Reforming Kemal

IN his charming tourist history of modern Turkey, A Fez of the Heart, Jeremy Seal tells of visiting a small provincial museum in which pictures of a historic visit to the town by Kemal Ataturk 60 years before were proudly on display. What immediately struck him about the photographs was the astonishing variety of headgear that Ataturk had worn that one short day. One Western hat after another-fedora, trilby, homburg-was perched on the great man’s head as he walked about the town to the wonderment of his subjects. Yet Ataturk was no male model, but a tough, hard-drinking soldier and Man of Destiny. So what was he up to?

He was, of course, giving the townspeople a beginner’s course in Westernization. Kemal Ataturk created the modern Turkish Republic from out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. He modeled his creation on the latest European fashions in statecraft-the new Turkey was to be democratic, nationalist, progressive, and, above all, secular. But since the population of his new Republic was 98 percent Muslim, he had to effect a cultural revolution to ensure its secularism. He decided to expel Islam from the public sphere and to place religious observance under the control of a Ministry of Religious Affairs.

About the Author

John O’Sullivan

John O’Sullivan is a senior fellow at National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review.

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IN his charming tourist history of modern Turkey, A Fez of the Heart, Jeremy Seal tells of visiting a small provincial museum in which pictures of a historic visit to the town by Kemal Ataturk 60 years before were proudly on display. What immediately struck him about the photographs was the astonishing variety of headgear that Ataturk had worn that one short day. One Western hat after another-fedora, trilby, homburg-was perched on the great man’s head as he walked about the town to the wonderment of his subjects. Yet Ataturk was no male model, but a tough, hard-drinking soldier and Man of Destiny. So what was he up to?

He was, of course, giving the townspeople a beginner’s course in Westernization. Kemal Ataturk created the modern Turkish Republic from out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. He modeled his creation on the latest European fashions in statecraft-the new Turkey was to be democratic, nationalist, progressive, and, above all, secular. But since the population of his new Republic was 98 percent Muslim, he had to effect a cultural revolution to ensure its secularism. He decided to expel Islam from the public sphere and to place religious observance under the control of a Ministry of Religious Affairs.