'Turkish delight' acquired a new meaning, after the government of Turkey was endorsed by none other than George W. Bush, President of the USA during his trip to the country recently.

On the look-out for friendly Muslim regimes that they can bring into the fold of the 'coalition of the willing', the political elite of America have just adopted their long-term ally Turkey into their welcoming arms and the President of the USA has even gone as far as stating that it was time for the European Union to accept Turkey's bid to join the EU.

The reasoning behind this, we are told, is the fact that Turkey is now seen as a 'model Muslim state' where everything is hunky-dory and civil rights and personal freedoms are overflowing. The Turkish cup runneth over with freedoms to be shared by the rest of the Muslim world.

Yet during my recent visit to Turkey, I was told that there were a few things I could not mention or speak about in public, under any circumstance:
1) Never discuss the relevance of Islam for politics;
2) Never suggest that the Ottoman epoch was anywhere close (or worse still, better) than the present state of affairs;
3) Never praise the governmental policies of the Ottomans;
4) Never question the separation of religion and state; and
5) Never question the achievements of the great (Father of Modern Turkey) Kemal Ataturk.

That left me with precious little to talk about, save my observations on Turkish coffee and tobacco.

I was told that critical comments on Ataturk in particular were not appreciated by the authorities and that my hosts would get into trouble if I blabbered in my usual manner. This overdue respect is for the man whose stature and place in history has been overblown thanks to the efforts of numerous propagandists and official photographers.

(Ataturk, in fact, was a somewhat ordinary looking man, and he cut a rather pedestrian figure compared to other Turks of his time yet in all his official portraits he is seen as a towering figure of virile Turkish manhood.)

Apparently during Ataturk's own lifetime a law was passed, called the 'To Love Ataturk Act' which specifically forbids any form of criticism of the man and his ideas.

"That means even Ataturk could not criticise himself. Thankfully psychoanalysis was not in vogue then, for had he indulged in a spot of self-criticism on the psychoanalyst's couch, Ataturk would have been arrested for criticising himself!" I tried to joke.

My feeble attempt to break the ice did not meet with a warm response: My Turkish hosts' jaws dropped and it felt as if the roof was about to collapse on our heads.

Borrowed traditions

Turkey is, in many ways, a unique state. Straddling the mighty Bosphorus, the fabled city of Istanbul is divided between the Occident and Greater Asia. On either side of the bridge that spans the great river one sees the signs: 'Welcome to Europe' and 'Welcome to Asia', respectively.

But this is also a state in crisis in many respects, and the crisis cuts deep into the collective psyche of a nation that is Muslim in its identity, culture and history yet in denial of its past and therefore its destiny.

Turkey's secular democratic institutions and traditions are borrowed from the constitutional systems of the West, yet the modernisation of Turkey as in the case of Egypt, Iran and Japan, three other non-Western states that tried to modernise themselves following the Western model in the 19th century was not accompanied by the democratic revolutions that took place in the Occident.

Turkey took from the West its technology, sciences, languages and manners of dress and behaviour, but the modalities of modernisation were determined from above, by a handful of plutocrats who had no organic linkages with their own people.

Needless to say, the Turks were left with little choice and had to undergo the process of rapid modernisation whether they liked it or not. (Those who tried to cling on to the ways of the past were summarily declared enemies of the republic, as was the case in Egypt and Pehlavi Iran.)

In Turkey, as was the case in Iran, Egypt and Japan, 'modernisation' and 'development' meant 'Westernisation' in practice. The Ottoman past was decried and vilified as something archaic, backward, retrogressive and diagnosed as the main reason why the country was behind the rest of the world.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Ottomans were an imperial power, and that in the conduct of their political affairs and foreign relations they behaved in a manner no different from the British, Dutch and French empires, it remains a fact that the Ottoman empire was cosmopolitan in nature and that the Ottoman rulers did try to maintain their grip on power through a negotiated politics of accommodation.

The Ottomans were also responsible for some of the most outstanding architectural wonders of the Muslim world, as well as serving as patrons to the arts and sciences. Proof of this is easily found when we look at the tourists who flock to Istanbul, looking in amazement at the great mosques, libraries and schools that were built by Suleiman the Magnificent and his successors. (In contrast, few tourists rave about the wonders of the modern yet dreary capital of Ankara.)

The other face

Following his recent visit to Istanbul for the NATO meeting there, Bush praised Turkey's record of development and recommended the country as a 'model' for the rest of the Muslim world.

Yet Bush, like his Turkish counterparts, remained silent about Turkey's Ottoman past. (Presumably he, too, was warned not to make any feeble Ataturk jokes.)

Bush noted that Turkey, by virtue of its strategic location between the East and West, was in a position to play the role of bridge-builder between the Occidental and Muslim worlds. He also claimed that Turkey was a model state by virtue of its respect for democracy and
Constitutionalism.

Yet here lies the crux of the matter: Turkey's modern republican constitution, which explicitly calls for the total separation of religion from state, is also one that favours the creation of a powerful centralised state with maximalist powers and the ability to police almost all aspects of
public and private life.

This is a country with a human rights record that few would want to emulate. It was Turkey that banned the use of the Kurdish language and expressions of Kurdish cultural identity.

It was Turkey that forbade Muslim women entering the public sphere if they displayed their religious identity 'ostensibly'. And it is the Turkish state that has defended its secular status via the routine persecution of Islamist organisations, parties and intellectuals.

This is also the same Turkey, with its face turned perpetually to the West, that has supported the Americans in both their conflicts in the Gulf and their other foreign adventures. Is this the 'model Muslim state' that the rest of the Muslim world is meant to follow?

Turkey does indeed have a crucial place in Muslim history, but for the reason that its past is one that points to the inter-penetration and cross-cultivation of ideas between Asia and the Occident, Islam and Christendom.

It remains, along with Moghul India and the Spanish Caliphate, an example of a time when Muslims could aspire to power and a global status without compromising their cultural and religious identity and not having to apologise for being Muslims. But it should be remembered that this glorious past is heavily coloured by the tint of an Islamic normative religiosity that was rooted in Islam and universal ideals too.

The Ottomans may have made plentiful mistakes of their own (they were, for instance, strongly prejudiced against Arabs and Arab culture and the anti-Arabism of the Kemalist republic finds its roots in the past, even if is in denial about it), and the Ottoman state was always an imperial state
guided by the demands and prerequisites of power above all else.

But as a model of Muslim power that was confident yet accommodative, the Ottoman epoch ranks heads and shoulders above the soulless modern state that Ataturk has built.

It is for that reason that historical (rather than contemporary) Turkey is still seen as a model by Muslims the world over yet it is precisely this past that is being erased and denied as Turkey inches its way to the heart of the West, cultural baggage in tow.