Very interesting! Yes, I would love to know more! as much as you can be bothered to say as long as you don’t mind explaining it. Are you Turkish yourself? I do find the country quite fascinating as a cultural bridge between the east and the west.
Yes, I am Turkish. The western influence on our country has quite a bit of history, and I might lack adequate knowledge about the subject but I'll try to explain what I read on the subject and what I have observed.
The notion of ''east versus west'' has been the main focus of Turkish intellectiuals since early 1800's. In our era the debate has lost it's former glow but that's due to polarization of out population, the east-west synthesis which some of our intellectuals have dreamed of for the longest time, did not happen. instead the gap between the two poles kept growing, and within time this opposition was expressed as hate, whichever side obtained the power, discriminated the other side, the Islamist policies Turkey is following right now is a good example of that, as supporters of the goverment frequently state ''We did not forget the degradation we had suffered'' and they are partially right, there had beed times in Turkey where turban wearers were strongly discriminated against, not only socially but legally aswell, they were not able to recieve higher education, or were not able to enter certain buildings with a turban, legitimacy of these claims are questionable, as they might be propaganda but it is certain that they do hold some truth.
When Islamic law was lifted in Turkey, in 1924, majority of the population did not agree with this decision, which is to be expected, they had been living under Sharia for such a long time, but right after a war for independency of the country they simply did not have enough power to overcome the military. Ataturk's genious should be addressed at this point, to start a democracy that aims to reach the same civilization standards of the west from a population that holds deep connection to it's religion is no easy feat, the steps he took were very well calculated, precise and with no hesitation. Another subject that needs to be addressed here is the execution of religious leaders.
Turkey, much like other muslim populations, always had it's fair share of religious communities and cults. They have a very potent influence on people, greater than those of state for the most part, and Ataturk knew that, thus executed perhaps over a hundred cult leaders, which was an essantial step to westernise the country. This caused great outrage, as the general Turkish public followed Ataturk with the hope of saving Islam from western nations, yet here he was, killing their leaders. But with clever planning, and with the power of military Ataturk managed to suppress all of the rebellions, but as you can guess, the root of the problem was still alive. He might have gotten rid of the leaders, but when the huge majority of the population kept helding their religious values so dearly to themselves, complete westernisation was impossible.
A good example to these cults would be the modern Gulenists, which were so powerful, goverment itself, (a former supporter of them) was threatened by them, and had to take action. If you had heard of the military coup of 2016 in Turkey, Gulenists are associated with it. Are they behind it, or was it prearranged to get rid of the Gulenists by the goverment itself, is unknown. Either way, I am glad the Gulenist influence is over. I always hated them, they cheated on national exams, official assignments were completely under their control. They truly were dangerous, and although I don't support the current goverment, perhaps non other than an islamist himself could have gotten rid of the Gulenist virus. Now, the cult is not dead, it does have influence of nearly all of the continents, and it's schools still persist in those continents, especially Africa, a lot could be written about them alone honestly, the damage they have done to Turkey is irrepairable
Talking about coups, military coups are a very common theme in Turkish history (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_coup_d'état) which result from polarization of the population, which is highly influenced by the east versus west debate.
Now to mention the current state, a lot has been forgotten, us Turks tend to forget our past very fast, which has hurt us a lot through history. With the spread of internet, the influence of Islam gradually weakens, even the most anti-west cities are getting affected, maybe not the elders, but the new generation. I should also mention that more and more people leave Islam every day, which is an issue our goverment is aware and worried about. Conservatism requires a form of disconnection from rest of the world, well at least in Turkey. The internet has changed that greatly. A conservative might furiously decline that, but I speak of not only personal experience, but statistical. This decay sure won't happen overnight, I suspect it might take as long as a 100 years, but in the end, we are headed there.
But even if Islamic influence greatly weakens, it's effects on Turkish culture are permanent, it's commonly said that ''To imagine Turkish culture without Islam is unimaginable'', which is correct. It's not that our culture did not exist prior to Islam, but during the Islamisation we lost a huge majority of it. We only have small traces of original Turkish, majority of the words in the language we use are of Persian/Arabic origin.
Turkish culunary culture is so vast and rich, because it was influenced by many great cultures, both eastern and western influences, but if one were to compare our current food to pre-islamic food, he'd notice an immense difference. Only with islam Turks have abandoned nomadic life and started settling down in cities, thus for the modern Turkish culture, Islam is inseperable. But one might rightfully ask, what's left of the ''original'' Turks, the ones that have migrated from the Central Asia? We still do have words and names, which have originated in Central Asia, but honestly, considering our casual, daily lifes, nothing else comes to my mind. The Turkish culture, without Islam, cannot exist within a non-nomadic lifestyle, at least in my opinion. That being said, despite the very potent Islamic influence, it was built on the original Turkish culture itself. The alphabet might not be with us anymore, neither the food, we may not relate to their tales or may not live in tents, but the idea of a ''Turk'' has not changed, Shamanist or Muslim, a Turk is a Turk, perhaps it's irrational, tribal, but it was potent enough to give rise to this country.
Lastly I want to explain the etymology of Turks a little bit. Despite originating from Central Asia, Turks of Turkey carry little to none Asian features. This is due to years of breeding with various nations. Whenever the Turks conquered a land, they'd try to exchange brides with the people there, which, over the years resulted in an immensely genetically diverse population. It is possible to see Turks with blue eyes, blonde hair, pale skin, but also Turks with thick, black eyebrows, dark skin and brown eyes. It is impossible to determine the origin of a person here without a DNA analysis. So one might ask, could someone who carries only 20% Turkish genes could be considered Turkish? Maybe not etymologically, but you'd never find a ''pure'' Turk in Turkey anyways. The Turkish nationalism is not based on blood, but on the idea of a culture, which have been formed by people who had been living together, in peace for hundreds of years. Ataturk has famously said ''How happy to say I am a Turk!'' signfying that even if one is not completely Turkish by blood, if he was born, lived and felt as a Turk for his lifetime, he infact, is Turkish.
If you want to know more about specific subjects, such as the effects of this enormous genepool on inceldom, I can keep going.
