Turkey: two good reads

ARTICLE: "Turkish Schools Offer Pakistan a Gentler Islam," by Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, 4 May 2008, p. A1.

ARTICLE: "Istanbul's Economic Tension: A lawsuit threatens to undo the pro-Islamic government's record of reform and growth," by Andrew Purvis, Time, 12 May 2008, p. G1.

First one is about a group of Turkish educators who create a sort of Muslim Peace Corps volunteers for pushing an "entirely different vision of Islam" from the nasty stuff peddled so pervasively by the cynical House of Saud.

These Turks are pushing their new package specifically in Pakistan. How much you want to bet this does more to change things than our Spec Ops?

This is classic Sufi moderation that embraces science and technology in a natural coexistence. Good stuff.

According to Time, FDI jumps 30-fold in Turkey since 2002, up to $22 billion. Better yet, Turks are investing abroad, like $28B in Russia last year alone. Russia says it needs $1 trillion in infrastructure by 2020, and Turkish construction firms are ready and willing to clean up while building up.

Oh yes, Erdogan makes a show of punishing the PKK over the border in Kurdish Iraq. Turkey also pours $10B in FDI into the same emerging nation—like 'em or not.

To the surprise of some but not me, such prosperity makes Turks more interested in religion, not less. Abundance has done that everywhere except aberration Europe, where the World Wars so freaked out the locals about nationalism and religion that they've sought defensively to move beyond it. Good luck with that as the population ages and "others" are let in, others who need religion to retain identity.

Comments

[Nathan Machula]

Good post, just one quibble. I'd argue Europe "lost" its religion before the World Wars, due to the cumulative effects of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, Romanticism, and Marxism.

[Jack]

The growing interest in religion as wealth grows reminds me of Mr. Doolittle's observation (in G.B. Shaw's Pygmalion) that morals are for the middle class only - the rich really don't care, and the poor have too many pressing concerns - a dramatization of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Perhaps we are seeing this on a national level, as Turkey becomes secure enough to shift part of its attention from physiological/economic needs.

Regarding the "softer" version of Islam, Lawrence Wright has an interesting piece in the New Yorker about a growing number of jihadists rejecting the extreme violence of jihad, primarily in Egypt, primarily imprisoned, and including one of the intellectual founders of Al Qaeda.

Hopefully we're seeing the beginning of an Islamic backlash against the ideologies of Al Qaeda and its ilk, coming both from more moderate traditions, as well as a moderation of the more extreme groups.