atatürk

http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/8097/72atakx5.jpg

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/3345/29ekimresimleri.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/rZFDk.jpg

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http://i.imgur.com/KaRoc.jpg

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/6079/182nl1.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/uWQ0c.jpg

http://karsidevrim.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/ataturk-ve-ismet-inonu.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/WU64J.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Ataturk4.JPG/444px-Ataturk4.JPG

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Ataturk-1930-daughter.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/uC3mm.jpg

in my eighth grade history class, mr aiello called on me to answer the question 'who took constantinople in 1453?' and i answered 'the ottoman . . . arabs?'

he bellowed 'THE TURKS!' and punched the blackboard.

that's effective teaching, i guess, since i remember after 25 years

http://www.canakkaleguide.com/picture/ataturk.jpg

http://bluepoint.gen.tr/ataturk/ataturk.jpg

http://m.friendfeed-media.com/241fd984aed9d9085ed4eabe70e3abbb90a09d29

sexy daddy turk!

http://salaamalaykum.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/ataturk.jpg?w=498&h=493

striking a bela lugosi pose:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/11/13/world/13ataturk02-190.jpg

seriously, this dude fascinates me in the same way that Jozef Pilsudki and Charles de Gaulle fascinate me ... these three chaps are the closest thing the 20th century had to enlightened despots.

ha! yes he was totally fascinating, and influential within his own nation to a very unusual degree

not so en vogue nowadays though, this isn't your grandad's secular turkey!

the restoration continues apace

http://www.turkeyforyou.com/pictures/categoryPictures/ataturk.jpg

for some reason, i have always found this pic amazing. dude actually went to zillions of podunk Turkish villages teaching the people the new Latinized Turkish alphabet.

ned raggett ataïlx

might be apocryphal but apparently he very shrewdly discouraged the veiling of women not by making it illegal, but instead by making veils compulsory for prostitutes.

he also wore a wide array of very spiritual hats

more like shatajürk

We live in an age of historical revisionism. In England, young historians
are busy chipping away at Winston Churchill, trying to topple
him from his pedestal and expose him as a man of many weaknesses
and errors. Surely there must be some part of truth in this—Churchill was a
man and not a god, and like other men he had his weaknesses and made his
mistakes. But for the men and women of my generation, who fought and won
a great war under Churchill’s leadership, saving their country and, incidentally,
the world from the most odious tyranny known to human history, nothing can
belie his achievement or diminish the respect—or should I say reverence—in
which we held him and still hold him.

Similar re-examinations of past assumptions and past heroes are in progress
in many other countries. But not in all. Such a re-examination presupposes both
the development of a critical faculty and the freedom to exercise it. For better
or worse—and I am convinced that it is for better—Turkey is such a country,
and Turks must confront the dangers and responsibilities as well as the pleasures
and opportunities of freedom.

The re-examination of the past—including the achievement of the heroes of
the past—is a right, indeed a duty of the historian, as the discovery of new
evidence and documents and the development of new techniques of inquiry make
such a re-examination necessary and possible. And if sometimes the reexamination
takes the form of politically or ideologically motivated denigration,
this too must be accepted as part of the functioning of a free society.
But after all the re-examinations and all the reassessments, even the most
hostile, the achievement of Atatürk remains—perhaps reinterpreted, but surely
not diminished. What is that achievement? Obviously the answer to this question
must come primarily, though not exclusively, from Turks. But sometimes
the perspective of an outsider may be helpful.

Atatürk’s first achievement, which made all the others possible, was military
and political. Of the three major powers defeated in 1918, Turkey alone was
able to reject the peace imposed by the conquering allies and to negotiate freely
and on equal terms a peace securing its basic national objectives. At a time when
almost all of the Islamic world was falling under the dominance of the imperial
powers of Europe, Turkey was one of the very few that managed not just to
preserve, but to reinforce its sovereign independence. By these two successes
alone, the new republican regime was able to infuse in a defeated and dispirited
people a new sense of pride—of self-respect concerning the past and selfconfidence
for the future.

On Sunday Turks observed the 58th anniversary of Atatürk’s death. His true
greatness, his lasting achievement, may be found not in his political and military
victories, but in the use that he made of them. It was not easy to create a free
nation-state from the ruins of an empire, and to do so surrounded by suspicious
former enemies and resentful former subjects. It was no mean diplomatic achievement
to establish peaceful and even friendly relations with both.

It would take too long to enumerate the many significant changes inaugurated
by Atatürk and his generation. Let me just mention one of the most
important—the revitalization of Turkish society by the fostering and
encouragement of new elements. One of these was women. Already in the 1920s
Atatürk spoke on more than one occasion of the impossibility of keeping up
with the modern world if a country deprives itself of the talents and services of
half its people. The emancipation of women—central to the whole process of
modernization—made immense advances in his time and under his successors.
Another was the emergence of new social groups—professional, technical and
commercial—that were creative, independent and self-reliant. These were indispensable
components of the new civil society, the ultimate basis on which
Turkish democracy must rest.

Probably the most debated of his policies at the present day is that which is
sometimes called Westernization, not easily distinguished from modernization.
In a sense, his victories and those of his successors were a paradox—the first
decisive victory in defiance of Western power, the first decisive steps in the
acceptance of Western civilization. There is an old American saying: “If you can’t
beat them, join them.” Atatürk did both.

Bernard Lewis, Revisiting the Paradox of Modern Turkey. The Wall Street Journal, November
12, 1996

i feel like it's never really been much of a secret that churchill was -- along with being a courageous anti-fascist -- kind of a racist warmonger; he was criticized for that even at the time.

ataturk might be my favorite 20th century leader, one of the most fascinating ppl in history imo.

opened a biography at random once and came on "then Ataturk fell into a deep depression and lay around the house doing nothing for three days." love it.

http://i.imgur.com/3tAQpsk.jpg

Kemal Ataturk 'ad an 'addock!

seriously, this dude fascinates me

Same here. Great thread.

any recommended biographies? on-off been meaning to read one for a while & thread is the prompt I need.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan threatened to shut down Twitter and other social media platforms on Thursday and said he did not care about the international response, his latest outburst in an increasingly bitter election campaign.

Anger, threats and conspiracy theories have marked the run-up to the March 30 local elections, with Erdogan battling a corruption scandal he says is orchestrated by his enemies, much of it waged via leaks on Twitter and YouTube.

"Twitter, mwitter!," Erdogan told thousands of supporters at a rally in the northwestern province of Bursa, in a phrase translating roughly as "Twitter, schmitter!".

"We will wipe out all of these," he said.

Schmitter sounds like the name of a Nazi general.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BjPowo4CQAAF1PZ.jpg

http://www.balkaneu.com/erdogans-palace-close-completion/

erdogan is no atatürk

there is narcissism and there is also the imperative to show deference and continuity with the father of the nation while his work is being unravelled

something I learnt about on wikipedia today - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_name_changes_in_Turkey

https://instagram.com/rterdogan/

Atatürk's successor, İsmet İnönü:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Inonu_Ismet.jpg