> Good. Considering turkey isn't a western nation...
You should read some Turkish history. After the fall of the Ottoman empire, and being divided up amongst various winners of WWI, the modern Turkey led by Ataturk reclaimed their lost territory and established a country based on overtly western principles. The reforms were deep, and sweeping: A new alphabet, to make Turkish more approachable to people used to Latin scripts. Separation of Church (or mosque, more accurately) and State, to the extent that wearing religious garb in public was outlawed. A new calendar (to match the West's). Women's rights (when that was progressive even for the west).
Imagine if George Washington had decided we'd be writing in Cyrillic and banned the display of crucifixes.
There have been growing pains, but dismissing Turkey as "not western" is an extremely politically charged statement.
I thought it was hilarious when George W. Bush used to say things like "We're bringing democracy to the Middle East" when for most of the 20th century Turkey was arguably more democratic (not to mention more secular) than the US.
> A new alphabet, to make Turkish more approachable to people used to Latin scripts.
If china adopts latin script does that make china a member of the West? Of course not. 'The West' is called that for a reason. It's predominantly western ( the west ) european nations and their genetic colonial descendents ( aka colonies that have predominantly european blood, power ). We could adopt chinese as our official language and the US would still be a western nation. Religion, script, separation of church and state has nothing to do with being part of the west.
> There have been growing pains, but dismissing Turkey as "not western" is an extremely politically charged statement.
No. Saying they are western is politically charged statement. Saying Turkey is not a western nation is a statement of fact. You act like 'the west' is some club with membership requirements. It's not. It's a legacy of european colonization and domination of the world. Something Turkey was a victim of, not part of.
The only reason some claim Turkey is part of the West is due to geopolitical posturing. Just like some claiming kazakhstan is part of europe.
Western is used to indicate values and there is a huge battle in Turkey over values. Secularism is one of them for example. The rest of this debate is semantics and national pride which has always struck me as the thing that causes every nation to act stupidly.
You should read some Turkish history. After the fall of the Ottoman empire, and being divided up amongst various winners of WWI, the modern Turkey led by Ataturk reclaimed their lost territory and established a country based on overtly western principles. The reforms were deep, and sweeping: A new alphabet, to make Turkish more approachable to people used to Latin scripts. Separation of Church (or mosque, more accurately) and State, to the extent that wearing religious garb in public was outlawed. A new calendar (to match the West's). Women's rights (when that was progressive even for the west).
Imagine if George Washington had decided we'd be writing in Cyrillic and banned the display of crucifixes.
There have been growing pains, but dismissing Turkey as "not western" is an extremely politically charged statement.