ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the origin of the famous "six arrows" and to discover the specifically Kemalist contribution to the official ideology of the new Turkish state. The stress on republicanism was intended to help accustom the Turkish people to the idea that the change in regime after the War of Independence was non-reversible. The explanations show that nationalism, as understood by the Kemalists, aimed principally at ensuring the cohesion of the Turkish Republic and preventing separatist movements that might eventually threaten the unity of the country. The aim of populism is to suppress the class or strata differences and to replace them with a social structure composed of occupational group’s solidary with each other. In its general sense, etatism implies a paternalist approach in which the state has responsibility for organizing the life of the nation and finding solutions to all its problems.
