Erdogan Looks West By: Semih Idiz for Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse Posted on August 9. The little-known Turkish philosopher Celal Yaliniz, “Bearded Celal” to those who knew him, once likened Turkey’s Western-oriented intellectuals to “members of a ship’s crew who are running toward the west as their ship traveled east.” Yaliniz, the son of an Ottoman naval commander, was a graduate of the highly Westernized Galatasaray Lycée in Istanbul, from which the famous football team also hails. He and his protégés among Turkey’s intellectual elite, including Nazim Hikmet, Haldun Taner, Hıfzı Veldet Velidedeoglu, Melih Cevdet Anday and Orhan Veli, were no enemies of the West. His metaphor has, however, been used by Turkish Islamists and anti-Western nationalists to denigrate admirers of Western values and lifestyles. While this may be understandable for Islamists, it was always an odd stance for nationalists, especially those who are admirers of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Read more: al-monitor/pulse/originals/2013/08/erdogan-looks-west.html#ixzz2bXbKrMIJ
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 05:25:30 +0000