The nominalism of the international perception of what is good and right is truly dreadful. The use of the burqa
As a correspondent, I sought to understand the entity that was Turkey and if it was ready to enter into Europe as it requested.
seems like a human right to the Council of Europe. It seems indispensable to American liberals, including President Obama, to build a mosque at Ground Zero. It appears almost essential to include among the figures of moderate Islam a man like Tarik Ramadan, who is clearly intent on building a universal caliphate. Now the time has come to praise the results of the Turkish referendum as destined to guide into Europe by hand the country of Kemal Atatürk, and it is the EU, in fact, which is totally committed to applauding this victory.
Too bad though, that you can say the recent Turkish referendum that just concluded marks the end of Kemalism and a welcome institutionally, not to a more secular and democratic Turkey, but to advanced Edoganism.
Years ago, as a correspondent, I sought to understand the entity that was Turkey and if it was ready to enter into Europe as it requested: I met the best of the Turkish bourgeoisie in a long trip throughout the country, professionals, educated and elegant, refined women. But once I returned to Istanbul during “the day of the Korban,” the sacrifice of sheep, lambs and cows in the streets of the city, I found a spectacle that was in extreme contrast to what I had seen until that day, which completely perplexed me. Ancient Islam occupied and dyed in red its squares and mosques, invading the camp of modernization.
The articles of the Constitution that were removed with the referendum are those that allowed the military and the judiciary to have an unusual power in a democracy. But unusual too was the Ottoman Empire’s past, its extraordinary sense of itself, and the great revolution that Atatürk carried on, sustaining on the edges of the impossible a society that had abolished Arabic script, head coverings, gender discrimination and the sound of the muezzin. Turkey did it – it succeeded in keeping its pro-Western secularism with an effort that has often been characterized by acts of arrogance and by violations of human rights.
Was this bad? Of course it inflicted suffering, but the attitude of the military and the courts was not blurred by personal interests - electoral or economic.
Against secular power has emerged the perennial winner Erdogan. There is no doubt that his rallying cry has been Islam, the accusations and the arrests of the military, the adoption of a Middle East policy that lately led him to vote against sanctions on Iran. His anti-Israel rhetoric has reached and promoted frightening heights in the country. The United States has blocked the appointment of Francis Ricciardone as Ambassador to Ankara because he was considered "too soft to deal with the current government".
Capable in economic policy, Turkey has promoted mass meetings and signed agreements with the worst dictators in the Middle East. Syrian President Bashar Assad proposed just yesterday to celebrate the victory of his ally and called upon Turkey to resume its role of mediator with Israel. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met in mid-July with Hamas leader Khaled Mashal; the Turkish leardship sympathy for Ahmadinejad is not a secret. And it's recent news that Turkish intelligence and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards may have signed an agreement to assist Hizbullah in receiving arms.
The anti-Israel attitude, which culminated in the events of the flotilla to Gaza, has been an instrument of fantastic popular propaganda for Erdogan: more than his policy of modernization, which still must be evaluated, there have been his shouts against Israeli President Shimon Peres in Davos and the film on state television in which Israeli soldiers kill innocent Palestinian children - these deeds have returned a sense of belonging to militant Islam, the perception of being at the center of a world that in these years has suffered under the liberal and secular heel.
It is difficult therefore, even though it’s nice to hope, to imagine that this victory will bring Turkey into Europe, rather than into the orbit of the new strategic hub inspired by Tehran.
* translation from Il Giornale by Amy K. Rosenthal at author's request