Page - 111 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Volume 2:1

111 | www.limina-graz.eu hande Birkalan-Gedik | muslim | martyr | masculine Introduction Recently, the AKP’s discourses on martyrdom have effectively served its existing efforts of nationalism, which reached its epitome on 15 July 2016 when a coup was attempted to topple the AKP government and the Presi- dent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Specifically, in the face of this attempted coup, the political decision-makers of the AKP culled elements from Turkish “secular” nationalism and tainted them with religious themes, symbols, and discourses—which are not so “new” in the Turkish nationalist imagi- nation. To fully grasp the new nationalism of the AKP, an intersectional analy- sis based on gender, sexuality, and religion provides a crucial framework. Several feminist scholars of nationalism showed that all nationalisms—be that secular or religious—need to be analyzed with respect to gender and sexuality (for a now “classical” treatment of how gender relations affect and are affected by national projects and processes see Yuval-Davis, 1997). Feminist scholars also highlighted that nationalism is intrinsically linked to a masculinist idea of nationalism (the military is also a masculinist con- struct). Yet, their arguments on how the construction of a “nation” in- volves specific notions of both “manhood” and “womanhood” were much to the dismay of some male scholars who neglected this link in their re- search. Ayşe Gül Altınay, for example, stressed that “[...] despite these cru- cial links between military service, nationalism, citizenship, and gender, until recently neither social historians nor theorists of nationalism have paid much attention to this nation-state practice” (Altınay 2004, 7). I contend that the 15 July 2016 represents the epitome of a new nationalism that emphasizes discourses of martyrdom, striving to redefine the “Turk- ish” as the basis of the nation-state, deeply anchored in a discursive field that brings together powerful elements of Islam. Yet, while the AKP uses Islamic elements, it also employs elements familiar to analysts as charac- teristics of Kemalist nationalism, which seemingly distanced itself from an Islamic culture. On the one hand, the new nationalism can be seen in op- position to the Kemalist influence on the definition of Turkish identity as its sole authority. On the other hand, widening its discursive elements, the Nationalism needs to be analyzed with respect to gender and sexuality. The construction of a “nation” involves specific notions of both “manhood” and “womanhood.”