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it's obviously fine if you think the hagia sophia should be a museum rather than a mosque or vice versa, but there's really no good explanation for the global drama about this and the language being used except, well, islamophobia. (1/)
like??? have you seen turkey's mosques??? they're beautiful & well-maintained & open to everyone & meanwhile the world is acting like turning the hagia sophia back into a mosque is some profound defilement.
do you care about HS or do you just hate muslims taking up space? (2/)
do you care about HS or do you just hate muslims taking up space? (2/)
yes, history & imagery should & (per court) will be preserved. but holding HS up as beacon of "coexistence" conveniently ignores how traumatic the fall of the ottoman empire—& the attendant secularization & ~rationalization~ of society—is/was for turks & muslims everywhere (3/)
defending the secularity of a site that was secularized as part of a destructive & colonial (& continued) effort to destroy non-western cultures (&/or return the world to its pre-muslim christian glory) is really not the testament to tolerance that you think it is (4/)
this move only seems regressive because christianity ("western heritage") is what's being "erased"—no one is mourning the diversity/islamic history of mosques-turned-churches in spain that surveil muslim tourists & stop them from praying inside. that erasure is acceptable. (5/)
(just adding here that there are many very interesting questions brought up by the historical differences between the turkish and spanish cases (like who is a perpetrator vs victim of cultural violence and what reclamation means) that are too complicated to get into here) (6/)
to close i'll just say that my feelings about turkey generally & erdogan specifically are, as always, very complicated. but it's moments like these that show how disingenuous the collective western hatred for them can be (even if there also may be good reasons for it) (7/7)
