Fifty Shades of the Ülkücü Movement (1)

Nationalism, which took its place among Atatürk’s principles when the young Republic was founded, is defined as the idea of loving the members of the nation to which one belongs, embracing its values, protecting its independence and exalting one’s nation in every respect. The society that in the Ottoman era was described with the term “kul” (subject) was defined with the new Republic by the phrase “Everyone bound to the Turkish state by the bond of citizenship is a Turk”, and this wording entered the constitution. It was underlined that Atatürk’s nationalism opposed racism, that no distinction would be made between citizens and that everyone had equal rights before the law.

Of course the world does not stand still. As in other parts of the world, new currents of thought began to sprout in Anatolia after 1930. The strongest of these was undoubtedly communism, and it was influencing the masses more every day. While the case known as the Navy Trial of 1938 cemented, with heavy sentences for figures such as Nâzım Hikmet and Kemal Tahir, that communism would not be allowed to breathe in Turkey, the voices of Turkist figures such as Nihal Atsız grew louder against communism.

Believing that communist activities were increasing in Turkey while the Second World War was going on, Atsız, in open letters addressed to the prime minister of the day Şükrü Saracoğlu, who had said “For us Turkism is at least as much a matter of conscience and culture as it is a matter of blood”, publicly claimed that the Minister of National Education of the time, Hasan Âli Yücel, was “protecting communists” and should resign. In these letters he also heaped heavy insults on writers, among them Sabahattin Ali. Atsız could not contain himself. So much so that, saying “Nations are obliged to invade and conquer in order to spread their lineage across the earth and make it dominant”, he openly declared that he did not accept Atatürk’s principle of “Peace at home, peace in the world” on the grounds that “it extinguishes the nation’s spiritual energy”.

After the letters, a group of writers including Sabahattin Ali sued Nihal Atsız for the insults. On 3 May 1944, when Nihal Atsız came to Ankara for the case, Turanists gathered to support him. Young people who could not get into the courtroom marched towards Ulus Square. In the incidents during this march, 165 people were detained. Among them was a young first lieutenant, Alparslan Türkeş. In the case that went down in history as the 1944 Racism-Turanism Trial, Alparslan Türkeş was tried together with Atsız. Today the date of this event is celebrated as 3 May, Turkism Day.

In the Racism-Turanism Trial, Alparslan Türkeş was sentenced to 9 months in prison, but the sentence was later overturned by the Military Court of Cassation. Türkeş, whose career in the armed forces went on to be very successful, began serving at the Pentagon in 1955 after training in irregular warfare in the US. He served until 1958 in the Turkish General Staff delegation to NATO’s Standing Group. On his return from the US, at the suggestion of Colonel Talat Aydemir, he was transferred from the unit he served in as a colonel in Elazığ to the National Unity Committee (MBK) in Ankara, and thus joined the 38-member MBK that would plan and carry out the coup. Türkeş, who read the coup proclamation on the radio on the morning of 27 May 1960, was declared persona non grata some time later. He was not alone: on 13 November 1960, MBK chairman General Cemal Gürsel issued a statement dissolving the MBK on the grounds that it was endangering the country’s higher interests. In the newly formed National Unity Committee they purged the group known as the “Fourteen” (Ondörtler), to which Alparslan Türkeş belonged. This group consisted of fourteen junior officers who refused to hand power to civilians before the country’s deep-rooted structural problems were solved. The fourteen officers were also retired from the Turkish Armed Forces and posted abroad on various assignments. Alparslan Türkeş was sent to the embassy in Delhi, India. The Fourteen also included figures such as Captain Muzaffer Özdağ, father of Ümit Özdağ; General Staff Major Dündar Taşer, founder of the ülkü ocakları and, before them, of the commando camps where idealists received military training; and Gendarmerie Captain Ahmet Er, known for his conservative religious identity and one of the founding members of the Great Unity Party.

After returning from India, Alparslan Türkeş appeared on the political stage in 1965 as chairman of the Republican Villagers Nation Party (CKMP). Many of his friends from the Fourteen joined the CKMP in the same period.

In the 1966 and 1968 Senate elections the slogan “The only idealist party” was used (the English term “idealist” corresponds to the Turkish “ülkücü”). Because the label “Nationalist-Socialist” (Milliyetçi-Toplumcu) used for the CKMP’s youth branches evoked Hitler’s idea of National Socialism, the term “ülkücü” began to be used for the first time.

Alparslan Türkeş thought Turkishness would not be enough to broaden the party’s base and reach larger masses. With the support of ideologues such as Seyyid Ahmet Arvasi and Dündar Taşer, he evolved the Turkist movement into the “Turkish-Islamic Ideal” model. The saying “We are as Turkish as the Tanrı Mountains (Tian Shan) and as Muslim as Mount Hira” was voiced by Türkeş as the slogan of the new Turkish-Islamic Ideal resulting from this evolution.

At the CKMP’s Adana Congress in 1969, the party’s name was changed to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and its emblem became three crescents. After this, some of the secular nationalists who objected to the Islamic emphasis left the MHP. Among those who left was Muzaffer Özdağ of the Fourteen. Years later, Muzaffer Özdağ would say of why he left the MHP:

“Our aim was to take the CHP’s place and complete Atatürk’s unfinished reforms. But at the Adana Congress it was decided to play not for the CHP’s ground but for the centre right. There was nothing left for us to do in this party. After that the MHP’s slogans changed. Next to ‘as Turkish as the Tanrı Mountains’, a mountain of 5,000 metres, was added ‘as Muslim as Mount Hira’, a mountain of 500 metres.”

(To be continued)