Iran And Turkey After World War I: A Comparative Analysis

Ataturk and Reza Shah had a large influence on the governments of Turkey and Iran by secularizing and westernizing each. This secularization has had a distinct role in shaping the language, education, religion and government of both Turkey and Iran. Their end goals were to create a powerful and prevalent world powers that is distinct. Comparing the two countries, there were many similarities between each reformation, but each is distinct in certain aspects.

While taking the class of Early Modern European History there was two states that really stuck out and peaked my interest the most. They were the Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe. If you compare and contrast both the Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe during the 16th Century through the 18th Century, you will see that there are a number of similarities as well as differences when you look at the expansion of the states. You will also see many of these contrasts as well when you look in terms of each states military and commerce. Although the Ottoman Empire existed before the 16th century and continued to exist past the 18th century and in great decline until the early 20th century, when looking at the state as a whole the time

The independence of Turkey and its early development as a country full of energetic youth required a combination of two almost contradictory ideals : In order to illustrate its disassociation with the past Ottoman authority the new government desired international style which expresses scientific modernization and political liberation; However, the Kemalists also wanted to preserve a certain degree of cultural root in order to boost, if not, maintain nationalistic devotion of its citizens. Consequently, a new hybridization of theses two ideals emerged

Alternatively, while the teaching of the Quran promoted equality among men and women, Orthodox Islamic ideas and negative interpretations became the dominant view in Western society and colonists. “It was the practice of veiling and the Islamic degradation of women that stood in the way, according to the imperialist thesis, of the “progress” and “civilization” of Muslim societies and of their populaces being “persuaded or forced” into imbibing “the true spirit of Western Civilization” (Ahmed, 1992, p. 243). Many colonist men created a negative image of Islamic culture,

The Ottoman Empire was ruled by the Turks as they had the most conquered land, including North Africa, West Asia, and Southeast Europe, while the Armenians resided their as “second-class citizens.”4 By the start of World War I in 1914, the Ottoman Empire had suffered tremendous loss and experienced a major reduction in size, losing most of their seized land in Europe and Africa. This created tension between the Turks and the Armenians, two opposing races. The Turks practiced Islamic religion while the Armenians represented a Christian minority group. Since the Armenians were non-Muslims, they were required by the Turks to pay taxes and were denied security and any part in the government. The Armenians demanded representation in the government

What two developments in western Europe, according to Kupchan, lead to the rise of western Europe as a political and military power?

By 1951 Mohammad Mossadegh had established himself firmly in the political scene in the mountainous country of Iran. Mossadegh ran for the office of Prime Minister with just one campaign promise: to free Iran from the British imperial yoke (Gavin, 1999, p.64). He had also built his political strength, based largely on his call to nationalize the concession and installations in Iran of the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (Risen, 2000, p.10). Mossadegh embodied the fierce nationalistic pride felt by so many Iranians, this brought Mohammad Mossadegh an easy victory (Gregory,1951,p.31). On May Day 1951, after three days of raging Pro-Mossadegh rioting, Mossadegh announced that the Majlis had passed the Nationalization Act, despite strong opposition by many members of the Majlis (Gavin,1999, 65). By this time Mossadegh's power had grown so great that the Shah (monarchy) was virtually forced to appoint him Premier. Even after being appointed to the Premiership, popularity continued to skyrocket for Mossadegh. Mossadegh's popularity, growing power, and intransigence on the oil issue were creating friction between the prime minister and the Shah.

The legacies left behind as a result of post-world war 1and 2 has caused tremendous problems that still occur in the twenty-first century. The carving of formal Palestine has fueled issues between ethnicities in the present day states known as: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. As a result, promises that were made prior to the war, of what lands would be awarded to the negotiating actors had been broken; the Sunni/Shia conflict in the present day, was also the result of Sunni leaders in the in the 1920s. In this paper, you will see how these conflicts have grown over time.

The book starts out talking about Egypt and Iran in the late nineteenth century. It says how during the nineteenth century, the major European powers expanded their overseas empires and protected their principal imperial possessions by entering into agreements among themselves or by neutralizing the rulers of territories bordering on those possessions. Next, the chapter talks about Iran during the second half of the nineteenth century. European influences came to Iran, because powerful forces of decentralization had taken root in Iran during the chaotic period between the fall of the Safavids in 1722 and the consolidation of the Qajar dynasty. The next chapter discusses how those that had escaped direct occupation-Iran, the Ottoman Empire, Afghanistan, and Morocco-

“Ungor stresses a continuous policy of Turkification beginning with the expulsion of the Greeks, the Armenian Genocide, and massacres of Syriac communities and, in the mid-1920s and 1930s, by the killings, deportations, and mass deaths of hundreds of thousands of Kurds” (Chorbajian).

At the start of the 18th century, Middle Eastern countries witnessed their Eastern neighbors being overtaken by Western Europe and were faced with a choice: to pick apart or to be picked apart. It was from this dilemma that defensive developmentalism emerged in the Middle East. Empires such as the Ottomans, Persia, Tunisia, and Egypt began the process of centralizing their authority in order to assert effective control over their populations. The chief goal of defensive developmentalism for these empires was to assert their autonomy, whether that be autonomy from the Ottomans in the case of Egypt and Tunisia, or from outside imperialists in the Ottoman Empire and Persia. In order to accomplish these goals, defensive developmentalists undertook extensive reforms to establish their empires as relevant worldwide powers.

The emergence of the Islamic Republic in late 1970’s Iran demonstrates how middle class Iranian people purged themselves of the Pahlavi Dynasty in an effort to continue down a more righteous and egalitarian path. As a result, the country underwent a complete social upheaval and in its place grew an overtly oppressive regime based in theoretical omnipotence. In response to this regime, the very structure of political and social life was shaken and fundamentally transformed as religion and politics became inexorable. As a result, gender roles and the battle between public and private life were redrawn. Using various primary and secondary sources I will show how the Revolution shaped secular middle class Iranians. Further, I will show how the

Iranians deeply value their social and cultural traditions. The Persian revolution formed the basis through which the country evolved and foundation upon which its empires were established. The Islamic regime practiced by the country formed the basis through which the country’s sophisticated institutions were built. Shah seemed to champion for secularization and westernization (Axworthy,

Ottoman Turkey never developed extensive industry, though the lands it controlled had extensive natural resources. There were no universities or technical schools that could teach either the basic skills or the theoretical knowledge needed for an industrial revolution and a modern economy. Banks could not develop because of the Muslim prohibition on interest. Turkish guns and ships and railroads had to be purchased from France, Germany and Britain, who vied with each other for the lucrative trade. The Ottoman Empire did not produce much that could pay for these purchases and eventually went bankrupt, forcing its rulers to conclude disadvantageous terms with its European creditors.

However, the ideas had already spread throughout the Iranian people and religious protesting escalated continuously. People’s ideas of recreating a religious based government persisted to an unstoppable level. Khomeini, whom many protesters felt to be a hero, said in a speech in 1979, “Do not try to westernize everything you have! Look at the West, and see who the people are in the West that present themselves as champions of human rights and what their aims are. Is it human rights they really care about, or the rights of the superpowers? What they really want to secure are the rights of the superpowers. Our jurists should not follow or imitate them” (Ayatollah Khomeini: speech on the uprising of Khurdad 15, 2010). Based on this quote, the “voice” of the protesting Iranians was that westernization was not a good thing because the west does not care for human rights and freedoms of the lesser powers in the world and that the way to change for the better is to impose the Islamic values that already existed into society. In January of 1979, the Shah fled the country under the pressure of the people and Khomeini returned to Iran to be greeted as a hero (Bentley & Ziegler, n.d., p. 1117). Fighting erupted between Khomeini’s supporters and remaining military officials and on the eleventh of February the government fell. On the first of April, Khomeini proclaimed the beginning of the new Islamic republic (Islamic