Between occidentalism and the global left: Islamist critiques of the west in Turkey

Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East

Volumn 26, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 446-461

  Aydin, Cemil ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHARLOTTE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

GLOBALIZATION; ISLAMISM; MODERNITY;

EURASIA; TURKEY;

EID: 33846354295     PISSN: 1089201X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/1089201x-2006-025     Document Type: Article

References (76)

1. Robert Kaplan, "At the Gates of Brussels: If Recep Tayyip Erdogan Gets His Way, Turkey Will Be More Islamic and Europe Will Be More Turkish; Both Would Be Good News," Atlantic Monthly 294 (2004):44-48.
2. Nasuh Uslu, Metin Toprak, Ibrahim Dalmis, and Ertan Aydin, "Turkish Public Opinion toward the United States in the Context of the Iraq Question," Middle East Review of International Affairs 9 (2005):73-105.
3. See also Ömer Taşpinar, "The Anatomy of Anti-Americanism in Turkey," Brookings Institution, 16 November 2005, www.brookings.edu/views/articles/fellows/taspinar20051116.htm.
4. Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? The Clash between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
5. Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit, Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies (New York: Penguin, 2004).
6. Susan Buck-Morss, Thinking Past Terror: Islamism and Critical Theory on the Left (New York: Verso, 2003).
7. Ali Rahnema, An Islamic Utopian: A Political Biography of Ali Shari'ati. (London: I. B. Tauris, 2000);
8. Marc Gallicchio, Black Internationalism in Asia, 1895-1945: The African American Encounter with Japan and China (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000).
9. The term Gharbzadegi, usually translated as West-struckedness or Westoxification, was originally the title of the book written by Iranian social critic Jalal Al-e Ahmad in 1962. It was translated into Turkish with the title Plague That Came from the West (Batι'dan Gelen Veba) by an Islamist publisher in 1988. See Celal Ali Ahmed, Garbzedeler: Bati'dan Gelen Veba, trans. B. Tuna (Istanbul: Nehir Yayιnlarι, 1988).
10. Engin Deniz Akarli, "The Tangled End of Istanbul's Imperial Supremacy," in Modernity and Culture from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, 1890-1920, ed. Leila Fawaz and C. A. Bayly (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 261-84.
11. Also see Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire, 1876-1909 (London: I. B. Tauris, 1998);
12. and M. Şükrü Hanioglu, Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902-1908 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
13. Ismail Kara, Türkiye'de İslamcιlιk Düşüncesi I (Islamist Thought in Turkey, I), 3rd ed. (Istanbul: Kitabevi Yayιnlarι, 1997), 19.
14. Carter Vaughn Findley, "An Ottoman Occidentalist in Europe: Ahmed Midhat Meets Madame Gulnar, 1889," American Historical Review 103 (1998): 15-49.
15. Numan Kamil Bey, "Vr̂itê sur l'Islamisme et l'Empire Ottoman" ("The Truth about Islam and the Ottoman Empire"), in Prêsentêe au X. Congrês International des Orientalistes a Geneve (Paris: Imprimerie de Charles Noblet et Fils, 1894).
16. Ahmed Riza, La faillite morale de la politique occidentale en Orient (The Moral Bankruptcy of Western Policy toward the East) (Tunis: Éditions Bouslama, 1979);
17. Ahmed Riza and Ismayl Urbain, Tolérance de l'islam (Tolerance of Islam) (Saint-Ouen, France: Centre Abaad, 1992).
18. Halil Halid, The Crescent versus the Cross (London: Luzac 1907).
19. Mustafa Aksakal, "Not 'by Those Old Books of International law, but Only by Way': Ottoman Intellectuals on the Eve of the Great War," Diplomacy and Statecraft 15 (2004): 507-44.
20. Celal Nuri, İttihad-i İslam: İslamin Mazisi, Hali, İstikbali (Islamic Unity: Past, Present, and Future of Islam) Istanbul: Yeni Osmanli Matba'asi, 1913).
21. Mustafa Budak, "I. Dünya Savaşι Sonrasι Uluslarasι Düzen Kurma Sürecinde Osmanlι Devleti'nin Tavrι: Paris Barιş Konferansι'na Sunulan 23 Haziran 1919 Tarihli Muhtιra" ("Ottoman Attitude during the Process of Establishing an International Order in the Aftermath of World War I: The Memorandum Presented to the Paris Peace Conference on 23 June 1919"), Divan İlmi Araştirmalar Dergisi, no. 2 (1992): 191-215;
22. Mine (Sümer) Erol, "Wilson Prensipleri Cemiyeti'nin Amerika Cumhurbaşkanι Wilson'a Gönderdiǧi Muhtira" ("On the Memorandum Sent by the Wilsonian Principles Society to the American President Wilson"), Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih Coǧrafya Fakültesi Tarih Araştιrmalarι Dergisi 3 (1966): 237-45;
23. Mehmet Sahingöz and Vahdet Kelesyilmaz, "Milli Mücadele Dönemi Türk Basininda Wilson Prensipleri" ("Wilsonian Principles in the Turkish Press during the Period of National Struggle"), Atatürk Araştιrma Merkezi Dergisi 12 (1996):357-78.
24. S. M. H. Kidwai, The Future of the Muslim Empire: Turkey (London: Central Islamic Society, 1999);
25. Kidwai, The Sword against Islam; or, A Defence of Islam's Standard-Bearers (London: Central Islamic Society, 1919).
26. Ertuǧrul M. Düzdaǧ, Mehmet Akif Ersoy (Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlιǧι Yayιnlarι, 1988).
27. For a classic text of late-Ottoman-era Islamist internationalism, see the memoirs of a leading Islamist regarding his travels throughout Asia: Abdurreşid Ibrahim,Alem-i Islam ve Japonya'da Intisari Islamiyet (The Muslim World and the Spread of Islam in Japan) (Istanbul: Ahmed Saki Bey Matbaasi, 1910-11).
28. See the article by Andrew Davison in this issue. See also Andrew Davison, '"Secularization and Modernization in Turkey: The Ideas of Ziya Gökalp," Economy and Society 24 (1995): 189-224.
29. Ahmet Kuyaş, "Yeni Osmanlιlar'dan 1930'lara Anti-Emperyalist Düşünce" ("Anti-Imperialist Thought from the Era of Young Ottomans to the 1930s"), in Modern Türkiye'de Siyasi Düşünce, vol. 2, Kemalizm,ed. Ahmet İnsel (Istanbul: İletişim Yayιnlarι, 2004), 249.
30. Lilo Linke, Allah Dethroned; A Journey through Modern Turkey (New York: Knopf, 1937).
31. Niyazi Berkes, Türk Düşüncesinde Batι Sorunu (The Question of the West in Turkish Thought) (Ankara: Bilgi Yayιnevi, 1975).
32. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Atatürk'ün Söylev ve Demeçleri II (Speeches of Atatürk II) (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1957), 207-12.
33. Mehmet Akif left Turkey and lived in Egypt as an exile. Other prominent late-Ottoman-era Islamists remained in Turkey but lived lives of internal exile by withdrawing from active political engagement. This attitude has best been described in Rasim Özdenören's novel Gül Yetiştiren Adam (The Rose Gardener), a metaphor for how Islamist scholars and intellectuals withdrew from public life to their homes, partly to avoid being in public with a compulsory Western-style hat and partly because of their conviction that the radical secular attack on religion could only be temporary in a society that for centuries had identified with Islamic identity.
34. Kara, Türkiye'de İslamcιlιk Düşüncesi 1, 401-516.
35. Ertan Aydin, "Peculiarities of Turkish Revolutionary Ideology in the 1930s: The Ülkü Version of Kemalism, 1933-1936," Middle Eastern Studies 40 (2004): 55-82.
36. Burhanettin Duran, "Cumhuriyet Dönemi İslamcιlιǧι: ideolojik Konumlarι, Dönüşümü ve Evreleri" ("Republican-Era Islamist Thought: Its ideological Positions, Transformations, and Stages"), in Modern Türkiye'de Siyasi Düşünce, vol. 6, İslamcιlιk (Islamism), ed. Yasin Aktay (Istanbul: İletisişim Yayιnlarι, 2004), 135-44.
37. For a succinct account of the roles of Topçu and Kιsakürek in nationalizing Islamism, see Gökhan Çetinsaya, "İslamcιlιktaki Milliyetçilik" ("Nationalism in Islamist Thought"), in Aktay, Modern Türkiye'de Siyasi Düsünce, 6:437-47.
38. Şekip Tunç completed his PhD in Switzerland at the Rousseau Institute before World War I. According to Nazim İrem, he advocated the "other West," a nonrationalist, nonpositivist Western model, through references to Bergson, Henry Poincaré, Emile Boutreaux, and Maine de Biran. Şekip Tunç translated the European revolt against the liberal civilizationism and eighteenth-century Enlightenment-French revolutionary model into an ideology of conservative Kemalism. He influenced Peyami Sefa, Ismail Hakki Baltacιoǧlu, and other conservative Kemalists. Nazim irem, "Undercurrents of European Modernity and the Foundations of Modern Turkish Conservatism: Bergsonism in Retrospect," Middle Eastern Studies 40 (2004): 79-112.
39. See also Nazim irem, "Turkish Conservative Modernism: Birth of a Nationalist Quest for Cultural Renewal," International Journal for Middle Eastern Studies 34 (2002): 87-112.
40. Necip Fazil Kisakürek, Doǧru Yolun Sapιk Kollarι (Deviant Followers of the True Path) (Istanbul: Büyük Doǧu Yayιnlarι, 1996).
41. For a comprehensive assessment of the translation activities and their impact on Islamist thought in Turkey, see Yücel Bulut, "İslamcιlιk, Tercüme Faaliyetlerι, Yerlilik" ("Islamism, Translation Activities, and Nativism"), in Aktay, Modern Türkiye'de Siyasi Düşünce, 6:903-26.
42. Their post-World War II Islamism as a project of reviving the lost civilization and offering it as an alternative to the decadent Western civilization seemed a belated formulation compared with its Asian counterparts. For example, Rabindranath Tagore or Okakura Tenshin formulated this discourse much earlier. In that sense, postwar Turkish Islamism reproduced arguments very similar to interwar-era cultural Asianism. For an analysis of the civilizationist paradigm in islamist thought, see Duran, "Cumhuriyet Dönemi islamcιlιǧι," 144-54.
43. For the civilizational paradigm in Pan-Asianism, see Stephen N. Hay, Asian Ideas of East and West: Tagore and His Critics in Japan, China, and India (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970).
44. Among Toynbee's writings, A Study of History became the most influential in Turkey. Toynbee interpreted world history as a comparative study of various civilizations (he counted more than twenty of them) and argued that Islamic civilization was one of the last surviving civilizations in a globalized era dominated by Western civilization. For the Turkish translations of Toynbee's works influential in the development of post-World War II civilizational thinking, see Arnold J. Toynbee, Dünya ve Garp (The World and the West) (Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankasι Kültür Yayιnlarι, 1952);
45. Tarih Üzerine: İki Konferans (Civilization on Trial) (Istanbul: Fakülteler Matbaasι, 1962);
46. Tarih Bilinci (A Study of History) (Istanbul: Bateş Yayιnlarι, 1978).
47. Mehmet Doǧan, Batιlιlaşma İhaneti (Istanbul: Dergah Yayιnlarι, 1975).
48. Christoph Neumann, Araç Tarih Amaç Tanzimat: Tarih-i Cevdet'in Siyasi Anlamι (History as a Tool and Tanzimat as a Goal: The Political Meaning of Tarih-i Cevdet) (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfι Yurt Yayιnlarι, 2000).
49. Diriliş (Revival) became the name for the publication house and political party led by Karakoç. For the meanings of civilizational revival according to Karakoç, see Sezai Karakoç, İslamιn Dirilişi (Revival of Islam (Istanbul: Ötüken Yayιnlarι, 1967).
50. Ismet Özel, Üç Mesele: Teknik, Medeniyet, Yabancιlaşma (Three Issues: Technology, Civilization, Alienation) (Istanbul: Düşünce Yayιnlarι, 1978).
51. Özel clearly emphasized his own distinction from the mainstream majority Islamist thought and politics in Turkey in his interviews with the Turkish newspaper Zaman in 2003. See Nuriye Akman, "İsmet Özel'le Röportaj" ("An Interview with İsmet Özel"), Zaman, 14-17 September 2003.
52. Nearly all the writings of both Shariati and Nasr were translated into Turkish. For example, a Web site dedicated to Shariati cites about sixty books and speeches by Shariati translated into Turkish; www.shariati.com/ translat.html. These two Iranian-origin Muslim thinkers had tremendous influence on Turkey's Islamist thought.
53. Karl Popper's The Poverty of Historicism was translated into Turkish by an Islamist publisher. See Karl R. Popper, Tarihselciliǧin Sefaleti, trans. Sabri Orman (Istanbul: Insan Yayιnlarι, 1985).
54. Thomas Kuhn, Bilimsel Devrimlerin Yapιsι (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions), trans. Nilufer Kuyaş (Istanbul: Alan Yayιncιlιk, 1982).
55. See the author's special preface for the Turkish translation in Paul Feyerabend, Yönteme Hayιr, (Against the Method), trans. Ahmet İnam (Istanbul: Ara Yayιncιlιk, 1989).
56. Rudolf Bahro, Nasιl sosyalizm? Hangi Yeşil? Ne İçin Sanayi? (What Kind of Socialism? Which Green? Industry for What?), trans. Tanil Bora (Istanbul: Ayrιntι Yayιnlarι, 1989);
57. Ivan Illich, Tüketim Köleliǧi (Slavery of Consumption), trans. Mesut Karaşahan (Istanbul: Pιnar Yayιnlarι, 1990);
58. Herbert Marcuse, Tek Boyutlu İnsan: İleri Endüstriyel Toplumun İdeolojisi Üzerinde İnceleme (One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society), trans. Seçkin Çaǧan (Istanbul: May Yayιnlarι, 1968);
59. Fritjof Capra, Batι Düşüncesinde Dönüm Noktasι (Transformative Points in Western Thought), trans. Mustafa Armaǧan (Istanbul: İnsan Yayιnlarι, 1989).
60. Haldun Gülalp, "Globalizing Postmodernism: Islamist and Western Social Theory," Economy and Society 26 (1997): 419-33.
61. Binnaz Toprak, "Islamist Intellectuals: Revolt against Industry and Technology," in Turkey and the West: Changing Political and Cultural Identities, ed. M. Heper, A. Öncü, and H. Kramer (New York: I. B. Tauris, 1993), 237-57;
62. Michael Meeker, "The New Muslim Intellectuals in the Republic of Turkey," in Islam in Modern Turkey, ed. Richard Tapper (London: I. B. Tauris, 1991), 189-219.
63. See Sibel Bozdoǧan and Reşat Kasaba, eds., Re-thinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997).
64. Nilüfer Göle, "Authoritarian Secularism and Islamist Politics: The Case of Turkey," in Civil Society in the Middle East, ed. Augustus Richard Norton (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), 2:17-43;
65. Elisabeth Özdalga, The Veiling Issue: Official Secularism and Popular Islam in Modern Turkey (Richmond, UK: Curzon, 1998).
66. See "Grand Chamber Judgment in the Case of Refah Partisi (the Welfare Party) and Others v. Turkey," press release, www.echr.coe.int/Eng/Press/2003/feb/RefahPartisiGCjudgmenteng.htm (accessed 16 December 2005). The same court also found no violation of human rights in the Turkish government's ban on wearing the headscarf in educational institutions.
67. Turkey and Spain are currently two main sponsors of the United Nations-backed Alliance of Civilizations project. See "Secretary General Announces Composition of High-Level Group for Alliance of Civilizations," UN Secretary General, 2 September 2005, www.un.org/ News/Press/docs/2005/sgsm10073.doc.htm.
68. Reconciliation and harmony of civilizations became the key words for the two high-level international gatherings of European Union and Organization of Islamic Conference countries in order to foster dialogue between the Islamic world and Europe. See the OIC-EU Foreign Ministers Joint Forum Web site, www.oic-eujointforum.org.tr/.
69. Bulaç wrote several best sellers for the Islamist reading public, including his assessment of modern European ideologies and world systems as a background to underline how Islam can be an alternative. See Ali Bulaç, Çaǧdaş Kavramlar ve Düzenler (Modern Ideological Concepts and Orders) (Istanbul: Pinar Yayιnlarι, 1992).
70. Neşe Özel, "Ali Bulaç ile Röportaj" ("Interview with Ali Bulaç"), Milliyet, 15 April 2005.
71. Nuh Yilmaz, "İslamcιlιk, AKP, Siyaset" ("Islamism, JDP, and Politics"), in Aktay, Modern Türkiye'de Siyasi Düşünce, 6:604-19;
72. Cemaleddin Haşimi, "Batιcιlιk, Avrupa Merkezcilik ve Türkiye" ("Westernism, Eurocentrism, and Turkey"), Yarιn 3 (2005):20-21.
73. Nuh Yilmaz, "İslamcι Nihilizm:Evropa Fetişizminin Soykütüǧü" ("Islamic Nihilism: Genealogy of Euro-Fetishism"), Yarιn (December 2004), www.yarindergisi.com/yarindergisi2/yazilar.php?id=506.
74. The Habermas-Derrida manifesto on European agency against U.S. unilateralism was criticized for its neglect of Europe's Muslim question and its anachronistic Eurocentrism. See Ibrahim Kalin and Hasan Kösebalaban, "Avrupa'nιn Kimlik Arayιsι ya da Dünya Tarihine Karşι Avrupa Tarihi" ("European Search for an Identity or European History versus World History"), Yarιn (October 2003), www.yarindergisi.com/ yarindergisi2/yazilar.php?id=328.
75. Bernard Lewis, Modern Türkiye'nin Doǧuşu (The Emergency of Modern Turkey), trans. Metin Kiratli (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1970).
76. Aydιn is an expert in the philosophy of religion and Kantian ethics. Mehmet S. Aydin, Kant'ta ve Çaǧdaş İngiliz Felsefesinde Tanrι-Ahlak İlişkisi (God-Ethics Relationship in Kant and Contemporary British Philosophy) (Ankara: Umran Yayιnlarι, 1981).