Discussing the Intellectual Problematic of 12 September Hegemony through the Intellectuals Hearth and the Intellectuals Petition Movement

Turkey's 1970s was a period of economic and political instability and a conflict between right and left wings. The army carried out the 12 September 1980 Military Coup, claiming that the survival of the state was under threat. The 12 September Regime wanted to build a new hegemony by implementing political and economic structural reforms between 1980-1983 so that the country would not worry about survival again. In this context, neoliberal economic reforms were carried out with the 24 January Decisions, and a political-cultural transformation was aimed with the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis. While some right-wing intellectuals supported this hegemony of the regime in the Intellectuals Hearth, some left-wing intellectuals opposed in the Intellectuals Petition movement. Therefore, during the 1980s, while the Intellectuals Hearth emphasized the survival of the state, the left-wing intellectuals, who supported the Intellectuals Petition, emphasized the survival of democracy. This study deals with the reactions of the intellectuals and their social positioning to this hegemonic transformation process targeted by the 12 September regime in civil society. In this respect, the study aims to examine the intellectuals who comply with and oppose the 12 September regime, through the examples of the Intellectuals Hearth and the Intellectuals Petition movement. First, the intellectual discussion will be carried out in the context of the theoretical basis of the study, and then the hegemony construction of the 12 September period will be discussed. Finally, the processes of hegemony-counter hegemony construction and the effects of intellectuals on this process will be discussed through the examples of the Intellectuals Hearth and Intellectuals Petition movement.