In the context of the 1930s, Kemalism represented a progressive nation-building project. The modernization and Westernization dimension of the Kemalist cultural revolution based on establishing a "secular" and "Turkish" nation-state is also widely accepted. More problematic, however, is what Kemalism truly represents in the context of the 21st century. This is understandable. After all, today Kemalism is by and large a great success story. To be sure, it has been a difficult and long journey. The Anatolian masses had a hard time absorbing the Kemalist reforms. But this was to be expected, and it does not change the big picture. Today, no one can deny that modern Turkey is a secular nation-state as well as the most westernized democracy in the Islamic world. Yet there is still certainly room for improvement in terms of establishing a truly "liberal" democracy in Turkey. But liberalism was never on the Kemalist political agenda, and it would be unfair to blame Kemalism for this. Liberalism, after all, was not on the global agenda of the 1930s. Instead, the interwar era in Europe witnessed the rise of fascism and totalitarianism. Moreover, cultural revolutions are not in the business of promoting liberalism. The Kemalist agenda was no exception. The revolution was elitist and populist at the same time. The slogan "For the people, despite the people" wonderfully reflects the zeitgeist. These were all normal in the context of the 1930s. Such facts do not change the reality that Kemalism, as a secularist-nationalist political project aimed at nation building, modernization, and westernization has successfully accomplished its mission.
Then, what about contemporary Kemalism? Today, in modern Turkey, it is this very success of Kemalism that transforms it into a "conservative" reaction. Kemalism, in other words, displays an understandable urge to conserve what has been achieved. Especially for Turkey's politically powerful military, Kemalism represents a "defensive" and "protective" political reflex. This transformation of Kemalism from "progressive" ideology to "conservative" reaction creates a great paradox because it also turns Kemalism into a reaction against the European Union. The Kemalist dilemma is indeed very acute. The mission of protecting the republic against its twin enemies -- Kurdish nationalism and political Islam -- now presumably requires strong resistance against the European Union. As a result, the two main tenets of Kemalism -- the urge to protect the republic and the urge to Westernize -- are now clashing. Herein lies a tragic paradox. It is tragic precisely because it fuels a Kemalist reaction "against" the West.
In turn, this reaction against the West exacerbates Turkey's Kemalist identity dilemma. Today, any deviation from the Turkish character of the nation-state and the secular framework of the republic presents a challenge to the Kemalist identity. Any public assertion, no matter how minor, of Kurdish ethnic identity is perceived as a major security problem which endangers Turkey's territorial and national integrity. A similarly alarmist attitude characterizes the military's approach to Islam. Islamic sociopolitical and cultural symbols in the public domain are seen as harbingers of a fundamentalist revolution, no matter how innocuous such symbols may be intrinsically, as in the case of headscarves.
Such alarmist approaches to Kurdish and Islamic identity has been extremely counterproductive for Turkish democracy. Particularly during the 1990s, at a time when Turkey needed to demonstrate its post-Cold War credentials as a western democracy, the Kemalist republic came to be seen as an illiberal country fighting against its own ethnic and religious identity. This fight created "the lost decade" of the 1990s.
If the current trends of nationalist and secularist polarization in Turkish politics continue, we may end up losing another decade. Let's not forget that Turkey's Kurdish and Islamic predicament is made more difficult by certain rigidities inherent in the Kemalist formulation of secularism and Turkish nationalism. Turkey's already difficult chances of becoming a member of the European Union ultimately depend on Ankara's willingness to deal with the country's ethnic and religious identities in a less authoritarian manner. As long as the republic justifies its reluctance for multiculturalism and a tolerant secularism in the name of preserving its founding principles, the political and cultural distance between Turkey and Europe will widen. Paradoxically, Kemalism was designed to achieve the contrary.
