Turkey
Modern Turkey encompasses bustling cosmopolitan centers, pastoral
farming villages, barren wastelands, peaceful Aegean coastlines, and
steep mountain regions. More than 70% of Turkey's population lives
in urban areas that juxtapose Western lifestyles with more
traditional ways of life.
The Turkish state has been officially secular since 1924.
Approximately 99% of the population is Muslim. Most Turkish Muslims
follow the Sunni traditions of Islam, although a significant number
follow Alevi and Shiite traditions. Questions regarding role of
religion in society and government, the role of linguistic and
ethnic identity, and the public's expectation to live in security
dominate public discourse. Turkish citizens who assert a Kurdish
identity constitute an ethnic and linguistic group that is estimated
approximately 12 million in number. |
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Mustafa Kemal, celebrated by the Turkish State as a Turkish World
War I hero and later known as "Ataturk" or "father of the Turks,"
led the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 after the
collapse of the 600-year-old Ottoman Empire and a three-year war of
independence. The empire, which at its peak controlled vast
stretches of northern Africa, southeastern Europe, and western Asia,
had failed to keep pace with European social and technological
developments. The rise of national consciousness impelled several
national groups within the Empire to seek independence as
nation-states, leading to the empire's fragmentation. This process
culminated in the disastrous Ottoman participation in World War I as
a German ally. Defeated, shorn of much of its former territory, and
partly occupied by forces of the victorious European states, the
Ottoman structure was repudiated by Turkish nationalists brought
together under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal. The nationalists
expelled invading Greek, Russian, French and Italian forces from
Anatolia in a bitter war. After the proclamation of the Republic of
Turkey the temporal and religious ruling institutions of the old
empire (the sultanate and caliphate) were abolished.
The leaders of the new republic concentrated on consolidating their
power and modernizing and Westernizing what had been the empire's
core--Asian Anatolia and a part of European Thrace. Social,
political, linguistic, and economic reforms and attitudes decreed by
Ataturk from 1924-1934 continue to be referred to as the ideological
base of modern Turkey. In the post-Ataturk era, and especially after
the military coup of 1960, this ideology came to be known as "Kemalism"
and his reforms began to be referred to as "revolutions." Kemalism
comprises a Turkish form of secularism, strong nationalism, statism,
and to a degree a western orientation. The continued validity and
applicability of Kemalism are the subject of lively debate in
Turkey's political life. The current ruling AK Party comes from a
tradition that challenges many of the Kemalist precepts and is
driven in its reform efforts by a desire to achieve European Union
(EU) accession.
Turkey entered World War II on the Allied side until shortly before
the war ended, becoming a charter member of the United Nations.
Difficulties faced by Greece after World War II in quelling a
communist rebellion and demands by the Soviet Union for military
bases in the Turkish Straits prompted the United States to declare
the Truman Doctrine in 1947. The doctrine enunciated American
intentions to guarantee the security of Turkey and Greece and
resulted in large scale U.S. military and economic aid under the
Marshall Plan. After participating with United Nations forces in the
Korean conflict, Turkey in 1952 joined the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO). Turkey is currently a European Union candidate. |
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