Astral Codex Ten

Ataturk

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Ataturk

Article

Ataturk is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between March 18, 2021 and March 21, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as “Ataturk, meaning ‘Father of Turks’”; “Secular education was a pillar of Ataturk’s plan”; “Ataturk didn’t really want democracy for Turkey (he modernized it, but it was his successors who extended this to democratization)“. It most often appears alongside Erdogan, Istanbul, Turkey.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: March 18, 2021
  • Last seen: March 21, 2021

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Book Review: The New Sultan
March 18, 2021 · Original source
Medieval Turkey was dominated by the Ottoman Empire, officially an Islamic caliphate though in practice only inconsistently religious, ruled by autocratic sultans and a dizzying series of provincial governors. As time passed, they fell further and further behind Western Europe; by World War I, they were a mess. As the stress of the war caused the empire to fracture, General Mustafa Kemal seized power, reorganized the scraps of Ottoman Anatolia into modern Turkey, and was renamed ATATURK, meaning "Father of Turks".
Ataturk was born in Ottoman-controlled Greece, and was typical of a class of military officers at the time who were well-educated and "Europeanized". He wanted to turn backwards Turkey into an advanced Western country - and Western countries were mostly secular. He saw Islam - the religion of the old Ottoman Empire - as a roadblock, and passed various laws meant to relegate it to the margins of public life.
(my favorite Ataturk story, probably apocryphal, was that he passed a law banning women from wearing hijabs. Nobody followed it and the police wouldn't enforce it, so he passed a second law requiring prostitutes to wear hijabs, after which other women abandoned them. As far as I can tell this is an urban legend, but it captures the spirit of the sort of measures he took to drag Turkey, kicking and screaming, into secular modernity.)
Open Thread 164
March 21, 2021 · Original source
6: Some good comments on the Erdogan post. Turkish ACXer Emrah D gives some commentary and corrections - Erdogan’s predecessor as Istanbul mayor was merely left-wing, not communist, and Imam Hatip schools seem less “stigmatized” if you just think of them as trade schools not intended to provide general education (plus 16 other excellent points). Fellow Turksih ACXer Fevzi P has some other thoughts, including that Ataturk didn’t really want democracy for Turkey (he modernized it, but it was his successors who extended this to democratization). Also:
Inline links: some commentary and corrections, some other thoughts