Secular Republic and the Old Order – Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Turkish identity

Abstract Mustafa Kemal Atatürk continues to stand firm as a major symbol of the Turkish republicanism, though there is little doubt that Turkey today undergoes deep transformation in the sphere of the relations between politics and religion. As Bernard Lewis explains, the Ottoman Turks identified with Islam so profoundly that they in fact submerged their identity in Islam. It is, therefore, only right and proper to inquire and pursue the theoretical foundations and origins of the Turkish laicism. Although Turkey constitutes a rare example of a Muslim country where laicism was instituted by its own authorities and not imposed on the country by the Western colonial powers, still, it is beyond doubt that the very idea of laicism is of the European origin and that it drew its inspirations from the range of ideas of the French Enlightment. It is the perspective that enables to understand fully the scope and depth of the reforms implemented in Turkey; it also elucidates the contemporary attempts to overcome the secularism and enforce the political re-Islamization of the state. The contemporary question on the place of religion in the political community is at the same time a question on the identity of Turkey.