Ataturk’s Westernizing project made Turkey a torn country

Evidence

Sixty years before these words were written Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had come to similar conclusions, had created a new Turkey out of the ruins of the Ottoman empire, and had launched a massive effort both to Westernize it and to modernize it. In embarking on this course, and rejecting the Islamic past, Ataturk made Turkey a “torn country,” a society which was Muslim in its religion, heritage, customs, and institutions but with a ruling elite determined to make it modern, Western, and at one with the West. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 199

Categorization

• XREF: Sets up the chapter 6 treatment of torn countries and connects to current debates about Turkish identity.