Now it is necessary to say and do new things

By linking culture to technology and arguing that the two cannot be separated, we pointed to a form of conservatism that some try to instill in Muslims. Thankfully, Islamist thought and conservatism, in their mainstream form, have not remained overly dependent on this conservatism. Could they have, had they wished to? That is the question that immediately comes to mind at this level. Where could a kind of techno-theology that runs entirely against the course of the world lead people?

On this occasion it is worth noting that anti-technical views within Western modernism have a theological foundation, one end of which reaches nostalgia and the other of which rests on the notion of "eternal sin". The tendency to realize only afterwards that one has committed a kind of sin through the destruction one has wrought on the world with the technology one has developed, and to make confession for it, is likewise a feature tied to the Christian roots of Western civilization. For it this is an insurmountable tragedy. That is why it tries to get by with the ceaseless expression of a sense of sinfulness that can never be remedied. Meanwhile it also develops philosophies that are truly elegant and profound. The famous German philosopher Martin Heidegger, who inspired French postmodern philosophers in particular, wrote the well-known treatise "The Question Concerning Technology," or the problem of technique, yet even among those in the West who read it, it did not lead them to keep a distance from technology. Although it inspired great respect, Westerners, with their sin thrown in their faces, went on at full speed developing the very finest technology.

I think "eternal sin" in the West is a sin that is passed on to the human being from birth, that is, by virtue of our very existence, and that cannot be avoided. One must of course find some way to cope with a sin we cannot avoid. "Scapegoats" are of course a psychological way of coping and a style rooted in culture, but in Protestantism it works, interestingly, in a way that deepens the effect of this sin even further. The first and eternal sin is atoned for by working harder. The part related to technology is a strange effect that thereby develops further the technology that Heidegger depicted as a sin we cannot avoid by virtue of being human. But in the end it is an effect that in no way hinders the development of technology in the West, that develops it and that, of course, at least in this period, has made the West materially dominant over the world.

By contrast, it seems stranger still that the approach that has infected the Islamic world under the influence of Western literature, and that regards technique as abhorrent, should seek a different kind of effect. As we have said before, an approach that sees technology as though it were something that developed later and invaded the Islamic world, and as responsible for the cultural imperialism, is above all unrealistic.

First of all, non-Islamic Western culture did not seep into the Islamic world by way of technology; on the contrary, it was infiltrated through politics, and indeed imposed by force in the crudest manner.

Second, in fact the culture suited to technology, as it developed in the West, has unfortunately not developed as much as is supposed. Taking the technology without taking its culture, perhaps this is actually our real big problem. At the most basic level, we eastern-Muslim societies have not been able to appreciate, as Westerners have, the possibilities for the technologies and industries that we develop or import to be more compatible with the environment. We bought the cars but did not take on the traffic culture and its ethics. We set up factories but did not develop a work culture and ethics suited to them. We built high-rise buildings with the latest technologies but did not make environmental arrangements suited to them and did not respect environmental rights. Let us admit that the West, which we rail against from morning till night on this subject, has a much different adventure between technology and culture.

Third, while our greatest problem as the Muslim world is the loss of power, a techno-theology of this kind would have no effect other than providing us with a pauper's consolation and, of course, making us a little lazier still.

Without doubt this process was unfolding in a way entirely unrelated to the selective or preferential proposals of Mehmet Akif Ersoy and his friends (the proposal "take the knowledge of the West"). With the founding of the Republic, as is well known, a new relationship began to be attributed to modernization and religion. In order to legitimize itself, the Republic carefully cultivated an image of the religious forces of the past as "reactionaries who opposed whatever there was in the name of change and innovation."

Indeed, the Republic's attitude toward religion also gave rise to a reaction among religious circles. Through this reaction a conservative outlook toward modernization and innovation, one that had not existed before, was adopted. It was a highly meaningful reflex against a modernization that was on the verge of sweeping everything away. In such a period, the religious no longer had the power or the authority to control, or to select, either the technology entering the country or its culture. The product that emerged was of course not ours, but at the point we have reached today we have no reason to rail against those periods either. Today we are primarily responsible for what is happening in culture, technology, politics and urbanization. As we said before, we no longer have the luxury of blaming others for the negative things, nor any excuse or pretext to take refuge in. Since we have begun self-criticism out of sheer metal fatigue, we need to set to work with a new spirit and a new, positive definition of the self.

Whatever belonged to yesterday has remained in yesterday; now it is necessary to say and do new things.