Papers by Melvyn Ingleby
Journal of Democracy, 2020
This paper explores the shifting relationship between Islamism and leftism in Turkey. Whereas man... more This paper explores the shifting relationship between Islamism and leftism in Turkey. Whereas many scholars of Turkish politics have portrayed Islamists and leftists as ‘natural’ adversaries, I argue that many hostilities between the two are historically contingent on Cold War politics, and demonstrate how they have recently been challenged by the emergence of a Muslim Left (Müslüman sol). To develop this argument, I will first examine how (state-led) anti-communist propaganda impacted the genesis of Turkish Islamism, and spurred violent conflict between Islamists and leftists throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Next, I discuss some rare examples of cooperation between Islamists and leftists, such as the proponents of ‘Islamic socialism’ in the left-wing journal Yön as well as the radical Islamist youth who welcomed the Iranian Revolution as a step towards ‘green communism.’ The 1980 coup d’état, however, pushed Turkish Islamism definitely toward the Right, as the generals entrenched nationalist Islamic education as an antidote against communism and opened the way for neoliberal economic reform. While the current AKP government continues this right-wing tradition, its initial openness to internal debate and the waning of the Cold-War order also provided new spaces for debates on the relation between Islamic politics and the Left. Since 2007, this led to the formation of a self-identified Muslim Left, which criticizes the AKP in the name of a radically egalitarian reading of Islam. In the final part of this paper, I briefly identify the main thinkers and movements within this Muslim Left, demonstrate their indebtedness to the pioneering ‘Islamic socialists’ of the 1960s and 1970s, and discuss their explicit call to liberate Islamic politics from its Cold War shackles.
MA Thesis on the historical class conflicts within Turkish Islamism and the rise of a Muslim Left... more MA Thesis on the historical class conflicts within Turkish Islamism and the rise of a Muslim Left (Müslüman Sol), a network of intellectuals, activists and politicians who challenge the governing AKP in the name of a radically egalitarian reading of Islam. Pdf available at request.
MA Theses by Melvyn Ingleby
Masters dissertation in études politiques under the direction of Olivier Remaud.
BA Theses by Melvyn Ingleby
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Papers by Melvyn Ingleby
MA Theses by Melvyn Ingleby
BA Theses by Melvyn Ingleby