Countries sometimes outgrow their founders. In my native country of India, for example, the "father of the country," Mahatma Gandhi, believed that each village should be economically self-sufficient, spinning its own cloth by hand and growing its own food. The other leading figure, India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, was a socialist who admired the Soviet Union's five-year plans. These two men defined the main choices facing India for a generation.
But eventually the Indians figured out that neither rural self-sufficiency nor Soviet-style state planning was the way to go. Watching the success of China, Indians opted for something else, in this case free market capitalism. Today free market capitalism offers the best hope for India to realize Gandhi's dream of wiping a tear off every Indian face.
Turkey has been in the clutches of Kemal Ataturk's militant secularism for two generations now. Ataturk abolished the Muslim religious courts in favor of the Swiss legal code, ended religious education in schools, legalized gambling and alcohol, replaced existing commercial laws with the German commercial law, outlawed Islamic dress in public buildings, abolished the Islamic calendar, changed the alphabet, and converted the great mosque of the Hagia Sophia into museum. Basically Ataturk tried to convert his country virtually overnight from a Muslim country into a secular European country.
Many in the West have long held Ataturk's Turkey to be a model for the Muslim world. But today no Muslim country is going the way of Turkey, and even Turkey has stopped going the way of Turkey.
Turks today are finding militant secularism to be a problem. Volkan Aytar of the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation tells the New York Times, "This narrow shirt of secularism has become a little too tight and choking for Turkish society." Why should women be barred from wearing veils in government buildings? Why should only secular values be permitted in the public square? Why can't Turkey be modern and Muslim at the same time? Not only is Turkish secularism inconsistent with the religious values held by most people--Muslim as well as Christian--but secularism is also a threat to democracy. Every time religious parties stand to gain politically, the Turkish army warns that it is ready to subvert the democratic process through a military takeover.
On Sunday, Turks will have an opportunity to say farewell to Ataturk, to rebuke the generals, and to give extreme secularism a swift kick in the rear end. I predict it will happen, and that the traditional Muslim AK party headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan will win a big victory. Shouldn't Muslim countries be able to live according to Muslim values? Isn't democracy preferable to rule by the generals? In finally laying Ataturk to rest, Turkey could yet provide a model for the rest of the Muslim world.
Reader Comments ( Page 2 of 5)
16. Peter: "Honestly, what have they done to this point except restore the rights of Muslim's to practice their religion equally with the rest of the religions of Turkey?"
Your joking, right? Turkey is 94% Muslim. No one was preventing anyone from practicing their religion; the Turkish constitution guarantees freedom of religion.
Joe Bob at 7:21AM on Jul 21st 2007
17. I usually find you to be quite level-headed, but I don't know where you're coming from with this.
Why should any country be run by radical extremists? This isn't about women not being allowed to wear head scarves in government buildings - IT IS ABOUT all women in Turkey being forced to wear head scarves when the extremists take over, regardless of their beliefs. IT IS ABOUT Turkish citizens becoming criminals overnight for keeping Bibles on their bookshelves.
And, let's all keep in mind, that Islamists, time and time again, in both word and action, prove themselves to be the LEAST tolerant of any other religion or ideology.
Why should Turkish society embrace intolerance in its purest form? How could that possibly set a good exampl for the rest of the Middle East?
Frank at 8:03AM on Jul 21st 2007
18. How utterly revolting. This must be one of the most distasteful tracts you've ever composed Dinesh. As someone of Turkish ancestry, I find your characterization of Ataturk and his policies mind-numbingly absurd. Particularly the following:
"Ataturk abolished the Muslim religious courts in favor of the Swiss legal code, ended religious education in schools, legalized gambling and alcohol, replaced existing commercial laws with the German commercial law, outlawed Islamic dress in public buildings, abolished the Islamic calendar, changed the alphabet, and converted the great mosque of the Hagia Sophia into museum."
Its terribly amusing how you refer to the above as unfortunate occurances. Ataturk is EXACTLY what the ENTIRE MIDDLE-EAST deserves right now, pity world leaders are too spineless and stupid and transparent to replicate him. Yes, he was secular, and that was a good thing. He prevented his nation from falling into the abysmal degeneracy and poverty and theocratic totallitarianism that the rest of the region has suffered.
You want to practice your religion? Thats all well and good, secularism isn't atheism and don't pretend it is. But if you want to practice your religion, you better be damn certain its a personal excercise and well away from the political sphere. That was what Ataturk promulgated.
Now Turkey is on the verge of falling into the abhorant depths of Islamism along with therest of the Middle-East, and you're applauding it sir?
For shame.
azandi at 10:32AM on Jul 21st 2007
19. Max: Turkey is not going back to stoning or beheading. In fact, it has banned the death penalty recently. Turkey is as westernized as its other European neighbors. It just happens to be Muslim. Implementation of an old shariah code is not going to happen because the majority of Turks don't want it. I urge you to take a trip there and see for yourself.
Joe Bob: If a Turkish Muslim woman wears a scarf over her head for religious reasons, and she can't wear her scarf at the Turkish government-funded university, then she CANNOT PRACTICE HER RELIGION. Even if the country is 94% Muslim, anti-democratic forces (e.g., the Turkish army) won't allow her to practice her religion. It should not be the government's business whether she wears a scarf or not, but in Turkey, the anti-religious establishment is doing exactly that. Once again, I urge commentators to take a trip to Turkey and see for yourself what is going on.
Shumoon at 3:08PM on Aug 11th 2007
20. Once again Mr D'souza this was a fair assessment. The "Islamists" in Turkey are not trying to force people to wear burkas or even headscarfs but want to move to where America is today: allowing women - that desire - to wear headscarfs in public buildings.
Is it not ironic that in the US a woman can wear a headscarf in a university or public building and in Turkey a person can NOT.
If Turkey could move to the level of religious freedom that is in the US, they just may be a good example for other Muslim nations to follow
Tariq Nelson at 11:08AM on Jul 21st 2007
21. Ataturk wasn't really a secularist. He was more of a monoculturalist who wanted to impose a uniform Turkishness on the Anatolian heartland of what was the world's most multi-ethnic empire.
Ataturk's vision did much good for Turkey. I don't think the AK Party necessarily represents a departure from that vision. Rather, it is a modernisation of that vision.
Those claiming to be true to Ataturk's vision and opposed to the AK Party are in fact the most backward and inward looking sectors of Turkey. They oppose EU membership and don't want to liberalise the human rights situation there. The only support they have is from a selection of American far-Right fruitloops like the Heritage Foundation, the AEI and the Hudson Foundation.
Irfan at 11:08AM on Jul 21st 2007
22. restore the caliphate i say!!!! restore it
ghetto ghandi at 11:18AM on Jul 21st 2007
23. Greaat. Another person to stir the pot. Well let me ask you something. Have you ever lived in Turkey? Have you ever been there? Do you know what the Turkish people say when you say Ataturk out of your mouth. It is as equivalent to saying God to them. Do me a favor, keep your opinions to yourself.
thank you
Murat
Murat M at 11:37AM on Jul 21st 2007
24. Idiot, I think you need to learn the subject before you comment on it. There are much better things you can do with your life than come up with blogs like this. Get a life bro...
Ataturk at 11:51AM on Jul 21st 2007
25. If Dinesh D'souza and his reference Volkan Aytar are dissatisfied with the separation of the state and religion maybe they should consider living in Saudi Arabia. Secularism in Turkey bothers only the mollas and the imams and the norrow minded people who can't see beyond the teachings of religious zealots, things like freedom of individual, equality for men and women, and love instead of hate.
hank at 3:20PM on Jul 21st 2007
26. How sad it was that afer World War I, the first war in which poison gas was used, that Ataturk didn't use it on his radical muslims.
How sad that we don't use it on them today, either.
Alex Hamilton at 1:21PM on Jul 21st 2007
27. It is interesting that religious states like Israel are held by the West as good guys while democratically elected governments like the Palestinian Hamas are suppressed with the complicity of the West. This is no longer a matter of democracy vs. everyone else. It is a matter of everyone else vs. Muslims. This spells a hint of bias.
I myself am a Christian (Presbyterian like many of our past Presidents). But I suppose that if the religion in question was Christianity there would be no problem for the critics of Mr.D'Souza. Sure, they do not criticize some totalitarian Muslim governments that are on the side of the West (e.g.Saudi Arabia). They only find fault with those Muslim governments that are not on our side no matter what kind og government they have. So you see the hypocrisy that we in the west have been feed by our leaders since the begining of this millennium. Not even many of us with an evangelical Christian upbringing can stomach this anymore.
O. Cintron H at 2:39PM on Jul 21st 2007
28. Democracy only exists in free, independent thinking societies. Muslims and Islam doesn't promote such practices and to talk of Greek Style democracy or Western notion of democracy to such people is like talking English to Klingons. We should stop wasting our time and resources changing them, such decadent society will crumble unto its own. Remember who helped the Muslims conquer modern Turkey!!! The more we interact with them the more we weaken ourselves.
Ved at 7:43PM on Jul 29th 2007
29. In the name of individual freedom, I too was at first outraged by laws forbidding viels and such in public life, in both turkey and France.
Untill, that is, I traveled in France during the time this controversial law was put into effect. A friend, a teacher told me how many Muslim girls came to him on the side, afraid to be heard saying, "Please help this law get passed. We are already being intimidated by intolerance in our community. If the viel is allowed as an option, we will have no option. Girls who buck this intmidation even now are ganged raped. If you dress like a whore (no veil) you deserve to be raped like one, is what we are told." Muslim intolerance of individual thought is the issue in Turkey as well. Ataturk was wise beyond his time.
John at 1:55PM on Jul 22nd 2007
30. Are you really ignorant to the dangers of islamic dictatorship,and how easily it can come about?Find a leader with great vision like ATATURK and I will follow him.Unfotunately you are ignorant as to what and who ATATURK really was.
remzi emiroglu at 8:24AM on Jul 22nd 2007