Turkey in the 1980s and the Islamist Aftermath During the 1980s, the military attempted to re-bolster its authoritarian rule. The 1961 coup, one that attempted to clamp down on politicians collaborating with religious groups, had not produced the pristine secular regime the military desired, nor prevented the political gridlock between partisan political authorities. In order to defend itself from the Marxist threat, an ideology promoted during the Cold War by the Soviet Union, the military began to relegate more funds towards building up conservative Islam as a bulwark against leftist ideology. Due to the alienation of minorities in Turkey, the military became nervous of a communist takeover (Taspinar 137). During this decade, Kurdish unrest expressed itself as a rebellious Kurdish Separatist movement known as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which threatened threaten Turkish sovereignty. Ironically, Kemal’s ethnic nationalist agenda would serve as a role model for the PKK, which has sought to unify Kurds and establish a Kurdish state. In order to regain control in Turkey, the military relegated more funds towards building up conservative Islam as a bulwark against leftist …show more content…
Turgat Ozal, the father of post-cold war Turkey, appealed to the supporters of the National Outlook Party and the Justice Party and secured electoral victory in the 1983 elections. Naqshbandi members and other private groups were integral to the success of Ozal’s Motherland Party, and benefitted the most from Ozal’s economic liberalization (Taspinar 143). The Sufi orders were now investing heavily in Turkish society in ways never done before the 1920s’ lodge ban. Nevertheless, Ozal, like previous leaders, did not seek to undermine the secular, Western state that the military fiercely guarded. Turkish political leaders knew that any enterprises to change the secular framework would invoke an immediate