Turkish modernization is based on imitation. For this reason, it pursues the transfer of symbols rather than the analysis of concepts. Because its references are symbols rather than concepts, it is bossy, mimetic and intellectual -- and therefore remains closed to critical and productive reasoning. Because it is based on the transfer of symbols and preservation of elite privileges, this project creates an opposition group in a planned and systematic fashion. It bases its legitimacy on the distorted image and existence of this constructed other entity demonized by the same elites. This bears two major consequences: a) Symbols leads to a clash, whereas concepts are based on dialogue, reasoning and a critical approach. Turkish modernization does not favor dialogue and conceptual analysis.
b) Massive and class-based clashes make the emergence of a group of others inevitable. For this reason, for the most part it does not adopt a positive stance vis-à-vis justice, liberty and civilian majority.
The example that could be taken as a model within the framework of contact with the outer world and relations with the other cultures and Western modernity might be the path followed by the Abbasids in their relations with the Indians, Chinese, Persians, Egyptians and Greeks. They just took philosophy, wisdom and science from the cultures that they had contact with. But they simply developed no interest at all in tragedy, poetry, mythology, art and sculpture because their goal was conceptual contact -- and not imitation. Their goal was to seek wisdom, to expand a vaster area for all to achieve a more advanced mind and coexistence and to benefit from the experiences and accumulations of other societies. And they achieved those goals.
a) We live in a modern world. We can neither surrender to modernity nor deny it in its entirety. We may transform it by remaining within its boundaries and making it more transcendental; this will contribute to overcoming the crises it has caused, because this takes our personality away and keep us under the hegemony of the West. Modernity is not neutral, it is value-loaded and a project. We have to take action toward a semantic intervention with it, just like the semantic intervention made by Muslims with what they took from other cultures. Only in this case can we claim that modernity is part of us.
b) Secondly, it is impossible for us to comprehend our problems with reference to the West. We can understand our problems by making contacts with the cultures that experienced the similar processes and shared our near history. To this end, the modernization processes experienced by Turkey, Russia, India, Iran and Egypt and the transfer of the experiences gained through these processes is of great importance. What we need to do first, however, is to initiate a process of dialogue between Muslim countries.
c) Lastly, we have to realize that there is no point in idealizing our current situation. We have to change; we have to launch our inherent and internal dynamics and express our desire and demand for change without allowing mechanical interventions imposed upon us, and determine our actions. This is only possible by having confidence in people and relying on our inherent and original dynamics, because the real energy is embedded in those dynamics.
Obviously, our current situation isn't promising. But there are a lot of reasons to be hopeful and optimistic. The West is unable to overcome the ongoing crisis of modernity. The enlightenment has exhausted its own internal intellectual resources. The West is unable to train renowned and influential intellectuals as it did in the past. Secularization disseminates nihilism. A paradigm is retreating while another one is gradually rising. Nobody should doubt that the pains in our region, where violence, turmoil and upheavals are pretty visible at present, are harbingers of a new birth and resurrection, because Allah moves the days between the peoples. We are at the edge of the dawn of a new day.
