“Several AK Party officials and their supporters blame him for the changes he introduced, which they claim amounted to repression,” says Bulut. The political and legal system he left following his death prevented Muslims from exerting any significant influence in temporal affairs, with laws silencing pro-Islamic politicians.
It was not until 2002, when the religiously conservative AK Party swept to power, that Ataturk’s legacy was hotly debated in political circles – a discussion which continues in today’s Turkey.įor some, Ataturk’s reforms were problematic. “For many Turks, Ataturk and his ideas are the beating heartbeat of the republic. The CHP (Republican People’s Party) repeatedly mention his name and legacy on the campaign trail because they feel his legacy is under attack – Ataturk founded the political party,” Bulut told Al Jazeera. “Nearly 80 years after his death, he remains the poster boy of modern Turkey,” says Arslan Bulut, a journalist with the opposition Yenicag newspaper. He pushed for women’s suffrage, banned the Ottoman fez in favour of European-style hats, outlawed the Muslim call to prayer in Arabic and enshrined secularism in the constitution. Hoping nationalism would overcome the idea of an Islamic Ummah, or global Muslim community, his reforms – known as Kemalism – altered virtually every aspect of Turkish life for the next eight decades. His republic would make a clean break from its Ottoman past, replacing the Caliphate with secularism and turning away from the empire’s former Arab territories in favour of Europe. TALK TO AL JAZEERA: What is next for Erdogan’s AK party? (24:00) President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Reformist generalĪ former army general, Ataturk left his mark on the military after repelling the Allied invasion of the Dardanelles and later resisting the Greek, French, and Italian armies.įollowing the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, he led the Turkish War of Independence, which defeated European powers who hoped to invade the crumbling empire.īlaming the demise of the empire partly on its religious leadership, Ataturk promoted nationalism and ancient Turkish traditions in his new state, at the expense of Islam.
So, why has there been a debate about it? We know very well that our nation has no difficulty with the surname Ataturk, which itself gave him this surname.
Our nation has an eternal respect for Mustafa. Sener Eruygur, a former Turkish Gendarmerie Forces Commander General, has called him “the cement of the Turkish nation, who provided the Turks with hope in a time of despair”. Istanbul, Turkey – For decades, his image has dominated the landscape of Turkey, his icy-blue eyes staring down from the walls of every school, hospital and government institution.Įven the sleepiest of neighbourhoods has paid homage to the man, with huge bronze monuments glorifying each of his military victories.īut now, nearly 80 years after his death, the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the statesman who shifted Turkey from a predominately Islamic nation to a modern secular state, has been reignited, causing wide-reaching ructions over the role of religion in the Muslim world’s model democracy.įor many Turks, his achievements as founder of the Turkish Republic in 1923 from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire are sacred, years of sanitised history making him a myth Turks can rally behind.
0 kommentar(er)
