6yFollowing the Ottoman defeat of Allied Powers in World War I, Turkey’s power was limited to the region of Anatolia with the signing of the Treaty of Sevres. France took the Arab lands of modern-day Lebanon and Syria, and the British mandated Iraq and Palestine. The spoils of war, particularly ownership of the oil fields, were taken from the hands of the Ottoman Empire and placed in control of Great Britain. As seen in the documentary The First World War, the Turkish military forces held their ground against the Allied forces at Gallipoli and the capture of Sir Charles Townshend’s British forces at Kut-Al-Amara (The First World War). Though ultimately defeated in WWI, Turkish forces were later fueled by a strong sense of nationalism under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal. As a result, Turkish forces participated in a campaign of military expansion which resulted in French, Italian and British European colonial powers negotiating terms recognition of the new borders of Turkey with the signing of the Peace of Lausanne (Tignor, 381).

            Mustafa Kemal instituted many reforms for the Turkish nation that removed the power and central role of Islam and replaced it with the practice of secularism. In this case, the western European policies backfired with the defiance and solidarity of Turkey’s expansion. Instead of reverting back to Islam, Turkey’s future under Kemal’s nationalist goals, was designed to be on par with the first world western powers in order to have a political, social, and economic stake in the world arena. In many cases, though non-reminiscent of Ottoman rule, nationalist Turkey adopted imperial practice in its pursuit of secularism. The following excerpts are taken from Worlds Together Worlds Apart, “Wearing the fez (a brimless cap) was criminalized, and Turks were instructed to wear European-style hats. The veil, through not outlawed, was denounced as a relic.”…“Turkish nationalists drew on Nazi examples by advocating racial theories that posited Central Asian Turks as the founders of all civilization” (Tignor, 381). As seen clearly, racial and religious discrimination became a method of promoting Turkish supremacy.

            Turkish nationalism and the discrimination and suppression of certain rights as an acceptable practice may be a direct result of the fact that Turkey was never fully colonized by any European power. Though Germany was influential, it did not rule and France and Britain allowed the Turkish autonomy in Anatolia to remain. As seen in later examination, most of the countries of the Middle East that were imposed with direct colonial rule reverted to back Islam in defiance of the western ideals of secularism. This survival of Turkey enabled a transition from Imperial Ottoman rule to the discriminatory rule of new social policy of secular Turkey; some of the imperial elements of cultural prowess still remain in Turkey’s modern political, social and economic policies. The quotes on the left and right columns are from Mustafa Kemal Attaturk’s “Speech to the Congress of the People’s Republican Party” as he turns his back on Islam while sympathizing and justifying discriminatory religious cultural practice.