OPERATION AND PUBLISHING: DISCOURSE OF THE 1974 CYPRUS PEACE OPERATION IN THE RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS NEWSPAPER

Abstract

In the Turkish modernization experience, the press and media played an important role and had a founding identity. Different segments of the world of thought conveyed their ideas to the public through newspapers and magazines, and concepts such as homeland, nation and nationality were introduced to the public in these modern terms. The Presidency of Religious Affairs, which was established to organize religious affairs after the proclamation of the Republic, started to publish the Diyanet Gazetesi (Religious Affairs Newspaper) in 1968. The Diyanet Gazetesi, which strives to support the general culture of the people as well as religious issues, has taken a stance that supports the policy of the state regarding the policies put forward by the state. One of the important examples of this stance can be seen in the publishing activities of the newspaper during the 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation. Because even though various treaties and systems have been tried on the Cyprus which is an important island for Turkey, there has been always a failure to maintain order and peace, Greece supported to perform military coup to the island's legitimate government, Turkey has made an operation in accordance with the right of guarantee arising from international treaties on 20 July 1974. In line with its mission to support the state, Diyanet Gazetesi included the Cyprus Peace Operation before, during and after the action and put forward a parallel discourse with the state. As a result, the Presidency of Religious Affairs has realized the understanding that religion and politics are brothers in the Turkish thought tradition and that the state is responsible for protecting and exalting religion while the religion supports it through Diyanet Gazetesi. In this study, it was aimed to examine the problem of how Diyanet Gazetesi developed discourse in the face of international issues around the Cyprus Peace Operation process and accordingly, the articles on Cyprus in the newspaper were analyzed by discourse analysis method. The conclusion was that Diyanet Gazetesi followed a publishing policy that supported state policy during the Cyprus Peace Operation. In Turkish thought, the way of thinking about the relations of religion and politics is shaped on the fact that these elements are brothers. In this way of thinking, religion supports politics and politics protects religion. Although these elements may look different in shape, religion and politics have been regarded as the same in terms of their basic purposes. This has been the case in the Republican era as well as in the Seljuk and Ottoman thought traditions. The Presidency of Religious Affairs, which was founded after the establishment of the Republic, supported the state around the aforementioned traditional way of thinking, and the state protected it and enabled it to continue its activities. Although the principle of secularism was added to the principles of the state, no changes were made to the Presidency of Religious Affairs, and this structure continued its existence as it was. Since its establishment, the Religious Affairs Department has undertaken the duty of conducting religious affairs, as well as the duty of educating, enlightening and raising public awareness. In the Turkish modernization experience, the press and publication have played a very important role, while these elements have a supporting nature in different modernization practices, they have been a founding character in Turkish modernization. Different segments of the world of thought conveyed their ideas to the public through newspapers and magazines, and concepts such as homeland, nation and nationality were introduced to the public in these modern terms. Westernism, Islamism and nationalism movements were conveyed to the public by producing ideas about how contemporary politics and modernization should be made through newspapers and magazines and the members of these movements came together to form their own communities. During the Republican period, these press and publication activities maintained their importance and function, and the worldview of the newly established state was conveyed to the public through these elements. The idea of Islamism, which could be described as a continuation of the Turkish modernization experience within the framework of the search for solutions to the problem of modernization in the Ottoman period, had to pull back to the underground after the establishment of the Republic. Since the 1960s, a new idea of Islamism has emerged which based on translated sources instead of local sources in Turkey. The advocates of this new Islamic thought, which produced ideas around the translations of books such as Seyyid Kutup, Hasan el-Benna, Eb'ul Ala Mevdudi, Ali Seriati, Ayetullah Humeyni, who are among the Islamists of Egypt, Indian subcontinent and Iran, aimed to disseminate these ideas with the magazines they published; they have tried to put forward a new understanding by criticizing the traditional understanding of religion. The Presidency of Religious Affairs started to publish Diyanet Gazetesi (Religious Affairs Newspaper) against these developments in order to defend Turkish traditional Islam understanding. Diyanet Gazetesi, which is basically a religious newspaper, has also undertaken responsibility to inform the public on many issues such as agriculture, animal husbandry, health and history and has published articles written by the people who carry out studies in these fields. From this point of view, it is possible to say that Diyanet Gazetesi has a quality that affects every area that concerns the society. Cyprus, which is an important island for the dominance and security of the Mediterranean in every period of history, passed to the British from the Ottomans in 1878 and since then, structural problems have emerged on the island. England ruled the island which was the property of the Ottoman Empire until 1914, and when World War I started, England announced that it annexed the island. After that, the Greeks and Turks on the island started to fight for the sovereignty of the island, the Greeks established armed terrorist organizations around Enosis, which was the idea that Cyprus should be a part of Greece and attacked the Turks on the island. Because even though various treaties and systems have been tried on the island, there has been always a failure to maintain order and peace, Greece supported to perform military coup to the island's legitimate government, Turkey has made an operation in accordance with the right of guarantee arising from international treaties on 20 July 1974. In line with its mission to support the state, the Religious Affairs newspaper included the Cyprus Peace Operation before, during and after the action and put forward a parallel discourse with the state. Prior to the operation, Religious Affairs had allocated space for all the armed forces of land, air, sea and gendarmerie elements and expressed their importance and advised them to be supported through certain foundations established to provide financial support to these institutions and carried this to the Friday Khutba sections in the magazine. In this period, in addition to the newspaper, Military Special Issue supplements were also published and presented to the reader. When the operation started, in addition to the publication calendar of the Diyanet Gazetesi, a Special Issue of Cyprus Peace Operation was published and this number was fully devoted to the said operation. In the other issues published during the operation, the Cyprus Peace Operation was frequently found a place for itself, the spiritual, financial helps and prayers of the personnel of the Presidency of Religious Affairs were included in the magazine and this way the public was encouraged to provide financial aid for the armed forces. After the end of the operation, although the articles on this subject were suspended for a while, Cyprus came to the agenda once again after the announcement of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus. In this period, all the works aimed at making out the Turkish presence on the island in line with Islam again; in this perspective all the developments from the mosques that were reconstructed in Cyprus to the activities and observations of the religious personnel sent to Cyprus by the Presidency of Religious Affairs during the operation period and also telling the history of the Cyprus from the first conquest of the island by Muslims were found a place for themselves in the magazine. As a result, the Presidency of Religious Affairs has realized the understanding that religion and politics are brothers in the Turkish thought tradition and that the state is responsible for protecting and exalting religion while the religion supports it through Diyanet Gazetesi. The publications published by the newspaper before, during and after the operation of the Cyprus Peace Operation in 1974 clearly show that this way of thinking is still dominant in the understanding of politics.