Claire Berlinski, Ed.: The True Scandal of the Turkish-German Woman Who Posed for Playboy

Prompting much media hysteria and her family's disapprobation, Sıla Şahin has become the first Turkish-German woman to pose for Playboy. In all the column inches devoted here and in Germany to debating this act of liberation (as she puts it) or this degradation masquerading as liberation (as others put it) or this shameful disgrace for which she should be killed (as the owner of a kebab stand in Berlin charmingly put it), I have not seen one word devoted to the truly scandalous part of this story:  

For actress Sıla Şahin, being the first Turkish-German woman on the cover of the German edition of Playboy was downright revolutionary.

"I feel like Che Guevara," she told Playboy in the interview accompanying the photo spread.

This is the tragedy of Turkish politics in a sentence: the absence of a genuinely liberal answer to traditional patriarchy, Islamism and authoritarianism. Far too many young people here think the answer is the revolutionary hard left, which for reasons unfathomable represents freedom in their minds.

I'm sure this pretty dingbat has no idea who Che Guevara was; and I note that she grew up in Germany, so I can't say whether Turkish political culture or German political culture is more to blame for this rot. But the West really needs to ask itself why she didn't say, "I feel like John Locke."

If we can't make the case that freedom is about something much more worthwhile than stripping and emulating Che Guevara, I don't think we'll have much luck selling freedom in the Islamic world.