Mustafa Kemal was a Turkish World War I hero later known as "Ataturk" or "father of the Turks," and he founded the republic of Turkey in 1923 after the collapse of the 600 year old Ottoman Empire. He also instituted reforms which moved Turkey away from religious control and toward secular control of the government. The issue of how well the reforms have lasted and how viable they are today relates to the issue of the health of Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey today and how well the secular government will be able to function in the face of rising Islamic fundamentalism throughout the Middle East.
At its peak, the Ottoman Empire controlled vast stretches of northern Africa, southeastern Europe, and western Asia, and at the beginning of this century the Empire had clearly failed to keep pace with European social and technological developments. The rise of nationalism in the world caused several ethnic groups to seek independence, and this in turn brought about the disintegration of the Empire. This process culminated in the disastrous Ottoman participation in World War I as a German ally, and once the Ottomans were defeated and shorn of much of their former territory (part of which was occupied by forces of the victorious European states), the Ottoman structure was repudiated by Turkish nationalists who rallied under the leadership of Ataturk. Both the temporal and religious ruling institutions of the old empire were abolished, and the new republic concentrated on westernizing the empire's Turkish core of Anatolia and a small part of Thrace. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, social, political, linguistic, and economic reforms and attitudes were
introduced. Ataturk died in 1938, but the reforms he instituted continue to form the ideological base of modern Turkey. This body of reforms is referred to as "Kemalism," and it comprises secularism, nationalism, and modernization and looks to the West for inspiration and supp...