A few weeks ago, I had a chance to go to Saudi Arabia. And the first thing I wanted to do as a Muslim was to go to Mecca and visit the Kaaba, the holiest shrine of Islam. And I did that; I put on my ritualistic dress, I went to the holy mosque, I did my prayers, I observed all the rituals. And meanwhile, besides all the spirituality, there was one mundane detail in the Kaaba that was pretty interesting for me: there was no separation of sexes. In other words, men and women were worshiping all together. They were together while doing tawāf, the circular walk around the Kaaba. They were together while praying.
Pre nekoliko nedelja, imao sam priliku da odem u Saudijsku Arabiju. I, kao musliman, prva stvar koju sam hteo da uradim je da odem u Meku i posetim Kabu, najvažnije islamsko svetilište. To sam i uradio; obukao sam svoju ritualnu odeću; otišao u svetu džamiju; i klanjao se, izveo sve rituale. U međuvremenu, osim sve duhovnosti, video sam i jedan ovozemaljski detalj u Kabi koji mi je bio veoma interesantan. Nije bilo razdvojenosti po polovima. Drugim rečima, muškarci i žene su se molili zajedno. Bili su zajedno za vreme tavafa, kruženja oko Kabe. Bili su zajedno dok su se klanjali.
And if you wonder why this is interesting at all, you have to see the rest of Saudi Arabia, because this a country which is strictly divided between the sexes. In other words: as men, you are simply not supposed to be in the same physical space with women. And I noticed this in a very funny way. I left the Kaaba to eat something in downtown Mecca. I headed to the nearest Burger King restaurant. And I went there -- I noticed that there was a male section, which is carefully separated from the female section. I had to pay, order and eat in the male section. "It's funny," I said to myself, "You can mingle with the opposite sex at the holy Kaaba, but not at the Burger King?"
I ako se pitate zašto je uopšte to interesantno, trebalo bi da vidite ostatak Saudijske Arabije, jer to je zemlja koja je strogo podeljena između polova Drugim rečima, kao muškarac, ne bi trebalo da budete u istom fizičkom prostoru sa ženama. Ovo sam primetio u smešnoj situaciji. Napustio sam Kabu kako bih nešto pojeo u centru Meke. Uputio sam se u najbliži "Burger King" restoran. Otišao sam tamo - i primetio da postoji odeljak za muškarce, koji je bio pažljivo razdvojen od ženskog sektora. I morao sam da platim, naručim i jedem u muškom sektoru. "Smešno", pomislio sam, "možete se mešati sa suprotnim polom u svetoj Kabi, ali ne i u Burger Kingu."
(Laughter)
Prilično ironično.
Quite, quite ironic. Ironic, and it's also, I think, quite telling, because the Kaaba and the rituals around it are relics from the earliest phase of Islam, that of prophet Muhammad. And if there was a big emphasis at the time to separate men from women, the rituals around the Kaaba could have been designed accordingly. But apparently, that was not an issue at the time. So the rituals came that way. This is also, I think, confirmed by the fact that the seclusion of women in creating a divided society is something that you also do not find in the Koran -- the very core of Islam, the divine core of Islam -- that all Muslims, equally myself, believe.
Ironično, i takođe mislim, govori nam dosta toga. Jer su Kaba i rituali oko nje, ostali iz najranijeg perioda islama, iz vremena proroka Muhameda. I da je u to vreme davano značaja razdvajanju muškaraca i žena, rituali oko Kabe bi bili osmišljeni u skladu sa tim. Ali izgleda da u to vreme, ovo nije bilo pitanje. Pa su i rituali u skladu sa tim. Ovo je, takođe, potvrđeno činjenicom da je izdvajanje žena u kreiranju podeljenog društva nešto što nećete naći u Kuranu - jezgru islama - božanskoj suštini islama u koji svi muslimani, uključujući mene, veruju.
And I think it's not an accident that you don't find this idea in the very origin of Islam, because many scholars who study the history of Islamic thought -- Muslim scholars or Westerners -- think that, actually, the practice of dividing men and women physically came as a later development in Islam, as Muslims adopted some preexisting cultures and traditions of the Middle East. Seclusion of women was actually a Byzantine and Persian practice, and Muslims adopted it and made it a part of their religion.
I mislim da to što ove ideje nema u samim korenima islama nije slučajno. Jer mnogi naučnici koji proučavaju islam - naučnici muslimani ili zapadnjaci - misle da je praksa fizičkog razdvajanja muškaraca i žena došla u kasnijem razvoju islama, kada su muslimani usvojili neke već postojeće kulture i tradicije Bliskog istoka. Isključivanje žena bilo je zapravo vizantijska i persijska praksa koju su muslimani usvojili
Actually, this is just one example of a much larger phenomenon.
i koja je tako postala deo njihove religije.
What we call today Islamic law, and especially Islamic culture -- and there are many Islamic cultures, actually; the one in Saudi Arabia is much different from where I come from in Istanbul or Turkey. But still, if you're going to speak about a Muslim culture, this has a core: the divine message which began the religion. But then many traditions, perceptions, practices were added on top of it. And these were traditions of the Middle East medieval traditions.
I zapravo ovo je samo jedan primer tog mnogo većeg fenomena. Ono što danas zovemo zakonom islama, i posebno islamskom kulturom - a postoje mnoge muslimanske države; Saudijska Arabija je mnogo drugačija od Istanbula ili Turske, odakle ja dolazim. Ali ipak, ako pričate o muslimanskoj kulturi, ona ima temeljnu, uzvišenu poruku, koja je započela religiju, ali potom su mnogi običaji, opažanja i praksa bili pridodati tome. A ovo su bile tradicije bliskog istoka - srednjevekovne tradicije.
There are two important messages, or two lessons, to take from that reality. First of all, Muslims -- pious, conservative, believing Muslims who want to be loyal to their religion -- should not cling onto everything in their culture, thinking that that's divinely mandated. Maybe some things are bad traditions and they need to be changed. On the other hand, the Westerners who look at Islamic culture and see some troubling aspects should not readily conclude that this is what Islam ordains. Maybe it's a Middle Eastern culture that became confused with Islam.
Postoje dve važne poruke, ili dve lekcije, koje se mogu naučiti iz toga. Prvo, muslimani, pobožni, konzervativni muslimani koji veruju i koji žele da budu odani svojoj religiji - ne bi trebalo da se drže slepo svega u svojoj kulturi misleći da to bog zapoveda. Možda su neke stvari loše tradicije koje bi trebalo promeniti. S druge strane, zapadnjaci koji posmatraju islamsku kulturu i vide neke probleme ne bi trebalo da odmah zaključuju da je to nešto šta nalaže islam. Možda je to kultura Bliskog istoka kojom se zamenjuje islam.
There is a practice called female circumcision. It's something terrible, horrible. It is basically an operation to deprive women of sexual pleasure. And Westerners -- Europeans or Americans -- who didn't know about this before, [saw] this practice within some of the Muslim communities who migrated from North Africa. And they've thought, "Oh, what a horrible religion that is, which ordains something like that." But when you look at female circumcision, you see that it has nothing to do with Islam; it's just a North African practice which predates Islam. It was there for thousands of years. And, quite tellingly, some Muslims do practice it -- the Muslims in North Africa, not in other places. But also the non-Muslim communities of North Africa -- the animists, some Christians and even a Jewish tribe in North Africa -- are known to practice female circumcision. So what might look like a problem within Islamic faith might turn out to be a tradition that Muslims have subscribed to.
Postoji običaj koji se zove žensko obrezivanje. Nešto užasno, grozno. To je operacija kojom se ženi oduzima mogućnost da uživa u seksu. I zapadnjaci, Evropljani ili Amerikanci, koji za ovo nisu znali ranije, susreli su se sa time u nekim muslimanskim društvima koja su migrirala iz severne Afrike. I pomislili su: "Kakva grozna religija kad može da nalaže ovako nešto." Ali međutim, kada pogledate, žensko obrezivanje nema nikakve veze sa islamom, to je severo-afrički običaj, koji je nastao pre islama. Postojao je tamo hiljadama godina. Neki muslimani su ga usvojili kao sopstvenu praksu. Muslimani u severnoj Africi, ne na drugim mestima. Ali isto tako i ne-muslimanske zajednice u severnoj Africi - animisti i čak i neki hrišćani pa čak i jevrejsko pleme u severnoj Africi praktikuje žensko obrezivanje. Tako da ono što može izgledati kao problem u islamskoj veri može da se ispostavi da je tradicija koju su muslimani preuzeli.
The same thing can be said for honor killings, which is a recurrent theme in the Western media -- and which is, of course, a horrible tradition. And we see, truly, in some Muslim communities, that tradition. But in the non-Muslim communities of the Middle East, such as some Christian communities, Eastern communities, you see the same practice. We had a tragic case of an honor killing within Turkey's Armenian community just a few months ago.
Isto može da se kaže za ubistva iz časti, koja su česta tema u zapadnjačkim medijima - i što je, naravno, užasna tradicija. Vidimo, zaista, u nekim muslimanskim društvima ovaj običaj. Ali u ne-muslimanskim društvima na Bliskom istoku, kao što su neke hrišćanske zajednice, vidimo isti običaj. Imali smo tragičan slučaj ubistva iz časti unutar jermenske zajednice u Turskoj pre samo nekoliko meseci.
Now, these are things about general culture, but I'm also very much interested in political culture and whether liberty and democracy is appreciated, or whether there's an authoritarian political culture in which the state is supposed to impose things on the citizens. And it is no secret that many Islamic movements in the Middle East tend to be authoritarian, and some of the so-called "Islamic regimes," such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and the worst case, the Taliban in Afghanistan, they are pretty authoritarian -- no doubt about that.
Ovo se odnosi na kulturu generalno, ali ja sam takođe veoma zainteresovan za političku kulturu i da li su sloboda i demokratija poštovane, ili postoji autoritarna politika kojom država nameće pravila građanima. I nije tajna da mnogi islamistički pokreti na Bliskom istoku imaju tendenciju da budu autoritarni i neki od takozvanih "islamskih režima" kao što su Saudijska Arabija, Iran i najgori slučaj, Talibani u Avganistanu oni su prilično autoritarni, u to nema sumnje.
For example, in Saudi Arabia, there is a phenomenon called the religious police. And the religious police imposes the supposed Islamic way of life on every citizen, by force -- like, women are forced to cover their heads -- wear the hijab, the Islamic head cover. Now that is pretty authoritarian, and that's something I'm very much critical of. But when I realized that the non-Muslim, or the non-Islamic-minded actors in the same geography sometimes behaved similarly, I realized that the problem maybe lies in the political culture of the whole region, not just Islam. Let me give you an example: in Turkey, where I come from, which is a very hyper-secular republic, until very recently, we used to have what I call "secularism police," which would guard the universities against veiled students. In other words, they would force students to uncover their heads. And I think forcing people to uncover their head is as tyrannical as forcing them to cover it. It should be the citizen's decision.
Na primer, u Saudijskoj Arabiji postoji fenomen zvani verska policija - koja nameće pretpostavljeni islamski način života svakom građaninu, silom - na primer žene su prisiljene da pokrivaju svoje glave - nose hidžab, koji pokriva glavu. To je prilično autoritarno, i ja sam prilično kritičan u odnosu na to. Ali kada sam shvatio da ne-muslimani sa istog područja ponekad rade to isto shvatio sam da je problem u političkoj kulturi čitave regije, a ne u islamu. Daću vam primer: u Turskoj, odakle ja dolazim, a koja je veoma sekularna republika, sve do skoro imali smo ono što ja zovem sekularnom policijom koja je kontrolisala da se na univerzitetima studentkinje ne pokrivaju. Drugim rečima, oni su terali studentkinje da otkriju svoje glave. I mislim da je terati ljude da otkriju glavu jednako tiranski kao terati ih da je pokriju. To bi trebalo biti odluka građanina.
But when I saw that, I said, "Maybe the problem is just an authoritarian culture in the region, and some Muslims have been influenced by that. But the secular-minded people can be influenced by that. Maybe it's a problem of the political culture, and we have to think about how to change that political culture." Now, these are some of the questions I had in mind a few years ago when I sat down to write a book. I said, "Well, I will do research about how Islam actually came to be what it is today, and what roads were taken and what roads could have been taken." The name of the book is "Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty." And as the subtitle suggests, I looked at Islamic tradition and the history of Islamic thought from the perspective of individual liberty, and I tried to find what are the strengths with regard to individual liberty.
Ali kad sam to video, rekao sam: "Možda je problem autoritarna kultura u regionu, koja je uticala na neke muslimane." Ali i svetovno orijentisani ljudi mogu biti podložni ovim uticajima. Možda je ovo problem političke kulture, i moramo misliti o tome kako da promenimo tu političku kulturu. Neka od pitanja o kojima sam razmišljao pre nekoliko godina kada sam počeo da pišem knjigu bila su: "Napraviću istraživanje o tome kako je islam postao ono što je danas i kojim je putevima išao, a kojima je mogao da ide." Ime knjige je: "Islam bez ekstrema: borba muslimana za slobodu". I kako podnaslov kaže, posmatrao sam islamsku tradiciju i istoriju islamske misli iz perspektive individualne slobode, i pokušao sam da pronađem prednosti u vezi sa individualnom slobodom.
And there are strengths in Islamic tradition. Islam, actually, as a monotheistic religion, which defined man as a responsible agent by itself, created the idea of the individual in the Middle East, and saved it from the communitarianism, the collectivism of the tribe. You can derive many ideas from that. But besides that, I also saw problems within Islamic tradition. But one thing was curious: most of those problems turn out to be problems that emerged later, not from the very divine core of Islam, the Koran, but from, again, traditions and mentalities, or the interpretations of the Koran that Muslims made in the Middle Ages. The Koran, for example, doesn't condone stoning. There is no punishment for apostasy. There is no punishment for personal sins like drinking. These things which make Islamic law, the troubling aspects of Islamic law, were developed into later interpretations of Islam.
I postoje prednosti u tradiciji Islama. Islam je zapravo, kao monoteistička religija, definišući čoveka kao odgovornog samog po sebi, stvorio ideju pojedinca na Bliskom istoku i spasio je od komunitarizma, kolektivizma plemena. Iz ovoga možete izvesti mnogo ideja. Ali osim toga, video sam takođe probleme u tradiciji islama. Ali jedna stvar je bila interesantna: za većinu problema se ispostavilo da su stigli naknadno, ne iz svetog jezgra islama, Kurana, nego iz, ponovo, tradicija i mentaliteta ili interpretacije Kurana koje su muslimani napravili u srednjem veku. Kuran, na primer ne odobrava kamenovanja. Nema kazne za otpadništvo. Nema kazne za lične stvari, kao pijenje alkohola. Ove stvari, koje čine islamski zakon, problematične stavke islamskog zakona, kasnije su bile razvijene, u potonjim interpretacijama islama.
Which means that Muslims can, today, look at those things and say, "Well, the core of our religion is here to stay with us. It's our faith, and we will be loyal to it. But we can change how it was interpreted, because it was interpreted according to the time and milieu in the Middle Ages. Now we're living in a different world, with different values and political systems." That interpretation is quite possible and feasible.
Što znači da danas muslimani mogu da pogledaju ove stvari i da kažu: "Jezgro naše religije je tu i ostaje sa nama. To je naša vera i bićemo joj odani." Ali mi možemo da promenimo ove interpretacije, jer su one nastale u odnosu na vreme i milje u srednjem veku. Sada živimo u drugačijem svetu sa drugim vrednostima i drugačijim političkim sistemima. Ova interpretacija je prilično moguća i izvodljiva.
Now, if I were the only person thinking that way, we would be in trouble. But that's not the case at all. Actually, from the 19th century on, there's a whole revisionist, reformist -- whatever you call it -- tradition, a trend in Islamic thinking. These were intellectuals or statesmen of the 19th century, and later, 20th century, which looked at Europe, basically, and saw that Europe has many things to admire, like science and technology. But not just that; also democracy, parliament, the idea of representation, the idea of equal citizenship. These Muslim thinkers, intellectuals and statesmen of the 19th century, looked at Europe, saw these things, and said, "Why don't we have these things?" And they looked back at Islamic tradition, and saw that there are problematic aspects, but they're not the core of the religion, so maybe they can be re-understood, and the Koran can be reread in the modern world.
Da sam ja jedina osoba koja ovako razmišlja, bili bismo u nevolji. Ali to nije slučaj. Zapravo, od 19. veka na ovamo postoji čitav trend revizionističke, reformističke - kako god hoćete - tradicije, trenda u islamskoj misli. To su bili intelektualci i državnici 19. i kasije 20. veka, koji su posmatrali Evropu i primetili da ona ima mnogo toga za poštovanje, kao nauku i tehnologiju. Ali ne samo to, takođe demokratiju, parlament, ideju predstavništva, ideju jednakosti među građanima. Ovi islamski mislioci, intelektualci i državnici 19. veka, su posmatrali Evropu i videli sve te stvari. Rekli su: "Zašto mi nemamo sve to?" Pogledali su muslimansku tradiciju, i primetili da su to problematični aspekti, ali oni nisu jezgro religije i možda se mogu drugačije razumeti, i Kuran se može ponovo čitati u modernom svetu.
That trend is generally called Islamic modernism, and it was advanced by intellectuals and statesmen, not just as an intellectual idea, though, but also as a political program. And that's why, actually, in the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire, which then covered the whole Middle East, made very important reforms -- reforms like giving Christians and Jews an equal citizenship status, accepting a constitution, accepting a representative parliament, advancing the idea of freedom of religion. That's why the Ottoman Empire, in its last decades, turned into a proto-democracy, a constitutional monarchy, and freedom was a very important political value at the time.
Taj trend je generalno nazvan islamski modernizam, i promovisali su ga intelektualci i državnici, ne samo kao intelektualnu ideju, već kao i politički program. I zato, u stvari, u 19.veku Otomansko carstvo, koje je tada zauzimalo ceo Bliski istok, uvodi veoma važne reforme - kao izjednačavanje građanskog statusa hrišćana i jevreja prihvatanje ustava, predstavništva u parlamentu, i ideje religijskih sloboda. I zato se Otomansko carstvo poslednjih decenija pretvorilo u ustavnu monarhiju. I sloboda je bila veoma važna politička vrednost tog vremena.
Similarly, in the Arab world, there was what the great Arab historian Albert Hourani defines as the Liberal Age. He has a book, "Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age," and the Liberal Age, he defines as 19th century and early 20th century. Quite notably, this was the dominant trend in the early 20th century among Islamic thinkers and statesmen and theologians. But there is a very curious pattern in the rest of the 20th century, because we see a sharp decline in this Islamic modernist line. And in place of that, what happens is that Islamism grows as an ideology which is authoritarian, which is quite strident, which is quite anti-Western, and which wants to shape society based on a utopian vision.
Slično, u arapskom svetu, postojalo je nešto što veliki arapski istoričar Albert Hourani definiše kao "slobodno doba" On ima knjigu: "Arapska misao slobodnog doba", gde "slobodno doba" definiše kao 19. vek i rani 20. vek. Sasvim izvesno, to je bio dominantni trend početkom 20. veka među islamskim misliocima, državnicima i teolozima. Ali imamo tu i jedan zanivljiv obrazac u nastavku 20. veka. jer vidimo oštar pad u ovom islamskom modernizmu I na mesto toga, islamizam raste kao ideologija koja je autoritarna, i prilično oštra, prilično anti-zapadnjačka, i koja želi da oblikuje društvo na osnovu utopijskih vizija.
So Islamism is the problematic idea that really created a lot of problems in the 20th-century Islamic world. And even the very extreme forms of Islamism led to terrorism in the name of Islam -- which is actually a practice that I think is against Islam, but some, obviously, extremists, did not think that way. But there is a curious question: If Islamic modernism was so popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries, why did Islamism become so popular in the rest of the 20th century? And this is a question, I think, which needs to be discussed carefully. In my book, I went into that question as well. And actually, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand that. Just look at the political history of the 20th century, and you see things have changed a lot. The contexts have changed.
Dakle, islamizam je problematična ideja koja je zaista napravila dosta problema u islamskom svetu 20. veka. I kada su veoma ekstremni oblici islamizma doveli do terorizma u ime islama - što je zapravo praksa za koju ja smatram da je protiv islama, ali očigledno, neki ekstremisti nisu tako mislili. Ali tu je zanimljivo pitanje: ako je modernizam u islamu bio toliko popularan u 19. i ranom 20. veku, zašto je islamizam postao tako popularan i u ostatku 20. veka? I ovo pitanje, ja mislim, zahteva pažljivu diskusiju. U mojoj knjizi sam se bavio ovim pitanjem između ostalog. I zaista ne morate da budete veliki naučnik da biste to razumeli. Samo pogledajte političku istoriju 20. veka i videćete da su se stvari dosta promenile. Kontekst se promenio.
In the 19th century, when Muslims were looking at Europe as an example, they were independent; they were more self-confident. In the early 20th century, with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the whole Middle East was colonized. And when you have colonialization, what do you have? You have anti-colonialization. So Europe is not just an example now to emulate; it's an enemy to fight and to resist. So there's a very sharp decline in liberal ideas in the Muslim world, and what you see is more of a defensive, rigid, reactionary strain, which led to Arab socialism, Arab nationalism and ultimately to the Islamist ideology. And when the colonial period ended, what you had in place of that was generally secular dictators, which say they're a country, but did not bring democracy to the country, and established their own dictatorship. And I think the West, at least some powers in the West, particularly the United States, made the mistake of supporting those secular dictators, thinking that they were more helpful for their interests. But the fact that those dictators suppressed democracy in their country and suppressed Islamic groups in their country actually made the Islamists much more strident.
U 19. veku, kada su muslimani posmatrali Evropu kao primer, bili su nezavisni i mnogo samopouzdaniji. U ranom 20. veku, sa padom Otomanskog carstva, ceo Bliski istok je bio kolonizovan. A kada imate kolonijalizam, šta još imate? Imate anti-kolonijalizam. Tako Evropa nije primer za imitiranje; već je neprijatelj protiv koga se istrajno bori. Tako da imamo oštro opadanje liberalnih ideja u muslimanskom svetu, i ono što vidimo je više od odbrambenog rigidnog, reakcionarnog naprezanja koje je dovelo do arapskog socijalizma i nacionalizma i konačno, do islamističke ideologije. Kada se kolonijalni period završio umesto njega smo imali uglavnom sekularne diktatore koji kažu da su oni država, ali nisu doneli demokratiju državi, i uspostavili su diktaturu. I mislim da je zapad ili barem neke snage na zapadu, posebno SAD, napravio grešku i podržao te sekularne diktatore, misleći da će podržati njihove interese. Ali zapravo su ovi diktatori potisnuli demokratiju u svojim zemljama i potisnuli islamističke grupe i zapravo načinili muslimane mnogo oštrijim.
So in the 20th century, you had this vicious cycle in the Arab world, where you have a dictatorship suppressing its own people, including the Islamic pious, and they're reacting in reactionary ways. There was one country, though, which was able to escape or stay away from that vicious cycle. And that's the country where I come from, Turkey. Turkey has never been colonized, so it remained as an independent nation after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. That's one thing to remember; it did not share the same anti-colonial hype that you can find in some other countries in the region. Secondly, and most importantly, Turkey became a democracy earlier than any of the countries we are talking about. In 1950, Turkey had the first free and fair elections, which ended the more autocratic secular regime, which was in the beginning of Turkey. And the pious Muslims in Turkey saw that they could change the political system by voting. And they realized that democracy is something compatible with Islam, compatible with their values, and they've been supportive of democracy. That's an experience that not every other Muslim nation in the Middle East had, until very recently.
Tako smo u 20. veku imali taj začarani krug u arapskom svetu gde imate diktatore koji potiskuju svoj sopstveni narod uključujući i muslimanske vernike, i onda oni reaguju u skladu s tim. Jedna država je doduše uspela da izbegne taj začarani krug. I to je država iz koje sam ja: Turska. Turska nikad nije bila kolonizovana i ostala je nezavisna nacija nakon pada Otomanskog carstva. Zapamtimo to. Oni se nisu okrenuli anti-kolinijalnijalizmu koji nalazimo u ostalim državama u regionu. Drugo i najvažnije, Turska je postala demokratija pre bilo koje od država o kojima pričamo. 1950. Turska je imala svoje prve slobodne i ravnopravne izbore, kojima je završena vladavina autokratičnijeg, sekularnog režima, što je bio početak Turske. I religiozni muslimani u Turskoj videli su da glasanjem mogu da promene politički sistem. I shvatili su da je demokratija kompatibilna sa islamom. sa njegovim vrednostima, i podržavali su demokratiju. To je iskustvo koje sve do skoro nisu imale sve muslimanske nacije na Bliskom istoku.
Secondly, in the past two decades, thanks to globalization, thanks to the market economy, thanks to the rise of a middle class, we in Turkey see what I define as a rebirth of Islamic modernism. Now, there's the more urban middle-class pious Muslims who, again, look at their tradition and see that there are some problems in the tradition, and understand that they need to be changed and questioned and reformed. And they look at Europe, and see an example, again, to follow. They see an example, at least, to take some inspiration from. That's why the EU process, Turkey's effort to join the EU, has been supported inside Turkey by the Islamic pious, while some secular nationalists were against it. Well, that process has been a little bit blurred by the fact that not all Europeans are that welcoming, but that's another discussion. But the pro-EU sentiment in Turkey in the past decade has become almost an Islamic cause and supported by the Islamic liberals and the secular liberals as well, of course.
Drugo, u poslednje dve decenije, zahvaljujući globalizaciji i tržišnoj ekonomiji, zahvaljujući napretku srednje klase, u Turskoj vidimo ono što ja definišem kao ponovno rođenje modernizma u islamu. Sada imamo više modernih vernika iz srednje klase. Koji, ponovo, posmatraju tradiciju i vide da tamo ima izvesnih problema. Oni razumeju da to mora da bude promenjeno, ispitano i reformisano. Vide Evropu i vide ponovo primer koji će slediti. Ili makar koji će ih inspirisati. Zato proces Evropske Unije i trud Turske da bude član EU, podržavaju unutar Turske muslimanski vernici, dok su neke sekularne nacije bile protiv toga. Proces je doduše bio malo pomućen činjenicom da nisu svi evropljani srdačni po tom pitanju - ali to je druga stvar. Ali pro-evropski sentiment u Turskoj u poslednjih desetak godina postao je gotovo islamski pokret podržan od strane islamističkih liberala i sekularnih liberala, naravno.
And thanks to that, Turkey has been able to reasonably create a success story in which Islam and the most pious understandings of Islam have become part of the democratic game, and even contributes to the democratic and economic advance of the country. And this has been an inspiring example right now for some of the Islamic movements or some of the countries in the Arab world.
I zahvaljujući tome, Turska je uspela da stvori uspešnu priču u kojoj islam i njegova najreligioznija shvatanja postaju deo demokratske igre i čak doprinose demokratskom i ekonomskom napretku zemlje. Ovo je bio inspirišući primer za neke islamističke pokrete ili neke od zemalja u arapskom svetu.
You must have all seen the Arab Spring, which began in Tunis and in Egypt. Arab masses just revolted against their dictators. They were asking for democracy; they were asking for freedom. And they did not turn out to be the Islamist boogeyman that the dictators were always using to justify their regime. They said, "We want freedom; we want democracy. We are Muslim believers, but we want to be living as free people in free societies." Of course, this is a long road. Democracy is not an overnight achievement; it's a process. But this is a promising era in the Muslim world.
Sigurno ste svi videli "Arapsko proleće", koje je počelo u Tunisu i Egiptu. I mase Arapa koji su protestovali protiv svojih diktatora. Zahtevali su demokratiju, zahtevali su slobodu. I nije se ispostavilo da su islamističke baba-roge koje su diktatori uvek koristili da opravdaju svoj režim. Rekli su: "Hoćemo slobodu i demokratiju. Mi smo vernici, muslimani, ali hoćemo da živimo kao slobodni ljudi u slobodnim društvima." Ovo je naravno, dug put. Demokratija se ne može uspostaviti preko noći; to je proces. Ali ovo je obećavajuće doba u muslimanskom svetu.
And I believe that the Islamic modernism which began in the 19th century, but which had a setback in the 20th century because of the political troubles of the Muslim world, is having a rebirth. And I think the takeaway message from that would be that Islam, despite some of the skeptics in the West, has the potential in itself to create its own way to democracy, create its own way to liberalism, create its own way to freedom. They just should be allowed to work for that.
I ja verujem da je islamski modernizam koji je nastao u 19. veku, ali je doživeo pad u 20. veku zbog političkih nevolja u muslimanskom svetu, na putu da se ponovo rodi. I mislim da je poruka iz toga da islam, uprkos nekim skepticima na zapadu ima potencijal u sebi da stvori sopstveni put ka demokratiji, sopstveni put ka liberalizmu, sopstveni put ka slobodi. Treba im samo dozvoliti da rade na tome.
Thanks so much.
Hvala mnogo.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)