On Nationalism in Türkiye: A Republic in Search of Conscience

On Nationalism in Tkiye: A Republic in Search of Conscience

What is a nation-and who gets to belong?
What happens when a republic is founded on denial rather than recognition?
Can nationalism be transformed from a regime of fear into an ethic of dignity?
In this intellectually courageous and morally urgent book, Levent ğlar reconsiders the very foundations of nationalism in modern Tkiye. Written at the intersection of political theory, historical reflection, and philosophical inquiry, On Nationalism in Tkiye challenges the dominant myths that have shaped the Turkish Republic for over a century-and proposes a radically new framework for national identity.

A Book of Moral Reckoning and Political Vision
Unlike conventional histories or polemics, this book is an exploration of nationalism as a moral architecture, shaped by a nation's capacity for self-awareness, self-reflection, and honor. ğlar proposes a bold distinction between two forms of nationalism:

• Negative Nationalism, grounded in fear, domination, ethnic purity, and myth;
• Positive Nationalism, rooted in recognition, ethical responsibility, and plural memory.

With examples ranging from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to post-apartheid South Africa, post-Holocaust Germany, and Canada's Indigenous reconciliation, ğlar invites us to see how nations can descend into moral collapse-or rise through truth, humility, and justice.
Tkiye: A Case Study in Denial and Hope
At the heart of the book lies a profound diagnosis of the Turkish state's century-long trajectory. ğlar deconstructs the ideological foundations of the Republic-its rejection of the multicultural Ottoman legacy, its forced Turkification, the erasure of Kurds, Armenians, Alevis, and others-and shows how nationalism became both a political strategy and a spiritual disease.
But this is not merely a critique-it is a call to transformation. It calls for a Republic of Conscience, one that embraces internal diversity, confronts its past atrocities, and builds a shared future based not on sameness, but on solidarity.
Philosophy, Emotion, and Revolution
More than a political treatise, On Nationalism in Tkiye is also a work of philosophical depth and emotional power. Drawing from Hegel, Rousseau, and Romantic thinkers, the book redefines the nation as a collective subjectivity-a being capable of memory, feeling, contradiction, and change.
Romantic nationalism, ğlar argues, can either inspire inclusion or inflame exclusion. National identity can either become a space of collective healing-or a prison of myth, fear, and historical amnesia.
Through lyrical yet rigorous prose, the author uncovers the psychopolitical dimensions of nationalism: how states manipulate fear, how memory is weaponized, how shame becomes policy, and how art, language, and education are shaped into tools of erasure or emancipation.
A Vision for the Future
Ultimately, this book is about possibility. It insists that another nationalism is not only imaginable-but necessary. One that:

• Treats minorities not as threats but as co-creators of the national story.
• Grounds citizenship in ethical recognition, not blood or religion.
• Builds unity through difference, not conformity through violence.

The book's concluding chapters outline a Republican Dialogue Model, where pluralism becomes the foundation of democracy, not its obstacle. It is a powerful and practical vision of a democratic republic capable of confronting its traumas and cultivating a shared moral horizon.