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A Convergence of Rival Ideologies:The Sociological and OrganizationalStructures of Anti-labour Politics inTurkeyGokhan Bacik & Alper Yilmaz DedePublished online: 14 Aug 2012.

To cite this article: Gokhan Bacik & Alper Yilmaz Dede (2012) A Convergence of Rival Ideologies:The Sociological and Organizational Structures of Anti-labour Politics in Turkey, Middle EasternStudies, 48:5, 797-814, DOI: 10.1080/00263206.2012.703614

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A Convergence of Rival Ideologies: TheSociological and OrganizationalStructures of Anti-labour Politics inTurkey

GOKHAN BACIK & ALPER YILMAZ DEDE

Serif Mardin, one of Turkey’s most prominent sociologists, recently stated that‘there is a deep silence about the working class in Turkey’.1 This article will try toanalyse the factors that cause this ‘deep silence’, which, paradoxically, is observedeven by the competing Kemalist and Islamic political actors. In other words, the‘deep silence’ refers to the common perspective on the working class of the otherwisedifferent and competing groups. This can be called their solidaristic view, whosepurpose is essentially to provide solidarity among government officials, merchantsand peasants that eventually formed the basis of European corporatism. Thesolidaristic view was represented by Leon Bourgeois during the Third Republic inFrance, and later largely accepted by the Ottoman elites, such as Z. Gokalp, T. Alp,N.S. Sadak and M.Z. Sertel, through translations from Durkheim, Gide, Bougle,Fouillee and Seignobos.2 Ironically, Kemalist Turkey, led by the CHP (CumhuriyetHalk Partisi/Republican Peoples’ Party), inherited the solidaristic view from theOttomans, despite this party’s many radical departures from them. The DP(Demokrat Parti/Democratic Party), the major rival of the CHP, became the newadvocate of the solidarist view of the working class. Most recently, the Islamicgroups, which are in deep conflict with Kemalism in many other areas, show noreservation about embracing the solidarist view.

The Islamic movement in Turkey consists of various actors and it is nothomogeneous. That is why the term ‘Islamists’ and ‘Islamic actors’ are usedinterchangeably as broad terms. Thus, as opposed to the secularist Kemalists, bythe term ‘Islamic actors’ we broadly mean the peripheral conservative actors whomostly come from conservative towns of Central Anatolia. To be more precise, bythe term Islamic actors we refer to the conservative actors of mid-sizeentrepreneurial towns like Kayseri, Konya and Gaziantep, where the AKP’s(Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi/Justice and Development Party) social and economicstrength lies. The Islamist group also includes the Gulen movement3 with itswidespread support among the same socio-economic groups in the conservativetowns of Central Anatolia. It is these conservative groups that maintain thesolidaristic view.

Middle Eastern Studies,Vol. 48, No. 5, 797–814, September 2012

ISSN 0026-3206 Print/1743-7881 Online/12/050797-18 ª 2012 Taylor & Francis

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Although it outlines the historical manifestation of the solidarist view, this paperfocuses particularly on how Islamic actors maintain that view. This is a problem thatrequires the examination of various factors around a key question. How is it thatcompeting groups are in harmony in the matter of their ideological positions on theworking class? The problem requires the analysis of two complex sets of social andpolitical structures: the sociological set and the organizational set.

The sociological set will help us explain why and how political actors canundervalue the working class. This set subsumes several social issues, such as lateurbanization, the lack of working-class consciousness, and the high cost of changingjobs. These are the relatively objective explanations of the weakness of the workingclass. Indeed, these are the sociological factors that have allowed the major politicalactors to underrate the working class and embrace solidarist ideologies. Thanks tothe sociological set of reasons, the cost of anti-labour ideologies has never been highpolitically.

The organizational set is more about how political actors (Islamic and Kemalist)are organized, and about how their organizational structures affect their under-standing of the working class. This set is the more critical to analyse, as neitherIslamic nor Kemalist groups have ever had a strategy that prioritizes the workingclass as the main agent in the transformation of society. The failure to prioritize thusis attributable to the awareness that the working class has the historical potential ofharming both groups’ corporate interests. Thus, the unanimity across Islamic andKemalist groups on the working-class issue is due mainly to the similarities of thesetwo groups’ organizational sets. While defining their organizational items as agent,structure, priorities, and interests and values, both camps situate the working class asa nebulous social entity of secondary importance.

Gaziantep is selected as the case study to analyse how Islamic (that is post-Kemalist) actors maintain their solidaristic perspective on the working class.4

Located in the south-east of Turkey, Gaziantep is an industrial city of 1.6 millioninhabitants. It ranks as Turkey’s sixth-highest exporting centre. Gaziantep featuresin this article for several reasons. It is an excellent post-Kemalist space to analyse.Islamic actors have dominant positions in the economic, social and cultural life ofthe city, and they run schools and hospitals, as well as factories and universities. Thecity’s public life is determined mainly by post-Kemalist actors. The electoralbehaviour of the city’s inhabitants confirms the city’s post-Kemalist stance: the AKPsecured 40 per cent of the electoral vote in 2002, and 59.2 per cent in 2007. In the2010 referendum, 70 per cent of the people supported the AKP-led amendment thatvirtually ended the traditional Kemalist dominance of the higher bureaucracy andjudiciary. Additionally, the large population of workers that has gathered around thecity arrived mainly in the last twenty years, as a result of the industrial boom. Thismakes the city a proper location for an analysis of labour relations between workersand post-Kemalist actors.

Throughout Turkish history, the state has asserted its authority on all social agents,thereby prohibiting the rise of an autonomous class consciousness.5 Tomaintain order,the state has dominated every aspect of social life, including religious expression, thefund of knowledge and market practices.6 Therefore, as far back as the classical

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Ottoman age, a Turkish brand of solidarism has shaped the mentality of statesmen.Heavily influenced by French solidarism and corporatism, Turkish solidarismproposed state intervention into the economy against liberalism. Thus, instead ofcapitalism, state capitalism was promoted. State capitalism also implied the state’sobligation to observe the interests of the workers and to play the role of an arbitratorwhen conflict arises between the employers and the employee.7 This solidarism wasinherited even by the founders of the Republic. The presumption of solidarism is thatall parts of society are equal, as none is more important than another, and all parts arein natural harmony. Class does not exist. The ‘parts’ are the formations determined bythe state according to the needs of society. Since harmony is the natural state, struggleis pathological, thus not a proper way to right-seeking. The state is the main referee inthe determination of ‘the proper way’ that does not harm natural harmony.

The economy was determined by the bureaucratic rationality of the Ottomanmodel. Ayubi, studying the relationship between economy and politics in the East,brings forward the subjugation of the economy as a major contrast with the Westernmodel.8 The hierarchal chain that links the economy and the administration is duemainly to the order-based Ottoman social world. Like Wallerstein’s world-empiremodel, the Ottoman society had a fixed order where everyone’s social and economicstatus was more or less fixed. The ultimate purpose of this model was the protectionof the order of which the Sultan was the apex.9 All activity in the system was initiatedby political authority.

In other words, the system had no independent mechanisms that would allowalternative or autonomous activities. All actors and institutions were to accept thestatus assigned to them. Even prices were determined by the government (narh),which symbolized the ultimate strength of the Ottoman order.10 Therefore, asMardin puts it, administrative positions were more important in the Ottoman systemthan the controlling of the production apparatus, a sphere where state and economywere too interconnected.11 No ‘class’ or social entity had its own independence. Eachsocial group was structured ‘around the delegation of the Sultan’s authority’, and the‘peace and prosperity of the state depended on keeping the members of each group intheir own place’.12 Ulgener argues that the Ottoman system was mainly the productof a certain mentality that perceived social and natural phenomena through the lensof organized and perfect categories.13 Accordingly, there was the presumption of anideal order where the parts are in harmony and act as units of the harmonized whole.

The Kemalist Republic inherited the Ottoman solidarist view of society despite itsclash with the past in other fields. The shift was in the discursive formulation. TheRepublican regime borrowed Gokalp’s theories to formulate its own brand ofsolidarism. To Gokalp, each group is necessary and indispensable to the other in asociety. Behind these views was Durkheim’s organic society, where all parts of asociety unite around an order. However, more critical is the role assigned to the statein Durkheim’s theory, which is to keep the division of labour in society away from itspathological potential. That is, struggle or competition among different parts, orclasses, is the pathological condition that should be prevented by the state.14

Like the Ottomans, the Kemalists favoured this solidaristic view of society for itstwo major uses. First, its corporatist nature was politically beneficial to Kemalistrule. Second, the role it gives to the state was taken as politically correct for theKemalist state, which had already incorporated statism as a major principle. The

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paternalist state, on this model, is responsible for conferring workers’ rightsindependently of a labour movement. The immediate purpose of Kemalism’sadoption of the solidaristic view of society was to support its presumption ofnational solidarity and, accordingly, to deny a role to class struggle.15 The officialideology was constructed on the premise that there is no class struggle in Turkey,thus no legitimate social basis exists for class-based political action.16 The idea ofTurkey as a classless society was repeated in many official texts and, finally, the ideaof class was officially rejected in the 1931 Party Congress of the CHP.

The Kemalist understanding of populism (halkcılık) became the main discursivestrategy of the legitimization of official solidarism as a control on class activism. Itwas declared that no person or group has privileged status on the basis of familial orclass origins.17 Recalling Gokalp’s thesis, the CHP argued that ‘none of the classescan monopolize the title of ‘‘the people’’’. This argument insinuated the working-class propensity to monopolize thus.18 ‘_Imtiyazsız sınıfsız kaynasmıs bir milletiz’ [weare a classless and fused nation], an official motto, was the summary of Kemalistpopulism. Ataturk, the key actor, was of the same opinion. In a significant speech, heargued that the Turkish nation does not harbour self-interested social classes lockedin struggle.19

But there was an inherent inconsistency in this discourse. Kemalism on one handargued that Turkey is a classless society and, on the other hand, that there is no clashof the parts of the nation. For instance, the 1931 CHP Party Program underlined theharmony between capital and labour, which conveyed a clear message: Kemalism isfully aware of the various social formations; however, it declares class divisionspathological, which is perfectly in line with its Durkheimean origins. Thus, thestrategy in the early Republican period was very clear. Rejecting working-classdiscourse, Kemalism aims for harmonious relations among the parts of society thatare not pathological according to its own determination of which (non-part) ispathological.

This official strategy was flawed in two ways. First, despite its classless discourse,Kemalism created a large group of civil and military bureaucrats who then became aclass-like social formation with enormous political power and social opportunity.Originally, this group was expected to act independently.20 However, it graduallytook to acting as an ordinary self-interested class. The case of these elites reminds usof something Milovan Djilas said of the Soviet elite. He pointed out that the newelite of the Soviet Union use their political power to enjoy property of which they arenot the legal owners, and this creates a new ruling class that exists in clearcontradiction of the Marxist proposition.21 The Kemalist elite were no different. Alarge bureaucratic cadre was created to act as the vanguard of the new regime. Itsoon became a class-like group and was the major agent of Republican ideology.

The state even tried to expand this group so far as to include some other groupsthat were sociologically part of the working class. Workers in the state factories, andcivil servants, were given major privileges to separate them from the larger workingclass. Through these social and financial privileges, these groups became labouraristocrats.22 In exchange for privileges given by the state, they gave up certainrights, such as the right to have a union. The weakening of the working class was notthe only benefit of this policy; the state also used these civil servants as a corridor topenetrate local politics. The local notables (esraf) showed no hesitation in embracing

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civil servants in public life. They were easily able to socialize with the local elites, sitwith them in city clubs (sehir kulubu), and develop strong social bonds with them.Such a position was once unimaginable for workers. Yet the workers-turned-civilservants internalized their status soon enough, and became the defenders of theboundary that separated them from other labour groups. Gradually, they achieved astatus that made them the intermediary group between the state and peripheralelite.23

As the second example of inconsistency, after the early idealist era, the CHPattempted to create its own loyal working class. The CHP was directly involved inthe creation of a loyal labour block through officially guided unions. On this model,the state was the ultimate referee, and collective bargaining was denied.24 This was asignificant gain for the workers, as it entailed a tacit recognition of the reality of classin the service of the process of nation-building.25 Unsurprisingly, the conciliation ofKemalism and the working class was not easy. The solution was to re-formulateworking-class ideology in the ambit of nationalism. In 1931, the CHP adopted a newformula: the ‘nationalist Turkish worker’.26 In a CHP document, it was noted that‘the Turkish worker is first a Turkish man’.27

However, it should also be mentioned that the CHP’s nationalist strategy was inparallel with the general character of the world labour market. By the 1920s,nationalist tenets had already captured the working class, due mainly to economiccrises. To keep their jobs, workers were highly antagonistic to foreign workerseverywhere. Sometimes, even workers from minority groups were physicallyattacked. An additional factor for Turkey was the negative legacy of the Ottomanlabour market, which was dominated by non-Muslims. As of 1915, the labourmarket was dominated by Greek, Armenian and Jewish workers. In 1919, 85 per centof the industrial workers in Western Turkey were non-Muslims.28 The governmentmade shrewd use of such critical issues to stabilize the workers with the fear of losingjobs. Meanwhile, a cultural factor helped the CHP impose its nationalistic solidarismon the workers. Nearly all workers of that time were part of rural culture and,therefore, subject to religious and other customary patterns that code socialismnegatively. That made the case almost impossible for socialism.

Socialism posed the main risk to the CHP. It, therefore, made a priority offounding its Bureau of Workers, a move designed to separate workers fromsocialism. In 1931, the Secretary General of the CHP commented that no matterwhat its origin, any kind of internationalism (beynelmilelcilik) is dangerous.29 In1932, to promote the nationalist labour ideology, the government implemented somepractical measures, such as barring foreigners from certain jobs. By the end of 1933,approximately 5000 Greek workers in small businesses left Turkey.30 Statecorporatism asserted itself between 1936 and 1938, with the government amendingthe labour code and the law of association to ban trade unions of employers andworkers, and introducing the compulsory state arbitration of labour disputes. Theseamendments of the law effectively banned class-based organizations. However, theCHP’s Bureau was very conscious of a need to cultivate a loyal labour force. To thisend, in 1947, the CHP led the founding of a syndicate for glass-sector workers. Thiswas a stereotypical state-led union.

Ironically, the DP, the major opponent of the CHP, continued the solidaristicview of society after its electoral victory in 1950. The DP had articulated a very

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strong pro-labour discourse between 1947 and 1950. Yet, despite its pro-labourpromises, the DP government maintained the existing interventionist role of thestate in the labour sector. In 1954, a legal analyst close to the DP wrote that thereis no class struggle in Turkey, thus the government’s banning of strikes isnormal.31 However, the DP brand of solidarism was different from that of the CHPin several ways. First, the CHP attempted a nation-building project through aWesternized bureaucratic elite. The main motive of its solidarism was to fuse theworkers with this nation-building project, at a minimum of cost. However, theDP’s connection with the nascent bourgeoisie was the major motor of itssolidarism. The DP had a liberal agenda, yet its connections with the middle-ranking urban bourgeoisie were strong. Besides, the DP’s liberal agenda hadalready started a new wave of urbanization in which an embryonic working classwas emerging. Thus, both liberalization and urbanization shaped the DP’sworking-class policy. Having a liberal agenda, the DP accepted market-basedactors as the major agents of its policies. But the DP was to create its own market-oriented political base to counterbalance the CHP-led groups. Not surprisingly, theliberal constituencies of the DP quickly recognized the potential of the growingworking class. Its co-optation policies that targeted the labour force were enhancedaccordingly. DP solidarism was, therefore, less ideologically pronounced than thatof the CHP.

The major reason behind this ideological positioning was the intention to legalizeand co-opt the working class. The DP attempted to create ‘safe’ legal structures forthe labour force in socialism-free spheres. As a direct result of this agenda, itconsolidated its solidarist policies after 1951. In 1952, it publicly declared its prudentapproach to working-class rights, such as the strike. In the same year, the DPgovernment changed the labour law, and made the closure of workers’ unionspossible without a court order.

The arch-symbol of the DP style of co-optation was the creation of TURK-_IS(Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions) in 1952. It played a key role as the biggestlabour confederation in Turkey. TURK-_IS always followed the government onlabour-related issues, which was clearly in line with the solidarist view. Right from itsinception, TURK-_IS rejected leftist jargon and became the key anti-communistorganization of the Cold War years. It kept a very low profile, eschewing massmeetings, and did not begin to celebrate even 1 May until 1993. Moreover, up untilthe 1990s, it employed the word ‘movement’ instead of ‘class’ to refer to working-class issues. Worst for its image was that the Secretary General of TURK-_IS wasappointed the labour minister in the 1980 junta government.

The above analysis of the Turkish solidarist view of society underlines a majordifference between the Turkish case and that of the West in the evolution of socialclasses. In mainstream theory, the working class developed in the West as a result ofits struggle against the bourgeoisie.32 A shared identity of workers that defines itselfas opposition to the bourgeoisie is required in the formation of class consciousnessand class action. To a large extent, capitalism and state-making were behind theprocesses of class formation in the West. There, the tension between the bourgeoisieand working class was the motor of the formation of the modern class structure. Thebourgeoisie had no similar role in Turkish state-making: the strong state traditionnever allowed the rise of social classes.

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Ironically, the sector called ‘the Turkish bourgeoisie’ is the product of just anotherstate project. The state-bourgeoisie model of modern Turkish history is quite unlikethe Western bourgeois-state model. The state-led bourgeoisie’s direct or indirectsupport of all previous military coups in Turkey proves that the bourgeoisie inTurkey have never been autonomous. The absence of an autonomous bourgeoisieand the dominant role of the state put the workers into a position that was somehowambiguous. Unlike the tension between the bourgeoisie and the working class in theWest, the main societal tension in Turkey was between the working class and thestate. This tension was nothing but the direct result of the solidarist view of society.Seeing the state as the omnipotent rule-maker, the workers recognized it as the maintarget of their struggle.

Another incisive conclusion that could be drawn here is that the solidaristic viewhad been upheld by contending groups with different ideologies from Ottoman timesto the new Turkish Republic. The relatively new actors of Turkish politics, theIslamists, are no exception. Despite the electoral support they get from the workers,Islamist parties such as the MSP (Milli Selamet Partisi/National Salvation Party),the RP (Refah Partisi/Welfare Party) and the conservative AKP have never engagedwith pro-labour ideologies. This avoidance is not limited to the political forms ofIslam, since religious social movements like the Gulen Movement also have notdiverted from the solidarist view. The attraction of all these different groups to thesolidarist view is possibly attributable to their organizational sets that strategicallyprioritize non-labour actors rather than the working class. Neither Kemalism, northe DP, nor the AKP, nor the Gulen Movement estimate the working class as awielder of significant agential power. Instead, their organizational structures requirecertain configurations that keep labour under control. Therefore, although theirorganizational sets are explained by different intellectual formulae, all of them haveproduced approaches to the working class that are structurally similar. In thefollowing sections, the continuation of solidarism through the Islamic actors will beanalysed in depth.

Canbakal described Antep of the seventeenth century as a ‘middle sized town withno special significance’. As a typical peripheral town of the Ottoman order, Antepwas outside the imperial ‘core’ and made no special contribution to the centre.33 Theimperial administrative mechanism kept the city as part of various other centres,such as Aleppo or Maras, thus the local elite were relatively free to set the city’spolitics. To a large extent, Antep’s economy was shaped according to the needs ofthe larger surrounding markets, such as Aleppo and Damascus. In the latenineteenth century, an embryonic textile industry emerged in the city. In the newTurkish Republic, Gaziantep benefited from major state-led investments, such as theinfrastructural investments between 1955 and 1975. However, none of thesedevelopments made Gaziantep an economic pioneer. Until the 1980s, the cityremained to a large extent in the second or the third tier of national economicdevelopment.

It was mainly after the late 1980s that Gaziantep’s economy boomed, thanks toexport-led growth strategies. The city joined the list of ‘Anatolian Tigers’, such asDenizli, Konya and Kayseri, the newly emerging economic centres.34 As of 2010,

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Gaziantep’s exports are around $US 4 billion, and the city ranks as the sixth-largestexporter, sending products to more than 150 countries, including Germany, the US,Saudi Arabia, Belgium, Syria and Iraq.35 Undoubtedly, Gaziantep’s rapid economicdevelopment has transformed its own political dynamics as well as the localsuperstructure.

The ‘city’ literature analyses how various developments in a city affect itsrelational structures in terms of power and culture, as well as the way it relates to thedeterminations of the national centre. Elite structures, local power relations, intra-city coalitions and conflicts are among the several significant topics of this literature.In this vein, a critical point is the bargain between the city and the national centre onthe organization of space.36 The inner transformation of a city can change itsrelational position to the national centre. New social and political dynamics maycreate significant rifts between the centre and the city. Thus, cities can re-shape theirpublic and political spaces according to new parameters.

On this line of thinking, economic developments in the last two decades havetransformed Gaziantep to the point that it has become a post-Kemalist space withcertain neo-liberal and Islamic elements entwined into it by intra-city agents andstructures. In fact, the Kemalist configuration of urban space has been in decay on anational scale since the 1980s. The neo-liberal agenda of Turgut Ozal opened upTurkey to the global markets, which resulted in the weakening role of the state in theeconomy. The rise of new market actors and the decline of state power make inevitablethe re-definition of the major parameters of the political and economic elites. Ozal’sneo-liberal policies shook the traditional order in many cities, and introduced newactors. Old families that had long been part of the status quo lost their monopolistauthority in cities, and were forced to share their position with the newcomers.37 Asexpected, the participation of the new actors’ values in the political game weakened theonce-strong traditional Kemalist coalitions of the urban elites all over Turkey.Analogously, neo-liberal policies changed Gaziantep’s traditional power configurationso far as to make this city a remarkable sample of a post-Kemalist space.

On the basis of a field study of how economic developments are affectingGaziantep’s local dynamics, Ayse Yuksel describes this city as the ‘paragon of neo-liberal experience’.38 This evaluation derives from her analysis of the effects ofeconomic development on the spatiality of economic and social structures in the city:Export-led growth and the inclusion in the city dynamics of new actors and theirvalues have made Gaziantep an exemplar of neo-liberalism. Creating new economicopportunities for these new actors, neo-liberal policies changed the nature of thecompetition between the different interest groups in the city. Moreover, the neo-liberal policies weakened the central government. A new type of localism emerged,changing the traditional dynamics between centre and periphery. Local actorsincreased their autonomy by setting out independent agendas. Released from thefetters of the central government, it became possible for the alternate local elites(Islamic, ethnic) to influence local politics according to their values.

The most critical fact in this process is the articulation of liberalism by Islamicgroups. Interestingly, Islamic actors embraced these neo-liberal policies withoutmajor reservation. Meanwhile, the role of Islamic actors increased, especially afterthe rise of the AKP, and a stronger differentiation within the local elites is expected,as is the possible dominance of the rest of the Islamic elites. Yuksel correctly

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observes that Islamic actors are better organized, and have a certain potential forbecoming even more dominant.39

Yuksel points out also that the dominant forms of identity, the collective mind,and the economic and educational parameters of the city, are no longer determinedby traditional Kemalist ideology. Islamic actors are not, of course, the sole causers ofthis shift, but they are the principal motivators of the transformation. Along withthem, other groups, such as the Kurdish, liberal and other secular groups, havecontributed to the formation of the post-Kemalist space. However, the Islamicactors are more organized, and their social constituency is larger.

We can clarify this view in concrete terms. On the economic level, new actors –such as NAKSAN (Nakıbo�glu Industries), a leading export-based energy and textilecompany founded by the conservative Nakıbo�glu family, Kado�glu, an energy andfood company owned by conservative Kurdish families, and Horizon Shipping,again founded by conservative people – have a major economic and political role inthe city. The dominance of conservative groups is particularly visible in theeducation field. Conservative companies finance both of the two private universitiesin the city. Additionally, conservative families, such as Nakıbo�glu and Mutafo�glu,fund several middle and high schools. These new actors are organized in Islamicbusiness associations, such as GAPG_IAD (Gaziantep Paylasımcı _Isadamları Derne�gi/Gaziantep Solidarist Industrialists’ Association), HURS_IAD (Hur Sanayici ve_Isadamları Derne�gi/Independent Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association),GUNS_IAF (Guneydo�gu Sanayici ve _Isadamları Federasyonu/Southeastern Industri-alists and Businessmen’s Federation) and MUS_IAD (Mustakil Sanayici ve_Isadamları Derne�gi/Independent Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association).Finally, the formal city politics has been dominated by the AKP since 2002. Asexpected, the long AKP rule has steered the official bureaucratic elites of the citytowards a more conservative stance. As a result, it is the conservative bureaucratswho mandate the major official institutions of the city, such as the city’s stateuniversity and the local bureau of higher education.

A field study was conducted in Gaziantep that canvassed selected representatives ofIslamists on the issue of how Islamic actors formulate their approach to the workingclass in daily life. The snowball sampling method was used to reach additionalinterviewees beyond those selected on the basis of the researchers’ personal contacts.Also interviewed were some who cannot be labelled as Islamists. The purpose of thefield study was to portray the discursive and operational patterns of Islamic actors’attitudes to the workers. It is observed that both sociological and organizational setswere effective in the formation of an Islamic version of solidarism in Gaziantep. Thefindings of this field study show that the organizational set of Islamic actors in thecity creates a solidarist view of the working class, a feat facilitated by the weakness ofthe workers’ class consciousness, which is itself attributable to an entrenchedtraditional set of sociological factors.

Certain sociological factors impede the emergence of a class consciousness or a class-based activism in Gaziantep. The configurations of social life, including the workers’,

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form according to traditional norms, of which class-based consciousness is not a part.Basically, traditional patterns direct business and labour life. All actors, including theworkers, respect the traditional codes. Boundaries between the workers and thebourgeoisie, prerequisites of the emergence of class consciousness, do not exist.Approximately 86 per cent of the enterprises in the city are family companies.40 Thesefamilies play the key role in perpetuating the traditional patterns of the labour market.

The ‘father boss’ [baba patron] is a typical figure of the traditional order. Thistraditional boss is at one with the workers in daily life. He eats with them and spendstime with them, thus no official or status-coded boundaries separate him from theworkers. This stereotype of the father-boss traces back to the early 1960s. AlperBozhoyuk, a member of the second-generation businessman set who is from aconservative family, confirms that the workers’ mindset remains steeped in thetraditional atmosphere.41 Bozhoyuk defines the boss-worker ethic as follows: ‘Thereare no official and mechanical rules. Emotional and personal contacts are stilldominant’. The father-boss is responsible for many affairs of his workers. He helpsthem when they marry, and cares for their families when they are sick or in prison.

In exchange, the workers respect the boss highly. The boss is a kind of socialauthority. Even Nihat Sencan, the local representative of a nationwide socialistunion (D_ISK-Devrimci _Isci Sendikaları Konfederasyonu/Confederation of Revolu-tionary Workers’ Unions), notes that ‘respect for the boss’ is a main rule of labourlife.42 Part of this traditional milieu, a worker believes that the boss is the majoragent of his personal and familial survival. The respect this generates can becompared to the intra-familial respect of a son for a father. Meanwhile, the boss isinclined to play the role of the labour union. A typical traditional boss undertakesvarious responsibilities normally assumed by unions. Understandably, a typical bossis against the idea of a union, as he believes that he himself performs its functions.This traditional boss–worker relationship precludes the possibility of the rise of anautonomous worker consciousness; the typical worker continues to think and actwithin the traditional code of morality.

The high job-changing cost is another factor in the workers’ submissiveness to thepatron-boss. Since unemployment is high in Gaziantep, workers’ major motive is toprotect their jobs.43 The rate of unemployment in the city is 16.8 per cent, whereas itis 11 per cent nationally.44 Workers are more focused on securing their jobs than ongaining other rights.45

The continuation of the traditional order is indeed in favour of businessmen as itprevents the formation of a politically motivated labour bloc. Therefore, business-men show no hesitancy about maintaining the informal patterns of the labourmarket. These informal networks and patterns are the major mechanisms thatdetermine the dynamics of labour life in a context where union membership is verylow. Informal mechanisms, such as bailment [kefalet] and intermediary networking[aracılık], are the pillars of the traditional order. For instance, most businessmenemploy kefalet in the recruitment of workers. A worker positively coded by a kefil(the third person who stands bail for the worker, generally another businessman, alabour aristocrat or a relative who has access to the businessman) can easily find ajob. Those who are recorded negatively have less chance in the job market, as theinformal mechanism of kefalet is also a dynamic network of communication. Even inmore sophisticated economic affairs, major families respect the opinions of their kiya

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(a kind of steward, a localized version of kahya).46 The traditional informalmechanism among local businessmen still functions as a source of legitimacy. As onewould expect, the close emotional link between worker and boss is protected throughsuch traditional patterns as kefalet.

The traditional patterns introduce also another informal factor: local associations.Since the system operates through personal links, a typical businessman will prefer torecruit among his countrymen. Businessmen recruit from their villages or towns,which affects the transfer of communal values to the urban labour market.Consequently, these informal connections transform the labour market into a largefamily in which the emergence of solid and formal boundaries between employer andworker is very difficult. All actors endorse these informal patterns, as they are theaccepted operating rules of the labour market.

In this vein, the ethnically-motivated traditional patterns are also important, asthey, too, prevent the emergence of classical labour relations. Particularly bigKurdish families maintain their traditional patterns in the labour market. TheKurdish tribal order completely dominates a worker’s daily life, so far as to preventany kind of autonomy. Ethnic connections are important even in regional trade. Forinstance, the Barzani family (the leading family in Iraqi Kurdistan) commands itsmajor investments in Gaziantep through its ethnic networks in Turkey.47 Similarly,the Kado�glu family (owner of various companies in energy and food) has vasteconomic connections with Iraqi Kurdistan, thanks mainly to this family’sconnections with the Iraqi Kurds. Kurdish businessmen also have their ownbusiness association, DOGUNS_IFED (Do�gu ve Guneydo�gu Sanayici ve _IsadamlarıDernekleri Federasyonu/Federation of Eastern and Southeastern Industrialists andBusinessmen’s Associations), which covers the larger Kurdish region so far as toinclude both northern Iraq and the southern Kurdish provinces of Turkey. TheKurdish labour scene is organized around big traditional families and familycouncils. Since loyalty is the major value in this Kurdish code, a boundary betweenKurdish employer and worker is not culturally allowed, thus it emerges between theKurdish people and others. The primary expectation of the Kurdish worker is thathe serves the Kurdish cause and solidarity.48

The main question to be answered here is how and why the traditional patterns arestill very strong. The answer is in the lack of an established urban milieu that wouldchallenge traditional patterns. The urbanization and industrialization of Gazianteptook place in a very short time, so the social dynamics of the labour market werenever formed. A local businessman observes: ‘There is no labour history in this city.Everything happened in just twenty years. The same generation of workers is stillworking. The first generation of workers is still in town, its customs unmodified’.49

This brings us to Mann’s argument concerning the relationship between urbaniza-tion and the formation of the working class. He notes that, since the beginning of theindustrial revolution, migration from diverse rural regions established a homogenoushousing model around Western cities. In this process, newcomers were homogenizedinto urban-industrial workers, despite differences in their origins.50 Mann’s remarkconcludes that urbanization is one of the most important social mechanisms of thecreation of a uniform working class. Thus, urbanization is expected to homogenize theworking class, purging traditional forms of behaviours. The same might be claimedabout Gaziantep, except for the fact that the city’s late urbanization did not separate

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the workers from their traditional mental maps sufficiently to render them readyto develop a class consciousness. Paradoxically, these workers maintain their tradi-tional customs and understandings in their new urban spaces.51 Neighbourhoods,such as Karsıyaka, Ocaklar, Duztepe and Perilikaya in Gaziantep, should be deemedsemi-urban milieux where residents still maintain a mixture of agrarian and urbanmotifs.

In fact, the case of Gaziantep is symmetrical with the general condition of theworking class in Turkey. Korkut Boratav’s field studies in the newly emerged shantytowns around the western cities of Turkey yielded the conclusion that workers arestill semi-agrarian, thus not fully urbanized. Boratav opines that this situation hasleft Turkish workers without a specific class culture, unlike their counterparts inmany industrialized European societies.52 As late as 2007, in Kocaeli, a Western-style industrialized part of Turkey, only 16 per cent of workers referred to class astheir major identity. Instead, most referred to nationality or religion. In Eskisehir,another industrialized Western city, the ratio is 13 per cent.53 This is due mainly tothe lateness of urbanization all over Turkey: Most workers’ departure from ruraltowns and villages is recent. For instance, in the late 1980s, 60 per cent of theindustrial workers in Kartal were not born in Istanbul, but had moved to this cityduring the last 20 years. Since most are either first- or second-generation urbanmigrants, they keep their ties with their villages. Thus, their new urban spacesbecame extensions of their agrarian birthplaces.

Recent studies on migration and labour in Gaziantep exhibit parallel findings.Large-scale migration to Gaziantep took place in the last 25 years; thus, the labourmarket in Gaziantep has a strong rural profile. More than the industrialized cities ofwestern Turkey, Gaziantep is exposed to an influx of people from areas nearby. Theresultant population is therefore homogeneous rather than heterogeneous. This allowsthe undisturbed continuation of rural and traditional customs. Since most newcomersexperience no intercultural clash, their homogenous cultural life is naturallymaintained in Gaziantep.54 In other words, urbanization in Gaziantep is not likethat of western cities, such as Istanbul, where the public space is heterogeneous.

Organizational Set

Islamic actors develop a religious solidarism of their own because of theirorganizational set. Islamic solidarism and non-Islamic forms of solidarism aresimilar in many ways, the difference between them being that Islamic solidarismarticulates itself through a religious mentality. The organizational set of the Islamicmovement requires a bourgeois/market-oriented perspective that forms the basis ofthe solidarist view of labour. The Islamic movement’s is inevitably the traditionalsolidarist view, since its organizational set links it to market actors and institutions.This attachment is the result mainly of the financial autonomy of Islamicmovements. The small and middle-sized bourgeoisie have been the major financiersof Islamic movements. As a sector organized totally out of state-originated revenues,the Islamic movement has thus formed a strong contact with the market players.Major institutions of Islamic activism, such as schools and hospitals, were foundedby those small and middle-sized bourgeoisie, which means that the Islamicmovement has a strong link with the market. The mental geography of Islamic

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activism in Turkey includes students, the new middle class. Islamists carefullyexclude workers, while not even recognizing the peasants.55

Understandably, students become the major agents of Islamization in Turkey, forseveral reasons. Students are a strategic choice, as they are the future engineers,bureaucrats or professionals. Additionally, as most students are from small towns orrural areas, they are naturally prone to traditional and religious values. However, theneed for financial resources invites the second agent, the merchant, into the picture.Thus, simply, Islamic activism takes place in the student–merchant axis. Unlike thestudent, the worker has never enjoyed the attention of Islamic groups. In otherwords, Islamic groups have never been interested in working class and leftistideologies. That is also why Islamic actors are not critical of the state policy ofseparating civil servants from the working class. Besides, their organizational settinghas practically made the Islamic groups a bourgeois movement.

Meanwhile, the Islamic actors progressively discovered that the market is theweakest aspect of Kemalism. The Kemalist machinery of authority, which is equippedwith various instruments to silence all ideological opposition, has a very weak capacityto generate discursive strategies to prevent market-oriented opposition. Realizing thisdeficit, the Islamic actors became the advocates of privatization, internationalarbitration, foreign investment, and of the other major structures of the globaleconomy.

Structured around the market, Islamic actors came up with well-known solidaristviews on labour. Islam is presented as an ideal order where a friendly relationshipexists between the boss and the worker. In such an ideal order, strike action iscompletely unnecessary. Islamic scholars reject the current working class activism aswrong-minded examples of obsolete socialist methods. Instead, they propose thatlimited conflict with employers might lead to a better social order. Class struggle islabelled as the worst eventuality in a society, if not the plot of communists.56 Instead,the worker is invited to negotiate peaceful solutions. Hayreddin Karaman, a leadingTurkish Islamic scholar, notes that the boss is performing a public service, so it is theIslamic obligation of workers to respect their bosses.57 In fact, this interpretation isnothing but the continuation of the traditional solidarist view of society. Islamicauthorities repeat these well-known theses of the earlier solidarist scholars. Similarly,Islamic discourse on labour is packed with well-known solidarist ideas, such as theharmony of labour and capital, the rejection of class and class-based struggle, andthe significance of the state as final arbitrator. For instance, Fethullah Gulen’sopinions on the labour–capital relationship are very similar to those of Durkheim orGokalp. He, like many of the previous solidarist scholars, cautions that ‘theemployer and worker are like the different organs of a body . . . they act in harmonytogether’.58 In brief, Islamic solidarism proposes that it is possible to establish anideal order in which all parts of society have a position that locks into the harmony,peace and solidarity of the whole.

The practical reflections of the above-summarized religious brand of solidarismare readily evident in the case of Gaziantep. For instance, the idea of struggle inright-seeking is rejected. GAYEDER (Gaye Sosyal Yardım ve E�gitim Derne�gi/Purpose Social Solidarity and Educational Association), a foundation close to theGulen community that focuses specifically on workers’ problems, is a practicalexample that affords insight into how new Islamic actors formulate their views on the

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labour movement. The foundation is very active. In the first 8 months of 2010, morethan 6000 workers participated in its programmes. That number was 13,000 in 2009.A GAYEDER representative has declared that ‘supporting the unity of worker andemployers’ is the major goal of the foundation.59 A close relationship betweenemployer and worker is considered the most effective solution of problems in theworkplace. The religious piety of workers is valued as a positive force in buildingharmony between the boss and workers. Their overarching Muslim identity isbelieved to fuse the worker and the employer, differences in their interests andidentities notwithstanding. On this type of understanding, workers are burdenedwith the responsibility of caring for their employers’ interests. In seminars,superintendents suggest ways of right-seeking that exclude struggle, strike or labouractivism. It is argued that all problems can be solved in a bigger moral order. It isexpected of workers that they will contribute to the vigour of this order. All othermethods of right-seeking, such as strikes, are seen as trivial.

Thus, Islamic actors believe that they have a structural solution in the creation ofthe Islamic order of labour where the perfect harmony of workers and employersprevents problems in the workplace. In line with the father-boss of the traditionalorder, Islamic actors refer to a role-model boss who cares for his workers. The role-model boss lives carefully to convey the image of a boss-and-the-workers family. Aleading conservative businessman, Fahri _Inanc, rides the workers’ early shuttle bus.If he is not on time, the bus leaves without him.60 The Islamic alternative, therefore,is an employer-based model in which an ideal employer behaves as religious moralitydemands.61 That obviates the need for worker-based strategies, such as strikes.

Another important fact is the Islamic actors’ sceptical approach to labour unions.A typical reaction of those actors would be to accuse unions of abusing workers’good intentions.62 A related recurring thesis posits that there are many successfulfactories without unions. In fact, most conservative bosses do not tolerate unionmembership. The wider idea of morality is proposed against unions, and thisrelegates struggle focused on working conditions and wages to the unseemliness ofsuperficial wrangling. On this morality perspective, it is argued that the happiness ofworkers is a contingency of moral and spiritual considerations. Explicit in this is thecondemnation of the too-materialistic unions for their esteem of money as the solecriterion of happiness.63

Thus, a second and a more moderate position on unions argues that the time is notripe for them. GAYEDER seminars do not advocate union membership,64 andGAYEDER remains silent in the face of tension between workers and the employer.Indeed, its moderate discourse is a major reason for the local conservativebusinessmen’s tolerance of GAYEDER’s training of thousands of their workers.Similarly, a local politician of the AKP noted that his party does not want to belocked in struggle with local businessmen.65

It is also interesting to note that Islamic actors show no hesitancy aboutmaintaining a very substantial aspect of early Republican-era solidarism that tracesback to the early CHP era: They seem to endorse the separation of civil servants fromthe working class. Accordingly, Islamic groups describe civil servants as moreeducated, and they have an inclination not to mix them with the working class in theirvarious activities. For example, in Gaziantep, while the conservative union forteachers (Turk E�gitim-Sen/Turkish Education Union) believes that class is not a

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proper reference-point of society, its socialist counterpart (E�gitim Sen/EducationUnion) believes that teachers are part of the working class.66 Therefore, conservativeactors, in their approaches to civil servants, do not repeat the methods and discoursethat they employ with workers. Civil servants and workers do not mix even duringtheir weekly religious gatherings (sohbet or ders), which are usually organized at theirmembers’ homes. Although Islamic actors reject the traditionalMarxist views on class,they have no theoretical objection to the separation of civil servants from the workers.Instead, they subscribe to a type of Weberian concept of status, which refers mainly toeducation and other economic and social privileges. The pragmatic reason formaintaining this traditional Kemalist solidaristic method is the agential role that isassigned to civil servants. Like the Kemalists of the 1930s, the contemporary Islamicactors assign the more effective agential role to the civil servants.

Turkey has been experiencing significant structural changes since the establishment ofthe Turkish Republic in 1923 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Rapidurbanization and industrialization in the 1960s and 1970s created large segments ofworking populations primarily in the western parts of the country, and pro-labourparties gained strength in that period. Due to the solidaristic view embraced by thepoliticians of the right and the left, a pro-labour political stance did not emerge inTurkey. The joining of the Islamists into the political scene did not change the pictureat all. Thus, considering the past ascendancy of Kemalism and the current ascendancyof Islamic groups, ‘the deep silence about the working class’ will probably not lift, forboth Kemalist and post-Kemalist actors espouse the solidaristic view as an integralpart of their organizational and sociological sets. Along with the Islamic groups’organizational set, their loyalist and non-confrontational view of what is the properworking class ethic closes all likelihood that a pro-working class position will emerge inthe Islamic bloc. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the Islamic groups link tomarket actors’ and institutions’ neo-liberal value systems on which workers’ rights area secondary concern, and the economic interests of the bourgeoisie the primary one.

The picture just outlined might seem quite pessimistic about the prospect ofchange in the Islamic bloc’s mindset about the working class. But the outlook is notentirely bleak. The future holds three possibilities. One is that the situation mightcontinue as it is, with the Islamic actors maintaining the status quo because it is intheir economic interest to do so. Another is that a more leftist and working-class-friendly attitude might emerge in the Islamic bloc, given that currently there are faintsigns in the media and in academic circles that the notion of ‘Islamic socialism’merits debate.67 The third possibility is that well-organized working-class activismmight push the Islamic bourgeoisie and the government towards grantingincremental gains to the workers as class rights, for reason alone that it is in theirinterest to do so. Given the social and political dynamics of Turkey, the last twopossibilities seem unlikely to emerge. First, ‘Islamic socialism’ appears to have verylittle chance of emerging in Turkey due to two basic reasons: (1) due to the highlysecularist position of the left in Turkey, it is hard to expect a shift from the left-wingpro-labour parties and groups to the Islamist bloc, and a possible coalition betweenthe two; (2) ideational dynamics of Islamists prevent them from forming a pro-labour ideology or position that would defend the interests of the working class, as

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the dynamics that make it easier for them to embrace the solidaristic view wouldprevent them from forming such ideologies or positions in the long run. Second, thepossibility of well-organized working-class activism pushing the Islamists to embracea more worker-friendly approach seems quite bleak. Given the divisions among theworking class and their problems in expanding their bases among the workers, andthe Islamists’ unwillingness to give up the solidaristic view, it seems quite difficult forthem to make such an effective push in that direction. Thus, the only possibilityremains: the status quo will most likely continue in the foreseeable future.

Notes

1. NTV, 5 Dec. 2010.

2. Zafer Toprak, ‘Turkiye’de Korporatizmin Do�gusu’, Toplum ve Bilim, winter, No.12 (1980), p.41. Also

see Zafer Toprak, ‘II. Mesrutiyet’te Solidarist Dusunce: Halkcılık’, Toplum ve Bilim, spring, No.1

(1977), pp.92–123.

3. The Gulen movement is considered as the most influential and well-organized Islamist group in

Turkey shaped by the ideas of M. Fethullah Gulen with its private schools and student dorms,

newspapers, television and radio stations, and mid to large size businesses that are mostly from the

conservative towns of Turkey.

4. Islamic groups are referred to as post-Kemalist groups because, given their ideological stance, they do

not share Kemalist principles. Also, Islamic groups have become more powerful as Kemalist ideology

declines in Turkey.

5. Tim Jacoby, ‘Agriculture, the State and Class Formation in Turkey’s First Republic’, Journal of

Peasant Studies, Vol.33, No.1 (2006), p.35.

6. Gursoy Akca, Osmanlı Devletinde Bilgi ve _Iktidar (Istanbul: Palet, 2010), pp.40–1.7. Toprak, ‘II. Mesrutiyet’te Solidarist Dusunce’, p.96.

8. Nazih Ayubi, Over-Stating the Arab Politics and Society in the Middle East (London: I.B. Tauris,

1995), p.100.

9. Sevket Pamuk, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2000), p.12.

10. Mubahat Kutuko�glu, Osmanlılarda Narh Muessesi ve 1640 Tarihli Narh Defteri (Istanbul: Enderun,

1983), p.6.

11. Serif Mardin, ‘Historical Determinants of Stratification: Social Class and Class Consciousness in

Turkey’, Review of the Faculty of the Political Sciences, Vol.22, No.4 (1967), p.138.

12. Fatma Muge Gokcek, Rise of the Bourgeoisie, Demise of Empire Ottoman Westernization and Social

Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp.31–2.

13. Sabri Ulgener, Zihniyet ve Aydınlar ve _Izmler (Istanbul: Mayas, 1983), pp.9–60.

14. Brian Mello, ‘Political Process and the Development of Labor Insurgency in Turkey, 1945–80’, Social

Movement Studies, Vol.6, No.3 (2007), p.210.

15. Ozgur Gokmen, ‘The State of Labour in Turkey, 1919–1938’, Forschungen, Vol. 33 (2004), p.130.

16. Mello, ‘Political Process’, p.223.

17. Umit Cizre-Sakallıo�glu, ‘Labour and State in Turkey: 1960–80’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.28, No.4

(1992), p.712.

18. Taha Parla, The Social and Political Thought of Ziya Gokalp (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985), p.80.

19. Mello, ‘Political Process’, p.210.

20. Sungur Savran, Turkiye’de Sınıf Mucadeleleri (Istanbul: Yordam, 2010), p.29.

21. Michael Burrage, Class Formation, Civil Society and the State A Comparative Analysis of Russia,

France, the US and England (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p.19.

22. Ahmet _Insel, Duzen ve Kalkınma Kıskacında Turkiye (Istanbul: Ayrıntı, 1996), p.227.

23. Yıldırım Koc, Turkiye _Isci Sınıfı Tarihi (Ankara: Epos, 2010), p.126.

24. Cizre-Sakallıo�glu, ‘Labour and State in Turkey’, p.714.

25. Yuksel Akkaya, Cumhuriyet’in Hammalları: _Isciler (Istanbul: Yordam, 2010), p.66.

26. Ibid., p.68.

27. Ibid., p.72.

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28. Ibid., p.57.

29. Ibid., p.68.

30. Ibid., p.126.

31. Ibid., p.76.

32. Flemming Mikkelsen, ‘Working-Class Formation in Europe and Forms of Integration: History and

Theory’, Labor History, Vol.46, No.3 (2005), p.277.

33. Hulya Canbakal, 17. Yuzyılda Ayntab Osmanlı Kentinde Toplum ve Siyaset (Istanbul: _Iletisim, 2010),

pp.16–17.

34. For an analysis of how Konya and Kayseri experienced an economic boom in a relatively short period

of time, see Hasan Kosebalaban ‘The Rise of Anatolian Cities and the Failure of the Modernization

Paradigm’, Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.16, No.3 (2007), pp.229–40.

35. www.gaziantepekonomi.com, 23 Sept. 2010 (accessed 4 Oct. 2010).

36. Saskia Sassen, ‘Locating Cities on Global Circuits’, Environment and Urbanization, Vol.14, No.1

(2002), pp.13–14. William Robinson, ‘Saskia Sassen and the Sociology of Globalization: A Critical

Appraisal’, Sociological Analysis, Vol.3, No.1 (2009), pp.7–10.

37. Kosebalaban, ‘The Rise of Anatolian Cities’, p.232.

38. Ayse S. Yuksel, ‘Migrants As Entrepreneurs Local Economic Development, Rescaling and Migration

in Southeastern Turkey’, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the SASE Annual Conference,

Temple University, Philadelphia, USA, 24 June 2010.

39. Ibid.

40. Hatice Karacay-Lutfi Erden, ‘Yeni Sanayi Odakları ve Sanayinin Yeni Mekan Arayısları’, C.U. _I _I

Bilimler Dergisi, Vol.6, No. 1 (2005), p.122.

41. Interview with Alper Bozhoyuk, 23 Sept. 2010. Bozhoyuk is a typical sample of a second-generation

businessman. After receiving a university degree in Istanbul in international relations, he returned to

the city to continue his family’s economic affairs.

42. Interview with Nihat Sencan, 20 Sept. 2010.

43. Simon Burgess, ‘A Search Model With Job Changing Costs: Eurosclerosis and Unemployment’,

Oxford Economic Papers, Vol.44 (1992), pp.75–88.

44. Hakimiyet, 2 Dec. 2010.

45. Erkan Aydo�gano�glu, Sınıf Mucadelesinde Sendikalar (Istanbul: Evrensel, 2007), p.201.

46. Interview with Dr Y. Emre Tansu, a historian in the local state university working on the

contemporary history of Gaziantep, 20 Dec. 2010.

47. Interview with Ozgur Akıl, the local representative of a foundation for public workers, 20 Dec. 2010.

48. Interview with YS, 11 Oct. 2010.

49. Interview with Alper Bozhoyuk, 23 Sept. 2010.

50. Michael Mann, ‘Sources of Variation in Working-Class Movements in Twentieth-Century Europe’,

New Left Review, Vol.22 (1995), p.19.

51. Interview with Nihat Sencan, 20 Sept. 2010.

52. Korkut Boratav, 1980’li Yıllarda Turkiye’de Sosyal Sınıflar ve Bolusum (Ankara: _Imge, 2005), pp.108–

9.

53. Koc, Turkiye _I sci Sınıfı Tarihi, p.29.

54. Neriman Acıkalın, ‘A Sociological Study of Urban Poor in Istanbul and Gaziantep’ (PhD thesis,

Middle East Technical University, 2004), p.85.

55. Nazih Ayubi, Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World (London: Routledge, 1993),

p.150.

56. Abdulvehhab Ozturk, _I slam’da Emek ve _I sci- _I sveren Munasebetleri (_Istanbul: Ensar Yayınları, 1986),

p.60.

57. Hayreddin Karaman, _I slam’da _I sci- _I sveren Munasebetleri (_Istanbul: Marifet, 1981), p.63.

58. Fethullah Gulen, Enginli�giyle Bizim Dunyamız _Iktisadi Mulahazalar (_Istanbul: Nil, 2009), p.417. The

Gulen Movement is described as the largest Islamic movement in Turkey, and the most widely

recognized and effective internationally (Berna Turam, ‘The Politics of Engagement between Islam

and the Secular State: Ambivalences of Civil Society,’ The British Journal of Sociology, Vol.55, No.2

(2004), p.265).

59. Interview with Bilal Ozturk, 27 Sept. 2010.

60. Interview with M. Fahri _Inanc, the owner of Zumrut Food Company, 17 Sept. 2010.

61. Nilgun Ongan, ‘_Islam Ekonomisinde Bolusum’, Calısma ve Toplum, Vol.4 (2008), p.226.

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62. Interview with CE, 18 Sept. 2010.

63. Interview with HK, 17 Sept. 2010.

64. Interview with Bilal Ozturk, 27 Sept. 2010.

65. Interview with HS, 11 Oct. 2010.

66. Interview with Bekir Avan, the local head of Turk E�gitim Sen – a conservative-nationalist union for

teachers, 28 Sept. 2010.

67. Especially, the new debates that revolve around the Has Party (Halkın Sesi Partisi – People’s Voice

Party) which, for some, has a socialist interpretation of Islam. The Party is already dubbed the party

of the Islamic left.

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