Ataturk in Turkey, Winter, 2004

I love Big Bro- I mean Ataturk
Sam King

Thank god the legacy of Ataturk stays strong in Turkey. I believe that as a direct result of Ataturk’s legacy, Islam has not reached the oppressive stage it has in countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
The men of Turkey are the most vivid example of Ataturk’s legacy. Almost every guy in a city wore a suit, even a bunch of the kids. I remember one town we drove through there were about 50 people in the street, including little kids, and every single one of them hand suits on (they also walked with their hands behind their backs for some strange reason).
After the suits come the pictures. Ataturk’s picture hangs off bridges in Turkey. In every single public establishment, such as bars, restaurants and nightclubs, there is a picture of Ataturk, if not two. Even when we were in Kurdistan, in a bar with only Kurds (who all looked like they could have been PKK members), a picture of Ataturk hung over the bar.
The Kurds probably best express the lasting impact of Ataturk. When Turkey was first declared an independent nation under Ataturk, the Kurds tried to rebel against him. Ataturk put them down harshly, as well as denying their ethnicity existed and banning their language from being spoken. However, they still do not speak ill of Ataturk. When I asked one of our Kurdish hotel clerks what he thought of Ataturk, the man said, “Ataturk good man…He’s the start of all our (the Kurd’s) problems, but he still good man.” Now he may have just been saying this because he thought the walls were listening, but even when we pushed him, joking about how he had to say it, he did not respond. The conclusion I came to is that Turkish internal security is the best in the world at keeping people in line, or Turkish culture so glorified Ataturk that everyone in Turkey really did think he was a good man, regardless of some of his faults.
Perhaps the greatest influence Ataturk had was on 6 Americans traveling through the Eastern half of his country. We established an Ataturk drinking club and whenever we get together we toast to Ataturk, because he may have been the best modern man the Middle East has ever produced.