"Is Turkey Deviating From Ataturk's Path? Elections Will Tell
Handan T. Satiroglu | Bio | 22 Mar 2007
World Politics Watch Exclusive
The indisputable father of modern-day Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, accomplished great deeds in a short period of time. The greatest of these was the ease with which he weaved secularism into the fabric of a Muslim society. With his tantalizing and audacious reforms, he marched post-Ottoman Turkey unwaveringly toward the West and away from its Eastern neighbors. Among other reforms, Ataturk replaced the strict Islamic Shariah law with Swiss civil code, abolished state religion, secularized school curricula, and discouraged the use of the veil among women. Turkey's republican constitution, modeled after the French constitution, enshrined the country's commitment to secularism, referred to as Kemalism."
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