Thank you for your effort to explain yourself in spite of my negative comment, but I disagree with your assertion. Science isn't a Western construct; it's a universal human endeavor, informed by contributions from civilizations worldwide, not just the West. The narrative of "Westernization" in Turkey has often been a guise for imposing cultural and ideological shifts, mostly anti-Islam ones, that many – including myself – have found intrusive.
Your claim conflates "Western values" with scientific progress, and that's simply inaccurate. Let's disentangle scientific advancement from cultural hegemony. Science belongs to everyone, regardless of culture or religion. Generalizations like yours perpetuate harmful stereotypes, and we need to move beyond such outdated views.
Life would be so much easier if the anti-Islam rhetoric in Turkey were to be conducted straightforward and not in a hidden fashion with lies. If it was straightforward, the debate would have ended 100 years ago.
Sure, science is not a western construct but in the context of the final stages of the Ottoman Empire science over religion was considered a western value. This is not really a philosophical discussion, it's a practical implication of the decline of the empire and a political position in an attempt to reduce the islamic influence. This is a timeframe when people were burning observatories so that the "pervert scientists don't look under the skirt of the angels".
Atatürk was technically a dictator and a tyrant who executed quite a large number of islamic leaders in an attempt to curb the influence of religion. However, when contemporary Turks talk about being pro-Atatürk they mean the ideology of reducing the islamic influence on daily lives, education, judiciary etc. There are of course some people who would support extermination of religious people but those are just some crazies maybe you can find online and not a widespread position.
As you can see, the "Western values" in the context of Turkey are very specific set of ideals linked with the decline of the empire and formation of the republic and has nothing to do with the understanding of western values in other parts of the worlds or in philosophical sense. It's about practical implications on laws on marriage, inheritance, dress code, teaching the evolution Theory, funding of islamic education institutions etc. This is because Islam is not just something spiritual, it comes with instructions on governance -> the Sharia law.
The Turkish society in a way got disconnected from the core principles of Islam, and ignorance, along with superstitions that do not belong to the religion have taken the place of those core principles.
I understand that it wasn't working anymore, and I agree that a change was much needed but the way it was dealt with and what was put into its place are things I do not condone. To this day, Turkey's problems stem from that enforced, makeshift and conflicting foundation that are incompatible with the society.
> Science belongs to everyone, regardless of culture or religion
You might want to reassess where you stand if you truly believe that. All I see is the decline of the scientific organizations (including universities where people are granted PhDs based on their political connections), the explicit desire to separate girls from boys in schools, spending many times more on ministry of religion vs ministry of education, and pro-government scientists making ridiculous claims like “cellphone use at the time of Noah”[0].
You're unfortunately mixing up religion with politics. The current government is not the representative of Islam, on the contrary, they are far from it.
Your claim conflates "Western values" with scientific progress, and that's simply inaccurate. Let's disentangle scientific advancement from cultural hegemony. Science belongs to everyone, regardless of culture or religion. Generalizations like yours perpetuate harmful stereotypes, and we need to move beyond such outdated views.
Life would be so much easier if the anti-Islam rhetoric in Turkey were to be conducted straightforward and not in a hidden fashion with lies. If it was straightforward, the debate would have ended 100 years ago.