Introduction
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk led the inception of the modern-day Republic of Turkey in 1923. This Turkish state emerged as the radical re-imagination of what were the ruins of the long-weak (or “sick”) empire. It was based in Ataturk’s conception of Kemalism, a doctrine fused between the famed six principles (“six arrows”) of laicism, republicanism, nationalism, statism, populism, and reformism.
With Kemalism, Ataturk’s order sought to forge a new civic order for Turkey through modernization and a stark cultural departure from its past. This piece will consider the foundations of that order and how they reshaped Turkey’s external identity. I will conclude by bringing light to the erosion of these principles under what is effectively the longstanding regime of the incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Formation of Kemalism, From Ashes
With the victorious powers tearing apart what was left of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, Turkish sovereignty appeared to be finished. For instance, the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, a peace treaty certainly unfavorable to the losing Ottoman Turks, carried the risk of dismembering Anatolia itself.
Amid this turmoil, Atatürk led a successful war of independence. His work helped inaugurate the Republic of Turkey in 1923. And thus, Kemalism was no mere improvisation or simple, novel policy, but the pivot of an entire civilization. It rejected a longstanding Islamized Ottoman model of governance in favor of one secular and more modern. Rooted in centralization, laicism, and cultural homogeneity, the state would be modeled off European norms.
The caliphate was abolished. The language would adopt a Latin-based script. The legal code, once Islamic, was now Western-style and modern. With such strong secularist identity, the veil was virtually discouraged.
Institutionalizing Secularist Identity
Perhaps the most defining aspect of Kemalism was its laicism. “Laicism” here refers to a stronger, mainland European (French, for instance) form of the secularism found in Anglican societies, but it is applied in a unique way for the Turkish context.
The Turkish state moved aggressively in the laicist direction to reduce the role of religion in the everyday lives of Turks. Religious schools were closed down, religious orders barred, and Islam was placed under government purview. These largely well-intentioned moves would be seen as marginalization by more conservative Turks, seeding the backlash seen erupting in the 21st century.
Homogeneity as to Nationalism
While Kemalism defined Turkishness in civic terms, it pursued homogenization in practices. Minority identities, especially those Kurdish, Armenian, and Assyrian, were forcibly excluded or forcibly assimilated. “Reeducation” programs would enforce a virtually uniform national narrative.
While this fostered state cohesion for the early days of the Turkish republic, it also spurred longstanding ethnic grievances with both the state and society. These fault lines have mostly been left not fully resolved. Subsequent governments like Erdoğan’s have alternated between repression and appropriation of minority identities for political purposes.
A notable case is the plight of the Kurds — their repression has been especially persistent. Kurdish language rights were restricted, their political parties banned, harassed, and expressions of their identity were oftentimes forbidden, or even criminalized, as an explicit threat to the national unity. Although there existed periods of supposed reconciliation, such as the “Kurdish Opening” of the late 2000s, these attempts were reversed and crackdowns would intensify thereafter. Thus the Turkish state’s coercive posture has reinforced cycles of mistrust and conflict.
Statism and Bureaucracy
Statism was an essential part of the Kemalist vision to direct economic development through a potent and centralized apparatus. State-owned enterprises and infrastructure projects as well as state-directed educational reform managed to build a modern bureaucracy, and with it a modern-style middle class loyal to the republic.
But this model struggled at times with grassroots participation. Much of the countryside remained alienated from the interpretably imposed Kemalist standard, thus reinforcing a rural-urban divide. That divide would, as in many other nations, fuel the appeal of reactionaries like Erdoğan taking control in due time.
A Dramatic Contestation by Erdoğan
Beginning in the early 2000s with his AKP party’s election victories, now-President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has systematically dismantled much of the Kemalist state’s very institutional pillars. He has expanded religious education, voraciously re-Islamized the public sphere, and has decisively sought to weaken Turkey’s at least once secular bastions such as the military and judiciary. Ottoman symbolism has resurfaced with force under his rule, even beyond a political sense. The Diyanet, once the essential tool for checking and curbing religion’s influence in the country, is now being used to promote it (Islam) in an unprecedently empowered capacity.
This erosion of Kemalism has not occurred through some abrupt revolution. It has happened through sustained legal and cultural attrition, for Erdoğan’s approach, an Islamist one, has been gradualist. He effectively cloaks the doctrines of religious conservatism in a deceptively digestible language of democratic pluralism, all the while consolidating his own executive power. Meanwhile, the secularist consensus has almost fractured, and the ideological neutrality of the state has almost vanished.
Nonetheless, Kemalism is not entirely eclipsed yet. It remains in segments of the judiciary, military, and broader civil society. It notably carries a legacy which still shapes public debate. There has been a push and pull between the secular and religious vision for Turkey, and that itself can prove the lasting presence of Atatürk’s framework thus, even if in decline.
Conclusion
Kemalism was critical to the foundation of the modern Turkish state in that it provided a blueprint for modernization and a stark cultural departure — to move forward thus. It envisioned a secular, unitary, pro-Western republic, one which enabled significant cultural, societal, and institutional development but also imposed relative conformity and did alienate segments of the population.
That foundation has been seriously challenged today. Under Erdoğan’s regime, much of Kemalism’s defining features have been hollowed out, especially the secularism. Nonetheless, its influence endures as historical reality one must grapple with to understand the contemporary Turkish state.
I thank you for taking the time to read this. I would like to conclude by saying that I am not Turkish nor do I claim to be. My heritage is Iranian. I just happen to take a great interest in neighboring Turkey and its culture and people. If you are Turkish or are otherwise versed in Turkish history and politics, please feel free to reply to this topic with any feedback you may have, or things I could learn about. And if not, feel free to reply if there is anything I could try to the best of my ability to elaborate on. Thanks for being here.
Some sources and further reading:
BBC: “Turkey profile - Timeline”
Middle East Institute: “Religion, Nationalism, and Populism in Turkey Under the AKP”
Council on Foreign Relations: “Turkey’s Growing Foreign Policy Ambitions”
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: “What to Expect From Erdoğan’s New Term”