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THE ANATOLIANS ARE COMING
Hurriyet Daily News
Oct 5 2011
Turkey
If you want to get an idea of how much Turkish civil society
has flourished recently, just visit this address on your browser:
www.anatolianfestival.org. It is the website of the "Anatolian Cultures
and Food Festival" that will be held this upcoming weekend in Costa
Mesa, California. Probably the largest nongovernmental "Turkish event"
so far in the United States, it is quite impressive. In a huge area
expected to be visited by tens of thousands, icons of Turkish culture
will be displayed via impressive installations, concerts, conferences
and eateries.
I emphasized the civil society aspect of this big event, for it
is organized by none other than the "Hizmet" (Service) movement,
which is inspired by the teachings of Fethullah Gulen, Turkey's most
influential spiritual leader. As the promoter of an interpretation
of Islam that is theologically conservative, politically moderate
and culturally tolerant, the Gulen Movement, as it is also sometimes
called, has become gradually global since the early 1990s and has
opened hundreds of schools and other institutions around the world.
I know that the very concept of a "Muslim movement" is toxic to some
ears these days, as any inspiration from Islam is supposed to be
inherently authoritarian, intolerant and even violent. But the Gulen
Movement seems to be the perfect antidote to that misperception. Their
thought excludes the calls for an "Islamic state" and rather seeks
religious freedom under the secular state. Their works focus on not
challenging the West, Israel, or other "infidels," but rather raising
pious individuals who are hoped to be exemplary figures for Islam. And
they look at other religions not as enemies, but as different shades
of the same truth.
Some of the talks scheduled in the Anatolian Festival underline this
ecumenical vision of the Gulen Movement. One of the titles reads
"Cultural Legacy of Armenians in Anatolia and in the Ottoman Empire."
Another one is about "The Scriptural Foundations of Muslim-Jewish
Dialogue and Coexistence in Muslim and Jewish Sacred Texts." I, too,
will give two talks there on the weekend about "the exceptional story
of Turkish Islam" as a part of my three-week-long book tour in the
United States.
This inclusion of the Armenian and Jewish cultures in the "Anatolian"
concept is worth pondering, for it tells something about the cultural
codes of some of the makers of "New Turkey" and how they differ from
the codes of "old" (i.e., Kemalist) Turkey.
In fact, the term "Anatolian" was used as a derogatory term by
the Kemalists for decades. They regarded themselves as enlightened
urbanites, whereas they saw the Anatolians as parochial masses kept
ignorant by religion.
However, the "modernity" of the Kemalists was defined by a zealous
Turkish nationalism, which rested on a nasty history of Turkey's
"Turkification." The ethnic cleansing of the Ottoman Armenians
by the secular Young Turks, Ataturk's "population exchange" with
Greece and the military's forceful assimilation of the Kurds were
all manifestations of the same monist paradigm.
The Anatolia-based conservatives were partly influenced by this
century-long paradigm, too. But their very cultural conservatism
helped them preserve some "Ottoman" values and helped them grow
more respectful to the non-Turkish cultures of Turkey, ranging from
Armenians to Greeks, or from Jews to Kurds. (That can't be said for the
whole Islamist movement, unfortunately, for their political reaction
to Israel misleads some of them to anti-Semitism.)
That is why those who believe in pluralism should welcome the coming
of the Ottoman-minded "Anatolians" - and I mean not just to the
Los Angeles area this weekend, but also to the Turkish Republic of
this century.
NOTE: I will be off for the next two weeks. Hope to "see" you again
on Oct. 22.
Hurriyet Daily News
Oct 5 2011
Turkey
If you want to get an idea of how much Turkish civil society
has flourished recently, just visit this address on your browser:
www.anatolianfestival.org. It is the website of the "Anatolian Cultures
and Food Festival" that will be held this upcoming weekend in Costa
Mesa, California. Probably the largest nongovernmental "Turkish event"
so far in the United States, it is quite impressive. In a huge area
expected to be visited by tens of thousands, icons of Turkish culture
will be displayed via impressive installations, concerts, conferences
and eateries.
I emphasized the civil society aspect of this big event, for it
is organized by none other than the "Hizmet" (Service) movement,
which is inspired by the teachings of Fethullah Gulen, Turkey's most
influential spiritual leader. As the promoter of an interpretation
of Islam that is theologically conservative, politically moderate
and culturally tolerant, the Gulen Movement, as it is also sometimes
called, has become gradually global since the early 1990s and has
opened hundreds of schools and other institutions around the world.
I know that the very concept of a "Muslim movement" is toxic to some
ears these days, as any inspiration from Islam is supposed to be
inherently authoritarian, intolerant and even violent. But the Gulen
Movement seems to be the perfect antidote to that misperception. Their
thought excludes the calls for an "Islamic state" and rather seeks
religious freedom under the secular state. Their works focus on not
challenging the West, Israel, or other "infidels," but rather raising
pious individuals who are hoped to be exemplary figures for Islam. And
they look at other religions not as enemies, but as different shades
of the same truth.
Some of the talks scheduled in the Anatolian Festival underline this
ecumenical vision of the Gulen Movement. One of the titles reads
"Cultural Legacy of Armenians in Anatolia and in the Ottoman Empire."
Another one is about "The Scriptural Foundations of Muslim-Jewish
Dialogue and Coexistence in Muslim and Jewish Sacred Texts." I, too,
will give two talks there on the weekend about "the exceptional story
of Turkish Islam" as a part of my three-week-long book tour in the
United States.
This inclusion of the Armenian and Jewish cultures in the "Anatolian"
concept is worth pondering, for it tells something about the cultural
codes of some of the makers of "New Turkey" and how they differ from
the codes of "old" (i.e., Kemalist) Turkey.
In fact, the term "Anatolian" was used as a derogatory term by
the Kemalists for decades. They regarded themselves as enlightened
urbanites, whereas they saw the Anatolians as parochial masses kept
ignorant by religion.
However, the "modernity" of the Kemalists was defined by a zealous
Turkish nationalism, which rested on a nasty history of Turkey's
"Turkification." The ethnic cleansing of the Ottoman Armenians
by the secular Young Turks, Ataturk's "population exchange" with
Greece and the military's forceful assimilation of the Kurds were
all manifestations of the same monist paradigm.
The Anatolia-based conservatives were partly influenced by this
century-long paradigm, too. But their very cultural conservatism
helped them preserve some "Ottoman" values and helped them grow
more respectful to the non-Turkish cultures of Turkey, ranging from
Armenians to Greeks, or from Jews to Kurds. (That can't be said for the
whole Islamist movement, unfortunately, for their political reaction
to Israel misleads some of them to anti-Semitism.)
That is why those who believe in pluralism should welcome the coming
of the Ottoman-minded "Anatolians" - and I mean not just to the
Los Angeles area this weekend, but also to the Turkish Republic of
this century.
NOTE: I will be off for the next two weeks. Hope to "see" you again
on Oct. 22.