The New York Times - AUG. 28, 2014
In the late 1990s, as Turkey was reeling from various political and economic crises, there was a nationwide debate over European Union membership and whether Turkish accession to the union would solve the country’s problems.
Back
then, I was a graduate student in International Relations at Marmara
University. Among the professors in my department, there was only one
who opposed Turkey’s integration with the West. He was a distinguished
scholar of Islamic and Western political philosophy, and a genial figure
who enjoyed spending hours conversing with his students. In his
lectures, this professor argued that Turkey would soon emerge as the
leader of the Islamic world by taking advantage of its proud heritage
and geographical potential.
Now, 14 years later, that professor, Ahmet Davutoglu, has been named Turkey’s new prime minister.
Mr.
Davutoglu’s classroom pronouncements often sounded more like fairy
tales than political analysis. He cited the historical precedents of
Britain, which created a global empire in the aftermath of its
17th-century civil war, and Germany, a fragmented nation which became a
global power following its 19th-century unification. Mr. Davutoglu was
confident that his vision could transform what was then an
inflation-battered nation, nearly torn apart by a war with Kurdish
separatists, into a global power.
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