Page - 112 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Volume 2:1

112 | www.limina-graz.eu hande Birkalan-Gedik | muslim | martyr | masculine new nationalism of the AKP employs intertwined discourses of martyrdom, masculinity and military, and at the same time subverts them to effectively serve its existing efforts in politics. Religious Nationalism(s): Local Examples of a “Global” Concept Multiple publications in scholarly literature talked about “religious na- tionalism” over the past few decades, a term that refers to at least two aspects in its definition: the politicization of religion and the influence of religion on politics in Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist con- texts. A well-known scholar of religious nationalism, Mark Juergensmeyer, who observed the “Hindu and Sikh partisans in India, militant Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Mongolia, Christian activists in eastern Europe and Latin America, right-wing Jewish politicians in Israel, and Islamic activists in the Middle East and Central Asia” (Juergensmeyer 1995, 379), concluded that religious nationalism is a “worldwide” (1996) and a “global” move- ment (1998).1 While it might be of scholarly interest to compare the characteristics of various religious nationalisms this is beyond the scope of the present ar- ticle. Acknowledging these theoretical and analytical gaps I will, however, point to different versions of religious nationalisms, which will hopeful- ly provide a sense of the intricacies of the “new nationalism” in Turkey. Although I agree with the “global” aspect of religious nationalism, I also believe that the resonances in local embodiments should be examined in detail, as different religious nationalisms organize religion and politics in various and distinct ways. The typology of the Israeli scholar Uri Ram might help readers understand religious nationalism in Turkey. Ram offers four “modules” combining the two axes of nationalism and religionism: In the first module, the combina- tion of strong nationalism/weak religionism can be identified as “energetic secular nationalism.” The strong nationalism/strong religionism module is a fusion and it creates a kind of “indissoluble mesh of religious national- ism.” The weak nationalism/weak religionism module represents a polity that is not founded based on strong pre-political “primordial” or ascrip- 1 Although the term “religious na- tionalism” is used widely, there is also a scholarly asymmetry as noted by Erin K. Wilson, who astutely ob- served—at least in the field of In- ternational Relations—that scholars have paid little attention to the role of religion in the politics of Western states (Wilson 2012, 2). Different nationalisms organize religion and politics in various and distinct ways.