of nonelites, individuals who have come from the ranks of the relatively undifferentiated masses of the Ottoman Empire. Their movement up the social ladder has, in part, resulted from and reinforced such value notions as "progress," "hard work," "prosperity," and "individual initiative."

Most industrial and unskilled workers in the cities are relatively recent migrants to urban areas. Their orientation is often still toward the village from which they or their parents came. Congregated in residence patterns which reflect kinship and village social ties, these workers reflect traditional values in an urban setting—weakened but recognizable.

Changes in values are most obvious in the cities and towns, but the villagers have also been influenced, especially since 1949. The emergence of the villager as a participant in national politics and his growing consciousness of his new role have started to break the closed village circle. Expanded educational facilities and population movement have further stimulated the villager's interest in the outside world and increased the contracts between village, town, and city.

Conflict in values arises between the rural and urban, but even more so between the liberal, modern Turk, who accepts the changes that have taken place, and the conservative, who disapproves of the many changes and clings stubbornly to the traditional values of the past. The conservative element is still strong enough so that discussion of changes in social values becomes a long and involved religious discussion. At the same time changes in the economy have created a desire for individual accomplishment and discontent with the traditional society among many urbanites. New tools, new jobs, new ideas, and new values are having a profound effect on daily behavior and attitudes..

SECTION II. POLITICAL

CHAPTER 13

THE GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM

The focal point of the Second Turkish Republic is the bicameral legislature, the Grand National Assembly, composed of a Senate of the Republic (Cumhuriyet Senatosu) and a National Assembly (Millet Meclisi). Unlike the unicameral parliament of the First Turkish Republic, the present one does not have the sole right to exercise the sovereignty of the nation. Sovereignty has now been divided to provide government by separation of powers. The original unicameral system was adopted in 1924 as the best available method for speeding the reform measures, and parliament was given sovereignty of the nation in order to confirm its legitimacy. The architects of the Constitution of 1961 believed, however, that during the period of the 1950's the parliament, through its overwhelming majority, had abused its authority. In an attempt to prevent such abuse, they therefore split the legislature into two sections. The framers also took the executive powers from the legislature and gave them to the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers. The judiciary was made independent of the legislature, and they established a Constitutional Court as the final authority of the legality of laws passed by the Grand National Assembly. The country previously had no body to decide the constitutional legality of acts of the Assembly.

BACKGROUND OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM

Ottoman Political Structure

The Turkey over which Kemal Atatürk assumed power between 1919 and 1922 represented the Anatolian core of the once-great Ottoman Empire, and much of its institutional life had changed little since the crystallization of Ottoman power in the 14th and 15th centuries. Among the educated Turks, frustrated by a century of unsuccessful reformist efforts, there had developed a general belief that change, even at the cost of violence, was necessary. On the eve of the War of Independence these people felt a mixture of bitterness and humiliation at repeated Turkish defeats,

and revulsion toward those features of the Ottoman system to which the country's predicament was attributed.

The Ottomans, not excluding the Young Turks, had not absorbed the 20th-century idea of the nation-state. They had inherited the early Islamic concept that the principal business of the ruler was to conquer new areas for the faith, and from that came their willingness to let their own territories be culturally and socially autonomous as long as taxes were paid, military levies met, and the true religion not offended. The Ottoman political structure had become a rigid apparatus headed by the Sultan-Caliph and administered by a huge apparatus of military, religious, and civilian functionaries.

The religious officials, like the Ottoman Imperial Dynasty, were dedicated to the spread of Islam and were largely Turks. The chief military and civil officials were appointed by the ruler from the large segment of the population which included non-Turkish and Orthodox Christian and which was subject to conscription (see ch. 3, Historical Setting). Under this system, Christian children were taken from their parents in an annual levy (devşirme) on the European parts of the Empire. These children were then converted to Islam and educated in special schools for careers in either the military or civil services of the Sultan. They became the personal property of the Sultan and, ideally, were loyal to no one else since they would have little sense of kinship with the people they helped rule. The service was not open to native Moslems (since Moslems could not be so conscripted), but the system began breaking down when its members married and eventually found places for their children who were Moslem. Because of this method of recruitment it was virtually impossible for Turks to rise to high office except in the religious sphere, and out of 48 Grand Viziers, only 12 were of Moslem parents, the rest being taken from various subject peoples. (At the height of the Empire it is estimated that the official community of non-Turks numbered about 80,000).

During the 19th century the ruling group was broadened, and the basis for recruitment altered to include those from minorities who were willing to assimilate-that is, to learn to speak Turkish, to adopt Islam, and to adhere to the Sultan to the exclusion of other loyalties (see ch. 5, Ethnic Groups and Languages). The elite began to conceive of an Ottoman nation composed of people from diverse backgrounds who had been assimilated into Ottoman amalgam. Reflecting Western influence, this view regarded the Anatolian Turk with his peasant way of life and his country speech as no more Ottoman than a Syrian peasant. A philosophy thus

evolved which tried to minimize ethnic differences and emphasize loyalty to the dynasty and the religion.

By the close of the 19th century, the need to create a modern nation-state had become apparent. Many of the ruling elite compared the Empire unfavorably with such states as France and Germany, and concluded that only reformation of the Empire could save it from disintegration. Some attempts had been made to instill in the subject peoples of the Empire some common outlook or way of life which would transcend their heterogeneity, such as the adoption of the fez as the national headdress. Such attempts met with failure, for although the Moslem population of the Empire felt devotion toward the Sultan as a religious leader-the Caliph-they belonged to several ethnic and linguistic groups and felt little national solidarity with the rulers of the Empire.

The large Christian minority contained only a limited number who were willing to pay the price of conversion to Islam in order to be fully assimilated, and their position was strengthened by the fact that many of them enjoyed special privileges obtained from European powers who had treaties with the Ottoman Government. No common interest bound them to the top stratum of the elite.

The Millet System and Capitulations

The Ottoman system was absolutist; the Sultan and his senior officials ruling the Empire were unhampered by other than the religious restrictions imposed by Islam. In practice their authority was slight on the margins of the Empire, and local and regional officials had a sense of autonomy which increased with distance from the throne. Only Moslems were full citizens of the Islamic State. Other subjects had some rights but secondary status, and were organized according to religious affiliation into millets (religious communities). Their relations with the government were arranged through contacts between the Ottoman government and the leaders of the millets who were confirmed in office by the Ottoman government.

Before World War I, 13 millets-ethnic and religious minority communities-had acquired official status. These included Greek Orthodox, Latin (Roman) Catholic, Syrian Catholic, Armenian Gregorian, Armenian Catholic, Chaldean Catholic, Catholic, Syrian Jacobite, Protestant, Greek Melkite, Jewish, Bulgarian, Maronite, and Nestorian communities. Each millet was governed internally by its own regulations, largely derived from its own religious laws. In matters of personal status (marriage, divorce, inheritance, etc.) members of the millets followed the legal and religious prescriptions of their own religions.