TÜRKİYE’DE SİYASAL-TOPLUMSAL MERKEZİN DEĞİŞİM SÜRECİ VE MUHAFAZAKÂRLIK

Mehmet Akgül

TURKISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PROCESS OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CENTER’S CHANGE IN TURKEY

Year 2004, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 109 - 127, 30.09.2004

Mehmet Akgül

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe the experiences the conservative sectors
of Turkish society have gone through during the process of Turkish modernization
which is marked by the Ottoman/Turkish ulama’s beginning to lose their leading role in
society.
We will attempt to discuss the venture of the Turkish conservatism, which came
to be marginalized from the social and political center in the late years of the Ottoman
Empire, in three stages in the context of religious institutions and values. These stages
can be schemed as 1) to be pushed from the center to periphery in the late years of the
Ottoman rule, 2) to be marginalized or go underground in the early years of the Republic,
3) to come close again to, or re-occupy, the center in the post-1950s. These stages
become meaningful mostly in the contexts of conflicts over religion and secularism which
have taken place between the political and social center.