buthas racialized it in the same way the Germans and the British racialized the Jews andthe Irish, respectively.45 Islam, which had been perceived and presented as a threat,

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now was viewed to be inferior by the ruling elite. However, the Kemalist eliteguarded its official ideology and the secular public sphere through the force of thebayonet and unalterable constitutional legislation,46 rather than via a cultural orideological hegemony implanted in, and internalized by, the broader sectors of civilsociety, such as in the conceptualization of Antonio Gramsci.47

On the other hand, Islamist politicians such as the current Prime Minister,Erdo[GBREVE] an, and Islamist intellectuals, such as Ali Bulaç, as well as an importantnumber of other secularist and liberal scholars, have shown that they are well awareof this alienation and “othering” of Islam. They have frequently spoken of a meta-phoric racial division in Turkey with the people divided into “white” and “blackTurks.” They suggest that the “white Turks” include the ruling elite (both civilianand military), urban middle classes and the upper echelon bourgeoisie, while theblack Turks consist of rural periphery, the suburban poor who make up the majorityin cities, some sectors of the middle classes with Islamist orientations, and small andmedium-sized enterprise holders.48

Discussion and Conclusion: Islamists Reclaim the Secular Public Sphere

The suppression of Islam by the Kemalist elite as a threat and backward force fordecades led to its evolution as an anti-elitist movement.49 Since the beginning of themulti-party system, Islam has gradually started to gain some ground in Turkish poli-tics and public life as a result of populist responsiveness, which characterizescompetitive politics in Turkey, toward peripheral and grassroots demands.However, the real resurgence of Islam as a social and political movement waswitnessed after the 1980 military coup. Islam, which had been perceived andsuppressed as a threat until then, was now operationalized as a savior by the militaryrule against the perils of severe political polarization and violent clashes that markedthe last two decades. Islam and Turkish nationalism were coined into a compositeofficial ideology referred to as the “Turco-Islamic Synthesis.”50 To back this newofficial ideology, officials opened numerous religious schools, and constructedcountless mosques everywhere, even in purely Alevi villages where people performtheir religious activities in cemevis instead of in mosques. Thus puritan secularismbegan to lose ground against Islam.

Political Islam, however, was able to gain entirely new ground with Özal’s liberaleconomic policies, which introduced market mechanisms, new communicationstechnologies, and privatization, as well as the emergence of private media organs inpublic life. Private radio stations and TV channels began to mushroom all over thecountry, both at local and national levels. Identities that were strictly suppressed inthe past, such as Islamic, Kurdish, and Alevi, found new life in the political, social,cultural and public landscape.

Islamic identities gained visibility in the official public sphere, and moreover,created their alternative public spheres wherever the traditional public spheres didnot satisfy or welcome their desires. Islamist radio and TV channels, bookstores,music markets, restaurants, hotels, and beaches, which are referred to as the “new

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opportunity spaces” by a student of Turkish politics,51 concurrently formed analternative public sphere, one that is similar to the critical bourgeois public sphere inEurope demanding authoritative regulations on its behalf.52

The Kemalist elite tend to perceive Islamic resurgence as a direct attempt toabolish the republican democracy and replace it with an Islamic regime. This fearmay seem to be partially justified in appearance, but in reality we also come across anumber of different motivating factors on the part of Islamic movements.

First, the Islamists try to redefine the codes of Turkish modernity that until recentlyhad excluded them. To that end, they refashioned traditional symbols, such as theheadscarf, to show their being more modern, cultured, educated and conscious.Islamist woman university students, for example, stripped the headscarf of its tradi-tional style. Traditionally, it was used to cover a woman’s head, but loosely allowedthe visibility of the forehead and some parts of the hair on the front and back sides ofthe head. The founder and first chair of the YÖK (Board of Higher Education), Prof.Ihsan Do[GBREVE] ramacı, misnamed it as a Türban (a type of headgear used by men in oldtimes), and completely banned it. The new fashion, however, is to cover students’heads so tightly as that it prevents any visibility of the hair, and even the entirecircumference of the neck—only a limited part of the face was left open. Some calledthis new style of head-covering “sıkmaba[SCEDIL] ” (tight-covered head). The sıkmaba[SCEDIL] hada pendulum of meanings swinging between participation and revolt.53 While Islam-ists are claiming that it is a way of participating in modern public life, the secularistsperceive it as a direct challenge to, and revolt against, the republican establishment.Likewise, sex segregation, tesettür (Islamic veiling for women), and other featureswere re-codified as modern, and inserted into the public sphere.54

In all these attempts, Islamists envied, rather than condemned altogether, theKemalist codes of modernism, urbanity, universalism, and civilization. In otherwords, they wished to enjoy these qualities, together with their own religious andconservative features, instead of simply setting up an entirely new form of stateruled according to Sharia (Islamic law). In fact some Islamists even claim that theyare also secularist. This is done to redefine secularism, like other principles ofTurkish official ideology, in order to legitimize their own religious qualities andmanners as the integral parts of national identity. In a way, they wish to fulfill theirvision of restoring the great traditions of Turkey once again. Their stance seems tobe compromising, at least for the present, in that they do not claim an Islamicmonopoly over Turkey’s great traditions but seek to join its constitution as an equalpartner.

Second, although Islamists have attempted to set up a broad societal sector with afull-fledged hierarchical structure including elite, medium and grassroots positionsbased on mainstream socioeconomic status criteria such as wealth, education, occu-pation, housing qualities and leisure activities, they try in earnest to integrate them-selves into the established echelons of official hierarchy. In other words, they wishto be recognized as the members of high society by using Islamic commodities suchas haute couture clothing, spending time in luxury places, shopping at prestigiousmarkets, attending universities, and working at qualified and professional jobs. For

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example, Erbakan held his daughter’s wedding ceremony at the Istanbul SheratonHotel in 1994. Although received with criticism and anger by the poor Islamists, thiswas an attempt to enjoy the prestige and distinction sought after by the urban well-to-do.55

Third, with their aura of re-conquest, Islamists seek the approval of both theKemalists and global spectators, comprised mainly of foreign missionaries and tour-ists. By resurfacing and inscribing local, traditional and Islamic symbols (both pastand present) in the most central and favorite urban places, they demand recognitionand legitimacy for their identity as a valuable global asset.56 Here, the localelements, history, culture and symbols are translated into global values via theopportunities provided by a global city, Istanbul. Istanbul’s Islamic (Ottoman)past—tailored as tolerant, pluralistic, and with just governance—is articulated intothe trajectories of globalism. Here, Kemalism and globalism are the core referencepoints for Islamic identity formation, rather than the inimical others.57

Fourth and finally, spatial organization and symbolism express the dominantidentity, culture, and form of governance in a society. For example, Islamabadsignifies that we are in a Muslim city, while Leningrad tells us that we are in acommunist state.58 Moreover, they serve as the direct expression of the dominantpower and of its degree and scope of influence over society. Thus, access to spacemeans access to power.59 This is especially true of central places, in which mostmonumental features are organized to testify to the existence and legitimacy of thedominant power. However, these places also attract the greatest challenges andopposition to domination. Any social or political movement that can mobilize theminimum level of resources (money, members, outside support) rushes into monu-mental official sites to protest the dominant power on issues that disturb them.

Thus, like the ballot, recruitment of public institutions and other forms of repre-sentation in monumental spaces is a crucial means for Islamists to prove that theyare organized, important, and powerful. The mosque projects in Taksim andGöztepe are thus concerted attempts at taking over some of the dominant powerthrough symbolic inscription.

The roots of Islamic understanding of politics can also shed some light on the moti-vations behind such projects. Rainer Hermann draws an interesting distinctionbetween politics in the West and politics in Islam. He writes, “In Western Languages‘politics’ stand for more than just political parties and parliamentarian debates. Polisis the antique city, in which free citizens interact. Polis is space; politics is publicspace.”60 Although in limited terms, politics here imply a process of negotiation,public debate as well as compromise and conflict resolution, which of course excludethe slaves who made up the overwhelming majority of the population. This exclusionwas imposed on the plebeians, peasants, and other disadvantaged groups during theMiddle Ages. Even today, racial and ethnic minorities, the homeless, immigrants,and other underclass sectors cannot be sufficiently accommodated into the politicalprocess in the West.

According to Hermann, “Siyasa is an Arabic noun originally meaning horse, theultimate symbol of power … Medina, the Arabic word for polis, one derivation from

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the same root as din, ‘religion,’ Medina does not imply the public sphere where freecitizens operate; it stands for the court district of a judge, and he judges according toIslamic law.”61 At least there is partial truth in this conceptualization. Having grownextremely thirsty of power, prestige, recognition, legitimacy and elite status, Islamistgroups both in central government and local administrations not only try to graspofficial establishment but also take over the voluntary organizations, professionalassociations, unions and autonomous institutions either by hook or by crook. Theirstyles and manners to that end often exhibit certain deficits of political courtesy.

To these un-institutionalized and intricate steps of take-over, secularist circlesboth within the establishment and civil society respond actively. Secularist sectorsof civil society were dormant and even indifferent to the cool and boring state cere-monies in the past when official ideology, particularly its principle of secularism,remained unchallenged. However, with the rise of political Islam, they started tooffset the anti-secularist challenge by organizing themselves in conscious andimmanent activities. In other words, the cultural and ideological hegemony that theKemalist elite failed to create in several decades has been engraved in Turkish civilsociety by the potential of Islamic domination.

The struggle between secularists and Islamists over the public sphere is likely tocontinue for the foreseeable future. During this period, one can expect that each sidewill try to domesticate the other while moderating itself. These hitherto unmixedrival circles will develop more horizontal interactions that might bring negotiation,peaceful debate and compromise. We observe some hints to that end in the presentevents. For example, a socialist monthly, Birikim, has been publishing the works ofIslamist scholars such as Ali Bulaç and Abdurrahman Dilipak along with those ofsocialist intellectuals for about 15 years. Likewise, in a recent TV program hostedby Nazlı Ilıcak on Channel 7 (an Islamist channel), one of the participants was VuralSava[SCEDIL] , the former Chief Prosecutor of the State, an irrevocable representative ofpuritan secularism, who featured the closure of Islamist Welfare and Virtue partiesone after the other. However, such examples are too few to establish a regulardialogue between the two sides; they still make up the exception rather than the rule.

However, further polarization of the struggle between Islamists and secularists isnot entirely out of the realm of possibility. Even worse is that some forces, bothdomestic and international, may attempt to scratch this wound for political rentwhenever it begins to heal over. The recent attacks on the offices of daily Cumhu-riyet in Istanbul and the Council of State in Ankara are just two such provocativeexamples. These attempts may have been designed to create mass mobilization andconsciousness against the Islamist policies of the Erdo[GBREVE] an government as well as toweaken its chance of victory in the upcoming national elections. While the secular-ist public opinion leaders try to show the attackers to be in cohorts with Islamistfanatics who are suspected of being supported by the incumbent government, thelatter tries to put the blame on some illegal organizations or gangs that are “nested”within the secularist state establishment.

The characteristics of Islamist and secularist youth in Turkey fortunately tend tokeep themselves away from violence. The secularist sector, being Westernized,

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well-educated and highly cultured, does not engage itself easily and readily inviolence. Islamist youth, on the other hand, with middle class ideals and tactics thatare supported by the peaceful doctrine of their religion, are likewise reluctant toattach priority to violence, with the exception of some fanatic elements such as theTurkish Hizbullah. In other words, compared to the ultra-nationalist Turkish–Kurdish or even Alevi–Sunni divide, where there are many more uneducated andunderclass people, the Islamist–secularist clash is fortunately far more difficult toexacerbate.

Despite all of this, the Islamist–secularist controversy seems to have existed for along time as a means of informal political contest among opponent forces, along withformal instruments such as elections. The present government seems neither to befully competent nor too willing to solve the issues leading to this controversy. If itsolves them with great determination, this may elicit a strong reaction from secular-ists as well as its own non-religious and even mildly religious supporters. The bodypolitic of the AKP, which is blatantly a coalition of various groups with differentinterests and tendencies, may not sustain the heavy cost of this policy. On the otherhand, the existence of such a controversy may enable it to keep its cause vibrant andits supporters engaged. Thus, we should not be surprised if Islamists forge newcontroversial projects as in the case of Taksim Square and Göztepe Park, and thesecularist repeatedly counterattack them.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Ayla Aydındoyum and Ye[SCEDIL] im Menderes, leaders of twoprominent civil initiative groups working on environmental and urban issues, forhelping with this research project as interviewees.

Notes

1. M. Duvaklı, “Topba[SCEDIL] : Belediye Meclisi’nin Göztepe Parkı’na Cami Yapılması Kararı Geçerli”[Topba[SCEDIL] : The Decision of the Municipal Council to Build a Mosque in Göztepe Park Valid], dailyZaman, October 1, 2005.

2. www.kanald.com.tr.3. N. Alkan, “Göztepe’ye Cami Projesi Tabana Oksijen mi?” [Is the Mosque Project in Göztepe an

Attempt to Give Oxygen to the Base?], daily Birgün, November 6, 2005.4. This observation is based on our ethnographic field notes. One of the authors joined the meeting as

an ethnographer, and took research notes for our study.5. Kadir Topba[SCEDIL] , “Birileri Göztepe’de Halkı Camiye Kar[SCEDIL] ı Kı[SCEDIL] kırtıyor” [Some Provoke People in

Göztepe Against the Mosque], daily Zaman, October 26, 2005.6. M. Duvaklı, “Cami Tartı[SCEDIL] ması Yolsuzluk [IDOT ] ddialarını Örtmek [IDOT ] çin Çıkartıldı” [The Mosque Debate

Brought Out to Conceal the Allegations of Corruption], daily Zaman, September 25, 2005.7. Matrusk is a Russian toy and souvenir. It includes a number of identical items different only in their

size so that they can be placed in one another in a larger set, one that seems to be a single item.8. T.C. Lewellen, Political Anthropology (South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey, 1983).9. Among many such Internet sites, see, for example, www.cnnturk.net and www.sabah.com.tr. We had

better remind the readers that participants of Internet surveys do not amount to a nation-wide repre-sentative sample because, first of all, they are Internet users: not all Turkish people are Internet users;

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second, they are sensitive to the issue, positively or negatively: not all Turkish people may make themosque issue their primary concern. Thus, the results of these surveys should be received with reser-vation and within their limitations. Still, they give some indication about the pulse of public opinion.

10. www.istanbul.com, October 31, 2005.11. www.istanbul.com, September 23, 2005.12. www.e-kolay.net, December 21, 2005.13. Interview with Ayla Aydondoyum, the leader of the Caddebostan Environmental Volunteers’

Platform, February 5, 2006.14. Ibid.15. Interview with Ye[SCEDIL] im Menderes, leader of the KASDAV, February 5, 2006, Istanbul.16. G. Baykal, “The Iconography of Taksim Square,” unpublished master’s thesis (Istanbul: Bosphorus

University, 2000), pp.63–5.17. Ibid., p.66; K. Diyerbekir, “Bitmeyen Öykü” [Unending Story], daily Hürriyet, April 5, 1999.18. Baykal (2000), p.66; Diyerbekir (1999).19. Baykal (2000), p.67.20. Ibid., p.69.21. O. Ekinci, Istanbul’un Islambol On Yılı [Istanbul’s Islam-Abundant Decade] (Istanbul: Anahtar

Kitaplar, 2004), pp.17–42.22. O. Ekinci, “Taksim’e Cami Yapılamaz” [The Mosque Cannot Be Built in Taksim], daily Cumhu-

riyet, May 14, 2002.23. “Istanbul Moskova mı?” [Is Istanbul Moscow?], daily Akit, February 2, 1997.24. “Taksim’e Korsan Cami” [Pirate Mosque in Taksim], daily Hürriyet, January 11, 2000.25. J.B. White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press,

2002), p.53.26. T. Bora, “Istanbul of the Conqueror: The ‘Alternative Global City’ Dreams of Political Islam,” in Ç.

Keyder (ed.), Istanbul Between the Global and the Local (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999),pp.49–50; A. Yıldız, “Politico-Religious Discourse of Political Islam in Turkey,” Muslim World,Vol.93, No.2 (April 2003) pp. 187–209.

27. Y. Navaro-Yashin, “The Historical Construction of Local Culture: Gender and Identity in the Politicsof Secularism versus Islam,” in Ç. Keyder (ed.), Istanbul Between the Global and the Local(Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), p.59.

28. Ekinci (2004).29. Istanbul Büyük[SCEDIL] ehir Belediyesi [Metropolitan Municipality of Istanbul], Istanbul Yeniden

Yapılanıyor [Istanbul in Reconstruction] (Istanbul: Istanbul Büyük[SCEDIL] ehir Belediyesi, 1997).30. Ekinci (2004), pp.19–42.31. Navaro-Yashin (1999), p.72; T. Lashnits, Recep Tayyip Erdo[GBREVE] an (Philadelphia, PA: Chelsea House

Publishers, 2005), p.76; Bora (1999), p.53.32. M. Heper and [SCEDIL] . Tokta[SCEDIL] , “Islam, Modernity, and Democracy in Contemporary Turkey: The Case of

Recep Tayyip Erdo[GBREVE] an,” Muslim World, Vol.93, No.2 (April 2003) pp. 157–185.33. Ekinci (2004).34. P.R. Kumaraswamy, “Who Am I?: The Identity Crisis in the Middle East,” Middle East Review of

International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, Vol.10, No.1 (March 2006) pp. 63–73.35. A. Bartu, “Who Owns the Old Quarters? Rewriting History in a Global Era,” in Ç. Keyder (ed.),

Istanbul Between the Global and the Local (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), pp.31–45; Ç.Keyder, “Introduction,” in Ç. Keyder (ed.), Istanbul Between the Global and the Local (Lanham:Rowman and Littlefield, 1999); Ö. Ta[SCEDIL] pınar, Kurdish Nationalism and Political Islam in Turkey(New York: Routledge, 2005), pp.111–9.

36. S. [SCEDIL] im[SCEDIL] ek, “Yeni Türkiye’de Büyük Gelenek-Küçük Gelenek Etkile[SCEDIL] imi” [The Interaction BetweenGreat Tradition and Little Tradition in Republican Turkey], Türkiye Günlü[GBREVE] ü, No.59 (January–February2000), p.26.

37. M.H. Yavuz, “Cleansing Islam from the Public Sphere,” Journal of International Affairs, Vol.54,No.1 (Fall 2000), p.22.

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38. S. [SCEDIL] im[SCEDIL] ek, Halkevleri: Bir Ideolojik Seferberlik Deneyimi, 1932–1951 [People’s Houses: AnExperiment in Ideological Mobilization, 1932–1951] (Istanbul: Bosphorus University Press, 2002).

39. B. Toprak, Islam and Political Development in Turkey (Leiden: Brill, 1981).40. S. [SCEDIL] im[SCEDIL] ek, “‘People’s Houses’ as a Nationwide Project for Ideological Mobilization in Early

Republican Turkey,” Turkish Studies, Vol.6, No.1 (March 2005), pp.75–7.41. J. Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992),

p.4.42. Ibid., p.4.43. Y. Navaro-Yashin, “The Market for Identities: Secularism, Islamism, Commodities,” in D. Kandiyoti

and A. Saktanber (eds.), Fragments of Culture: The Everyday of Modern Turkey (New Brunswick,NJ: Rutger University Press, 2002), p.230.

44. Yavuz (2000), p.24.45. R. Miles and S. Small, “Racism and Ethnicity,” in S. Taylor (ed.), Sociology: Issues and Debates

(Hampshire: Palgrave, 2000).46. The preamble of the Turkish constitution, which defines and guarantees the unitary, secularist, legal,

and political qualities of the state, can never be amended even with parliamentary unanimity.47. A. Swingewood, “Sociological Theory,” in S. Taylor (ed.), Sociology: Issues and Debates (Hampshire:

Palgrave, 2000).48. R. Hermann, “Political Islam in Secular Turkey,” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, Vol.14,

No.3 (July 2003), p.267; Yavuz (2000), p.22.49. Ta[SCEDIL] pınar (2005), p.123.50. P. Tank, “Political Islam in Turkey: A State of Controlled Secularity,” Turkish Studies, Vol.6, No.1

(March 2005), p.15.51. M.H. Yavuz, “Opportunity Spaces, Identity, and Islamic Meaning in Turkey,” in Q. Wictorowicz

(ed.), Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN:Indiana University Press, 2004), pp.278–85.

52. Habermas (1992), p.27.53. E. Kalaycıo[GBREVE] lu, “The Mystery of the ‘Türban’: Participation or Revolt?” Turkish Studies, Vol.6,

No.2 (June 2005), pp.233–51.54. Hermann (2003), p.266; J.B. White, “The Islamist Paradox,” in D. Kandiyoti and A. Saktanber

(eds.), Fragments of Culture: The Everyday of Modern Turkey (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutger Univer-sity Press, 2002), p.194.

55. White (2002), p.197.56. A. Inan-Çınar, “Refah Party and the City Administration of Istanbul: Liberal Islam, Localism and

Hybridity,” New Perspectives on Turkey, No.16 (Spring 1997), pp.24–6.57. Bartu (1999), pp.39–40; Bora (1999), pp.49–50.58. E.F. Bergman, Human Geography: Cultures, Connections and Landscapes (Eaglewood Cliffs, NJ:

Prentice Hall, 1995).59. Baykal (2000), pp.6, 15–6.60. Hermann (2003), p.266.61. Ibid.

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