For decades the Anatolian Muslims had been denigrated and persistently stigmatized as reactionaries and often called bumpkins by the Turkish press and media controlled by the Secular Republican elite. The language they used for Anatolian Muslims was offensive and even more derogatory than that used by some European Orientalists. There was a period, when Anatolian Muslims were not allowed to enter the capital Ankara with their normal traditional dress lest they spoil the image of the Modern Turki ...