Political Rituals and Ideological Competition: The Emergence of an “Islamic” May Day in Turkey

This study focuses on the decoding of some of the many aspects of Islamism—labour relations in Turkey, based on the political rituals that historically operate as self-assertions and self-definitions of the working class. The epicentre of this article is May Day and seeks to analyse the process by which an organic part of the Islamist movement in the country, Hak-İş, dealt with it, through the effort for transformation of the symbolisms, and confrontation for the ideological meaning and social vision of this labour political ritual in Turkey. Through this framework, the study highlights three different stages in the political mobilization of Hak-İş regarding the 1st of May, within the broader framework of a process named ‘loss of proletarity’ and the Confederation’s vision about a classless society. The first stage is that of the absolute denial of the class content and hierarchies in society. The second stage is the process of the ‘reluctant adoption’ of May Day, combined with strategies to transform its material culture. Finally, the third stage is the attempt to ‘nationalise/Islamise’ this political ritual through the organization of separate May Day mobilizations in various cities in Anatolia.