5. The Millî Görüş Movement’s discourse on Jews (and Christians)

• In Event: Jewish Perspectives on the Republic of Turkey: Past and Present

Abstract

This paper charts changes in the discourse of a prominent Turkish-Islamist movement – Millî Görüş, focusing on Jews, comparing to the movement’s discourse on Christians. The years in focus are from 1973, when the movement’s party first entered Parliament, and 1996 – when it won the Turkish elections.
First, I will argue that unlike other aspects of “the West” (i.e., geopolitics, “Western” political systems, “Western culture,” and Christianity), towards which the Millî Görüş moderated during the 1990s, the movement’s hostile discourse towards Jews remained and even intensified during the 1990s. However, I argue that the strengthening of anti-Jewish discourse in the 1990s is not a reminisce of the movement’s anti-Westernism but rather – part of its strategy of reconciliation with the West. The rise in anti-Jewish rhetoric is, counter-intuitively, part of Millî Görüş’s pro-Western “turn”.
The main event that changed Millî Görüş’s views on, or at least its discourse of, “the West” was the end of the Cold War. The fall of the USSR and the new American-led unipolar world order caused Millî Görüş to re-evaluate its anti-western discourse. Remaining anti-American, anti-western and uncommitted to liberal democracy in a unipolar world shaped by the US would have been harmful to the Millî Görüş. However, a complete U-turn of its staunchly anti-Western positions would be difficult to communicate to its base and supporters.
The movement’s strategy for the challenge of the 1990s was replacing Judaism with Islam as the partner of the West in the post-Cold War unipolar world order. Instead of the so-called “Clash of Civilization” between Islam and the West, which was a popular prism in Western intellectual circles (which Millî Görüş itself promoted until the 1990s), the movement argued that the West and Islam ought to be partners rather than enemies. It was only a Jewish conspiracy, they claimed, which caused the two great world civilizations (Islam and Christianity / “the West”) to clash – rather than cooperate.

Author

• Uri Rosenberg