Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has been in power now for more than 13 years, has garnered for itself a wide array of opponents along with a wide array of supporters. A new name in the latter group, however, is quite unusual and surprising even by Turkish standards, for he used to be a fierce enemy of the AKP for a very long time. He is Dogu Perincek, the leader of the ultra-left and ultranationalist Patriotic Party.
Perincek, who may be largely unknown to the outside world, has always been a marginal yet famous figure in Turkish politics. He made a name for himself in the '70s as the leader of the Turkish "Maoist" movement, which was at odds with not just the anti-communist right but also the "Leninist" faction of the left. In the early '80s, he seemed to support the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) out of Marxist solidarity. Gradually, however, Perincek and his political movement, along with their provocative periodical, Aydinlik, tilted toward Kemalism, emphasizing the nationalist, secularist and "anti-imperialist" aspect of Turkey's founding ideology.
One manifestation of Perincek's anti-imperialism was his eagerness to present the "Armenian Genocide" as an "imperialist lie" aimed at defaming and weakening Turkey. He was able to carry this argument to Switzerland in 2007, where he was sentenced by a court for "genocide denial." Yet in 2015, the European Court of Human Rights delivered a landmark decision protecting Perincek's freedom of speech, despite the legal effort by Amal Clooney, whose presence as attorney of Armenia added to the media attraction of the case.
Back in Turkey, Perincek had legal troubles for something else. In 2008, he was arrested with the charge of being a key member of Ergenekon, an alleged criminal cabal of radical officers and their civilian allies supposedly cooking up a military coup against the AKP government. Part of the "evidence" was his 2007 book, "Hacli Irtica" ("Crusader Reactionaryism") in which he depicted the "reactionaries" in Turkey — a leftist term for Islamists — as puppets of the "Crusader West." One of the headlines in the book read, "The AKP government is illegitimate, and it will be overthrown."
AL-MONITOR All-Access gives you unlimited access to all our journalism, the full Daily Briefing, exclusive interviews, premium newsletters, and live events — for less than $2/week.
