In this speech i would like to focus on the Westernist Reforms’ mind in Kemalist regime. As many researcher point out, M. Kemal derived his legitimacy from the commandership in war of independence and from his efforts for refounding Turkish state. He and his followers, after abolishing the sultanate and the caliphate, proceeded to build up an nation-state under the rule of single-party administration. They implemented, alternately gradually and forcefully, a series of radical reforms in the political, legal, educational, and cultural fields, including adoption of Western legal codes; latinization of the Ottoman-Turkish alphabet; adoption of the Western calendar and units of measurement and imposition of Western clothing and headwear; the closing down of social and associational institutions of Islamic sects; etc. All these reforms had not been done by Imperialist Powers of the West; these were the decisions of westernized, positivist minded Young Turks’.
