Fear, superiority, self-identification and rejection: Turks' different attitudes to Europe since the late Ottoman era

Abstract

This contribution identifies four Turkish attitudes towards Europe from the late nineteenth century onwards: self-identification with Europe, fear of Europe, superiority over Europe and becoming local/national which implies a rejection of Europe. It then links these four attitudes to four types of forgetting the Ottoman past. The main argument is that the peculiar rise of neo-Ottomanism in Turkey today is evidence of a conservative trauma that follows the fourth type of forgetting—a painful and permanent trauma where the conservative cannot achieve closure with the past. The current Turkish government’s use of neo-Ottomanism utilizes the superiority over Europe and becoming local/national attitudes especially and attempts to maintain an anachronistic identity as the conservatives in Turkey fail to achieve closure with the Ottoman past.