 Turkey (national flag)
Turkey (national flag), The flag was officially confirmed in 1936, but dates
from 1844. Already in the 1600's. similar flags were used. The color red has been
prevalent in Turkish flags since the 1300's. The flag contains crescent moon and
star, which have become symbols of Islam. The crescent moon is known from the
1400's. It is associated with the hunting goddess Diana, under whose protection
the ancient Byzantine stood; later the crescent moon became a symbol of the
Virgin Mary, to whom Constantinople was consecrated in 330. The origin of the
star is unknown; it was added in the late 1700's. Many Islamic states in Asia and
Africa have adopted flags based on the Turkish.
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Turkey (History)
Some of the oldest human societies have been identified in the area that
today constitutes Turkey. Here were the wild precursors of modern grains and
animals that could be tamed like cattle. The natural resources made possible
from 6000 BC. Stone Age towns such as Çatal Hüyük and Hacılar. Ethnic groups
from the north and west, Greeks, settled in parts of Anatolia. The Hittite
Empire (see Hittites) ruled central Anatolia in 1000 BC, before the region in
500 BC. engulfed by the Persian Empire and from 100-tkKr. of the Roman
Empire. Anatolia and Eastern Thrace were more closely linked in the role of food
producer and supplier of soldiers when Constantine the Great founded
Constantinople on the Bosphorus in 330 AD.
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the world, such as TUR which represents the official name of Turkey.
From 400-t. until 1025, Constantinople was the largest city in the Christian
world and the political and religious center of the Byzantine Empire. The
intrusion of Turkmen nomads into Anatolia in the 1000's. led to the creation of
the Space Sultanate and the arrival of the Crusaders. I 1300-t. Anatolia was
conquered by a Muslim empire, the Ottoman Empire, which from 1453 gained
Constantinople, present-day Istanbul, as its center. In the 1800's. was
Anatolia raw material supplier and market for western industrialized
countries.
After the Greek War of Independence 1821-29, the Ottoman Empire had to accept
Greece's secession. During the Italian-Turkish War (1911–12), the kingdom lost
Libya, and during the Balkan Wars (1912-13) its territories in the Balkans, with
the exception of eastern Thrace. During the withdrawal of the Ottoman army from
the Balkans, 400,000 Muslims chose to leave the area for fear of Greek, Serbian
and Bulgarian persecution. In response to the kingdom's semi-colonial status and
as a copy of the nationalisms that had now deprived the kingdom of its Greek,
Slavic and Arab possessions, Ottoman officers formulated a Turkish nationalism
that won its first victory in the Greco-Turkish War 1919-22; see Greco-Turkish
wars.
Republic of Turkey
The Turkish nation-state emerged in 1923, when the Republic of Turkey was
proclaimed the state power of the former Ottoman East Thrace and Anatolia. The
signing of the Lausanne Peace in 1923 led to international recognition of the
new state, which undertook to repay the state debt of the Ottoman
Empire. However, Turkey did not gain full sovereignty over the Dardanelles until
1936 (see the Montreux Convention).
The main force behind the building of the Turkish nation state was Kemal
Atatürk. As president from 1923 until his death in 1938, he was the real ruler
of the republic. He legitimized his dictatorship by allowing democratic
institutions, but not an organized opposition. Atatürk sought by various means
to give the people of the new state a national self-esteem as one Turkish
people, and groups and persons whom he considered enemies of a Turkish unitary
state were severely beaten. From 1923, a forced population exchange between
Turkey and Greece was launched. This ensured that the ethnic Turks became
Turkey's dominant population. 1.5 million Turkish-speaking Greeks were forced to
leave Anatolia, whose Armenian population already approximately 1900-15 had been
displaced or wiped out. Turkey's only significant ethnic minority was then
the Kurds, but the Turkish state has since persistently refused to recognize the
existence of ethnic minorities in the country. In eastern Anatolia, the Turkish
state defeated Kurdish uprisings in 1925, 1930 and 1937.
Atatürk wanted the new unitary state to be a modern Western industrial
society. From 1929 he had the state set up and run a large number of large
industries, banks and service companies; this state capitalism gave Turkey a
self-sufficient national economy that replaced the country's previous dependence
on foreign countries. The 1920's were also marked by modernizations of the
judiciary and a Western imprint on the working culture, way of life and
attitudes of the population. The goal was to make Turkey a country with a
bourgeois Western behavior and mindset. Islamic courts were abolished in
1924; Islamic law, sharia, was abolished and replaced by a new civil
and criminal justice system copied from Western European models. From 1925
onwards, the everyday life of the Turks was Europeanised through a mandatory
transition to the Gregorian calendar, to the meter system and to European dress,
just as in 1928 Arabic script was replaced by the Latin alphabet. The literacy
rate of the population grew from 8% in 1928 to 30% in 1945.
Multi-party democracy
Atatürk's modernization strategy was formulated in the 1930's as an
ideology, Kemalism, to which the state was committed. But in 1945, his
successor, İsmet İnönü, introduced multi-party democracy. Since then, the
policies of the changing governments have meant that Turkish society has moved
away from more and more of the basic principles of Kemalism. The Turkish
military has responded to this development with three military coups (1960, 1971
and 1980), which briefly deprived politicians of power and formulated the
framework for politicians to govern the country in the future.
The political and economic isolationism of the Atatürk era was abandoned
while Adnan Menderes was prime minister 1950-60. Turkey then became a member of
several Western defense alliances, including NATO in 1952. Similarly, Turkey was
integrated into the Western world economy. In the early 1950's, Turkey's large
farmers achieved large revenues as a result of state aid, the expansion of
infrastructure and the introduction of tractors in agriculture. But at the same
time, integration meant that Turkey became very politically and economically
very dependent on the United States. Sharp price increases that particularly
affected the urban population, a littered economy, and a dictatorial government
in 1960 triggered a military coup that deposed the government. Menderes was
executed in 1961 after being convicted of treason.
Before the military junta reintroduced democracy in 1961, Turkey had a new,
very liberal constitution and an electoral law that ensured party-political
pluralism in parliament. Continuing Menderes' private capitalist line, the
leader of the Justice Party (later The True Way Party), Süleyman Demirel,
Turkish Prime Minister. At the same time, society changed fundamentally, as the
industrial and service sectors became more economically significant than
agriculture. This development was mainly due to new privately owned companies
financed by foreign investment and money from Turkish labor migrants in Western
Europe. The economic restructuring had major social costs, which in the 1970's
proved to be a protracted economic crisis with very high inflation, a flow of
job-seeking newcomers from the country to the cities, nationwide chains
'outsourcing of local industry, international lending organizations' demands to
limit consumption, etc..
The goal of the Liberal Constitution in 1961 was the creation of a civil
society based on the American model, and the citizens of Turkey therefore
achieved freedom of expression, assembly and the press. But instead of an open
society, the country became an ideological battleground in the 1960's and 1970's,
where left-leaning worldviews clashed with nationalist mindsets. Increasingly
violent clashes with many killed and numerous strikes triggered a new military
coup in 1971. Despite the state's subsequent curtailment of the activities of
trade unions and left-wing organizations, the many coalition governments of the
1970's could not bring an end to domestic political terror and economic
crisis. At the same time, relations with Greece deteriorated,
The regional superpower
In 1980-83, Turkey was again ruled by the military under the leadership of
General Kenan Evren. Among other things. using a new restrictive constitution
from 1982, the military regime restored internal security and stabilized the
economy. On this basis, Turgut Özal, a neoliberal economist and leader of the
new Motherland Party, as Prime Minister 1983-89, was able to begin the
privatization of Turkey's state industries. As president in 1989-93, Özal used
the dissolution of the Soviet Union to mark Turkey as the Black Sea's most
important power, among other things. by allowing Western planes to bomb Iraq
from bases in eastern Turkey during the Gulf War.
Many in Turkey did not share in the economic growth that followed Özal's
liberalization. Business people in the province, the unemployed and immigrants
from the country joined the Islamist-nationalist Welfare Party, led by Necmettin
Erbakan, who in 1995 became the largest parliament with the support of 21.4% of
voters. Erbakan became head of government in 1996, but resigned the following
year due to military pressure.
The military regarded Islamic fundamentalism as the most serious threat to
the republic. Most political parties supported the military intervention and a
constitutional court subsequently banned the Welfare Party, which, however,
re-emerged as the Virtue Party. In 2001, it was declared unconstitutional and
dissolved. The Islamist tendency in Turkish politics, however, was not so easily
denied, and it led to the establishment of two new parties, of which the Justice
and Development Party, established by Istanbul's former mayor Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan, proved to be the best organized. It won an overwhelming victory in the
2002 election. Erdoğan himself had been deemed unworthy of parliamentary
elections by the Constitutional Court, but the adoption of a number of
amendments to the 2003 constitution ensured that he could be elected to
parliament by a by-election and then take over as prime minister.. Erdoğan has
sought to continue the rapprochement with the EU that had been initiated with
the conclusion of a customs union agreement with the EU with effect from
1.1.1996. Throughout the rest of the 1990's and into the early 2000's. The country
has implemented a number of measures that will eventually pave the way for a
final Turkish accession to the EU. Among other things. abolished the country in
2002 civilian death penalty. Turkey was offered the prospect of being admitted
as a new member in 2005, but that decision has been criticized by several
European governments, who maintain that Turkey is not a natural part of the
European Community. For the same reason, parts of the political life in Turkey
have advocated that the country should reorient itself towards the
Turkish-speaking parts of Central Asia and, moreover, enter into closer economic
and political cooperation with other states in the region as an alternative to a
enhanced cooperation with the EU.
Since 1984, the Turkish authorities have been involved in a military showdown
with Kurdish separatists organized in the PKK. From his exile in Syria, PKK
leader Abdullah Öcalan ledthe political struggle. Violent Turkish pressure with
the march of large army units led the Syrian government to withdraw Öcalan's
residence permit in 1999. This paved the way for Turkish security forces to
capture him later this year in Kenya and bring him to Turkey, where he was put
on trial and sentenced to death. The confrontation with the death sentence of
the PKK and Öcalan has led to the Turkish government in recent years granting
permission for the use of the Kurdish language and for a visualization of
Kurdish traditions within the framework of the Turkish Republic. Öcalan, after
lengthy negotiations, declared the armed Kurdish fight against Turkey over and
ordered the PKK guerrillas to cease the attacks in Turkey from May 2013.
Following the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Turkey has backed the
opposition to the Assad regime, without, however, sending weapons aid to the
rebels. Turkey has also received a very large number of refugees from the civil
war. Following a suicide attack by Islamic State (ISIS) inside Turkey, the
Turkish Air Force is launching an attack on the Islamist militia. At the same
time, the war in Syria caused the ceasefire between Turkey and the Kurds to
collapse, not least because one of the most successful militias in the fight
against ISIS was the Kurdish one.
After serving as Prime Minister since 2003, Erdoğan was elected President in
2014 by direct election. Erdoğan has been accused of splitting the population,
but has gained great popularity. There were widespread protests against the
government in 2013, and Erdoğan has also been accused of trying to impose a more
Islamist policy. Erdoğan's regime was subjected to a coup attempt by a faction
in the army in July 2016; the coup was quickly crushed, after which the
government seized the opportunity for a purge of what it considered unreliable
elements in the army, the media and in the justice system. Many were arrested,
TV stations and newspapers were closed, and a large number of judges, university
teachers and tens of thousands of officials were fired. After the failed coup,
Erdoğan is thus more secure than before.
In 2017, Erdoğan narrowly won a referendum on a constitutional amendment that
would give him almost unrestricted powers. Up until the vote, the opposition had
difficulty speaking out and there were widespread irregularities in the
vote. The result could in fact lead to the complete abolition of creative
democracy in Turkey.
Following further ISIS terrorist attacks in Turkey in 2016, Turkey launched
an invasion of areas controlled by ISIS in August. At the same time, attacks
were directed at the Kurdish militias inside Syria, which had previously
successfully stopped ISIS 'offensive in the area.
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