Oriente son los otros: Occidente, protestantismo e islam en el pensamiento de Ziya Gökalp

Spurred by the encroachment of European powers and the failure of the liberalization undertaken by the Young Ottomans, Ziya Gökalp developed a program that sought to reconcile the assimilationist and refractory visions with respect to the project of Westernization and modernization. His thinking was embraced by the Young Turks as well as by Atatürk and is fundamental to understanding 20th century Turkey. Separating the concepts of culture and religion from the idea of civilization, Gökalp proposed an essentialist interpretation concerning the former and a syncretistic one concerning the latter. To justify the fact that Turks could enter modern Western civilization without renouncing their culture and religion, Gökalp presented an account that placed Islam at the origin of Western modernity that emerged from the Reformation. By establishing a kinship between Islam and Protestantism, Gökalp also sought to dissociate the Turks from any link to the idea of the Orient