THE IDEOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK OF THE TURKISH MHP AND THE GREY WOLVES

The Turkish Idealist movement, encompassing the militant Grey Wolves as well as the current Turkish coalition partner, the Nationalist Action Party, represent the most influential elements of the Turkish (or Turkic) far right, with activities reaching from Western Europe all the way to Xinjiang, China. This paper seeks to map the ideological framework and evolution of the Idealist movement. It argues that, while strongly influenced by fascism, it is not in essence a totalitarian movement. Furthermore, while it evolved out of secular pan-Turkic aspirations with explicit racist components, it has largely abandoned explicit racism, dreams of a pan-Turkic empire, and embraced Islam as an integral component of Idealist ideology and Turkish identity.