Makers of the west: National identity and occidentalism in the work of Fukuzawa yukichi and Ziya Gökalp

Abstract

This article draws on the work of the Japanese Westerniser and nationalist Fukuzawa Yukichi and the Turkish nationalist and critical proponent of Westernisation, Ziya Gökalp, in order to understand the development and deployment of the idea of the West. It is shown that the relation between the ‘non‐West’ and West is not staged simply or purely in the form of a dualistic opposition by these men. Indeed, both my case studies evince the centrality of third or fourth categories that complicate but also sustain the stereotyping of the West. In particular, both Fukuzawa and Gokalp deploy a form of orientalism in which Asia is cast as a separate and primitive realm, to be distinguished from both the West and their own nations. The article engages its findings with recent post‐colonial debates on Asian occidentalism.

Key words:

• the west
• Turkey
• Japan
• nationalism
• modernity