Transcript Slayt 1 - BilgiEvi

ATATÜRK”S LİFE
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - National Liberator
Mustafa Kemal Pasha emerged as the national liberator of the Turks when the
Ottoman Empire, carved up by the Western Powers, was in its death throes.
Already a legendary hero of the Dardanelles and other fronts, he became in 1919
the leader of the Turkish emancipation. With a small and ill-equipped army, he
repelled the invading enemy forces on the East, on the South, and on the West. He
. to contend with the Sultan's troops and local bands of rebels before he
even had
could gain complete control of the Turkish homeland. By September 1922, he had
received one of history's most difficult triumphs against internal opposition and
powerful external enemies.The liberator ranks among the world's greatest
strategists and holds the rare distinction of having maintained a perfect military
record consisting of only victories and no defeats.As the national struggle ended,
the heroic leader proclaimed:" Following the military triumph we accomplished by
bayonets, weapons and blood, we shall strive to win victories in such fields as
culture, scholarship, science, and economics," adding that " the enduring benefits
of victories depend only on the existence of an army of education."It is for his
military victories and his cultural and socio-political reforms, which gave Turkey
its new life, that the Turkish nation holds Atatürk in gratitude and reverence.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - Founder of the Republic
October 29, 1923 is a fateful date in Turkish history. On that date.
Mustafa Kemal Pasha, the liberator of his country, proclaimed the
Republic of Turkey. The new homogeneous nation-state stood in
sharp contrast to the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire out of whose
ashes it arose. The dynasty and theocratic Ottoman system, with
its Sultanate and Caliphate, thus came to and end. Atatürk's Turkey
dedicated itself to the sovereignty of the national will - to the
creation of, in President's words, "the state of the people ".The
Republic swiftly moved to put an end to the so-called
"Capitulations ", the special rights and privileges that the Ottomans
had granted to some European powers.The New Turkey's ideology
was, and remains, "Kemalism", later known as "Atatürkism". Its
basic principles stress the republican form of government
representing the power of electorate, secular administration,
nationalism, mixed economy with state participation in many of the
vital sectors, and modernization. Atatürkism introduced to Turkey
the process of parliamentary and participatory democracy.The first
Moslem nation to become a Republic, Turkey has served since the
early 1920s as a model for Moslem and non-Moslem nations in the
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - Legal Transformation
"We must liberate our concepts of justice, our laws and legal institutions
from the bonds which hold a tight grip on us although they are
incompatible with the needs of our century."Between 1926 and 1930, the
Turkish Republic achieved a legal transformation which might have
required decades in most other countries. Religious laws were
abolished, and a secular system of jurisprudence introduced. The
concepts, the texts and contexts of the laws were made harmonious with
the progressive thrust of Atatürk's Turkey. " The nation", Atatürk said, "
has placed its faith in the precept that all laws should be inspired by
actual needs here on earth as a basic fact of national life."Among the farreaching changes were the new Civil Code, Penal Code, and Business
Law, based on the Swiss, Italian and German models respectively.The
new legal system made all citizens - men and women, rich and poor equal before the law. It gave Turkey a firm foundation for a society of
justice and equal rights.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - Social Reforms
"The major challenge facing us is to elevate our national life to the highest level of
civilization and prosperity."Atatürk's aim was to modernize Turkish life in order to give his
nation a new sense of dignity, equality, and happiness. After more than three centuries of
high achievement, the Ottoman Empire had declined from the 17th to the early 20th
Century: With Sultans presiding over a social and economic system mired in
backwardness, the Ottoman state had become hopelessly outmoded for the modern times.
Atatürk resolved to lead his country out of the crumbling past into a brave new future.In
his program of modernization, secular government and education played a major role.
Making religious faith a matter of individual conscience, he created a truly secular system
in Turkey, where the vast Moslem majority and the small Christian and Jewish minorities
are free to practice their faith. As a result of Atatürk's reforms, Turkey -unlike scores of
other countries- has fully secular institutions.The leader of modern Turkey aspired to
freedom and equality for all. When he proclaimed the Republic, he announced that " the
new Turkish State is a state of the people and a state by the people." Having established a
populist and egalitarian system, he later observed: "We are a nation without classes or
special privileges." He also stressed the paramount importance of the peasants, who had
long been neglected in the Ottoman times: " The true owner and master of Turkey is the
peasant who is the real producer."To give his nation a modern outlook, Atatürk introduced
many reforms: European hats replaced the fez; women stopped wearing the veil; all
citizens took surnames; and the Islamic calendar gave way to the Western calendar. A vast
transformation took place in the urban and rural life. It can be said that few nations have
ever experienced anything comparable to the social change in Atatürk's Turkey.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - Economic Growth
"In order to raise our new Turkey to the level that she is
worthy of, we must, under all circumstances, attach the
highest importance to the national economy."When the
Turkish Republic came into being in 1923, it lacked capital,
industry, and know-how. Successive wars had decimated
manpower, agricultural production stood at a low level, and
the huge foreign debts of the defunct Ottoman state
confronted the new Republic.President Atatürk swiftly
moved to initiate a dynamic program of economic
development. " Our nation," he stated, " has crushed the
enemy forces. But to achieve independence we must
observe the following rule: National sovereignty should be
supported by financial independence. The only power that
will propel us to this goal is the economy. No matter how
mighty they are, political and military victories cannot
endure unless they are crowned by economic triumphs."
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - The New Language
"The cornerstone of education is an easy system of reading and writing. The key to this is
the new Turkish alphabet based on the Latin script."The most difficult change in any
society is probably a language reform. Most nations never attempt it; those who do,
usually prefer a gradual approach. Under Atatürk's Leadership, Turkey undertook the
modern world's swiftest and most extensive language reform. In 1928, when he decided
that the Arabic script, which had been used by the Turks for a thousand years, should be
replaced with the Latin alphabet. He asked the experts: " How long would it take ?" Most
of them replied: " At least five years." " We shall do it," Atatürk said," within five
months"As the 1920s came to an end, Turkey had fully and functionally adopted, with its
29 letters (8 vowels and 21 consonants), has none of the complexities of the Arabic script,
which was ill-suited to the Turkish language. The language reform enabled children and
adults to read and write within a few months, and to study Western languages with greater
effectiveness.Thousands of words, and some grammatical devices, from the Arabic and
Persian, held a tight grip over Ottoman Turkish. In the early 1930s, Atatürk spearheaded
the movement to eliminate these borrowings. To replace the loan words from foreign
languages, large number of original words, which had been in use in the earlier centuries,
where revived, and provincial expressions and new coinages were introduced. The
transformation met with unparalleled success: In the 1920s, the written language
consisted of more than 80 percent Arabic, Persian, and French words; by the early 1980s
the ratio had declined to a mere 10 percent.Atatürk's language reform -encompassing the
script, grammar and vocabulary- stands as one of the most far-reaching in history. It has
overhauled Turkish culture and education.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - Women's Rights
"Everything we see in the world is the creative
work of women."With abiding faith in the vital
importance of women in society, Atatürk launched
many reforms to give Turkish women equal rights
and opportunities. The new Civil Code, adopted in
1926, abolished polygamy and recognized the
equal rights of women in divorce, custody, and
inheritance. The entire educational system from
the grade school to the university became
coeducational.Atatürk greatly admired the support
that the national liberation struggle received from
women and praised their many contributions: " In
Turkish society, women have not lagged behind
men in science, scholarship, and culture. Perhaps
they have even gone further ahead." He gave
women the same opportunities as men, including
full political rights. In the mid-1930s, 18 women,
among them a villager, were elected to the national
parliament. Later, Turkey had the world's first
women supreme court justice
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - Strides in Education
"The governments most creative and significant duty is
education."Atatürk regarded education as the force that would galvanize
the nation into social and economic development. For this reason, he once
said that, after the War of Independence, he would have liked to serve as
Minister of Education. As President of the Republic, he spared no effort to
stimulate and expand education at all levels and for all segments of the
society.Turkey initiated a most ambitious program of schooling children
and adults. From grade school to graduate school, education was made
free, secular, and co-educational. Primary education was declared
compulsory. The armed forces implemented an extensive program of
literacy. Atatürk heralded "The Army of Enlightenment". With pencil or
chalk in hand, he personally instructed children and adults in
schoolrooms, parks, and other places. Literacy which had been less than
9 percent in 1923 rose to more than 33 percent by 1938.Women's
education was very close to Atatürk's hearth. In 1922, even before
proclaiming the Republic, he vowed: " We shall emphasize putting our
women's secondary and higher education on an equal footing with men."
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - Culture and the Arts
"We shall make the expansion and rise of Turkish culture in every era the mainstay of the
Republic."Among the prominent statesmen of the 20th Century few articulated the
supreme importance of culture as did Atatürk who stated: " Culture is the foundation of
the Turkish Republic." His view of culture encompassed the nation's creative legacy as
well as the best values of world civilization. It stressed personal and universal humanism.
" Culture," he said, " is a basic element in being a person worthy of humanity," and
described Turkey's ideological thrust as " a creation of patriotism blended with a lofty
humanist ideal."To create the best synthesis, Atatürk underlined the need for the
utilization of all the viable elements in the national heritage, including the ancient
indigenous cultures, and the arts and techniques of the entire world civilization, past and
present. He gave impetus to the study of the earlier civilizations of Anatolia - including
Hittite, Phrygian, Lydian, and others. Pre-Islamic culture of the Turks became the subject
of extensive research which proved that, long before their Seljuk and Ottoman Empires,
the Turks had already created a civilization of their own. Atatürk also stressed the folk arts
of the countryside as the wellspring of Turkish creativity.The visual and plastic arts
(whose development had been arrested by some bigoted Ottoman officials who claimed
that the depiction of the human form was idolatry) flourished during Atatürk's Presidency.
Many museums were opened. Architecture gained new vigor. Classical Western music,
opera and ballet as well as the theater took impressive strides. Several hundred "People's
Houses" and the " People's Rooms" all over Turkey gave local people and youngsters a
wide variety of artistic activities, sports, and other cultural affairs. Book and magazine
publication enjoyed a boom. Film industry started to grow. In all walks of cultural life,
Atatürk's inspiration created an upsurge.Atatürk's Turkey is living proof of this ideal - a
country rich in its own national culture, open to the heritage of world civilization, and at
home in the endowments of the modern technological age.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - Peace at Home, Peace in the World
"Mankind is a single body and each nation a part of that body. We must never say
'What does it matter to me if some part of the world is ailing?' If there is such an
illness, we must concern ourselves with it as though we were having that
illness."A military hero who had won victory after victory against many foreign
invaders, Atatürk knew the value of peace and, during his Presidency, did his
utmost to secure and strengthen it throughout the world. Few of the giants of the
modern times have spoken with Atatürk's eloquence on the vital need to create a
world order based on peace, on the dignity of all human beings, and on the
constructive interdependence of all nations. He stated, immediately after the
Turkish War of Independence, that "peace is the most effective way for nations to
attain prosperity and happiness." Later as he concluded treaties of friendship and
created regional ententes, he affirmed: " Turks are the friends of all civilized
nations." The new Turkey established cordial relations with all countries,
including those powers which had tried a few years earlier to wipe the Turks off
the map. She did not pursue a policy of expansionism, and never engaged in any
act contrary to peaceful co-existence. Atatürk signed pacts with Greece, Rumania
and Yugoslavia in the Balkans, and with Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan in the East. He
maintained friendly relations with the Soviet Union, the United States, England,
Germany, Italy, France, and all other states. In the early 1930s, he and the Greek
Premier Venizelos initiated and signed a treaty of peace and cooperation.In 1932,
the League of Nations invited Turkey to become a member.
Many of Atatürk's ideas and ideals presaged the principles
enshrined in the League of Nations and the United Nations.
" As clearly as I see daybreak, I have the vision of the rise of
the oppressed nations to their independence... If lasting
peace is sought, it is essential to adopt international
measures to improve the lot of the masses. Mankind's wellbeing should take the place of hunger and oppression...
Citizens of the world should be educated in such a way that
they shall no longer feel envy, avarice and vengefulness."In
recognition of Atatürk's untiring efforts to build peace, the
League of Nations paid tribute to him at his death in
November 1938 as " a genius international peacemaker". In
1981, on the occasion of the Centennial of his birth, the
United Nations and UNESCO honored the memory of the
great Turkish Statesman who abhorred war - " Unless the
life of the nation faces peril, war is a crime," - and expressed
his faith in organized peace: " If war were to break out,
nations would rush to join their armed forces and national
resources. The swiftest and most effective measure is to
establish an international organization which would prove to
the aggressor that its aggression cannot pay."His creation
of modern Turkey and his contribution to the world have
made Atatürk an historic figure of enduring influence.
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