This article was downloaded by: [Purdue University] On: 16 March 2013, At: 10:36 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Middle Eastern Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fmes20 Islamism, Trade Unionism and Civil Society: The Case of Hak-İş Labour Confederation in Turkey Burhanettin Duran & Engin Yildirim Version of record first published: 24 Jan 2007. To cite this article: Burhanettin Duran & Engin Yildirim (2005): Islamism, Trade Unionism and Civil Society: The Case of Hak-İş Labour Confederation in Turkey, Middle Eastern Studies, 41:2, 227-247 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00263200500035199 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and- conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Transcript
This article was downloaded by: [Purdue University]On: 16 March 2013, At: 10:36Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Middle Eastern StudiesPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fmes20
Islamism, Trade Unionism and CivilSociety: The Case of Hak-İş LabourConfederation in TurkeyBurhanettin Duran & Engin YildirimVersion of record first published: 24 Jan 2007.
To cite this article: Burhanettin Duran & Engin Yildirim (2005): Islamism, Trade Unionism and CivilSociety: The Case of Hak-İş Labour Confederation in Turkey, Middle Eastern Studies, 41:2, 227-247
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00263200500035199
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representationthat the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of anyinstructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primarysources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Islamism, Trade Unionism and CivilSociety: The Case of Hak-Is LabourConfederation in Turkey
BURHANETTIN DURAN & ENGIN YILDIRIM
Civil society and democratization have recently become vital issues in the searchfor democracy and liberty in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. This agendahas been particularly important for Turkey, where democratic politics has beencaught in the difficulties of consolidation, due to the strong state tradition, whichweakens the bases of any social and political autonomy and action. The problemsof the consolidation are complicated by the significant part played by the Islamistparties and organizations in the Turkish political system in the second part of the1990s.
Although various constituents of civil society such as business associations,political parties, and religious movements have received much interest in recentyears, scant attention has been paid to the activities of labour organizations, as theyare not usually seen as an important actor in the Turkish political and social scene.1
When labour is examined in the Turkish context, it is usually the mainstream orsocialist labour organizations that have received attention. Quataert rightly pointsout that labour and labour movements that ‘did not or do not adopt left wingideologies also deserve attention’.2 This brings us to the subject of the article: Hak-Is(the Confederation of Righteous Trade Unions) labour confederation in Turkey. Webelieve that much is to be gained from an analysis of Hak-Is in explaining thetransformation of the Islamist movement in Turkey. While the business wing of theIslamist movement in Turkey has been examined, their labour counterpart has beenmostly overlooked, despite its proximity to Islamist political parties. What makesHak-Is worth analysing is not so much its numerical strength as its organizationaland ideological transformation. Hak-Is’s contribution to democratization lies not inits economic or political strength in the sphere of industrial relations but in itsdemocratizing influence within the larger Islamic movement. As Bugra has noted,Hak-Is deserves some attention in the analysis of political economy of Islam inTurkey because it was the first Islamist organization in Turkey that has attempted tomove from political Islamism to adapting western styles of democracy andsecularism in its discourse and action.3
The study of Islamist trade unionism in Turkey can also teach us much aboutthe possible democratic transformations other Turkish Islamist groups arecurrently experiencing. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to understanddemocratization and the development of civil society without analysing the role of
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DOI: 10.1080/00263200500035199
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Islamist groups as such. An analysis of Hak-Is’s place within Islamism and thelabour movement will contribute to the understanding of both the problems andopportunities which Turkey’s Islamist movement has been experiencing in the pasttwo decades. For those who study Islamist discourses on democracy and civilsociety, the case of Hak-Is and its transformation is helpful because it shows howan Islamist organization can transform its Islamist unionism from being analternative to both capitalism and socialism into democratic unionism, with theneed to address larger-scale, secular, economic and social issues that usuallydominate the agenda of trade unions.
This article is an attempt to reveal the difficulties and achievements that Hak-Ishas had in trying to develop its political discourse along universalist anddemocratic rather than Islamist lines. The article aims to offer answers to twomain questions: the first revolves around Hak-Is’s attempts to develop a model of‘Islamic unionism’ or ‘a unionism based on national values’ as this goal has beenthe raison d’etre of Hak-Is. The second examines how Hak-Is has undergone atransformation from a labour wing of Islamism to an organization adoptingdemocratic values including secularism without relinquishing its religiouscredentials. Within this framework, we also address the issue of Hak-Is’s role indemocratizing Islamism in Turkey, through an analysis of Hak-Is’s relations withthe other segments of Islamism in Turkey, notably political parties (the WelfareParty and its successor the Virtue Party) and business associations (MUSIAD) ofthe ‘green (Islamic) capital’. These two questions are interdependent, and providean analysis of Hak-Is, which extends our understanding of the relationship betweenlabour, Islam and democratization.
This article is organized around two arguments on the nature of Islamism. Thefirst presupposes an interactive relationship between Islamist discourses/organiza-tions and their social and political environments. In the case of trade unions, thisinteractivity is embedded, simply because they are inevitably shaped andtransformed by the economic structures and political institutions in which theyoperate. As for the second argument, the article highlights the heterogeneity ofinterests and discourses within the Islamist movement, regardless of thecommonality of the references, i.e. Islamic principles and sources. Politicalexpressions of Islamist demands are contingent and socially and culturallyconstructed through processes of interaction that are closely tied to all Islamistorganizations.
It is only in the early 1990s that the terminology of civil society began to gain widecurrency in academic discussions and the self-characterizations of democraticmovements in Turkey. It is generally accepted that civil society can include bothdemocratic and antidemocratic trends. Islamist movements, although potentiallyagents of democratizing and strengthening civil society, can also voice totalitarianpolitical discourses and sensibilities. The Islamist discourses serve at once as sourcesof identity politics and as materials of critique and transformation for the existingauthoritarian political systems.
While mindful of the theoretical difficulties and their attendant consequences forsuch apparent dichotomies as Islam and civil society or Islam and democracy, ourgoal here is to highlight the plurality of Islamist positioning regarding democracyand civil society that make further detailed study possible. We share the contention
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that Islamism may come to represent both pro and anti civil societal tendencies andthe interaction between Islamism and civil society will be determined not by theprinciples of Islam but by the attitudes of Islamist elites.4
The question of whether Islam is compatible with democratic values shouldperhaps be reworded to ask whether Islamist interpretations/reconstructions ofIslamic tradition are compatible with democratic values or not. The absence ofdemocracy in many Muslim countries has little to do with Islamic principlesand much to do with their Islamist interpretations. It is certain that theexperience with democracy and elite attitudes in this respect were alsosignificant for the establishment and consolidation of democracy in the Islamicworld.
Islamist politics can take different forms, stemming from the social, economic andpolitical variables in the given political system. Particular historical developments(economic basis, class structure) of the Muslim lands and the international networksof capitalist relations should also be employed in the analysis of Islamic politicalideas.5 Facilitated by the complex interactions among these variables, some Islamistorganizations are challenging and transforming the authoritarian tendencies/discourses within the Islamist movement and are thus contributing to thedevelopment of civil society. It is also anticipated that the empowerment of civilsociety will be realized when well institutionalized societal groups, including labourunions, are able to contribute to democratization of the political system, whileremaining autonomous from any state interference.6 It is argued that labourorganizations are part of a democratic societal culture and as such, they have playeda vital role in the development of democracy in many parts of the world.7 Here, itshould be also added that a more vibrant civil society could be realized when labourunions are in a position to influence other associations to democratize theirconceptualizations of politics.
A common underlying question behind the literature on civil society in the MiddleEast is: what are the reasons for the historical and contemporary absences ofbourgeoisie, free cities, rational and formal law and parliamentary institutions whichare the roots of civil society in the west? These assumptions about absences aretypical of either classical Orientalism which sought to explain the lack of civil societyin Muslim societies by the existence of a strong state and by the despotic principles ofIslam, or, neo-Orientalism, which underlines a strong society as the major reason forthe lack of state autonomy which is an impediment to the democratization anddevelopment of civil society.8
The social structures we understand as modern civil society developed withincertain historical and socio-economic conditions in the west. Cognizant of this fact,some students of Islam have come to regard the idea of civil society as somethinglimited to the west. Non-western cultures, in this view, do not share the ‘ideal’ or‘dream’ of civil society at the centre of their political and ideological heritage.9 In thesame way, Bernard Lewis voices an excellent example of the Orientalist literaturewhich underlines the absences in the Islamic world:
Islamic law, unlike Roman law and its derivatives, does not recognize corporatelegal persons, and there are therefore no Islamic equivalents to such Westerncorporate entities as the city, the monastery, or the college.10
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Expectedly, this view further problematizes the relationship between Islamism andcivil society:
It is doubtful that Islamism, in the historical sense, could lead to a civil societywhose basic value is that nobody possesses the right answer, or that all answersare valid.11
Islam and civil society can also be seen as compatible with each other. For example,Eickelman suggests that the emergence of civil society in the Middle Easterncountries in the last decades is not without precedent:
The Middle East presents a complex web of social institutions which sustainorder when central governments are ineffective or oppressive. If by civil societywe mean the emergence of institutions autonomous from the state whichfacilitate orderly economic, social and political activity, then there are manyprecedents.’12
An interesting critique of the view that the requirements of a civil society have alwaysbeen missing in the Islamic world is provided by Eva Bellin who sees the mostsignificant impediment to further development of civil society in the Middle East notin the cultural, sociological and religious exceptionalities of the region, but in thereluctance of state elites to make space for civil society. Bellin further argues that‘factors that might be expected to work against the development of civil society mayin fact be forces for the development of civility, civisme and the rights ofcitizenship’.13 In the same line of thinking Kukathas comes to see the religiousassociations and communities as one of the important civil societal elements throughwhich ‘people pursue the goals that give meaning to their lives’.14 This article sharesthe contention that the idea of civil society could not be constructed by excludingreligious organizations and movements from the sphere of civility, because they areintegral to the game.15
In contemporary Turkey, different sectors of Islamism have a growing inclinationto appropriate some western values like the idea of democracy and civil societythought to be non-Islamic at the beginning of the formation of Islamist discourses byrealizing the extent to which these values were incorporated into Islamist discoursesat the end of the 1990s in Turkey. It is possible to analyse further the recenttransformation of Islamism. A theme of interest in the transformation of Islamismfor us is how Islamic discourses and economic and class issues interrelate. Byfocusing primarily on cultural explanations of Islamist attitudes towards democracyand civil society, existing studies have ignored the implications of class interests andlabour issues for the transformation of Islamism and its incorporation into thepolitical process.16 Whereas ‘Islamism’ literature focuses on the political movements/parties in analysing the possible prospects for Islamism, a more accurateunderstanding of the transformation of Islamism requires a close analysis ofIslamic/ist civil sectors that learn to live by, and accept the outcomes of, secular anddemocratic politics in Turkey.17 This learning process for Islamist circles is perhapsbest accomplished by the aggregation and articulation of interests among labour andbusiness sectors in Turkish civil society. It is in the area of labour and business that
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the interplay of political and economic interests is most clearly visible. Takentogether, these arguments suggest that what matters most about the political aspectsof Islamism in its transformation is not only the changing discourses of Islamistpolitical parties, but also the vibrancy and robustness of the various Islamist civilsocietal elements that surround them.
Whether Islamist politics in the case of trade unions foster democraticconsolidation and a strong civil society depends less on Islamic political principlesand culture than on the relationship between Islamist elites and institutions and onstrategic decisions made by Islamist political leaders to deal with the political,economic and social problems of Turkish political life. By focusing primarily oncultural explanations of Islamist attitudes to democracy and civil society, existingstudies have ignored the implications of economic structure, political institutions,and labour issues in the transformation of Islamism and its incorporation into thepolitical process.
Hak-Is came into existence when the Islamist National Salvation Party (MSP) was akey member of the ruling National Front (MC) coalition government and was tryingto extend its sphere of influence in the late 1970s.18 It was set up in 1976 with 7unions. MSP wanted to disseminate its ideology among workers and activelyencouraged the formation of Hak-Is to act as a labour wing of the party. Hak-Is wasmostly organized in state enterprises that were controlled by the MSP-heldministries. The first general assembly of the confederation was held in 1977 andYasin Hatipoglu, a leading figure of National Outlook Movement (Milli Gorus), waselected as the president.
The word Hak carries two connotations: right and justice. Hak-Is’s emphasis onjustice directs us to the most important feature of Islamic political thought- therealtion of justice i.e. the fulfilment of God’s rules. Indeed, justice has always beenregarded as the most urgent political value in the history of Islamic societies and ithas served as a means of legitimacy for any kind of authority. In other words, inIslamic political thought the basic aim of the state is considered to be the realizationof justice. Khadduri claims that Islamic political movements of the late 19th and20th centuries can be seen as attempts to re-establish once lived ‘just public order’ ofIslam and to find a theory of political justice which, in today’s language, means apolitical ideology.19
Instilling a moral and virtuous outlook in workers was one of the main goals ofHak-Is whose programme and constitution were very similar to those of MSP. Forexample, capitalism, social democracy and communism were all believed to represent‘alien and materialistic values’ and considered as ‘tyrannical systems with foreignroots’.20 Like the MSP, frequent references were also made to the glories of theOttomans. The aims of Hak-Is as articulated in its declaration of foundation andpublications can provide some evidence of its philosophy in the late 1970s. Theseaims were to
realize social peace in labour relations through achieving labour and capitalbrotherhood; recreate Great Turkey based on the brotherhood of her people;develop a just wage system that will prevent class struggle; use members’ union
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dues in industrial investments; develop profit-sharing schemes, and assist rapidindustrialization efforts.21
The basic tenet of Hak-Is was the principle of the commonality of employer andemployee interests on the basis of Muslim brotherhood. Hak-Is declared that conflictbetween labour and capital was artificial because
labour and capital complement each other. The restructuring of working lifewill be based on our 1000 years’ experience. In the National Outlook system,relations between labour and capital will be different from capitalism, socialdemocracy and communism.22
Hak-Is also claimed, ‘the Turkish labour movement was under the control ofmasons and Zionists until its establishment’ and considered itself ‘the genuine’labour organization. When these views are taken into account, it can be seenthat they reflected the discourse of the National Outlook to create Islamistpolicies on labour issues. The will to realize the Islamist ideal permeated thewhole discussion on the relations between capital and labour, and in that sense,both capital and labour were required to curb their interests for the sake of theIslamist ideals.
Hak-Is did not have a significant following among workers at the outset, asone estimate put the membership figure of Hak-Is at about 20,000 in 1976. Justa year later, Hak-Is claimed to have 343,765 members, but in 1979 theorganization gave the figure of 135,412.23 These figures must be treated withcaution, as no reliable labour statistics existed before 1980 and all trade unionstended to inflate their membership figures. This should, nonetheless, not blurthe fact that when the MC government left office in 1978, Hak-Is suffered arapid decline in its membership.24
Why could Hak-Is not take root in the working class between 1976 and 1980?Being so closely associated with the MSP, it only appealed to workers who sharedthe religious ideology of that party. One of the founders of Hak-Is explicitly claimedthat the organization was ‘the representative of Islamic movement within the labourmovement’.25 Another factor that militated against Hak-Is was that the mostimportant sections of the working class had already been organized. Only newlyopened SEEs (State Economic Enterprises) and small and medium sized privateestablishments constituted suitable ground for further unionization. Since it wasdifficult to organize workers in the latter, Hak-Is put the emphasis on the formerwhere it was helped by the MSP appointed managers. Yet, when these managerswere removed from their posts it almost ceased functioning among the workers.
In that period, which witnessed a high rate of industrial conflict as well as politicalstrife, Hak-Is failed to see that objectives of Hak-Is were irrelevant to many workerstaking part in bitter disputes against employers. Under such circumstances, the goalof capital–labour brotherhood was interpreted as a means of preventing workersfrom struggling. In the grave economic crisis of the late 1970s, the main items incollective negotiations conducted by Hak-Is involved demands for small mosques orprayer rooms in factories, and allowing time off for individual and collective prayersand pilgrimage.26
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Faced with a growing crisis of confidence among workers, Hak-Is was on the brinkof demise. With hindsight, the military take-over in September 1980 proved to be ablessing in disguise for Hak-Is to transform itself.
The military regime suspended activities of all labour confederations except Turk-Is,the largest confederation. Unlike DISK (a left-wing confederation) and MISK (asmall ultra-nationalist confederation), Hak-Is was allowed to recommence opera-tions by the military authorities in February 1981. This can be explained by theencouragement of Islamic identity within the ideological framework of a Turkish–Islamic synthesis by the military regime, in order to weaken left-wing tendenciesamong workers and trade unionists. In return, Hak-Is explicitly supported themilitary rule and backed policies, which tallied with its worldview, such ascompulsory religious courses at schools and minimizing relations with Israel. Hak-Is also approved of harsh policies by the military against DISK. This may beinterpreted as opportunistic on the part of Hak-Is, wanting to fill the vacuum left bythe suspension of DISK’s activities.
A new leadership under Necati Celik, elected in the fourth general assembly ofHak-Is, convened in December 1983 and embarked upon constructing a new imageof Hak-Is among workers, cleaning its ‘stigma’ as the labour wing of the MSP.27
Having learned from past experience, Hak-Is was careful to stand aloof from thenewly founded Welfare Party (RP), the successor of the MSP. In an interview, NecatiCelik argued that ‘it was essential to shed the image of the confederation as thelabour wing of a political party to grow further’.28 Taking the view that the creationof a labour–employer brotherhood was implausible for a labour organization, thenew leadership also annulled the relevant article in Hak-Is constitution in 1986.29
These measures resulted in the growth of Hak-Is membership.30 Other factors alsohelp explain the continued growth of Hak-Is in the post-1980 period. Apart fromTurk-Is, Hak-Is was the only open confederation, and DISK members who foundTurk-Is affiliated unions in their industries too moderate or too right wing joinedHak-Is affiliates. Textiles, food and metal were industries where Hak-Is affiliates grewrapidly. Hak-Is may be said to owe its organizational success, in part, to the enforcedabsence of DISK from the labour scene.31
As the composition of Hak-Is membership diversified, workers with a differentoutlook became members of the organization. From the mid 1980s onwards, Hak-Ismanaged to establish itself as a national force whose significance could not be limitedto strictly defined Islamist segments of the labour movement.32 An outcome of thishas been the shift in its policies that have highlighted non-religious issues such asdemocratization, civil society and the development of political and social rights.
While Hak-Is kept its distance from the RP, which was trying to regain a footholdin the Turkish political scene, it sought to establish close ties with the rulingMotherland Party (ANAP) in the 1980s and tried to obtain favourable outcomes incollective bargaining in the public sector.33 Hak-Is gave its backing to ANAP in thegeneral elections and local elections held in 1987 and 1988 respectively.
The strategy of Hak-Is in the late 1980s involved a combination of harsh criticismof its main rival Turk-Is for its alleged ‘sell out to the employers’ and maintaininggood relations with the ANAP governments. It refrained from explicit criticism of
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the ANAP governments and pursued a policy of restricted militancy. For their part,the ANAP governments used Hak-Is as leverage against Turk-Is, which was adamantin its criticism of the government. At the same time, Hak-Is found it difficult toexplain its support for ANAP to labour circles and Islamists, trying to justify itsstance towards ANAP by making reference to Ozal’s liberal policies regardingreligion since ‘Ozal backed freedom of conscience and enterprise and made anattempt to dissolve single party and bureaucratic mentality’.34
While Hak-Is was endeavouring politically to remain on good terms with thegovernment, it did not refrain from occasionally criticizing Ozal for his economicpolicies. As a labour organization, Hak-Is was aware of the discontent workers hadagainst the ANAP government, as well as rising labour militancy in the late 1980sand therefore, felt obliged to undertake some action alone or jointly with otherlabour confederations. For example, Hak-Is joined the nation wide lunch boycottorganized by Turk-Is in 1989 and itself organized a lunch boycott in support of thestriking steel workers in 1991. Its members also observed a one-day general strikein 1991. Ironically, back in 1986, Hak-Is equated the attempts of a general strikewith treason, viewing it as an ‘overreaction detrimental to the interests of thecountry’.35 In addition, for the first time in its history, Hak-Is held a specialmeeting on May Day 1990 to discuss the labour problems. It even took part inMay Day celebrations jointly organized by the other confederations in 1991. Itwould have been unimaginable before 1980 for Hak-Is to celebrate May Dayregarded as ‘a festival of Jews and communists’.36 Yet, in 1991, Hak-Is was arguingthat:
just as the celebration of May Day by the Iranian state does not make it areligious occasion, its celebration by communists does not make it a communistfestival. . . It symbolizes a day in which workers all over the world condemnexploitation and proclaim their quest for freedom.37
Salim Uslu, the current president of Hak-Is argued that Hak-Is’s previous rejectionof May Day was meaningless and harmful for the image of the organization:
May Day is a day of the oppressed and if it is appropriated by some ideologies,this should not concern us. Of course, some people criticized us for celebratingMay Day but in this way, we were able to mitigate some harmful effects ofnegative propaganda directed towards us.38
By adopting a more radical line on labour issues Hak-Is was making efforts to shedits conservative–religious image. This transformation of Hak-Is can also be observedsymbolically in the change of its badge in 1989. The former badge of Hak-Is depicteda factory and a mosque inside a crescent, whereas the new one consists of a flywheel,olive branch and crescent representing labour, peace, unity, independence andfreedom.39 It is possible to discern a subtle change whereby ‘its class identity becomesas visible as its religious character’.40
Relations with international labour organizations are another field where thechanging orientation of Hak-Is has been evident. Initially, Hak-Is tried to secureclose relations with labour organizations in other Muslim countries. It even made an
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unsuccessful attempt to set up an international labour confederation, which wouldhave included labour organizations from Iran, Pakistan and Central Asiancountries.41 To this end, in the early 1990s, Hak-Is delegates visited ‘Workers’House’, the official Iranian labour confederation. The Confederation also took partin seminars such as ‘Industrial Relations System in Islam’ and ‘Labour MovementModel in Islam’, organized by Pakistan Trade Union Federations (NFL) in 1993 and1994.
At the same time, Hak-Is tried to encourage relations with European andInternational labour organizations but was initially met with suspicion if nothostility. Hak-Is gradually succeeded in overcoming this and is currently affiliated toICFTU (International Confederation of Free Trade Unions) and ETUC (EuropeanTrade Unions Confederation). Hak-Is’s membership of these organizations tookplace after a lengthy process. Hak-Is’s decision to apply for membership to ICFTUwas taken in 1992 but the confederation had to wait for over five years until itsapplication was finally accepted in 1997. ICFTU constitution stipulates that when anew confederation applies for membership, it should give consideration to views ofits affiliates from that country. Turk-Is, argued that secularism and democracy werenot among the aims of Hak-Is and not written into its constitution’.42
It was at its eighth general assembly in 1995 that Hak-Is included the worddemocracy in its constitution.43 At its nineteenth general assembly, Hak-Is made afurther amendment to its constitution by adding secularism as one of its principles,as required by ICFTU and ETUC. This principle is now enshrined in article 3 of theHak-Is constitution. Hak-Is also explicitly stated its support for membership of theEU at the same assembly.44 Not long ago, Hak-Is was vigorously against Turkey’sassociation with the EU. For example, Uslu claimed that Turkey would be exploitedby the EU as an open market:
Even in the name of realizing basic human rights and freedom within a truedemocratic system, it is not acceptable to sacrifice the unity of Turkey and loseits independence in the disembodying socio-cultural historical structure of theUnited States of Europe.45
Many Islamists are now in favour of Turkey’s integration in Europe, and Hak-Is isno exception. The 28 February Process46 brought significant changes in the Islamistconceptualizations of Europe and democracy. Islamists, after seeing the Kemalistdetermination not to allow any Islamist modification of the Turkish political system,have come to re-evaluate their views on Turkey’s membership of the EU. Islamistparties and some Islamist writers have dropped their anti-European assessmentsabout Turkey’s integration with the EU. They have also adopted a new discourse inwhich, democratization, the rule of law and the Copenhagen criteria should shapethe reformation and restructuring of the Turkish political system. As a result,Turkey’s endeavour to become a full member of the EU became compatible with theIslamist aim of democratizing the system.
In the early 1990s, Hak-Is embarked upon a soul-searching activity predicated onthe insertion of some democratic ideas into an essentially Islamist organization. Asone of the top officials of a Hak-Is affiliate succinctly put it: ‘while Islam is our valuecoming from the past, democracy is our new value’.47 In similar vein, Uslu argued
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that they did not hesitate to change when it was necessary but they were alsodetermined to protect their fundamental values. He stated:
The East is where our roots are, but the West is our direction. We do not rejectuniversal values of humanity but we respect our history, beliefs of our peopleand freedom to practise these beliefs.48
These statements are examples of the moderating of Hak-Is’s Islamist stance but donot necessarily mean that it has given up all Islamist leanings. For example, Hak-Is’scriticism on the ban of wearing headscarves by female university students and thewhole 28 February Process may be seen to be related not only to its support ofdemocracy but also more importantly to its Islamist considerations.
Hak-Is’s transformation can be even more clearly seen by examining firstly itsconceptions of class, and secondly its relations with religious capital and Islamistparties.
Islamist movements have not usually succeeded in attracting the industrialproletariat.49 In the 1940s and 1950s, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood inEgypt set up several unions but they failed to attract workers.50 Islamist movementstend to see society as functionally differentiated corporate bodies and not classes inmutual opposition. Setting aside the rhetoric of Hak-Is, their understanding ofworker–management relationships is deeply entrenched in traditional corporatisminvolving management based on shura, mutual respect and a sense of responsibilityshared by all workers in an enterprise. This is not, surprising, as Islamists, moreoften than not, underline the concept of mutual social responsibility between theworker and the employer, involving a mutuality of duties and rights in the spirit ofbrotherhood, not class antagonism.51 Islam is viewed to bring about ‘a happymarriage between labour and capital by giving the whole problem a moral bent’.52
As we have seen, in its early years Hak-Is’s understanding of unionism was notdifferent from the above views. However, recently Hak-Is began to develop a ‘new’approach to trade unionism, taking changes in the economy and labour force intoconsideration. It now proposes ‘service unionism’ as an alternative to what it calls‘wage unionism’, whereby in addition to collective bargaining, trade unions shouldprovide various social services for their members, including health-care and child-care facilities, housing co-operatives and the like. The idea of ‘service unionism’approaches the question of how to expand union membership from the standpoint ofhow to make unions more attractive to individual workers. Hak-Is also proposes‘creation of a new industrial relations culture’, founded on the principle of‘partnership of interest instead of conflict’.53 This discourse can appeal to employersas it points out that trade unions will take responsibility for increasing productionand productivity. Thus, it is not surprising to see that Confederation of TurkishEmployers Associations (TISK) president praised Hak-Is for not joining ‘provoca-tions’ made by leftist organizations and for its preference of co-operation withemployers rather than conflict.54
In Hak-Is’s view, class and wage unionism was an outcome of modern industrialsociety and as such ‘they are doomed to failure in tomorrow’s post-modern, post-
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industrial society’.55 It believes that in the twenty-first century there will be no placefor class unionism based on ideologies of class conflict and centralized structures. Italso claims that its unionism is ‘human centred’ and ‘takes historical and moralvalues of Turkish society into account’.56 Hak-Is’s attempt to develop a novel tradeunionism is based on class co-operation and service unionism:
Social classes do exist but they are not always in conflict with each other.Constant conflict only benefits the powerful at the expense of the weak as hasoccurred under capitalism and socialism. So relations between classes shouldrevolve around co-operation and solidarity. Conflict can only be prevented ifworkers have equal opportunities and rights in society.57
Despite its programme of class co-operation, Hak-Is at times engaged in strikesand opposed management. Moreover, it has not hesitated to co-operate withother labour organizations in issues related to industrial relations as well as somewider issues such as democratization and human rights. The 1990s saw increasedco-operation among the labour confederations about some wider political issuesand labour problems, which took place under the umbrella title ‘DemocracyPlatform’. It was an informally co-ordinated body bringing together labourorganizations, artisan organizations and professional associations. The platformissued a May Day declaration, which openly referred to the need to protectsecularism. Hak-Is did not object to this statement. Hak-Is parted from thisorganization in early 1995 as its plans to buy out some privatized public sectorestablishments were heavily criticized by the other affiliates of the DemocracyPlatform.
In order to substantiate its claim of uniqueness, Hak-Is made several attempts togo beyond mere standard wage and fringe benefit bargaining. Privatization wastaken as an opportunity to create concrete examples of such ideas. Hak-Ismaintained that it was not in principle against privatization as long as the timing,method and conditions were right. The confederation developed a model ofemployee ownership in the face of privatization, which was adopted in the buyout ofthe iron and steel complex, Kardemir, by Ozcelik-Is, (Hak-Is’ affiliate in themetalworking industry).58 A similar attempt was also made during the privatizationof state conglomerates, processing fish, meat, and milk products, by Ozgıda-Is (Hak-Is’ affiliate in the food industry) in 1994. The government initially sold them to theunion but when the media criticized the union and the government, the buyout wascancelled by the latter. The union argued that it wanted to buy these establishmentson the grounds of protecting its members’ job security.59 These cases can be viewedas attempts on the part of Hak-Is not just to develop alternative policies againstprivatization but also to put its vision of socio-economic order into practice whereworkers would run their enterprises.
We suggest that Hak-Is assumes that class conflict and class struggle in Turkey is aby-product of the state-led modernization. This diagnosis reflects the dominant viewamong some Islamists in Turkey. According to this view until the intrusion ofmodernization in the nineteenth century, no conflict arose between ‘classes’, becausethey were living and acting in compliance with Islamic tenets that ‘give equalconsideration to the interests of the weak and the powerful’.60 But with
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modernization and the suppression of Islam, different classes and groups werealienated from their cultural values and selfishly pursued their own interests at theexpense of their co-religionists. It would be wrong to believe that Hak-Is has totallydropped its anti-western rhetoric. For instance, Uslu argued that:
in western societies there are class conflicts based on different interests. Underthe Ottomans, the welfare of the community was more important thanindividual interests. Solidarity rather than conflict was the dominant feature ofsocial relations.61
This view, in part, reflects Hak-Is’s understanding of class conflict and its relationswith modernization. It previously maintained that ‘western civilization is acivilization of exploitation’ and ‘westernization has always meant treason andalienation’.62
Hak-Is has made an attempt to produce a synthesis of national (read Islamic) anduniversal values but it has faced two significant problems in attempting to develop anovel trade unionism. On the one hand, it runs the risk of being accused of‘collaboration’ by other labour organizations and on the other hand of ‘innovation’in Islam by Islamists. A Hak-Is official stated that ‘when we started talking aboutworking children, unemployment, health and safety, job security etc. we wereaccused of being communist’.63 Hak-Is leadership is still cognisant of difficulties indeveloping ‘a different trade union model suitable to our culture, social structure andhistorical values’:
Muslims do not seem to be interested in problems of labour. Some Muslims seethe cause of all problems in the lack of moral values, but the answer should notbe to present traditional Islamic morality. Muslims should understand thequestion of class, and side with the poor. The powerful and the oppressorexploit sources of rızk by using the political and economic privileges Allahdonated for the poor and the oppressed. Those who do not recognize workers’rights are against God.64
Uslu agrees with the view that in an Islamic order class conflict does not exist, butthen vigorously maintains that since under capitalism, conflict does exist, Muslimworkers can legitimately use the means of the conflict under present circumstances.He, carefully, nevertheless, maintains that Islam cannot include an ideology of class,and taking an anti-capitalist Islamic stance should not be understood as developing anew working class ideology predicated upon Islam. 65
Considering that we have also witnessed the rise of so-called ‘Islamic’ or ‘GreenCapital’ in recent years in Turkey, it is worth examining relations betweenrepresentatives of religious capital and Hak-Is affiliates. It is often wrongly assumedthat Hak-Is has its main base among companies which belong to The Association ofIndependent Industrialists and Businessmen (MUSIAD) a business association withIslamic leanings. Most MUSIAD members have small or medium-sized businesseswhere it is difficult to organize workers. MUSIAD experts have suggested the
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replacement of formal industrial relations procedures by mutual trust, affection andrespect.66 It is often mistakenly believed that cheap labour based in export companiesowned by religious businessman or groups played an important part in the expansionof Hak-Is.67 In fact, such companies do not usually tolerate unionization of theirworkforce. In a letter to a Yeni Safak (Moderate Islamist daily) columnist, thepresident of a Hak-Is affiliate claimed that ‘organizing in MUSIADmembers is muchmore difficult than organizing The Association of Turkish Industrialist andBusinessman Association (TUSIAD) members’.68 Hak-Is even accuses some religiousemployers of acting unIslamic when it comes to labour issues.
In fact, many MUSIAD members are overtly hostile to any trade union in theirworkplaces. The relationship between Hak-Is and corporations affiliated withMUSIAD is far from friendly even when workers are unionized.69 For example,Oziplik-Is, a Hak-Is affiliate in the textile industry, tried to organize a workplace inBursa owned by the head of the MUSIAD Bursa branch but the employer resistedthe unionization of its workers and some union leaders were physically attacked.70 Inaddition, Ozgıda-Is, made a strike in a company owned by Erol Yarar, the formerpresident of MUSIAD, which lasted for 132 days.71 The same union also attemptedto organize workers in Aytac, a large meat processing plant owned by YIMPASgroup, one of the largest ‘Islamist’ group of companies. The general manager of theplant reacted angrily and opposed the unionization activities of the workforce. Theunion then tried to organize secretly, but failed as the leaders were sent bymanagement to other workplaces belonging to YIMPAS under the guise of newappointments. To protest against this, 630 workers began a hunger strike.72 Thegovernor of Cankırı Province where the plant is located, together with the policechief, and the mayor, arrived at the plant, and the governor’s response was reportedas being, ‘in our city which gave so many martyrs to the Kurdish Workers Party(PKK), these kinds of peace-breaking events should not happen’. After this, workerresistance began to diminish, although about 30 workers refused to restart. Duringthe disturbances, non-workers attacked these 30 workers and five of the workerswere injured.73
As can be seen from the above examples, ‘Islamic’ companies often treat theirworkers as does any other company, not hesitating to break their strikes violently ifnecessary. When it comes to dealing with labour, religious capital tends to adoptpolicies based on its own class interests. For them, unions are organizations whoseexistence is barely tolerated and at any rate, from an Islamic outlook, makes themunnecessary. An ‘Islamic’ company manager argued that ‘the existence of the sameculture and the same thoughts make trade unions unnecessary. Bosses, managers andworkers pray together’.74 In like vein, in a speech delivered to a Hak-Is assembly,Erol Yarar pointed out that ‘I see myself as one of you and you as one of us’.75 Healso allegedly said that a saying of the Prophet asserts, ‘a good worker is the one whoobeys employers’.76 It can be suggested that religious capital often attempts to exploitreligious feelings of the workers and tries to prevent uniontion. As Bugra rightlymaintains, despite having similar outlook and political convictions, MUSIAD andHak-Is differ deeply on the questions of industrial relations and economic policies,which reflect, to a large extent, their class positions.77
Debate on the Employment Security Bill (enacted in 2003) provides aninteresting example of class positions of Hak-Is and MUSIAD. Whilst MUSIAD,
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together with other employer organizations including TUSIAD, The Confederationof Turkish Employers Associations (TISK) and The Turkish Union of Chambersof Commerce and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) strongly criticized the Employ-ment Security Bill, which makes it difficult for employers to fire their workerswithout ‘just cause’, Hak-Is, together with Turk-Is and DISK lobbied Parliamentfor the passing of the bill. Similarly, all employers’ organizations, includingMUSIAD pressured the government to pass a new labour code (also enacted in2003), which would enable employers to deploy their workforce more flexibly.Together with other labour organizations, Hak-Is unsuccessfully made efforts toprevent the passing of the bill in the Assembly. These examples vividly illustratethe relative class positions adopted by Hak-Is and MUSIAD on industrialrelations.
Relations between labour organizations and political parties, even those sharingsimilar political stances, often tend to be far from harmonious. Although Hak-Is wasset up as a labour wing of the MSP, it has moved a considerable distance from thetutelage of the parties and has downplayed its links with Islamist parties. As it hasacquired more authority and more resources, it has become less reliant on thesupport of the party. Hak-Is is now officially against the support of a single partyand for reducing the political interest of the working class in the support of thatparty. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the union leaders and the rank and filemight not identify to a large extent with the Islamist party. Both in the 1991 generalelections and in the 1994 local elections:
Hak-Is prepared a small booklet declaring its basic policies with regard toelections: ‘Hak-Is is not a branch of a political party but is also not against anyparty. Hak-Is supports tendencies that criticize official ideology, producealternative policies and is against the supporters of the current political andadministrative system and those who use secularism as a means of repressingfreedom of thought and conscience.78
This statement can be seen as covert support for the RP. Furthermore, Hak-Is didnot hesitate to side with the RP in the course of the 28 February Process. Hak-Iscriticized the 28 February Process and the banning of the RP by the ConstitutionalCourt in the following terms:
A legal party coming first in the general elections was treated as illegal. Civilianand military bureaucrats exercised power over the Assembly. Religiouseducation was damaged, innocent religious people suffered from discriminationand many young people were prevented from receiving education because oftheir dress.79
In the same vein, Hak-Is considered events leading to the 28 February Process to be‘provocation’:
It is a happy minority [secular elites] who defended a la turcha secularism andpurported that irtica [reactionary movements] are taking over the country. Theydid so because, their interests and privileges were damaged by the Refahyol.80
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Hak-Is president maintained that:
religion should not interfere with the state, and the reverse should also be thecase. The right to conscience is under pressure. Those with a militaristicmentality want to impose their thoughts and life styles on the majority ofpeople. A former chief of staff said ‘I cannot control officers’. I should be able tosay ‘I cannot control workers’.81
During the 28 February Process, a body calling itself, the ‘Civil Initiative’ or‘Initiative of Five’ came into existence, playing an important role in bringing aboutthe downfall of the RP-led government in June 1997. This organization consisted ofmajor labour confederations as well as employer and artisan associations. Despiteinvitations to join it, Hak-Is refused the offer because it believed that ‘Civil Initiative’was engaged in social engineering under the influence of the National SecurityCouncil (MGK).82
Given its Islamic credentials, it is not surprising that Hak-Is vigorously criticizedthe 28 February Process. Nevertheless, it did not refrain from criticism of the RP forits part in the crisis. For Hak-Is, the RP’s tactics such as inviting leaders of religiousorders (tarikat) to the official residence of the prime minister were errors ofjudgement. The RP practices were criticized by Hak-Is on the grounds that the partyfailed to engineer a democratic process that would both defuse the heightenedtension over the secular nature of the Republic, and which would deependemocratization. Rather the RP had made serious mistakes by insisting on theemployment of Islamic symbols for party politics. Hak-Is also implicitly suggestedthat the party’s understanding of democracy was insufficient. ‘When others weresubject to anti-democratic practices, they kept silent. When they became victims,they cried for democracy but it was too late’.83
It is also significant that Hak-Is’s discourse represents a departure from theIslamism of the National Outlook Movement which embraced an ‘anti-political’stance by its ‘conceptualization of society as a homogenous entity’.84 If Hak-Is’swords and deeds are politically conceptualized it might be argued that it has apluralist notion of society.
Hak-Is sees itself as something wider than a simple labour movement. Within thiscontext, it has stressed the concept of civil society. It is one of the founders of TurkishVoluntary Cultural Organizations (TGKV), which has acted as an umbrellaorganization of religious associations and foundations. Hak-Is’s discourse on civilsociety has put the stress on ‘free individual and organized society’.85 It stronglycriticizes the Turkish state’s attempt to interfere with people’s lives. In contemporaryTurkey, civil society is a significant part of the Islamist political discourses,particularly, as a parallel development to the fact that from the very beginning ofthe 1990s the issue of civil society has taken on new salience in the debates ofrestructuring the Turkish political system. Islamists also adopted the discourse of civilsociety to problematize the regime. It is interesting to see that Hak-Is is probably oneof the first Islamist organizations that successfully used the discourse of civil societynot only to improve the interests of the workers but also to identify the problems ofthe consolidation of democracy in Turkey. For example, it strongly criticized the roleof the military in politics, demanded a new constitution, and criticized torture.86
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On the other hand, it is necessary to exert a certain caution in interpretingrelations between Hak-Is and the parties representing Islamism. For example, Bugraoverestimates the extent to which relations between Hak-Is and RP (later VirtueParty – FP) were harmonious.87 Relations between Hak-Is and Islamist party politicsare, in fact, far from harmonious. For example, in 1992, RP deputies together withother right wing parties rejected the Social Democrat Populist Party’s (SHP) Bill, toproclaim May Day as an official holiday. The Confederation criticized the RP’sstance on this issue.88 Despite the presence of Necati Celik as the Minister of Labour,Hak-Is was not generally satisfied with the Refahyol government’s performance inlabour affairs.89
It is, however, in the relations between Hak-Is affiliates and the RP and FPcontrolled municipalities that one can see the tension between the organizations.Bitter disputes between Hizmet-Is, a Hak-Is affiliate based in the local governmentsector, and RP (later FP) controlled municipalities shed light on the nature ofrelationship between the confederation and the party. For example, the union helda three-day strike in Konya Metropolitan Municipality in 1995 and took industrialaction in Ankara Metropolitan Municipality. Hak-Is strongly criticized the FP’sstance in the dispute between Hizmet-Is and Ankara Metropolitan Municipality.They accused the party of not showing sensitivity towards labour by notintervening in the dispute on the side of labour. ‘The FP exerted pressure on theunion rather than on the municipality’.90 The union strongly resisted calls forending industrial action and rejected claims that it was a conflict ‘between brothers’and ‘damaging the party’. The confederation argued that ‘the FP was unable todemonstrate its sensitivity towards labour. It should review its stance on labouraffairs.’91
The lack of interest towards labour problems on the part of FP was also evident intheir ‘mediating’ role in disputes between Hak-Is and ‘green’ capital. For example, aleading Hak-Is official visited one of the top FP officials complaining aboutYIMPAS’s efforts to prevent them from organizing workers. It is alleged that FPpoliticians angrily reacted by asking, ‘Do trade unions lawfully exist in Islam?’92 Thisvividly suggests that in some segments of the Islamist party, there remain doubtsregarding the existence of independent unions within an Islamic framework.
It is interesting to see that Hak Is has been the first Islamist organization whichsuccessfully used the discourse of civil society not only to improve the interests of theworkers but also to identify the problems of the consolidation of democracy inTurkey. Hak-Is might be considered as the forerunner of the Muslim democraticleaning of the Justice and Development Party (AKP),93 which voices strongstatements about the expansion of the sphere of politics regarding freedoms andhuman rights. AKP’s intention of joining the European Union is again in parallelwith Hak-Is’s European inclinations.
On the other hand, AKP’s performance related to labour issues has been criticizedby Hak-Is. For instance, when the AKP government temporarily withdrew theemployment security bill in response to pressure from employer organizations, Hak-Is and its affiliates criticized the government and expressed their ‘deep disappoint-ment’.94 Furthermore, an Ozgıda-Is official accused the AKP government of sidingwith the employers in the debates on the new labour code.95 In a way, this is notsurprising as only two trade unionists (from Hak-Is) were elected from the AKP in
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the 3 November 2002 elections compared with 21 members of MUSIAD who wereelected on the AKP ticket.
This article has examined the processes by which Hak-Is has developed a model of‘Islamic’ unionism based on ‘national values’ and, in addition, has interrogated itstransformation from a labour wing of the Turkish Islamist movement to anorganization incorporating democratic and secular values without relinquishing itsreligious substance. Hak-Is has played and continues to play an important role in theTurkish labour scene and in the Islamic movement, probably out of proportion to itsnumerical strength. Hak-Is’s philosophy at the beginning was articulated in Islamistterms and its approach to the working class was rooted in the paternalistic socialvision of the MSP. However, approaching workers from a purely moralisticstandpoint was not sufficient. Hak-Is had to imitate tactics of other unions if it wasto survive. It was forced to recognize the reality of conflicting interests betweenworkers and employers. It should, however, be borne in mind that now that formalclass conflict between labour and capital has diminished in some parts of the world,especially in Europe, Hak-Is has resumed its preference for social cohesion over classconflict. What Hak-Is has done is to modernize its ‘capital-labour brother/sisterhood’ discourse in the shape of ‘social cohesion or social partnership’, whichdoes not seem to be anachronistic in today’s world. Hak-Is has oscillated betweenoppositional unionism based on class conflict in favour of approaches emphasizingharmony and co-operation. Hak-Is has been more sensitive to and involved in socio-economic and political issues that concern not only workers but also society at large.
The early Islamist rhetoric of Hak-Is was at first weakened and later transformedinto a civil societal and democratic one by the Hak-Is leaders, because theyrecognized that Islamism did not contain a frame that adequately reflected theparticular demands of workers. At the same time, the Islamist framework was alsorevealed as unsuitable, due to its anti-European stance, for the integration of Hak-isinto the European labour institutions. Perhaps the most intriguing observation onthe reasons for the leading role of the Hak-Is in the transformation of Islamism inTurkey, is that its leaders showed a determined effort to adapt to changing times.Hak-Is’s discourse exemplifies an Islamist discourse, which accommodates the needfor reconciling its political and social principles with the universal standards ofdemocracy and human rights. This recognition has contributed to the integrationwith the European and International Labour organizations and to the deepening ofits labour base in Turkey. Hak-Is’s Islamism does not appear to contradict thenormative values of civil society such as civility, pluralism and tolerance.
The concern of this article has been to argue that Hak-Is has contributedsignificantly to the democratization of Islamism in Turkey. A change of attitude hastaken place among some Islamists’ evaluations of democracy and Hak-Is has been aforerunner in this respect. Indeed what is striking about the Hak-Is’s discourse,unlike other Islamist discourses, with varying tones of emphasis, is that Hak-Isleaders have been articulating their arguments in universal terms since the early1990s. It has been forced to reconsider democracy and secularism as universal valuesrather than regarding them as western products. Hak-Is leadership correctly judgedthat their fortunes were closely tied to the strengthening of democracy. From the
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opportunistic beginnings of Hak-Is’s change from a religious-oriented labourorganization to the incorporation of democratic goals, it can be suggested that theorganization not only superficially transformed itself, but genuine change hasoccurred on a much deeper level in both policy and action. It will be interesting tocontinue following the transformation of Hak-Is in relation to the restructuring ofTurkish polity and economy under the pressures of European integration andglobalization.
Notes
The authors are grateful for the helpful editing of Riki Marten of the Edith Cowan University of Western
Australia and visiting researcher at Sakarya University. They also thank Salim Uslu and Osman Yıldız of
Hak-Is for their help in the research.
1. For recent studies on Turkish labour see, U.C. Sakallıoglu, ‘Labour and state in Turkey: 1960–1980’,
Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.26, No.4 (1992), pp.712–28; F. Ahmad, ‘The development of working
class consciousness in Turkey’, in Z. Lockman (ed.) Workers and the Working Classes in the Middle
East (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), pp.75–94; G. Berik & C. Bilginsoy, ‘The
labor movement in Turkey: labour pains, maturity, metamorphosis’, in E. J.Goldber (ed.) The Social
History of Labour in the Middle East (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996), pp.37–64.
2. D. Quataert, ‘Introduction’, in D. Quataert & E.J. Zurcher (eds)Workers and the Working Class in the
