From 1932 to 1951 the Republican People's Party operated Halk Evleri (People's Houses) to channel information, especially about the Atatürk reforms, to the people (see ch. 14, Political Dynamics). Among the services they offered were libraries and a publishing program. The Democratic Party closed the Halk Evleri after their 1950 electoral victory. In 1950 there were 478 of these establishments. There are now 165 public libraries in Turkey.

FOREIGN ACTIVITIES

Many Turks are exposed to foreign influences through radio and television. Since Turkish radio transmitters do not reach more than half of the populace, many persons listen to foreign radio transmissions, especially in the southeast and east. The influence of news or propaganda broadcasts in any language but Turkish is severely limited by linguistic difficulties. Television reaches only a few Turks, but under favorable weather conditions programs from Rumania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria are received in the Istanbul area.

The Voice of America broadcasts in Turkish a daily half-hour program of news and features on short wave and medium wave. It also supplies special programs to the United States Information Service in Turkey. USIS is prepared to supply program material to Ankara TV. The British offer language instruction on the BBC in four 15-minute programs weekly. The West German Government facilitates broadcasts to Turkish migrant workers in that country. Moreover, the Ankara television station was equipped and staffed with the aid of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Communist propaganda is outlawed, but Communist bloc official and clandestine radio transmissions to Turkey total 83 hours weekly. In addition a Communist exile clandestine radio in East Germany broadcasts 5 minutes weekly to Turkish workers in West Germany.

The United States Information Service libraries in Turkey have approximately 8,500 books in Turkish and 36,000 in English. Attendance in 1967 was 138,192. USIS also has a book translating program to assist in the publication of United States textbooks in such social sciences as economics and political science.

OTHER CHANNELS

Oral communication is still a vital means of public information, even in urban centers. Where people congregate, they discuss news from the press or radio in addition to community gossip. It is, however, in the countryside that word of mouth has retained its traditional importance.

The radio and the newspaper are links in this system. The

coffee house provides a place to discuss a news broadcast, a newspaper read aloud by the literate member of the community, or a visit to town. The expanding highway system, and the bus service which follows, are a further and important link between the rural and urban areas.

Towns are the intermediaries between cities and villages; the increase in roads has brought the town closer to each villager. Travel between town and village is thereby facilitated and the opportunity to gain access to information subsequently increased. Previously, communication with the town had been by means of a few well-placed villagers, such as the muhtar (village headman). Moreover, there is more mobility of labor between town and village (see ch. 4, Population and Labor Force). Thus the village is being brought into closer touch with the urban areas of the country and vice versa.

CHAPTER 17

POLITICAL VALUES AND ATTITUDES

The Turkish people are united by a sense of shared national identity, but lack of consensus about certain attributes of the nation and the state reflects differing attitudes of the elite and the villagers. Immediately after the establishment of Turkish independence, Kemal Atatürk began a series of reforms designed to promote nationalism, modernization, and Westernization. National loyalty is today a reality, and the majority of Turks wish to enjoy the fruits of modernization. There is, however, no definite agreement about the desirable degree of Westernization and the place of Islam within the society and the state. The elite in general has a secular outlook while the villager adheres to Islamic traditions.

The creation of a nation and a republic entailed a sharp break with the past. Citizenship in a relatively homogeneous and compact nation has replaced citizenship in the multiethnic and loosely knit Ottoman Empire. Western legal codes have supplanted the şeriat, the traditional religious law. Economic development is also altering social patterns. Communication between village and city is increasing, with intermediary towns increasing the exposure of the villager to national and modern influences (see ch. 11, Religion).

Moreover, the villages are being gradually integrated into a national economy. Not only is produce marketed throughout a wider area, but internal migration is increasing as men go to towns and cities for work. New economic groups are developing. An example is the Turkish business and entrepreneurial class, which really began in the 1920's and the 1930's. A Turkish labor force is slowly growing simultaneously with industry and construction. Labor unions still have shallow roots, but this group is likely to assume greater importance in the future. At present leftist activities are promoted by intellectuals rather than by workers, who have been unresponsive to Socialist appeals (see ch. 4, Population and Labor Force).

POLITICAL CHANGE

Political changes have accompanied social and economic developments (see ch. 14, Political Dynamics). The development of a multiparty system after World War II gave the ordinary Turk a means of political expression after two decades in which essential changes were formulated and instituted from the top without any consultation of the people. During the early years of the Republic many of the reforms had little direct impact upon the villages in which the vast majority of the people lived (see ch. 3, Historical Setting). For example, marriages were regulated in practice by religious and community norms rather than by the newly introduced civil code (see ch. 7, Family). Outside the urban centers and nearby rural areas, ordinary citizens had little contact with their government and rarely saw a representative of the nation or the province. Villages in eastern Anatolia were especially remote, due to transportation and communication problems. In the post World War II period citizen-government contact has increased and the mass of the electorate has gained a voice in the liberalized political system.

Members of the elite, such as the bureaucracy, the military, the intellectuals, and the business community, had to contend for popular support to gain political power. The Democrat Party swept to office in the free elections of 1950 on the dissatisfactions accumulated during more than 20 years of one-party rule by the Republican People's Party. This party proved itself more sympathetic to rural interests than its predecessor had been, but its slide toward the repression of political opposition prompted a military coup in 1960. Civilian control was subsequently restored (see ch. 14, Political Dynamics).

The principles of Atatürkism-republicanism, nationalism, populism, statism, reformism, and secularism-are not seriously questioned, but the consequences of some have been modified in the wake of political liberalization (see ch. 3, Historical Setting). More latitude has been given to private economic initiative in a partial recognition of a Turkish middle class. The most important of the modifications, however, concerned the place of religion in the society.

Many of the Atatürk reforms, such as the adoption of the Latin alphabet, and the substitution of legal codes modeled on Western lines for the şeriat, had important religious dimensions. Atatürk sought to Westernize the country and considered secularism a vital part of such an effort. The formal religious institutions of the Ottoman Empire were destroyed and ties to other Islamic countries were loosened. In a sense Atatürk sought to substitute a secular nationalism for religion. The reforms had their greatest