addictionary
Well-Known Member
Absolutely man. I mean what place better other than Utah should have an NHL team?
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk ( want opinion from Turkish posters)
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UGLI baby
Well-Known Member
That's what I keep tryin to say man. They keep putting all the hockey teams in Edmington tho.
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Generally I like him quite a lot, of course he had his mistakes in some of his politics, and he had his personal problems(no business of anyone), but he was far more forward-looking man than his peers, even than the European leaders of the time.
I'd like to write about him more later, for you AKMVP, when I have some time.
This sentence only shows your lack of knowledge about the issue, because, yes there were terrible massacres, which were mutually, but let's say it was indeed a genocide attempt against Armenians, even in that case, most of the Armenians are saying Atatürk was not the first responsible of that, actually they are using his opposing quotes against his companions about the massacres as proofs of the genocide.
Btw, you can ask anything related about Turks to the Armenians(who are not living in Turkey), %99 you won't get anything positive. Turkish hate is like a 3 time meal in Armenia.
UGLI baby
Well-Known Member
Well let's be clear here, you live in a country that actually has a law prohibiting any insult to the memory of Ataturk, going so far as to ban books that are critical of Ataturk or discuss any controversial issue related to him. I understand that I am not Turkish but I don't believe Turkey is really impartial about his role in the Armenian genocide.
I don't believe he ordered the genocide, or even that he necessarily knew about the day to day of it, but Armenians do have a decent argument that he tolerated it and certainly emphasized atrocities against Turks and downplayed atrocities committed by Turks. I know I've read Armenian texts that assert that this is the root of present Turkish denial that the genocide ever happened.
For the record, I'm actually generally very pro-Ataturk because it is largely his foundational ideas that make Turkey an entirely unique country in the world. My point about Armenians was merely because, whether the OP realized this or not, starting a thread asking for Turkish opinions about Ataturk is basically like walking into the Vatican and asking for opinions about Jesus.
jazzyapma
Well-Known Member
Turkiye isn't the same country which was 20 years ago. It's been drastically changed during last 12 years of AKP government. Atatürk is not untouchable now. At least %20 would be against Atatürk's ideas and support neo-ottoman and pan-islamist way. After decades of confinement governments ruling under the ideas of Atatürk, radical islamists broke free.
The Blue Elephant
Well-Known Member
In Norway slingshots are illegal, in Germany denying the holocaust is illegal, these are just two I know on top of my head there are many European countries that have restrictions on rights.
Since the thread is not about Armenian genocide claims, I'll pass this argument. I could only say that it's not a subject you can solve with the claims or the denials of each sides. Hell, even, "the history science" is hardly a science when it comes to all this kind of highly political issues that full of nationalistic feelings in a religiously polarized world conjuncture. In my opinion, a real honest person, a historian or not, would get lost in all the claims and arguments of both sides before even being close to a healthy judgement about whether Turks did a genocide or not. Because it's not The Holocaust, it's certainly not clear. But people will just believe what they want to believe, like pro-PKK Kurds believe it in a heartbeat and Azeris reject it strongly.
Yes, there are stupid laws like those. But it's not the reality. I'll continue below.
You would see with your own eyes that this statement is not true if only a very important part of Turkish people that are anti-Atatürk were also basketball fans like the Turkish posters here. Because then you would see how there is a strong and extensive hate for Atatürk amongst the Turks. But unfortunately I don't know many people that are both anti-Atatürk and NBA fans(let alone Jazz fans). So you won't see them here. Jazzyapma mentioned them as at least 20% but I'd say they are at least 35-40% percent if you don't think solely on Islamists.
For the ridiculous Atatürk laws, as a matter of fact, I was gonna mention those kind of stupid things if I had the time in my first post. First of all, you really can't understand Turkish state of mind and the political/governmental silliness of us without being a Turk or at least living in Turkey for a decent time. Even though those kind of laws are(we have even have laws about compulsory fedora wearing) like weird American laws in some states and are only on the paper for the most part, we also had far more serious and damaging laws than those, like banning Turban wearing, just for the sake of Kemalism and the fear of Sharia. So, think about what would millions of women and their relatives think about Atatürk and his followers that banned their freedoms of religion.
I'm not a Kemalist, not even a pro-Atatürk as much as you are, I'm certainly not a pro-Sharia, I'm not a Sunni/Alevi/Shia, but I'm just a regular person with mixed beliefs and opinions in a unique/weird country which is a system/equation with extremely many unknowns, so much so that, you cannot get a clear picture of it even when you want to think in terms of the just major political dispositions. Kemalism and Sheria may seem like the end points for the outsiders in this giant abstract mess but in fact it's not even close. Even pro-Hezbollahs or pro-Al-Qaedas and Pastafarians would show up and say hello.
Anyway, so you can believe me when I say, it's not the same to ask us(or at least me) about Atatürk and to ask Vatican people about Jesus. Actually every Turk in his/her life has to get through countless arguments and controversial theories about Atatürk, starting from the first school to the every corner of the daily life. I know I have experienced it and I know I still do it.
addictionary
Well-Known Member
It is as jazzyapma said. But we always had strong reasons for it. You see, Atatürk has always been the symbol of the Turkish modernizing revolution, and therefore, he also has always been the target of the communities and even state enemies that were against the revolution's earnings or somehow try to corrupt society and see taking Atatürk image from them as a way to it. Maybe it's not radical Islamism as we know today, but the reactionists against Turkish Rev. have always been here and powerful as a threat to the process since the Rep.o.Turkey has been found. The radical Islamists formed political parties before too, like since 1970's. But the supreme court banned them for their actions against laicism, regime etc. AKP, the ruling party today, came to power by promising the communities that supposedly suffer from government acts in the history and of course the Kurds as an ethnic people with serious numbers and the conservative background to gain favor of easily for those religion traders (a raw translation to a term we use to describe the politicians in here that exploit people's conscience and weakness against religious rules and ideals. So anyway, these guys are major freedom killers of their senses on the life-sight, but they can act democratically to reach their goals. That is exactly what Erdoğan said when he was a small fish in the lake, trying hard to gain more support and popularity: "Democracy cannot be the goal. It can only be a tool." Meaning the conservatives should use democracy to gain other communities' support and flush them down the toilet when the power is gained and they are a toilet paper stuck under the shoe. They do not respect human rights. They don't have moral codes that support freedom and democracy. They can easily digest the idea of an old pervert raping and leaving pregnant a 9 year old little girl and simply walk away with it. They (a minister) can easily digest the idea of giving some change to a cancer patient that seeks for help to let her f-off. Etc.... etc...
Atatürk as far as I know was fighting against English troops and ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps)in Gallipoli during WWI. He only stated that the new state has no bonds with the old one and therefore wasn't responsible for the genocide. I am not an expert of the issue but this whole hate of Armenian generations against Atatürk is pure ignorance and it is basically because the Armenian government and educational system teaches their kids to hate the symbolic leader of the country that those terrible events happened in 1915.