On Ataturk's paradise and Pan-Turkism

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Jun 1, 2008 at 10:16

sims01 wrote : Ataruk was a tyrant. As a person he stood no opposition, accepted no criticism. He needed slaves to execute his will, not partners and free people to tell him some bitter truths in the face. Almost visitor in Ancara noticed that the Turkish Parliament was a strange and unworthy gathering. All the parliament and goverment members were either appointed or confirmed personally by Ataturk and their offices and very lives depended on his good or bad will.

So they behaved like slaves flattering any of the whims of the aging drunkard that actually was ruling the country. In essence the atmosphere in Ancara didn't differ that much from Abdul Hamid II's times. And you come with your Oriental word twistings of "fully democratic system"! GIve me a break! >Show me one dictatorial head of state who could possibly do that.>

E.g. M.S. Gorbachov. Oh? Were they also forced to stop speaking Kurdish, singing Kurdish songs, deported and was a bloody war declared on them there too as was the case in the 80-ies and 90-ies (not to speak of earlier persecutions) with 3000 Kudrish villages razed to the ground and thousands of Kurds killed and maimed because they dared say "No!" to the excellency called Turkishness? Turkish nationality paradise looks quite perplexing and paradoxical, doesn't it?

If you really want to learn what the Kurds feel about your Ataturk and his Turkish paradise, take a look at " An Open Letter to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk" by a Kurd. It's a sobering reading after your nasty propaganda shower : http://www.kurdistan.org/Current-Updates/ataturk022405.html

Civilian control with such strange bodies as the National Security Council ? Looks like plenty of groups and the most popular ones at that, doesn't it ? This is the official story. Who has read any serious biography of him based on original sources, not the pious later fairy-tales of how wise and infallible the Father of Turks was, will remember very disturbing speeches by him on that topic. Jacques Benoist-Méchin in his excellent book "Le Loup et le Léopard. Mustapha Kemal ou la Mort d'un Empire (Paris, 1954) on page 440 reports the following speech held by Ataturk in his later years. He speaks of the union of 800 000 Turkic people stretching from the Black to the Yellow Sea. "One day the astonished world will see the rise of this invisible empire that is sleeping at the moment in the interiors of Central Asia.

And it is Turkey that will take lead in the renovation of these Turanian peoples and they will all follow the leadership of Turkey and will be freed from and purified of the Russians, the Arabs , the Persians, the Indians and the Chinese!" If we are to believe what you write, then for this historically recorded speech Ataturk should have been arrested by his own police and got many years' imprisonment or a life sentence. Well, has anybody ever read what Ataturk did say? Or only the officially purfied documents are read and believed in in Turkey where things like critical thinking are as alien as bananas on the moon and anything as inconvenient as Ataurk's wife Latife Hanim's "Memoirs" are enthusiastically overlooked, obediently forgotten and ignored by the servile Ataturk-worshipping Turkish horde?

Anyway, if Stalin pressed Turkey so hard before 1941 and paricularly after 1945, it was because during WWII the Turks sympathized greatly with Hitler's war aims and Pan-Turkism re-emerged as a potent force among the Turkish officers and masses. Most probably if the Germans had won at Stalingrad, Turkey would have entered teh war on tehir side attacking the USSR. The prize promised was the same as in 1914 - a Turanian Empire at the expense of Russia. How strong Pan-Turkism is became evident after 1991 with the empire-building fever that embraced Turkey and the open Turkish involvement in Azerbaijan. Its expression was also the stately funeral of Enver Pasha's alleged remains in 1996. The worst enemy of Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha was buried with full military ceremonies at the Hurriyet-i Ebediye Tepesi, a memorial hill. The funeral was attended by President of the Turkish Republic Suleyman Demirel, ministers, deputies and top generals.

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