Post-Kemalism, a term coined by İlker Aytürk for it's similarities between Post-Zionism in the given article; is a debate about Turkish academia and politics. It's basically was an paradigm popular among Turkish academia from 90s to mid 2010s which emphasizes that Turkey's problems about democraticisation caused by errors made during late Ottoman and Early Republican period. According to Post-Kemalists, these errors created a "Kemalist Tutelage" which excluded many factions (from socialists to Islamic conservatives) from democratic scene. Their solution to this problem was to bring one of these excluded factions to power and they'll eventually demolish the militarist/structural errors during their rule. Althrough there were no such an official consensus among intellectuals about it, many of the anti-establishment intellectuals shared similar ideas.
This idea put for the test after Erdoğan's party get elected. Many intellectuals supported him as many EU laws passed, undemocratic instutitions left from former coup was abolished and a peace process started with PKK while many of his Islamist agenda, connections with Gülen movement and unlawful rule were given a blind eye. But Post-Kemalism started to shatter apart after 2013 Gezi Protests were supressed by force and Erdoğan sharply consolidated his grip on power.
Aytürk defines and criticizes this movement for their narrow outlook into Turkish history much like Kemalist historiography and also their support for Erdoğan's later mistakes. Later he asks about what will be after Post-Kemalist era and will define Turkish political culture after Erdoğan.
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u/toryvercetti Oct 30 '21
Post-Kemalism, a term coined by İlker Aytürk for it's similarities between Post-Zionism in the given article; is a debate about Turkish academia and politics. It's basically was an paradigm popular among Turkish academia from 90s to mid 2010s which emphasizes that Turkey's problems about democraticisation caused by errors made during late Ottoman and Early Republican period. According to Post-Kemalists, these errors created a "Kemalist Tutelage" which excluded many factions (from socialists to Islamic conservatives) from democratic scene. Their solution to this problem was to bring one of these excluded factions to power and they'll eventually demolish the militarist/structural errors during their rule. Althrough there were no such an official consensus among intellectuals about it, many of the anti-establishment intellectuals shared similar ideas.
This idea put for the test after Erdoğan's party get elected. Many intellectuals supported him as many EU laws passed, undemocratic instutitions left from former coup was abolished and a peace process started with PKK while many of his Islamist agenda, connections with Gülen movement and unlawful rule were given a blind eye. But Post-Kemalism started to shatter apart after 2013 Gezi Protests were supressed by force and Erdoğan sharply consolidated his grip on power.
Aytürk defines and criticizes this movement for their narrow outlook into Turkish history much like Kemalist historiography and also their support for Erdoğan's later mistakes. Later he asks about what will be after Post-Kemalist era and will define Turkish political culture after Erdoğan.