Obama in Istanbul: Test for the West

ISTANBUL - "If we can show that a big Muslim nation can modernize itself with the help of friends," former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has argued on behalf of Turkey's admission to the European Union, "it demonstrates that a strong civil society, equal rights for men and women, the rule of law, an independent judiciary, a modern administration and modern economy are not in contradiction to Islam. This would be the most powerful message against the jihadists and terrorists."

That is certainly President Barack Obama's hope when he attends the UN "Alliance of Civilizations" gathering in Istanbul this week after a pointed visit in Ankara to the grave of Ataturk, modern Turkey's secular saint and founder. The meeting is of particular importance because Mohamed Khatami, the reformist former president of Iran is a key member of the group, as is Federico Mayor, the former secretary general of UNESCO who, long before 9/11, extolled the tolerant virtues of "La Convivencia" -- the peaceful coexistence of Muslims, Jews and Christians in Andalusian Spain from 711-1492.

Whether Obama's hope is justified is indeed the great test for the West in relations with the Muslim world.

Millions of secular Turks who have marched in the streets in the past couple of years worry that the rise of the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) to power amounts to "the state being taken over from within" by Islamists who aim to slowly corrode secular rule with a long march through the institutions. In their eyes, it might begin with banning billboards in Istanbul that display women in bikinis or separating boys and girls at the public swimming pool, advance to criminalizing adultery or banning alcohol and one day lead to the establishment of a full-fledged 21st century caliphate.

As always, the nexus of the clash between the West and Islam is the role of women. The Turkish sociologist Nilufer Golë has put her finger somewhat provocatively on precisely what secularists fear might be taken away, but also on what Muslim women are gaining.

"In contrast with the West," she has written, "where the public sphere was first formed by the bourgeoisie and excluded the working class and women, in the Muslim context of modernity women have been the makers of public space. In the Muslim context, the existence of democratic public space depends on the social encounter between the sexes and on the eroticization of the public sphere."

The wearing of the headscarf in universities -- which the AKP sought to allow -- is the flash point of the conflict. To be sure, the headscarf issue signals changing private and public distinctions through the re-entry of religion into the public arena of modern Turkey. But since headscarf proponents argue that it will enhance the opportunities of women in higher education, it also serves as a critique of the idea that only secularism equals modernity.

"Women proponents of the headscarf distance themselves from secular models of feminist emancipation," Gole argues, "but they also seek autonomy from male interpretations of Islamic precepts. They want access to secular education so they can follow new paths in life that don't conform to traditional gender roles, yet they also seek to fashion a new pious self. They are searching for ways to become Muslim and modern at the same time, transforming both."

In short, the established meaning of Islamic veiling is undergoing a radical transformation -- from a symbol of Muslim female submission and seclusion in the private sphere to a badge of public, assertive Muslim womanhood. For Gole, this sign of stigma and inferiority is in the process of being inverted into a sign of empowerment and prestige.

For his part, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country's chief Muslim modernizer, denies any hidden agenda to overturn secularism. "First of all, a party cannot be Muslim or not Muslim," Erdogan told me in Davos shortly after he first came to power. "A party is an institution. Individuals can be Muslim, Christian or atheist. It is personal.

"Personally, I am a human being who tries to be religious. But my party is not based on any religion. Our identity is that of a conservative democratic political party. We will never have a religious identity. This is a founding principle of our party: We are neither Islamic, nor Islamist.

"Our religion, Islam, is infallible. But political parties and their leaders are not--they make mistakes. So, we have to separate the two."

Turkey's most famous writer, Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, brings a novelist's subtlety to the debate. " Turkey is a country of two souls," he told me just after his novel, Snow, was published in 2005. "There have been so many authoritarian politicians over the years trying to impose one soul on Turkey, one way of life or mode of being. Some wanted to impose Western secularism by military means; some wanted Turkey to be eternally traditional and Islamic. This approach destroyed democracy in Turkey. It was responsible for all the coups." Let's recognize, pleads Pamuk, "that to have two souls is a good thing. That is the way people really are. These souls are continually in dialogue with each other, sparring with each other and changing each other. To have democracy is precisely to have dialogue between these two souls."

In order to look forward, Pamuk looks back. "This idea of incompatibility of Islam with modernity is an argument that adopts the fundamentalist logic. Liberals, democrats or Western thinkers should stop making general, vulgar and essentialist observations on Islam every time they come up with some new problem, most of which is partly their making, too. The whole history of Islam under the Ottoman Empire was a synthesis of the Book and what was happening in history, in the world. Islam is not a pure thing that exists out there in a vacuum.

"Look at what has happened already in Turkey. We once had an Islamic fundamentalist party which has now converted into a more or less Western-style party whose historic mission is to take Turkey into Europe, and it is backed by the people! This approach is sober and compelling to most Turks today."

As if to prove Pamuk right, the year I saw Prime Minister Ergodan in Davos he hosted a party for whom the guest of honor was Miss World, who was Turkish. She whirled around triumphantly with evident patriotism in her tiara--hair, arms and shoulders uncovered. Erdogan's wife stood by his side, covered with a headscarf. The great irony was that the Miss World contest that year had to be moved to London from Nigeria, where radical Islamists forced it to shut down in an episode the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka memorably referred to as a competition between "beauty and the beast."

But it is precisely such a "union" of civilizations as the one witnessed in Davos that may dash hopes about the importance of a modernized Turkey as a moderating influence on anti-Western jihadists. "Since Kemal Ataturk, the Turks have believed they could become a modern state like the Europeans if they became secular and separated religion and state," Mohamad Mahathir told me when he was still prime minister of Malaysia. "This strategy is not convincing to Muslims, who, after all, are believers. If you say that modernization means secularization, then it will be rejected in the Islamic world."

Surely the new Obama administration has assigned such pivotal importance to Turkey because it is the great experiment in the world today of both non-Western and post-secular modernity. Can it replace the authoritarian modernity imposed by Kemal Ataturk and European-oriented elites with a bottom-up modernization led by a democratically elected regime of Central Asian-Islamic lineage?

Zeynep Karahan Uslu, a vice chairman of the ruling AKP, agrees that Ataturk's project has successfully facilitated material progress and created a Turkish identity. But, "it also entailed a scientific-based positivistic understanding of the world, thus promoting a non-religious Western type of society as the precondition for progress." This created a split between the central elites, who are secular, and the public in the Antatolian periphery, who are devout Muslims. Now, the religious masses are trying to remake modernity in their own image.

As Obama recognizes, how this experiment works out, and the impact it has on the rest of the Muslim world, if any, is of profound importance to the West. God willing, secularism will survive democracy in Turkey and Muslims elsewhere will realize the value of both.

 

 

Comments

[CologneCitizen]

America does what is in her interest and we in Europe do what is in our interest. Why should we let 70 million muslims into Europe ? Turkey is way back on so many issues. For the last 30 years the Kurds are demonstrating in Cologne for their right to live. They can do it in Germany. In Turkey they get thrown into jail if they are lucky at least. Western European country already have a hard time with the integration of many muslims as they simply refuse to recognize our values. Why should we let 70 million more in just for your strategic reasons ?

[Oguz Erkan]

Dear Foodbuff,
What makes you believe that EU is all about religion. There more to the union that just that aspect. Obama has the right focus and even though he may not be impact the decision his support means a lot for the citizens and the countrymen of the Republic of Turkey.

[bighat]

Like it or not. The U.S. meddles in other people's business. We should not be in a position to influence whether Turkey is allowed into the European Union or not. But we have used Turkey. Did they give us everything we wanted. The answer is no. They want some respect and they want our influence. We will all but guarantee them acceptance in the EU. But should we. Is this a ballgame we should be in or even refering. The U.S. has been accused of imperilsm and a police state. The latter is true. Maybe if we meddle we should get something out of it. Be imperiliastic.. Let the countries we are war with become U.S. territories. They would be better off and we might be as well. This might give us the oil we need and the rule of law to destroy poppy plants. And with all U.S. territores there is no tax on investments in these countries. Might give the average people a better life under U.S. rule.

[Foodbuff]

I believe President Obama overreached when he suggested thst Turkey should be welcomed into the EU. First of all TURKEY IS NOT IN EUROPE.!!! Turkey has a population of over 70 million with religious beliefs that do not fit into the traditions of Europe. It is just another case of American expediency. At the moment it is good for America to be so pro Turkey but is it good for Europe?
America not does understand the relationship between Europe and the Muslim world. I am afraid that President Obama's world view is a lttile naive.

[Wozzeck]

"Turkey has a population of over 70 million with religious beliefs that do not fit into the traditions of Europe. "

An ignorant and bigoted comment. Turkey is a secular republic.

"The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that of the Albanian people, 70% of those in Albania are Muslim, 91% of them in Kosovo, and 99% of them in Macedonia are Muslim. Bosnia has a Muslim plurality. In transcontinental countries such as 99% in Turkey, 93% in Azerbaijan and 57% in Kazakhstan[11] of the population is Muslim respectively. Muslims also form about one fifth of the Serbian population of Montenegro. In Russia, Moscow is home to an estimated 1.5 million Muslims"

[Demosthenes95]

What does exactly your comment prove? That because there are majority Muslim countries in the Balkans and the former USSR, Turkey has a right to enter Europe?

"Turkey is a secular republic. "

Yeah? Its elite may be secular. Step outside the inner circle for a moment and then you'll see the REAL Turkey !!! If you actually live there, and you prefer the Western ways, I can see of course your urge to broadcast the "secular republic" bid. But that does not unfortunately change the hard facts about Turkey's overwhelming majority population.

[Arnvid Aakre 1]

And who say? I for one is part of northern Europe - and I quite clearly want Turkey as a EU member. Further, Turkey is part of both Asia and Europe - and btw - why is Israel part of Europe in soccer, the European Song Contest - and so forth?
I was unhappy not being able to vote for Obama, belonging to a wrong continent - so don't even try to take Turkey away from us. Jews, Christian and Muslim lived rather peacefully together in Spain for seven hundred years, it's time for this to happen again, so lay of your fear mongering. We had to live with the Bush effect, and quite clearly don't want someone like you to say Obama's naive. This is not naive, it's extremely needed and wanted, thank you.

[idest]

Err...time to go back to geography class for you. MOST of Turkey is not in Europe, however if you look closely you'll see that Istanbul, a major global city, IS in Europe. Last time I checked, Istanbul was in Turkey. Therefore, Turkey is in Europe, at least partly.

I don't understand why it wouldn't be good for Europe. To have a healthy, working relationship with a majority Muslim nation has the potential to bridge the ideological and religious divide you are so worried about. Surely exclusion will never do that.

[THEVOICEOFMODERATION]

The "experiment" needs criteria more than women's rights. Democracy only can exist when all citizens have equal standing in the eyes of the law/government. Here in the US we aren't there yet, but we are a work in progress. I in Turkey, Christians have been leaving for elsewhere for decades. Where is the equal standing for non-Muslims???

[aliVonal]

wow, you just went from woman's rights to uttering some nonsense about immigration. In wither case you make no sense and know too little.

[HuffEurope2]

QUOTE: "The new Obama administration has assigned such pivotal importance to Turkey because it is the great experiment in the world today of both non-Western and post-secular modernity." UNQUOTE

Oh, nothing to do with access to oil, gas, the strategic position near the middle east and better access to 1m personnel in the Turkish armed services then?

[Wozzeck]

"As always, the nexus of the clash between the West and Islam is the role of women"

The author's reference to 'a clash between the West and Islam" betrays a serious lack of understanding of both Islam, and women in predominantly Muslim countries.
He should watch Juan Cole's talk on 'Engaging The Muslim World"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwxJdr19Djg before rehashing these tired talking points.

[Naktyvyras]

Excellent video. I reached many of the same conclusions separately by talking to Muslims and the overwhelming reason for anti-Ameri­can/anti-W­estern sentiment lay in perceived "imperialism" and America's unquestioning support of Israel in the Israel-Palestine conflict. We should remember that Islam as a major political force in the Middle East only became important in the 70's and 80's. Before that, anti-Westernism came from the secular Arab nationalists like Sadat and Nasser who couldn't care less about having a common religion so much as a common ethnicity (point proven- the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was founded by an Arab Christian, George Habash). We in the West should not pretend that it's Islam that's against us. It's the policy, duh.

[slowlearner]

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer opinion on the admission of Turkey to the EU is one of millions of opinions on the topic. To him, it is just another marriage. If it does not work-- Hey, no problem. Solution: The EU and Turkey divorce themselves. After all, he knows about the topic: he is on his 5th marriage...
As far as President Obama calling for the admission of Turkey to the EU, with all due respect, he should leave that problem to the Europeans.

[watchful123]

Obama is just rallying his support for the admission of Turkey to the EU...it's not like he's trying to rally some type of protest if they're not admitted.

[Soori]

I agree with Watchful123. Wasn't it the Bush Admin. who was working hard to try to get Georgia to become part of the EU. There was no one complaining about the former Soviet client states joining the EU at the persistance of the U.S. So why is Turkey being singled out and why shouldn't Obama provide his opinion? The only reason is that the Europeans are racist that's all!

[cornelison]

The President promised us that he'd be inclusive with the international community & he's trying to do it. It's also good for world commerce!

[jeanrenoir]

As always, Obama takes a constructive approach, not least in American-Muslim relations. The Bush administration was completely dominated by neocon fanatical fools who wanted the "face" of Islam to the the "axis of evil" one of their "Iran." What a difference an election makes! How different Islam looks from the perspective of Ankara than from that of AIPAC.

[liminal67]

The whole issue is complicated for Europe but Turkey has been allied with US for over half a century.

http://pitchbendpost.blogspot.com/

[TumTiTum]

I still don't really see why Turkish inclusion in the EU would be desirable or necessary.

[watchful123]

Symbolism?

[bluehand]

Please, explain why?

[rainbowblue]

It's a key player in the fight against radical Islam. A western Turkey would provide a buffer between Europe and Arab states, while at the same time proving that it is possible to be a real political democracy and still hang on to one's Muslim faith. On the converse side, Europe would not be helped with a Turkey that turns away from Western ideas. In that case you have, what most likely be, a poorer more radical nation sitting on your doorstep that is a prime target for anti European/American jihad ideas.

Overall, though the best way to combat radical Islam is to modernize and westernize. Once the poverty rate is reduced, the GDP starts to rise, women are free to do what they will, and the population is properly educated will the spread of radical Islam fall. Turkey's admission to the EU would help put it on that track.

[Savojah]

You hit it right on the mark. Turkey is ideal in what we would want in a Muslim country. Why the radicals are scarded mostly is because they believe that western influence, or the infedels are trying to take their religion away from them. That is not the case, and the radicals are extremely paranoid. Even President Bush, in his skewed way, didn't want to take their religion away. He wanted to spread democracy, but he did in the wrong way. President Obama's approach is the right way to do it.

If we can show other Muslim countries that we're not here to take your religion or ideals away, but we want them to be inclusive is the most effective way of combating Islamic terrorism around the world. Way more effective than by force. In this case, we want to show that the pen and the paper(money) is mightier than the sword.

[SaulBloodworth]

Its an American pet project to placate the Islamic world and secure NATO. For Europe it would be a disaster because it would open up Europe for the immigration of 70 million moslems plus anybody who manages to get into Turkey from an Arab country illegally.

It would be the equivalent of the U.S. granting Mexico the staturs of a 51st state.

[aliVonal]

Wow, you have no clue what you're talking about do you?

[CologneCitizen]

Good post and 100% correct !!

Exactly, why should the financially stiff EU let 70 million moslems of whom many cannot read or write into their system ? It would be the same if we would ask you to adopt a poor latin america country for strategic reasons.

[CostaDelBarto]

" In the Muslim context, the existence of democratic public space depends on the social encounter between the sexes and on the eroticization of the public sphere."

What does that mean? Anyone?

[bluehand]

It sounds like the consideration over the degree or level of public contact, and interaction between the sexes. I guess the concern is that any public contact between the sexes presents an opportunity for sexual attraction and/or interaction. Something that we take for granted as natural.

[pcplz]

Radical Islamic men think that if a woman even looks at them that they should be beaten. The deeply religious cannot see any female skin without it defiling their.......piety. Therefore, they see any publicly shared square with male and modern females as erotic ergo sinful.

[hu.man]

I believe the best approach to the Islamic states in one of non-interference. This means to allow each nation-state to chart its own path to whatever form of government they wish to have be it religious or secular.

The West should always be promoting secularism but not in the form that demands others specially the Islamic states to conform to it. The concept that we know what it better for others than they do themselves is a failed notion. It does not produce results as we have seen time and again, it is violently rejected by those who want to chart they own path.

West can support the secular movements within the Islamic countries and more importantly provide an avenue of migration for those who do not want to live under the rule of religious dogma. The religious regimes would realize the folly of their ways once all the brain is drained from their countries to West. In due course, the fanatics will change their ways because it will be a matter of survival for them.

[pcplz]

Any wholly religious state tends to become extreme and punishing. History supports this in Europe and England. That is why the Americas were colonized....to flee religious persecution.

[Soori]

I agree the U.S. should stop interfering in the political affairs of the Muslim World or for that matter other countries.

However, i disagree with the notion that modernity means secularims. This is exactly what frightens the Muslim world. So when the U.S. wants to modernize the Muslim world the initial thought that comes to mind is removing the religious element from the Islamic societies and turn these countries into a proto-type of the U.S.


I listened to an interview with an Iranian woman who was wearing a scarf and her response to the journalist was that this scarf has nothing to do with modernity and democracy. "What is important is my brain and intellect; this is the freedom that I want!"

You would be amazed how in many Muslim countries women are at the forefront of changing their governments attitude and demand human rights and equal rights with or without the scarf. This stereotype in the West about the Muslim world has to change.

Before anything the U.S. should educate itself about the religion, culture, history, civilization of these countries and respect their customs.

What the U.S. can do to improve the circumstances in these countries is to encourage academic collaboration, educational training programs, scientific collaboration, cultural exchanges, and management training programs which many of these countries need and will appreciate. Change will occur when people from different countries are exposed to one another and appreciate what each has to offer.

[OldSchoolLiberal]

Turkey's founder was adamant about secularizing the state because he understands Islam better than modern western liberals. Islam is not just a religion but a complete way of life which recognizes no higher authority. Ther eis no "rendering unto caesar" in Islam.

[FearlessFreep]

He also admitted the Armenian genocide had happened.

[FebM]

did he?