PDF Dosyası - Ankara Üniversitesi Kitaplar Veritabanı

stitutions from politics and education vvas necessary. The separation ofstate and religion to surmount the backvvard pull of tradition vvas also recommendedby reformist Muslims like Ibn Badis. Kemalism has transformedthe oppressive nature of religion to a matter of personal belief andconsideration through the Ottoman basis of tolerance. This, contrary tothe claims of religious fundamentalits, has not alienated people from islambut has, in fact, helped 96% of the Turkish population to maintaintheir faith in islam. Thus, the Kemalist liberation of islam has providedan attractive model for a true understanding of faith in the Müslimvvorld.Kemalists, as distinct from the Muslims living under the order ofSharia, are free Muslims. The principle of popular sovereignty forbidsany individual or group from claiming religious or political sovereigntyand therefore has allovved islam to return to its popular essence. Thoughcriticised by the religious fundamentalists, Kemalism has indeed been instrumentalin the democratization and intellectual enlightenment of Muslims.The Anatolian Revolution developed as a struggle for survival. TheKemalist reforms had been easier to implement in tovvns and cities buthad not been so easy in rural Anatolia, vvhere people had been steeped inethnic values for many years and vvere incapable of understanding themerging concepts of nation and state, and the secular necessity at thefoundation of such a merger. Thus the fıght against religious fundamentalismmaintains its vital importance today.The struggles for democracy and laicism are made for a commonaim. It is the basic principle of laicism that establishes the democraticcharacter of a society, establishing hence a "people's sovereignty".Young Kemalists are dedicated to this fight, and vvith or vvithout the helpof Europe, vvhen Turkey succeeds in ridding itself of religious intolerancecompletely, it vvill have constituted an exceptional model for aliMuslims in the vvorld. History vvill soon vvitness Kemalist democracy establishedin the Müslim vvorld even if under other banners and terminologies.From a historical point of vievv it is a fact that Kemalism is a soundand enduring political philosophy. In fact the comparison of Kemalism asa revolutionary regime vvith the Soviet order after the World War I provesit to be the more effective and progressive, despite the similarities of theauthoritarian basis of both governments. Turkey has achieved distinctionin its reform efforts in orienting itself to such organisations as O.E.C.D.N.A.T.O., the E.E.C. and the Council of Europe. Turkey has not sufferedpolitical and social collapse in its transition to democracy as did the formercommunist orders; indeed. Kemalism has been desribed by scholars328