"Abandoning Ataturk
By Soner Cagaptay
Newsweek, September 19, 2009
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Ottoman Empire, having suffered military defeats at the hands of Europe, realized it could match its rivals only by becoming a European society itself. So it embarked on a program of intense reforms. In 1863, Sultan Abdulaziz established Darussafaka, the empire's first high school with a secular Western curriculum in Turkish. In the early 20th century, Kemal Ataturk followed through on the sultan's dreams, making Turkey a staunchly secular state. Institutions such as Darussafaka, my alma mater, thrived."
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