Meşrutiyet’ten Cumhuriyet’e Türk Siyasi Hayatında Yeminler
Yasemin Türkkan TunalıÇalışmamız, Meşrutiyet’ten Cumhuriyet rejimine Türk siyasi hayatında yeminin kullanım alanlarını ve gelişimini ele almaktadır. Yeminlerde kullanılan ifade, sembol ve formüllerin ve yeminlerin dönemin siyasi konjonktürü içinde temsil ettiği değerlerin ve taşıdığı gayelerin belirlenmesini amaçlamaktadır. Bu süreçte sahneye çıkan yeni siyasi aktörlerin, yemine nasıl bir yaklaşım sergiledikleri; siyasi teşkilatlanmalarında hangi aşamada yer verdikleri ve onu nasıl etkinleştirdikleri irdelenmiştir. Esasında sosyal ve kültürel bir kavram olan yemin, Padişah Abdülmecit zamanında siyasi bir niteliğe kavuşmuş; Kanun-i Esasi hükümlerinde yer alarak anayasal, Jön Türk örgütlenmeleri içinde ise kurumsal bir araç haline gelmiş; son olarak Milli Mücadele Dönemi’nde ise tüm nitelikleriyle kullanılmıştır. Kişiden kuruma, kurumdan rejime, imparatorluktan ulus-devlete evrilmelerin yaşandığı bu süreçte yemin, siyasi aktörlerin değer ve olgularıyla şekillenirken, onların ideallerine de yön vermiştir. Osmanlı-Türk siyasi düşüncenin gelişim ve değişimiyle paralellik izleyen yemine hemen her siyasi aktör tarafından başvurulması, onun siyasî bir kurum ve araç olarak önemini ortaya koymaktadır.
Oaths in Turkish Political Life from the Constitutional Monarchy to the Republic
Yasemin Türkkan TunalıThis paper investigates the use and development of oaths in the Ottoman-Turkish political life from the constitutional monarchy to the republican era. It aims to determine the wording, symbols, and formulas used in the oaths, together with the values and the purposes represented by them in the political conjunctures of the period. Questions like “How did the new political actors who appeared on the stage in this process take their oaths?,” “At what stage did they use the oath in their political organizations?,” and “How did they activate the oath?” are addressed. Oath, a social and cultural concept, attained a political character during the reign of Sultan Abdülmecit, and by occurring in the provisions of the Kanun-i Esasi, it became a constitutional instrument. Oaths were used as an institutional instrument within the Young Turk organizations and subsequently during the National Struggle period. While oaths were shaped by the values and facts of the political actors, they gave direction to their ideals in the evolution process of the rule from person to institution, institution to regime, and empire to nation state. Used by almost every political actor and following a parallel path with the development and change of the Ottoman-Turkish political life, oaths had been an important political instrument.
Oaths can be defined as “undertaking a duty by promising oneself through vows or treaty”; they have been used from the ancient Turkish era to the present to establish friendship and solidarity, distinguish lie and truth, and reach agreement. After the adoption of Islam, oaths became a cultural and social phenomenon, dominated by religious wording, symbols, and rituals, such as swearing in God’s name and putting a hand on the holy book.
Oaths gained a political character when Sultan Abdülmecit promised that he would regulate the state administration and institutions according to the laws to be enacted, depending on the Gülhane Hatt-ı Hümayunu announced on November 3, 1839, and that the state officials, including himself, would abide by these laws. Subsequently, oaths gained a constitutional character when the first constitution, Kanun-i Esasi, was implemented on December 23, 1876, with the provision that the members of the parliament, Meclis-i Umumî, would take oaths when sworn in. In this specific oath, loyalty to the Sultan had priority over loyalty to the homeland and compliance with the constitution—the oath wherein the Sultan declares his loyalty to the constitution or the regime was not included in Kanun-i Esasi. This weakness in the constitution vis-a-vis oaths stemmed from the fact that the commission which prepared the constitution was appointed by the Sultan. Even the declaration of the Meclis-i Ayan despite being an institution born by the new regime, albeit appointed house of the parliament revealed that the idea of constitutionalism had not fully penetrated the Ottoman political life yet.
The Young Turks, the opposition movement that emerged during the suppression regime, which started with the suspension of the constitutional regime by Sultan II. Abdülhamit, took precedence from the Carbonari Society’s cell models and Russian nihilists, using oaths during the induction of new members into their organizations. The Young Turks’ oaths contained rituals, such as holding guns and the holy book, blindfolding the candidates, and preserving/prioritizing confidentiality and loyalty to the organization over the constitutional oppositional regime. The leader of this movement, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) continued to use oaths to sustain the existence of the regime even after the restoration of the constitutional monarchy in 1908, due to its lack of social base. After the Committee had come to power, transitioning into a political party, oaths lost their importance within the organization.
The political experience achieved in the suppression period, developed the parliamentarians’ perception of constitutionalism such that some members took official oaths to demonstrate their loyalty to the Sultan, on the condition that the Sultan himself complied with the provisions of the constitution. Moreover, after the March 31 Incident where the reactionary uprising of the Islamic fundamentalists, supporters of absolutism, and opponents of the CUP endangered the regime, the entire parliament voted for the Sultan’s dethronement because he did not comply with his unofficial oath to adhere to the constitution. The constitutional regulations made in 1909, therefore, limits the Sultan’s power over the legislature. In addition, the regulations ensured that the Sultan took an official oath to obey the constitution and to be loyal to the homeland.
The extraordinary conditions of the National Struggle period were reflected in the oaths of the Istanbul administration based on personal sovereignty and the Ankara administration based on national sovereignty with different contents, goals, and political ideals. For instance, 14 days after the members of the last Ottoman parliament took an oath to be “loyal to His Holiness the Sultan and the homeland and to obey the Laws of the Constitution,” they declared the National Pact, which aimed at a fully independent state, because the developments of this period proved that loyalty to the Sultan was an obstacle to the principle of full independence. The developments had effects on the oaths taken by the members of the Turkish Grand National Assembly as well. Following the establishment of the new Turkish State and the declaration of the Republic, “loyalty to national sovereignty” in the words of the oath was changed to “loyalty to the principles of the republic.” Since the Ottoman-Turkish political life entered the process of secularization, the oath’s wording and symbols based on the traditional-religious phenomenon that prevailed until that time, left their place to the earthly and secular verities.
