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Ataturk (who was quite probably a full-blown atheist) could write his own secular ticket precisely because he had ignominiously defeated three Christian invaders. Yet for decades, Western statecraft has been searching feverishly for another Mustafa Kemal, someone who can jumpstart the modernization of a Muslim community under his own name. For a while, they thought Gamal Abdel Nasser might be the model. Then there was the Shah of Iran. They even briefly fancied the notions of Saddam Hussein, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and other characters who will live in infamy. But nobody ever came close to touching Ataturk for authority and authenticity. Under his power, the great caliphate was done away with, and the antique rule of the celestial and the sublime reduced to a dream in which only a few ascetic visionaries and sectarians showed any real interest. Until recently, modern Turkey showed every sign of evolving into a standard capitalist state on the European periphery. (it) |
