Un/Making Mythos: Cult of Personality and Imaginative Opposition in the Kemalist Republic

Abstract

In Turkey the cult(s) of personality and authoritarianism have gone hand in glove since at least the foundation of the republic. Through an in-depth analysis of Ryan Gingeras’s Eternal Dawn: Turkey in the Age of Atatürk and Christine Philliou’s Turkey: A Past Against History, this review essay considers the republican origins of one-man rule and opposition to authoritarianism in the Turkish context. It discusses how, and why, the cult of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk saw the light of the day even when he was still alive. It also questions how the evolving meanings and implications of muhalefet (opposition) could serve not only as a historical fact and analytical tool but also as a normative category in its own right to divert the public’s energy from un/making nationalist mythos into consolidating basic liberal democratic values and economic justice of which Turkey is in dire need today.