Ataturk’s secularization was a class struggle against the old Islamic ruling order

Evidence

Turkey is significant, though: in 1923, it became the first republic in the modern Middle East. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk instituted a series of reforms, including the formal separation of religion from politics, and carried out what Marxists refer to as “bourgeois democratic tasks”—in other words, the reforms needed to mark the transition from a feudal monarchy to a capitalist democratic order. His key battle was against the old order based on Islamic law and practices. To consolidate his own authoritarian rule, he had to destroy the power and authority of the old ruling classes, which were tied to Islam. In 1924, he abolished the caliphate, closed down the madrassas (religious schools), replaced Sharia law with the Swiss civil code, and expunged the Turkish constitution of any reference to Islam as the state religion. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 302

Categorization

• XREF: Class-based reading of secularization parallels Marxian analyses of nationalism that the reader’s inquiry already uses. — connects to: Capitalism and colonialism drove Muslim empires toward secularization — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 298; Secular nationalism failed because it was a middle-class ideology serving its own class — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 327; Islamism’s contradictions stem from the class base of its petty bourgeois cadres. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 354

Broader Connections

• Secular nationalism failed because it was a middle-class ideology serving its own class #corroborates (0.60) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 327
• Islamism’s contradictions stem from the class base of its petty bourgeois cadres. #expands (0.55) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 354
• Capitalism and colonialism drove Muslim empires toward secularization #responds-to (0.45) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 298