doğmunun 125. yılında mustafa kemal atatürk - Atatürk Araştırma ...

ATATÜRK’S REFORMS AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE MUSLIM WORLD 541
moment he evoked an angry response from the traditionalists. This
is not the failure of modernism in Pakistan but shows how strong the
conservatives have become. 86
Meanwhile in Turkey, Atatürk’s system strengthened itself under
the single-party control of the Republican Peoples Party (RPP) with
the armed forces and the judiciary acting as guardians of secularism.
‘The ideological void’, says Erik Ziircher, ‘was filled to some extent
with the personality cult that grew round Mustafa Kemal during and
even more after his lifetime’. 87 In the late 1940s, however, İsmet
In6nii opened the floodgates of a competitive multi-party system
though religious parties had to wait until the 1950s when Celal Bayar
initiated a new experiment outside the RPP. 88 The role of religion
in Turkish society took a new meaning after a liberal constitution
(1960) was enacted. Seven years later, an openly Islam-oriented
religious party made its first appearance and then continued its ascent
through the years that followed under different names, culminating
eventually in the 2000s in the capture of political power. But at
every crucial moment the armed forced and the judiciary stepped
in to drive home the fact that Kemalism was alive and well. The
significant thing about Turkey is that even the Islamists and Muslim
democrats do not want to be seen as repudiating Kemalism. They
simply want religion to have a place in the society. 89 Atatürk’s desire
to ensure his country’s position as a western nation was realized
partly by Turkey’s membership of NATO 90 but its affirmation
remains elusive because of the tardy negotiations over its admission
into the European Union. As for Turkey’s place in the Muslim world,
it is symbolic that the present secretary-general of the 57-member
86 Ibid.
87 Erik J. Ziircher, Turkey: A Modern History (London & New York, 1993),
190.
88 Feroz Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, 1950-1975 (London,
1977), 8 ff; and DavidWesterlund and Ingvar Svaberg, Islam Outside the Arab
World (London, 1999), 140-3.
89 Ilter Turnan, ‘Religion and Political Culture in Turkey’, in Richard Tapper
(ed.), Islam in Modern Turkey: Religion, Politics and Literature in a
Secular State (London & New York), esp. 46-7.
90 George S. Harris, Turkey: Coping with Crisis (Boulder & London), 1985,
180.