Ataturk’s revolution — I
A dress code was introduced that banned the hijab in universities and state offices. Equally, the fez was banned in favour of the European hat
Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed
Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed
September 16, 2014
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (May 19, 1881-November 10, 1938) has been both admired and reviled passionately. However, nobody can deny that he was one of the greatest reformers of the 20th century. He and his colleagues had had a long and bitter confrontation with European powers but, simultaneously, they admired the transformations the scientific and industrial revolutions and the Enlightenment had wrought: between the 1789 French Revolution and the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution the old order had disintegrated and, instead, faith and optimism about the future had been generated. The Muslim world too was fermenting with change but intellectuals and activists were divided sharply between those who looked backward and yearned for the past and those gearing up for a new future divested of reactionary sentimentalism.
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