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Atatürk and the future of Turkey
Andrew Mango a
a
School of Oriental Studies, London
Turkey ended the 1990s in a tumult of economic difficulties and political successes. As Turkey
forges ahead into the new millennium, striving for domestic stability and a strong foreign
presence, the legacy of the Republic's founder -- Atatürk -- is ever-present, and includes
Westernization, internationalism, democracy, and secularism as the basic principles that will
guide the Republic's progress.
country. Although there were still instances of violence as the year ended,
the insurrection, which had cost some 35,000 lives since its 1984
inception, had been defeated. In fact, during its seventh congress from
January 2-23, 2000, the PKK resolved to drop its armed struggle.
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and members of the European Union (EU) in the lead, showed that Turkey
did not lack foreign friends.
In October, the Commission of the European Union in Brussels
published a report recommending that Turkey should be designated as a
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candidate for full membership in the Union, on par with other candidates,
but that negotiations should begin only when Turkey adopts the standards
of conduct that determine the behavior of member countries. Later that
month, Prime Minister Biilent Ecevit paid a successful visit to
Washington. In November, U.S. President Bill Clinton arrived in Turkey
for a six-day official visit, culminating in his participation in the Istanbul
summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Clinton's frank and friendly address to the Turkish parliament, in which
assurances of support were accompanied by pleas for respect for human
rights and for better relations with Greece, made a deep impression. There
was solid evidence of American support when President Clinton assisted
at the signing of a political agreement to build oil and natural gas pipelines
from the Caspian basin through Georgia to Turkey.
Further optimism was registered after the EU Council of Ministers,
meeting in Helsinki on December 10, acted on the Commission report and
accepted Turkey as a candidate for full membership with no conditions.
Turkey sought and obtained assurances from EU officials that Turkey
would not be discriminated against and that resolving longstanding
disputes over human rights, relations with Greece, and Cyprus would not
be a precondition to Turkey's candidacy. Finally, on December 22, the
board of the International Monetary Fund, which had long worked with
the Turkish government to combat inflation, accepted Turkey's letter of
intent and awarded Turkey a stand-by credit of $4 billion.
These developments had a profound effect on Turkey's self-
perception. On December 11, commenting on Turkey's official
designation as a candidate for full EU membership, Oktay Eksi, lead
writer for the mass-circulation Istanbul daily newspaper Hiirriyet,
declared: "This is the start of our new millennium." At first glance, his
exuberance might appear excessive. After all, Turkey's eligibility for full
membership had been affirmed many times previously. It stemmed from
the 1963 association agreement signed with the European Economic
Community. Moreover, a customs union with the EU had come into force
in January 1996. But the significance of the December 10 announcement
— despite the stipulation that no date could be set for starting membership
116 TURKISH STUDIES
negotiations, as well as the vague legal content of the new status — lay in
the fact that it formalized a mutual commitment.
Turkey's eligibility had not dispelled doubts that the EU was not
prepared to accept Turkey as a full member because of its Muslim faith.
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which they had developed did not diminish. He was convinced that in
order to survive and prosper, his people should join the mainstream of
universal civilization and cooperate with erstwhile adversaries in
upholding the settlement that followed the end of the war. Immediately
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after the final victory in the War of Independence in 1923 — and before
the peace treaty had been concluded in Lausanne — Ataturk had this to
say to a group of teachers:
We cannot fence off our country and live isolated from the world.
The opposite is true: we shall live in the area of civilization as a
progressive and civilized nation. Only knowledge and science can
make such a life possible. We will take knowledge and science
wherever they are to be found and we shall introduce them into the
head of every individual. No limits, no condition can be set to
knowledge and science.2
But many of Ataturk's supporters were not so open-minded. Many
were affected by the xenophobic nationalism that had been widespread in
the ranks of the Committee of Union and Progress, whose policies had led
to the Ottoman state's downfall in World War One. Others suspected the
West of wishing Turkey harm. Many lacked the self-confidence that
allowed Ataturk to open out to the outside world. Fearful Turkish
nationalists were to be found in the ranks of Ataturk's Republican People's
Party and also in the armed forces. The chief of staff, Marshal Fevzi
Cakmak, believed all foreigners were potential spies and was fond of
establishing forbidden zones from which foreigners were excluded. In a
country which had just defeated a foreign invasion, such attitudes were
not surprising. The outside world and foreign residents of Turkey were
objects of suspicion to many high-placed officials in the young republic.
Some foreign observers, including the generally benevolent Italian liberal
Count Sforza, thought that Ataturk himself was a xenophobic nationalist.
They were wrong, as is evidenced by Ataturk's foreign policy. Indeed, he
was a nationalist who believed in international cooperation: the Turkish
Republic joined the League of Nations; it took part in sanctions against
Mussolini's Italy; it tried to shore up peace in the region by forming alliances
with its neighbors. Contrary to the views of some leftists, Ataturk did not
favor neutrality. Although he was a staunch defender of Turkish
independence, he saw the Balkan Pact, which he had helped form in the
1930s, as an embryonic union, and, it seems, toyed with the idea of resigning
ATATURK AND THE FUTURE OF TURKEY 119
May 14, 1950. These elections ushered in free parliamentary rule, which
was, at the same time, what the Italians call partitocrazia, the domination
of all aspects of national life by an ever increasing number of political
parties, degenerating into mutual protection societies.
Turkish partitocrazia is ripe for reform. But it has undeniable
achievements to its credit. It liberated latent energies and gave individuals
more room to advance their fortunes and, at the same time, the fortunes of
the country. It ushered in rapid progress, which was achieved at the cost
of order. When disorder threatened to get out of hand, the military
intervened. It did so three times — in 1960, 1971, and 1980. Each time,
the armed forces went back to their barracks in the hope that
parliamentary government could proceed in a more orderly fashion. But,
the end of another decade — the late 1980s —- saw stability once again
compromised. The military did not intervene, and ten years of unstable
coalition governments followed.
The prominent Turkish industrialist, Btilent Eczacibaji, has described
the 1990s as a wasted decade. It may be too harsh a judgment, but there is
little doubt that there was a drift in governance. Now the politicians who
were themselves largely responsible for the drift have finally responded to
public pressure for better government. The pressure had been building up
for some time and had become irresistible by the April 1999 elections.
Hence, the union of opposites in Ecevit's coalition government, which
promises stability and reform. This too is a return to the Atatiirk principle
that order and progress march hand in hand. Authoritarianism is not an
integral part of Ataturk's legacy. He said, after all, "I do not wish to pass
into history as a man who bequeathed a tyranny." But orderly government
is an integral part of his legacy.
Kurdish nationalists, and some Turkish liberals believe that these two fault
lines running through Turkish society can only be cured by repudiating, or
at least amending, Atatiirk's practice, if not his principles. However one
should remember that Atatiirk's practice depended on the requirements of
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of People's Houses and Village Institutes after the Second World War set
back the process of cultural modernization. But the Turkish state
continues to support cultural activities, such as the establishment of the
impressive cultural center currently being built in Istanbul with public
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funds. In any case, a richer and a better educated public can and does play
a greater role in funding and organizing cultural activities. In Turkey, as in
the West today, the state does retain a role in promoting culture, but is not
the only or even the main actor. Turkish civil society, which swung into
action to help victims of the earthquake last year, is also active in the
realm of culture.
Professor Erik Ziircher, in another TSAG lecture delivered in 1998,
stressed that Ataturk had been the leader of a Muslim, rather than a
specifically Turkish, resistance movement against the Allies. It is true that
Islam played a mobilizing role in the Turkish War of Independence. But
there were also Islamic rebellions against Atatiirk's Turkish nationalist
movement and it modernizing agenda. Atatiirk's secularist legislation,
which followed the proclamation of the Turkish Republic, was the
culmination of a long process, described nearly forty years ago by Professor
Bernard Lewis in his standard work The Emergence of Modern Turkey.
Ataturk, as a secularist, was the successor not only of the Young Turks, but
also of the reforming Ottoman statesmen of the nineteenth century.
Conclusion
Turkey can no more repudiate Ataturk today than France can repudiate the
French Revolution. It is fashionable these days in Turkey to speak of the
need to make peace with the country's history (tarihimizle ban§mak). But
Ataturk and his reforms are the essential core of Turkish history as the
country enters the new century. Just as Republicans have come to see the
merits of the Ottoman empire, Islamists and other conservatives will come
to recognize the merits of Ataturk and his reforms.
This recognition will come more easily if the story of Ataturk — the
facts of his life, what he said and what he did, his gesta and dicta — are
researched objectively and related accurately. Ataturk must be
demythologised both by his advocates and his detractors.7
The Turkish Republic was shaped by Ataturk on the lines of
republican France. It is, therefore, natural that French observers
should have a particular insight into the problems of Atatiirk's Republic.
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NOTES
1. Zeki Kuneralp, Just a Diplomat, translated by Geoffrey Lewis (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1992),
p.108.
2. Ataturk'iin Soylev ve Demecleri (Ataturk's Speech and Lectures), Vol. II (Ankara: Atatiirk
Arastirma Merkezi, 1989), p.48.
3. Elie Kedourie, Democracy and Arab Political Culture (Washington, D.C.: Washington
Institute for Near East Policy, 1992), p.5.
4. David Shankland, Islam and Society in Turkey (Cambridgeshire: Eothen Press, 1999), p. 68.
5. Ibid., p. 176.
6. Ibid., p.176.
7. Andrew Mango, Atatiirk (London: John Murray, 1999; Overlook Press, New York, 2000).
8. Francois Vinot, "Armee, laicite et democratic en Turquie", CEMOTI, No.27 (1999), p.93.