Opinion of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

[H. Ross Peron]

Massive FF

[RogueBeaver]

Massive FF

[Antonio the Sixth]

Mixed. He did a good job rebuilding Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, and his staunch secularism was of course excellent. On the other hand, he was still authoritarian and nationalist in the nastiest way.

[Lief 🗽]

Big time FF.

[Indy Texas]

Mixed. He did a good job rebuilding Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, and his staunch secularism was of course excellent. On the other hand, he was still authoritarian and nationalist in the nastiest way.

Well, you couldn't really have the staunch secularism without the authoritarian part. Still can't. That's what we refuse to accept about the Middle East. You can either have autocratic rule by Saddam, Hosni Mubarak, and the Assads, or you can have the kind of democratically elected Islamism that exists in Iran and the Gaza Strip.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Mixed. He did a good job rebuilding Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, and his staunch secularism was of course excellent. On the other hand, he was still authoritarian and nationalist in the nastiest way.

Well, you couldn't really have the staunch secularism without the authoritarian part. Still can't. That's what we refuse to accept about the Middle East. You can either have autocratic rule by Saddam, Hosni Mubarak, and the Assads, or you can have the kind of democratically elected Islamism that exists in Iran and the Gaza Strip.

Are you saying that the people of the Middle East are somehow structurally islamist, that they have always been and will always be no matter what? That's a strange idea.

[Хahar 🤔]

My worldview bears no resemblance to Kemalism.

[Lief 🗽]

My worldview bears no resemblance to Kemalism.

You don't support republicanism or secularism?

[politicallefty]

More FF than not.

On a superficial note, and I'm not sure of his role in the name change, but I much prefer the name Constantinople over Istanbul.

[TDAS04]

FF.

[GMantis]

While his model of secularism is vastly superior to either the Ottoman or Neo-Ottoman model, he's still responsible for terrible war crimes and massacres. So HP.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Voted FF, although that may have been a mistake.

[Indy Texas]

Mixed. He did a good job rebuilding Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, and his staunch secularism was of course excellent. On the other hand, he was still authoritarian and nationalist in the nastiest way.

Well, you couldn't really have the staunch secularism without the authoritarian part. Still can't. That's what we refuse to accept about the Middle East. You can either have autocratic rule by Saddam, Hosni Mubarak, and the Assads, or you can have the kind of democratically elected Islamism that exists in Iran and the Gaza Strip.

Are you saying that the people of the Middle East are somehow structurally islamist, that they have always been and will always be no matter what? That's a strange idea.

I'm saying that government can never change the cultural orientation of its people from the top down, particularly in Middle Eastern societies where power is fragmented along familial and clan lines. A century ago, the Bolsheviks went into Russia's Central Asian provinces and tried to "liberate" them from Islam and throw off their veils. If anything, this made them more prone to Islamism. In the 1950s and onward, post-colonial Arab socialists like Nasser tried the same thing. Again, this made them more prone to Islamism. It was a form of backlash, in the same way that Roe v. Wade arguably made people who weren't supportive of abortion even more anti-abortion than before. You don't think the Iranian Revolution and the Ayatollah weren't a reaction to the imposition of secularism by the Shah?

The more those people get pushed away from their religion at gunpoint, the more fiercely they charge back towards it when given the opportunity.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Mixed. He did a good job rebuilding Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, and his staunch secularism was of course excellent. On the other hand, he was still authoritarian and nationalist in the nastiest way.

Well, you couldn't really have the staunch secularism without the authoritarian part. Still can't. That's what we refuse to accept about the Middle East. You can either have autocratic rule by Saddam, Hosni Mubarak, and the Assads, or you can have the kind of democratically elected Islamism that exists in Iran and the Gaza Strip.

Are you saying that the people of the Middle East are somehow structurally islamist, that they have always been and will always be no matter what? That's a strange idea.

I'm saying that government can never change the cultural orientation of its people from the top down, particularly in Middle Eastern societies where power is fragmented along familial and clan lines. A century ago, the Bolsheviks went into Russia's Central Asian provinces and tried to "liberate" them from Islam and throw off their veils. If anything, this made them more prone to Islamism. In the 1950s and onward, post-colonial Arab socialists like Nasser tried the same thing. Again, this made them more prone to Islamism. It was a form of backlash, in the same way that Roe v. Wade arguably made people who weren't supportive of abortion even more anti-abortion than before. You don't think the Iranian Revolution and the Ayatollah weren't a reaction to the imposition of secularism by the Shah?

The more those people get pushed away from their religion at gunpoint, the more fiercely they charge back towards it when given the opportunity.

Different regions swing back and forth in terms of religiosity/secularism for many different and intricate reasons. There's no sense systematizing and generalizing like you do.