Crescent & Star by Stephen Kinzer

Standing as it does at the crossroads of continents, Anatolia has been witness to the rise and fall of many of the world's great empires: the Akkadians, the Achaemenid Persians, the Greeks of Alexander the Great, the Romans, the Byzantines, and finally the Ottoman Turks. Despite Anatolia's strong historical ties to the Greek world (it was the birthplace of Homer and Herodotus), the long reign of the Ottoman Empire turned the region away from Europe, and the area suffered under the long stagnation of Ottoman rule, ending only with the dissolution and partitioning of the empire after World War I. A Turkish nationalist movement rose in opposition to the partitioning of Anatolia itself, and was led to victory in the Turkish War of Independence by a military officer named Mustafa Kemal, who would eventually take the surname Atatürk, father of the Turks.

After founding the Turkish Republic, Atatürk served as president for fifteen years. He embarked on a full scale reform of the state based on an Enlightenment-based ideology that promoted secularism, modernity, and democracy. He abolished the Ottoman caliphate, granted women full political rights, and replaced religious law with secular penal and civil codes.

Three-quarters of a century later, Atatürk's ideology still serves as the foundation for Turkish political life, and he himself is worshiped as a near-deity. In 2001 (less than two weeks after 9/11), Stephen Kinzer published Crescent & Star, an exploration of how Atatürk's ideology has been implemented by his successors. After five years as The New York Times bureau chief in Istanbul, Kinzer reports that while the Turkish people have made tremendous progress, their leaders have not kept pace:

If Atatürk could return to see what has become of his nation, he undoubtedly would be astonished at how far it has come. Muddy villages have become bustling cities and cow paths have become superhighways... People are educated, self-confident and eager to build a nation that embodies the ideals of democracy and human rights.

The ruling elite, however, refuses to embrace this new nation or even admit it exists. Military commanders, prosecutors, security officers, narrow-minded bureaucrats, lapdog newspaper editors, rigidly conservative politicians and other members of this sclerotic cadre remain psychologically trapped in the 1920s... They not only ignore but actively resist intensifying pressure from educated, worldly Turks who want their country to break free of its shackles and complete its march toward the democracy that was Atatürk's dream.

This is the thesis of Kinzer's short book, which mixes equal parts first-person journalism with more traditional historical analysis, and Kinzer repeats it ad nauseam. If the elites will fully embrace Western-style democracy, Kinzer insists, "Turkey will astonish the world by becoming the most audaciously successful nation of the twenty-first century." Unfortunately, the depth of his analysis does not support this prescription.

Kinzer does best when fulfilling his natural role as journalist, particularly in the brief interludes he calls meze (after the Turkish small dish). In these pages, Kinzer provides the flavor and scent of modern Turkey, reporting on the drinking cafes called meyhane, the archaeological excavations of Troy , and his own brief imprisonment after encountering an army roadblock while on assignment in Kurdish areas of eastern Turkey:

Despite my growing concern, I could not help smiling when I saw that two lines of soldiers, a total of twenty-four men, had been assembled to oversee my arrival. Never had any military body taken me so seriously.

Under the watchful eyes of these recruits, I was brought down a set of steps to the subterranean jail. I knew that because I was a foreigner, nothing too serious would happen to me. Nonetheless, while descending that concrete staircase I could not help thinking of the many unfortunate Kurds, guilty and innocent, who must have been dragged down here on their way to brutal abuse.

The book also serves as a basic introduction to the major issues in modern Turkish history: the struggle between secularism and Islam, the Kurdish question, the official denial of the Armenian genocide, the tensions with Greece, and the 1999 earthquake. Unfortunately, on each of these topics you will have to take Kinzer's word for it. There are no footnotes, endnotes, or even the most basic bibliography. Each subject is, in Kinzer's hands, turned into another example of how the Turkish political leadership has failed. Not to fear, however, Kinzer knows just what to do. The close of each chapter includes some variation of "Turkey must..." or "The state must..." followed by a prescriptive platitude trumpeting the purity of Western-style freedom and democracy.

When faced with the dissonance of admiring a people, but recognizing the tremendous shortcomings of their government, Kinzer chooses simply to assert that the government is detached from their own people. Kinzer blames the flimsy characters that have served as Turkey's political leaders, but not the people who elected them, or the intellectual and cultural elites who might offer themselves as substitutes. He seems to recognize that the various military coups over the years were good things (even the soft coup of 1997), yet simply asserts, with no supporting analysis, that such oversight is no longer necessary.

Kinzer clearly loves Turkey, and the Turkish people. And when he sticks to his first-person accounts of Turkish daily life, it is not hard to see why. Unfortunately, the book's depiction of contemporary issues in Turkey is marred by his distracting and ill-supported condescension. Kinzer's journalistic vignettes are worthwhile, but there must be a better introduction to modern Turkish history.