A look from the window of Erol Güngör in Erzurum

April 24 is the death anniversary of the esteemed man of thought, sociologist Prof. Dr. Erol Güngör. The days we are living invite us to recall again and again the subjects he dwelt on, and from there to open a window for looking at events. I thank the Erzurum Metropolitan Municipality, which reminded us of this on the occasion of this year's death anniversary and made it possible to open a window anew by means of a panel. On Saturday, on the Atatürk University campus, in a panel moderated by the esteemed philosopher Prof. Ali Utku, we came together with Prof. Dr. Naci Bostancı, Prof. Dr. Nevin Güngör Ergan and Prof. Dr. Mevlüt Uyanık at "The Construction of Mentality: Erol Güngör Panel."

In previous years too, on the occasion of the death anniversary, we several times opened windows through Güngör onto many events. In particular, we had earlier touched on his exposure of the British-centered perspective that has seeped even into our most right-wing quarters, concerning our view of the Middle East and our positioning toward it. The passage we quoted from the last chapter, "The World We Were Severed From," of his book "Turkish Culture and Nationalism" deserves to be hung up as a banner. To those who say "What does Palestine have to do with us today; the Arabs stabbed us in the back anyway," it explains that the mindset trying to sever us from the Middle East serves nowhere other than the imperialism that has been hostile to the Turkish national existence from the start.

Given its importance, I am quoting it once more:

"In the meantime, it is essential that cultural contacts be established and increased between Turkey and the other Middle Eastern countries. Let us not forget that the seeds of discord that the Western states sowed in the Middle East after the First World War have affected us greatly as well. When the word Arab is said, what always comes to the minds of the new Turkish generations is the British-puppet Bedouin tribes who stabbed the Turkish armies in the back; and when the Arabs hear the word Turk, what they remember most is what the Unionist Cemal Pasha did in Syria. Both notions are wrong; they were invented by the British to make the two sides enemies of one another. If we want the Arabs to be rid of this false notion, we too must erase all traces of the Arab hostility that the Western-puppet intellectuals in our own country have been systematically trying to implant. Let us not forget that at the foundation of Arab-hostility propaganda lies hostility to Islam; there is an effort to make enemies of the two great masses of the Islamic world that live side by side, and thereby to enslave each of them one by one to the Westerners. Scientific, cultural and artistic relations among the Middle Eastern states will help all of us tell friend from enemy. In this field too, Turkey's taking the initiative should be regarded as a requirement of a sound foreign policy.

Shall we be the tail of the European Common Market, or the head of the Middle East? Shall we perform the garbage-collecting service of a civilization that is hostile to us and will remain hostile, or lead our own civilization? The Turkish intellectual must make a decision on this at once."

No one can know what would have happened to Ziya Gökalp, who is mistakenly described, by a widespread error, as the ideological father of Atatürk, had he not died in 1924 but remained alive; but it is quite clear that his views on Turkism and nationalism could have been found too Islamist, even ummah-oriented, in the Republican period. Indeed, his books were not published until 1939 and were in fact left to be forgotten in that period. Still, there has always been something strange about Gökalp being regarded as the official ideologue of the Republic. At the same time, it is known that Erol Güngör, in setting out his own line of nationalism, entered into a serious confrontation and parting of ways with Ziya Gökalp. What is interesting is that his book too was not reprinted for years by the publishing house that published it because of its critique of Gökalp.

In the essay "Technology and Cultural Change" in his book "Cultural Change and Nationalism," the most fundamental criticism directed at Gökalp is that Gökalp's culture-civilization distinction was born not of a scientific discovery but of a practical need. According to Güngör, Gökalp wanted less to describe sociological reality than to produce a formula for how Turkey could Westernize. The elements desired to be preserved were gathered under the heading "culture," and the elements that needed to be changed under the heading "civilization." Thus both nationalism was preserved and entry into Western civilization was legitimized. Güngör understands the historical concern behind this approach, but finds it problematic that scientific concepts are shaped according to political prescriptions. Because in that case concepts, instead of explaining reality, turn into instruments serving the desired outcome.

The second important criticism concerns the internal inconsistencies in Gökalp's system. The most striking example Güngör gives is the question of religion. In some places Gökalp counts religion as an element of civilization, because religion is not an invention of nations but rests on a supra-national source. But in other places he also presents religion as an element of culture, because every society lives religion in its own way and stamps its own seal on it. According to Güngör, this approach is a serious contradiction in theoretical terms. If religion is an element of civilization, then in the transition to Western civilization is Christianity not also a part of it? If civilization is to be taken as a whole, must not a society entering Western civilization also confront the Western religion? Gökalp does not accept this; giving the example of Japan, he says that civilizational change does not require a change of religion. But according to Güngör, this answer does not remove the internal tension of the system.

Gökalp also thinks that no strict and impermeable boundaries can be drawn between culture and civilization. Here he draws on contemporary sociology and anthropology. According to him, material life and spiritual life are not two disconnected domains. Changes occurring in fields such as technology, law, administrative structure and mode of production transform family relations, forms of authority, everyday habits, even the understanding of morality. Likewise, changes in beliefs, values and the world of mentality also affect the economic and technical fields. For this reason, the idea that civilization consists only of tools and culture only of spirit is sociologically indefensible. Güngör's basic emphasis is this: material and spiritual elements are in constant mutual interaction.

Güngör holds that cultural change does not proceed according to an automatic order. In Gökalp's model, civilizational elements can be easily taken, while culture can remain a deeper and more protected domain. Güngör, however, says that cultural exchange is a selective process. Societies take elements from other societies not mechanically but selectively. Sometimes material elements come first, sometimes spiritual elements. As a typical example of this he gives the North African tribes who took their Islamic beliefs from the Arabs without adopting Arab technology. Conversely, in the modern age many societies, while taking Western technology, have also rapidly adopted certain Western behavior patterns and values. These examples show that change cannot be explained with a single-line scheme.

One of Güngör's criticisms is also directed at Gökalp's formula "I am from the Turkish nation, from the Islamic ummah, from Western civilization." Güngör accepts the historical function of this formula: for that period it produced a ground of reconciliation among nationalism, Islamic belonging and modernization. But sociological reality cannot be formulated so easily. For civilization does not consist only of external tools; it is also a system of values and institutions. If entering Western civilization requires deep transformations in law, education, politics and social organization, this will also have cultural consequences. That is, these three elements may not always stand side by side without conflict.

In conclusion, Erol Güngör's critique of Ziya Gökalp gathers along three main axes: First, the culture-civilization distinction is more a political prescription than scientific. Second, it carries theoretical contradictions on many subjects, religion foremost. Third, it does not sufficiently grasp the interaction between technology and culture, between material life and spiritual life. Güngör moves the debate on Turkish modernization from the question "What should we take from the West?" to the question "How do the things we take transform society?" This is the most lasting aspect of his criticism of Gökalp.

Let me conclude by saying that on the occasion of the panel, in this frontier province where our path has fallen after a few years, we found a completely different Erzurum. The mayor and his team, through the urban renewal they have carried out, have brought to light all the depths and subtleties of the city, from within an entire history stretching from Rome to the Seljuks and from there to the Ottomans and the Republic.