Turkey: the Kemalist roots

  Duygu Bazoglu Sezer

Turkey stepped into the new millennium with a grand domestic project and international commitment: to carry out a sweeping reform of its political and economic system in order to qualify for membership in the European Union.

Turkey's formal ties with the EU (then the EEC, European Economic Community) began in 1964 when it became an associate member. It inched closer to membership in 1999 when the EU finally granted it candidate status. In principle, full membership seemed now to be within reach. One formidable challenge remained, however: Brussels' injunction that Turkey, like all other candidates, fulfill the so-called Copenhagen Criteria. Briefly, these amount to a liberal democratic political and economic system.

The Turkish system has been drastically overhauled since 2001 under the close scrutiny of the EU, with the result that Turkey has come closer to becoming a true liberal democracy. In recognition, the EU agreed in fall 2004 to open accession negotiations with Ankara on October 3, 2005.

I argue that these achievements have become not merely feasible, but conceivable, only because Turkish state and society underwent structural transformation much earlier. Through a process broadly described as "Turkish modernization" or "westernization," launched in its most radical form in the 1920s by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his colleagues, Turkey laid the political, legal and cultural substratum of change. This substratum and the pillars on which it stood provided the necessary foundation upon which further pro-reform structures could be built, deepening and broadening the original project of modernization. In a way, the most recent stage amounts to the renewal of Kemalism.

The paramount objective, the supreme goal, which inspired and guided the founders of modern Turkey in the 1920s and 1930s was the dream to mold a new state and society on the basis of values and premises collectively defined as "contemporary civilization." In real life, "contemporary civilization" was understood exclusively as western civilization. The principles and policies adopted in this period are broadly referred to as "Kemalism".

The Kemalist project seemed over-ambitious and supremely unrealistic--then and even now. For it implied an uncompromising clash of worldviews and value systems between the existing reality in Turkey--traditional and eastern, with Islam enjoying almost unquestioned power over the life of the state and society, especially of women--and the New Order and New Man that the Kemalist dream promised: modernized and westernized, implying among other things recognition of the power of man's free will and reason, the importance of empiricism as the path to truth, and by implication the dethroning of Islam as the organizing force in the life of the state and society. Clearly, the intellectual roots of Kemalism go back to the French Enlightenment and Revolution. Positivism, rationality, and secularism, as well as nationalism and popular sovereignty, became the organizing notions around which the tasks of state and nation-building were structured in the 1920s and 1930s.
Energized by these notions, Turkish reformers prioritized three interrelated areas as the target and the locomotive of societal transformation: religion, the law, and education.

Secularism, or laicite, defined the role of religion in Turkish state and society in the formula expressed as the "separation of state and religion". Moreover, in 1924 the Caliphate was abolished, formally ending Turkey's historical position within the Muslim world as its spiritual leader, and sending a message to the whole world that Islam's place in Turkey would no longer be the same.

The legal system was thoroughly secularized. The Sharia, Islamic law, ceased serving as the basis of justice. Instead, the Italian legal code and the Swiss civil code were adopted. The new civil code revolutionized gender and family relations, granting women full equality with men in family as well as public life. Polygamy was forbidden. Civil marriage replaced religious marriage. A new dress code forbade women to wear the veil in public space.

A unified nationwide system of public education terminated the two-pronged system of the late Ottoman era, where secular and madrasa education operated side by side. Madrasas and centers of religious-sectarian teaching were outlawed. The Arabic alphabet was dropped in favor of the Latin. Over 400 books from among the western classics were translated into Turkish for required reading in public schools.

Reforms were enacted as part of the "revolution from above". In many instances, they were enforced arbitrarily under one-party rule. Clearly, there were mistakes and deficiencies in numerous areas. Yet millions of young Turkish citizens came out of the system having successfully internalized the notions of the French Enlightenment and Revolution. Since transition to a multi-party system in 1946 compromises have occurred, especially in the cardinal principle of secularism, provoking the military to intervene in politics as the guardian of the Kemalist principles.

More than half a century later, the Kemalist reforms still have their domestic and western detractors. I am convinced, however, that without those reforms Turkish democracy could not have attained the level that it has reached with the EU-driven reforms. Besides, the Kemalist reforms were thoroughly home-grown, not a response to external demands.- Published 1/9/2005 (C) bitterlemons-international.org

Duygu Bazoglu Sezer is professor of international relations at Bilkent University, Ankara, and is founder and director of the International Dialogue and Cooperation Studies Center (IDCS). She has written extensively on Turkish foreign policy, Russian foreign policy, and European security and arms control.