Some interesting arguments, but I think the take on Turkey is poor and superficial as it ignores Turkey's neo-liberal project, a state as a NATO member, its ties with Isreal, its role in the ongoing war in Syria and the geopolitical game has been playing to assert itself as a regional power, its record of repression of journalists and trade unions and, of course, its ongoing war on the Kurds. 

"It has to be remembered that liberalism has historically been compatible with racism, imperialism and colonialism. Liberalism without a commitment to a popular agency is not necessarily an emancipatory force." — Salman Sayyid

Junaid Ahmad (JA): Dr. Sayyid, your earlier work, in particular A Fundamental Fear, was a scathing critique of existing accounts the rise of Islamism as well as what it signifies. It was a bold and innovative engagement with “critical theory” and the question of Islam and Islamism. But in some ways, your latest book is even more provocative and audacious—and not simply because of its title, Recalling the Caliphate: Decolonisation and World Order. It deconstructs the Eurocentrism embedded in the mantras of Western power today, or the discourse you term "Westernesse." One of the functions that you say this recent work of yours serves is to offer a "clearing" of/for the seemingly omnipresent orientalist tropes to which Muslims are forced to respond. Can you explain this notion/function of "clearing" that you speak of?

An interview with Salman Sayyid