Daniel Pipes
National Review Online
10 June '10
Posted before Shabbat
Blame the European Union: U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says that if Turkey is, as he delicately puts it, “moving eastward,” this resulted “in no small part because it was pushed, and pushed by some in Europe refusing to give Turkey the kind of organic link to the West that Turkey sought.”
Blame Islam: A reader of mine argues that the Atatürk revolution, now nearly 90 years old, “had all the ingredients of success (Westernization, modernity, secularism, democracy, economic growth) — and these were not imposed from without, but came organically from within. That the Atatürkist experiment is rapidly failing points to the futility of trying to modernize Islam.”
I reject these explanations (Turkey hardly met Western snubs; and its turn to Islamism is a solitary case, not proof of anything about Islam). Instead, I offer a third explanation:
Blame the accidents of history: (1) Turkish regulations require that a party receive a minimum of 10 percent of the votes cast to enter parliament. (2) The secular political elite in the 1990s fractured into many small parties whose self-absorbed leaders refused to join forces.
Keep these two factors in mind, then look at the results of the decisive 2002 elections and weep:
(Read full post)
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Blame the European Union: U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says that if Turkey is, as he delicately puts it, “moving eastward,” this resulted “in no small part because it was pushed, and pushed by some in Europe refusing to give Turkey the kind of organic link to the West that Turkey sought.”
Blame Islam: A reader of mine argues that the Atatürk revolution, now nearly 90 years old, “had all the ingredients of success (Westernization, modernity, secularism, democracy, economic growth) — and these were not imposed from without, but came organically from within. That the Atatürkist experiment is rapidly failing points to the futility of trying to modernize Islam.”
I reject these explanations (Turkey hardly met Western snubs; and its turn to Islamism is a solitary case, not proof of anything about Islam). Instead, I offer a third explanation:
Blame the accidents of history: (1) Turkish regulations require that a party receive a minimum of 10 percent of the votes cast to enter parliament. (2) The secular political elite in the 1990s fractured into many small parties whose self-absorbed leaders refused to join forces.
Keep these two factors in mind, then look at the results of the decisive 2002 elections and weep:
(Read full post)
If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.
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