PDF Dosyası - Ankara Üniversitesi Kitaplar Veritabanı

lims, it had a strong demonstrative effect. It proved beyond the shadow ofa doubt that it was possible to conquer and consolidate national independence,and to undertake autonomous development, adapting the bestachievements of western civilization, while reaffırming national culturalvalues. It was the first State to prove it was possible to secularize islam asan essential step to enter modernity, vvhile it anticipated by decades thedemands of what would be later called the Third World, decidedly approachingthe prioritized task of economic development.Atatürk himself clearly expressed the international meaning of theTurkish Revolution, when he said in 1922: "Turkish struggle does notconcern Turkey only. If the struggle initiated by Turkey was only in itsname and for its own account, it would perhaps have been of shorter durationand less bloody. Turkey has mounted an enormous and substantialeffort. Because what it defends is the cause of ali oppressed nations, thecause of the entire Orient, Turkey is certain that until final victory, ali nationsof the Orient which support it will march along" 12 ..III.In these last years of the 20th century, when humankind is about toenter what is already envisaged as a new historic era, the pertinence andtopicality of the example of the great national movement headed by KemalAtatürk is unquestionable.It is quite well known that two majör processes are the original causesof the historic change we are witnessing:* The collapse through implosion of the bloc of European socialiststates headed by the Soviet Union, the event that had a more immediateresonance and greater significance in the politico-strategic sphere, put anend to the forty-year long world confrontation, the Cold War;* The process of globalization of the economy, that impels the formationof large regional spaces for integration and of competing geoeconomicblocs.With the end of the Cold War, the East-West rivalry has been displacedby the protagonism and the competence among economic megablocs,that will perhaps become geostrategic blocs in the near future, asnew power relations take shape and circumstances contribute to strengthenthe supremacy of the only extant superpower: the United States. Thebipolarity that dates back to the years of the Cold War has been replacedby the strategic unipolarity of the United States, vvhile a renewed trend towardmultipolarity has simultaneously appeared.12. Quotations..., op.cit., p. 35.36