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January 2008
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INTERNATIONAL NEWS |
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WCL Conference Examines Ataturk Legacy
For Washington College of Law professor Padideh Ala’i, last Wednesday’s day-long conference on secularism in Turkey was for more than a gathering of scholars and practitioners. For Ala’i, who’s worked extensively with faculty from Turkey’s Yeditepe University on the development of Turkish democratic institutions and trade policy, the event was personal. “I was born in Iran and have gone through the Islamic revolution,” she said, “Therefore, the aim of this conference was to look at the legacy of secularism of the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and compare that to other Arab nationalist and secular movements in the region. “You have to look at the past to understand the present. And as important as Turkey is today, the issues that we [discussed] have much broader implications” explained Ala’i, who, along with WCL professor David Chavkin, leads WCL’s annual Turkey Summer Program. The conference, “Turkey: At the Crossroads of Secular West and Traditional East,” also explored the country’s relations with the United States and Europe, the question of Turkish accession to the European Union, and the tension that has long existed between secularism and the assertion of an Islamic identity in Turkey. The conference, which drew more than 100 people, including Turkish policy makers, journalists, and scholars, kicked off with a history lesson. Panelists, including Professor Feroz Ahmad of Yeditepe University, discussed Ataturk’s legacy of secularism and why the “Kemalist experiment” was so important. Turkey, which is situated between Europe and the Middle East, has always occupied a difficult position between cultures, explained Ahmad. Upon the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk instituted major political, economic, and cultural reforms in order to create a modern, democratic, and secular nation-state. This move toward democracy created tension among the population, which embraced Middle Eastern culture and religion—tensions, which, according to Ahmad, still exist today. “Many Islamists in the twenty-first century see women as child-bearing, child-rearing machines, who should be educated—but only for that purpose,” he said. “Kemalists sought to transform a patriarchal society into a society based on modernity, and one of the biggest challenges Turkey faces today is preventing the restoration of patriarchy.” Ala’i and faculty from Yeditepe hope to organize a follow-up to last week’s event in Istanbul in 2009. As Turkey is in the midst of amending its constitution, that conference would likely focus on constitutional law. -Adrienne Frank (originally published in American Today) | |||
