Why? Professor Sadiq correctly diagnosed that the Turkish revolution blended tradition with change. The reforming leaders did not turn their back on the splendour of the past; they threw away the deadwood only. No doubt, what had begun as a revolt to defend a heritage had turned into a revolution, bringing along secularism as its mainstay. A singular phenomenon in the Muslim world.

The Turkish leadership did not envisage a ``New Man'', totally ignoring the older one. Having started as a struggle for national liberation, but soon broadening to coverother aspects of life, what the Turks did was in a class by itself. They aimed at catching up with ``contemporary civilisation'' or universal values, blended with the best in inheritance. The need for change had dawned first on the Ottoman Sultans, gradually accepted by the other layers of the society.

Secularism, or the separation of religion and state, was a contribution of the Turkish Revolution, not only to the history of that country, but also to Islam. Just because the Turks had done something different it did not mean that it had to be wrong. But Turkish leadership did not introduce a new faith within Islam. They did not see any contradiction between secularism and religion as their spheres were distinct.

Both of these concepts present the reality of the Turkish society. The Turkish people are still faithful to their roots. When the Turks did away with the Caliphate, the move was a shock for some Muslims, but some other Muslims such as Maulana Azad said the Turks had done the right thing. Turkishsecularism sought to free the individual from the tutelage of the intermediaries.

For the reforming leaders, the republican form of government meant the first inevitable step to a democratic state. Ataturk experimented with the multiparty system twice, and when Turkey experienced a fair and free election after the Second World War, historian Arnold Toynbee described the event as one of historical importance signifying a change in the world as a whole.

Turkish nationalism, another pillar of new Turkey, was not chauvinistic, racist or irredentist. It did not look beyond its borders. It did not bring to mind Napoleonic or Bolshevik ambitions. But it meant ``unfettered independence''. Decades had to pass before the United Nations would declare that nations had sovereignty over their own natural resources.

Turkish nationalism favoured, however, movements of national liberation. The ideas that helped shape Ataturk's foreign policy may sound familiar today, but they were pioneering thoughts then. He hadcategorically stated that the whole of Asia would march on the path to independence. He properly evaluated the revolts in India and the ferment in the Arab lands. In his long poem Kemal Pasha, the Bengali poet Nazrul Islam underlined as early as 1921 the inspiring role of the Turks.

In 1921 a Christian missionary who had spent some time in Ottoman Turkey wrote to a New York journal that the Armenians had left Anatolia and the Greeks would probably do the same, and the Turks would not be able in the future even to ``bake their bread.'' It was a false prophecy.

The Turkish Revolution, which gave the world an inspiring liberation movement, republican form of government based on the sovereignty of the people, secular and rational outlook on life and progressive ideas in foreign policy, is irreversible. While there may be a new harmony between tradition and change, secularism is here to stay.

The writer is an academic based in Ankara