Özlem Bayraktar Akkaya

The National Outlook and Its Youth in the 1970s in Turkey: at the Periphery or Outside the Social Order? Özlem Bayraktar Akkaya

The National Outlook and Its Youth: According to some academics, the modern centre in Turkey is represented by Kemalism while the periphery is by political Islam. This book examines the Islamist politics of the 1970s in Turkey, focusing on the National Outlook movement and its youth organization, the Raiders. The book argues that the debate on Islam's relation with modernity tends to essentialize the phenomenon of political Islam while what determines the nature of Islamist movements is not Islam itself but the socio-historical contexts they emerge in. It is said that the National Outlook conveyed the peripheral groups to the center, thus contributing to democratic development; yet, it is neglected that the movement's elites had close ties to the secular center and adopted the target of creating a homogenous-modern nation. And the movement was not free of internal conflicts. On the other hand, the book shows that the Raiders' aim was not to self-integrate to but to conquer the center, which resulted in the controversies between them and the headquarters of the National Outlook. This book should help those dealing with the phenomenon of political Islam and its relation to democracy.