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You bet. Most Anatolian cities have a pretty illiberal culture in which everybody is expected to subscribe to norms of "appropriate" dress code or behavior. That’s one reason why I rather live in Istanbul Ñ which is not a beacon of liberty, either, but at least much more diverse.
Neighborhood pressure
A recent survey on "Being Different in Anatolia," supported by the prestigious
"We heard from retailers, businessmen and civil servants," notes Prof. Toprak, "that most people have begun to attend Friday prayers or closed down their stores just to be seen as though they were going to mosque during prayer time." Or, she adds, "they hesitated to have drinks in public places and began to act as if they were fasting during Ramadan even though they were not..."
Unfortunately, some conservative commentators, which have praised previous works by Professor Toprak, now criticize her severely and argue that the "neighborhood pressure" is imaginary. They should have done better. Because pressure is a very personal thing: only you decide whether you face it or not. By this dismissive attitude, those conservatives only mirror the lack of empathy that the secularists show when it comes to the official pressure on veiled women. That’s why we should take Dr. Toprak’s findings seriously. But we should also not exaggerate them. First of all, this is a targeted research, not a random survey. In other words, the interviewees went out to find out those specific groups that could be under neighborhood pressure. So, it does not give a full picture of the country.
In fact, there are many signs showing that
We would also be misleading ourselves by thinking that the conservatism in question comes all from religion. The survey tells us that among the "inappropriate" behaviors in
Two illiberal camps
So, you may ask, if it is such a nation of illiberals, is
Not really. I think we are still making progress. In the past, one illiberal camp -- the secular Kemalists -- had dominated the whole society. Now we have two illiberal camps clashing with other. That is better, because it paves the road to pluralism. The optimistic scenario is that these two warring camps will wear themselves out, and, over time, come to a live-and-let-live consensus. And the pessimistic scenario? Well, it is that we will be trapped in this cultural civil war, for ever and ever.
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