Sufiforum.com

2009'da başlayan SUFİFORUM'da İslam; İslam Tasavvuf Geleneği ile ilgili her türlü güncel ya da 'eskimez' konular yer almaktadır. İçerik yenilemeleri tasavvuf.name sitesinden sürdürülmektedir. ALLAH YÂR OLSUN.

Giriş |  Kayıt




Yeni başlık gönder Başlığa cevap ver  [ 4 mesaj ] 
Yazar Mesaj
 Mesaj Başlığı: 'İslamofaşizm' Tartışması
MesajGönderilme zamanı: 10.06.13, 13:31 #mesajın linki (?)
Çevrimdışı
Kullanıcı avatarı

Kayıt: 05.03.09, 09:49
Mesajlar: 311
What Is 'Islamofascism'?
A history of the word from the first Westerner to use it.

STEPHEN SCHWARTZ

AUG 17, 2006

"Islamic fascists"--used by President George W. Bush for the conspirators in the alleged trans-Atlantic airline bombing plot--and references by other prominent figures to "Islamofascism," have been met by protests from Muslims who say the term is an insult to their religion. The meaning and origin of the concept, as well as the legitimacy of complaints about it, have become relevant--perhaps urgently so.

I admit to a lack of modesty or neutrality about this discussion, since I was, as I will explain, the first Westerner to use the neologism in this context.

In my analysis, as originally put in print directly after the horror of September 11, 2001, Islamofascism refers to use of the faith of Islam as a cover for totalitarian ideology. This radical phenomenon is embodied among Sunni Muslims today by such fundamentalists as the Saudi-financed Wahhabis, the Pakistani jihadists known as Jama'atis, and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In the ranks of Shia Muslims, it is exemplified by Hezbollah in Lebanon and the clique around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran.

Political typologies should make distinctions, rather than confusing them, and Islamofascism is neither a loose nor an improvised concept. It should be employed sparingly and precisely. The indicated movements should be treated as Islamofascist, first, because of their congruence with the defining characteristics of classic fascism, especially in its most historically-significant form--German National Socialism.



Fascism is distinguished from the broader category of extreme right-wing politics by its willingness to defy public civility and openly violate the law. As such it represents a radical departure from the tradition of ultra-conservatism. The latter aims to preserve established social relations, through enforcement of law and reinforcement of authority. But the fascist organizations of Mussolini and Hitler, in their conquests of power, showed no reluctance to rupture peace and repudiate parliamentary and other institutions; the fascists employed terror against both the existing political structure and society at large. It is a common misconception of political science to believe, in the manner of amateur Marxists, that Italian fascists and Nazis sought maintenance of order, to protect the ruling classes. Both Mussolini and Hitler agitated against "the system" governing their countries. Their willingness to resort to street violence, assassinations, and coups set the Italian and German fascists apart from ordinary defenders of ruling elites, which they sought to replace. This is an important point that should never be forgotten. Fascism is not merely a harsh dictatorship or oppression by privilege.

Islamofascism similarly pursues its aims through the willful, arbitrary, and gratuitous disruption of global society, either by terrorist conspiracies or by violation of peace between states. Al Qaeda has recourse to the former weapon; Hezbollah, in assaulting northern Israel, used the latter. These are not acts of protest, but calculated strategies for political advantage through undiluted violence. Hezbollah showed fascist methods both in its kidnapping of Israeli soldiers and in initiating that action without any consideration for the Lebanese government of which it was a member. Indeed, Lebanese democracy is a greater enemy of Hezbollah than Israel.

Fascism rested, from the economic perspective, on resentful middle classes, frustrated in their aspirations and anxious about loss of their position. The Italian middle class was insecure in its social status; the German middle class was completely devastated by the defeat of the country in the First World War. Both became irrational with rage at their economic difficulties; this passionate and uncontrolled fury was channeled and exploited by the acolytes of Mussolini and Hitler. Al Qaeda is based in sections of the Saudi, Pakistani, and Egyptian middle classes fearful, in the Saudi case, of losing their unstable hold on prosperity--in Pakistan and Egypt, they are angry at the many obstacles, in state and society, to their ambitions. The constituency of Hezbollah is similar: the growing Lebanese Shia middle class, which believes itself to be the victim of discrimination.

Fascism was imperialistic; it demanded expansion of the German and Italian spheres of influence. Islamofascism has similar ambitions; the Wahhabis and their Pakistani and Egyptian counterparts seek control over all Sunni Muslims in the world, while Hezbollah projects itself as an ally of Syria and Iran in establishing regional dominance.



Fascism was totalitarian; i.e. it fostered a totalistic world view--a distinct social reality that separated its followers from normal society. Islamofascism parallels fascism by imposing a strict division between Muslims and alleged unbelievers. For Sunni radicals, the practice of takfir--declaring all Muslims who do not adhere to the doctrines of the Wahhabis, Pakistani Jama'atis, and the Muslim Brotherhood to be outside the Islamic global community or ummah--is one expression of Islamofascism. For Hezbollah, the posture of total rejectionism in Lebanese politics--opposing all politicians who might favor any political negotiation with Israel--serves the same purpose. Takfir, or "excommunication" of ordinary Muslims, as well as Hezbollah's Shia radicalism, are also important as indispensable, unifying psychological tools for the strengthening of such movements.

Fascism was paramilitary; indeed, the Italian and German military elites were reluctant to accept the fascist parties' ideological monopoly. Al Qaeda and Hezbollah are both paramilitary.

I do not believe these characteristics are intrinsic to any element of the faith of Islam. Islamofascism is a distortion of Islam, exactly as Italian and German fascism represented perversions of respectable patriotism in those countries. Nobody argues today that Nazism possessed historical legitimacy as an expression of German nationalism; only Nazis would make such claims, to defend themselves. Similarly, Wahhabis and their allies argue that their doctrines are "just Islam." But German culture existed for centuries, and exists today, without submitting to Nazi values; Islam created a world-spanning civilization, surviving in a healthy condition in many countries today, without Wahhabism or political Shiism, both of which are less than 500 years old.



But what of those primitive Muslims who declare that "Islamofascism" is a slur? The Washington Post of August 14 quoted a speaker at a pro-Hezbollah demonstration in Washington, as follows: "'Mr. Bush: Stop calling Islam "Islamic fascism,' said Esam Omesh, president of the Muslim American Society, prompting a massive roar from the crowd. He said there is no such thing, 'just as there is no such thing as Christian fascism.'"

These curious comments may be parsed in various ways. Since President Bush used the term "Islamic fascists" to refer to a terrorist conspiracy, did Mr. Omesh (whose Muslim American Society is controlled by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood) intend to accept the equation of Islam with said terrorism, merely rejecting the political terminology he dislikes? Probably not. But Mr. Omesh's claim that "there is no such thing as Christian fascism" is evidence of profound historical ignorance. Leading analysts of fascism saw its Italian and German forms as foreshadowed by the Ku Klux Klan in the U.S. and the Russian counter-revolutionary mass movement known as the Black Hundreds. Both movements were based in Christian extremism, symbolized by burning crosses in America and pogroms against Jews under the tsars.

The fascist Iron Guard in Romania during the interwar period and in the second world war was explicitly Christian--its official title was the "Legion of the Archangel Michael;" Christian fascism also exists in the form of Ulster Protestant terrorism, and was visible in the (Catholic) Blue Shirt movement active in the Irish Free State during the 1920s and 1930s. Both the Iron Guard and the Blue Shirts attracted noted intellectuals; the cultural theorist Mircea Eliade in the first case, the poet W.B Yeats in the second. Many similar cases could be cited. It is also significant that Mr. Omesh did not deny the existence of "Jewish fascism"--doubtless because in his milieu, the term is commonly directed against Israel. Israel is not a fascist state, although some marginal, ultra-extremist Jewish groups could be so described.

I will conclude with a summary of a more obscure debate over the term, which is symptomatic of many forms of confusion in American life today. I noted at the beginning of this text that I am neither modest nor neutral on this topic. I developed the concept of Islamofascism after receiving an e-mail in June 2000 from a Bangladeshi Sufi Muslim living in America, titled "The Wahhabis: Fascism in Religious Garb!" I then resided in Kosovo. I put the term in print in The Spectator of London, on September 22, 2001. I was soon credited with it by Andrew Sullivan in his Daily Dish, and after it was attributed to Christopher Hitchens, the latter also acknowledged me as the earliest user of it. While working in Bosnia-Hercegovina more recently, I participated in a public discussion in which the Pakistani Muslim philosopher Fazlur Rahman (1919-88), who taught for years at the University of Chicago (not to be confused with the Pakistani radical Fazlur Rehman), was cited as referring to "Islamic fascists."



If such concerns seem absurdly self-interested, it is also interesting to observe how Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, dealt with the formulation of Islamofascism as an analytical tool. After a long and demeaning colloquy between me and a Wikipedian who commented negatively on an early book of mine while admitting that he had never even seen a copy of it, Wikipedia (referring to it collectively, as its members prefer) decided it to ascribe it to another historian of Islam, Malise Ruthven. But Ruthven, in 1990, used the term to refer to all authoritarian governments in Muslim countries, from Morocco to Pakistan.

I do not care much, these days, about Wikipedia and its misapprehensions, or obsess over acknowledgements of my work. But Malise Ruthven was and would remain wrong to believe that authoritarianism and fascism are the same. To emphasize, fascism is something different, and much worse, than simple dictatorship, however cruel the latter may be. That is a lesson that should have been learned 70 years ago, when German Nazism demonstrated that it was a feral and genocidal aberration in modern European history, not merely another form of oppressive rightist rule, or a particularly wild variety of colonialism.

Similarly, the violence wreaked by al Qaeda and Hezbollah, and by Saddam Hussein before them, has been different from other expressions of reactionary Arabism, simple Islamist ideology, or violent corruption in the post-colonial world. Between democracy, civilized values, and normal religion on one side, and Islamofascism on the other, there can be no compromise; as I have written before, it is a struggle to the death. President Bush is right to say "young democracies are fragile . . . this may be [the Islamofascists'] last and best opportunity to stop freedom's advance." As with the Nazis, nothing short of a victory for democracy can assure the world's security.


Başa Dön
 Profil Özel mesaj gönder  
 
 Mesaj Başlığı: Re: 'Islamofascism'
MesajGönderilme zamanı: 10.06.13, 13:32 #mesajın linki (?)
Çevrimdışı
Kullanıcı avatarı

Kayıt: 05.03.09, 09:49
Mesajlar: 311
"At War with Islamic Fascists"

by Daniel Pipes

FrontPageMagazine.com

August 14, 2006

http://www.danielpipes.org/3848/at-war- ... c-fascists

In his first response to the major terror airline scare in London, President Bush said on Aug. 10 that "The recent arrests that our fellow citizens are now learning about are a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation."

His use of the term "Islamic fascists" spurred attention and controversy, especially among Islamists.

At a pro-Hizbullah rally in front of the White House, on Aug. 12, the crowd (in the Washington Post's description) "grew most agitated when speakers denounced President Bush's references to Islam." In particular, the president of the Muslim American Society, Esam Omeish, won a massive roar of approval when he (deliberately?) mischaracterized the president's statement: "Mr. Bush: Stop calling Islam ‘Islamic fascism.'"

Nihad Awad (left) and Parvez Ahmed

Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called the term "ill-advised" and "counter-productive," repeating CAIR's usual conceit that violence in the name of Islam has, in fact, nothing to do with Islam. Even more preposterously, Awad went on to suggest that we "take advantage of these incidents to make sure that we do not start a religious war against Islam and Muslims."

CAIR's board chairman, Parvez Ahmed, sent an open letter to President Bush: "You have on many occasions said Islam is a ‘religion of peace.' Today you equated the religion of peace with the ugliness of fascism." Actually, Bush did not do that (he equated just one form of "the religion of peace" with fascism), but Ahmed inadvertently pointed to the evolution in the president's – and the country's – thinking away from bromides to real thinking.

Edina Lekovic from the Muslim Public Affairs Council repeated the MPAC argument of the need to cultivate Islamists for counterterrorism: "When the people we need most in the fight against terrorism, American Muslims, feel alienated by the president's characterization of these supposed terrorists, that does more damage than good." (Supposed terrorists?) Her case, however, has recently been undercut by the example of Mubin Shaikh and the Toronto 17, in which an Islamist informer has been widely shunned by fellow Muslims. Lekovic did, however, make a valid semantic point: "It would have been far more accurate had he linked the situation to a segment of people rather than an entire faith, along the lines of, say, radical Muslim fascists."

The Muslim Association of Britain announced that it "condemns" Bush's wording and worries that such comments "gives yet another excuse for the targeting of the Muslim minority by extreme right-wing forces in the West." This fear is disingenuous, given how few anti-Muslim incidents do take place in the West, compared to the number of Muslim attacks on Westerners.

There are also rumblings of a more aggressive Muslim response. "Some hypermarkets in Riyadh," reports the Arab News, "had already withdrawn American products from their shelves in response to the US' anti-Islam campaign." Will this incident lead to a further separation of civilizations?

Comments:

(1) This is hardly the first time Bush has used the term Islamic fascist (or Islamofascist); it has become a part of his routine vocabulary since his path-breaking speech on this subject in October 2005, a speech that, oddly, was dismissed by the mainstream media as a retread, while this glancing reference is treated as major news. (Newsweek calls it a "rhetorical bomb.") Go figure.

(2) What was new on Aug. 10 was his formulation that the United States is "at war with Islamic fascists." That was more direct and forceful than anything prior.

(3) Islamic fascist and Islamofascist are more used than ever before, as can be confirmed by a search for those words in my weblog entry, "Calling Islamism the Enemy." Notably, Senator Rick Santorum gave a powerful speech on July 20 in which he 29 times used the term fascist or fascism with reference to Islam. MSNBC and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution have both suggested that Santorum's use of this term accounted for its adaptation by the White House.

(4) Protests from Islamists notwithstanding, Bush has indicated that he plans to continue using this term. His spokesman, Tony Snow, explained in an e-mail interview with the Cox newspaper chain that Bush has gradually shifted from the "war on terrorism" to "war with Islamic fascists." With this new specificity, Snow continues, Bush "tries to identify the ideology that motivates many organized terrorist groups. He also tries to make it clear that the label does not apply to all or most Muslims, but to the tiny factions," such as Al-Qaeda.

(5) It appears that Islamist protests have been counterproductive, managing the negative double play of bringing more attention to the term and irritating the White House.

(6) I applaud the increasing willingness to focus on some form of Islam as the enemy but find the word fascist misleading in this context. Few historic or philosophic connections exist between fascism and radical Islam. Fascism glorifies the state, emphasizes racial "purity," promotes social Darwinism, denigrates reason, exalts the will, and rejects organized religion – all outlooks anathema to Islamists.

In contrast, Radical Islam has many more ties, both historic and philosophic, to Marxism-Leninism. While studying for his doctorate in Paris, Ali Shariati, the key intellectual behind the turn to Islam in Iran in the 1970s, translated Franz Fanon, Che Guevara, and Jean-Paul Sartre into Persian. More broadly, quoting the Iranian analyst Azar Nafisi, radical Islam "takes its language, goals, and aspirations as much from the crassest forms of Marxism as it does from religion. Its leaders are as influenced by Lenin, Sartre, Stalin, and Fanon as they are by the Prophet." During the cold war, Islamists preferred the Soviet Union to the United States; today, they have more and deeper connections to the hard left than to the hard right.

(7) Nonetheless, some voices gamely argue for the accuracy of "Islamic fascists." After himself using the term on television, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff justified it by noting that bin Laden has talked about restoring the Caliphate, the empire that existed in the southern Mediterranean centuries ago. That is nothing—it‘s deranged, but essentially it is a vision of a totalitarian empire with him leading under some kind of perverted conception of religion. That comes very close to satisfying my definition of fascism. It might not be classic fascism that you had with Mussolini or Hitler, but it is a totalitarian intolerance—imperialism that has a vision that is totally at odds with Western society and our freedoms and rule of law.

The Washington Times also endorsed the term in an editorial titled "It's Fascism."

Fascism is a chauvinistic political philosophy that exalts a group over the individual—usually a race or nation, but in this case the adherents of a religion. Fascism also espouses centralized autocratic rule by that group in suppression of others. It usually advocates severe economic and social regimentation and the total or near-total subordination of the individual to the political leadership. This accurately describes the philosophies of Hitler, Mussolini, the leaders of Imperial Japan and other fascistic regimes through history. It also describes Thursday's terrorists. It very accurately describes the philosophy of al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and many other stripes of Islamism around the world.

(8) The use of Islamic fascists should be seen as part of a decades-long search for the right term to name a form of Islam that is recognizably political, extreme, and often violent. I have already confessed in that I am on my fifth term (having previously used neo-orthodox, fundamentalist, and militant, and now using radical and Islamist). While Islamic fascists beats terrorists, let's hope that a better consensus term soon emerges. My vote is for Islamists.


Başa Dön
 Profil Özel mesaj gönder  
 
 Mesaj Başlığı: Re: 'Islamofascism'
MesajGönderilme zamanı: 11.06.13, 13:11 #mesajın linki (?)
Çevrimdışı
Kullanıcı avatarı

Kayıt: 05.03.09, 09:49
Mesajlar: 311
‘İslamofaşist’ Yaygarası Nereden Çıktı?

Mustafa Akyol


Tarih: March 20th, 2006

[20 Mart 2006 tarihli Referans gazetesinde yayınlandı]

Geçen hafta Washington Times gazetesinde yayımlanan “Türkiye’de İslamofaşist bir darbe mi geliyor?” temalı yazı, haliyle, Türkiye’de ses getirdi. Referans gazetesi de bu yazıyı tercüme ederek sütunlarına taşıdı. Frank J. Gaffney imzalı yazıda, AKP iktidarının Türkiye’yi bir “İslami darbe”ye doğru götürdüğü, Orgeneral Büyükanıt hakkındaki iddianamenin bunun bir parçası olduğu gibi mesnedsiz iddialara dayalı uçuk bir tez savunuluyordu.

Bu teşhisin Türkiye’nin ve AKP’nin gerçeğini yansıtmadığını izaha bile gerek görmüyorum. Ama başka bir şeyleri izah etmekte yarar var.


İlk baştan şunu belirteyim: Aslında bu pek de önemli bir yazı değil. Washington Times, Washington Post veya New York Times kadar etkili bir gazete değildir. Frank J. Gaffney de öyle kayda değer bir yorumcu sayılmaz. Bu makalenin Washington’daki genel havayı yansıttığını düşünmek büyük bir yanılgı olur.

Ama bu makalenin ardındaki zihniyeti hiç önemsememek de başka bir yanılgı olur. Özellikle hükümetin ve AKP çevresinin “nedir bu İslamofaşizm yaygarasının aslı” diye düşünmesinde fayda var.

Çıkış Yeri Türkiye

Bu düşünceye katkıda bulunmak için, epeydir kulağıma gelen bir gerçeği belirteyim: Frank J. Gaffney’nin makalesinde dile getirdiği, daha önce de yine ABD’deki bazı yorumcular tarafından ileri sürülen “AKP Türkiye’yi gizlice otoriter bir İslamcı rejime hazırlıyor” şeklindeki komplo tezinin çıkış yeri, sanıldığının aksine Washington değil; Ankara ve İstanbul!.. Gazetecilik deyimiyle, bu, “Türkiye mahreçli” bir komplo teorisi…

AKP iktidara geldiğinden beridir, bu partiye ideolojik nedenlerle düşman olan bir kısım çevreler, Washington’daki düşünce kuruluşlarını, gazeteleri, dergilerin kapısını aşındırıp “aman sakın bunlara kanmayın, Taliban’dan farkları yok, devleti ele geçirip sonra gerçek yüzlerini gösterecekler” diye telkinde bulunuyor.

Aynı çevreler, sadece AKP’ye değil, ABD’de “Türk İslamı” olarak ilgi toplayan dini hareketlere karşı da “aman bunlara kanmayın, Usame Bin Ladin’den daha tehlikeliler” diye propaganda savaşı yürütüyorlar.

ABD’de İslam’a karşı zaten önyargılı ve hatta düşmanca yaklaşan bazı kalemler var. Ama böyle olmayanlar bile, sözkonusu “militan pozitivist Türk propagandacılar”dan etkileniyor. Çoğu Amerikalı için Türkiye 6000 mil ötede bilinmeyen bir ülke. Türkiye’deki kavramların gerçek anlamından bihaberler. Örneğin İmam-Hatip okullarını Pakistan’ın ücra köşelerindeki medreseler gibi zannedenler var. Türkiye’den ağzı laf yapan birileri de gidip bunlara “dincilerin eğitim yuvaları olan İmam Hatipler Türkiye’yi sardı, İslamcılar bu okullarda militan yetiştirip devlete sızdırıyor” deyince, buna inanıyorlar.

Kısacası “İslamofaşizm” söyleminin içinde önemli rolü bulunan “İslamofobi” (İslam korkusu), sadece Batı’dan doğuya doğru akan bir “Ortanyalizm” değil. Doğu’nun kendi içindeki “kendi kültüründen edenlerin” üretip Batı’ya pompaladığı bir “İslamofobi” de var. Dahası bu “yerli malı İslamofobi”, Batı’dakinden daha şiddetli. Batı’da “İslamcı tehlike” diyenlerin kast ettiği silahlı militanlar; Türkiye’dekilerin kastı ise başörtülü üniversite öğrencileri… Amerika’da İslami tarikatlar, örneğin Nakşibendiler, siyasi radikalizm yerine ibadet ve zikre odaklı oldukları için, saygı ve takdir görüyorlar; Türkiye’de ise “tarikatçılık” adeta bir hakaret ifadesi…

Yerli Malı İslamofobi

Sözkonusu “yerli malı İslamfobi”nin dış dünyada uyandırdığı yankılar karışında AKP’nin bir şeyler yapması iyi olur. Doğru anlaşılmaya ve dolayısıyla kendilerini daha etkili anlatmaya ihtiyaçları var. AKP’lilerin, söyledikleri sözlerin Batı’da nasıl anlaşılacağını da hesaplamaları gerekiyor.

Bu ise sadece AKP için gerekli partizan bir siyaset değil. AKP hükümeti şu an Türkiye’yi AB sürecinde ilerlettiği, daha fazla demokrasi, özgürlük ve serbest piyasaya taşıdığı için, hükümetin doğru tanınmaması, tüm Türkiye için önemli. Hükümetin kuşkusuz hataları var ve bunların eleştirilmesi gerek, ama onun “İslamofaşist” diye karalanması, Türkiye’yi yeniden Milli Birlik Komiteleri’nin veya post-modern darbelerin demir yumruğu altına almak isteyen Jakoben bir azınlıktan başka hiç kimsenin işine yaramaz.

http://www.mustafaakyol.org/dogu-bati-m ... den-cikti/


Başa Dön
 Profil Özel mesaj gönder  
 
 Mesaj Başlığı: The Fight for Turkey
MesajGönderilme zamanı: 11.06.13, 16:46 #mesajın linki (?)
Çevrimdışı
Kullanıcı avatarı

Kayıt: 05.03.09, 09:49
Mesajlar: 311
The Fight for Turkey

ROGER COHEN

Published: June 23, 2008
ISTANBUL


Let’s talk Turkey. A war is on for the country’s soul and everyone should be watching because the little matter of Islam and democracy depends in large measure on its outcome.

Turkey was not made for Bushworld. The polarizing labels of his Manichean global struggle — us-or-them, good-or evil, for-us-or-against-us — do not work for a nation of nuances, Muslim but not Islamist, religious in culture but secular in construct, of the Occident and the Orient, bordering the West’s cradle in Greece and its crucible in Iraq.

Here, in this bridging country, a NATO member long served the diet of mild bigotry that has held it not quite European enough for the European Union, a struggle has been engaged. It pits proud secularists against pious Muslims in a battle to establish the contours of state and mosque.

The West should not be impatient, or complacent, in contemplating this fight. Hundreds of years, countless wars and myriad dead were required before church and state elaborated the legal architecture of their separation. Islam is the youngest of the world’s major religions. Its accommodation to modernity is a virulent work in progress.

Nowhere more so than in Turkey, a conservative country fast-forwarded to Westward-looking secularism in the 1920s by the founder-hero of the modern republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and now grappling with the place in that republic of an ascendant political Islam.

I like this fight. It has its crude, misleading labels — the “secular fascists” of the Kemalist establishment in one corner against the “Islamofascists” of the ruling Justice and Development (AKP) party in the other — but it is open and vigorous. The crisis of Islam could use a broader dose of Turkish give-and-take.

The latest round came this month when Turkey’s highest court rebuffed Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the AKP leader and an observant Muslim with an Islamist past, on a matter of high symbolism.

It ruled that Erdogan’s legislation, passed in February, allowing women attending state universities to wear head scarves in observance of their Muslim beliefs violated secular principles enshrined in the Constitution.

My reaction to this is twofold. First, women of college age should be allowed to wear what they like in accordance with their personal convictions. In that sense the court’s ruling is unacceptable.

Second, the secular foundations of modern Turkey have been essential to creating this most permissive of Muslim societies; they should not be compromised without a fight, especially in a Middle Eastern environment where democracy is rare and Islamism potent. In this perspective, the court’s ruling is a salutary challenge to the AKP to keep proving its liberal credentials.

On balance, I side with the court. I’m confident that in the medium-term, Turkish women will win the right to wear headscarves wherever. I’m less confident that the creeping Islamization fostered by the AKP is accompanied by an unshakeable commitment to secular democracy, as Erdogan insists.

Let the party pay its dues, if necessary in repeated confrontations with the court. Turkey is a laboratory of a moderate Muslim democracy; do not rush the experiment. It’s easier to don a veil than remove it. Reversibility is not Islam’s forte.

Erdogan and the AKP are popular in Washington and Europe, while the military-judicial secular establishment has not had this hard a time since Ataturk. But in high posts in education, the health department and elsewhere in public service, Islamic credentials that pass muster with the AKP are increasingly a sine qua non.

Subtle changes in mores have accompanied this shift in power, where getting the right job or right husband can involve new demonstrations of piousness. Head scarves are more common. Advertisements aimed at women have been photoshopped by newspapers to lengthen sleeves and skirts for conservative Muslim sentiment. The head-to-foot swimsuit known as a “hasema” is making its appearance on Turkish beaches.

I don’t believe Shariah law is coming to Turkey or the AKP has Iran in mind. Islamofascists they are not. But nor do I believe the party is without its strains of radicalism at odds with the nation Ataturk forged.

The same court will rule soon on a case that would ban Erdogan and 70 other party members from politics on the grounds they are dismantling secularism. In that the party won 47 percent of the vote last year, such a ruling would fly in the face of democracy.

The court should refrain from the ban. But I’m glad the threat of it exists. And if it came, I’m sure a successor to Erdogan, and perhaps the AKP, would quickly emerge.

The fight for Turkey’s soul is not about to abate: it’s salutary as long as it remains open. The West should do all it can to safeguard that openness — and that may involve an occasional dose of “secular fascism.”

Only activated users can see links.




* * *







AK Parti islamofaşist mi?

24 Haziran 2008 Salı 10:25


Bir tarafta laik faşistler, diğer tarafta islamofaşistler... Yorum New York Times'a ait. Peki kim bu islamofaşistler?


New York Times’ın önemli yazarlarından Roger Cohen dünkü köşe yazısında Türkiye’deki son siyasi tartışmaları değerlendirdi. Yazar "Türkiye'de bir tarafta 'laik faşistler' diğer tarafta 'islamofaşist'ler var" dedi. Türbanı takmanın çıkarmaktan daha kolay olduğuna dikkat çeken yazar, AK Parti'nin islamofaşist olduğuna inanmıyor.

New York Times’ın önemli yazarlarından Roger Cohen, dün köşesinde “Türkiye için Mücadele” başlıklı yazısından satırbaşları şöyle:

DEVLET VE CAMİNİN SINIRLARI İÇİN SAVAŞ

Gelin bugün Türkiye’yi konuşalım. Türkiye’de ülkenin ruhu için bir savaş yaşanıyor ve herkes bunu yakından izlemeli. Çünkü İslam ve demokrasinin yan yana var olabilmesi büyük ölçüde bunun sonucuna bağlı. Uzun süredir NATO üyesi olan ve sürekli Avrupa Birliği için yeterince Avrupalı olup olmadığı tartışmaları bağnazlık şeklinde yapılan köprü niteliğindeki bu ülkede gururlu laikler ile dindar Müslümanlar arasında bir savaş yaşanıyor. Savaşın amacı ise devlet ve caminin sınırlarını belirlemek...

TÜRKİYE'DEN UYGUN ÜLKE OLAMAZ
Batı dünyası bu kavga konusunda sabırsız olmamalı. Türkiye’den başka hiçbir yer siyasal İslam’ın Cumhuriyet içindeki yeri konusundaki tartışmalar için daha uygun olamaz. Türkiye hem muhafazakar hem de modern cumhuriyetin kurucusu kahraman Mustafa Kemal Atatürk tarafından batıya dönük laikliğin “hızlı çekim” getirildiği bir ülke.

LAİK FAŞİST VE İSLAMOFAŞİSTLER

Bu mücadeleyi seviyorum. Bir tarafta “laik faşist” Kemalistler olduğu söyleniyor, diğer tarafta ise AKP destekçisi “İslamofaşistler.” Tartışma açık ve canlı. Son roundu da bu ay türban kararıyla yaşandı. Bununla ilgili iki görüşüm var:

1)Üniversite çağındaki kadınların, kendi inançlarına göre istediğini giymelerine izin verilmeli. Bu açıdan mahkemenin kararı kabul edilemez.

2) Modern Türkiye’nin laik temelleri, en hoşgörülü Müslüman toplumunun yaratılmasında esas oldu. Mücadele etmeden tehlikeye düşürülmemeli. Bu perspektiften mahkemenin kararı, AKP’ye, liberal sicilini kanıtlamayı sürdürmesi için sağlıklı bir meydan okuma.

MAHKEMENİN YANINDAYIM
İkisi değerlendirildiğinde mahkemenin yanındayım. Orta vadede, Türk kadınların nerede olursa olsun türban kullanma hakkının olacağına güveniyorum. AKP tarafından beslenen, tırmanan İslamlaşmaya, Erdoğan’ın ısrar ettiği gibi laik demokrasiye sarsılmaz bir bağlılığının eşlik ettiğinden o kadar emin değilim. AKP, gerekirse defalarca mahkeme ile karşı karşıya gelerek, hesap vermesi gerektiğini düşünüyorum.

TÜRKİYE LABARATUVAR
Türkiye, ılımlı bir Müslüman demokrasi için bir laboratuvardır, o yüzden bu deneyim aceleye getirilmemeli. Çünkü bir türban takmak çıkartmaktan daha kolaydır. Başbakan Erdoğan ve AKP, Washington ve Avrupa’da şu anda popüler. Ama ordu ve yargıdan oluşan laik kurumlar Atatürk’ten bu yana bundan daha zor bir dönem geçirmedi. Türkiye’de halen başta eğitim ve sağlık gibi devlet kurumlarındaki üst düzey görevlerde İslamcı sicil vazgeçilmez bir gereklilik.

AKP'NİN KAFASINDA İRAN YOK

Türkiye’de türban yaygınlaşıyor. Kadınlara yönelik reklamlara photoshop (fotoğraf üzerinde rotüş yapmak) yapılıp kıyafetlerin etekleri uzatılıyor. Bunlara rağmen şeriatın geldiğine veya AKP’nin kafasında İran’ın bulunduğuna inanmıyorum. İslamofaşist değiller. Ancak partinin Atatürk’ün yarattığı ülke ile pek bağdaşmayan radikal ezgilerinden yoksun olduğuna da inanmıyorum.
ERDOĞAN'IN HALEFİ HIZLICA ÇIKAR
AKP’nin kapatılmasının demokrasi için olumsuz bir gelişme olacağını düşünüyorum. Ancak tehdidin var olmasından memnunum. Ve yasak gelirse Erdoğan’ın ve AKP’nin bir halefinin hızlı ortaya çıkacağından eminim. Türkiye’nin ruhu için yapılan mücadele bitecek gibi değil. Ama bu mücadele açık yapıldığı sürece sağlıklıdır. Batı, bu açıklığın korunması için elinden gelen her şey yapmalı, zaman zaman bir ’laik faşizm’ dozu içerirse de.


Başa Dön
 Profil Özel mesaj gönder  
 
Eskiden itibaren mesajları göster:  Sırala  
Yeni başlık gönder Başlığa cevap ver  [ 4 mesaj ] 

Tüm zamanlar UTC + 2 saat


Kimler çevrimiçi

Bu forumu gezen kullanıcılar: Hiç bir kayıtlı kullanıcı yok ve 3 misafir


Bu foruma yeni başlıklar gönderemezsiniz
Bu forumdaki başlıklara cevap veremezsiniz
Bu forumdaki mesajlarınızı düzenleyemezsiniz
Bu forumdaki mesajlarınızı silemezsiniz

Geçiş yap:  
cron
   Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group

Türkçe çeviri: phpBB Türkiye