Award Topics
The topic for the 2009 award competition was “Pluralism in Contemporary Turkish Society and Politics”. The fourth Sakıp Sabancı International Research Awardswere given at a ceremony held on Tuesday, May 26th, at Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum - the Seed. The ceremony was hosted by Güler Sabancı, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and President Professor Tosun Terzioğlu. The winner of the first prize was the young researcher from the University of Vermont, Kabir Tambar.
Winners
The first prize: Dr. Kabir Tambar of University of Vermont, with his essay titled: "Paradoxes of Pluralism: Ritual Aesthetics and the Alevi Revival in Turkey".
Second prize: Nora Fisher Onar, doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford with her work titled "Beyond Binaries: 'Europe', Pluralism, and a Revisionist-Status Quo Key to Turkish Politics".
Third prize: Murat Somer, Associate Professor of Koç University with his work titled "Democracy (For Me): Religious and Secular Beliefs and Social and Political Pluralism in Turkey".
Jury
Professor Sabri Sayarı: Sabancı University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Professor John Waterbury: Former President of the American University of Beirut Faculty of Political Sciences, Lebanon; Emeritus Professor of Political Sciences, Princeton University
Professor Nilüfer Göle: Director, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Centre d'Analyse et d'Intervention Sociologiques, France
Professor Fuat Keyman: Koç University, Professor of International Relations
Professor David Shankland: University of Bristol, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, UK
Professor Kalypso Nicolaidis: University of Oxford, Professor of International Relations
Winning Articles
Kabir Tambar / Paradoxes of Pluralism: Ritual Aesthetics and the Alevi Revival in Turkey
Nora Fisher Onar / Beyond Binaries: 'Europe', Pluralism, and a Revisionist-Status Quo Key to Turkish Politics
Murat Somer / Democracy (For Me): Religious And Secular Beliefs And Social And Political Pluralism In Turkey
Please do not cite or reproduce without permission of the author.
Keynote Speeches
John Waterbury
Keynote Speech by John Waterbury, Princeton University Transcript
Good evening ladies and gentlemen. It is a great honor for me to be here and to have been a member of the jury for this year's award ceremony. It is an even greater honor for me to be here before you this evening. I greatly appreciate the privilege and I salute Sabancı University and the Sabancı family for sponsoring this contest- this year devoted to pluralism in Turkish society. I apologize to you all that I am not able to deliver my remarks in Turkish. But I must say that the essays that I read were all written in English and in English better than my own.
Indeed those eight essays that we the jury considered were all of very high quality. I learned from them all and I appreciate the opportunity to read them all. I want to make a few summary remarks about those essays- at least my personal impressions of them. And then a few general remarks about pluralism itself. I should warn you that I am not- I do not consider myself a student or an expert on pluralism. I speak more as someone who simply lives in society whether it is in the US or here in the Middle East. And one who worries about diversity, pluralism and the respect for a wide range of opinions and practices.
The essays, with the exception of one, I think I can say fairly, did not spend a lot of time on what we would call the theory of pluralism. Only one seemed to engage that topic in some detail. Rather the essays plunged into what I would call into the mechanics of pluralism. That is how in Turkish society do various groups that may not share in the dominant ideology and paradigm of the country try to find their place, try to gain legitimacy and respect and indeed try to gain legal status in the system. So the essays moved rather quickly from the question of what is pluralism and why it is important and how in a theoretic way do we try to protect it to the actual mechanics: What our different groups are doing to try to carve out a place for themselves in Turkish society and Turkish politics. And they addressed what I think would probably the authors more pressing concerns in academic terms. Some were looking at an issue that is called social movements and how social movements form and establish themselves. Some were interested and using a methodology of either survey research that is public opinion or opinion research and content analysis of newspapers. Some employed an anthropological approach to try look right at the grassroots level. And indeed the winner of the contest was looking at the grassroots level from an anthropological, sociological point of view of how a group in current temporary Turkey seeks to carve and nurture itself. And at least one of the essays was very concerned with general political attitudes of the Turkish political elite. So very diverse approaches to this issue. But as I say it seems to me the common thread was looking at the mechanics rather than the general theory of pluralism in contemporary Turkish society and Turkish politics.
What struck me in reading across these papers was the sensitivity of the authors to certain paradoxes, certain contradictions that are merged in this study of mechanics and I'll just mention three or maybe four. One for instance, indeed I think the winner, I hope I don't abuse his own really profound analysis, looked at a paradox of the Alevis. Asserting their dead identity through a performance which is characterized as folkloric and using- and that was acceptable in a folkloric sense acceptable to present to a non-Alevi public. But in so doing, in a way, the Alevis debased their own religious identity which was the very thing they sought recognition for. So it was kind of a paradox in the sense that they had to go through a public folkloric presentation in order to gain official recognition of their religious identity. But in so doing they in a way debased that religious identity. There is the paradox mentioned in some papers of secularist Turks who feared the pressure coming from Europe to keep the military totally out of politics and in so doing perhaps jeopardizing what they, the secularists saw, as the last defense of their secularism. They were caught between two pressures and in a way have not yet reconciled that contradiction. A third that I noticed in at least two or three of the papers was in fact the role of the AKP which I think fascinated many of the authors where what does this represent. Presented as a challenge to what we might call the Kemalist paradigm prevailing in Turkey since the founding of the republic but at the same time perhaps borrowing one of the tenets of the Kemalist paradigm which either explicitly or implicitly has been that Sunni Islam is the religion of state. So AKP sets itself up as the alternative to the Kemalist paradigm but yet maybe borrows one of the basic pillars of it. So I am gonna conclude my remarks on those papers just saying that mechanics of pluralism are not clear cut in Turkey, the agendas of different groups are not consistent at all times. There are contradictions and paradoxes that either a student of this phenomenon or a practitioner must appreciate or I think take some delight in.
Let me move to some more general remarks on pluralism itself and I again emphasize that I am not an expert or a student. So I ask these simply as an observer. And, the first that, the first generalization that I would make is that at least in Western political theory, the concern for pluralism and the protection of pluralism, I believe arises out of a much deeper concern with what we might call the tyranny of the majority in democracies and this comes out of ancient democratic theory- a fear that majorities, even though they practice in a democratic system, may impose short term solutions that are highly destructive to society. In other words, there is an ancient and deep mistrust of the majority even if it expresses its voice in a democratic way. And therefore there must be constitutional, institutional protections for minorities. I think there are so many examples in history that show the stupidity of the majorities, the viciousness of majorities. We do not need to dwell on this terribly long but I just would say two examples familiar I think to most of you. Adolf Hitler was the product of a democratic process. There can be circumstances in which popular passions are aroused and brought to a point where they do extraordinary harm. Perhaps on a lesser scale but one of the most shameful periods in my own country's history, the US, again came under a period of very high stress, Pearl Harbour and the beginning of the World War II at least for the US where the US interned virtually every Japanese citizen, every US citizen of Japanese origin during the duration of the war. We learned later that we needed to have constitutional protections for that, for any minority so that even though with the popular will of the majority of Americans at the time, we needed to have that, the Japanese, at least the Japanese in the US did not have those protections. So I think one of our concerns that lead to our concern with pluralism and pluralist systems, is that the majority can and under stress often does make terrible mistakes.
Diversity and pluralism has been regarded more often as a threat to society than as a blessing and a source of strength. It is seen as a way to tear apart the fabric of a nation, or an empire or some kind of political unit. It is seen as the way that the enemy can enter your society and exploit the differences to their advantage. Therefore, it is often the case that political systems try to contain or suppress pluralism. And that again from one of a political, liberal persuasion, is abhorred and repulsive but it's simply been the general modus vivendi in most societies in the world. But it has been, I think prevalent for understandable reasons, in post-colonial society in the developing countries- those countries that have been subjected to foreign rule. I myself have been a student of the Arab world, of North Africa, and the Arab countries and throughout, scholars from those countries would say that friends, Britain and then in the later phase the US, has exploited our differences they created a kind of artificial sense of identity among different peoples, ethnic groups, religions in our societies in order to divide and rule, divide and conquer, maintain their colonial control. And therefore in order to build our nations as the way they should be, we cannot tolerate these differences. We must- we must build new identities that overcome these old identities.
And so I would say since the World War II, in many societies, those that are from minorities- they may be ethnic minorities, they may be religious minorities, they may hold different political views- they have been regarded as not only as dangerous but as, in some sense, traitors. As agents of powers, external powers, that want to dominate the local society. So it is an uphill battle to develop pluralist systems. And I take it as a great sign of encouragement that here in Turkey and here at Sabanci University, there seems to be a strong will to explore pluralist systems, understand how they function and how they can be an element of strength rather than perceived as an element of weakness. Thank you again for allowing me this opportunity to address you. It has been a great honour and good evening to you all.
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