Urbanization and voting for the Turkish parliament

The Silk Letters Conspiracy, or Case, was a plot by a small clique of Indian Pan-Islamists located in Afghanistan, India and the Hijaz to overthrow British rule in India during the First World War. Although British officials at the time were prepared to admit that the conspiracy had been ‘organised with some skill’, there was a general feeling that it was a rather ‘pathetic’ and ‘ineffectual’ affair, and ‘crazy in the extreme’. This verdict has been echoed by those who have subsequently considered the plot, if only in passing. But there is more to the Silk Letters Conspiracy than meets the eye, as this article will detail. In retrospect, the Case has a greater significance than previously thought in terms of Britain's encounter with Pan-Islam.     

Reassessing Turkish National Memory: An Analysis of the Representation of Turkish National Memory by the AKP

In this article continuity and discontinuity of interpretations and manipulations of national memory during the successive governments of the Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi (Justice and Development Party – AKP) in Turkey are investigated. The strong continuities between the Islamist parties of the 1990s and the AKP, with regard to the way they consider and manipulate Ottoman history as a means of political legitimation, are demonstrated. In addition, the continuity between the AKP's style of governance and that of preceding governments is shown. The conclusion of the article is that, in addition to continuities with its Islamist predecessors, the AKP is to a large extent still embedded within the boundaries of the nationalist framework set out by Kemalism with regard to the party's stance on Turkish citizenship, national identity, traumas in national history and leader-centred politics.     

Purpose in Turkish politics and its outcome

(Dr. Mübeccel Kiray, Ere?li. A?ir Sanayiden önce Bir Sahil Kasabasi [Ere?li. A coastal market town before the advent of heavy industry], Ankara, 1964, pp. 146, 184).

(Nuri Eren, Turkey Today and Tomorrow. An Experiment in Westernisation, London 1963, p. 1).     

Reconsidering the role of non-public actors in Turkish policy-making

Indirect forms of government have become increasingly prominent in Turkey over the last few decades. After giving an overview of the growing role of non-public actors in Turkish policy-making, we depart from the common idea that the phenomenon is a result of neoliberalism only and examine the multiple genealogies and complex dynamics at work. The paper then questions the preconception according to which the involvement of non-public actors implies a retreat of the state and frames these developments in terms of changing forms of government. Finally, we question the outcomes of this phenomenon in terms of policy and power reconfigurations.     

Soldiers and civilians: the dilemma of Turkish democracy

This historical analysis of Mahatma Gandhi's views on the Jewish–Arab conflict in Palestine at the time of the British Mandate distinguishes four phases. The initial involvement is Gandhi's intervention in support of the Caliph's temporal rule in Palestine. The second deals with a secret offer of mediation addressed to the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem. The third is his highly controversial letter to ‘The Jews‘. In the last phase, Gandhi chose to remain silent, but is alleged to have stated that the Jews had a good case and a prior claim, a statement that seems at variance with previous attitudes. The question is raised as to how far Gandhi's views were consistent. They are explained by the evolving political context in India, as well as in Palestine, the two being intertwined in an ever tightening knot. Gandhi's commitments are revisited and clarified in the light of new research.     

Populism and Peasant Iconography: Turkish painting in the 1930s

The Six Day War is renowned for its impact on the shaping of the Middle East. In the last few decades, much research examining the reasons for the outbreak of the Six Day War, its development and its ramifications has been published. Most of the research has focused on an examination of Israeli government policy before and after the war, on the Egyptian regime's hatred of the ‘Zionist entity’ and on the involvement of the superpowers during and after the war. Some research has also touched on Syria's role in the outbreak of the war. Researchers such as Eyal Zisser and Moshe Maoz have shown Syria's decisive role in initiating the war and suggest that various factors, such as a lack of government stability in Syria, precipitated the conflict. This research continues, to a great extent, in the line of those researchers: indeed, it points to Syria as being the main factor behind the outbreak of war through an examination of the changes that occurred in the character of its government from 1966. However, unlike other research so far, this attempts to show that the unique character of the neo-Ba'ath regime is what brought war to the region and that, had the Ba'ath coup not occurred in 1966, it is doubtful whether Syria would have entered the conflict. This article seeks to emphasize that the Syrian regime went blindly into the war despite military unpreparedness and a lack of political and military cooperation with other Arab countries and with the Soviets. It also exposes, for the first time, the state of the Syrian troops on the front and in the cities, as well as the feelings of the senior officers on the eve of the war, and reveals documents about the military and political cooperation between Syria and Egypt that would eventually force President Nasser to enter a war he did not want to get involved in. Moreover, the research exposes the deep rift – which many believe pushed Syria to take rash independent measures –between the Soviet leadership and the Ba'ath regime before the war. And, finally, the research exposes the atmosphere in Syria following the war, and the administrative and military steps the Syrian regime took immediately after the defeat in order to consolidate its power.