well obviously he did not take the definition from wiki femme..

  lets hope so

i don´t understand why some people rely and trust wikipedia sooo much. "Anyone" can edit almost any page, and readers have no way of knowing how authoritative, or valid what they´re reading may be. 

Isn´t it interesting that we (by we I mean humans in general, myself included) only cosider other people to be "idiots" if they don´t agree with our own opinions? If somebody validates our perceptions, then, of course, they are the smart ones 

This is not meant personally against anyone in the forum, just an observation about human nature. I would love somebody to post once: "I agree with you totally, you must be an idiot"  

I think those are interesting questions. And I don´t know enough about Turkey to give you an answer that would be specific to Turkey, but there are some things that come to my mind about the topic.

First of all, I think that some values/issues should be universal - for example anything belonging to the human rights category (I´ll be happy to provide a Wiki link if needed ) - and imitating societies that are more successful than others in implementing those rights I consider to be a very positive thing. It seems that in the article the word "immitation" has a negative connotation. If any country is going to "immitate" another in implementing the universal rights, then I say, way to go. Perhaps those are the type of issues that hopefully will develop in each country eventually, immitation just speeds up the process. I don´t think it´s a detriment to any "culture" to implement changes that improve people´s lives unless one identifies one´s culture with practices that violate basic human rights.

And then there are the things that are culture-specific, ones that involve one´s language, music, food, social customs, religion and the rituals, etc. I think those are the things to be cherished and cultivated. And imitating others ONLY because it originates somewhere else and considering one´s own things to be inferior seems to be wrong. As does not allowing to consider making changes ONLY because they originate elsewhere.

As far as Turkey goes, I don´t know, perhaps Turkey immitates the "West" in some things and is a part of the "West" on others - or maybe both Turkey and the "West" are a part of something bigger, more universal, and should both strive to achive that. Maybe it´d be easier to answer that if I knew what exactly is meant by the "West". I don´t think it is very uniform - for example I think USA should immitate Europe in ban on death penalty, but that´s a whole different topic altogether.

This thread reminds me Ros´s thread about Neo-Ottomanism  which is invented by Neo-Cons as Pamuk describes himself an Ottoman with his limited history knowledge and considers Republic and Atatürk unimportant. According to Neo-Cons Kemalism had died and became unsuccessful so in Turkey there need more respect for Islam and more respect for history of Ottomanism(which is a bunch of lie, imo just cover for their projets on ME, because now they cant find a better slaves than these muslim hypocrites who use religion and God to deceive public) as CIA ME headman mentioned before. Same thoughts with the Pamuk. Imo Pamuk is a bad imitation and a servant of these Neo-Cons. 

Anyway, after the cold war finished, Neo-cons fully compromised these hypocrites and so-called liberals. Some even began to define secularism as radicalism. Regarding the Turkey these so-called liberals and the one who use God deceive people are on same boat just like the last times of Empire as i always mentioned. They are trying to experience moderate Islam in Turkey, so AKP government is another step to govern Turkey with slaves(but they claim these will free and lighten up people as they think Kemalism was too harsh to religious ones which is untrue and also a cover). So the target is Atatürk and his remaninig heritage nowadays. They even could not(dont want to) perceive the fact that Atatürk´s revolutions were left and werent proceeded after he had died.

Lastly Atatürk was always at the side of fully independence of Turkey. According to him Turkey cannot be fully independent if She is not freed from western imperialism and if She is not freed from eastern religious exploitation. Now decide if he is occidenatalist or whatever orientalist...     

Ataturk was a great man. He is someone whom we can always refer to. There is no denying that his life sets an example to anyone regardless of their whereabout and it has so far been this way.

Nevertheless, anyone claiming that he understands Ataturk must also know how this person brought himself to the point of excellence from military and statesmanship points of view. Isn´t it through his desire to be at the forefront of his time? What books did he have in his library? Where did he have all that knowledge so as to predict there would soon be another war (WWII) suggesting Turkey not to get involved in it. How could he foresee that there would be a need for an international organization (the UN) to prevent further wars.

 This is an interesting view of Orhan Pamuk, based on Today now doubt.  He says that Ataturk was an occidentalist: that was of course in 1922 ish, would he be that way today if he was alive?  Would he be routing to belong to the EU?  Would he see Turkey as an immitation of the west?  I wonder. 

I have travelled extensively in Turkey as I see it as two places.  One of modernisation and western attitudes (not necessarily beliefs) and one of deep routed cultural values, beliefs and ways of life.  From one end of Turkey to another, you go from internet access in every house (more or less) to no internet access or even reliable electricity.

Turkey only imitates the West where the West has an influence.

I am yet to understand this obsession with the West / East, where does it begin and where does it end? 

This is an age long conflict. Naturally, it stems from the very fact that the world is roughly divided into four zones which are North, South, East and West. Political and Economic differences between the North and the South are significant only locally. In other words, we can only talk about say North and South Europe or America etc.

Meanwhile, there is a more pronounced contrast between the Eastern and Western parts of our globe. The seeds of the East/West rivalry were sown by the likes of Marco Polo who began describing each and every different object, manner, trait or whatsoever specific to the East. We also know that Arabic and Chinese voyagers travelled to Europe with some of them even reaching the Britain. The stories based on the reports of those persons lived for thousands of years turning into legends and became a part of their folklore.

Then came the crusades, trade lines, great conquests and big wars. On one side, there were the Turks advancing into the heart of Europe up to Vienna and controlling entire trade lines  and all the maritime traffic in the Meditterranean which meant an abrubt discontinuation of the trade with the East. The Turkish involvement brought the borders of the East much nearer and eventually to the point of interpolation. On the other hand, there were holy grail hunters who were mesmerized by the stories of a wealthy East.

These were two distinctively different worlds initially. As a matter of fact, the culture of the East is much older and profound compared to that of Europe. Notwithstanding with its past glory, the advancement of the East is reined by the strong obsessions of its people with God, destiny, fate and metaphysics. The West on the other hand has been able to both describe man´s role in the universe in a much more pragmatic and materialistic way and organize social life in a highly competitive and success oriented manner. While poverty and misery are endured more easily because of the fatalistic point of view common to Eastern societies, in the West, deprivation is usually regarded as a calamity which needs to be sorted out sooner than later.

Furthermore in the West, every step needs to be defined and planned beforehand. Nothing is left to chance. The Eastern culture is much more tolerant to lack of success and through greater solidarity among people they tend to ease individual hardships, calamities and mishap of all sorts by collectively embracing it in families and communities.

In the end, there are people on both ends. People can adapt themselves to changing circumstances. It is not guaranteed to be happy by choosing the seemingly more preferable side. Reports point out to greater crime rates and suicidal tendencies in the Western part of the globe. Meanwhile, in some poorer quarters of the Eastern world, people live deprived lives but they can still come up with a few shakras or charms to divert the materialistic indulgence of Western people to the teachings of their own prophets who could inspire almost a whole Western generation happiness and solidarity.