If I asked you to name the important events of the early 20th century, you’d probably mention the start of World War I in 1914, the Russian Revolution in 1917, the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, the stock market crash in 1929, and Adolph Hitler becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933.
But for millions of people around the world, the most consequential year was 1924. That was when the last caliph – Islam’s supreme religious and political leader, the Prophet Mohammed’s heir – was deposed, the 1,400-year-old institution of the caliphate abolished and all members of the Ottoman dynasty sent into exile.
This was the moment in history when, as Osama bin Laden phrased it, “the whole Islamic world fell under the Crusader banner.” Three months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Ayman al-Zawahiri, then al-Qaeda’s chief ideologue/theologian, now bin Laden’s successor, wrote that the “hope of the Muslim nation (is) to reinstate its fallen caliphate and regain its lost glory.”
The man most responsible for abolishing the caliphate – despised by Islamists everywhere – was Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the subject of a timely new biography by military historian and columnist Austin Bay.
Bay focuses on Ataturk’s military achievements that he argues have been neglected in the West. But reading his fascinating book, two questions struck me as pivotal to understanding the war being waged on the West not just by al-Qaeda but also by a long list of Jihadi groups (the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, al-Shabaab, Hezbollah, Hamas to name just a few) and a short list of Jihadi regimes (the Islamic Republic of Iran primary among them). The first question: Why did Ataturk consign the caliphate to the dustbin of history? The second question: Would those reasons apply today?
Bay points out that Ataturk was the “only undefeated general of the Ottoman empire.” Nevertheless, he went on to reject “Ottoman imperialism and colonialism” which could be called, with equal accuracy, Muslim imperialism and colonialism. As a cadet and young officer, he was “schooled on Europe’s technological, cultural, and educational advances” and inspired by the European ideal of freedom and liberal constitutionalism.
When Ataturk came to power, he determined to remake the broken heartland of the Ottoman Empire as a Westernized nation-state. The key was to separate secular and religious authority – strictly limiting the latter. He also granted rights to women, believing that a nation that does not educate and empower half its population can only limp, not run. Bay concludes that Ataturk “continues to inspire reformers and modernizers throughout the world.”
But does he? In the season we hopefully call the Arab Spring it is sobering to recall, as Bay does, that Ataturk’s achievement remains unique: No other Muslim-majority nation has become a “Western parliamentary democracy and secular state.”
Consider what has changed: In the early 20th century, the nations of Europe were confident and bold, pushing the frontiers of science, technology and industry. Turkey, by contrast, was “the sick man of Europe.”
Today, it might be argued, the sick man of Europe is Europe. In one European country after another, there are signs not of spring but of fall – from debt crises to riots to population decline. Who could possibly want to emulate Europe? Who really believes that a Europeanized Islam is more likely than an Islamized Europe?
For Turkey, the not illogical response has been what some term neo-Ottomanism. Under the Justice and Development Party (AKP), first elected in 2002, Ataturk’s legacy is being systematically dismantled. Turkey has been growing less Western, less secular and less democratic, if, by democratic, we mean not just casting ballots but guaranteeing freedoms, minority rights and the rule of law. The AKP has been positioning Turkey as a contender for leadership of the Muslim world, making it both an ally and a rival of Arabs and Persians eager for the same role.
In the concluding chapter of his book, Bay notes that “at midnight on March 4, 1924, the last caliph left the Catalca railway station in a special coach car attached to the Orient Express.” Abdul Mejid II may indeed have been the last caliph of the 20th century. But there are those fighting to revive the age of Muslim conquerors and conquests, power and glory.
They are deadly serious and, in the countries where the Arab Spring has sprung, at least as well positioned to take power as those who embrace Ataturk’s vision of liberal democracy and patriotism – a vision Europeans have all but abandoned, not to their detriment alone.
