Kemalism must be kept as principles not as a dogma. But is Turkey not going to fast with all these changes?
Kindest

Mustafa
In all your writings on what is required for a modern, democratic, liberal Turkey to emerge, you never, to my knowledge, mention any need to challenge Turkey’s illegal occupation of Cyprus. The connection between the Cyprus invasion and occupation and the triumph of the Kemalist deep state and its ideologies in the three decades after 1974 is obvious, so why have I not detected any attempt by Turkey’s ‘new democrats’ to investigate and reject the prevailing myths regarding Cyprus? There is no shortage of Turkish Cypriot intellectuals willing to re-examine Turkey’s malevolent involvement in Cyprus and the nationalist fabrications that underpin this, but where are the Turkish journalists, academics and historians in this democratic project?

In 1971, four years after a military junta seized power in Athens, Andreas Papandreou – future Greek prime minister – wrote: ‘Cyprus lies at the heart of the tragic political developments that have led to the death of democracy in Greece.’
I won’t go into details as to what Papandreou meant by this, but it seems to me that something similar could have been written about democracy in Turkey; a pity that thinking Turks are not yet able to admit this.

Alexander my friend, to understand the Turkish position on Cyprus, you need to admit to yourself at least the atrocities against Turkish Cypriots that the entire world was turning a blind eye towards until the invasion.

Just able to judge by what I read about Dr. Üskül's suggestion, I do agree that it should at least be seized and put forward in a public discussion.

Although both might not be thoroughly comparable, the behaviour and attitudes of CHP-politicians remind me of those of the Party of the Institutionalized Revolution (PRI) in Mexiko.
Perhaps the CHP should change its name? :)

Finally for tonight: I do very much appreciate what you and your TDN-colleagues "are doing" - especially as I am not sure, if I - in case of doubt - should have the "cojones" to be such courageous.
Good luck then,
and
The Peace of the Night. :)

PS: Hm, and one should also appreciate that Yusuf Kanli on Tuesday put his first "literature in a hurry" into perspective ("A civilian constitution"), shouldn't one? :)

Kartari my friend, I am fully aware that during the intercommunal troubles in the 1960s – prompted by the Turkish campaign for Taksim, the Greek pursuit of Enosis and later unrestricted independence – Turkish Cypriots came off badly.
However, if you read Sevgul Uludag’s book ‘Oysters with the missing pearls:
untold stories about missing persons, mass graves and memories from the past of Cyprus’ – available in Turkish, Greek and English – you will discover that for every tale of ‘atrocity’ committed against the Turkish Cypriot community, there is an equivalent tale that Greek Cypriots can tell. I can admit that Greek Cypriot nationalists attacked Turkish Cypriots, but can you admit that Turkish Cypriot nationalists attacked Greek Cypriots – and that Turkish Cypriots attacked other Turkish Cypriots, those – mainly trade unionists and leftists – who opposed forcing apart the two communities and partitioning the island along ethnic lines?

When I talk of ‘prevailing Turkish myths’ about Cyprus, the most prominent one is that the essence of the Cyprus problem concerns Turkish Cypriots as victims of ‘atrocities’ and ‘genocide’ at the hands of Greek Cypriots during the period 1963-1974, which is why Turkey had to invade the island. It would take me too long to elaborate on every single flaw and falsehood associated with this myth, but here are just a few points:
If Turkey’s invasion was designed to protect Turkish Cypriots, then why were thousands of Turkish Cypriots, after the invasion, induced – not by Greeks, but by Denktash – to flee their homes in southern and western Cyprus and relocate to the north? Why was it necessary to expel 200,000 Greeks from their homes in northern Cyprus? Why has it been necessary to bring in 150,000 settlers from Turkey to northern Cyprus? Why, if Turkish Cypriots were the victims of ‘atrocities’ by Greek Cypriots, did so many Turkish Cypriots pour across the Green Line in 2003, when the Turkish army eased crossing restrictions? You’d hardly expect Turkish Cypriots to feel safe in the Cyprus government-controlled areas if they feared Greek Cypriots and remembered them only as murderers. No, the ‘Turkey invaded Cyprus to protect the Turkish Cypriots’ argument won’t do. It is, like I said, substantially a myth.

Anyway, my point was not strictly about the rights and wrongs in Cyprus; it was about challenging Turks to see the Cyprus issue not as a ‘national’ issue, but as an issue that has been exploited by the Kemalist nationalist deep state to prevent a more democratic Turkey from developing. I was arguing that while Mustafa Akyol sees issues like those related to the wearing of headscarves as a litmus test of Turkish democracy, there are other litmus tests too – such as the occupation of Cyprus, Kurdish rights and the way Turkey deals with its past, especially Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocide claims. Even if, tomorrow, a law were passed that allowed the unrestricted wearing of headscarves in Turkey, this wouldn’t make Turkey the modern, liberal democracy Mustafa espouses. Kemalist ideology is reactionary and anachronistic in a hundred different ways, including in its peculiar hypernationalism and the myths this generates.

Alexander,

Turkey has passed the test of democracy in Cyprus in 2004. Turkish Cypriots have voted 65% for federal state while our Greek friends rejected with 75%. I think the one in democracy testing is Pappadapoulos & EU that messed up the effort of settling dispute with taking Cyprus as a member.

Thank you Mr Akyol for all these excellent article. I'm trying to refer to your work as often as I can on my french blog. Good continuation

http://istanbuldakitom.blogspot.com/index.html

The US Constitution and the Declaraton of Independence have no mention of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln or Franklin D. Roosevelt. I think only insane people can deny the great contributions that these Men made for the United States. America as a true Democracy does not impose ideology of one man no mater how great he was. Ideology which was formed under conditions and circumstances of the past times!

It would be silly to adopt an ammendment which would make the New Deal elements part of the US Constitution and mandatory to follow for all the times! Yet that's what has been done in Turkey!

Idolization of Ataturk unfortunately diminishes his undeniable accomplishments (not taking into account the final results of his efforts and assuming only good intentions) in the eyes of millions of people not only in Turkey but around the world.

Blue
The Annan plan was a bad joke, which had nothing to do with democracy. If you want to know why Greek Cypriots rejected it so overwhelmingly, then go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annan_Plan_for_Cyprus

In short, Annan provided for a confederation (not a federation, as you say), denied refugees the right of return, permitted the Turkish settlers and the Turkish army to stay on the island and so on. That Greek Cypriots rejected the plan does not absolve Turkey of its responsibility to end the occupation. Arafat rejected Clinton’s Camp David plan in 2000, but this does not justify the continuing Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. Be honest, Turkey hasn’t decided yet that it wants to end the occupation of Cyprus nor can it even countenance the idea that its policies regarding the island may be flawed or tainted. I have never read anything by a Turk questioning the invasion and occupation of Cyprus. I have read many such articles by Turkish Cypriots, but nothing from a Turkish journalist, academic, historian, etc. Why not? In a democracy, everything is up for debate and open to question. Nothing is sacred. Which brings me back to my original point: it seems to me that the AK party and its supporters only want a partial democratisation of Turkey and are only prepared to challenge Kemalism up to a point. Actually, a partial democracy is not a democracy at all, is it?

Alexander

Can you please stop this anti-Turkish hysteria you have whipped up. Turkey is on the verge of a society transformation which is good news for everyone. Your anti-Turkish hysteria and racist sentiments have no place on this forum or anywhere in a civilised world. It is obvious that you don't agree with many things that have occured in Turkey or by the Turkish government. But you have no right to pander to racism.

My advice for you is to get over it and move on. This is a forum that is about Turkey and Turkish politics not a place for racism and hatred.

Goksel
what you need to get over is that criticism of Turkey amounts to racism. That's the old way of thinking. I criticise the Turkish state and Turkish policies, not the Turkish people.

Reflecting a little further on this debate on Turkish taboos – and notwithstanding Goksel’s bizarre comments – here are a few more thoughts.

In his article above on Islamophobia in Turkey, Mustafa writes:

‘It was officially argued that Turks were much more enlightened before they accepted Islam. The truth is just the opposite — pre-Islamic Turks were a nomadic people with little, if any, trace of art, science, architecture, and literature, which they all later learned from the then sophisticated Muslim Middle East — and that's why the Republic engaged in extravagant methods of myth-making.’

I have to admit that, while I am disappointed that Mustafa didn’t mention that the Turks owe as much to the Byzantine/Christian world as they do to the ‘Muslim Middle East’, I am still astonished by such a clear repudiation of Kemalist versions of Turkish national identity. Other examples of this kind of progressive revisionism I’ve noticed recently include this
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=80046

in the Turkish Daily News by Cengiz Aktar on the Ecumenical Patriarch; and, on the Kurdish issue, I was again impressed by Mustafa’s piece above – Winning Kurdish Hearts and Minds – which seems sympathetic to the idea of the free expression of Kurdish ‘cultural identity’ in Turkey; though Mustafa is quiet on Kurdish political rights, i.e. should the Kurds be given rights similar to those enjoyed by the Catalans and Basques in Spain or the Scots and Welsh in the UK?

Nevertheless, it seems that there are three taboo subjects – the Kurds, Turkish national and religious identity and the Ecumenical Patriarchate – where some kind of debate is possible in Turkey.

It’s reasonable to suggest that one of the factors influencing this greater freedom of thought and expression in Turkey is the EU, and Turkey’s desire to join it. Indeed, I think it’s fair to say that the AK party feels it can exploit Kemalism’s fetishisation of Europe and effectively use the EU to hoist Kemalism by its own petard and pave the way for the creation of a society with more space for Islamic observers and Islamic observance, which, let’s face it, is the AK’s raison d’etre.
Not surprisingly, Kemalists can see the AK party’s ‘game’, have discovered what Europe really means and are now doubting how European they want Turkey to be, which has led some to embrace instead, for example, the idea/fantasy of a Eurasian Union, to include Turkey, Russia and the Central Asian republics – an alliance of ultranationalist, authoritarian, quasi-democratic regimes.
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/yazarDetay.do?haberno=119243

My conclusion, therefore, is that the AK party already owes a lot to the EU, and indeed the society AK wants to create is dependent on Turkey continuing its EU process. But here’s the rub: Turkey’s EU process is conditional – whether Turks like it or not – on Cyprus (to a large extent) and the question of the Armenian genocide (to a lesser extent and not so much on genocide recognition, but the way Turkey deals with Armenian claims).

It is because the continuing Turkish occupation of Cyprus could prove so disastrous for Turkey’s EU process and end up scuppering the AK strategy to liberalise Turkey and overcome ‘apartheid Turkish style’ (discrimination against practicing Muslims), that I am surprised that AK supporters and Kemalo-skeptics have not yet decided to review the Cyprus taboo and considered how to disentangle Turkey from the island.