Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Turkey quietly celebrates 100-year anniversary as a republic
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, declared a republic on
October 29, 1923, under Kemal Atatürk, Father of Turks. The ex-general nationalist
served as Turkey’s first president from 1923 until his death in 1938, modernized
the country’s legal and educational systems, encouraged the adoption of a
European way of life, replaced the Arabic script with the Latin alphabet, and enshrined
women’s rights to vote. He also established secularism in Turkey even though
Muslims overwhelmingly dominated the population. Kemal Atatürk and his secularism
have been highly respected in modern Turkey. However, ever since Tayyip Erdogan
took control of the country as Prime Minister in 2003 and President in 2014, he
started denouncing the legacy and secularism. In fact, He re-converted the
former Byzantine-era church Hagia Sophia Museum in Istanbul into a mosque in 2020,
which had been transformed into a museum by Ataturk. This year, the republic
was supposed to celebrate its centennial anniversary as a republic, and many events
and ceremonies had been planned. However, many of those were called off or
scaled down because of the upheaval in the Gaza Strip. It seems that the incumbent
president wishes to establish his own legacy.
Read the article and learn about the century-old Republic of Türkiye.
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