The Turkish Nation as a Bridge: Imagining a Nation in Turkish Parliamentary Discourse

Year 2023, Volume: 3 Issue: 1, 86 - 107, 03.04.2023

Erdogan Aykaç

https://doi.org/10.52241/TJDS.2023.0055

Abstract

This article analyses Turkish parliamentary discourse about Turkish communities living outside of Turkey from 1988 to 2016. It focuses particularly on the usage of the bridge metaphor in discursive strategies towards these communities; concentrated mainly in former Ottoman territories and parts of Eurasia. The article argues that Turkish parliamentarians used the bridge metaphor to frame Turkish communities as part of both the Turkish nation and the nation where they lived, thereby constituting their liminal and in-between identity. Parliamentarians continuously (re-)imagine, (re-)construct, and (re-)produce the Turkish nation by using different discursive strategies that included uniqueness, sameness or difference. They used identity markers as ethnicity, language, geography, history, and religion to address these strategies. Metaphorically framing Turkish communities as a bridge provided them a dominant bridge role, namely that of friendship and peace. By transforming Turkish communities into a bridge of friendship and peace, through different dimensions, they believed that they would have a positive and crucial role for the country where they live and for Turkey. This bridge role provided opportunities as well as limits, illustrating the interplay between discourse and foreign policy developments.

Keywords

Bridge metaphor, imagined Turkish communities, discursive strategies, Turkish parliament, foreign policy

References

• Anderson, B. R. O. (2006). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (Rev.ed). Verso.
• Aykaç, E. (2021). A Bridge with Multiple Faces: Competing Identities in Turkish Parliamentary Debates (1988-2016). DIYÂR, 2, 279–301. https://doi.org/10.5771/2625-9842-2021-2-279106
• Baser, B. (2014). The Awakening of a Latent Diaspora: The Political Mobilization of First and Second Generation Turkish Migrants in Sweden. Ethnopolitics, 13(4), 355–376. https://doi.org/10.108/17449057.2014.894175
• Bilgin, P. (2007). “Only Strong States Can Survive in Turkey’s Geography”: The uses of “geopolitical truths” in Turkey. Political Geography, 26(7), 740–756. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo. 2007.04.003
• Brubaker, R. (2000). Accidental Diasporas and External “Homelands” in Central and Eastern Europe: Past and Present. IHS Political Science Series 71, October 2000. [Working Paper]. http://www.ihs.ac.at/vienna/IHS-Departments-2/Political-Science-1/Publications-18/Political-Science-Series-2/Publications-19/publication-page:6.htm
• Chapin, W. D. (1996). The Turkish Diaspora in Germany. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 5(2), 275–301. https://doi.org/10.1353/dsp.1996.0015
• Davutoğlu, A. (2011). Teoriden Pratige: Turk Dis Politikasi Uzerine Konusmalar. Küre Yayınları.
• Eligür, B. (2010). The Mobilization of Political Islam in Turkey. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511711923
• Faist, T. (2010). Diaspora and transnationalism: What kind of dance partners? In T. Faist and R. Bauböck (Eds.), Diaspora and Transnationalism (p. 9–34). Amsterdam University Press.https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46mz31.4
• Hall, S. (1999). Un‐settling ‘the heritage’, re‐imagining the post‐nation. Whose heritage? Third Text, 13(49), 3–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/09528829908576818
• Hansen, L. (2006). Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War. Taylor and Francis.
• Kaya, A. (2010). Constructing communities in the Turkish diaspora: A quest for politics. In Nationalisms and Politics in Turkey. Routledge.
• Küçükcan, T. (2007). Bridging the European Union and Turkey: The Turkish Diaspora in Europe. Insight Turkey, 9(4), 85–99.
• Papuççular, H. (2020). The Sanjak of Alexandretta (Hatay) in Turkish Foreign Policy: A Case of “Accidental Diaspora” and Kin-State Politics. In H. Papuççular and D. Kuru (Eds.), A Transnational Account of Turkish Foreign Policy (p. 121–140). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42897-6_6
• Rumelili, B. (2008). Negotiating Europe: EU-Turkey Relations from an Identity Perspective. Insight Turkey, 10(1), 97–110.
• Rumelili, B., and Suleymanoglu-Kurum, R. (2017). Brand Turkey: Liminal Identity and its Limits. Geopolitics, 22(3), 549–570. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2016.1270269
• Sirseloudi, M. (2012). The Meaning of Religion and Identity for the Violent Radicalisation of the Turkish Diaspora in Germany. Terrorism and Political Violence, 24(5), 807–824. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2011.644105
• Varadarajan, L. (2010). The Domestic Abroad: Diasporas in International Relations. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199733910.001.0001
• Wodak, R. (2017). Discourses about nationalism. In The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies. Routledge.
• Yabanci, B. (2021). Home-State Oriented Diaspora Organizations and the Making of Partisan Citizens Abroad: Motivations, Frames and Actions Towards Coopting the Turkish Diaspora in Europe (SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 3823997). Social Science Research Network. https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3823997
• Yaldiz, F. (2019). A Critical Approach to the Term Turkish Diaspora: Is there ‘the’ Turkish Diaspora?
• Bilig, 91, Article 91. https://doi.org/10.12995/bilig.9103
• Yanık, L. K. (2009). The Metamorphosis of Metaphors of Vision: “Bridging” Turkey’s Location, Role and Identity After the End of the Cold War. Geopolitics, 14(3), 531–549. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/14650040802693515
• Yavuz, M. H. (2020). Turgut Özal’s Neo-Ottomanism. In M. H. Yavuz (Ed.), Nostalgia for the Empire: The Politics of Neo-Ottomanism. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197512289.003.0005