Second Stage in Turkish Modernization Process: Constitutional Monarchy at One Hundred Years

I wrote this 14 years ago, I found this while browsing my computer before preparing for the Contemporary Islamic Thinkers and Turkish Intellectual History courses; I thought it would be good if it was published in the Çorum Hakimiyet Newspaper, without even touching the word.

There was a file in Sabah Newspaper on Sunday (09/03/2008): Turkish Style French Revolution II: Constitutional Monarchy. A hundred years have passed since a really important stage to understand the Republic of Turkey and our history of democratization. Constitutional Monarchy means the administration of the country by the parliament under the presidency of a king or sultan. When I read the dossier, I thought of the questions that would be instrumental in analyzing the historical, cultural and political continuity of the Ottoman-Turkish Republic, which the Old and New Journal brought up for the Westernism dossier and asked me to answer it as well. I wanted to bring up the issues covered in these two files for Çorum Hakimiyet Readers.

Our Modernization History:

“How far does our modernization history go, a hundred years ago, or if we take the Tanzimat Ferman of 1839 as the first point, we are talking about a process of 169 years. If we take the first stage of our democratization history, namely the First Constitutional Monarchy, as our first constitution, we are in its 132nd year. If we remember that the Second Constitutional Monarchy continued until 1918, and then the Republic of Turkey was established, our historical, political and cultural continuity emerges.  II. Constitutionalism is the date of the official search for solutions to the problems experienced, but if you ask about the resolution date, we have to go to the 1699 Karlowitz agreement. Karlowitz, beyond being our first loss of land and the first sign of the defeated side, points to the moment when the West started to overcome the problems of the middle ages and started to come into contact with modern science and philosophy, thus facing a new mentality. If we look from this point of view and see modernization and westernization as identical, it should be said that the Turkish modernization process is in its 309th year. Considering such a long historical past, if we were to ask where Turkey is at the "level of modern civilization", why is the slogan "We did not understand the West, we got Westernized incorrectly", I thought, let's look for answers to the questions.

Conceptual Confusion: Is Modernization Identical with Westernization?

First of all, it is possible to say that if our modern civilization level was at the desired level, would we discuss them? In other words, we can first analyze the relationship between modernization and westernization, and then look for answers to the questions of whether we have been modernized or westernized, or what is the level of contemporary civilization.

What does it mean, modernity, contemporaneity, why are they imposed as an ideology on non-Western societies by identifying them with a type of modernity, namely Westernism, which means the modernization of a certain social fabric? However, every concrete historical-social formation has an understanding of modernity in its own specificity and rationality.

Civilizations:

If modernity is to provide material and spiritual values ​​that will provide welfare and peace to its social units and individuals in the light of contemporary data, it has been presented by important civilizations in every period of history. Egyptian, Hittite and Islamic civilizations had science and philosophy that realized their specificity and originality and formed a modern social structure in their time.

Then, modernity actually means to have the equipment that will provide welfare and peace to its members by doing the necessities of every nation, social structure and above all the period of every civilization. Modernism, on the other hand, is the absolutization of one of them, imposing itself on the social structure of another code, transforming its modernity, that is, imposing its own model as an ideology. There is a presentation in the form of a "situation" realized on one side, an absolute "value" that must be accepted elsewhere.

“We are in the process of westernization, but always the irony of "We did not understand the West, we got westernized incorrectly"

Today's dominant paradigm of modernism discourse, in the Western sense, was established in the 20th century by Hegel in the early 19th century in the fields of science, morality and art. regained their functionality. But its historical foundations date back to the 17th century Renaissance and reform movements. There are two main tendencies here, rationality and secularism. Emphasizing these, modernism is, in this sense, a movement of change in its essence, and is to move from one cognition model to another and adopt it. If we are going to talk about understanding the West or being wrongly westernized, it is necessary to pay special attention to this issue. Because the main issues that arise in modernism, which is presented as a transition from the legendary method to new scientific thought models in order to understand the phenomenon, arise from the ways of understanding and explaining the terms identity, history and Western civilization.

So how did this reflect on us? If we understand this, the answer to the question of whether we understand the West well becomes clear: Did we go through a medieval age like there? 

Then let's experience the stages of modernity, worldliness/secularity on a parallel plane. For example, the best indication of our inability to understand the West and its philosophical foundations is that "Turkey cannot be returned to the darkness of the middle ages, its slogan is still being said. It was being repeated a lot during the February 28 process, but when an important bureaucrat said this recently, I still wondered what modernity, what is progressive-reactionaryism, what is meant by this, what does the religious wars in the West, inquisitions have to do with Turkish history? I'm sorry to see it wasn't.

Why? First of all, since Voltaire, it is very fashionable to divide history into periods. Historical periods such as the ancient age, the Hellenist and Roman age, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment are presented as the unique intellectual history of humanity. The process presented as the Middle Ages, scholasticism, reactionary period, and the dark period finds its foundations in Antiquity. In other words, the basic teachings of Christianity began to be presented by shaping it with the data of ancient times. Thus, Father + Son + Spirit of God declared its universality in the world. Those who oppose this doctrine, which manifests itself in the form of Catholic (Universal)ism, even if only in the name of science, believe that the fathers of the church believe in God and Hz. They were subjected to extreme torture because it contradicted their identification with Jesus.

Anti-Modernity:

This is what they probably mean by anti-modernity, religious bigotry and a dark period. As a matter of fact, those who rejected the institution of the Pope, saying that the true true faith (orthodoxy) belonged to the Catholic doctrine, came to the fore. The Protestantism, which was formed by those who protested that Catholicism and Orthodoxy did not become more than a sect under Christianity, that is, presented as a religion, claimed that the most genuine belief belonged to them, and the world turned into a bloodbath with religious wars.

So, what does the Republic of Turkey have to do with the darkness of the middle ages, which lasted about a thousand years (395-1453)? Moreover, pay attention to the date of 1453, when the Turks were the founding elements of the Seljuk-Ottoman states and Islamic civilizations, that is, it was a very modern and bright period. It was this tradition inherited by the founders of the Turkish Republic, they say now that it has no historical meaning. Because the backward/scholastic and dark period of the West can be quite modern for another historical and social structure.

School Science:

Moreover, according to E. Gilson, a famous medieval expert on the period called darkness and anti-modernity, it is wrong to identify it with darkness. Scolasticus means school science. A period in which the teaching and teaching of existing teachings was made in church schools, making use of Aristotelianism. Teaching in these schools is not that easy either, because teachers have to know the "seven free arts". In other words, it is essential to know grammar, rhetoric, logic, calculation, geometry, astronomy and music. Now let's compare the situation of modern schools and schools of the scholastic period, who is forward and who is backward. Moreover, please remember that many famous universities still belong to churches. In this context, think about the answer to the question, did we understand the West, did we really understand, or someone misunderstood me and he misunderstood, is it irony?

Considering the modernization process, where is Turkey in the "level of modern civilization"?

We have a modernization process of nearly two centuries, let's not call it westernization right now. Yes, by resolving the contradictions between this dominant western modernity of the Turks and their own modernity, it goes as far as the Tanzimat, which aimed to save the "State-i Aliyya". The project of arranging, rectifying and reorganizing, as it is called, is the first serious step towards integration (modernization) with the West in the internal and external structure of the State on November 3, 1839 (26 Şaban 1255). In addition to the Sharia courts, nizamiye courts, madrasas and schools prioritizing secular knowledge were opened. Commercial and Penal Codes were introduced. The process that started with the Tanzimat, the Young Ottomans in 1860 and 1870; It continued with the Young Turks in 1908.

Let's remember that the elite people who founded the Turkish Republic, especially Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, were raised from these schools. In that case, our modernization adventure in the Western sense reached its peak with the proclamation of the First Parliament (1876-1877) with the reforms we call Hatt-ı Humayun. Nizam-i Cedid; in other words, the search for a new order was already there before that. In fact, if we take into account the determination of Bernard Lewis, who wrote The Birth of Modern Turkey (trans. Metin Kıratlı, TTK, Ankara.1988), we can see the Ottoman Notable Assembly, which was established in the 1800s, as an example of democracy. In this case, the Republic of Turkey, our new state, is eighty-five years old, but our nation's desire and experience to live and rule in accordance with democracy and the values ​​of the age is more than two hundred years. In short, the Tanzimat (Yavuz Abadan), which is seen by some as a programmed reform inspired by Europe; According to some, the Change of the Turkish Cluster is the bridge leading to the Westward Approach (Osman Okyar). These are those who equate modernization with westernization.

Are Westernization and Modernization the Same Thing?

However, there are also criticisms towards this: In our modernization history, the Tanzimatists did not understand the exploitation because they saw modernization as identical with the West, and it was criticized that Cameralism, which was an Aydin despotism in the West, created an upper layer by creating a similar one in the Ottoman Empire.

Even Ziya Gökalp, one of the important intellectuals of the New Turkish State, states that he could not get rid of the secular and religious dilemmas of the Tanzimat, and that he tried to impose the values ​​that were foreign to the Turkish society with an overwhelming force, and therefore could not localize them. In the recent period, there are scholars such as Mümtaz Turhan, who see the Tanzimat as a necessary period of cultural change;

The Goal of Going Above the Level of Contemporary Civilization:

At this stage, we can open the question of where we are at the level of contemporary civilization: This modernization is equated with "Westernization" and "Europeanization", and until recently, we experienced its transformation into a closed ideology (modernism) that was imposed by force. When Adnan Menderes, Turgut Özal and the current AKP administration intensified their efforts to overcome this Jacobinism and to catch up with the contemporary civilization, especially when the efforts to join the European Union intensified, this Jacobinism, that is, from the top down, the Unionism became clear and it was revealed that we could not make any progress.

The nationalist, introverted, totalitarian, Jacobin attitude suddenly began to say that modernization cannot be seen as Westernism or Europeanism. This is the interesting thing. Moreover, they started to present a Eurasian model as modernity, which includes Iran, Russia, and at least the Turkic Republics that gained their political freedom in Central Asia. In other words, modernity has ceased to be westernism and Europeanism and has begun to be perceived as a project for the east, the near east and Asia. But there is something wrong here, if Atatürk's goal was to bring our people to the level of contemporary civilization and surpass it, it is a fact that these countries could not reach the level of contemporary civilization, neither economically nor politically.

What will happen now? What is meant by modernity and modernity? Moreover, historically, the Turkish red apple has always been in the West, not the East. We have already come from there, as the first Red Apple, the conquest of Istanbul; We are the children of a nation that has set Vienna and Rome as the second Red Apple target. Our direction has always been towards the West since Oğuz Kaan.

Of course, it is a requirement of the oath of fidelity to convey the data of the final point we have reached, of the contemporary civilization, to the homeland, but I could not understand why we should consider the place we came to as the only target/red apple and consider it an element of modernity, my dear!

Now, how far we have really progressed, or by going a little, by going a long way, in fact, we have traveled a barley length; Or rather, it is obvious that we are counting on the spot, isn't it?

The direction of the Turks is always towards the West.

I really want to bring this to your attention, now you will forget that the Oghuzs, the Turkmens, who are the most basic and primary group who migrated from Inner Asia, are constantly advancing west, as their ancestors commanded. You won't remember that there were tribes that founded Turkic states and dynasties (Safavids, Avars, Qajars), Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan Republics in Iran, okay, I might say historical unconsciousness. But if we pay attention to the historical process for the Turks of Turkey, you can't forget that the Oghuzs, who were part of the Ghaznavid state in Khorasan, which was perfect with its wealth of agricultural, military and civil organization, first established the Great Seljuk state in terms of Anatolian accumulation.

You will forget that the Syrian Seljuks turned to Kirkuk, the Turkish Seljuks to Anatolia, that they reached the borders of the Byzantine Empire in a short time, that they left deep traces on Turkish history, culture and scientific life, and that they established a modern civilization, this will never happen.

The Kayı tribe of the Oghuzes established the Ottoman state, destroyed the Byzantine empire, ruled on three continents for centuries, with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, the Turks of Turkey were strategically drawn to the other end of Central Asia, Front Asia, thus as a modern state that secured the other end of the silk road. You can't forget that he founded the Turkish Republic.

Continuity in Our History of Modernization: Göktürk and the Turkish Republic:

At the first end of the historical line, in Inner Asia, the Göktürks; When we can't forget that the Republic of Turkey is located at the last end of Asia Minor (in Anatolia), we observe that this nation has always had a modernity design and has put it into practice. We also get rid of a modernization clamp that identifies with westernization. No, if we forget, he will make a technical mistake made by the effective and authoritative bureaucrat, he says, no one can return Turkey to the middle ages. 

We confuse traces and paradigms.

The (then) Speaker of the Assembly Köksal Toptan, being aware of this historical consciousness, is important in terms of making a statement about overcoming the dilemmas of modernity, modernity, progressiveness, reactionism, secularism and religiosity of the recent tensions and saying that we should panic, that our concerns are unfounded, and that there are those who have not forgotten our historical process. .

It is a consistent attitude to say that this nation has had a secular and secular structure since the Ottoman Empire and that "Even if you tell our people to give up on their understanding of secularism, you cannot make them give up -". Because we have indeed established states that have managed to keep different languages, races, religions and cultures together for years, did not impose an absolute ideology on others, and were the sole rulers of the world for many years. Of course, this does not mean to be introverted by falling into the glorious history syndrome, on the contrary, to strengthen our social imagination and produce solutions to our problems by thinking calmly requires not to be provoked.

What happens if we mean westernization by modernization, and westernization, Europeanization by a misunderstanding?

The indication that we have not been able to make a solid progress emerges painfully: It is unfortunate that the leader of the main opposition, who also does academic studies on social sciences, cannot understand this historical basis, it is an example of historylessness. It cannot be forgotten that a significant part of the fundamental revolutions of the Republic of Turkey came to the fore in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, discussions were held and these were put into practice in the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, the developments and the stages of modernization.

Tabula Rasa:

By ignoring Turkey's Seljuk-Ottoman heritage, seeing it as a new state that has lost its historical memory or has "tabula rasa", what we are discussing is Turkish secularism. It is not Ottoman secularism. What Turkey seeks is not Ottoman secularism, it is out of question to strengthen secularism by emulating it, on the contrary, it plays into the hands of those who want to destroy secularism.” Their newspaper (Sabah) on 16-17 February 2008 is a complete example of misfortune and lack of history. Because it is impossible for a phenomenon to be experienced exactly in terms of philosophy of history, states are born, grow and die like human beings since Ibn Khaldun. They established new states wherever they went, formed new Turkish hands, and with a great strategic foresight, they established their new state in Anatolia, which has been the center of three continents and has been the homeland of Turks for centuries, within the framework of new modern and modern rules. It is the name of the child, but it symbolically carries the previous states in the Presidential Force, respecting their ancestors and traditions.Therefore, it is not possible for a new structure to resurrect an old structure, this is against nature.

Conclusion:

In short, to say the last word in the context of modernization; The only target before us is the West since Oğuz Kaan, modern, spacious and democratic principles that provide peace. It is the universal accumulation of humanity. We must try to blend our local and particular values ​​within the universal accumulation, reproduce them and try to create our own understanding of modernity. And this will happen with a progressive, democratic, liberating mentality, not a totalitarian, oppressive, top-down structure. This, in essence, is reactionary and bigotry, the direction of which is always towards the west and the first 'Red Apple', but the Second Red Apple; In other words, this is a modernity that tries to achieve Vienna within new, modern criteria, that is, that sees the European Union standard as the natural right of its people.