What Ataturk Was and What He Was Not
M. Orhan Tarhan
January 03, 2008
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was undoubtedly a great soldier, a great national leader, and a genius of a politician, all rolled in one. There are many other great soldiers and leaders in history, but no one else ever transformed his nation from a backward, ignorant, and poor society to modern-minded, active, strong, and survivable nation. In this respect, he was unique. Once he had completed his major reforms, he told to the Turkish parliament under what impossible-looking conditions he fought the Turkish Independence War and how he achieved the reforms during the Republic. He then sentimentally trusted the Republic and its future to the younger generation. That “Speech” used to hang in all classroom walls while I was in School. I must say that the ”Youth” did a pretty lousy job of protecting his reforms and ideas.
Although Ataturk was a good teacher, we know now that most of the people who worked for him, really never understood why the reforms were made, why they were necessary. Especially, the idea that most of the reforms were necessitated to make Turkey survivable in the modern world, did not enter their heads. Memduh Sevket Esendal,, the Secretary General of Ataturk’s People’s Republican Party, is reported to have said , that “even Ismet Inonu did nor really understand Ataturk.” That is, of course, very unfortunate. Because if they had understood him,, they would not had started to undo his reforms, as soon as he died.
Actually, they did worse than not understanding Ataturk’s reasons. A few years after his death, his party was hijacked by the socialists (who called themselves “social-democrats” to make it sound less anachronistic) and socialist ideas were propagated as Ataturk’s ideas. That continued for several decades ( A similar thing happened here in the United States: The evangelical Christians hijacked the Republican Party and inserted religious ideas in the Republican platform and propagated religious ideas as Republican ideas.) Thus, the world heard many things about Ataturk, that had really nothing to do with him.
Today, many Turkish and foreign writers write articles about him that are not true, because they take old, failed socialist ideas as Ataturk’s ideas.
We must separate the real Ataturk from the hijacked version.
What did Ataturk teach us?
The genius of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was to define the conditions of Europe’s superiority to other nations and to use these conditions as a target the Turkish society should reach to become survivable in the modern world. He thought that in a political environment the only way to survive would be to be “as fit to the environment” as the strongest society. Thus, he converted the Turkish society from a backward, illiterate, Islamic society to a progressive, literate, and laic nation. He thus saved Turkey from becoming non-survivable like the Ottoman Empire. He taught us that survivability in the modern world for any nation requires: (a) rational thinking and behavior, (b) exclusive secular education (no religious schools), complete separation of Church and State (Laicism), (d) a democratic government system, and (e) education and emancipation of women, among other things. These conditions are timeless truths that any society should learn and apply. This lesson was already proven clearly by the end of Ataturk’s life. (1938)
When Mustafa Kemal became the president of the Republic of Turkey, many foreign reporters arrived in Ankara and all wanted to interview the President. In those days. Most European leaders used to have an ideology, so they assumed that Mustafa Kemal too would have one. They had already named it “Kemalism”. So they asked the President what Kemalism consists of. Mustafa Kemal’s reply was deceptive. He said he did not have any ideology, because ideologies tend to petrify in time and become anachronisms. They then become obstacles to progress. He would like to use every good idea that would benefit the nation. If some day some one would come up with a still better idea, he would abandon the “good idea” in favor of the “better idea”.
He had told to write on top of the portal of the Ankara University that “The best guide in life is science” He wanted that the Turks make their daily decisions based on science like Europeans, and not based on Religion, tradition, and superstition.
He revived the Turkish identity to build a sovereign nation-state and to bring dignity and freedom to a neglected population.
Religion would be limited to the relation of citizens with God, but not relations between citizens, or citizens with state. Those relations would be covered by modern laws. That is why the Caliphate was abolished, the Sharia part of the Koran, that regulated relations between peoples, was outlawed and religion was excluded from the public realm (Laicism). The Turkish Republic has no religion.
He thought that civilization is one. It is the Western Civilization. Turkey should be part of that civilization. This means, Turks should contribute to it, by doing scientific research, by composing music and creating other works of art. It is not enough to live like Europeans, one must contribute to Europe’s creative development.
In politics he preached “Peace at home, peace abroad”. Turkey would have no desire on any one else’s land, and would not give up an inch of its own land.. He said that war is allowed only for national defense, any other war is murder
In education,, Islamic religious schools were closed. All state schools taught Turkish, mathematics, sciences, history & geography, and in the last year, philosophy. Some schools also thought foreign languages. Private schools existed, if they taught the same things as the state schools. Foreign schools were allowed again if they taught no religion, and taught the same curriculum as the state schools in their own languages.
Ataturk was one of world’s greatest feminists. He saved women from the veil and the black tscharshaf. When that happened in 1920’s my wife’s grand mother and her friends burned their old clothes and veils in a bone fire and rejoiced around it. Soon Turkish women became legally equal to men. They got the right to elect and be elected to the parliament. The obtained these rights much earlier than some European women. As soon as state schools and universities were open to girls, many became professionals.
The change of the alphabet from the Arabic to the Latin in 1928 was one of the greatest feats of Ataturk, It created millions of literates and made phonetic Turkish easily readable.
In economy, Ataturk had an original idea. He used tax payers’ money to build a number of industries that would meet the country’s most urgent needs. But these plants would not be just government-owned and operated means of production in the socialist sense. They were built by well-known foreign companies. They were operated with a minimum of personnel and were profitable. They constituted and “industrial nucleus under the shade of which, other private industries would flourish” When they would be in successful operation, they would be sold to private companies and with the revenue, other factories would be built. At the same time with the planning of these industries, a great number of the best high school graduates were selected by competitive exams and sent to study various branches of engineering in the best universities in Europe and America. These men returned home and took over the operation of the plants from the foreign start up crews. I was one of these students and spent the first nine years of my career in one such plant, at Karabuk.
These are most of the basic things that Ataturk taught us. After he died, his followers started to roll back his reforms and soon the People’s Republican Party was hijacked by socialists. They took the various items in the platform of the party, made them an ideology called “Kemalism”.
Considerable deviation from Ataturk’s ideas happened in industry. The idea of selling successfully operating plants was forgotten. In stead of encouraging the proliferation of private plants, private industry was not allowed to compete. The government-owned plants were operated by a state that did not have a clue about Industrial management. In my time, my generation of foreign-educated engineers operated the plants with almost the same technical results as similar European plants. But the economy was terrible. For example at the Karabuk Iron and Steel plant, steel prices were kept substantially below the steel market values in Istanbul, ostensibly to control the market. But steel was sold to friends of the Party, who became instant rich by immediately selling it at the real market price. After I moved to the U.S. in 1953, Erbakan’s religious party, that held the Ministry of Industry, stuffed its own supporters to the industries, making them unprofitable and unsalable. Later, Ecevit’s supporters did the same thing. These industries were called “Economical State Enterprises but the people called them “Uneconomical State Enterprises. During the last decades of the 20th century, they cost the state $7 billion a year to cover their losses. Still socialists did not want to sell them. I think, most of them have been privatized now. During that process, socialists resisted fiercely to the sale and in doing so they hid behind Ataturk, giving the good man a black eye.
Almost every week some one in Turkey or abroad writes an article in which Kemalism is criticized. Usually Ataturk is blamed for all the failed policies of the socialists.
The religious AK Party is now misrepresenting Ataturk by hanging his pictures taken before his reforms. In those pictures he wears an astragan “Kalpak” in stead of a hat. They show the pictures of his wife Latife Hanim taken before the date of the emancipation of women. Of course, at that time she had to cover her head. They say: “See? Even Ataturk’s wife was covering her head.”
I would like to close this article, with the message on a new year card originated in Belgium by a Turk called Daniel Dumoulin and sent to me by my friend Ali Ferda Sevin: The message is: “Turkey, You owe Ataturk to God, and the rest to Ataturk”
Although Ataturk was a good teacher, we know now that most of the people who worked for him, really never understood why the reforms were made, why they were necessary. Especially, the idea that most of the reforms were necessitated to make Turkey survivable in the modern world, did not enter their heads. Memduh Sevket Esendal,, the Secretary General of Ataturk’s People’s Republican Party, is reported to have said , that “even Ismet Inonu did nor really understand Ataturk.” That is, of course, very unfortunate. Because if they had understood him,, they would not had started to undo his reforms, as soon as he died.
Actually, they did worse than not understanding Ataturk’s reasons. A few years after his death, his party was hijacked by the socialists (who called themselves “social-democrats” to make it sound less anachronistic) and socialist ideas were propagated as Ataturk’s ideas. That continued for several decades ( A similar thing happened here in the United States: The evangelical Christians hijacked the Republican Party and inserted religious ideas in the Republican platform and propagated religious ideas as Republican ideas.) Thus, the world heard many things about Ataturk, that had really nothing to do with him.
Today, many Turkish and foreign writers write articles about him that are not true, because they take old, failed socialist ideas as Ataturk’s ideas.
We must separate the real Ataturk from the hijacked version.
What did Ataturk teach us?
The genius of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was to define the conditions of Europe’s superiority to other nations and to use these conditions as a target the Turkish society should reach to become survivable in the modern world. He thought that in a political environment the only way to survive would be to be “as fit to the environment” as the strongest society. Thus, he converted the Turkish society from a backward, illiterate, Islamic society to a progressive, literate, and laic nation. He thus saved Turkey from becoming non-survivable like the Ottoman Empire. He taught us that survivability in the modern world for any nation requires: (a) rational thinking and behavior, (b) exclusive secular education (no religious schools), complete separation of Church and State (Laicism), (d) a democratic government system, and (e) education and emancipation of women, among other things. These conditions are timeless truths that any society should learn and apply. This lesson was already proven clearly by the end of Ataturk’s life. (1938)
When Mustafa Kemal became the president of the Republic of Turkey, many foreign reporters arrived in Ankara and all wanted to interview the President. In those days. Most European leaders used to have an ideology, so they assumed that Mustafa Kemal too would have one. They had already named it “Kemalism”. So they asked the President what Kemalism consists of. Mustafa Kemal’s reply was deceptive. He said he did not have any ideology, because ideologies tend to petrify in time and become anachronisms. They then become obstacles to progress. He would like to use every good idea that would benefit the nation. If some day some one would come up with a still better idea, he would abandon the “good idea” in favor of the “better idea”.
He had told to write on top of the portal of the Ankara University that “The best guide in life is science” He wanted that the Turks make their daily decisions based on science like Europeans, and not based on Religion, tradition, and superstition.
He revived the Turkish identity to build a sovereign nation-state and to bring dignity and freedom to a neglected population.
Religion would be limited to the relation of citizens with God, but not relations between citizens, or citizens with state. Those relations would be covered by modern laws. That is why the Caliphate was abolished, the Sharia part of the Koran, that regulated relations between peoples, was outlawed and religion was excluded from the public realm (Laicism). The Turkish Republic has no religion.
He thought that civilization is one. It is the Western Civilization. Turkey should be part of that civilization. This means, Turks should contribute to it, by doing scientific research, by composing music and creating other works of art. It is not enough to live like Europeans, one must contribute to Europe’s creative development.
In politics he preached “Peace at home, peace abroad”. Turkey would have no desire on any one else’s land, and would not give up an inch of its own land.. He said that war is allowed only for national defense, any other war is murder
In education,, Islamic religious schools were closed. All state schools taught Turkish, mathematics, sciences, history & geography, and in the last year, philosophy. Some schools also thought foreign languages. Private schools existed, if they taught the same things as the state schools. Foreign schools were allowed again if they taught no religion, and taught the same curriculum as the state schools in their own languages.
Ataturk was one of world’s greatest feminists. He saved women from the veil and the black tscharshaf. When that happened in 1920’s my wife’s grand mother and her friends burned their old clothes and veils in a bone fire and rejoiced around it. Soon Turkish women became legally equal to men. They got the right to elect and be elected to the parliament. The obtained these rights much earlier than some European women. As soon as state schools and universities were open to girls, many became professionals.
The change of the alphabet from the Arabic to the Latin in 1928 was one of the greatest feats of Ataturk, It created millions of literates and made phonetic Turkish easily readable.
In economy, Ataturk had an original idea. He used tax payers’ money to build a number of industries that would meet the country’s most urgent needs. But these plants would not be just government-owned and operated means of production in the socialist sense. They were built by well-known foreign companies. They were operated with a minimum of personnel and were profitable. They constituted and “industrial nucleus under the shade of which, other private industries would flourish” When they would be in successful operation, they would be sold to private companies and with the revenue, other factories would be built. At the same time with the planning of these industries, a great number of the best high school graduates were selected by competitive exams and sent to study various branches of engineering in the best universities in Europe and America. These men returned home and took over the operation of the plants from the foreign start up crews. I was one of these students and spent the first nine years of my career in one such plant, at Karabuk.
These are most of the basic things that Ataturk taught us. After he died, his followers started to roll back his reforms and soon the People’s Republican Party was hijacked by socialists. They took the various items in the platform of the party, made them an ideology called “Kemalism”.
Considerable deviation from Ataturk’s ideas happened in industry. The idea of selling successfully operating plants was forgotten. In stead of encouraging the proliferation of private plants, private industry was not allowed to compete. The government-owned plants were operated by a state that did not have a clue about Industrial management. In my time, my generation of foreign-educated engineers operated the plants with almost the same technical results as similar European plants. But the economy was terrible. For example at the Karabuk Iron and Steel plant, steel prices were kept substantially below the steel market values in Istanbul, ostensibly to control the market. But steel was sold to friends of the Party, who became instant rich by immediately selling it at the real market price. After I moved to the U.S. in 1953, Erbakan’s religious party, that held the Ministry of Industry, stuffed its own supporters to the industries, making them unprofitable and unsalable. Later, Ecevit’s supporters did the same thing. These industries were called “Economical State Enterprises but the people called them “Uneconomical State Enterprises. During the last decades of the 20th century, they cost the state $7 billion a year to cover their losses. Still socialists did not want to sell them. I think, most of them have been privatized now. During that process, socialists resisted fiercely to the sale and in doing so they hid behind Ataturk, giving the good man a black eye.
Almost every week some one in Turkey or abroad writes an article in which Kemalism is criticized. Usually Ataturk is blamed for all the failed policies of the socialists.
The religious AK Party is now misrepresenting Ataturk by hanging his pictures taken before his reforms. In those pictures he wears an astragan “Kalpak” in stead of a hat. They show the pictures of his wife Latife Hanim taken before the date of the emancipation of women. Of course, at that time she had to cover her head. They say: “See? Even Ataturk’s wife was covering her head.”
I would like to close this article, with the message on a new year card originated in Belgium by a Turk called Daniel Dumoulin and sent to me by my friend Ali Ferda Sevin: The message is: “Turkey, You owe Ataturk to God, and the rest to Ataturk”
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