Transforming nationalism after the Second World War makes Turkey an exemplary satellite candidate. Within 10 years after the war, all the values of the War of Independence were reversed, and Turkey became a dependent state in the fields of economy, finance, industry, politics, culture and ideas. These developments in Turkey from 1950 to 1965 basically take place in the form of the birth of a bourgeois class that puts a burden of consumption economy at the level of life of western societies on Turkish society.
From the beginning of the 16th century to the 18th century, the West was perceived as "Frenk Kuffar" in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire, which was involved in European affairs until the 17th century, closed to Europe in the 17th century. From the beginning of the 18th century, the West – especially France – began to be perceived as a civilization with superior qualities. The first basic dimension of this perception is to be a garbage collector of European life and economy, and the second basic dimension is to be aware of the existence of a bureaucracy that performs public services.
Beginning from 1850, with the bankruptcy of the Tanzimat in terms of science and industry westernization, Europeanization becomes an European individualism in the eyes of the people, an unbearable luxury. As a result of this, the issue of “us” enters the medium of dreams and the foundations of nationalism are laid. When the conflict between westernization and the concept of “us” is realized, views that partially or completely reject westernization emerge.
In the 1860s, under the leadership of Namık Kemal, the foundations of the concept of Ottoman nationalism, a new concept of "us" against westernism, were laid. According to the author, Namık Kemal, while analyzing the European civilization that he admires, makes a fundamental error of analysis by evaluating the civilization abstractly from the history and social conditions in which he lives. The author criticizes Namık Kemal's lack of socialism in his view of civilization, ignoring the Turkish nation and Turkish independence, and taking fiqh and religion as the foundations of new Ottoman individualism.
Westernism, Islamism and Ottomanism in the reign of Abdulhamid II also fail. "Liberty", which was the ideal concept of the intellectuals during the reign of Abdulhamid II, turns into a "social revolution" after 1908, but it cannot be put into practice because the intellectuals are disconnected from the public and their own minds are not clear. They produce fuzzy ideas caught between the concepts of Islamism, Ottomanism, Westernism, Turanism and unclear nation.
As a result of the development of the ideas of helplessness and backwardness in the face of the perfect, ideal western civilization, the satellite of France, England and Germany is applied. This western satellite policy of the Ottoman Empire lasted 200 years from 1720 to 1920. With the national liberation war, it is understood that westernization cannot be achieved through being western satellite, but in spite of the west.
Kemalist westernism, which was implemented after 1920, has elements of national independence, sovereignty and revolutionary method that will help develop the people. The author says that the westernism of Tanzimat, Abdülhamit, Menderes and Demirel's understanding of western civilization are opposed to the above-mentioned three-element westernism. He states that this type of single-celled westernism understanding is seen in the history and today (1965) in the periods of reactionism.
The author expresses the futility of linking the attainment of contemporary civilization to religious enlightenment, Renaissance or reform movements, and states that these are the images created on the surface by the dynamics that develop more deeply. The bond between westernism and nationalism, which remained as two opposite tendencies until national liberation, is only achieved with the Kemalist revolution.
The author describes westernism as an illusion, an individualist intellectual utopia that is only useful for reaction, a meaningless word whose path, direction and end are not clear as much as Islamism, Ottomanism and Turkism in terms of socialism.
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