Recently in The Gash of Civilizations Category

Further to my friend Joshua Trevino's previous essay on religious tolerance in Turkey, there's a related piece in the Washington Times which also provides more detail on how state secularism is driving Christian faiths to extinction and suppressing Islamic identity - provoking an Islamist backlash. Also worth reading is another essay by Josh which compares Turkey to Malaysia. I think Turkey is schizophrenic in a fundamental way regarding its identity, which is why it merits so much analysis. We Talk Turkey (ahem) quite a bit over at Talk Islam for precisely that reason.

This is a guest post by my friend Joshua Treviño.

The American relationship with religion in public life is not as simple as the phrase "separation of church and state" implies. The American concept of liberty is deeply rooted in the explicit search for a religious liberty, and even the religiously heterodox John Adams remarked that only a moral people could govern itself under our Constitution. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that even as religion played no formal role in American governance, it was nonetheless the "first institution" of our politics. It is an oversimplification, but nonetheless true, to state that American religious life suffuses and undergirds our civic life and institutions -- and that those institutions become swiftly malign without them.

In the Turkish Republic, all this is turned on its head. Faith that is the "first institution" of the state in de Tocqueville's concept is the first cause of its demise in Ataturk's concept. This conviction yields a contradictory regime of nationalist self-negation that cannot endure.

There is no need to recount in detail the roots of the Turkish Republic. The state was born in blood, at the end of a long century of trauma for the Ottoman state. That empire began its long decline with the 1699 peace of Passarowitz, but it was the Greek revolt of 1821 that truly began the dismemberment of the once-great Turkish imperium. That history is typically taught -- and was contemporaneously perceived -- as a series of revolutions by oppressed Christian peoples. This is true, but not the whole story: as Greece, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Bosnia-Hercegovina, et al., threw off Ottoman rule, the millions of Turks in Europe suffered their own epic of massacre, resistance, and exile. The untold story of the end of the Ottoman Empire is the end of a Balkan Islam, of which the present-day Muslim Bosniacs and Albanians are only a remnant.

The contraction of the Ottoman frontiers, and the concurrent influx of millions of Muslim refugees from Europe, forced a steady reevaluation of Turkish identity. Ataturk's biographer Andrew Mango neatly summarizes the process, through the 19th century, by which Turkish self-conception narrowed along with the empire's borders. What began as a sense of allegiance to the Ottoman regime became a sense of Muslim solidarity, which became a sense of explicitly Turkish nationalism that Ataturk was able to mobilize and win with by 1923. Unlike the Ottoman Empire, which did not win a major war unaided for roughly two hundred years, Ataturk was able to take the very core of that old empire -- its Turkish Anatolian heartland -- and fend off several major powers plus a full-scale Greek invasion.

This is the historical glory of Turkish nationalism, and also the root of its religious dysfunction. The Turkish nationalism that Ataturk invoked was a reaction to the Muslim nationalism of the late Ottoman era. Turkish nationalism is ethnic, though not racial, and it appeals to the identity of Turks-qua-Turks. But what defines a Turk? A typical nationalism of this period defines its group with some mixture of descent, culture, language, and faith. Turkish nationalism in Kemalist thought, albeit containing some reflexes toward "real" Turkish descent from steppe nomads, reduces this to language -- and overriding all else, faith.

It is instructive here to consider the fate of the Karamanli people, formerly of central Anatolia. If the Ottoman experience produced in Europe a fusion of Slavic ethnicity and Muslim faith, it also produced the reverse in Asia Minor: the Karamanli, a Turkish ethnicity professing Orthodox Christianity. This people, indistinguishable from fellow Turks by anything but faith, existed as one of Anatolia's patchwork of peoples until the disaster of 1923. In that year, with the "exchange" of populations between Greece and Turkey, Ataturk's victorious regime seized the opportunity to finalize the expulsion of non-Turks from the new republic. Out went the Greeks, ending their several thousand years of habitance -- and out went the Karamanli too, no doubt surprised to learn that speaking Turkish and hewing to Turkish custom was insufficient to make one a Turk.

It is therefore Islam, in historical experience and present reality, that serves as the foundational prerequisite for Turkish identity in the eyes of the Turkish Republic. This is a problem in itself, as it renders the situation of the few remaining religious minorities in Turkey exceedingly precarious -- but it is doubly problematic in that though Kemalist ideology holds Islamic faith to be fundamental to its nationalism, it also fears and despises Islam. The legacy of Ataturk, which expelled religiosity from the public square and subjected the clerisy to total state control, is alive and present now -- and the rise of the Islamist AK party (which I wrote about in National Review in 2007) has not significantly altered this. One does see more Muslim women in scarfs and even the occasional abaya these days, but the basic belief of Turkish republicanism remains: left to its own devices, Islam and Muslims will destroy progress and modern society.

This is where thoughtless American conservatives cheer: "of course, that's precisely what Islam and Muslims will do if not controlled by a benevolent and powerful state, and bravo to the Turks for realizing it". Leave aside the contradiction of the general Christianity of this group, and the ending of Christianity in Turkey that the ideology they applaud produces. Leave aside, too, the bizarre and unsustainable contradiction of a nationalism that simultaneously identifies and rejects the founding characteristic of its nation. Focus, instead, on the simple demands of liberty.

The argument undergirding the Turkish Republic is that freedom must be quelled to preserve it. Strange as it is, it's an argument that finds great currency in the Muslim world -- see, for just one example, the tyranny in Egypt -- and it's an argument that we Americans must reject. Without being naive about Islamists, who too often feel about liberty as Communists do about democracy -- that is, a mere means to power -- we must understand that freedom is not easily divisible. In Turkey, the means of suppressing Islam also serve as the means for extinguishing the Orthodox Christians' Ecumenical Patriarchate. The result in the long term is tragedy, as minorities disappear forever -- and horror, as ordinary faith in the public square is channeled into murderous fanaticism in private.

Joshua Treviño is an Orthodox Christian. He is also an accomplished blogger and founder of Treviño Strategies and Media. This is his second sojourn in Istanbul, Turkey.

Last night, Katie Couric interviewed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on CBS. I think this could have been a good thing, but ultimately was totally meaningless. Couric is not a seasoned interviewer like Barbara Walters, in terms of getting the "big fish", and I think she knows this, and tried to overcompensate by challenging Ahmadinejad on the issues in a dramatic, but ultimately less informative, way. For example, she brandished a photo of the dead Iranian girl Neda, shot through the heart by a Basij thug, to try and evoke a reaction, but Ahmadinejad was prepared and had a photo of his own:

Couric: During and after the presidential election, Mr. President, thousands of opposition supporters and journalists were arrested, badly beaten and tortured. Arrested, badly beaten and tortured. One woman - 27 year old Neda as you know, was shot to death while protesting. Her death was captured on a cell phone camera. Here is a shot of that cell phone picture which I'm sure you've seen.

Admadinejad: Correct.

Couric: What would you say to her family?

Ahmadinejad: We are - very sorry that one of our fellow citizens has been killed. As a victim of an - agitation of circumstance. An agitation that was carried out with the support of some American politicians, the voice of America, and the BBC.

Couric: Do you really think so little of your citizens that they can be manipulated and brainwashed by Americans and the UK?

Ahmadinejad: No. That is not what I'm saying. But I do say that some agitations from outside were there. I mean, there are plenty of documents pointing to that. Regrettably, one of our citizens lost her life--

The president then produced a photograph of an Egyptian woman - Marwa el-Sherbini - who was brutally murdered inside a German courtroom while taking part in a trial over the right to wear a hijab - or headscarf. He suggested that the western media - who turned Neda into a martyr - ignored Marwa's story.

Ahmadinejad: American politicians do not want American people to see what goes on around the world.

Couric was simply outmatched here. Given a chance to challenge Ahmadinejad on the existence and role of the Basij, on the fact of Iranian youth taking up such universal cause against him, of the rooftop azaans which imbued the protests with their own Islamic legitimacy, how other candidates like Karroubi were crushed even in their home districts, and on and on, she instead went for the emotional confrontation. Ahmadinejad's response was essentially true; there was indeed no coverage of Marwa el Sherbini's death by the mainstream media, only via blogs like Talk Islam and Religion Dispatches. The really disasteful thing about this was that both Couric and Ahmadinejad were invoking dead women to try and score cheap points against the other instead of making any meaningful comment about the political realities and environment that led to their deaths.

Likewise, Couric attempted to challenge Ahmadinejad on his Holocaust denialist statements, in the past and more recently. Here is the exchange, once again focusing on an emotional attack:

Couric: You have consistently denied the Holocaust happened. You have called it a lie. And I'm just curious, I have some photos - dead bodies from a German concentration camp taken by the associated press. Mr. President is this photo fabricated, is this photo a lie?

Ahmadinejad: There are many historical events, similar historical events. Why is this one in particular so important to you?

Couric: Because you're denying it happened.

Ahmadinejad: But in World War II, 60 million people were killed. Why are we just focusing on this special group alone?

We're sorry for all the 60 million people that lost their lives, equally. All of them were human beings. And it doesn't matter whether they were Christians or Jews or Buddhists or Muslims. They were killed. So, we're sorry for everyone.

The obvious follow-up - "so, Mr. President, do you acknowledge that among the 60 million people who died in World War II, 6 million Jews were also killed?" went unasked. Again, Ahmadinejad's response - though an evasion - was essentially valid. In his earlier interview with the Associated Press, Ahmadinejad sounded a similar theme:

"With regards to the question of Jewish people and their sentiments I have to say that in our opinion their issue is different than the issue of Zionism. Zionism is a political party. But the Jewish people, like many other people, follow a divine prophet. I fundamentally raise two questions regarding the Holocaust, and I can ask them here again from you. I think that if you attempt to answer my question we might move a step forward in answering the question. The first question is that assuming the Holocaust did happen, where did it exactly happen and who were the perpetrators? The second question is how exactly does that connect to the Palestinian issue?"

When told the Holocaust was perpetrated in Europe by Adolf Hitler and a group of his compatriots:

"So I would like to know how then does that this relate to the Palestinians, and the Palestinian issue. If this indeed happened in Europe by the hands of European governments, why exactly should the Palestinian people pay for it?"

When asked if he agrees the Holocaust occurred:

"In my opinion it is not the first part of the question that matters but really the result of that question. The first half relates to history. The second part relates to contemporary world affairs. ... In your opinion if something has occurred in Europe by the hands of European governments can we seek remedy for it in other lands and territories? Is it the Palestinian people that should be compensating for the act through becoming displaced and why? Or through the occupation of their lands, and why? Or through the mass murder of these people, and why? Through genocide of these people, and why? These are some clear-cut questions that we have too.

"We are opposed to the killing of people wherever. As a fundamental rule we are opposed to the killings that occurred during World War II, wherever. We know that over 60 million people were killed in the course of the Second World War. Each and every one of them were human beings. And their lives were, are respectful, no matter whether they are Muslims or Jews or Christians. Really, it doesn't make a difference..."

"...From where I stand, I wasn't there 60 years ago, we weren't there, but we are here now and we can do something about it. We are alive now. And what we see are Palestinians being killed. So I think today it is our task to stop that. ... If the Holocaust is being used as a pretext to kill the Palestinian people, then inevitably it's also necessary to discuss the Holocaust...."

At least here he was indeed asked directly if the Holocaust occurred, and canny as he is, he didn't deny it, but didn't acknowledge it either. The problem here is that the Holocaust is not the real issue. The real issue is Iran's nuclear ambitions and whether those are a threat to Israel. I humbly suggest that Ahmadinjad's precious concern for the Palestinians is convenient to him; a serious inteviewer (of the type Ahmadinejad has yet to encounter) would have met his assertion that the Holocaust and the Palestinian struggle should be separate issues, agreed with him, and then pointed out that the Palestinian struggle and the Iranian regime's regional ambitions are equally separate issues. By invoking Palestine - an Arab nationalist movement - Ahmadinejad is basically trying to change the subject away from the Iranian hegemonic agenda. He should have been challenged on that, and forced onto the record not just about whether he believes the Holocaust occurred but whether he believes that the Nation of Israel should be "forced into the sea" or "vanish from the pages of time" (depending on translation).

The only real value in an interview with Ahmadinejad - especially with the opportunity afforded by the United Nations, whose approval and legitimacy he needs on the world stage - would be if he can be asked direct questions about what he has allegedly said and followed up on what he actually thinks. This photo-gotcha stuff is a waste of time, though we couldn't expect much else from Couric. As a result, Ahmadinejad was able to put a reasonable and critical face forward on American national TV - even though his actual audience was the global one.

Here is the video of the interview, courtesy of CBS - part 1:

and part 2:

Related: Discussion of the Ahmadinejad interview at Talk Islam.

President Obama has issued a Ramadan Message, on behalf of his Administrration and the American people, to muslims worldwide. The video and transcript follow. Also at the White House blog, the Ramadan Message is available, translated into a number of languages spoken by muslims around the world. This is a great example of outreach by the President to the muslim community and explicitly draws on many of the themes in his Cairo speech.

Remarks of President Barack Obama
Ramadan Message
Washington, DC

On behalf of the American people - including Muslim communities in all fifty states - I want to extend best wishes to Muslims in America and around the world. Ramadan Kareem.

Ramadan is the month in which Muslims believe the Koran was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, beginning with a simple word - iqra. It is therefore a time when Muslims reflect upon the wisdom and guidance that comes with faith, and the responsibility that human beings have to one another, and to God.

Like many people of different faiths who have known Ramadan through our communities and families, I know this to be a festive time - a time when families gather, friends host iftars, and meals are shared. But I also know that Ramadan is a time of intense devotion and reflection - a time when Muslims fast during the day and perform tarawih prayers at night, reciting and listening to the entire Koran over the course of the month.

These rituals remind us of the principles that we hold in common, and Islam's role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings.

For instance, fasting is a concept shared by many faiths - including my own Christian faith - as a way to bring people closer to God, and to those among us who cannot take their next meal for granted. And the support that Muslims provide to others recalls our responsibility to advance opportunity and prosperity for people everywhere. For all of us must remember that the world we want to build - and the changes that we want to make - must begin in our own hearts, and our own communities.

This summer, people across America have served in their communities - educating children, caring for the sick, and extending a hand to those who have fallen on hard times. Faith-based organizations, including many Islamic organizations, have been at the forefront in participating in this summer of service. And in these challenging times, this is a spirit of responsibility that we must sustain in the months and years to come.

Beyond America's borders, we are also committed to keeping our responsibility to build a world that is more peaceful and secure. That is why we are responsibly ending the war in Iraq. That is why we are isolating violent extremists while empowering the people in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is why we are unyielding in our support for a two-state solution that recognizes the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security. And that is why America will always stand for the universal rights of all people to speak their mind, practice their religion, contribute fully to society and have confidence in the rule of law.

All of these efforts are a part of America's commitment to engage Muslims and Muslim-majority nations on the basis of mutual interest and mutual respect. And at this time of renewal, I want to reiterate my commitment to a new beginning between America and Muslims around the world.

As I said in Cairo, this new beginning must be borne out in a sustained effort to listen to each other, to learn from each other, to respect one another, and to seek common ground. I believe an important part of this is listening, and in the last two months, American embassies around the world have reached out not just to governments, but directly to people in Muslim-majority countries. From around the world, we have received an outpouring of feedback about how America can be a partner on behalf of peoples' aspirations.

We have listened. We have heard you. And like you, we are focused on pursuing concrete actions that will make a difference over time - both in terms of the political and security issues that I have discussed, and in the areas that you have told us will make the most difference in peoples' lives.

These consultations are helping us implement the partnerships that I called for in Cairo - to expand education exchange programs; to foster entrepreneurship and create jobs; and to increase collaboration on science and technology, while supporting literacy and vocational learning. We are also moving forward in partnering with the OIC and OIC member states to eradicate polio, while working closely with the international community to confront common health challenges like H1N1 - which I know is of particular to concern to many Muslims preparing for the upcoming hajj.

All of these efforts are aimed at advancing our common aspirations - to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. It will take time and patient effort. We cannot change things over night, but we can honestly resolve to do what must be done, while setting off in a new direction - toward the destination that we seek for ourselves, and for our children. That is the journey that we must travel together.

I look forward to continuing this critically important dialogue and turning it into action. And today, I want to join with the 1.5 billion Muslims around the world - and your families and friends - in welcoming the beginning of Ramadan, and wishing you a blessed month. May God's peace be upon you.

One of the pet projects of the Islamophobe industry is to issue dire warnings about how the tide of muslims in Europe is rising and threatening to wipe out European culture. There have been numerous factual rebuttals to this propaganda, but few have gotten wide exposure beyond the blogsphere. That is why i am glad to see this piece in Newsweek, which points out the hypocrisy of Eurabia being a call to defend "western values" when the idea itself is hostile to everything the West nominally stands for:

[T]he rise of a Eurabia is predicated on limited and dubious evidence. A much-cited 2004 study from the U.S. National Intelligence Council outlines a number of possible scenarios. Its most aggressive is that the number of Muslims in Europe could increase from roughly 20 million today-about 5 percent of the population-to 38 million by 2025. But that projection turns out to be attributed to "diplomatic and media reporting as well as government, academic, and other sources." In other words, it's all speculation based on speculation-and even if it's accurate, it would still mean the number of Muslims will represent just 8 percent of the European population, estimated by the EU to be 470 million in 2025. Indeed, if there is a surge ahead, its scale looks overstated. "There is a quite deliberate exaggeration, as has often been pointed out-but the figures are still being cited," says Jytte Klausen, an authority on Islam in Europe at Boston's Brandeis University.

Coming up with a reasonable estimate for the percentage of Muslims now living in Europe, let alone making projections for the future, is a virtually impossible task. The number of illegal immigrants is unknown and, in a sign of the sensitivity of the issue, many countries including France and Germany do not even tally census data on the religion of legal residents. It is true that the Muslim minority is destined to grow steadily in Europe, especially given the youthful profile of today's immigrants. Fertility rates remain higher among Muslim immigrants than among other Europeans, and Muslims may continue to arrive in Europe in large numbers. But the alarmists assume that past patterns are sure to hold. "The worst of the scaremongering is based on the assumption that current behavior will continue," says Grace Davie, an expert on Europe and Islam at the University of Exeter in Britain.

For the number of Muslims to outnumber non-Muslims by midcentury, it would require either breeding on a scale rarely seen in history or for immigration to continue at a pace that's now politically unacceptable. More likely, new controls will slow Muslim immigration. The birthrate for Muslim immigrants is also likely to continue to decline, as it has tended to do, with greater affluence and better health care. There is no Europewide data available, but one study says fertility rates among Turkish-born women in the Netherlands fell from 3.2 in 1990 to 1.9 in 2005, barely above the figure for native-born Dutch. Over the same period, the equivalent figure for Moroccan-born women in the Netherlands dropped from 4.9 to 2.9. Also, fertility rates are edging upward in some Northern European countries, which would offset some of the Muslim growth. Bottom line: given the number of variables, demographers are loath to make predictions about the number of Muslims in Europe in the years to come. "You would almost have to make it up," says Carl Haub, the senior demographer at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington. And the idea of a Muslim majority any time soon? "Absolutely absurd."

The terrible thing about Eurabia however is not that it's simply wrong, but that it's as insidious as the blood libel against the Jews, in that it fosters and amplifies ethnic and religious hatred against all muslims by lumping them together with single, diabolical intent. Eurabia shares much with the hoary old canard about "Jew York City", in that it hinges on a fundamental racism at its core:

Racism is, then, a critical element--perhaps a dominant concept--relative to these concepts. If European Muslims or New York City Jews are inherently subversive, undermining legitimate decisionmaking processes in political and social life, how can anyone who belongs to either category be allowed to participate at all? Eurabia and Jew York City are, at their roots, concepts which demand the ghettoization of the groups from which they take their names, their exclusion from any non-subordinate role. These terms' use is a good marker for some sort of highly exclusionary racism.

No one denies that there are extremist muslims in Europe, but the vast majority of muslims (that is, a tiny minority of Europeans overall) are not out to impose Shari'a on their neighbours' daughter. And just as anti-Semitism drives violence against synagogues and Jews themselves, the wages of Eurabia are violence against mosques and muslims:

A BRAVE caretaker was hurt as he risked his life to save a mosque torched by arsonists in the second petrol bomb attack in a week.

Mohamed Koheeallee, 62, raced to tackle 7ft flames at the Greenwich Islamic Centre in Plumstead Road at 12.15am on Tuesday.

Grabbing a bucket of water, he extinguished the fire as it spread inside but when he opened a fire exit, he was engulfed by flames burning his arm and his face.

Choking with smoke inhalation and despite his injuries, he carried on dousing the fire until the mosque was safe but when he tried to tackle the source of the blaze he was pushed back by its intensity.

Cause and effect, just as with the Obsession DVD and subsequent attack on the mosque in Ohio. Increasingly, muslims are the new Jews, in Europe. Given that anti-semitism in the muslim world is largely a European export, this makes for some interesting ironies.

Related: Muslims are Orcs. Also see Randy MacDonald's definitive, data-driven debunking of Eurabia along with Scott Martens' followup. Also I've written numerous times on Eurabia myself at the previous site.

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InnaLillahi Wa inna Ilahi Raji'unHamid Tehrani at Global Voices Online brings the tragic news that a jailed Iranian blogger, Omid Reza Misayafi, has died. It seems that he may have committed suicide. Apart from the personal tragedy his family must...

My apologies to my few remaining readers for my delayed absence - I was in the Bay Area from thursday morning until late last night and have rather enjoyed the hiatus from my electronic overlords. My email inboxes have certainly...

What happens when a Domino's pizza decides to serve to all-halal menu? The end of Western civilization, of course: Chris Yates, 29, a hospital worker living in Moseley, Birmingham, said he was told he couldn't have a 'Meteor' pizza, topped...

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