The Box of the Century

Atatürk, Father of the Modern Turkey (14x2)

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Built on the smoking rubble of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey was the first Muslim nation in the world to enshrine a secular identity on the marble stone of its Constitution. The only one still to this day. Against the Ottoman theocracy, against the Islam of the ulemas, against popular Islam, and even against the will of the majority, Mustafa Kemal imposed secularism. “Its” secularism: Lâïklik. An unprecedented approach whose scope still resonates in contemporary Turkey, between filiation and protest, and well beyond. Beyond this political decision, he sets a “crazy” objective: to forge a new identity for his people. Adoption of the Latin alphabet, emancipation of women, clothing regulations with the ban on the traditional fez, education reform, organization of society and even of daily life… He imposed his vision and profoundly transformed his country on the move towards its westernization.