The archsymbol of secularism and nationalism in the Muslim world in the interwar years was Mustafa Kemal, who first achieved prominence as a military hero during World War I and went on to serve as first president of the Turkish republic. Disgusted by the Ottoman sultan’s acquiescence to the Greek occupation of the Turkish port of Smyrna (Izmir) in 1919, Kemal assumed leadership of a resistance movement that by 1923 had overthrown the sultan, defeated the Greeks, and won the annulment of the punitive Sèvres Treaty. Exercising broad powers as president of the new Turkish republic until his death in 1938, Kemal sought to transform Turkey into a modern secular nation-state. To accomplish this, he broke the power of Islam over education and the legal system, encouraged industrialization, accorded women full legal rights, mandated the use of a new Turkish alphabet, and ordered Turks to adopt Western-style dress. Directing all Turks to adopt hereditary family names, he took for himself the name Ataturk, or “Father of the Turks” (also translated Father Turk or Great Turk).Having consolidated his authority, Kemal decided in 1927 to review his accomplishments and impress upon his subjects the need for continued support. He chose as the occasion the meeting of the People’s Republican Party, which he had founded and was Turkey’s only legal political party. Here he delivered an extraordinary speech (you can read excerpts from it by clicking here). Having worked on it for three months (in the process of exhausting dozens of secretaries), he delivered it over a period of six days.
In the excerpts you will read, he discusses Turkey’s past and future, explains his reasons for abolishing the caliphate, the ancient office of virtue of which Turkish sultans had been the theoretical rulers of all Muslims, and justifies his suppression of the Progressive Republican Party, which despite its name was a party of conservatives who opposed Turkey’s modernization.
After reading excerpts from Mustafa Kemal’s speech, I would like you to consider and discuss the following: What, according to Kemal, what were the “erroneous ideas” that had guided the Ottoman state in the past? Why does Kemal argue that nation-states, not empires, are the most desirable form of political organization? What is Kemal’s view of the West? What are his views of Islam? What arguments does Kemal offer against the continuation of the caliphate? How does Kemal justify his suppression of the Progressive Republicans? What, in his view, were the positive results of this step? Your thoughts…
2 comments:
The erroneous ideas that Kemal was talking about were how the ottomans were ruled by caliphs and that their empire consisted of hundreds of different nationalities which is impossible to rule and that the greatest thing for the ottomans was to expand and not think logically.
He says that nation-states are better than empires, this is because they seperate the seperate people and the leader can rule more easily and effectively.
Kemal said that he needed to unite different nations under one common name. He said that in order for a nation to live in happy, strenuous, and permanent life, it was necessary that the state should persure an exclusively national policy and that this policy should be in perfect agreement with out internal organization and be based on it. The erroneous ideas that Kamal was talking about was about how caliphs ruled. He stated that they wanted re-establishment of the Caliphate, do not want new laws, are satisfied with the religious law, and shall protect the Medressas, the Tekkes, the pious institutions, the Softahs, the Shekhs and other disciples.
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