Theodore Dalrymple: Wrapping Islam in Europe’s Mantle [Europe and Turkey]

city-journal ^ | 24 October 2005 | Theodore Dalrymple

[Tolik]

An artist asks: Should Europe want Turkey; should Turkey want Europe?

The power of art to shock, not in the trivial sense of drawing attention to an artist’s craving for notoriety, but of making us acutely and uncomfortably aware of the ambiguities and contradictions of the human condition, remains undiminished. All that is required for an artist to exert that power is imagination, talent, intelligence, and seriousness of purpose.

A photograph exhibited at the Istanbul Biennial by the Turkish artist, Burak Delier, captures the existential dilemma confronting both his own country and Europe with brilliant precision. It shows a Muslim woman, heavily veiled, with only her eyes, her eyebrows, and some of her forehead uncovered. Her eyes, however, are wide open and express surprise, shock, fear—or perhaps even disdainful amusement. Her veil, though, is not of the usual black fabric: it is made of the European flag, dark blue with its circle of yellow stars studded across her chest and round the back of her head.

Aesthetically pleasing, this image shocks because of its manifold layers of meaning, visible almost at once. To a European worried by the increasing presence of Islam on his continent, of course, the first layer would be a warning of further infiltration, even of a demographic takeover, by what he might consider an alien and retrograde way of life. It would be a warning that the refusal of political correctness to recognize deep underlying realities will lead to complete and spineless capitulation to Islam.

But the image also expresses exactly the opposite fear: that a refusal to embrace Turkey—the one Muslim country, after all, to have experimented seriously with political secularism—will drive it into the welcoming arms of the Islamists. In that case, the European flag covering the young woman’s head would represent not liberation from the veil but the precondition or provoker of its adoption.

As for Turks, what would the image mean? A secular Turk, wishing to see Ataturk’s legacy strengthened rather than weakened or abandoned, might worry that, paradoxically, accession to Europe, with all its politically correct doctrines and legal protections, would encourage the Islamists in Turkey’s midst: for they would then be able to invoke the European Union’s anti-discriminatory legal apparatus to promote their regressive wishes.

On the other hand, an Islamist Turk might see in the image a terrible warning: the woman’s expression, which could be a triumphal smirk, means that, draped in the European flag, she is about to throw off the veil once and for all, beyond any possibility of its re-adoption.

There is no final, or indubitably correct, meaning to this most startling (and graceful) of images. Its ambiguity, however, is not caused by any lack of intellect of the artist—quite the reverse: it is caused by the ambiguity of life itself. Above all, Burak Delier’s photograph reminds us that history has to be lived forwards, not backwards and with hindsight, and that the openness and uncertainty of the future is both the hope of human existence and the price we have to pay for our freedom.

[Tolik]

His Latest:

The Expense of Spirit, 25 October 2005

Wrapping Islam in Europe’s Mantle, 24 October 2005

You Must Be Healthy, 20 September 2005

Further Feminist Foolishness, 29 August 2005

Ethical Pornographers?, 26 August 2005

P*ss Off, Copper, 26 July 2005

Mixed-up Malaysia, 21 July 2005

Ibsen and His Discontents, Summer 2005

Colbert vs. Smith?, Summer 2005

In the Asylum, Summer 2005

Flower of Evil?, Summer 2005

Missing the Point, 2 June 2005

Thomas Friedman Mismeasures Tony Blair, 3 May 2005

Squaring Circles, 29 April 2005

Blair’s Banana Republic?, 19 April 2005

High and Low, Spring 2005

The Roads to Serfdom, Spring 2005

Welfare-to-Work’s New Thrust, 3 February 2005

Britain’s Sham Unemployment Drop, 28 January 2005

Sham Diversity, 19 January 2005

Trying to Offend, 5 January 2005

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics, Winter 2005

The Specters Haunting Dresden, Winter 2005

A Murderess’s Tale, Winter 2005

Why Theo Van Gogh Was Murdered, 15 November 2004

[Tolik]

Interesting!

This ping list is not author-specific for articles I'd like to share. Some for the perfect moral clarity, some for provocative thoughts; or simply interesting articles I'd hate to miss myself. (I don't have to agree with the author all 100% to feel the need to share an article.) I will try not to abuse the ping list and not to annoy you too much, but on some days there is more of the good stuff that is worthy of attention. You can see the list of articles I pinged to lately  on  my page.
You are welcome in or out, just freepmail me (and note which PING list you are talking about). Besides this one, I keep 2 separate PING lists for my favorite authors Victor Davis Hanson and Orson Scott Card.  

[Tax-chick]

Thanks for the list ... some I've missed!

[Mamzelle]

Had I been the artist, I would have chosen a subject with light blue eyes and otherwise of obvious European descent, to attract attn to the fact that Euros themselves will shortly find themselves smothered by the blanket of Sharia.

[beckett]

Life's ambiguity, the constant pull of the ying and yang. Our hearts are a battlefield, the battle between the true and the false, and resolution is hard to come by.

[Valin]

Bump for the morning

[mylife]

Hullo fello Freeper
Would you please add me to the Dalrymple ping list?

[Tolik]

I try not to miss Theodore Dalrymple's articles. But this ping list is not just "Dalrymple ping list". It is more general for outstanding articles written by different people. You can see the links to articles I pinged to on my page. Please, let me know, if you still want in.