Is democracy possible in a Muslim society? It is a burning question in this time of the ‘Arab 1848’. The reference to 1848 is a reference to the year that revolution swept across Europe. There does seem to be a demonstration effect to revolution. It happens in one place (Tunisia) and people elsewhere ask, why not here? And so in the last days we have watched Muslim societies tear down their existing regimes. It begs the question: what will they build in their place? If you asked people in the squares, they would likely tell you they want a democracy. And we are back to the original question: is democracy possible in a Muslim country?
That may sound like a silly or bigoted question. Silly, because there are some notable examples of Muslim democracy - Turkey and Indonesia, for example. And bigoted because the revolutions we are witnessing testify to Muslims desire for democracy. But wanting something and keeping it are not the same thing. Desire alone is not enough. Democracy is not a natural state of human affairs. Creating it, sustaining it, takes work.
As soon as I had decided that I would be visiting Turkey, I knew that I wanted to read a biography of Atatürk. Atatürk created Turkey. What is today a relatively stable and prosperous state goes in no small measure to the will of a single man, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Turks seem to understand this. I think it is what explains Atatürk’s ubiquitous presence 70 years after his death. It's not just the statues, though there are lots of them. His picture is everywhere - stores, restaurants, government buildings, homes, car windows, flags almost anywhere you can imagine an image, someone has an image of Atatürk there. I wonder if Stalin, even at the height of his cult of personality was as omnipresent. When Stalin died, he disappeared. Atatürk remains. His story and Turkeys must be remarkable.
So I looked for a book that would tell those stories. Ideally it would have been written by a Turk, someone with the perspective that can only be gained by living it. Alas that was not to be. Turks do write books about Atatürk - lots of them. They don't translate them, it seems. Outside of Turkey the interest in Atatürk is not so great. Mango’s book was a good compromise. Mango was born and raised (to age 21) in Turkey. He experienced Atatürk’s Turkey firsthand. It is still a western outsider’s perspective, but it is one who fully understands the society he is observing. As such he does a good job of helping the reader understand Atatürk managed what was nothing short of a cultural Revolution. There are those (ok, me) who would argue that that was his greatest accomplishment.
Turkey under Atatürk was never a democracy. What Atatürk did was set Turkey on a path towards the creation of a society that could eventually become and sustain democracy. Many of the Turks I met are very worried about the future and the political dominance of Islamists. These are legitimate fears and to the extent that Islamism grows it grows at the expense of Atatürk's legacy. It would be a counter-revolution and a threat to the democracy Turkey has become.
That's why all those images of Atatürk make me optimistic. It is not so much a glorification of him, but of his ideals. Those ideals are modern, progressive, secular and democratic. A country with those ideals will tend to be democratic. Turkey is still populated by Muslims but it is not an Islamic democracy - just a democracy where most citizens practice Islam. There's a difference and they have Atatürk to thank for it.
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