Turkey’s Search for Identity: A Eurasian and Islamic Country

The revival of Islam since 9/11 has often been identified in Western media and political discourses as a failure of modernization and the inexorable emergence of fundamentalism and terrorism. The role of Islam in Turkish politics cannot be directly related to the rise of Islamism in regional and global contexts after 9/11 and the US-led occupation of Iraq. Turkey is usually described as a bridge—the so-called bridge theory—between Europe and Asia, the West and the (Middle) East or the Western and the Islamic civilizations.1 This identification seems logical given the fact that Turkey is geographically located between Europe and the Middle East. Historically, Turkey was the first example of the transferring of an Islamic empire to a secular nation-state outside Europe in the 1920s. It is also the first Muslim country to achieve candidature for European Union (EU) membership in the 21st century. However, the ongoing debates about Turkey’s membership in the EU have brought it to question not only its role as a bridge, but also the Turkish identity, its history and culture in the context of European collective history and identity.