I can imagine the fury of a well-educated, secular Turk as he reads this article by the young Sabrina Tavernise. For it is so uncomprehending of Turkish history, and of all that it took to systematically constrain Islam so that the very possibility of some modicum of reasonableness, the very development of an educated secular class, the very class that Sabrina Tavernise and all other Westerners frequent and the only class with which they feel, quite rightly, fully comfortable, came about only because of Ataturk.
If Kemalism is on the ropes, it is not because the Kemalists have been too ruthless, but because they have not been nearly ruthless enough. They did not push, relentlessly, their program after the first few decades, and some of those who followed were content to pocket the benefits of Kemalism without systematically trying to change the minds of the masses -- and the masses remained largely unaffected.
Since, in any society, the primitives will always and everywhere outweigh the others, it was important that those to whom, thanks to Kemalism, the freedom to think was granted, should never have taken those freedoms for granted. Now it may be too late. Make no mistake; there is a program by those who want more and more Islam. Its proponents are patient: look at the statements about waiting for the right moment by the sweet-reasonably sinister Mr. Gulen, waiting in his Washington-area exile, for the results of the election.
While America dithered, and still does, in Iraq, Russia returned to KGB-shchina. While America dithered, and still does, in Iraq, China established economic colonies everywhere, from New York to Belize to West Africa to Italy, and is steadily driving whatever local competition remained, from the silk manufacturers of Como to the makers of pottery in Mexico, into non-existence -- while the Administration keeps singing the praises of "free trade" and Nafta, as the free-market fundamentalists they are. While America dithered, and still does, in Iraq (spending $880 billion that China, just as dependent on Middle Eastern oil, for some reason didn't think it had to spend a penny in Iraq to keep being supplied with that oil at the market price -- is it possible the Chinese understand the workings of the oil market better than the Americans?), Turkey has been allowed to become ever-more thoroughly re-islamized. Softly-softly, Sabrina Tavernise seems to think. I'd rather the Times depended on intelligent and secular Turks, less readily fooled. Not fooled at all.
Turkey provides a salutary example for Infidels in many respects. First, that doctrine of deliberate de-islamization known as Kemalism, after its great architect, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was not aimed at changing Muslim doctrines. Ataturk was quite unlike the shallow "reformers" of today -- Anis Sorroush in Iran, who spent a year at Harvard Divinity School, or some of the young Muslim academics busily getting grants and the admiration of their innocent colleagues, for their noisy attempts to "reform" Islam (and where there is Grant Money to be shared, there will be true believers in "reform" among non-Muslims as well), or Azizah al-Hibri, who seems to be under the misapprehension that the Qur'an and hadith are just like the American constitution with which she has become acquainted far from Lebanon. The Qur’an can have its little unpleasantnesses "interpreted away." Usually such people focus exclusively on the treatment of women -- the view of Infidels, the dar al-Islam/dar al-Harb distinction, is something that is for them the third rail and they won't touch it. In contrast, Ataturk understood Islam could only be constrained, not changed.
The second lesson that Turkey offers is that such reforms take place when a country is at the end of its tether, not when it is supported from abroad. After World War I, Turkey had lost its Empire. Greek troops had disembarked at Smyrna. The forces of the Allies paraded through Istanbul. It was only in such an environment of total collapse and despair that Ataturk could do the things that needed to be done to save Turkey -- by limiting the power of that belief-system which stood in the way of all progress and intellectual improvement -- Islam. He could do some things, and not others. He gave women the vote, he outlawed the tarboosh, and he traded Arabic script for the Latin -- a very clever way to cut ties to Arab Islam.
The example of Turkey now also shows that Islam keeps coming back, and back. It is back despite the decades of nearly all-out war by Ataturk, despite his successor Inonu, despite the 80 years in which secularism has developed in Turkey and permitted the enlargement of a class of thinking Turks who are recognizable to Westerners, who do not engage in kitman and taqiyya as their favored forms of expression, who are largely forthright, who have become appreciators of and participants in Western culture. But these people are now more than ever before in danger of losing their position, and of seeing the secularism of Ataturk undone.
It was Erdogan, after all, who said that the "minarets are our bayonets" and "the mosques our barracks" just a few years ago. He is smoother now -- but there is no evidence that either he, or his followers, have changed.
Turkey is totally intolerant of other religions and Non Muslims.
They slaugtered the Armenians and Greeks and destroyed all physical remnants.
If you encounter Islam, remember you are dealing with the Devil not a religion.
Beg pardon, I meant Hugh's use of the word in quotation.
Hugh - do you know Levi-Strauss's meaning?
I am not certain this, if it occurs, worries me that much as it merely proves that a nonSharia law democracy, no matter how feeble, is impossible in a state dominated by Muslims who will always fall back on the only backbone that they possess:the Koran.
So what if Turkey goes Sharia? It may make the EU drop their stupid ideas about entry, it may make the west wake up and see that ALL Muslim states are either enemies or potential enemies and we may see RETRIBUTION at last for the Armenian and Greek Massacres of 1918.
Turkey has NEVER been a true lawful state( how many successful infidel vs Muslim cases?), nor even a friend of the west. During WW2 had the battle of el Alamein been won by Germany, Turkey would have joined the axis. All of the bull effluent about Gallipoli never mentions what they did to captured allied soldiers and they wouldn't even bury allied dead well after it was over. We had to do it ourselves after the war was over and we had to PAY for it.
What do you mean when you ask if I know "Levi-Strauss's meaning"? Do you mean have I read "Tristes Tropiques"? Yes. Do you mean would I ever confuse Levi-Strauss with Levy-Bruhl, or confuse Levi-Strauss's South America with Levy-Bruhl's Kamschatka? No. Do you mean something about his explanatory polarities, such as "le cru et le cuit" (google "le cru et le cuit" and "Jihad Watch" and "Posted by Hugh")? Yes.
Or do you mean something else?
I've had a chance to chat with ms. t. on a few occasions. Very nice young woman. Lovely. But like so many people of her generation, she is the recipient of a thoroughly middling (at best) education from a well-regarded institution. The two defects one will note in such people are a) a vacancy of basic reasoning power (their moral judgments rest on the shakiest of presuppositions, slogans, and multiculturalist memes) and b) an incredibly narrow understanding of their own cultural history (comprising, again, an assortment of fatuous slogans that represent the a priori judgments common in late 20th cent. academia).
The predispositions of such people incline them not merely to see the sandiness of America's own moral footings (which sand, yes, in spades), but to view, for instance, hezbollah as heroic freedom fighters.
The story, you see, is ALWAYS that an "indigenous" people is trying to throw off the shackles of western supremacism/colonialism/moral normativism. That is the story. Period.
There is no evaluation (because, you see, the SKILLS are not there) of whether, in any given case, the west is in fact RIGHT to suppress an element of a culture (say, female genital mutilation or sharia "justice"), or whether the whole scenario is a canard: never do they probe those simple muslim folks--who just want their lives to be free of western interference, after all!--with a well timed "Aber Oma, warum hast du so grosse Zahne?"
There is a lack of guile in such nice people as ms. t. They've never particularly needed guile in their pleasant American lives. (If we were talking about an immigrant raised in Brooklyn from a generation ago, this would be a different story.) Things go along swimmingly. People are nice.
The irony is that underneath all of the kindly multiculturalist assumptions is a most astonishing sense of superiority: they are never inclined to scrutinize the head-cutting savagery of the islamists because the islamists are, in the mind of the multiculturalist, PRIMITIVES!!!! They can't be expected to live up to our standards, the poor noble savages; and by the way, our standards aren't any better than theirs really, deep down, in this arbitrary mixed up world of ours . . . all of which is belied by the multiculturalists' ongoing and often vitriolic attack against America's own lapses from western standards. But if relativism is good for the gander, then why not for the goose?
The answer is that one only ever talks as a relativist, but never, in fact, lives that way. At some level, everyone knows that, as Ben Franklin wrote over top of Thomas Jefferson's prose, certain truths are self-evident, and not subject to the vagaries of time or place or culture. Thus, we don't see westerners queuing up to gain entry and citizenship in sharia countries. (And no, it's not about the money or opportunity. There are plenty of fixed income westerners who could live very high as expatriates: some go to latin america; others, if they are adventurous, to Asia or even Kenya. But none go to a sharia state. None to North Korea.) You may find many college kids willing to argue that physical reality is all an illusion. But almost none, without the aid of illicit substances, will prove it by jumping off the roof.
Western self-esteem used to be about our ability to study and recognize those truths and then act upon them. Now, western self-esteem is all about recognizing that we are no better than anyone else, that our ideas are no more right than anyone else's and that we can be even more generous in painting portraits of our enemies than in painting portraits of ourselves. But when did portraiture become about generosity? When did rational discourse and free inquiry become mere diplomacy?
Its a peculiar dysfunction--one not entirely devoid of goodness, by the way--that one should bear in mind whenever watching a journalist "expert" talking about politics from some far flung part of the world. They're often not much more reliable sources than a college kid who's spent a semester abroad.
"darcy" --
Sorry. When I replied, I hadn't seen your first posting, only the second, and the first one makes clear to what you were referring. Life is an intelligence test that this afternoon I seem to be failing.
"Make no mistake; there is a program by those who want more and more Islam".
But as you once noted the answer may be "more Islam", Islam until even Muslims can't take it anymore, Islam until the world watches in horror and sees clearly what Islam is all about. If contained, if alternative energy replaces oil (which must come) the world will watch the spectacle of this "religion" with all its foot-binding for the head and if contained, if left to its nature, the whole thing will collapse as the Soviet Union.
How many times in history has the dark hour proved to be the beginning of the end for evil systems. The Soviet Union appeared to be aggressively on the march in the 1970's but ceased to exist in 1991. More Islam may be the medicine needed to cure the disease of Islam. Let it take power in every Muslim society until the people in those societies can't take it anymore.
july212007,
Well said. Not much more I can add to your argument. Common sense is no longer common; reason and logic have been put aside.
It seems many people have forgotten about basic human nature, as mentioned in part by James Madison in the Federalist Papers (#51), that we are not angels, but have rival interests, and have a tendency towards tyranny. Our forefathers were intelligent, and built in checks and balances to protect the innocent from our baser natures. It has succeeded quite well, but we have grown decadent, comfortable, and soft. Today, when most Westerners meet a culture that revels in the darker aspects of human actions, for example, slavery, wife-beating, polygamy, child-brides, banditry, we are at a loss to explain it
This may be because we are products of today's media/universities/liberal-PC-mentality/what-have-you. Many believe, erroneously, that all people are basically good, that we are all born as angels, with nary a base tendency in our character. This is generally a liberal (US definition) attitude, where having boys dress in pink is an outcome of such thinking.
After all, the reasoning continues, Muslims want exactly the same things as we do, and the reason for violent extremism in Muslims is because of some wrong we have done to them. If we created Islamic extremism because of our support for Israel, for example, then we can uncreate them.
But isn't it racist to assume that other people are inert unless we either choose to, or to inadvertently interact with them in some way?
The convoluted knots we twist ourselves in order to not call a spade a spade. We are so egotistical we can't imagine a scenario where a current worldwide trend or threat isn't of our own doing.
Have we forgotten the basic truth that there are bad people out there, who will do bad things, and this is does not depend on what we do? I think we have. We have forgotten human nature.
Let us not care what road the turks take for they all (both secular and islamic) think of the armenian,greek and assyrian genocides as a non-event. Who cares about such scum?
The answer to secular vrs islamists in Turkey and who is eventually gonna win, is simply demographics. Secular people have less kids, while islamist who view women as important tools for giving birth to boys, are always growing rapidly in numbers. This we see everywhere in the muslim world.
Truly I think demographics is the jihadists hugest weapon. Discreet to the masses and insidious in its intent, muslim breeding is a long term plan for islamic hegemony. We look upon the muslim masses as uneducated but as an ummah they are wiley and calculating. Coming to a neighborhood near you.
I use to live in Northern Virgina. It was about nine months after 911. I came home afterwork and went upstairs to my apartment. A young dark haired, olive complexion man was standing on the landing in front of my neighbor's apartment. This neighbor (two young men who were Turkish - accent and Turkey flag sticker on car) was not at home. I went inside and then back out to my car for some item. I came back upstairs and the man was still there. Feeling "sorry" for him, I asked what was gong on. He said his friends were suppose to meet him at Dulles Airport, but no sight of them. He had just flown in from Turkey to attend some English language school for engineers. He did not have a cell phone. So I said wait and went inside my apartment and asked my husband what to do with this man. He wouldn't leave the building. So us nice, dumb Americans invited him until his friends showed up - about two hours later. I was fixing dinner and offered him a plate. He accepted and as I brought out the plate with broiled salmon (very obvious that it was fish) and veggies, he put his hands up and said, "I am a Muslim and I cannot eat certain foods." I was dumbfounded and in my polite, apologetic way inside my own home, said don't worry, it's fish. Needless to say, I didn't even drink my glass of wine until he left. I have regretted to this day not throwing him out at the moment. You are in my country only a few hours. You have no friends but the two who couldn't get your arrival time correct. And you have to shove your Islam into my face over a lousy offer of dinner? Yeah, Turkey is a "secular" society. And my salmon was a pork chop. We in the West can be so weak at times and so guilty of who we are or are not suppose to be. Everyone else can wear their religion, their nationality, whatever on their sleeves, but the West, especially Americans are supppose to deny our very uniqueness as a national people.
The woman in W.Virgina was offended that the young Turkish man told her that he doesn't eat pork. She claims he "threw" Islam at her face. What if he had said "I don't eat meat, I'm a vegan." Would she have been as offended. What if he was a jewish man and told her that he didn't eat pork. Would she have considered that he too was "shoving" his religion down her face.
Let us not be so quick to denounce a stranger. How many times a Christian has been in Turkey and has received food and help from kind strangers. I have visited Turkey as a tourist and was treated like royalty. When I was lost, people went out of their way to help me. I could go on.
Please don't generalize and lump all muslims as Jihadists.
Jihadism comes from the Arabs not the Turks. The
Saudi's have created the Jihadists. When will the West wake-up and see the lies and hypocracy of the Saudi royalty and their twisted form of Wabhabism that has distorted all of Islam.
I appreciate and understand the dietary restrictions of Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists. I never accused this Turk of being a jihadist. I only objected that someone is a guest in my home (and country) and I offered him a meal knowing full well that I had cooked up salmon and not a pork dish. Oh by the way, I am a vegetarian and have been to people's homes, etc where meat was a featured entree and I politely and quietly did not eat the meat without making some statement.