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The process of the reproduction of Orientalism within Turkey refers to the way in which the Turkish nationalist elite, the Kemalists, imagined the Turkish nation and construed the ethno-religiously diverse society inherited from the Ottoman Empire. It is the process whereby Kemalism approached the society it emerged from, and the conditions that gave rise to it, through an Orientalist and Eurocentric reasoning and logic (Kahraman, 2002: 177). Meltem Ahıska has called this process Kemalism's "Occidental fantasy", which "evoked a 'lack' in 'the people' upon which organised the 'desire' to fill it" (2003: 365). Put differently, one can argue that in the absence of direct Western colonialism, the Kemalists took on what I call the “White Turkish Man’s Burden” in order to carry out a civilising mission on a supposedly backward and traditional Anatolian society enslaved by the retrograde influence of Islam. By assuming the Orientalist narrative and re-enacting it in the form of a Turkish Orientalism “indigenous” to Turkey, the Turkish ruling elite negated the Ottoman past for its “backwardness” and “religiosity”. The Kemalists rejected the Orient and assigned to Islam the definition of Orientalness, thus equating westernisation with de-Islamisation (Sayyid, 1997: 68-69). In the name of what the Kemalists called, “reaching the contemporary level of civilisation” (muassır medeniyet seviyesine erişmek), this project was carried out through the agent of the nation state with speed and from above, eliminating the opportunity to seek change in any way other than through mimicking “the West.” In this sense, the essentialisation and homogenisation of “the West” normalised the unequal power relations within Turkey, reflecting the pragmatic interests, expectations and the dominance of the secular Westernised elite, giving way to a “cognitive dissonance” between the value system of the elites and the rest of the population (Göle, 1997: 86). The civilisational divide between the modernising urban elite and the subaltern rural population assigned a paternal role to the Kemalists, who constantly perceived the Anatolian masses as backward, primitive and infantilised Others. It is therefore not surprising that the state is imagined in Turkey through the familiar and familial image of the Father State (Devlet Baba), constructing and defending “the common good”, punishing and rewarding accordingly, irrespective of societal consensus (Heper, 1985: 102-3; Delaney, 1995: 177- 179). This power relation is constructed in accordance with the Orientalist presumption that the “natives” cannot rule or represent themselves and they therefore need to be ruled and represented. The Kemalist mantra of the 1930s, “For the people, despite people” (Halk için, halka rağmen) is therefore not coincidental. While exalting the ideal of the “Turkish nation”, Kemalist discourse constructed the society inherited from the Ottoman Empire as “different”, as “lacking” and in need of transformation, simply “that which causes defeat” (Soğuk, 1993: 374). The Kemalist elite took on the paternalistic Orientalist view that they must, as the rightful teachers, educate Islamic, ethnic, tribal and rural Others deemed to be outside the sphere of Western modernity. Nationalist intellectuals who understood positivist Western science and technology played a key role in the production and institutionalisation of knowledge and believed they held the responsibility of bringing “modernity” to the masses. In the words of the founder of modern Turkey and the “Father of the Turks”, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk:  "We will live as a progressive and civilised nation in the arena of civilisation […] We will take science and technology from wherever it is and insert it in the head of each member of the nation. There is no restriction and condition on science and technology […] If [ignorance] is not eliminated, we will stand on the same spot […] If something is standing on the same spot, this means that it is going backwards (Atatürk, 2006: 388)." Historically, the Kemalist civilising mission involved the creation of a homogenous Turkish nation that urgently needed to rid itself of its “Orientalness.” This involved the othering of its Ottoman past, of rural and tribal structures, and in particular the ethno-religious plurality of the society (Bora, 1998: 39-42). These were constructed as anachronisms of the old Ottoman order and what made Turkey “different” from the West. The ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity of the society were constructed as a source of instability and a barrier to progress. The Orientalist gaze of “the West” played a foundational role in Kemalist self-definition, in the way that they imagined the Turkish nation, claimed hegemony and exercised power. As Meltem Ahıska has outlined, “the impact of the West on the Turkish nationalists was more than a mere import of Western concepts and techniques and was not just a movement of ‘modernity’ in time and space, but a ‘performance for the imagined Western audience’” (2003: 367). The radical Kemalist reforms of the 1920s and 1930s, as the continuation of the Tanzimat reforms in the late 19th century Ottoman Empire, were implemented with this “audience” in mind and it was very important for the Kemalists that Turkey “appeared” to be Western for this panoptic gaze. The Westernising reforms were wide-ranging and non-negotiable and their implementation was considered as a top-down process. The authorities ignored the multitude of voices that existed within the boundaries of the new state when trying to mould them into loyal nationalist citizens. The reforms involved the appropriation of “Western norms, styles, and institutions, most conspicuously in education, law, social life, clothing, music, architecture, and the arts […]” (Bozdoğan and Kasaba, 1997: 4). Through exposure to Kemalist nationalist discourse citizens would be influenced by the reforms and consequently reinforce the authority of the state. The establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923 was central to the draconian reforms that aimed to eliminate the socio-political legacy of the Ottoman Empire. The caliphate, religious foundations, ministries, courts, schools, dervish orders, sects and brotherhoods were all abolished. In 1924, the Law on the Unification of Education (Tevhid-i Tedrisat Kanunu), with its roots in Ottoman reforms, secularised the school system and introduced mixed sex education. The 1925 Hat Law (Şapka Kanunu) prohibited the veil and the traditional Ottoman headwear, the fez. The nationalist and secularist reforms signified the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish nation-state and from Islam to nationalism, with the “cult of Atatürk” substituting Islam as “Turkey’s religion” (Navaro-Yashin, 2002: 188). Under the Ottoman Empire different Muslim ethnicities had been united by their common religion. Islam had functioned as the cohesive element in Ottoman society, but having replaced such a role for Islam in the new republic, Kemalism launched a program of Turkification. It was hoped that forced assimilation would guarantee the loyalty of the citizens to the nation-state and prevent ethnic separatism. It would also weaken European colonial influence and interference, which had resulted in the traumatic downfall and partition of the Ottoman Empire, leaving a deep scar on the minds and collective memory of the Turkish elite. It has been argued that Atatürk saw ethno-religious pluralism as a major flaw in the Ottoman system because this “had led to the search for independence and autonomy by groups such as the Armenians and the Kurds, which had resulted in self-mutilation” (Muller, 1996: 175). The authoritarian nationalist military officers, bureaucrats, academics, journalists and intellectuals who formed the nucleus of the Kemalist elite were profoundly affected by European thought and assumed with their European predecessors and contemporaries that nations were the only legitimate means of organising a state. A nation, they were convinced, could only consist of a society that shared the same ideal, language, territory and culture. Since Western modernity, superiority and strength was defined by homogenous nation-statehood and militarism, systematic Turkification became Kemalism’s very own civilising mission.