what is up with poetic op-eds?

Rami Khoury is strange.

Full disclosure from the start: I am a great admirer of Turkey. Of course I am glad that four centuries of Ottoman control over the Arab world ended after World War I, yet I wish that Turks and Arabs had more regular encounters so that the modern Turkish experience could rub off on us and inspire us. I admire not only the history, power and astounding rhythms of Istanbul, which twice ruled pivotal regions of the world in the Byzantine and Ottoman eras. I also admire its ongoing trajectory to modernity.

Turkey can teach several important lessons to two groups of people who seem to be increasingly at odds with one another: nationally distressed and wobbly Arabs, and a United States-led West that views Arab Islamist parties that have triumphed in elections with perplexity and hostility.

I am a Turkey fan because the Arab world's large, predominantly Middle Eastern and Muslim northern neighbor is seriously addressing all those core issues of nationhood, citizenship and modernity that the countries of the Middle East generally avoid. These include important challenges like making a full democratic transformation, deepening Turkey's secular tradition, coming to terms with a pluralistic identity, integrating Islamists into the political system, fostering civilian control over the military, grappling with the status of minorities and historical traumas, strengthening human rights guarantees, promoting a truly productive economy, maintaining a vibrant civil society, steadily reforming a country to become eligible for European Union membership while not losing sight of Turkey's links with the Middle East and Central Asia, and forging a new, more dignified, less servile, and mutually beneficial relationship with the U.S. Any country that does all this simultaneously, as Turkey is doing, is impressive in my book.

...

OK.

posted by Lazarus, 10:50 AM