Turkey government classifies Israel as “central threat” to Turkey

In response, Israel’s Tourism minister urges Israelis to stop visiting Turkey.

When will we ever learn?

When will we ever learn that all Muslim “reform” movements—including even the greatest ones, such as that of Kemal Ataturk—are destined to be temporary, because the underlying, unchangeable doctrines of Islam will, in the end, always reassert themselves?

When will we ever learn that the ONLY Muslim reform effort that can be permanent is the act of leaving Islam?

When will we ever learn that the ONLY true “reformist” Muslims are ex-Muslims?

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An Indian living in the West writes:

Another sad development. I have many friends who can be classified as modern Turks. They are horrified by what is going on in Turkey.

Some of them who have family members connected with political parties have told me about the intimidation and imprisonment of political opponents. Turkey is on a slow boil—it will, in due course, become an unabashedly theocratic Islamic country.

Note also the role the Iranians are playing there.

LA replies:

Yes. A few years ago, VFR had a regular commenter from Turkey (I forget his name at the moment), a secular, Westernized Turk who sent informative comments about what was happening in his country. He was in sympathy with VFR’s critical view of Islam, but ultimately the two twin issues—the growing split within Turkey between Islamics and moderns, and the growing split between Islam and the West (including, I think, my own increasingly hard line against Islam), led him to stop commenting. The man is in an impossible position. I feel for such people, but I don’t see what we can do for them.

We in the West are simply not in a position to save non-believing Muslims living within the Islamic world. We can only save ourselves. However, if we did save ourselves, by following the separationist policy of excluding Islam from the West and quarantining Islam from the rest of the World, such an approach would in my view offer the only hope for Westernized Muslims in the Islamic world who want to be free of Islam. If the Islamic world were truly and permanently quarantined from the rest of the world, such an exclusion might push the Islamic world to de-Islamize itself. I’m not saying it’s a guarantee, I’m saying it’s a possibility.

ILW replies:

Attaturk himself was impressed by the West when the West was self-confident and something that the rest of the world looked at in admiration. He was particularly impressed by Bismarck and by the pre-WWI Germans. Who wouldn’t be? A country that gave the word so much in music, art, literature, philosophy and of course, science.

I can describe my own feelings in this respect when reading about the Founding Fathers, about Lincoln and about Theodore Roosevelt. The current state of the West has become so decadent that no self-respecting man who loves his country would want it to become like modern American or Britain (or any of the other countries in the ridiculous EU—even though those countries are technologically advanced and very rich).

I think there is a crisis of the soul in Turkey. Attaturk’s vision was to make it into a modern, secular European country. Many Turks look at modern, secular Europe and are appalled by it. I get the sense when speaking to modern Turks that they no longer have a cause—other than a negative cause (which is that they are opposed to Turkey becoming a theocratic Muslim state). They can no longer offer their people a genuinely positive vision in the way that Attaturk did.

LA replies:

Agreed. How could any self-respecting human being want to emulate a West that looks like this?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 31, 2010 02:01 PM | Send