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The Turkish People in Transition
| Article
# : |
11262 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1986 |
5,379 Words |
| Author
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Paul J. Magnarella
Paul J. Magnarella is professor of anthropology and Middle
Eastern Studies at the University of Florida. |
The history of the Turkish people has been marked by dynamic changes resulting from migration, conquest, cultural contact, assimilation, and human aspiration. Geographically, historically, and culturally, their country straddles Christian Europe and Muslim Asia. Turkey is one of the very few Third World countries that did not experience European colonialization or direct domination, yet chose to adopt European political, legal, educational and cultural ways. Today the democratic republic of Turkey is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an associate member of the European Economic Community, and member of the Islamic Congress.
The modern Turkish Republic was constructed on the crumbled foundations of the Ottoman empire by the charismatic Kemal Ataturk. The European victors of World War I had partitioned the Turkish sultan's lands, and Greek forces had taken control of western Asia Minor. However, Ataturk--the most impressive general in the defeated Ottoman army--revitalized the exhausted Turks into a military force that drove foreign occupation troops from Anatolia and secured present-day Turkey as their independent homeland. Ataturk then embarked on the ambitious project of molding Turkey into a modern nation-state in the form of the leading European powers.
Accusing Islamic-Ottoman institutions and culture of causing the Empire's collapse and the Turks' miserable condition, Ataturk envisioned a new Turkey based on the principles of nationalism, secularism, statism, populism, and reform. Among his many revolutionary acts was the abolition of the Caliphate and Sultanate, which were the highest religious and political offices in the Islamic world at that time. He also disestablished Islam as the state
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