Each year on November 10, at 9:05 am, the entire nation of Turkey stops. Traffic stops in the streets, pedestrians halt. For one moment, the nation as a whole silently mourns the passing of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, known as the “immortal leader and unrivaled hero” in the preamble to the Turkish Constitution.
I think there’s no question that Atatürk was a great leader. As Stephen Kinzer describes in his wonderful book, Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds, it was Atatürk who miraculously transformed the ashes of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI into the phoenix that became the Republic of Turkey. By the conditions of the Sèvres Treaty, the Ottoman Empire would have been carved up among the various victorious allies, with only a small part of the mountainous and inhospitable region of central Anatolia left for the Turks. Yet, as Kinzer describes, Atatürk rallied the Turkish people, and “in one of the most astonishing military reversals of modern history, turned utter defeat into brilliant triumph, ripping to shreds the Sèvres Treaty under which modern Turkey was to have been aborted before it could be born” (41).
And to his great credit, Atatürk went on to prove himself even beyond his military prowess. After his victory in the Turkish War of Independence, Atatürk could have gone on to try and reclaim the lost parts of the Ottoman Empire—southeastern Europe, Greek islands, Syria, to name a few—but instead he put away his uniform for good and turned his attention inward.
In his some 15 years as leader, Atatürk made sweeping, dramatic changes to Turkish society—some of which continue to haunt the country today. Most dramatically, he established a strictly secular state for a once—and for many, still—deeply religious society.
Kinzer writes: “According to its constitution, Turkey is a secular state with no official religion. But the truth is that Turks profess, and must profess, a highly developed faith enveloping and defining every aspect of their lives. It is the cult of Atatürk, founder of the Turkish Republic and now a virtual deity” (35).
My limited experience here in Turkey so far has not disproved any element of what Kinzer describes. Indeed, the love of Atatürk is much more intense than I could have imagined. His picture hangs everywhere. His statue is on every corner. His blue eyes seem to stare at me wherever I go…
Yesterday I visited Atatürk’s mausoleum, or Anıtkabir, as it is known in Turkish. Rising on a hillside above the center of Ankara, it’s a great, marble structure of beige—imposing, stark. Inside the main building is a symbolic sarcophagus—a 40-ton block of solid black marble—beneath which Atatürk’s body lies interred.
Granted it was a Sunday afternoon, but the place was packed. Red arrows laid out a clear path from the entrance to the tomb, directing visitors on the “suggested route.” Funny—my experience in Turkey so far has not much suggested that Turks are fans of lines. Getting a coffee from the café in the morning is basically hit or miss. But here, at Atatürk’s mausoleum, I’d never seen a line so well ordered.
Inside the mausoleum is also a museum about Atatürk, containing relics of his. His beautiful clothes are laid out in glass cases, his swords, his shaving kit. His books are open to pages that have been underlined. Atatürk sound bytes are everywhere—“Teachers are the only saviors of nations” or “Peace at home, peace in the world” or “Happy is he who says, ‘I am a Turk.’” There are also photographs, paintings and murals depicting important events. It’s interesting how the museum phrases certain things:
-For example, instead of “killed” they always say “martyred.” As in, “Turkish soldiers were martyred by the Greeks,” or “_____ was martyred by the Armenians.”
-In one exhibit, they talk about how Atatürk closed hermit retreats, mausoleums, and dervish lodges—including the one where Rumi had lived. The placard ends on the note, “Thus the sources of resistance that would nourish religious fanaticism against the reforms were eliminated.”
-Next to a painting depicting the Anatolian Massacres perpetrated by the invading Greeks during the Turkish War of Independence, the placard reads, “During these massacres, the fact that clerics paid a provoking role has been historically proven.” The painting shows a chaotic, violent scene, a woman’s breasts casually exposed at its center, and nearby a fierce-looking Greek cleric holding up a cross.
In any case, Anıtkabir is an experience.
I don’t even feel entirely comfortable discussing in detail here my feelings about all of this, nor my experiences with other Turks in talking about Atatürk. Suffice it to say that one of my Turkish friends suggested to me that I avoid the topic with Turks, even if it’s to praise him.
However, in an attempt to understand the phenomenon of Atatürk, and to sort through my conflicted feelings about his legacy, I have decided to try and learn as much about him as is humanly possible. The first step down this road is reading Andrew Mango’s monster 700-page biography, Atatürk. I’m about a fourth of the way through now, though I admit I need to take periodical breaks—
On the Road being the current one. When I come across them, I intend to communicate interesting anecdotes about Atatürk to the blog.
I am also attaching a few interesting articles that relate to all of this, and essentially to Turkey’s current political situation:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/world/europe/16ataturk.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=login
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/world/europe/25turkey.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7207109.stm
In summary, I want to cite the best quotation I’ve heard from Atatürk—-one that I didn’t see at Anıtkabir:
“I am leaving no sermon, no dogma, nor am I leaving as my legacy any commandment that is frozen in time or cast in stone,” he said shortly before his death. ‘Concepts of well-being for countries, for peoples and for individuals are changing. In such a world, to argue for rules that never change would be to deny the reality found in scientific knowledge and reasoned judgment.”
