When Atatürk assumed the reigns of power in 1922, he commenced upon an array of revolutionary reforms that totally restructured the nation of Turkey:
"The old Ottoman Empire had been carved to pieces in a series of disastrous wars. What was left of it was Turkey, yards deep in a rot of archaic tradition and governmental corruption."
"With a program supplied by his more intellectual followers, Kemal threw the ancient relics of Islam out of the Turkish window one-by-one. Almost his first act was to separate church and state and abolish the Caliphate in 1923. Since then spurts of reform have made Turkey into a fair counterfeit of Western civilization. Old law codes were torn up. Fezzes were thrown away and replaced with [fedoras]. Women were allowed to vote and hold public office. Compulsory wearing of veils by women was abolished. The Islamic calendar was turned up more than 600 years to correspond with the Gregorian time system."
Click here to read a 1922 article about the Turkish slaughter of Christians.