The many decades during which the systematic attempt, through legislation, by Ataturk to remove Islam in Turkey from the political sphere and to limit its power to fashion society, over time managed to allow the formation of a class of Turks who, in their mental outlook are not as distant as from Western man as are, say, Arabs or Pakistanis.
They do, unsurprisingly, continue to identify themselves as Muslims, sometimes out of civilisational defensiveness or filial piety. To abandon Islam might seem like abandoning a pious grandmother, or viewing the islamization of the former Byzantine Empire as a historic mistake, and many cannot bring themselves to do that. This secular class consists, in the main, of businessmen who have dealings with the West (the Sabanci family comes to mind), writers (Orhan Pamuk, about to deliver the Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard), journalists, professors, rectors of universities, art gallery owners, musicians who play Western music.
Some of these people inhabit the same mental universe as do non-Muslim Westerners -- a phenomenon that cannot be detected among more than a handful of Arabs or Pakistanis, even among those who have lived and studied in the West. But they still live within a world of Islam, where their numbers are swamped by the primitive Muslim masses, who once could be thought of as a rural population that would, over time, change.
But so many people have come from the villages to Istanbul, and instead of finding their Islamic faith weakened or diluted in the face of what might otherwise unhinge them, they cling ever more closely to the stability and certainty that Islam provides. They live in a different world, a world where, if they are not careful, the true believers in Islam, many of whom are rural in their origins but have moved to the vast metropolis of Istanbul without shedding their previous devotion, and who, suddenly encountering and being jostled by a different world, may seek mental and emotional relief in more, not less, Islam.
Islam never went away.
But if you were a historian, say an Ottomanist, doing research in the Archives in the 1960s, or writing a book on the history of Modern Turkey, or a general from a NATO country meeting with a Turkish counterpart in Ankara, you might reasonably assume that the people of the secular class you met, and many of whom were extremely friendly and kind in a way that to you seemed (and was) genuine, were representative and permanent.
You might well believe that the Turkey you saw would always be the same, and the only thing that would change would be a constant expansion in the number of those belonging to the secularist class. And if you considered the cult that had been formed devoted to the worship of Ataturk, and were aware of some of the writings about "the Turks" of those who followed Ataturk -- as Inonu -- you might conceivably recognize this as a replacement theology for Islam, where Ataturk-worship replaced the Muhammad-worship of Islam, expressed in the need to emulate the words and deeds of Muhammad, al-insan al-kamil, the Perfect Man.
Ataturk instead of Muhammad, and "the Turks" (or, "the Sun people") as the Best of Peoples, instead of Muslims. For a while, this replacement-theology has worked. But Erbakan, and now Erdogan, and others, including Fethuleh Gulen, have brought Islam back, and the secular class is threatened. It knows it may yet again have to rely on the army, because in the outside world, in the advanced countries of the West, there is as yet no deep sympathy for these embattled secularists.
The relentlessness of those we too easily call "the Islamists," and the cunning ways they find to pursue unswervingly their immutable aims, is not understood. And why do we not understand the threat, and the means necessary to contain that threat? Oh, that is because -- it's so often because -- most people in the Western world cannot grasp the nature and meaning and menace of Islam.
But the Turkish secularists can. We can't help them out in one way. We can't allow them to dilute the problem by making it a matter for all the Infidels in the E.U. Turkey cannot be admitted to the E.U., and that no doubt will disappoint Turkish secularists. But what they can and should be offered is understanding and support from the West, if those secularists have to undo those supposed "reforms" to Turkish law that weaken the army and judiciary, or even if the secularists find that they must welcome another army coup should Erdogan continue to behave as he did recently, with the attempt to destroy the Dogan media conglomerate that stood in his way. He thought he could get away with destroying it through the power to tax or levy fines. Perhaps he won't get away with it this time, but he will, like determined Muslims promoting Islam everywhere, keep trying, until he does wear away the opposition.
A sensible column.
A sensibly retarded column, as always. Hugh uses big words, idiots fawn. Repeat.
Dustan is just jealous because Hugh is 1. morally superior to him and 2. a great deal smarter and 3. a great deal more learned.
Dustan is a Muslim (or hopeless dhimmi) and as such any comment which does not fit the expansionist mindset is racist or islamophobic. Try that if you are christian and wish to live in Mecca!
Turks created the Caliphate. They razed the centre of Christianity in Constantinople and took over the magnificent cathedral, converting it into a mosque.
They then embarked on a mission to conquer Europe, 'the Turks are coming' being guarranteed to strike fear. This advance was halted at the Gates of Vienna.
That to many present day Muslims was the catastrophe and they are determined to reverse it.
As the Muslim orbit increasingly reverts to the tenets of seventh century Islam, Turkey is not immune. Thus offering EU membership is a guarrantee of a wave of immigrants with not one jot of desire to assimilate. Rather the demand will be, we have to respect their 'human rights' whilst ours are trampled.
We've seen this modus operandi time after time and Europe is, at last resisting.
They call us racist infidel kuffars at the least provocation as if we have no say in our own cultural identity or politics. They just have to call the shots. That old time islamic superiority is irrepressable.
This is, indeed the Third Jihad and we must repel it with all our vigour.
Gert Wilders get's it. How long will it take to sink in for the rest?
An excellent analysis.
What is needed as a prerequisite of real Islamic reform is a raising of consciousness among the masses in the territories conquered by Arabs and their Turkish or Mogul successors which would lead them to embrace with pride the buried and suppressed achievements of their pre-Islamic ancestors. It may be necessary for Muslims to recognize and mourn for the oppression, enslavement, rape and indignities that one fraction of their ancestors imposed on the greater part, often the overwhelmingly greater part, of their ancestral lineage.
In Turkey the failure of the Kemalist elite to fully acknowledge their own history and to disestablish Islam in the village culture of Anatolia, has led to the Islamic revival. Other secularizing movements, usually established by dictators, have recognized the regressive nature of orthodox Islam on economic and social development. However, the modern personality cults of despots, even fairly benevolent ones like Ataturk, and the superficialities of certain secular elements within the governing and intellectual elite have not, so far, been sufficient for major and lasting reform.
The promoters of change have often recognized that a return to pre-Islamic roots is an essential condition for removing the debilitating effects of Islam. Ataturk and less palatable secularizers like Saddam or Nasser have attempted to undermine Islam by returning to an older pre-Islamic substrate as the basis of a new nationalism. While Ataturk emphasized the Hittite ancestry of the Anatolian Turks he conveniently ignored the more important Greek ancestry because the modern Greeks were regarded as the current enemy.
Thus, the Turks have embraced and mythologized the quite remote history of the Hittites, even claiming against all evidence that the latter were an offshoot of the Central Asian Turkish “sun” people. At the same time, they reject their much more recent Greco-Roman, Byzantine and Armenian heritage. They even refuse to acknowledge their recent history of genocide against Armenian Christians, or their ethnic cleansing of the numerous Greek speaking population of Anatolia.
However, for most of Muslim history it was neglect and indifference that played the most significant role in the erasure of the past. The actions of the Ottoman authorities are illustrative. These include the use of the Parthenon as an ammunition storage depot. There was also the permission granted by various Turkish authorities to Europeans to dismantle and export archaeological treasures in exchange for relatively small bribes.
Thus, a true hope for Islamic reform must wait for actions such as Turkey acknowledging its Greek and Armenian cultural and genetic heritage. Only by accepting the Hellenic heritage common to western civilization can the Turkish elite truly reach their long desired goal of becoming modern Europeans. The Turks would also do well to acknowledge their past history of jihad, persecution and genocide, and integrate these into their modern national consciousness
Yes, Dustan, Hugh's big vocabulary means that...........what?
What does it mean? That you can't read his articles? That you have to resort to a dictionary all the time? That your brain hurts?
Your insults are a waste of oxygen, nitrogen and other trace gases. If you want to critique Mr. Fitzgerald's ideas, go ahead. I, however, am not going to hold my breath.
Last I checked, the caliphate was created by the successors to Mahomet, who were Arabs. When you think Spencer is an Islamic scholar it's natural to make such mistakes, but at least don't pretend that you know what you're talking about. Thanks in advance.