Our course this semester, covering the last 500 years or world history, helped me understand the major dynamic of the world over that period: the individual versus the collective. In fact, this dynamic is still in place today, and will likely be for the next half millennium. Around the globe, individuals seek freedom and a future of their own construction, while the collective seeks a society wherein all are equally important. The individual speaks of personal freedoms and rights; the collective speaks of personal sacrifice for the whole. Turkey displays this struggle well. The Muslim citizens of this secular nation are debating the possible election of a Muslim president. The majority of Turks do not want an Islamic state. Another example is the women of Saudi Arabia, who have virtually no rights but serve the purpose of bearing more children for the men and the entire nation. In the United States, globalization is forcing citizens to decide whether to support their own jobs in the U.S. or an overseas company that does not pay its workers a living wage but gives us cheap prices. In many forms around the globe, people are facing a centuries-old battle between the haves and have-nots, the upper and lower classes, the religious and the secular, the landed and the landless, the individual and the collective.
          The Russian revolution of 1917 represents one of the best attempts to turn the individual into the collective. Vladimir Lenin tried to make individuals equal and free (in theory at least) by working together so that “the state…ceases to exist.”[1] Of course, Lenin’s method for such cohesion was Communism, wherein the “dictatorship of the proletariat (workers) imposes a series of restrictions…to free humanity from wage slavery.”[2] Lenin was tired of a “democracy for the minority” in which the poor, who worked slavishly for the wealthy, were pushed aside and treated unequally. His communism later morphed into socialism under Joseph Stalin after World War II. However, Stalin only pushed the individual aside once again.
          In the years since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the individual has seen some opportunity to express himself socially and politically. However, democracy in Russia today runs much like the former Soviet Union. The government quiets many political parties, which do not get television time to reach a mass audience. Some opponents to President Putin and his policies are arrested and jailed. In this sense, both the individual and the collective lose. The individuals do not have real democracy and the collective loses the respect of the individual.
          Iranian women also represent individuals who lost rights to the collective. Under the Pahlavi rulers of Iran women were able to obtain an education, wear western-style clothing, and abandon the headscarf most Muslim women are obliged to wear. After deposing the Shah in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini took over and reinstated Islamist principles. For women this meant a return to headscarves and a backseat to men. Individual freedoms were suppressed in favor of the community and its religion.[3]
          There are also examples of a collective being returned to individuals. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela came out of prison to lead the majority blacks to power after a century of white supremacist rule. Mandela not only helped bring blacks out of their enslavement to whites, but also gave everyone the opportunity of freedom. He held his belief of social harmony his entire life, and demonstrated it clearly during his trial for treason in 1963, “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”[4]
          Another example of gaining individual freedom is found in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Although not signed by all nations, this document helped create a global shift toward assuring rights for all people. Article 1 of the declaration states, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”[5] The final article in the declaration forbids any state, group, or person from violating or destroying any of the rights outlined. However, the real issue with this declaration is that some nations do not always hold the vision of the United Nations with high regard, and so choose to look the other way when convenient.
          In no place is the disregard of the UN declaration more evident than in Israel. In a country where the land is shared by two vastly different cultures, the governing body of both groups seek the capitulation of the other for their self-proclaimed right to their land. The groups are Jews and Muslims. The land is divided in such a way as to give the appearance of the upper hand to the Jews, while making the Arab Muslims feel like foreigners in their own country. Of course, Israel, as it is today, was created in 1948, not won through the spoils of war.[6]
          Thomas L. Friedman, a New York Times columnist, wrote about a Jewish reporter who went undercover as an Arab in Israel to get a feel for how Israelis treat Arabs. The reporter described his daily life as follows, “The passersby stare at me like at a walking bomb.” He also said he realized his place on the social ladder was at the bottom without even talking to people. The man even had to pretend to be a “guest from Jordan” to get into a nightclub. What Friedman brings to light is that fact that there is no trust in Israel between the Israelis and the Arabs. In Israel, the individual loses rights and freedoms to the collective government actions taken by the opposing group.[7]
          At the other end of the equality spectrum lies Turkey, a country that at once has a Muslim majority, a secular government, and a desire for inclusion in a community of western governments. This seemingly unusual combination got its start in the 1920’s when Mustafa Kemal, known as Ataturk, became president of the republic after receiving recognition of statehood by the Allied powers in the Treaty of Lausanne. Ataturk “instituted an ambitious program of modernization that emphasized economic development and secularism.” This policy of secularism “dictated the complete separation between the existing Muslim religious establishment and the state.”[8] Women, previously held in a slave-like servitude to men, were now emancipated and able to vote. Western-style clothes were allowed, as was the use of the Roman alphabet and Hindu-Arabic numerals.
          The Turkish secular nation has survived, although tenuously at times, up to today. The current Turkish government, led by Prime Minister Erdogan, is proposing a new candidate for president who is Muslim. The office of President would be the strongest political office for Muslims to hold and would bring the potential for a change from being a secular country to an Islamist state. The majority of Turks prefer to be secular, according to recent polls, and see the return to Islamist government as a step back.
          Sabrina Tavernise, reporting for the New York Times, says, “One of the problems for the secularists is that the elite never fully redefined the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Attaturk.” Tavernise continues, “The main secular political party, the Republic People’s Party, lacks agile leaders who can articulate a unifying vision for the diverse secular groups.”[9] Secularists worry that a move toward a Muslim state could be a move toward radicalism. However, many devout Muslims own businesses and are better off now than they were before. Now they value stability in society, in addition to their religious concerns.[10] The debate is still open, but for now, Turkey is a good example of retaining individual rights while the collective grows more meaningful in a dynamic and increasingly modern state. Perhaps the European Union could learn from Turkey after admitting them to the union.