Good article. A few minor points - James Tucker of course, mentions that Ataturk was in many respects 'anti-woke' in that he was a Turkish nationalist; so his language reforms need to be seen in that light. As I mentioned below, there is a tension between the nationalist right and the religious right, which will need to be ironed out. I'd also add that although he failed to save the empire, preventing the complete dissolution of Turkey into the rump of Anatolia was a major achievement, given what befell other collapsing empires. It's also looking into the Tanzimat reforms, because they were largely a failure, and it's important to know why. Finally, Islamism itself as a broader movement is receding and it's vital to consider why that is, for our own project, if/when we get that far. Arguably it's due to problems inherent to both Islam and the middle east, but it's worth a deep dive at some point.
Nice, I hadn't realised before but Erdoğan converting the Hagia Sofia back to a mosque has a close parallel with Modi inaugurating the Ram Mandir temple on the site of the Babri Masjid.
I've skimmed this and your own narrative contradicts itself. Kemalists are oikophobes, yet also responsible for ethnically cleansing the country of non-Turks? It is a bizarre woke elite that hates the masses of their own country and yet creates a new standard language based on their speech. The Latinisation of the script could hardly have alienated Turks from their own heritage as hardly any of them were literate before, and the language reform focused on Turkifying the vocabulary. It brought Turks into connection with an ancient heritage that the Ottoman preference for Arabic and Persian loanwords had suppressed. This was not some radical break with the past but a continuation of the nationally-minded reforms of the Young Turks, without the restraints imposed on them by Ottoman unionism.
As for issues of identity and immigration, Erdoğan is far more multicultural and pan-Islamist than his Kemalist opponents. He has flooded the country with Arab refugees. In the last election Kılıçdaroğlu ran on an anti-immigration platform.
I think this is an interesting point, but I don't think it contradicts John, so much as it touches on a tension within 'anti-wokenness' which is between the nationalist right and the religious right. Ataturk was 'anti-woke' in terms of being a Turkish nationalist, but he was 'woke' in that he was a social liberal. Meanwhile, Islam is, like Christianity, universalist even if it is also socially conservative. I don't think this has to be an insurmountable tension however, so long as we each choose to respectfully prioritise different things and not tread on each others' toes if we can avoid it.
Good article. A few minor points - James Tucker of course, mentions that Ataturk was in many respects 'anti-woke' in that he was a Turkish nationalist; so his language reforms need to be seen in that light. As I mentioned below, there is a tension between the nationalist right and the religious right, which will need to be ironed out. I'd also add that although he failed to save the empire, preventing the complete dissolution of Turkey into the rump of Anatolia was a major achievement, given what befell other collapsing empires. It's also looking into the Tanzimat reforms, because they were largely a failure, and it's important to know why. Finally, Islamism itself as a broader movement is receding and it's vital to consider why that is, for our own project, if/when we get that far. Arguably it's due to problems inherent to both Islam and the middle east, but it's worth a deep dive at some point.
Nice, I hadn't realised before but Erdoğan converting the Hagia Sofia back to a mosque has a close parallel with Modi inaugurating the Ram Mandir temple on the site of the Babri Masjid.
I've skimmed this and your own narrative contradicts itself. Kemalists are oikophobes, yet also responsible for ethnically cleansing the country of non-Turks? It is a bizarre woke elite that hates the masses of their own country and yet creates a new standard language based on their speech. The Latinisation of the script could hardly have alienated Turks from their own heritage as hardly any of them were literate before, and the language reform focused on Turkifying the vocabulary. It brought Turks into connection with an ancient heritage that the Ottoman preference for Arabic and Persian loanwords had suppressed. This was not some radical break with the past but a continuation of the nationally-minded reforms of the Young Turks, without the restraints imposed on them by Ottoman unionism.
As for issues of identity and immigration, Erdoğan is far more multicultural and pan-Islamist than his Kemalist opponents. He has flooded the country with Arab refugees. In the last election Kılıçdaroğlu ran on an anti-immigration platform.
I think this is an interesting point, but I don't think it contradicts John, so much as it touches on a tension within 'anti-wokenness' which is between the nationalist right and the religious right. Ataturk was 'anti-woke' in terms of being a Turkish nationalist, but he was 'woke' in that he was a social liberal. Meanwhile, Islam is, like Christianity, universalist even if it is also socially conservative. I don't think this has to be an insurmountable tension however, so long as we each choose to respectfully prioritise different things and not tread on each others' toes if we can avoid it.