has such a person in Turkey. His peripheral products can be seen everywhere in the store and generally has a very high status in society. Almost everyone who mentions him has an admiration and pride tone. This influential person is the founder of of the Turkish Republic - Kemal (Mustafa Kemal Atatürk).
November 10 this year marks the 80th anniversary of Kemal's death. Every year when 9:50 am on this morning, the Turkish people will tacitly stop working and stand up and observe a minute of silence. All the slogans on the anniversary will read:
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-193∞)
means that in the hearts of Turks, Kemal is an eternal existence. But how did Kemal become the Turks' "national-saving hero"? In the Edogan era, did the commemoration and memory of the "Father of the Nation" deteriorate?
The picture shows Turkish people getting off the car and watching silence on July 15th.
Kemal was born in Selanik, the largest city in northern Greece, in 1881. His family is very ordinary. His father is a local small officer. Later, he quit his job as a civil servant to do a timber business, and his mother is a housewife. After his father died at the age of 7, Kemal entered the military academy in 1893. At that time, Kemal was not called Kemal, but only the single name "Mustafa", which happened to have the same name as the math teacher in the school, so he gave him the name "Kemal", which means "perfect", which also became Kemal's middle name and the source of the Chinese translation (Turks generally respectfully call him Atatuk, or "My Atata").
After the outbreak of World War I, Ottoman Türkiye was invaded by Western powers and had constant internal and external troubles. After graduating from the military academy, Kemal, who became a general of the Ottoman Empire, led the Turkish army with minimal chance of victory in 1915 to successfully resist the powerful British and French coalition forces. During the battle, Kemal once said:
I am not ordering you to attack, but ordering you to die. After our death, other brothers and commanders will take over our position.
The powerful and ready-to-be-received conversation aroused the determination of the local army and later became Kemal's famous sayings to this day. This victory protected Istanbul and Bosphorus , which not only means great significance to Ottoman Turkey, but also established Kemal's position as a "hero of saving the country" in the hearts of the Turkish people.
But the weak Ottoman Turkey was still unable to stand up again. Kemal saw that the empire could no longer stand up, so he started the War of Independence in 1919, calling on the people through nationalism. On April 23, 1920, the Turkish National Assembly (TBMM) was established, and Kemal's army also successfully regained many lands divided by Western powers. On October 29, 1923, Kemal officially announced the founding of the Republic of Türkiye and became the first president of the Republic.
After Kemal took office, he made drastic moves to carry out a series of "secularization" reforms that are known to the world. In terms of systems, the caliphate system was first abolished in 1924 and established a law on the separation of church and state. In 1934, the "Supplementary Name Law" was implemented, allowing the Turks who did not have a surname to choose their own surnames. At that time, the Turkish National Assembly gave Kemal the surname "Atatürk" (pronounced Atatuk), which means the ancestor of the Turks, that is, the founding father of the Turks.
In terms of education, in 1928, he promoted the reform of writing, replaced the Ottoman language with Latin, simplified the writing to improve the literacy rate; in terms of society, in 1925, he promoted the hat and clothing revolution, allowing Turkish men to abandon the Ottoman era Fitz hats and encouraged the people to wear European Westernized clothing.
In terms of women's rights, Kemal not only mentioned in public conversation that there is no difference in ability between women and men, but also revised the Civil Law in 1926, abolishing polygamy, establishing a minimum marriage age to prevent child marriage, canceling parents' right to decide on marriage for their children, and protecting women's rights to inheritance and divorce as men, etc. Then in 1934, women were guaranteed for election and participation in politics, and women could be elected as candidates for MPs.
At that time, the main purpose of the reforms made by Kemal was to get rid of the shadow of the Ottoman Empire in the past. He hoped to create a society of westernization, "progress" and equal rights. But Kemal, who had suffered from overwork, died in 1938 at the Dolmabahçe Sarayı in Istanbul due to cirrhosis. The clock in the palace is still at the time when Kemal passed away - at 9:50 am - Kemal's room has also become one of the must-visit attractions for tourists today.
On Türkiye's National Day (October 29) or the anniversary of Kemal's death, Turkish people will all hold a national flag and pour into Kemal's Mausoleum to express their support and remembrance. This year's anniversary of Kemal's death is the same as in previous years. Commemorative activities will be held at Kemal's Mausoleum and various school units, such as students will come on stage to recite poems or articles about Kemal.
Kemal once said: "What a happy thing to be a Turk." The "Turkish" he believes refers to all people living in the Turkish Republic regardless of race or religion. Through nationalism, powerful military skills and bold reforms, he allowed Türkiye to stand up again from the shadow of Ottoman's late period.
I have many young Turkish people around me respect and even admire Kemal, regardless of gender. Many people will not use brooch with the words Kemal when attending important occasions. Family and school also attach great importance to the historical education of the founding father Kemal, which has made Turkish children respect Kemal since childhood. The folk "legend" that Kemal can be good at both languages and both civil and military affairs has made him an idol of a teenager. In the eyes of the older generation of Turks, Kemal is undoubtedly a great man. Many company offices or shops will place Kemal's calendar, famous quotes or portraits.
In Türkiye, except for extreme religious conservatives, it seems that everyone respects the founding father very much regardless of partisan position. Some Turkish friends even said, "People who don't like the founding father are probably not Turks." Kemal "hisself" seems to have captured the hearts of the people. So how does Turkish society view the " Kemalism " closely related to him?
Doma is afraid of the clock in the palace, and he is still at the time of Kemal's death - 9:50 am.
In fact, Kemal did not propose any ideology or ideologicalism when he was alive. The "Kemalism" that is often heard today was compiled and proposed by Kemal's followers around the 1930s. At that time, Kemalism was divided into left and right, with three main principles, namely Turkish nationalism, Westernizationism and Scientism. But neither the left nor the right line was accepted by Kemal himself, and Kemal did not agree with forcibly shaping an ideology in his Turkish experience.
Even so, the Republican People's Party (CHP) established by Kemal still later proposed the "official version" of Kemalism, which includes six major ideologies, namely republicism, nationalism, populism, nationalism, revolutionism and secularism. Since Kemalism did not have his own discourse or writing as the theoretical basis, the definition of Kemalism was vague, giving the subsequent government the opportunity to interpret Kemal's remarks from the perspective of Kemalism, forming a situation where Kemal endorsed it.
Like the Turkish Kurds, who gave Kemal strong support during the War of Independence. After a series of reforms such as Kemal's writing, they were also required to turn to a "Turkish" country to a considerable extent. Later, Kemalism suppressed the Kurds, and the Kurds' rights to political participation were restricted. It was not until the 1960s that the Kurds gained complete participation in the regime. At this time, the Kuds also began to rethink their self-identity, which led to the establishment of the Kudian Workers' Party (PKK) in 1978. There are still discussions about "Why do the Kurds don't like Kemal?" in today's Turkish society, but they are mostly considered by ordinary Turks to be deliberate differentiation.
After Kemal's death, the Republican Party attacked the Turkish conservatives under the banner of Kemalism. They issued a ban on the appearance of headscarves on campus, the military and political occasions, which seriously divided the people and even caused social confrontation. Some people also say that the driving force behind the rise of the Justice Development Party (AKP) to which Edoan belonged in 2002 was the counterattack power of the conservatives long-term suppression by the banner of "Kemalism".
So, how does the conservative representative - Türkiye's current President Edogan - view Kemal, a man who seems to be very different from his ideas?
First of all, Edogan, like other Turks, held a respectful heart to this founding father. At the anniversary of Kemal's death last year, Udogan said in a conversation that his admiration for Kemal was endless, but that Kemal's differences were quite large. At the same time, he also criticized the Republican BJP for long claiming to be "Kemal's heir" and consuming Kemal for public support. In fact, Kemal was disconnected from the Republican BJP as early as the day of Kemal's death. In Edogan's eyes, Kemalism is just a means used by the Republican People's Party to win the hearts of the people and cannot represent Kemal's thoughts 100%.
Edoan's view of Kemal and his criticism of the Republican BJP are exactly what Turkish conservatives and even neutral people think. The Turkish conservatives’ ideas about religion are not absolutely opposite to the founding father Kemal, because Kemal does not pursue "de-Islamization" but pursues "Turkish" Islam.
In the early days of the establishment of the Republic, there was a period of time when religious reform was implemented, and Islamic things were "Turkized". For example, the rituals in mosques must call worship in Turkish (but the Turkish people did not fully accept this reform and changed back to call worship in Arabic in the 1950s). Kemal knew very well that Islam had a profound impact on Turkey, and it was impossible to completely remove the factors of Islam, and could only localize Islam. But later the government underestimated the power of conservatives. For Turkish conservatives, it was not Kemal who suppressed them, but the Republican Party that overexplains Kemalism.
Turkey's conservatives did not hate the founding father because of the emergence of Kemalism. Even though the current Turkish society has been divided into many different camps by various political parties and ideologies, the founding father Kemal himself is definitely united and supported by the whole nation, and there are almost no doubts about whether Kemal is overly deified. Just as many Turkish flags are painted with portraits of Kemal, for the Turks, "Father of the Nation" Kemal has almost become a symbol of the entire country and is inseparable from the relationship.
