The Bosphorus strait is the boundary between Europe and Asia, making Istanbul the only city in the world situated on two continents. The citizens of Turkey rarely lose sight of this, and despite busy traffic, the tennis match was not the first or last non-vehicular activity on the bridge. It provides a setting for other high profile events, like the Europe-Asia Marathon every October, because it is also a metaphor resonating strongly in the public mind.

That Turkey itself resembles a bridge is a frequently voiced idea, debated now more stridently since Turkey’s plea for accession to the European Union. It comes up in a variety of contexts. German-Turkish director Fatih Akin and bassist Alexander Hacke’s recent film on Istanbul’s musical diversity, for example, carries the title Crossing the Bridge; a foreshortened, underside view of the Bosphorus Bridge serves as icon on its posters. Before the construction of two bridges over the strait, people used to point out that the country’s shape on the map itself evokes a bridge linking West Asia to southeastern Europe, as if with the delicate touch of two fingers.

Originally, this idea of Turkey as a bridge was Europe’s, not Turkey’s. The trope makes sense from the perspective of the foreign traveler, the explorer of an exotic land who does the crossing. The bridge is an image of stasis, whereas Turkey’s self-image was one of movement. That the bridge simile has been imported into Turkey and grown large in the public imagination is extraordinary; a summary of the global forces that are refiguring the Middle East and the North Atlantic, and Turkey’s position with respect to them. Some local critics suggest that the new Turkish sense of standing “in-between” bespeaks the exhaustion of the old certainties of national identity, which generated social cohesion and legitimacy. But “westernization” remains constitutive and critical for understanding this recent evolution in Turkish self-definition, as well as current Turkish dispositions toward the European Union—although whether these dispositions have any pertinence for the future is now doubtful.

Turkey’s radical conceptual and institutional break with the past started in the 1920s and continued—after a slowdown in the 1950s—into the 1960s. Despite 19th century antecedents and 20th century emulators, the break appears exceptional because of its multifarious nature and institutional longevity. The key notion underlying this revolution was articulated under the twin words “Europeanization” and “westernization.” The great bound starts with the establishment of a republic in 1923 and the abolition of the Caliphate and religious courts. Then come sartorial and personal grooming regulations, and the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. Immediately, a series of stunning legal

These initiatives were taken by a narrow patrimonial elite and carried out with coercion. They could be seen as alien to popular conviction and worldview, but that would be inaccurate. The policies may have inspired indifference or opposition, but the premises that motivated them were widely shared. Furthermore, a tremendous expansion of education accompanied the reforms which, in the span of two decades, created a new intelligentsia of plebeian origins, committed to republican ideals. It spawned, in turn, a whole new stratum of intellectuals, writers, artists, scientists, and politicians, broadening the boundaries of the governing elite and altering the game of political participation.

The idea of westernization underlying these changes deserves closer examination. It would be a mistake to assimilate it into an omnibus category of “modernization” and dismiss it as a great illusion or the velvet glove over steely-fisted rule. It was that too, but at the same time much more.

The Turkish idea of “westernization” is grounded in the premise of self-propelled and self-guided choice of civilization. Our resolute preference for gradualism makes this trust in the idea that even the existential parameters of collective life are a matter of choice incomprehensible; we find it difficult to empathize with people who celebrate a great cultural discontinuity as national achievement. The roots of this radicalism lie in the 19th century Ottoman reform movements, which were anything but radical. As widely recognized, Ottoman voluntarism was stimulated by the spectacle of technical progress or, more specifically, the perceived need to overtake European military advances. These origins stamped the entire phylogeny of Turkish reform-revolution. In this context the perception of “Europe” or the “West” was expressly instrumental and non-religious, and did not imply moral dilemmas.

Once a historical course is engaged, however, its peculiar logic can take over and subvert the initial intentions. Eventually, Turkish leaders recognized the need for a more comprehensive adoption of science, and education became the hallmark of successive stages of renovation. This led to the discovery of “mentality” as impediment to change. By the end of the 19th century the positivist-impious-nationalist mindset came to prevail. The shapers of the republic were products of this historical process. It is also relevant that the transition from reforming empire to revolutionary republic was not interrupted by colonial domination and anti-colonial struggle. The same elite—only shaken down by the WW I debacle and reduced by internal strife—continued to hold the reins of power and enjoy legitimacy, even in the face of unpopular moves.

The focus on the elites who did the decision-making, however, obscures other circumstances. The substance of the “West or doom” dichotomy that informed republican leaders reverberated with the wider public. The possibility of self-directed change presumes a stable self that remains intact even after the most tumultuous transformation. The view is fundamentally Constructionist beyond comparison. “Civilization,” according to it, is not a matter of heritage but of will and choice. Generations of Turkish intellectuals fell perplexed before foreign observers who thought the divergences between their ideals and the facts of Turkish life a sign of different ontology or cultural essence rather than personal failing or shallow education.

Ernest Gellner suggested that behind the comprehensiveness of Turkish westernization lay a magic sense of mimetic effectiveness. Maybe so. With all that, the desire to overcome superficial emulation through self-education, to attain the bedrock of “mentality,” reached very deep. The nature of some initiatives bears witness to this desire to move beyond emulation. In the 1940s, the Turkish Ministry of Education started a massive translation program of world classics. In less than a decade, it brought out more than five hundred volumes, mostly, but not exclusively, of European literature. The momentum is not exhausted; when a new regime slowed down the project, private bodies took it over. Well-funded publishing outfits continue the effort to this day, with the same scope.

Such voluntarism brings with it personal responsibility and blame. Some account now for the entire charade of westernization by an interiorized inferiority feeling, postcolonial in nature. But the same logic could explain the reaction to westernization. The unreflexive, everyday speech habits of average Turks offers a helpful way out of this circularity. In myriad bits of conversation “European” as a qualifier connotes positive value in Turkey, and almost never a semantic shadow of “Christianity.” What’s even more interesting, in implicit paired contrast to it, one occasionally hears the qualifier “Turk.” In this context this latter adjective is of course not the flag of proud nationalism that it has become, but harks back to the meaning of an older, narrower ethnic signifier. It expresses the desirability and possibility of cultural leap, with no cogitation, hesitation, or tortured complexes of the soul. Parallels under different climes are common, but, then, the wish to become other than one’s self is not rare.

All of this is to explain that imagining Turkey as a heterogeneous mix of essences, an Islamic self reaching out to the European Other—a “bridge”—does indeed represent a tectonic shift in the country. However, the former inclinations have not evaporated overnight. The vocal religious and cultural traditionalists can no longer be simply opposed to westernizers. During the European Union debates and negotiations, Turkish public life underwent a striking change that was difficult to anticipate. According to some knowledgeable observers, groups that were the former stalwarts of westernization include now a sector that staunchly opposes entry into the European Union, for fear of losing entrenched privileges or even corporate cohesion. In counterpart, political Islamists are split; a good half of them, with noticeable speakers, place their hope in EU membership or ties, as a pledge of hard won liberties, including religious concessions and an unencumbered market. These complexities make little sense except within the context of the historical heritage of Turkish westernization: on the one hand, an understanding of Europe that is instrumental and secular at its core; on the other, class agendas that made this perceived image desirable and attainable.