Commemorating Ataturk

By Yusuf Kanli
TDN- Turkey is today commemorating the 66th anniversary of the death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk -- the founding father of Turkey, who after winning the country's independence from occupying armies following World War I, established the modern Turkish Republic from the ashes of the "sick man of Europe," the Ottoman Empire.
Ataturk and the other founders of the new Turkish Republic, despite an immense scarcity of almost everything and the daunting post-war-of-liberation conditions, launched a cultural, political and economic revolution in the country, curtailed the power of the religious authorities, introduced a modern civil code and transformed the people of this land from a religious community into the Turkish nation. Religion and politics were segregated. That was the revolution that created today's modern secular Turkish Republic of predominantly Muslim Turks -- a living example in the post Sept. 11 world that Islam and democracy can indeed coexist.
The Westward-looking Turkey created by Ataturk is today heading towards getting a date for the start of accession talks with the European Union, a development considered by most Turks to be a fulfillment of the legacy of the founder of the Turkish Republic, although some hard-core conservatives disguised as "Kemalists" or "followers of Ataturk" have been trying to take the founding father of the country hostage in order to promote their own perceptions or legitimize their own positions.
Rather than speaking in cliches, a Turkey walking in the footsteps of Ataturk must remember that he was a pioneer, a pragmatist and a progressive leader who saw the country's future as being with the West and who set the goal of attaining the standard of advanced democracies.
It was Ataturk's Westernization drive that set the course for the modernization of Turkey and the creation of a secular state for a predominantly Muslim people. This was Ataturk's most important achievement.
Despite conservative opposition to Turkey's EU membership, we believe it is in our people's best interest to cling to Ataturk's ideals of progress and reform with a Western outlook and stop insisting on traveling east on a train that's rushing towards the West. The founder of the modern Turkish Republic fought with the Western powers to liberate the land and establish this republic but devoted the rest of his life to promoting Western values and preaching the need to attain Western standards in all walks of life. Ataturk believed in Western principles and thus would have been an ardent supporter of Turkey joining the EU.
Ataturk believed in the supremacy of the will of the people. That is why he first established Parliament, even before the end of the War of Liberation. Now is the time for Turkey's leaders to follow in Ataturk's footsteps and continue democratization reforms by revamping the laws on political parties and on elections that have come to resemble chains on the national will and that have converted the political system into a dukedom of political party leaders.