Kemalism Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Kemalism is the collection of political principles assembled by Mustapha Kemal (later Ataturk; 1881–1938), who is credited with founding the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Kemalism has served as the basis for state nationalism in Turkey, although many of its principles have eroded or been challenged since the 1970s.

The history of Kemalism stretches back to the last decades of the Ottoman Empire, when various groups attempted to reform the empire and articulate Turkish nationalism and new principles for governance. These efforts led to political instability and conflict, and the Ottoman Empire itself collapsed as a result of World War I (1914–1918). In its stead, Mustapha Kemal, an Ottoman military officer, organized Turkish resistance to foreign occupation. He spearheaded the creation of the Republic of Turkey, based on Turkish nationalism, and served as Turkey’s president from 1923 until 1938. He took the name Ataturk, meaning “father of all Turks.” The basic principles of the early Turkish Republic, put into formal form by Ataturk’s Republican People’s Party, eventually became known as Kemalism.

Kemalism is made up of six components or arrows:

Republicanism: Political power in Turkey would come from the Turkish people, not the Ottoman sultan, who was stripped of power by Ataturk.
Secularism: Separation of state and religion, which in the Turkish state was primarily Islam, was established.

The caliphate—the position as head of the Islamic community which was held by the Ottomans—was abolished in 1924. Ataturk also carried out a series of reforms to secularize education and the civil service and to prohibit many public displays of religion.

Populism: Associated with social revolution and promotion of equality, populism sought to put class-based and occupational organizations under the control of the state in order to stress the unity of Turkish society.
Revolutionalism: Traditional ways were abandoned in favor of modernity and Westernization, and included elements such as changing the alphabet to Latin script and banning old forms of dress.
Nationalism: Political aims focused on the desire to create a nation-state out of the ruins of the multinational Ottoman Empire and on the Turkish language as the unifying factor. Pride in being a Turk—exemplified in Ataturk’s saying “How happy I am to be a Turk”—was a special point of emphasis.
Statism: The state was perceived as necessary to take the lead in economic development.

Although a contemporary of Nazism and Stalinism, Kemalism was not a totalitarian ideology. It did, however, foresee a strong role for the state in economic, social, and cultural life, and during Ataturk’s leadership Turkey remained an authoritarian, single-party state. Ataturk did not envision the principles of the state to be an ideology, which he equated with something dogmatic and static. Instead, he preferred to see his vision as progressive, pragmatic, and dynamic.

Since Ataturk’s death, Turkey has made various efforts to establish democratic government and has experienced great political, social, and cultural changes. Kemalism, however, remains as a sort of state ideology and a powerful influence especially in the military, which sees itself as the guardian of Ataturk’s principles; in addition, Ataturk is a highly revered figure among most Turks. However, Kemalism has been challenged on a number of fronts. Political Islam emerged as a force in Turkey in the 1970s, and a party with Islamic roots won the 2002 elections. Issues about the proper role of religion in the public sphere, such as female students wearing the Islamic headscarf, remain very controversial, although secularism remains enshrined in the Turkish constitution as an unalterable principle. Some Kurdish groups have taken up arms against the state, objecting to Kemalism’s view of a monoethnic, unitary Turkish state. Whether and how to grant rights to Turkey’s large (up to 20 percent) Kurdish minority has also been a major issue within Turkey. Free market reforms in the 1980s undermined the principle of statism, and the growth of civil society and pressures to create a more liberal democracy in the 1990s have worn away at the traditional Kemalist concept of populism.

As it was grounded in Turkish nationalism, Kemalism was never intended to be a model for other countries. Some leaders in central Asia—composed of Turkic peoples—spoke in the 1990s of Turkey as serving as a model, but there has been no systematic, explicit effort to adopt Kemalism as a guiding principle.

Bibliography:

Ciddi, Sinan. Kemalism in Turkish Politics:The Republican People’s Party, Secularism, and Nationalism. New York: Routledge, 2009.
Davison, Andrew, and Taha Parla. Corporatist Ideology in Kemalist Turkey. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2004.
Feroz, Ahmed. The Making of Modern Turkey. New York: Routledge, 1993.
Kinross, Patrick Balfour. Ataturk. New York:W. Morrow, 1964.
Landau, Jacob, ed. Ataturk and the Modernization of Turkey. Boulder: Westview Press, 1984.
Mango, Andrew. Ataturk. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 2002.
Poulton, Hugh. Top Hat, Grey Wolf, and Crescent: Turkish Nationalism and the Turkish Republic. New York: New York University Press, 1997.
Zurcher, E. J. Turkey: A Modern History. 3rd ed. London: I. B.Tauris, 2004.

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