This chapter discusses the revival of Islamism as a counter-hegemonic paradigm in Turkey. After giving a brief definition of Islamism, it looks at the genealogy of Turkish Islamism, it looks at how the Kemalists put an end to Turkish Islamism, securitised and criminalised it. Then, the chapter summarises the several Turkish Islamist parties that were by the National Outlook Movement, after the closure of each party by the Kemalist constitutional court. After briefly evaluating National Outlook Islamism’s divisive, Islamist populist, anti-Western and conspiratorial rhetoric, the chapter proceeds to the emergence of AKP and consolidation of its own authoritarian regime. This chapter argues that there are three different versions of AKP. The first one’s (AKP 1.0) emergence can be traced back to 1997 when the Kemalists profoundly victimised and traumatised the Turkish Islamists once again after staging a coup. The AKP was established in 2001 as a Muslim Democrat party and until 2008 continued to democratise Turkey in line with the EU’s requirements. AKP 2.0 emerged in authoritarian drift times between 2008 and the Gezi events of mid-2013 when Erdoğan decided to crush the peaceful demonstrators with violence. AKP 3.0 is the full authoritarianist and Erdoğanist version of the AKP that started with the Gezi protests of mid-2013 and has continued until present.

This chapter starts with a historical background of the Kemalist hegemonic paradigm, starting with the late Ottoman period. It argues that Turkish secularist nationalists and Islamists emerged due to their different explanations for the internal and external causes of the Ottoman decline. The secularist nationalist narrative of the Young Turks who ruled the Empire between 1908 and 1918, was later incorporated into Kemalist ideology following the fall of the Ottoman Empire. This ideology shaped state thinking until the early 2000s despite transitioning to a multiparty political system in 1950. After discussing different variants of Kemalism, the chapter discusses how the Kemalist elite guaranteed the continuation of their hegemony by locking in their privileges into the 1960 Constitution and creating a dual tutelage system with anti-majoritarian institutions such as the Senate, the Constitutional Court and the National Security Council, whose decisions had to be implemented by the governments. These institutions were in control of high politics issues that were all securitised to the level of existential importance for the nation. Thus, the politicians were not allowed to modify the secularist Muslim nationalist identity of the state, the creation of the desired citizens project, state–Islam relations, Diyanet’s status, homogenisation policies and the discrimination of minorities.

This chapter elaborates on the state’s Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) under AKP rule. Even during the AKP’s democratisation and human rights reforms, the Diyanet remained untouched and the AKP kept the Diyanet under its direct control. This chapter shows that, along with the rising Islamist populism and Muslim nationalism in Turkish politics, the Diyanet has gradually embraced a populist Islamist and Muslim nationalist rhetoric, paving the way for the emergence of Diyanet Islam 2.0. Via its centrally prepared Friday sermons that are delivered in Turkey’s 90,000 mosques attended by60 per cent of Turkey's adult males, the Diyanet propagated its new version of Diyanet Islam 2.0. Thus, in the sermons, glorification of martyrdom, anti-Western conspiracy theories, existential threats posed to the Muslim nation and the ummah by external and internal enemies, politics of victimhood, reverence of military, ummah and jihad, and enthusiastic support of the Turkish military’s incursions to other countries and framing it as jihad have become prominent themes. Similar to the earlier version, Diyanet Islam 2.0 too has its own corresponding version of the tolerated citizen, Homo Diyanetus 2.0.The chapter concludes with the definition of Homo Diyanetus 2.0.

Through a study of the most prominent Holocaust institutes in Israel – Yad Vashem, Lohamei Hagetaot, and Yad Mordechai – Chapter 5 demonstrates that Holocaust mnemonic rituals serve a defined political purpose, namely the justification of the need for a strong and independent Israeli state as the only viable way to hinder a recurrence of the Holocaust. The deliberate usage of teleological architecture at Yad Mordecai and Yad Vashem seeks to inspire a redemptive visitor experience through a regulated physical move from the exhibited darkness and catastrophe of Europe to the light and rebirth in Israel, the former destroyed; the latter victorious. The emphasis on a Jewish rebirth in the wake of the Holocaust in the institutes’ historical exhibits and in annual commemorative ceremonies prompts the merging of the dissonant categories of victim and victor, forming a metaphorical testimony to what Martin Jaffee described as “the victim-community” in which “the victim is always both victim and victor.” Beyond the overt minimization of the fate of non-Jewish victims and post-Holocaust diasporic Jewry, the Zionist panacea channeled at the memory sites demands a foregoing of the physical Palestinian history of the three sites themselves. As a result, visitors to the historic exhibits and participants in annual mnemonic rituals continue to take part in a cultural palimpsest as they are propelled to remember the physically superimposed Jewish watershed rather than the Nakba.

This chapter discusses the principle aim of the Kemalist nation-building project: the construction of Homo LASTus. Understood here as a Weberian ideal type, Homo LASTus refers to a new human being who is at once a laicist, Atatürkist (Kemalist), Sunni Muslim and Turk. Having determined, ethnic religious heterogeneity, Islamism and the Ottoman nostalgia as existential threats to the new secularist and Turkish nationalist state and national identity, the Kemalists were adamant to create a secular nation out of the country’s majority that happened to be Sunni Muslim and Turkish. After summarising Kemalist nation-building and its relations with Islam and minorities, the chapter briefly elaborates on the social engineering policies of the Kemalists and their securitisation of minority identities. It explains how the Kemalist state marginalised, securitised and even in some cases criminalised ethnoreligious and political minorities as well as religious Muslims; and the state’s assimilation and dissimilation policies in relation to these minorities. After discussing each parameter (Laicist, Atatürkist, Sunni Muslim, and Turk) in a separate section, this chapter discusses how the Kemalists created and made use of Atatürk’s personality cult in addition to education in creating their desired citizens.

This chapter analyses what happened to the undesired citizens of the Kemalism during the Kemalist nation-building project. The ‘other’ to the state’s desired citizen of Homo LASTus were practising Muslims, Islamists, non-Atatürkists such as leftists and socialists, non-Muslims, Alevis and Kurds who were discriminated against by the Kemalist state in a variety of ways. Not only were attempts made to assimilate or dissimilate them, but they were also denied important bureaucratic positions, despite officially being ‘equal citizens'.The chapter looks at the ‘others’ to the Homo LASTus in order: practising Muslims and Islamists (opposite to the laicist), leftists–socialists–communists (opposite to the Atatürkist), non-Muslims and Alevis (opposite to the Sunni Muslim) and Kurds (opposite to the Turk). Before concluding, the chapter discusses how, for a variety of reasons, these minorities felt a need to hide their identities in public, resorted to dissimulation and were constructed by the majority as villains in different conspiracy theories linked to the insecurities, anxieties, fears and paranoias of the state and the nation.

This chapter analyses how the state, under the rule of Erdoğanists, has been treating undesired citizen identity groups. In post-coup-attempt Turkey, the AKP has developed a staunchly populist narrative to divide the citizens of Turkey as factions of 'the people’ (or ‘the nation’) versus its out-groups: Kemalists, White Turks, Kurds, Alevis, Gülenists, leftists, liberals, etc. who are framed as citizen-enemies. All of these groups have been constructed as terrorists – internal enemies of the nation and pawns of Western powers that do not want Turkey to lead the Muslim world. The chapter starts with the most significant and oldest antagonists of Islamists – Erdoğanists – who arethe Kemalists and their desired citizens –the Homo LASTus – and also the non-Kemalist White Turks and secular elites who allegedly victimised Islamists in the past and who are allegedly stillplotting against them. Then, following the same order of the chapter on Kemalism’s undesired citizens, this chapter will discuss other undesired citizens of Erdoğanism: disloyal practising Muslims and Islamists; leftists, liberals, socialists; non-Muslims; Alevis; and disloyal Kurds.

This chapter investigates how the AKP has been very gradually de-Kemalising education and Islamising it at the same time. It explores how the AKP has been instrumentalising the national curriculum and compulsory and optional religious lessons at schools, Erdoğanism’s most-favoured schools, Imam Hatip Schools and Islamist educational foundations to create the Homo Erdoğanistus. The chapter starts with an analysis of the continuities and changes between the Kemalist and Erdoğanist national curriculums, showing how these to overlap to a great extent when it comes to the nation’s insecurities. The AKP has been using these insecurities for its desired citizen project too, and the education system has been undergoing profound changes that are intended to enable Erdoğanists to shape the worldview and national identity of the citizens.