Muslim | Martyr | Masculine Reading the AKP’s “New” Nationalism and the “Attempted Coup” on 15 July 2016 through Intersectional Feminist Lenses

Abstract

With the main focus on the shifting intersections of gender, religion, and nationalism, this article discusses the “Muslim Nationalism” of the AKP (Justice and Development Party/Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi), particularly in light of the attempted military coup in 2016. The article argues that the AKP, which has been in offi ce since 2002, has shifted from a more secular version of nationalism to a more religiously constructed one. This shift is not a complete break in the tradition of Turkish nationalism but a re-articulation of it, as the AKP government selectively employs secular nationalist strategies. While the AKP's discourses are omnipresent in everyday politics in Turkey, the article will consider excerpts from R. Tayyip Erdoğan’s speech on 15 July 2016, photographs and news items about masses being in the streets, and texts about the reception and representation of the coup in foreign news. Finally, the “15 July 2016 Monument(s)” in Ankara and Istanbul will show the materiality of such discourses through which the AKP aims to engrave its nationalism in the new places of public memory in Turkey.