6 - Conclusion: Zealots or Herodians?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2011
Summary
During the last few centuries, our Western society has been intruding upon the other civilizations of the world with greater insistence. First it has drawn them all into the meshes of its economic system; next it has enlarged the borders of its political ascendency almost as far as the borders of its trade; and latterly it has been invading the life of its neighbours on the most intimate plane – the plane of social institutions and of spiritual emotions and ideas. This revolutionary process of Westernization, which at this moment is overtaking the Turks and many of their co-religionists in other Islamic countries, has already proceeded further among the Oriental Christian ex-subjects of the Turks in South-Eastern Europe and among their Oriental Christian ex-enemies in Russia, and it is actively at work among the Hindus and the Far Easterners. Thus, in studying the Westernization process in Turkey, we are increasing our understanding of the human world in which we ourselves live and move and have our being; for the issues with which the Turks have been confronted by their contact with the West are confronting other non-Western peoples the world over. Everywhere these peoples stand at the parting of the ways, with the choice of entering the camp of the Zealots or the camp of the Herodians. They can no longer remain neutral; for the West, in its restless activity, will not let them alone. Shall they accept the civilization of the West and attempt to adjust their own lives to it, or shall they reject it and attempt to cast it out as a devil which is seeking to possess their souls?
Arnold Toynbee, Turkey- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- After DefeatHow the East Learned to Live with the West, pp. 240 - 255Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010