New Stability through Instability: The Immoral Tactics of the Ergenekon Social Movement

• In Event: Scholar to Scholar V
  In Paper Session: Morality in Movements: The Ethical and Unethical Driving Forces Behind Social Movements and Their Effect on Society

Abstract

This paper focuses on the Ergenekon social movement in Turkey, and how it utilized its position as a group existing within the establishment to enact its changes while also dealing with, working with, and in some cases forming partnerships with social movements outside of the existing order to support its ultimate goals.

Currently, the Ergenekon movement is one that exists almost wholly in the private sphere. Their rhetoric, consisting of such texts as internal memorandum, e-mails and private meetings, is limited to those members and individuals directly involved in the movement. Consequently, their ability to spread their message was limited. Because of this, the movement was forced to utilize outside social movements, some of which espoused views contrary to their own beliefs, and some of which may have been fabricated and created by the group itself, in order to sow the discord necessary to allow them the opportunity to enact their coup and achieve their ultimate goals. The Ergenekon movement used groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir, Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and the ultranationalist Turkish Revenge Brigades (TİT) in order to create the instability necessary to overthrow the establishment and foster change, believing that the ends ultimately justify the means.

This paper will look at the dialogues created in both the private and public spheres that the Ergenekon movement used in order to employ the outside social movements to support their platform of change, or to create the atmosphere that they deemed necessary for internal changes to take effect. Because of the tactics of the Ergenekon movement, in this case the public sphere of rhetoric exists solely under the guise of whatever rhetoric is espoused by the external social movements utilized by the Ergenekon, as well as whatever private rhetoric has now been made available to the public. The spheres of argument utilized by the Ergenekon movement, along with their questionable use of manipulation and/or support of outside social movements will be discussed in this paper.

Author

• Joshua Kessler, Lynn University