Tarikat (religious order) sheiks and professional men of religion who lost their status and economic power when secular reforms abolished religious institutions led it. Trying to stage revolts against the secular state in the 1920s and 1930s, the movement failed to gain wide support and was crushed by authorities.
In general, Islamist groups stayed underground during the era of one-party rule between 1923 and 1946. With the transition to a multi-party system in 1946, Islamist groups formed covert and overt alliances with the ruling center-right Democratic Party (DP) (1950-1960).
After the Democratic Party won the 1950 elections, it softened its secularist policies. With the provision of civil liberties in the 1961 constitution, Islamist groups began to operate legally, though their activities were still technically banned.
Until Necmettin Erbakan established in Jan. 1970 the National Order Party (NOP), the predecessor of three successive Islamist parties, Islamists had either formed conservative factions in a center-right party or had remained underground.
With the NOP, however, Islamists for the first time had an autonomous party organization through which they could campaign for their agenda. Since the NOP's founding, the same Islamist party has endured, albeit under different names: NOP (1970-1971), National Salvation Party (NSP) (1972-1981), Welfare Party (1983-1998), and Virtue Party (1997-2001).
The NOP largely represented Anatolian cities controlled by religiously conservative Sunnis, and the small traders and artisans (esnaf) of the hinterland. These groups had long waited to benefit from the state's modernization policies but had rarely done so, partly due to their own resistance to modernization in the name of religion and tradition (e.g., female children were not often sent to school.).
In addition to the frustrated periphery, the NOP also represented religiously conservative people who were informal members of outlawed religious orders. These people formed silent, but powerful, pressure groups with a large network.
As the Islamists learned how to contest elections and compete for power through democratic and constitutional means, they have extended their appeal beyond the provincial Anatolian towns to marginal elements in urban society in the 1980s, then to the educated middle class in the 1990s.
By the mid-eighties the government's (i.e. Ozal's) flexible response to Islamic activism and political liberalization opened up new opportunities for some Islamist groups (e.g. Naksibandis). Consequently, The Welfare had become more of a political opposition in parliamentary elections in the mid-1980s, and then it was the victorious party in the 1995 elections, and became a coalition partner in 1997.
The Islamist groups have become effective social and economic actors through their publishing, banking, and social services. This new economic model provided opportunities not only for the established business elite, but also to the small and medium businessmen in Anatolian towns. Some of them have developed their business there.
Others moved to Istanbul, seeking opportunities for expansion in this new commercial center. Originating from Anatolian towns, the new business elite desired to assert their provincial identity and preserve their values and traditions.
Consequently, they have been called "Anatolian Lions" ("Anadolu Aslanlari"), differentiating themselves from the more urban, Westernized business elite represented by TUSIAD (The Turkish Businessmen's and Industrialists' Association, founded in 1971), whose members are the chief executives of Turkey's 300 biggest corporations.
The pro-Islamist MUSIAD (the Association of the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen, founded on May 5, 1990 in Istanbul by a number of young pro-Islamic businessmen) has become an important economic actor with the support of the Islamist industrialists, businessmen and agrarian capitalists as well as of the religiously conservative small and medium size enterprises.
The tension between the TUSIAD and MUSIAD, which is parallel to the tension between the new urban middle class, whose members sprang up from the provincial towns, and the established urban elite, is one of the keys to understand the increased support for Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The religiously conservative business elite and the newly urbanized middle classes, which are competing with the established elite for credit, position and power, support the AKP. The supporters of the AKP are often allies of the Islamist movement.
They include the large university student population, especially upwardly mobile youths who must compete with the established urban middle and upper-middle classes; members of the unskilled young urban sub-proletariat whose number has increased with migration and a higher level of unemployment; and some of the state-employed petit bourgeoisie, proletarianized by falling real wages and high inflation, particularly since the early- 1990s.
In addition to this, there are bourgeoisie factions including some of the relatively privileged new middle and upper classes; rich merchants, businessmen and industrialists who sprang from humble esnaf origin and some rural agrarian capitalists.
Such a diverse and large support for the AKP is revealed in public opinion polls, which shows that Erdogan has the highest popularity in Turkey. A research by PRNET (Kerem Metin and Ali Gizer), which investigated the political choices of the 300 daily paper readers living in Istanbul, show that not only the majority of the readers of the radical Islamist papers (e.g., Akit) and moderate dailies (Zaman and Turkiye), but a sizable minority of the liberal right also found Erdogan the "most successful" or "successful" politician in the early August.
The survey was conducted before a popular TV channel shown a video- cassette (filmed in 1992) in which Erdogan defended the idea of establishing an Islamist state, promoted pan-Islamist solidarity and made fun of urban women associations.
While Erdogan, the leader of the AKP, has obtained support from a large segment the society, Kutan, the leader of the Saadet (Felicity) Party (SP), founded in July 2001, which largely represents the traditional Islamists and the religiously conservative older generation, was found to be "unsuccessful" by the Islamists and the liberals.
The same research suggests that the AKP would obtain votes from the Motherland Party (ANAP), the True Path (DYP), the National Action Party and the Democratic Left Party (DSP).
This is in addition to an overwhelming support from the now defunct Virtue Party (FP). Some 80 percent of those who voted FP in the 1999 elections said that they intended to vote AKP in the coming elections.
Why does a large segment of the society support Erdogan? There are a number of reasons advanced to explain this.
First, it appeals to the sense of protest of many discontented people in a country where people have suffered from various political and economic crises since the last two decades. This is why even voters of the social democrats would vote for Erdogan. A taxi driver, who voted for the Republican Peoples Party (CHP) in the last elections, told me, "I will vote Erdogan, who has the inner strength and courage to fight corruption."
Secondly, Erdogan, who was one of the passionate young Islamist leaders in the 1980s, has been a popular figure and seen to be the only leader to replace Erbakan before the AKP was founded on Aug. 11, 2001, soon after the closure of the FP on June 22, 2001. One of our surveys in 1996 showed that Erdogan, after Ecevit, was already seen to be the only leader who could solve Turkey's problems.
The Islamists, ranging from the moderates (i.e. Fethullah Gulen's disciples) to radicals (e.g. radical Nurcu Med Zehra) have had a conviction that it is Erdogan who could sustain the cause, fight corruption, and bring justice (adalet).
At the same time, they have been aware of the fact that the tension with the state need to be abated with the revision in the radical discourse of the Islamists.
Since the early 1990s the Islamists in Turkey and Middle East (e.g., Egypt, Jordan), responding to the changes in the state policies towards them, have been largely successful in revising their political discourse, creating new domains of activities and playing with the rules of a democratic game.
This would likely enable Islamists not to abandon their cause and radical agenda and to make Islamic revivalism part of moderate mainstream life, society and politics. Whether the AKP is an example of such a tactical change or its supporters are ready to internalize moderation and democratic principles is a question to be answered by the political developments in the coming decade.
The AKP group has revised its political discourse without debating their formerly held ideas. What has been revised and what are changes in both doctrine and tactics are not clearly explained.
AKP's change in Islamist rhetoric is not the revisionism of Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932), the founder of revisionism, who produced the most comprehensive criticism of Marx' and Marxism, which became the basis for democratic socialism.
Neither is it the "historical compromise" of the Italian Communist Party, that was accepting the idea of compromise and the political cooperation of the communists with their formal arch-rivals, the Christian Democrats in 1975-1979. AKP's new rhetoric and the style of action are not based on a comprehensive synthesis matured over time out of theoretical discussions.
It is a melange of some leftist ideas packed in an Islamic cover, symbols of modernization used without style and the formerly held Islamist views masked against legal persecution. Yet, it has an appeal in a country where the need for a political protest has grown out of proportions.
* Dr. Nilufer Narli's article published by English language Turkish Daşy News in 26 September 2001.
* Prof. Dr. Nilufer Narli is the chair of Sociology Department in Istanbul's Marmara University.