Mustafa Kemal Ataturk-1

[Sha7]

MUSTAFA KEMAL ATATURK
AN APPRAISAL OF HIS LIFE AND WORKS

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was born in 1881 in a shabby quarter of Salonika.
Ali Riza, his father, after resigning from his job as petty Government
clerk, twice failed in business, sought escape from his miseries in
alcohol, and died of tuberculosis when Mustafa was only seven years old.
His mother, Zubaida, in strict Purdah and entirely illiterate, ruled the
family. In contrast to her husband, she was a devout believer and a
pious Muslim. Like every other Turkish woman of her day, her entire life
centered round her eldest son. With her deep religious convictions,
Zubaida wanted him to become a pious scholar.

But the son had different ideas. He fought tooth and nail against any
kind of authority and was openly insolent and abusive to his teachers.
He was arrogant in the extreme in the presence of his fellow students
and refused to join the other boys in their games which made him
justifiably unpopular. If he were interfered with in any way, he fought
them, preferring to play alone. Once during one of these violent
episodes, a teacher, blind with fury, intervened and beat the boy so
hard that his honour was offended. Mustafa ran away and refused to
return to the school. When his devoted mother tried to plead with him,
he stormed back at her. Zubaida was in despair, not knowing what to do.
Finally an uncle suggested sending him to the military cadet school in
Salonika and making a soldier of him. Since it was subsidized by the
government, it would cost them nothing; if the boy demonstrated ability,
he would become an officer; if not, he would at least remain a private.
In any case, his future livelihood was assured.

Although Zubaida did not approve, before she could stop him,
twelve-year-old Mustafa persuaded one of his father's friends to sponsor
him with the college authorities. He took the examination and passed as
a cadet. Here he found himself. He was so successful academically that
one of his teachers bestowed upon him the name Kemal which means in
Arabic, "perfection." Because of his brilliance in mathematics and
military subjects, he was promoted to a teaching position on the staff
where he much enjoyed flaunting his authority. After obtaining the
highest grades in his final examinations, he graduated with honors in
January 1905 with the rank of Captain.

During this period he joined a rabidly nationalistic students society
known as the Vatan or "Fatherland." The members of the Vatan prided
themselves on being revolutionaries. They were bitterly hostile to the
regime headed by Sultan Abdul Hamid II and condemned him for his
suppression of all so-called "liberal" ideas which undermined the
authority of Islam. They never wearied of blaming Islam as responsible
for Turkey's backwardness and vent their bitter spleen upon the
allegedly antiquated Shariah, and made the Sufi mystics the object of
special ridicule. The members of the Vatan were bound by oath that they
would oust the legitimate Sultan and replace him by a Western-styled
government complete with Constitution and parliament, destroy the
authority of the Ulema or religious scholars, and abolish purdah and the
veil, declaring absolute equality between men and women. Soon Mustafa
Kemal became its chief.

Mustafa Kemal's opportunity for extending his influence finally came
when, just before the ousting of Sultan Abdul Hamid in 1908 by the
"Young Turks", its ruling party, "The Committee of Union and Progress"
invited him to join them. However, being a late-comer, he was obliged to
carry out orders when his nature demanded that either he control
everything or take no part at all. He grew increasingly restless and
dissatisfied. He had no respect for the other members whom he regarded
as beneath his contempt. He particularly hated such Muslims as the Prime
Minister, Prince Said Halim Pasha (1865-1921) and the Minister of War,
Anwar Pasha (1882-1922), with whom he quarreled incessantly.

For the next ten years he distinguished himself in the military
profession as he was a born soldier and leader. Gradually by dint of his
domineering personality, combined with shrewdness, he assumed more and
more political influence. He spent his evenings in secret meetings
behind locked doors planning for the coup d'etat which would give him
absolute dictatorial power. His opportunity arose when at the end of the
First World War, he took the lead in defending the territorial integrity
of Turkey against the combined European powers who were intent upon
dismembering the "sickman of Europe" (Ottoman Khilafah) and hastening
its demise with all deliberate speed. By whipping up the enthusiasm of
the populace to fight to the death for their country, Mustafa Kemal
Pasha became a national hero. When the Greeks were defeated and Turkey's
victory assured, the Turkish people went delirious with joy. They hailed
him as their Saviour and bestowed upon him the honorific title Ghazi or
"Defender of the Faith."

Invitations from diplomats now overwhelmed him urging him to become
their champion of the East against the West. To the Arab statesmen he
replied in the State Assembly: "I am neither a believer in a federation
of all the nations of Islam nor even in a league of all the Turkish
peoples under Soviet rule. My only aim is to safeguard the independence
of Turkey within its natural frontiers--not to revive the Ottoman or any
other Empire. Away with dreams and shadows! They have cost us dear in
the past!"

To the Communist delegations seeking his support he expressed himself
even more bluntly: "There are no oppressors nor any oppressed. There are
only those who allow themselves to be oppressed. The Turks are not among
these. The Turks can look after themselves. Let others do the same. We
have- but one principle-to see all problems through Turkish eyes and
guard Turkish national interests." *
* T'he Grey Wolf, H. G. Armstrong, Capricorn Books, New York, 1961

Mustafa Kemal Pasha's declared policy was to make Turkey within its
natural frontiers a small, compact nation and, above all, a
prosperous, modern state respected by all the other nations of the
world. He was so convinced that he and he alone was qualified to
accomplish this task that he claimed: "I am Turkey! To destroy me is to
destroy Turkey!" *
* The Grey Wolf, op.cit., p.227.

No sooner had he assumed power than he made bold to declare that he
would destroy every vestige of Islam in the life of the Turkish nation.
Only when the authority of Islam was utterly eliminated could Turkey
"progress" into a respected, modern nation. He made speech after public
speech fearlessly and brazenly attacking Islam and all Islam stands for:

"For nearly five hundred years, these rules and theories of an Arab
Shaikh and the interpretations of generations of lazy and
good-for-nothing priests have decided the civil and criminal law of
Turkey. They have decided the form of the Constitution, the details of
the lives of each Turk, his food, his hours of rising and sleeping the
shape of his clothes, the routine of the midwife who produced his
children, what he learned in his schools, his customs, his thoughts-even
his most intimate habits. Islam-this theology of an immoral Arab-is a
dead thing. Possibly it might have suited tribes in the desert. It is no
good for modern, progressive state. God's revelation! There is no God!
These are only the chains by which the priests and bad rulers bound the
people down. A ruler who needs religion is a weakling. No weaklings
should rule!" *
* The Grey Wolf, pp. 199-200

When Abdul Majid was elected as Khalifa, Mustafa Kemal Pasha refused to
allow the full traditional ceremony to be performed. When the Assembly
met to discuss the matter, Mustafa Kemal cut the debate short: "The
Khalifa has no power or position except as a nominal figurehead." When
Abdul Majid wrote a petition for an increase in his allowance, Mustafa
Kemal replied thus: "The Khalifate, your office is no more than an
historical relic. It has no justification for existence. It is a piece
of impertinence that you should dare write to any of my secretaries!"
* The Grey Wolf, op.cit., p.201

On March 3, 1924, Mustafa Kemal presented a bill to the Assembly to oust
the Khalifate permanently and establish the Turkish nation as a purely
secular state. However, before this bill was even introduced and made
known, he had prudently made certain to muzzle all opposition by
declaring it a capital offence to criticize anything he did.

"At all costs, the Republic must be maintained... The Ottoman Empire was
a crazy structure based upon broken religious foundations. The Khalifa
and the remains of the House of Usman must go. The antiquated religious
courts and codes must be replaced by modern scientific civil law. The
schools of the priests must give way to secular Government schools.
State and religion must be separated. The Republic of Turkey must
finally become a secular state."
* The Grey Wolf, pp.207-208

Consequently, the bill was passed without debate and the former Khalifa
and his family exited to Switzerland. The new regime then enacted the
following :

"The preamble of the new (Turkish) Constitution speaks of full
dedication to the reforms of Ataturk and Article 153 prohibits any
retrogression from these reforms. It said:
‘No provision of this Constitution shall be construed or interpreted as
rendering unconstitutional the following reform laws which aim at
raising Turkish society to the level of contemporary civilization and at
safeguarding the secular character of the republic which were in effect
on the date this constitution was adopted by popular vote:

1. The law of the unification (and secularization) of education of March
3, 1924.
2. The Hat Law of November 25, 1925.
3. The law on the closing down of dervish convents and mausoleums and
the abolition of the office of keepers of tombs and the law on the
abolition and prohibition of certain titles of November 30, 1925.
4. The conduct of the act of (civil) marriage of February 17, 1926.
5. The law concerning the adoption of international numerals of May 20,
1928.
6. The law concerning the adoption and application, of (the Latin
letters for) the Turkish alphabet (and the banning of the Arabic script)
of November 1, 1928.
7. The law on the abolition of titles and appellations such as Efendi,
Bey or Pasha, of November 26, 1934.
8. The law concerning the prohibition against the wearing of
(indigenous) garments of December 3, 1934....’

Complete denial of Ataturkism remains impossible and inconceivable. It
is impossible because the Constitution prohibits it and inconceivable
because old and young have accepted many of the consequences of the
reforms and Westernization retains its popular magic as the promise for
a richer life." *
* Turkey Today and Tomorrow: An Experiment in Westernization, Nuri Eren,
Praeger, New York, 1963, pp. 100-102.

Islamic dresses for men and women were replaced by Western dresses in
the so-called modernization in Turkey and women’s Hijab was banned. The
Islamic calendar and holidays were canceled in Turkey and Islamic family
laws were replaced by Western ones.