A "new official history"? Not at all

I must first thank Nuray Mert for her article titled "Hanioğlu's Atatürk and the New Official History," published on K24, for caring to do justice to the debates on Kemalism and historiography, which in Turkey should always be a matter of confrontation and reckoning. Moreover, for caring about the debate.

Although it is among the subjects most published about, in fact neither Atatürk nor official history is properly discussed. Among the discourses that have been built around the name of Atatürk into something heroic or, after a certain point, mythological, and those that, equally, turn the subject on its head into an emotional matter and voice their reactions, neither a portrait of Atatürk as a human being and a real person emerges, nor can the meaning of what he did, its gains and losses, be discussed. Somewhere a sensitivity flares up and prevents a clear picture from emerging.

Being open to every kind of warning about bringing the subject onto a rational ground is of course very important. But I fear that Nuray Mert, with the title she put at the very outset as she entered the debate, cannot refrain from again inserting a sensitivity that prevents the real picture from emerging. She presents both Şükrü Hanioğlu's study titled Atatürk: An Intellectual Biography and what I said in my articles published in Yeni Şafak on 19, 21, 26 and 28 January as part of a tendency she calls "new official history."

This is of course a characterization about which I cannot help saying "Come on!" While a little criticism of Kemalism, and a great deal of historical data about Mustafa Kemal whose cover has not even been lifted, whose lifting is still unthinkable, with a protective shield still standing in front of anyone who thinks of it, remain plainly locked under pressure, when exactly was a new "official history" born? In schools, children are still made to read the name of Atatürk not as a historical figure but as a mythological figure, who single-handedly saved a country, crushed its enemies and created a homeland, a country, out of nothing.

Today, when people have the slightest complaint about democracy, human rights or freedoms, they make straight for Anıtkabir and stage rituals of complaint and imprecation there. Does that not show which official history is in force and which one cannot even be mentioned? Do these people, in rushing to Anıtkabir to demand democracy, even know that not a single election was held in Atatürk's time, and that no reform or policy that was carried out was ever put to the people?

Having read Nuray Mert's statement, "On reading Historian Şükrü Hanioğlu's study titled Atatürk: An Intellectual Biography, I saw that criticisms of Kemalism, owing to Islamists being in power, have been reflected in historiography, or that the new official historiography has now been adopted by a broader segment 'in keeping with the spirit of the times,'" I must say that I find it objectionable, in a word or in a mild expression. Hanioğlu will of course defend himself and has no need of my defense, but on my own behalf I take a share of the same criticism. It says that the criticism I too make in my articles, together with Hanioğlu, is as if we had adopted, "in keeping with the spirit of the times," a "new official history" embraced under AK Party rule.

It must be especially emphasized that neither Hanioğlu's work nor my interpretations of history are intellectual or political stances that emerged with the AK Party government. Hanioğlu's studies on the Ottoman world of thought and the critical perspective he brought to modernization debates have had their place in the academic literature since the 1990s. Even the essence of his Atatürk biography was published at Berkeley in 2011, and when the Abdullah Cevdet study was published there was not even a sign yet that the AK Party would come to power. As for me, as my old friend Nuray Mert also knows very well, my assessments of Ottoman modernization, Unionism and the early period of the Republic likewise appear explicitly in works I published long before AK Party rule.

I must say that I find it hard, in fact as always, to understand my old friend Nuray Mert here, because she has taken the easiest path of dismissing intellectuals close to the AK Party, or Islamist or conservative intellectuals in particular. Isn't it, first of all, rather shameful toward her "old friends" to try to portray the intellectuals on this side as dutiful intellectuals, historians and scientists who produce theses in the direction the government wants, who produce knowledge and ideas? By saying that the theses of people she knows very well thought the same way even long before the AK Party are being shaped in line with the government and in keeping with the spirit of the times, what does she do other than repeat a typical, extremely simple Kemalist cliché?

The truth is that during the AK Party period there is no effort to create a new official history, as is supposed. It is not the government but the intellectuals who demand more on this subject. The government is in a "let there be no unpleasantness, let us not play with anyone's sensitivities, let old ledgers stay in the past" mode.

Of course we understand this too; after all, Turkey today is a pluralistic society, and probing historical narratives is not limited to simply satisfying scientific curiosity. If history has turned into a field of belief, creed and mythology, then everything you do and everything you say there turns, after a point, into interference with others' beliefs. The government is concerned with running a society in peace, stability and tranquility. Even its protecting that sensitivity can be written down as a positive in this government's ledger in the name of its respect for pluralism.

The most reasonable response we can give today to the claim that a new official history is being written is for those who say so to take a look at how official historiography was institutionalized in the early period of the Republic, legislated, forcibly imposed on everyone in education curricula, and what chain of penal sanctions was set in motion against the writing of any alternative history. The Takrir-i Sükûn, the Tevhid-i Tedrisat and the Press Law, the Independence Tribunals, and the imposition of the Nutuk on everyone as the single narrative of history. The fact that persons against whom all sorts of accusations were made in this narrative did not even have the chance to defend themselves. The fact that Kazım Karabekir's book İstiklal Harbimiz, which he decided somehow to publish as a reply only five years after the Nutuk's publication, was burned to ashes until not a single copy was left.

For God's sake, if you want to speak of such a formation, such a case, as a "new official history," at least show one or two practices that resemble these. Treating one or two works that would slightly correct that forcibly imposed mythological history as a "new official history" right away, is that not condemning in advance a criticism that has emerged against a history despotism that is still current?

At this point I must tell my old friend that the Islamist history she criticizes still claims to be critical historiography and has never attained the position of an official history. The solid old official history, firm as a stake, has not even been shaken just because a few critical books or articles were published and a few critical voices emerged. But characterizing this much criticism directly as a new official history can only be written down as a defensive reflex that places the official historical narrative itself in a position closed to criticism.

Otherwise, what practice is there today that would verify this "new official history" claim? Anyone says whatever he likes anyway. Beyond that, the "old official history" is still in force in all its hegemony. It is legally protected, and legal sanctions still hang over the head of whoever says otherwise. Let history speak freely too.