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Published: January 3rd 2007
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Ataturk lurks.
Who do you call when you want to create a new nation out of the remains of a defeated empire?
I saw his stern image lurking everwhere. In paintings and book covers and on top bronze horse in city roundabouts. I wanted to find out more about the man they call Ataturk, Father of the Turks.
Mustafa Kemal was the man mostly responsible for creating the modern nation of Turkey. He is a type of George Washington for Turkey. After WWI ended the real fight began for Turkey's existence. He was a general during the war and now he was enlisted by occupied-collaborationist Istanbul to fight the Turkish resistence, only instead of squashing the rebellion he ended up recruiting and organizing them against Greek advances into former Ottoman territory after WWI. Largely due to his leaderhsip Turkey was prevented from being cut up by the victors of the war.
After the success of campaigns that lasted several years, Ataturk embarked on a massive re-creation of Turkish society. Thus began his long tenure as leader of a new republic, ruling in a semi-autocratic way. The old centuries-old sultanate and caliphate were abolished, the Gregorian calender was
adopted, western law codes replaced islamic law codes, women received the vote and other rights, polygamy was abolished.
Even the way the language was written was changed by decree, now the script would be in Roman letters rather than arabic script. Imagine if all of a sudden it was decreed that English or French was to now be written in the Chinese characters.
All of these changes were an attempt to break from its Ottoman and Islamic past...Ataturk was determined to look West for inspiration, not East, in forminng his new nation. A good example of how this was put into practice: religious headdresses were scrapped in favor of european fashions.
Perhaps the most radical break was the relation between Mosque and State. Ataturk's solution was secularism, separating religion from public power. I suppose he was concerned about the same issues that concerned some of our founder fathers like Thomas Jefferson.
Turkey is a good lesson in not overgeneralızıng Islam, muslıms, or muslım countrıes. Turkey defies many outsıders' expectatıons especially wıth regard to relıgıon. Almost all Turks are Muslım at least nominally but ıt ıs dıfferent than most other muslim natıons. Just next door ıs Iran wıth a dıfferent form of Islam and a very dıfferent understandıng of religion-state relations. Iran as well as Saudıa Arabıa and other Gulf region nations have very strict ınterpretatıons of Islamıc law (sharia). There it is believed that Islamıc law should be part of all parts of lıfe publıc and prıvate and the religious clerics and judges have great power there.
Turkey separated those powers.
A good example concerns the wearıng of hijab or headscarf for women. Whereas in some Muslim countries some women are struggling for their choice to wear or not wear the headcoverings publicly, Turkey actually banned ıts use ın schools and government buıldings. There is freedom of religıon ın Turkey but ıt ıs illegal to have a relıgıous-based polıtıcal party. Further, whereas religıous prayer is mandatory in many muslım natıons in turkey it ıs not allowed.
Many Turks look to their neıghbors Iran after the Revolution of 1979 and the Gulf-style Islam and see the danger ın combınıng religion wıth state power.
But such a zealous program of secularization program was bound to provoke reactions. It went too far too fast for some. There are plenty of conservatıve sectors of Turkısh society such as Konya in the central portıon to the regions in eastern anatolıa towards the border wth Syrıa and Iran. They have fought for greater presence in public life for 80 years. And currently the party in power is called the Truth and Justice party. While not technically a relıgıous party it has the support of the relıgıous conservatıves. Because of this some fear an erosion of the secular state that Ataturk founded. It was difficult to understand Turkey at first because I am so used to the military aligning with the conservative factions of a society and it seemed to be the exact opposite here. They consider themselves guardians of Ataturk's legacy.
Apart from the Kurdish and Cyprus questions, if I had to pinpoint the 2 cultural-politcal issues that are at the center of Turkish consciousness and debate they would be: 1)Its secular versus religious identity, 2)Its bid for membership in the European Union.
And of course the 2 are very much bound up with one another and Ataturk lurks in the background of both issues.
I couldn't help but make the connection between our own debates in the US about the proper role of religion in public life and political power. Like our own history at its founding, Turkey separated church and state constitutionally and many of the arguments were the same. But also like our own history, I think a lot of people (perhaps the majority) were not happy with that arrangement. People were angry with the Constitution among other reasons because it made no reference to God or Jesus or the Bible, if you judge by newspaper editorials of the day. Many were similarly frustrated with the language of the first amendment. But it was written by men of the enlightenment who knew their history of Europe and were also rich educated lawyers and it passed. For the good in my own view. I believe one reason the streets of the United States haven't been stained with the blood of religious sectarianism is because of the genius of our 1st Amendment.
But that doesn't mean all is solved. It is just a promise to be interpreted and applied. Like the US, Turkey has had to try to find that delicate balance of voices. Every generation has to struggle to find out what exactly the 1st Amendment means and what exactly should be the relationship of state power and religion.
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