I had an interesting conversation last night with David, a close friend and admirable scholar, that I figured I'd relate.
We'd been scouting out bars on İstiklal Caddesi (purportedly the happening place in our part of town for anyone who's anyone) and finally settled on an establishment for a drink. Through no fault of our own, what began as respectable idle chatter about UNC dorms or meal plans or some such unexpectedly devolved into a more serious discussion of Turkish nationalism and the challenges facing the state.
Turkey has engaged in, if not truly censorship, at least an enthusiastic pressuring of the press and the people in an attempt to foster a nationalist spirit and control dissent. In the opening act of our conversation, I contended that this policy, while perhaps not ideal, was needed for Turkey to find a source of collective identity and national pride outside of religion.
The man, the myth, the legend.
Ataturk, deciding that Turkey needed to emulate the West rather than the East, broke with Ottoman tradition and attempted to create a state independent of religion. But Islam had provided a normative justification of the state's authority throughout the Middle East for centuries. It had to be replaced by something equally compelling, and that something would need to be defended with the same rigor that the Arab states defend Islam. Enter nationalism, specifically Turkishness.
A few of the ostensibly Muslim countries have experimented with creating a secular national identity (Egypt, with some echoes of pan-Arabism surviving to this day, leaps to mind) but Turkey has come the closest to success in this process. We met a Turk on a ferry the other day who had converted to Christianity while in Texas and had returned to Turkey to spread the good word. With Islam no longer the basis for social cohesion, religious tolerance is on the rise. Of course, many other kinds of tolerance are inarguably down. Yet considering how critical the West has been of Middle Eastern countries defining themselves through Islam, it might be prudent to take what we can get.
David rebutted that the current censorship makes it impossible for a thriving civil society to develop in Turkey. The near deification of Ataturk has prevented any kind of rigorous inspection of his policies, which has brought the country to the present day, with the party in power potentially getting outlawed by the judiciary for not being sufficiently secular. Rigid adherence to Ataturk's secularism prevent the state from finding an acceptable middle ground between secularism and Islam, modernization and tradition, East and West. Instead of the compromise-based polity that Turkish democracy would ideally foster, the current political factions seem more akin to ships passing in the night. Or, perhaps more likely, ships running smack into each other.
Throughout all of this David was gesturing with increasing expansiveness to illustrate his points. He repeatedly exclaimed "... deify Ataturk and put him up on this pedestal..." while putting his hands up to one side to indicate where that pedestal was. Having been informed prior to coming that it's not a good idea to speak ill of Ataturk in public, I kept picturing him throwing his hands up in such a gesture and getting handcuffed, dragged away, and sodomized in a Turkish prison. It was a sobering thought.
It was even more sobering to think about what my apprehension suggests about the state of public discourse in Turkey, and this really brought home the salience of David's argument. How can an educated public engage in debate that betters polity if they can't disagree with what someone said nearly a century ago?
This has been much more ruminatory than I intended, for which I apologize.
We'd been scouting out bars on İstiklal Caddesi (purportedly the happening place in our part of town for anyone who's anyone) and finally settled on an establishment for a drink. Through no fault of our own, what began as respectable idle chatter about UNC dorms or meal plans or some such unexpectedly devolved into a more serious discussion of Turkish nationalism and the challenges facing the state.
Turkey has engaged in, if not truly censorship, at least an enthusiastic pressuring of the press and the people in an attempt to foster a nationalist spirit and control dissent. In the opening act of our conversation, I contended that this policy, while perhaps not ideal, was needed for Turkey to find a source of collective identity and national pride outside of religion.
The man, the myth, the legend.
Ataturk, deciding that Turkey needed to emulate the West rather than the East, broke with Ottoman tradition and attempted to create a state independent of religion. But Islam had provided a normative justification of the state's authority throughout the Middle East for centuries. It had to be replaced by something equally compelling, and that something would need to be defended with the same rigor that the Arab states defend Islam. Enter nationalism, specifically Turkishness.
A few of the ostensibly Muslim countries have experimented with creating a secular national identity (Egypt, with some echoes of pan-Arabism surviving to this day, leaps to mind) but Turkey has come the closest to success in this process. We met a Turk on a ferry the other day who had converted to Christianity while in Texas and had returned to Turkey to spread the good word. With Islam no longer the basis for social cohesion, religious tolerance is on the rise. Of course, many other kinds of tolerance are inarguably down. Yet considering how critical the West has been of Middle Eastern countries defining themselves through Islam, it might be prudent to take what we can get.
David rebutted that the current censorship makes it impossible for a thriving civil society to develop in Turkey. The near deification of Ataturk has prevented any kind of rigorous inspection of his policies, which has brought the country to the present day, with the party in power potentially getting outlawed by the judiciary for not being sufficiently secular. Rigid adherence to Ataturk's secularism prevent the state from finding an acceptable middle ground between secularism and Islam, modernization and tradition, East and West. Instead of the compromise-based polity that Turkish democracy would ideally foster, the current political factions seem more akin to ships passing in the night. Or, perhaps more likely, ships running smack into each other.
Throughout all of this David was gesturing with increasing expansiveness to illustrate his points. He repeatedly exclaimed "... deify Ataturk and put him up on this pedestal..." while putting his hands up to one side to indicate where that pedestal was. Having been informed prior to coming that it's not a good idea to speak ill of Ataturk in public, I kept picturing him throwing his hands up in such a gesture and getting handcuffed, dragged away, and sodomized in a Turkish prison. It was a sobering thought.
It was even more sobering to think about what my apprehension suggests about the state of public discourse in Turkey, and this really brought home the salience of David's argument. How can an educated public engage in debate that betters polity if they can't disagree with what someone said nearly a century ago?
This has been much more ruminatory than I intended, for which I apologize.
4 comments:
Lots of fun reading your stories and David's and Clayton's descriptions, also. Sounds like a pretty enthusiastic crew you have! Hi to all!
love,
Mom
Chris, please DONT leave comments signed "Love Mom". That is bad blog-form, and embarressing to the young blogger (though K may be beyond that now) ;)
It is funny that outside countries whose democracy is not under threat due to their religion talk as if they know Turkey better than Turks.
For you to first understand Turks, you must live in that country for years and get to know their mentality. A couple of people that you have met from here and there or visiting the country a few times or what you read in textbooks merely give you an idea about Turkey or its culture.
You or David, or both of you, claim that the basic core of Kemalism is not questioned and it needs to be because they were done almost a century ago.
Please show me a land in Middle East that is democratic, secular yet Muslim? Turkey is way more democratic than Russia and England but for some strange reason, Turkey is not fully democratic according to people like you. It's gotta be that common Western prejudice against Islamic countries.
You have also said the party that is in charge right now, AKP, might get trialed and how this is not right, etc because it is anti-Kemalist. Do you know what those people tried passing recently as a bill? To put a ban on drinking...meaning people were not going to be allowed to drink any alcoholic beverage. You call this democracy? Because we know our own people better than you, we can foresee certain things. If left alone, Turkey would turn into another Iran in a couple of years. Take a look at Iran just 30 years ago and compare today's Iran. You will be stunned so please, leave our own matters into our hands and tell us what democracy is becase your perception of it does not fit what you see in Turkey.
p.s. get sodomized in a Turkish prison? Are you insane? Turks prefer to put a bullet in their own heads than get sodomized because their culture is extremely concerned with the concept of "shame"..right or wrong is another argument but the point is you're talking out of your behind. Don't bring your homophobic assumptions to countries where they are not as popular as you think. I'd bet you also think Midnight Express is true...what a shame. It's hard to break prejudice although it might be completely false.
typo: DO NOT* tell us what democracy is becase your perception of it does not fit what you see in Turkey.
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