On this balmy Sunday in September, slogans hostile to homosexuals resonate in the sunny Saraçhane park, in the conservative district of Fatih, where young people usually gather for picnics. This demonstration for the “protection of the family” and against a supposed “LGBT danger”, put forward by the government for several years, is organized in Istanbul, at the call of Islamist associations and strict Sufi brotherhoods.
On a giant screen, a man sporting a long white beard and speaking in English with a strong Russian accent, urges the crowd to fight the ideology of “global liberalism, which wants to normalize and even impose perversion.” Presented as “adviser to Vladimir Putin”, he is Alexander Dugin, the ultranationalist Russian ideologue whose popularity has exploded since the start of the invasion of Ukraine. In August 2022, he was the subject of an assassination attempt, which cost the life of his daughter Daria. The sulphurous intellectual is the author of a geopolitical theory called “neo-Eurasianism”, which professes an alliance between the European and Asian continents to fight against a West under “Atlanticist” domination. His thesis finds a growing echo in certain fringes of Turkish society.
In the Sunday crowd, in addition to practicing Muslims and veils, we see many bare-headed women and signs with quotes attributed to the very secularist Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey. “I am delighted to see people from different political movements here,” rejoices Alexandre Duguine during his speech.
Purges and power of influence
One of its main advocates in Turkey is Dogu Perinçek, 81 years old. With brushed white hair and a full mustache, this old traveler in Turkish politics invited him for the first time in 2003, for a conference on Eurasianism. From now on, Dogu Perinçek finds himself at the head of the Patriotic Party, an ultranationalist political group which claims the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, notably on secularism, but advocates a regional alliance with the Iran of the mullahs, the Russia of Putin and Xi Jinping’s China.
Ultra-minority, his party has little influence at the polls, but claims a certain power of influence. “With 30,000 members, we are not a mass party, but an elite formation,” boasts the octogenarian, who receives in a beautiful old building in the center of Istanbul, where his party has its offices. In fact, with a television channel, a daily newspaper and relays in numerous online media and even in the traditional press, “the enlightened” (as they call themselves) have a strike force to disseminate their ideas in the public opinion. Above all, they are historically very present in the security forces, particularly in the military institution.
Until recently, Dogu Perinçek’s party was allied with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to whom he owes his freedom. Accused of fomenting a coup in 2008, Dogu Perinçek spent five years in prison, alongside other soldiers. They claim to be the victims of a cabal set up by the religious preacher Fethullah Gülen, then Erdogan’s main ally. But in the winter of 2013, a crisis broke out between Gülen and Erdogan, which led the latter to decree the release of Perinçek and other imprisoned high-ranking soldiers. In the years that followed, Erdogan will purge the ranks of the state of officials suspected of connections with the Gülen brotherhood and replace them with men from the ranks of Perinçek. “The crisis of winter 2013 was a tremendous opportunity for the Eurasianists, as was the attempted coup of 2016 [NDLR : attribuée à Gülen]which will encourage the withdrawal of the State into its security apparatus,” explains Suat Kiniklioglu, former AKP deputy and author of a study on the issue.
“We chased away the pro-NATO generals, they are now all behind bars,” says Dogu Perinçek, in reference to the purges which followed the attempted putsch of 2016. For him, there is no doubt, Turkey must get rid of its military alliance with the West and its status as a candidate country for the European Union. “Turkey is considered the poor child of Europe,” he laments. “At the same time, we tie it to Europe to prevent it from heading off to Asia.” He considers that Turkey must turn to China and Russia, powers which, according to him, “will soon dominate the world economy”.
The galaxy of “sovereignists”
Beyond the movement embodied by Perinçek, the galaxy of “sovereignists”, as they are called in Turkey, that is to say the ultranationalists and secularists who contest Ankara’s current alliances, is much broader and influential in military circles. They find a favorable response to their theses among certain Islamists or even the extreme right, supporters like them of a new international order and nostalgic for the past greatness of the Ottoman Empire.
“This alliance of circumstance also allowed Erdogan to obtain support in certain secularized fringes of the population,” explains Suat Kiniklioglu, who nevertheless emphasizes that their role in the state apparatus is diminishing. The Turkish president has in fact consolidated his power and no longer needs them to carry out his purges. A sign of this disenchantment, Dogu Perinçek was not invited to join the government coalition during the May elections and his last meeting with the reis dates back to last winter. “He [Erdogan] chose to make eyes at Westerners to try to obtain economic investments, but it’s a mistake”, grumbles the man who has fallen into disgrace.
Although they have lost some of their positions within the state, their vision continues to find an echo in society, as the public reaction to the war in Ukraine has shown. According to a survey by the Metropoll institute carried out in 2022, only 33% of Turks considered Russia responsible for the invasion; 48% placing the blame on NATO and 7.5% on the Ukrainians themselves. If not everyone shares, far from it, the idea of total alignment with Moscow or Beijing, a significant part of the population and political and military decision-makers are now in favor of emancipating themselves from their Western alliances and opt for a “policy of balance”. This would aim to play piecemeal in favor of one camp or the other, by putting them in competition according to the files and the needs of internal politics.
“If necessary, our roads will separate with the European Union,” declared Recep Tayyip Erdogan on September 16, in response to criticism from the European Parliament on the hunt for opponents in Turkey, before driving the point home on October 1: “Turkey no longer expects anything from the European Union which has made us wait at its door for forty years.” Asked last month by American television about his links with Vladimir Putin, he did not dissociate himself from it: “I have confidence in Russia as I have confidence in the West.” Eurasia is perhaps condemned to exist only in the fantasies of some, but Erdogan seems determined to play the balancing act, between rejection and attempt to seduce the West.