Alparslan Türkeş
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Alparslan Türkeş (born Ali Arslan November 25th, 1917 – April 4th, 1997) was a Turkish soldier and politician who was the founder and president of the Nationalist Movement Party. He represented the far right of the Turkish political spectrum. He was and still is called Başbuğ ("Leader") by his devotees.
He ran the Grey Wolves training camps from 1968 to 1978. More than 600 people are said to have fallen victim of political murders by the Grey Wolves between 1968 and 1980
Racism Turanism Trials edit
Türkeş was court-martialed on charges of "fascist and racist activities" in 1945, with the charges being dismissed in 1947. Along with other nationalists like Nihal Atsız and Nejdet Sançar. These trials would be known as the Racism Turanism Trails.
Political career edit
He attained notoriety as the spokesman of the May 27th, 1960 coup d'état against the government of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, who was later executed after a trial. However Colonel Türkeş was expelled by an internal coup within the junta (National Unity Committee). He later joined the Republican Villager Nation Party (Turkish: Cumhuriyetçi Köylü Millet Partisi, CKMP) and was elected as its chairman. In 1969 the CKMP was renamed the Nationalist Movement Party (Turkish: Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP).
He served as Chairman of the MHP between 1969 and 1981 and 1993 and 1997. He took part in the governments formed by Süleyman Demirel between March 1975 and June 1977 and July 1977 and January 1978 as Deputy Prime Minister. He entered the Parliament as a Member of Parliament in the 1965 , 1969 , 1973 , 1977 and 1991 Turkish general elections.
After the September 12 Coup by Kenan Evren, he was detained for 4.5 years until 1985. The political ban was lifted in the 1987 Turkish constitutional amendment referendum. In the same year, he joined the Nationalist Working Party and was elected chairman at the congress, and his party made an electoral alliance with the Welfare Party and the Reformist Democracy Party in the 1991 Turkish general elections. The name of MÇP was changed to MHP in 1993, with the amendment made to the Political Parties Law, which allowed the parties that were closed after the September 12 Coup in 1992 to take their old names. Türkeş, who was left out of parliament in the 1995 Turkish general elections, died on April 4, 1997.
Ideology edit
Through the far-right MHP, Türkeş took the rightist views of his predecessors like Nihal Atsız, and transformed them into a powerful political force. In 1965, Türkeş released a political pamphlet titled "Dokuz Işık Doktrini" (Nine Lights Doctrine). This text listed nine basic principles which formed the basis of the nationalist ideology. These were nationalism, idealism, moralism, societalism, scientism, "independentism", ruralism, progressivism, populism, industrialism, and technologism.
Türkeş led the vanguard of anti-communism in Turkey; he was a founding member of the Counter-Guerrilla, the Turkish Gladio.
He has been the spiritual leader of the Idealism Schools Foundation of Culture and Art (Turkish: Ülkü Ocakları Kültür ve Sanat Vakfı). His followers consider him to be one of the leading icons of the Turkish nationalist movement.
Legacy edit
Türkeş was a key figure in shaping Turkish nationalism and reviving Pan-Turkism from the 1940s onwards. Soon after his death in 1997, Turkish President Süleyman Demirel stated that his passing had been a "great loss to the political life of Turkey". Similarly, Turkey's first female Prime Minister Tansu Çiller described him as a "historic individual".
Controversies edit
When he died, it was revealed that he had embezzled 2 trillion lira from the European Turkish Federation. The pan-Turkist group had created a secret slush fund to support the Second Chechen War and help Abulfaz Elchibey succeed in Azerbaijan. The money was formerly administered by Enver Altaylı, who had been part of the Azerbaijan coup plot. His daughters, Ayzıt and Umay Günay, quarreled over who was the rightful owner despite the fact that it was neither of them. The two appeared before the Ankara 7th High Penal Court for fraud. The indictment said that Türkeş' account in a U.K. branch of the Deutsche Bank held 575,000 DM, 845,000 USD, and 367,000 GBP. The court concluded that Ayzıt had withdrawn 200,000 GBP while Umay Günay had withdrawn 42,000 GBP. Ayzıt said that she had been living in the U.K. since 1975, and that her father opened the account in 1988, giving her complete access to it. She said that her father had instructed her to fulfill his financial obligations in support of "the cause of Turkishness" upon his death by making certain payments. Türkeş' second wife, Seval, refuted Ayzıt's claim that she had not kept the money to herself. Seval claims that she and her sons' Ayyüce and Ahmet Kutalmış share of the withdrawn 242,000 GBP is 112,355 GBP.
The MHP's chairman, Devlet Bahçeli, instructed his deputies to keep mum, fearing that the scandal could lead to the dissolution of the party.
The case was closed due to the statute of limitations.
Gallery edit
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Alparslan Türkeş
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Alparslan Türkeş (Grey Wolf Sign)
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Alparslan Türkeş with Fethullah Gülen (1997)
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Alparslan Türkeş with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Necmettin Erbakan & Mustafa Şatıroğlu
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