Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

[sydhe]

Atatürk reminds me a lot of Peter the Great without the vicious streak. He'd make a good leader for Civ IV Warlords (traits Charismatic Organized).

 

[Fox Mccloud]

Good or bad? Depends on who you ask. ...... Armenia might be a lot bigger, etc.

Oh yeah, I read before that Armenians aren't allowed to visit Mount Ararat even though it is right on the border, and you can see it from Yerevan. Ararat used to be one of Armenia's national symbols.

I personaly as a Bulgarian feel that it would be better without Ataturk, becasue in those times(and not only in those) Bulgaria and Turkey was enemies. But Ataturk was certainly good for the Turks.

Some little dispute back in the middle ages? Still angry that Turks once conquered your nation? Whatever it was it happened long ago. Today's Turkey is much different than the Ottoman empire. It's not bothering Bulgaria any more, as far as I know.

When Ataturk lives he answers that question too many times. But my English is not so well. I will try to translate one of them.

I'm not a dictator. They say that i have the power. Yes it is true. I have to power to do anything i want because i don't know how to be merciless and constrained. I want to rule by winning hearts not breaking 'em. - Atatürk

First, Welcome to the forums, Mete.

Second: Basically, Atatürk said "I am not a dictator but I have absolute power and use it for good". The definition of a dictator is a ruler that has absolute power, whethere it is for good or not. Not convinced.

I'm a Turk and i proud of Atatürk. He is the greatest leader at the universe. He loves his nation more then anything but he also loves all humans.

Ok, since your a Turk can you answer me another question: I've heard that if you go to Turkey, the people there almost worship and love Atatürk, and you can find his picture almost everwhere. How true is that?

Atatürk reminds me a lot of Peter the Great without the vicious streak. He'd make a good leader for Civ IV Warlords (traits Charismatic Organized).

Do they have Atatürk's Turkey in Civ IV, or are they just called "Ottomans"?

 

[Kyriakos]

Someone who commited two genocides in the 20th century. Beats even adolf.
Infact hitler mentioned the armenian genocide so as to justify his own actions "after all, who today remembers the armenian genocide"?

The turkish people will be better off trying to arrive in the 21st century, by leaving inflated ideas about "great leaders". Imo it would have been better for them to have been left with a smaller country, rather than have to be influenced once again by genocide, and an invented past. Perhaps without the neo-turk movement they would be an arab-like nation now, but perhaps not. That cannot be guessed. What is certain is that kemalism is not compatible with the idea of a modern or democratic nation, but instead is perfectly compatible with the idea of a military elite which governs behind the elected government.

Hopefully in the future there will be no more respect for such figures, and perhaps Turkey can become really western, and not just kemaliwestern

 

[Verbose]

Someone who commited two genocides in the 20th century. Beats even adolf.
Infact hitler mentioned the armenian genocide so as to justify his own actions "after all, who today remembers the armenian genocide"?

Mustapha Kemal wasn't involved in that one. He had a pretty non-descript military carreer until he got the chance to become the saviour of the turkish army at Gallipoli.

I'd put more blame by the bloody-fool-incompetent-homicidal-turkish-empire-stretching-to-China Enver Pasha. (With whom Kemal was in conflict anyway, betting on a Turkish nation state of sorts, not an empire.)

According to one version of his story Enver got his just deserts somewhere in Cental Asia at the hands of Armenian units of the Red Army.

But I also think it's mistaken to somehow think Kemal Atatürk brought democracy to Turkey. Modernity of sorts, with a heavy hand, but not I think democracy.

 

[jeriko one]

Ok, since your a Turk can you answer me another question: I've heard that if you go to Turkey, the people there almost worship and love Atatürk, and you can find his picture almost everwhere. How true is that?
QUOTE]

Yes thatis quite true. The greatest boulevards, towers and stadia are all named after him. You can see a picture of Ataturk in all publice service places. Also I saw some houses which had pictures of Ataturk on the walls.

@varwnos: When the deportation occurred Ataturk was fighting in Gallipoli about 900 kilometers to the West.

@verbose: You are right on all matters

Ataturk borught some kind of modernity in such a small time. But he did not bring true democracy. There was a single-party system until the 50s.(However Ataturk encouraged PMs to found another party but that party was a threat to the regime so it was closed)

@squonk: Yes, extreme rightist do not like Ataturk.

@fing0lfin: Turkey and Bulgaria were enemies until recent times. Especially in the 80s because of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria.

 

[fing0lfin]

Ok, since your a Turk can you answer me another question: I've heard that if you go to Turkey, the people there almost worship and love Atatürk, and you can find his picture almost everwhere. How true is that?
QUOTE]

Yes thatis quite true. The greatest boulevards, towers and stadia are all named after him. You can see a picture of Ataturk in all publice service places. Also I saw some houses which had pictures of Ataturk on the walls.

@varwnos: When the deportation occurred Ataturk was fighting in Gallipoli about 900 kilometers to the West.

@verbose: You are right on all matters

Ataturk borught some kind of modernity in such a small time. But he did not bring true democracy. There was a single-party system until the 50s.(However Ataturk encouraged PMs to found another party but that party was a threat to the regime so it was closed)

@squonk: Yes, extreme rightist do not like Ataturk.

@fing0lfin: Turkey and Bulgaria were enemies until recent times. Especially in the 80s because of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria.

I perfectly know this Better explain it to Fox Mccloud.

 

[jeriko one]

I perfectly know this Better explain it to Fox Mccloud.

Maybe we can start a new tread called `Irrational grudges between nations` and explain it there. Anyway, I am glad that Turkey`s relations with Greece and Bulgaria are better now.

 

[Fox Mccloud]

Someone who commited two genocides in the 20th century. Beats even adolf.
Infact hitlar mentioned the armenian genocide so as to justify his own actions "after all, who today remembers the armenian genocide"?

I know the Armenian genocide, but what was the 2nd one?

 

[jeriko one]

I know the Armenian genocide, but what was the 2nd one?

Could be the Greeks in the Asia Minor.

 

[Ukas]

Wasn't it Kemal Atatürks troops who invaded Izmir in September 1922, and systematically persecuted Armenians there and burned it's Armenian quarters few days later killing over 30 000 and driving hundreds of thousands to seek refuge? And he had no part in it?

 

[disc]

It is such a coincidence that, in everywebsite, the name of the bashers of the turks ends with -s (greek). Get over guys, it is a new century, you are no longer ruled...

 

[Auvin]

Kemal Ataürk was a great leader. Im not Turkish, but i admire almost everything he represents: republicanism, nationalism, populism, statism and secularism. He modernized Turkey and was a strong leader. What is wrong if a leader is a bit dictatorish but has people's support?

 

[Verbose]

Kemal Ataürk was a great leader. Im not Turkish, but i admire almost everything he represents: republicanism, nationalism, populism, statism and secularism. He modernized Turkey and was a strong leader. What is wrong if a leader is a bit dictatorish but has people's support?

It gets tricky when his followers later have a tendency to stage miliary coups as the best means of ensuring the legacy.
It plays hell with democratisation, and in this case it's the measured opinion of the EU that as long as Turkey can't reasonably show it has kicked that bad habit (makes for instability), it's also not good for economic devlopment in the long run (the theory being that civil liberities and rights are a necessity to really go places).

 

[Greek Stud]

The best thing that Ataturk had accomplished was to sustain the nationalist ferver of the Young Turks and other nationalists that supported the Axis Powers in WW1 and WW2. He allowed for the assaults in Western Anatolia and led the Massacre at Smyrna. Particular Byzantine Emperors carried this same trait, the belief that annihilation quenches revenge and dissolves ideologies. Specifically those pertaining to the Treaty of Sevres.

On the Greek side we had a nationalist movement towards the Megali Idea. And part of that nationalism grew because of the suppression under the Ottoman Empire as being second class citizens to Turks.

On the other side their was the support for a Great Armenia. Russia and France struggled to concentrate any effort to give aid into this cause; but it would have provided a barrier between France's region of Cilicia, Syria and Lebanon and Turkey' final region in the treaty. And Russia would have held influence to this future state as it was eyed by Russia into becoming a satellite state of the Soviet Union.

Assyrians, Nestorian Persians and Chaldeans also 'relocated' by Ataturk's major relocation plan had them flee at the hands of the Kurds who at this time supported the idea of a Christian Genocide.

This plan was brewing with or without Ataturk, but I do not think any other Turkish leader would have sat with a foreign nation to determine when their conquests would end.

Definitely without Ataturk the same military moves would have occurred. Would France, Italy, Britain and America recruit another politician to supply arms against the Megali Idea advance? Or would they have demanded Venezelos to return to Greece to over-rule the King's orders to advance to Ankara. Ataturk's most defining moment is when the West stopped supplying the Greeks with arms. France's withdrawal from Constantinople, Italy's withdrawal from Attalea, and their silent response to the river of blood at Smyrna was a strong message to the Greeks that they only planned to order the Anatolian invassion as revenge to the Turks for supporting Nazi Germany.

The West's vision of an advancing Greece altered when they remembered the 1000 years that the Byzantine Empire was the ultimate superpower over Europe.

Will the actions of Ataturk lead the Republic of Turk to outnumber all other nations in the EU so that now the Turks will rise as the European superpower? Or is the backwardness of Southeastern European carefully arranged by the West. Al-Queda works from Bosnia, and human trafficing centers in Albanian Kosovo yet the West protects them. So was Ataturk good or bad for Turkey? We have yet to tell. The best thing now is that the region is stable when throughout time Asia Minor (also known as Anatolia, Ionia, Caria, Lycia) has usually been straught with unrest.

 

[Adler17]

Erm, Greek stud, in that times a Nazi Germany did not exist!

Adler

 

[jeriko one]

Wasn't it Kemal Atatürks troops who invaded Izmir in September 1922, and systematically persecuted Armenians there and burned it's Armenian quarters few days later killing over 30 000 and driving hundreds of thousands to seek refuge? And he had no part in it?

He issued an order to stop the killings. As for the burning of Izmir the real culprits are not known. Some say Greeks started the fire. Some say Turks started the fire. But one thing I know is Jewish Quarters was unharmed.

The killings were the revenge of the killings committed by the Greeks when they invaded Izmir.(I do not support it by the way)

 

[Greek Stud]

Adler17:

You're correct, but Turkey still was allied with Germany. The Anatolian invasion was for revenge. And still Turkey was the sole 100% supplier of chromite ore to Nazi Germany. Without it Nazi Germany would not have been able to make weapons. Why did the allies have to target Turkish trains in WW2 and blow up railroad tracks? Because they knew this aid fueled the aggression. Just as Turkey allowed for Soviet overflights and denied American overflights in the 6-day war for Israel. Just like when Turkey allowed for communist Cuba to base their troops in Turkey to help the Soviet Union attack Ethiopia. And just like today, how Turkey allowed Iran flight to Syria to arm Hezbollah against Israel. How does Turkey miss such flights when they have 40,000 troops at Iraq's border?

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

From what I know about Turkish history the Ottoman Empire was frail and weak by the end of WWI and they needed a man to lead it into the modern era, and to stabilise it. Ataturk was that man. I sometimes do get worried about how fanatically they still worship him, because I see his pictures everywhere in Turkey and N Cyprus (I'm Turkish Cypriot). But it's not like with Iraq and they started taking Hussein's pictures and statues down when he was overthrown, Turkish people worship him so because we genuinely love and respect him for what he did. He was the first leader to give women the vote, if I remember correctly.

Ataturk's government was dictatorial, but you need to be stern when dealing with such a varied culture (especially all those islamic extremists that still have support in Turkey). Unfortunately, this is part of the reason why Turkey is still so backward. A large country that is culturally divided between the (relatively) modernised and European West and the backward Asian East.

Regarding the previous post:
Somehow I think they kept trading with Nazi Germany for two possible reasons:
1. 'My enemy's enemy is my friend' -Allied nations attacked the Ottoman Empire so supplying the Third Reich with war resources was some sort of revenge.
2. Blocking trade could spark aggression from Germany, something a newly developing republic woud want to avoid.
You can't blame a country for doing something morally questionable if it means saving their own skin. A leader's loyalty lies in his/her people and country, and they come before international relations.

 

[Wilhelm Kaleva]

In my personal dictator ranking Mustafa Kemal is the personification of evil behind the Armenian, Greek and Kurdish tragedies during the early 20th century.

Because everything in modern Turkey seems follow his tradition or is done in his spirit, the country represents the worst and most twisted kind of nationalism.

To me Mustafa Kemal belongs to the eight circle, sixth ditch in Dantes Inferno reserved for the fraudulent—those guilty of deliberate, knowing evil and more specifically the hypocrites.

 

[disc]

In my personal dictator ranking Mustafa Kemal is the personification of evil behind the Armenian, Greek and Kurdish tragedies during the early 20th century.

Because everything in modern Turkey seems follow his tradition or is done in his spirit, the country represents the worst and most twisted kind of nationalism.

To me Mustafa Kemal belongs to the eight circle, sixth ditch in Dantes Inferno reserved for the fraudulent—those guilty of deliberate, knowing evil and more specifically the hypocrites.

Which tradegies are you talking about? The armenians who enjoyed the best times of the ottoman empire, then backstabbed it when the empire was in decline in about WW1? Or the greeks who also enjoyed the high rank positions and trade in Istanbul, which was the capital of the empire? The greeks even didnt want independence for the mainlaind greece to protect their interests, nevertheless the outside powers pushed for it and there was a soft revolution in the end. Only true thing is that the kurdish minorities have been ignored economically for a couple of decades in southeastern part of Turkey, despite the recent improvements. There was a kind of civil war with kurdish guerillas, which was heavily supported by europeans as it is always the case throughout the history.

I think if Mustafa Kemal Ataturk hadn't modernized the today's Turkey, it potentially would have been more backwards than Iran. He secularized the country, gave the right to the women to vote, first time in Europe. Most of all, he managed to successfully lead an independence war, in which every corner of Turkey was invaded during the WW1. What is more, he kept the country out of WW2 in those hot times. I wish every country such a dictator.

I believe the democracy is not the best goverment type as promoted. If a dictator or a king is WISE and much more educated than the common folks, the country will be better off faster. Marcus Antonius and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk are good examples. The problem with that is you never know who is wise or not, so you have to be just lucky as it is in Turkey's case.