Ataturk systematically erased Ottoman-Muslim identity to force Turkey into the West

Evidence

The fate of the Turkic-speaking peoples in the zones incorporated into today’s Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and the USSR is especially exemplary. A family of spoken languages, once everywhere assemblable, thus comprehensible, within an Arabic orthography, has lost that unity as a result of conscious manipulations. To heighten Turkish–Turkey’s national consciousness at the expense of any wider Islamic identification, Atatürk imposed compulsory romanization. The Soviet authorities followed suit, first with an anti-Islamic, anti-Persian compulsory romanization, then, in Stalin’s 1930s, with a Russifying compulsory Cyrillicization. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 190 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Turkish leaders tried to expand their military connection with Israel, which provoked intense criticism from Turkish Islamists. More significantly, during the 1980s Turkey expanded its relations with Arab and other Muslim countries and in the 1990s actively promoted Islamic interests by providing significant support to the Bosnian Muslims as well as to Azerbaijan. With respect to the Balkans, Central Asia, or the Middle East, Turkish foreign policy was becoming increasingly Islamicized. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 403 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Ataturk’s Westernizing project made Turkey a torn country — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 199; Script reforms deliberately severed Turkic peoples from wider Islamic identity — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 190; Ottoman political principles directly opposed territorial-state and ethnic-nationality ideas (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Script reforms deliberately severed Turkic peoples from wider Islamic identity #corroborates (0.92) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 190
• Turkey’s foreign policy across three regions became increasingly Islamicized #complicates (0.75) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 403
• Ottoman political principles directly opposed territorial-state and ethnic-nationality ideas #complicates (0.72)