The consequence, as Dr. Graf noted, is that most Turkish artists are dull imitators of the West. “There are very few artists,” he noted, “that you can distinguish as ‘Turkish'.”

Dr. Graf is right, and the problem he points out is just one implication of a deep trouble with Turkish society: Most elites in this country are Western wannabes, who are either out of touch, or, far worse, at war with their own tradition.

Getting the headscarf right

To see a little display of what I mean, come visit me one day at my office. The fancy building that I work at has an impressive entrance, whose walls and walkways present numerous pieces of fine art. Yet none of these artworks give the slightest evidence that this building is located in a predominantly Muslim country and the heir of the great Ottoman Empire. In fact, with at least a dozen statues of ancient pagan idols, the place looks like a pre-Islamic pantheon.

Such things are totally fine – people have the right for cultural choice – if they are not combined with contempt for, and discrimination against, traditional people. Yet that is precisely what one finds among the Turkish elite. In their cultural universe, anything that represents traditional Islam is depicted as idiotic, dark and threatening. They enthusiastically support the oppression of religious people by the state – and even ask for more of it.

Even otherwise sensible people can become irrational while defending the secular fundamentalism of our official ideology. Take my fellow columnist Mr. Bekdil, for example. In his piece yesterday, he said that the Islamic headscarf could be free in campuses only if “Zionist/Christian/Buddhist/atheist symbols” were allowed, too. At first glance, he is absolutely right: If one symbol is free, others should be, too. What Mr. Bekdil has missed is that the “Zionist/Christian/Buddhist/atheist symbols” are already free. There is no law or legal decision in Turkey saying that these cannot be worn in campuses. But there is a decision by the Constitutional Court that univocally bans the Islamic headscarf. Whenever the Parliament speaks of doing something to abolish this ban – which is opposed by nearly 80 percent of society – the sinister guardians of our juristocracy make threatening remarks. And the power of the military stands behind them as the last resort.

If Mr. Bekdil were speaking of a social intolerance against “Zionist/Christian/Buddhist/atheist symbols,” he would be pointing to a real problem. There are ultra-conservative or ultra-nationalists circles in society who might look at, or even act against, those “alien” symbols intolerantly. (The same social intolerance, in different circles, is shown toward the headscarf.) But there is a huge difference between intolerance in society and discrimination by the state. It is like the difference between having some neo-Nazi groups in a democratic system and living under the Nazi regime.

To miss the difference, you have to be a self-hating Turk. You have to hate your tradition with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. Only then you will be illiberal enough to stand for its persecution.

A personal problem

Besides their fierce opposition to religious freedom, self-hating Turks have created two serious problems in Turkish society. The first one is that they have impeded the modernization of religious conservatives. For a long time, the latter regarded their secularist oppressors as the natural products of modernity, and hence they resisted it. They shut their doors to the West and hoped for a revival of the Islamic golden age. This has been changing since the 1980s, as the conservatives realize that our secularist tyranny is closer to North Korea than to the European Union, and that the Western democracies can give them all the religious freedom they have been hoping for. Hence comes the ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party) and its pro-EU policies.

Some wrong steps taken by the Europeans, such as the stupid decision by the European Court of Human Rights that blessed the headscarf ban in Turkey, have been disappointing. Yet still, conservatives realize that the Copenhagen Criteria are much better than those of Kemalist Ankara.

The second problem that self-hating Turks create is an ironic one. Their mindset is so rigid, shallow and arrogant that they themselves have become a reason for disliking Turkey. I must confess that I personally have been suffering from that feeling for a long time. If I become a truly self-hating Turk soon, please tolerate me. The original self-hating Turks will be responsible for my trauma.