In Europe however things are very different usually the European nation states and that includes Turkey for that matter in the 19th and 20th century established their national self identification and national self reference, not always, not exclusively but to a large extent around the question of what is a majority and what is a minority and the minorities usually define it in a way that is something that is not really compatible with the cultural mainstream of the country, that is too for the neglect the history of minorities in immigration in Germany that actually starts in the early 20th century with the polish labor coming in 1910 to 1920, continues with forced labor millions of people being dragged to Germany during the second world war and continues with the post war, labor migration and still many people would say Germany is still a German country. We know what German culture stands for and it’s not really a diverse society. To a certain degree albeit in an entirely different environment dissipation in Turkey is comparable because the national mythology of the camel state base is very much on a notion of Turkish homogeneity and Turkish traditions which had to be established in a very forceful manner to cop with the traditions of that multi ethnic and multi cultural empire that had just fallen apart in the previous decades. And it’s interesting to see that there are seem to be fishers in that very strong notion that there is something like cultural homogeneity or there is a culture core of a modern nation.
We have discussions in Europe in recent years that are going beyond these traditional ideas that you need to have a culture identified to really be able to tell what is French, what is Spanish and what is German, and with a similar development going in Turkey interestingly because if you have followed developments recently it was interesting that, to see that in April 24 at the anniversary of the ethnic cleansing against the Armenians for the first time public demonstrations took place in Turkey and the legendary [Taxim] square which is usually known better for its first of May demonstrations not of its April 24th demonstration at the [Hyder Pasher] train station which is a special irony because it was obviously built by the German, with the help of the German emperor. So we seem to encounter and era where we start to rethink what it means to belong to a nation, how citizenship is being defined and how to deal with diversity in a more 21st century manner, traditionally a lot of people would look for answers as to how to define the nation in the 19th century but you cant really find answers in the 19th century if you ask a question in the 21st Century. So the question that I was struggling with for a few years in my academic but also in my political work is, why is the United States so different, so I just wanted to throw away these ideas and use you as, or abuse you if you will as discussions in this environment and ask you whether my ideas at all make sense. And I think these questions are important because they are at the core of our societies. Diversity and minority questions are not peripheral questions for modern societies they are at the core because they define who we are, and they also define how who we anticipate we will be, in every modern society and I think a lot of the political discussions ultimately border fence here or border fence there evolve around these issues the core questions in modern societies are, how is our society supposed to look at the future, how shall our societies be arranged, what are the conditions for being a member, what are norms upon we base our societies and how diverse can they be in terms of the traditions that are coming in, and thirdly and maybe the most important question, who is authorized to decide who becomes a member of that society and who does not, the question of inclusion and exclusion. And it’s really interesting that in the United States these questions have been traditionally answered in a very different way than they were answered in Turkey or in Germany or even in France and Great Britain for that matter.
And again I think the reason is not because it’s a society that is constituted and made of immigrants but I think the United States is unique in a way that doesn’t really make it the model but I would try to see the United States as an archive of experiences of political and social in store of your experiences that you can draw upon to better understand this, and I do think if you want to understand why the United States is dealing with diversity in different way than many other societies you have actually to look at religion, and the peculiar way in which religious and secular traditions inter act and are combined in this country, which is unique and I think has no parallel anywhere else in the world because the singular achievement of the United States is that there is enormous dialectical relationship between secular traditions and creed, and faith. Because ever since its inception the North American republic really has been a worldly state, which was basically made out of religious sects in the 17th and 18th century that was the case, but it has created a unique dynamic that I think established a ground work and the fundaments to deal with difference in diversity and minority issues in a different way than European countries did. I think the fascinating thing is that the United States is the most secular of all nations if you look at its political traditions. It’s also the country of faith per excellence. And that is a contradiction that is really interesting to think about because it is the locust of the first democratic revolution but it did not emancipate itself from religion as the French revolution a few years later claimed to do but it established the freedom for religion. And that’s a qualitative difference that I think is interesting as often overlooked if you look at revolutionary and emancipator history. But of course in the United States the experience of religious persecution of the first settlers, of the minorities that had to leave England and many other European countries for that matter because they were prosecuted is so deeply engrained that this still reflects in the first amendment where it says congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. So in a way religion was set free in the United States but the genius of the 1st amendment is it effectively privatizes religion. It’s not only that religion defacto is an enterprise in the United States and it’s easier to start a church than to start a business even today. But also that it is a very a different context s compared to Europe because there is a freedom of enterprise to start a church whenever and wherever you want. And when Europeans say oh the United States is a Christian country there are so many Christians, so may protestants I always say this is an illusion because the privatization of religion only left that delusion of Christianity in the Untied States because you have one Catholic church but you have about 60 different orthodox denominations and take a guess how many protestants denominations?