Feb 12, 2018

As the United States and Europe continue to ponder ways to manage relations with an increasingly assertive, unpredictable and nationalist Turkey, a fascinating study released by a liberal DC think tank might offer them some valuable clues — while also adding to their confusion.

In its report, “Is Turkey Experiencing a New Nationalism?,” The Center for American Progress concludes that yes, it is. “Compared with the more secular nationalism seen under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s presidency … this new nationalism is assertively Muslim; fiercely independent; distrusting of outsiders; and skeptical of other nations and global elites, which it perceives to hold Turkey back.” All of this is being stoked and exploited by the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Some 80% agree with the statement, “Islam plays a central role in my own life and is essential to my understanding of Turkish identity.” But this idea should not be seized on as proof that most Turks are Islamists. The report suggests that 70% think “Turkey should be a secular state that respects the rights of people from all religious backgrounds to practice their faiths with no official state religion.”

More puzzlingly, while 54% believe that Ataturk’s secular vision is under assault, 51% credit the unabashedly Islamist Erdogan with fulfilling Ataturk’s ideal of a strong and independent nation.

Nicholas Danforth, a historian and Turkey expert at the Bipartisan Policy Center, another DC-based think tank, told Al-Monitor the study “suggests the most potent force in Turkish politics is not Islamism per se but an increasingly religious form of nationalism that sees both the country and its faith as subject to Western assault.”