Books – Identity, conflicts and politics

Gilles Dorronsoro and Olivier Grojean explain the importance of knowing a state’s and a people’s identity to provide for their future.

Understanding Turkey as a way of understanding the Middle East and, perhaps, what course of action should be taken to counter Islamic extremism, that is the aim of Identity, Conflict and Politics in Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. The book provides essential insights at this moment in time as Istanbul takes on more of a leadership role than it has played in recent centuries in a game of Risk involving Europe, Russia and Middle Eastern factions.

Edited by Gilles Dorronsoro, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment, and Olivier Grojean, a political sociologist at the CERIC-CNRS institute in Aix-en-Provence, the book examines the complex cultural construct that has led to the recent instability between Europe, the Middle East and the Levant. In particular, it focuses on the actions of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in what most analysts have termed “his sultanate”. The search for a greater sense of identity has always been one of the main themes of Erdogan’s rule. An example of what is happening in Turkey at present is enclosed in article 301 of the penal code, which envisages the crime of contempt of Turkish Identity for using the word “genocide”. The crime, an obvious reference to the Armenian issue, can land you in prison. But this is just the tip of an iceberg, the size of which cannot be fathomed. This is especially true if, as is already the case with Europeans who are divided over national interests, one’s cultural background is not believed to be akin to the Turkish one owing to religious differences. 

According to Dorronsoro and Grojean, the exploitation of the Turkish identity inherited from the Ottoman Empire is also at the heart of recent disputes with the EU and Russia. There is oneversion of Erdoğan who claims to be a mediator among the EU, Russia and Syria.Then there’s another Erdoğan, who can’t help paying lip service to radical Islamic movements in the Levant. Is this an attempt to end the secularisation promoted by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk? Undoubtedly so. But it is also a way of guaranteeing himself political consensus through sloganeering. Proof of this is provided in the book in the form of the many speechesthat are included, written by the “21^st century Turkish sultan” to underline the superiority of his nation.

Identity is one of the most powerful tools exploited by Erdoğan for propaganda purposes and securing political control. The more unstable the Middle Eastern situation becomes, the more Erdoğan harps on the identity issue to unlock the hearts of his fellow countrymen, who are increasingly overwhelmed by external threats. The threats are not only economic, involving an international currency conflict that also affects Istanbul.They also include the terrorist menace, as demonstrated by the recent attacks within Turkish borders and to which Islamic State has laid claim.

As the book explains, there can be no peace in the land bridging Europe and Asia as long as nostalgia for the Ottoman Empire is not laid to rest. Today’s Turkey is perhaps not an empire, but it could be (as it was in the past) a fundamental crossroads thanks to its geographic position and economic brawn. For this to take place, however, Istanbul must develop a less dogmatic attitude towards the future and relinquish its nostalgic view of the past. After all, identity need not be based exclusively on what our forefathers have achieved or our attempts to emulate them.Instead, it can build on the awareness of the efforts of previous generations in setting up a prosperous future for their people,an awareness that right now is of little interest to Erdoğan.