nationalism

One of the usually unspoken strains of thought in the "Islamist" noise nowadays is that nationhood, as manifested by today's nation-states, is just plain unIslamic. And that was one of the critiques levelled against the movement towards the creation of the first Nation-State of the modern era specifically carved out to provide a safe haven for a Muslim-majority community--or any religious community, really. But then, at the time, Maududism and Qutbism were also incipient movements. Maududism most locally.

And it is in this context that I'd like to introduce an interesting web-based project that might best be described as an exercise in "public history"--or, more relevant to the audience of this site, a conversation in Muslim Nationhood.

The Guardian has a good story today about the numerous death threats being received by Turkish writers who dare to challenge the nationalist myths of the country, including Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk. I'm used to hearing of similar death threats being made in places like Bangladesh and Pakistan, but this is quite different in that the extremist ideology is question is Turkish nationalism rather than the more familiar Islamist religious ideology.