MUSTAFA KEMAL ATATURK

This quotation illustrates that not all Islamic nations were authoritarian and discriminatory and that Turkey after the Ataturk reforms became a modern, free, democratic state.

The Ottoman Turks had conquered much of Europe, as far even as Vienna. Ataturk although an incredible reformer for democracy, religious freedom, and gender equality, felt that critical to Turkey’s independence and ability of engage in radical reform depended on the World and European and Turkish perception that Turkey was the equal of any European nation and had ruled most at one point.

Turkey had become a modern, secular nation under the leadership of Ataturk. At the time of this interview, a religious party had won a plurality of seats in the Parliament and while not rolling back the secular nature of the Turkish state which is enshrined in the Turkish Constitution, has tried to stem the tide of secularism.

Ataturk, trying to modernize Turkey was attempting it in a single generation and to a great extent succeeded.

This is a very Jeffersonian type statement.

Ataturk was not receptive toward Communism as some other world leaders were at the time. He saw its weakness far earlier than many others.

Ataturk was a young major at the time commanding troops of a weak and corrupt Ottoman regime. However a combined English and French (the strongest military powers in Europe) invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula threatened to capture the Turkish capital, Constantinople. Ataturk alone rallied the Turkish defenders and fought the invaders to a standoff in long drawn out battle with huge casualties on both sides. Ataturk became a national hero. Although Ataturk thereafter was very reluctant to use military force or endanger troops, the thing he always thought worth the supreme sacrifice (including his own) was the independence and sovereignty of the nation. See {584502} for his continuing belief in this type of sacrifice.

This was another historical reality that shocked traditionalists. There was nothing in the Koran or Islamic scripture requiring women to wear veils and burkas. Many Muslims and non-Muslims, to this day, do not realize that.

The Turkish revolution was by historical standards relatively bloodless as compared especially with other republican revolutions like the United State and France. However, the revolution that brought Ataturk to power was a relatively mild one in terms of the immediate changes that unlike many revolutions which produced instant radical change. In Turkey, the radical change took place in the years after the revolution when Ataturk with hardly any bloodshed produced compulsory public secular education, scientific elevation in society, separation of mosque and state, gender equality including universal voting, change to western dress, elimination of the caliphate, speech and press freedom, and many others including changing the entire language to use the Latin alphabet instead of Arabic. No nation in history has gone thought more social and cultural change and modernized so fast as Turkey after its revolution. The result is the most modern and successful Islamic country in the world.

At the time, Muslim clerics had a great deal of influence and in many cases legal control over all facets of Turkish society much as exists in other Islamic societies today. They even controlled what was taught in the schools. Remarkably, without bloodshed, Ataturk broke both the power and the influence of the clerics on all official and public activities. Many Turkish Muslims even developed a type of reformed Islam with the relationship between the individual and the clerics one of parity much like Protestant churches in the West. At the same time there was a more orthodox part of the population and while they sent their children to religious schools, they also attended public schools so even the orthodox Muslims in Turkey learned science and modern subjects which are still not taught in most Islamic schools and madrassas.