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Right-Wing Dilemmas in Cold War Turkey: Mümtaz Turhan's Yol
Abstract
In this paper, we aim to discuss the extent to which the Cold War shaped political debates in Turkey and how it compelled right-wingers to seek solutions to conjectural contradictions between anti-communism and nationalist-conservatism. Our focus will be on the journal Yol, published from December 1965 to August 1966 in 35 issues by Mümtaz Turhan, professor of social psychology and a mentor of Turkish nationalist and conservative circles. Other contributors to Yol included Tar?k Bu?ra, nationalist literary critic and novelist, and Turhan’s assistant Erol Güngör, an iconic figure in the 20th century Turkish nationalism. Yol was intended to be a right-wing response to the rising tide of socialism in Turkey in the 1960s and, particularly, to the influential leftist journal Yön. It was not successful in achieving this goal as its short lifespan indicates. However, Yol is an extremely important source for understanding difficult choices facing a right-wing ideologue in those years. Mümtaz Turhan and other nationalist contributors to Yol made anti-communism the central pillar of their ideology, an uncomfortable position which occasionally forced them to sacrifice central tenets of their nationalist and conservative heritage. How could Yol denounce the idea of “full independence” as a communist trick, for example, and passionately justify Turkey’s pro-American and pro-NATO orientation? Why did Yol downplay the significance of the Johnson Letter (June 1964), written by President Lyndon Johnson to the Turkish government to warn them that NATO might not come to their rescue if a Turkish offensive in Cyprus invited Soviet intervention? What explains Yol’s recommendation to stop literacy campaigns in Turkey and to give priority to educate an elite of intellectuals and technocrats, who would then enlighten the rest of the society in a top-down manner à la Kemalism? How could Yol endorse westernization as the perfect antidote to communism? An exploration of the unanticipated path taken by the Yol group will contribute to the understudied history of nationalism and conservatism in Cold War Turkey.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Turkey
Sub Area
Turkish Studies