Posted on 01/04/2008 9:36:01 AM PST by nuconvert
The Duel in Islam, Turkey's New Model VS. Iran's
New York Post
January 04, 2008
Amir Taheri
For centuries, Iran and the Ottoman Empire, of which modern Turkey and Egypt were parts, fought for influence in the Muslim world. That changed when Turkish westernizers under Kemal Ataturk and their Iranian counterparts under Reza Shah Pahlavi decided that religion was the cause of their nations' decline.
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Turkey and Iran have reverted to their traditional roles by offering rival models of political Islam.
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The Iranian model began to emerge after the mullahs seized power in 1979 and proceeded to invent a narrative influenced by European ideologies such as fascism and communism.
The Turkish model grabbed the limelight when the Justice and Development Party (AKP) won a landslide election victory almost five years ago. Represented by the AKP, the Turkish model is inspired by European right-of-center political parties with an added liberal varnish.
At least four fundamental differences distinguish the two models:
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The Iranian model was shaped in Shiite theological schools of Qom and Najaf (in Iraq) by mullahs mainly of peasant backgrounds with little or no experience of the modern world. The Turkish model was the handiwork of engineers, medical doctors, businessmen and economists with urban, middle-class backgrounds.
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The Iranian model won power through insurrections, assassinations, guerrilla attacks, strikes and massacres (such as the burning of the Rex Cinema in Abadan in 1978) - not in free and fair elections.
The Turkish model, by contrast, won power via free and fair elections conducted by its ideological rivals. It never had recourse to violence, never murdered opponents, never robbed banks to finance itself and never burned hundreds of people alive to terrorize public opinion.
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The Iranian model forced almost 4 million Iranians into exile, caused the deaths...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Amir Taheri, good read as always.
But I don’t think that a “bloodless” (for the moment), creeping Islamisation ala Turkey is really better than the noisy-in-your-face Islamobrutalism ala Iranian Khomeinism.
What these countries need are redux-versions of Atatürk and Reza Shah Pahlavi. They recognized the inferiority and backwardness of Islam and the need to westernize.
“But I don’t think that a “bloodless” (for the moment), creeping Islamisation ala Turkey is really better than the noisy-in-your-face Islamobrutalism ala Iranian Khomeinism.”
No, it isn’t. It’s just more attractive to the people ala Turkey, than Iran.
“The Turkish model was the handiwork of engineers, medical doctors,..”
Weren’t the latest acts of terrorism in Britain perpetrated by British Muslim medical doctors, carrying British passports and having enjoyed a British education? Islam is Islam, whether it is Turkish or Iranian inspired - either one is anti-West.
Beg to differ.
That’s like saying the democratic socialism of Sweden is no better than Bolshevism.
While I’d not want to live in Sweden, it’s quite clear that Swedish socialism is a very different animal from Leninism, despite their goals being in theory identical.
In the long run you may indeed turn out to be correct, as don’t know what Turkish Islamism will turn out to be. But at the moment it has a lot more in common with the social democracy of Western Europe than with Khomeini, bin Laden, or Lenin.
Islam needs to go through many more wash/rinse cycles before the blood stains are no longer visible.
It is yet to show a single modern successful step towards moderation.
“A nation which makes the final sacrifice for life and freedom does not get beaten” —Ataturk
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