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11/30/2006
Ataturk
I have been to Turkey twice in the past six years, spending
extensive time in both Istanbul and Ankara, so I’m watching
Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to the nation this week with perhaps
even more interest than usual. I saw his arrival on Tuesday
on BBC News and his first stop was at the mausoleum for the
great Turkish leader, Ataturk.
In light of the protests generated by the Pope’s visit, especially as
Turkey is now run by an Islamist, Prime Minister Erdogan, I
thought it was a good time to resurrect a series I ran some five
years ago on Ataturk. I combined it all into one piece and it is
edited only slightly. Just understand it was written before the
Iraq War.
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Perhaps the least known, great figure of the twentieth century
was the founder of the Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal, better
known as Ataturk. Why do we know so little about this man
who, with today''s war on terrorism, looms larger than ever?
Why should we care about Turkey?
Ataturk is little known for precisely the reason why we should
pay closer attention to the vital nation he created; that is, he
concentrated on building a nation, as opposed to conquest.
So let’s spend some time detailing Ataturk''s role in the founding
of the republic and how he transformed the remnants of the
Ottoman Empire into a secularized nation, one which eschewed
Islamic tradition in its many forms. It is a story that has huge
implications for today''s world.
Mustafa was born in the winter of 1880-81 (most books say
1881) in Salonika, what today is the Greek city of Thessaloniki, a
thriving port on the Aegean. His father was a former minor
customs official who was beset by all manner of business
problems when he attempted to set up his own timber operation
near Mount Olympus. It failed and he died in 1888, some
would say of depression, leaving his wife to care for their six
children, including little Mustafa.
Mustafa''s early years were fairly normal. At first his mother
hoped he would become a religious teacher, but at the age of 12
he entered a military academy against her best wishes. It was at
school where he was given the name Kemal (“Perfect”) by a
math teacher in order to distinguish him from other boys of the
same name.
When war broke out in 1897 between Greece and the Ottoman
Empire, Mustafa Kemal tried to join the action at the front but
he was returned to the school and later enrolled in Istanbul
War College. His second year he placed 20th in a class of 460
and in his third, 8 of 459. While in school he widely read the
works of banned Ottoman writers, such as Namik Kemal, the
“poet of the Fatherland”. One of Namik''s couplets would later
spur Mustafa into action.
‘The enemy has pressed his dagger to the breast of the
motherland.
‘Will no one arise to save his mother from her black fate?’
In the military, Mustafa Kemal rose quickly through the ranks,
while all around him the Ottoman Empire was crumbling. The
army offered him a terrific opportunity to expand his horizons
and through postings in places such as Istanbul, Tripoli, Cairo,
and Damascus, as well as side trips to European cities, he
became aware of the modern world outside his home region.
Mustafa learned French and devoured the classics, like the works
of Voltaire and Rousseau. “The Turkish nation has fallen behind
the West,” he once told a German officer. “The main aim should
be to lead it to modern civilization.”
In 1907 Mustafa was promoted to adjutant-major and posted in
Macedonia, and then in 1908 he played a key role in the Young
Turk revolt. This was a group, founded back in the 1880s, which
desired that the Ottoman Empire become a modern European
state with a liberal constitution. The political arm was the CUP,
or Committee of Union and Progress, the forerunner to Mustafa
Kemal''s Turkish Nationalist Party. But we''re getting a bit ahead
of ourselves.
Because of the actions of the Young Turks the Sultan Abdul
Hamid was eventually forced into exile, to be replaced by his
brother. Then in 1913, the CUP''s Enver Pasha (for whom
Mustafa Kemal was a chief aide) launched a coup, which
resulted in the dictatorship of Enver, who ruled throughout the
struggles of World War I.
It was during this war that Mustafa gained a national reputation
when he heroically commanded the Turkish forces to victory in
the Battle of Gallipoli, beating back a British-led invasion of the
crucial Dardanelles strait (a battle plan drawn up by the First
Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill).
Over eight months the Turks battled British, French and ANZAC
(Australia and New Zealand) forces, with tens of thousands
losing their lives on both sides. As a result of the heroic
leadership of Mustafa, he not only gained national recognition,
he emerged as Turkey''s only hero from the Great War.
On April 25, 1915, the Allies landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula,
anticipating a swift victory. At the strategic heights of Chunuk
Bair, the ANZAC forces (who were left off at the wrong place),
confronted the Turks. Towards the end of the first day, some of
the Turkish soldiers began to withdraw as they ran out of
ammunition. Commander Mustafa Kemal reached the men
pulling out and asked, “Why are you running away?” “The
enemy, sir.” “Where?” “There.”
Mustafa looked at the hill that the Australians were about to take,
with clear sailing beyond, and yelled at his forces, “One doesn''t
run away from the enemy.” Since they had no ammunition they
fixed bayonets and laid down facing the invaders. Then, with
reinforcements, Mustafa began to charge the Australians as they
continued to clamber up the slope from the beach. Historian
Martin Gilbert relates:
“Successive waves of Turks, hurling themselves on their
adversary, were killed by machine-gun fire as they clambered
over the bodies of the previous wave. More and more Australian
wounded were falling back to the narrow breach. ‘There was no
rest, no lull,’ one Australian soldier wrote, ‘while the rotting
dead lay all around us, never a pause in the whole of that long
day that started at the crack of dawn. How we longed for
nightfall! How we prayed for this ghastly day to end! How we
yearned for the sight of the first dark shadow!’”
It was just the start of the 8-month conflict, with Mustafa
continually leading his soldiers with declarations like, “It is our
duty to save our country, and we must acquit ourselves
honorably and nobly. I must remind all of you that to seek rest
or comfort now is to deprive the nation of its rest and comfort for
ever.” But, as Mustafa himself later admitted, it was for Allah
that many of his men died, for the prospect of becoming a
martyr, destined to ascend to heaven.
[Note: April 25 is a national holiday in Australia and New
Zealand because of the tremendous heroism displayed by
ANZAC soldiers at Gallipoli, even in defeat.]
At the close of World War I, it was left to Mustafa Kemal to save
the remnants of the Ottoman Empire from partition. The Allies
exacted the harshest penalties of the post-war era in the
formulation of the Treaty of Sevres, which attempted to
dismember an Empire that had stretched through much of the
Middle East, with Britain, France, Italy and Greece each
coveting a chunk. France was granted Syria by a mandate
from the League of Nations. Britain, also under League
mandate, received Iraq and Palestine, as well as Saudi Arabia
under a protectorate arrangement. Italy occupied Turkish
territory even as the peace conference was proceeding, and
Greek forces moved into Smyrna and Thrace (modern-day
western Turkey).
Mustafa Kemal was upset that the man he helped put into power
in the 1913 coup, Enver Pasha, was capitulating to the Allies. In
1917 Mustafa had made the following observation about the rule
of the man he once greatly admired.
“There are no bonds left between the Government and the
people. What we call the people are composed now of women,
disabled men, and children. For all alike the Government is the
power which insistently drives them to hunger and death. The
administrative machinery is devoid of authority. Public life is in
full anarchy. Every new step taken by the Government increases
the general hatred the people feel for it. All officials accept
bribes, and are capable of every sort of corruption and abuse.
The machinery of justice has entirely stopped. The police forces
do not function. Economic life is breaking down with
formidable speed. Neither people nor government employees
have any confidence in the future. The determination to live rids
even the best and the most honest of every sort of sacred feeling.
If the War lasts much longer, the whole structure of Government
and dynasty, decrepit in all its parts, may suddenly fall to
pieces.” It did.
After Sevres, the nationalists coalesced around Kemal,
establishing their capital in Ankara, a small, undeveloped town
of some 20,000. [Today it is the capital of Turkey and has a
population of 2.6 million.] Then in September 1920, with the
Greeks occupying Smyrna, a very strange thing happened.
Greek leader Eleftherios Venizelos decided to hold elections in
November in order to take advantage of what he saw as the surge
in Greek nationalism because of the territorial rewards they had
gained through Sevres.
On September 30, Greek King Alexander was strolling the
palace gardens with his wolfhound, Fritz, when suddenly the dog
jumped into a clump of bushes. Hearing barks and the sounds of
a scuffle, Alexander checked it out and found Fritz shaking a pet
Spanish monkey in his teeth. While he was trying to free the
monkey from Fritz''s grip, another monkey (evidently the mate)
severely bit the King on the calf. While the wound was treated
and all appeared to be fine, just two days later fever set in and for
the next three weeks Alexander was in the fight of his life. He
lost it, October 25. Winston Churchill wrote of the incident, “It
is perhaps no exaggeration to remark that a quarter of a million
persons died of this monkey''s bite.”
The problem was that King Alexander''s death opened the issue
of succession right before the elections. It''s a complicated story
involving the royals, but Venizelos''s party was crushed at the
ballot box, clearing the way for the exiled King Constantine''s
return, much to the displeasure of the Allies who thought he had
collaborated with the Germans during the war. Venizelos was
then forced out of office and a new set of generals replaced the
existing military leadership, at exactly the worst possible time,
because Mustafa Kemal was preparing his forces to take back
what Turkey had lost at Sevres. Churchill commented, “At last
peace with Turkey: and to ratify it, War with Turkey!”
In March 1921, the Allies made a last attempt to avert war
between the two. Failing in these efforts, Greece attacked
Mustafa''s forces. Churchill later wrote:
“Loaded with follies, stained with crimes, rotted with
misgovernment, shattered by battle, worn down by long
disastrous wars, his Empire falling to pieces around him, the
Turk was still alive. In his breast was beating the heart of a race
that had challenged the world, and for centuries had contended
victoriously against all comers. In his hands was once again the
equipment of a modern army, and at his head a Captain, who
with all that is learned of him, ranks with the four or five great
figures of the cataclysm. In the tapestried and gilded chambers
of Paris were assembled the law-givers of the world. In
Constantinople, under the guns of the Allied Fleets there
functioned a puppet Government of Turkey. But among the stern
hills and valleys of ‘the Turkish homeland’ in Anatolia, there
dwelt that company of poor men...who would not see it settled
so; and at their bivouac fires at this moment sat in the rags of a
refugee the august Spirit of Fair Play.” [Kinzer]
The battle to retake western Turkey did not go well for Mustafa
Kemal at first, but by the summer of 1922, the military gains
were startling. The Greeks were pushed into the Aegean and the
French and Italians, guarding the Mediterranean, fled too.
Kemal''s stunning military success is described as one of the
great campaigns of modern history. In the words of author
Stephen Kinzer, “(Mustafa) had turned utter defeat into brilliant
triumph, ripping to shreds the Sevres treaty under which modern
Turkey was to have been aborted before it could be born.”
Now Kemal was set to consolidate his gains. On October 30,
1922, he arranged for a motion to be put forward in the national
assembly, one which would abolish, once and for all, the
Ottoman Empire and the Sultanate. Mustafa was rebuked, at
which point he proclaimed to the assembly:
“Gentlemen, neither the sovereignty nor the right to govern can
be transferred by one person to anybody else by an academic
debate. Sovereignty is acquired by force, by power and by
violence. It was by violence that the sons of Osman acquired the
power to rule over the Turkish nation and to maintain their rule
for more than six centuries. It is now the nation that revolts
against these usurpers, puts them in their right place and actually
carries on their sovereignty. This is an actual fact. It is no
longer a question of knowing whether we want to leave this
sovereignty in the hands of the nation or not. It is simply a
question of stating an actuality, something which is already an
accomplished fact and which must be accepted unconditionally
as such. And this must be done at any price. If those who are
assembled here, the Assembly and everybody else, would find
this quite natural, it would be very appropriate from my point of
view. Conversely, the reality will nevertheless be manifested in
the necessary form, but in that event it is possible that some
heads will be cut off.”
Weeks later the Sultan fled and within months the Republic of
Turkey was formally created.
Back in 2001, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once
said “We need more Ataturks.” Rumsfeld was referring to the
fact that we need more Muslim nations like Turkey which
recognize that all in the West is not bad.
As for Mustafa Kemal, he dramatically moved to assume power
in 1923. Actually, he had telegraphed what he would do in a
1918 diary entry.
“If I obtain great authority and power, I think I will bring about
by a coup - suddenly in one moment - the desired revolution in
our social life. Because, unlike others, I don''t believe that this
deed can be achieved by raising the intelligence of others slowly
to the level of my own. My soul rebels against such a course.
Why, after my years of education, after studying civilization and
the socialization processes, after spending my life and my time to
gain pleasure from freedom, should I descend to the level of the
common people? I will make them rise to my level. Let me not
resemble them: they should resemble me.”
What Mustafa Kemal meant by the ‘desired revolution’ was in
effect the complete secularization, modernization and
westernization of the Turkish state.
And so it was that whereas the Treaty of Sevres was a total
failure for post-war Turkey in 1920, the Treaty of Lausanne in
1923 created the modern nation, leaving Turkey holding some
territory on the European side of the straits, that was then
declared open to all nations. Turkey also renounced its claims to
the Arab lands and the islands of the Aegean, Cyprus and
Rhodes.
Meanwhile, the Kurds, an ethnic minority in Turkey, Iran and
Iraq, were left without an independent state. And one of the truly
tragic events of the treaty was the forced, internationally
supervised exchange of Greek and Turkish populations; with
Greeks in modern-day Turkey being sent to Greece, while Turks
from northern Greece were moved to Turkey. What became
known as “The Great Catastrophe” resulted in large-scale
atrocities, thus ensuring the hatreds of these peoples for
generations to come.
As for Mustafa Kemal, he became president of the Republic of
Turkey, establishing the capital in Ankara. Kemal then set about
creating a secular society, thereby incurring the wrath of the
scholars at the University of Al-Azhar in Egypt, the most famous
of all centers of Islamic learning. Over the next few years,
Mustafa sought to swing his new country to the West, and he
began by abolishing the requirement for the teaching of religion
in schools. Latin script was introduced, Arabic characters for the
Turkish language ceased, wearing the fez (the round felt hat with
the flat top that was a symbol of Islam) became a criminal
offense, and wearing a veil was openly frowned upon (though it
wasn''t banned). Western dress was encouraged. In addition,
Turkish law was modeled after the Swiss code, the Muslim
calendar was abandoned and in 1928 the constitution was
amended to remove the statement that Turkey was an Islamic
state.
Mustafa Kemal wanted to rule a European state in every respect.
In the schools, for example, the imam and the mosque were no
longer held up as the model, now it was the schoolteacher and
the schoolroom. Higher education became a status symbol.
[Kemal added at the time, “For everything in the world - for
civilization, for life, for success - the truest guide is knowledge
and science.”]
Ataturk (the name was conferred upon him by the National
Assembly in 1934, which means “Perfection” or “Father Turk”)
never let up until his death in 1938, and in some ways under his
rule Turkey was one of the most advanced nations in the world,
let alone the Islamic sphere. Historian J.M. Roberts writes that
Ataturk had a bit of Peter the Great in him (though Ataturk was
not interested in territorial gain), as well as something of that of
an “enlightened despot.”
As for his personality, Ataturk cut an imposing figure. He was
highly intelligent, shrewd, overbearing, and unscrupulous.
A great example of his manner can be found in Martin Gilbert''s
“A History of the Twentieth Century.” In 1937, the small,
disputed territory of Hatay became an international incident
when both Turkey and Syria claimed this region that included the
port of Iskenderun. France, in an effort to keep the peace,
mandated the territory, also known as Sandjak, be made into an
independent republic. This proposal was upheld by the League
of Nations, but Ataturk would have none of that. Gilbert picks
up the story.
“While dining at a restaurant in Ankara he saw the French
Ambassador, Monsieur Ponsot, at a nearby table. He at once, in
the words of his biographer Lord Kinross, ‘called upon the ladies
at this table to raise their hands and shout, ‘We want Hatay!’’
One of his adopted daughters chanced to have a toy revolver in
her bag and he made her fire it off. The explosion took M.
Ponsot aback and Ataturk playfully sent for the police and had
her arrested for the illegal use off firearms.'' He then informed
his Prime Minister, ''that the women of Turkey must have Hatay''
and instructed him to make representations on their behalf to the
French Government.”
Turkey was planning on taking unilateral action, and so when
Ataturk sent his troops a year later to annex Hatay, both Syria
and the League of Nations didn''t even send a force to dislodge
them.
But all was not good, in the eyes of some. Noted Islamic scholar
Bernard Lewis wrote in his book “The Middle East” that, “For a
while the modernizing Turkish republic, like the Islamic
Ottoman Empire before it, seemed to be showing the way for the
whole Islamic world. But Ataturk had no such desire. His
disestablishment of Islam, his secularization of the state and the
law, and his oft-declared intention of making Turkey part of
Europe, antagonized many Muslims who had at first acclaimed
his victories.” [An example of the grievances against Ataturk
was in his installing statues of himself, a practice viewed as no
better than pagan idolatry.]
Kemal was a heavy drinker, particularly of the national drink of
Turkey, raki, which he would often consume at the rate of half a
litre a day (more than a pint) and he stayed up half the night
playing poker or carousing with his friends. Ataturk was also
rather sexually promiscuous.
But despite the mood swings that were exacerbated by his
drinking and partying, in the words of author Stephen Kinzer,
Kemal “had a rare ability to temper and manage the jealousies
and ambitions of his entourage. He did not tolerate failure. He
was not vindictive, but had no time for sentimentality in politics
beyond his own mystical belief in the sanctity and purity of the
Turkish nation.”
It has been over 60 years since Mustafa Kemal''s death in 1938,
yet the cult of Ataturk is as strong today as it was decades ago.
In Turkey he is a deity and “Kemalism” is still a strong
movement in today''s politics.
It is said that in Turkey one can say bad things about God, but
never about Ataturk. And it''s amazing that so little is known
outside of Turkey about this man who the current coalition on the
war on terrorism should want to uphold as the model for a more
modern Islamic world.
It''s also true, however, that the Turkish military, ever loyal to
Kemalism, didn''t allow free multiparty elections for parliament
until 1950, and the military has launched three coups since then,
the last being in 1980. So since Ataturk it has been a struggle;
sometimes two steps forward and one back, sometimes one forward
and two back. At the end of the day, though, Ataturk and the
secularization of Islam is the model the West desires. Stephen
Kinzer writes that "without Ataturk''s vision, without his ambition
and energy, without his astonishing boldness in sweeping away
traditions accumulated over centuries, today''s Turkey would not
exist and the world would be much poorer.” And, I would add,
even scarier.
Sources:
Norman Davies, “Europe: A History”
Martin Gilbert, “The First World War”
Misha Glenny, “The Balkans”
Stephen Kinzer, “Crescent & Star”
Bernard Lewis, “The Middle East”
A.L. Macfie, “Ataturk”
John Merriman, “A History of Modern Europe”
J.M. Roberts, “Twentieth Century”
*Next Hott Spotts, Dec. 7.
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