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Once home to the most elegants ball of the times, Atatürk’s favorite Hotel, Tokatlıyan, is now facing an unknown future. Considered as a great piece of architecture, the hotel has been waiting for a restoration for the last 30 years.

The 117-year old Tokatlıyan Hotel stands in the middle of Istanbul’s most crowded Istiklal Street, in Beyoğlu district. DAILY NEWS photo, Hasan ALTINIŞIK

Once a favorite haunt of modern Turkey’s founder, Istanbul’s legendary Tokatlıyan-Pera Hotel continues to face an uncertain future due to a lack of plans to renovate the severely dilapidated building.

“[Mustafa Kemal] Atatürk not only organized balls but also hosted his guests at a rich table during tea hours. It is so unfortunate that the hotel is now in a ruined state,” Professor Afife Batur, a scholar on architectural history at Istanbul Technical University, recently told the Hürriyet Daily News. “The hotel was a pioneer as a building in many ways. The first known hotel posters in Turkey belonged to the Tokatlıyan-Pera.”

Considered by scholars to be a significant architectural achievement, the Tokatlıyan-Pera is one of the best examples of fin-de-siècle architecture in Turkey.

The hotel belongs to the Üç Horan Armenian Church Foundation, one of the richest foundations of Turkey’s Armenian community.

The foundation’s administration, which has remained unchanged for 30 years, has chosen not to adopt any of the numerous renovation proposals that have been submitted over the years.

The hotel was built by Mıgırdiç Tokatlıyan, an Ottoman citizen of Armenian origin who migrated from the northern province of Tokat and adopted the last name Tokatlıyan. The hotel was opened in 1897 with 160 rooms and hosted a number of celebrities, later becoming a favorite of Atatürk.

Emphasizing the significance of the Tokatlıyan-Pera in regard to architecture, Batur said: “It was such a popular building that the Orient Express would transport all of Europe’s high society and the elite to this hotel and elegant balls were held there. These balls would generate several stories for the world tabloid press as well as the Turkish press.”

Another branch of the Tokatlıyan-Pera called the Tokatlıyan-Therabia was situated on the Bosphorus at the exact location of the present-day Tarabya Hotel, Batur said.

Architectural history specialist Dr. Fatma Sedes said the Tokatlıyan-Pera was the apple of the eye of Istanbul and European elites, as well as other political figures. “It was a unique building that left its mark on Istanbul’s architecture,” she added.

via Atatürk’s favorite hotel still doomed – Hurriyet Daily News.

Thousands of Arabs joined the fight against Anzac troops in Gallipoli

Embark a vast army of Australians, New Zealanders, Brits, French and others east of Istanbul in order to smash “Johnny Turk”. Problem: the Turks fought back ferociously as Mustafa Kemal (later Ataturk, titan of the 20th century, etc) used his Turkish 19th Army Division to confront the invaders’ first wave. Problem two: most of the division were not Turks at all.

They were Arabs. Indeed, two-thirds of the first men to push back the Anzac forces were Syrian Arabs from what is today Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and “Palestine”. And of the 87,000 “Turkish” troops who died defending the Dardanelles, many were Arabs. As Palestinian Professor Salim Tamari now points out, the same applies to the Ottoman battles of Suez, Gaza and Kut al-Amara. In the hitherto unknown diary of Private Ihsan Turjman of the Ottoman Fourth Army – he would today be called a Palestinian Arab – there was nothing but scorn for those Arab delegations from Palestine and Syria who sent delegations “to salute the memory of our martyrs in this war and to visit the wounded”.

What, he asked in his secretly kept diary, were these Arabs playing at? “Do they mean to strengthen the relationship between the Arab and Turkish nations… truth be told, the Palestinian and Syrian people are a cowardly and submissive lot. For if they were not so servile, they would have revolted against these Turkish barbarians,” he wrote. This is stunning stuff.

Far more Arabs fought against the Allies on behalf of the Ottomans than ever joined Lawrence’s Arab revolt, but here is Private Turjman expressing fury at his masters.

Year of the Locust is an odd little book, terribly short but darkly fascinating, concentrating on the Great War diaries of three Ottoman soldiers, one of them an actual Turk, the others Palestinian Arabs. We are used to British and German soldiers’ accounts of the Great War; scarcely ever do we read of the personal lives of our Ottoman opponents. The Turjman family home, by extraordinary chance, is the very same Jerusalem building, in ruins since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war but now transformed into an art gallery, which I visited in Jerusalem just three weeks ago today.

In 1917, when Turjman was shot dead by an Ottoman officer, Palestinian Arabs were less concerned about the Balfour Declaration than whether the British would give them independence, annex them to Egypt or allow them a Syrian homeland. How wrong could they have been? Britain had no intention of adding to its Egyptian interests when it had already given its support to a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Later, as Tamari recounts, the lives of the other two diarists, one Turkish, the other Arab, would revolve around Palestinians who came to believe that it was Jewish immigration that would threaten their future. But it is the Great War that dominates their memoirs.

In the anti-Ottoman literature that permeated the Arab world (and the West) after the war, it is important to remember these Ottomans, Turkish or Arab. There is a touch of Robert Graves here. Turjman’s diary records the plague of locusts that settled upon Jerusalem, the cholera and typhus and the 50 Jerusalem prostitutes sent to entertain Turkish officers, the Ottoman troops hanged outside the Jaffa Gate for desertion, the Turkish aircraft that crashes (“badly trained pilots or badly maintained engines”). Turjman even has a crush on a married woman.

Long forgotten now are the Arab-Turkish Ottoman inmates of the Tsarist prison camp at Krasnoyarsk, in Russia, where Lieutenant Aref Shehadeh, born in Jerusalem in 1892, ended up. Islam united them; class divided them. But there were concerts, sports clubs, football teams, a camp library, a Great War version of all the stalags and oflags made famous in the Second World War. Come the Bolshevik revolution, Shehadeh high-tailed it back to the Middle East – via Manchuria, Japan, China, India and Egypt via the Red Sea.

But the most impressive text in this tiny book is not a diary but a letter from Shehadeh’s wife, Saema, in Jerusalem when, 30 years later, he had set off for Gaza as a British mandate officer. “I woke up early this morning,” she writes. “I walked around in the garden for a while. I picked up some flowers and leaves. I picked up some beans to cook for myself. While I was milling around, you were always on my mind. It is your presence that makes this garden beautiful.

“Nothing has a taste without you. May God not deprive me of your presence, for it is you who makes my (our) life beautiful. When you left us last time I noticed that you had a little cold. I am thinking about it. Let me know about your health. Your life’s partner, who loves you with all her heart. Saema.” Now that’s quite a love letter to get from your wife.

via Robert Fisk: Great War secrets of the Ottoman Arabs – Robert Fisk, Commentators – The Independent.

ISTANBUL // Six decades after it came into force, a law protecting the memory of the republic’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk still has the power to rock careers, trigger prison sentences and block access to YouTube.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk inspects troops at an officer's training school in Constantinople in 1926. Bettmann / Corbis

Earlier this year, a court in eastern Anatolia acquitted Ahmet Ayicil, a professor who faced up to three years in prison. He had been charged for allegedly saying in his class that Ataturk was a heathen “idol”.

Denounced in 2007 by a student who did not attend the class personally, Prof Ayicil went through a lengthy trial based on Law Number 5816, a special provision that makes it a crime to “denigrate the memory of Ataturk”. Destroying, damaging or desecrating Ataturk busts or monuments carries sentences of up to five years.

The court found Prof Ayicil not guilty because of a lack of evidence. But in 2008, Atilla Yayla, another professor, was given a suspended sentence of 15 months in prison for criticising Kemalism, a secularist ideology based on Ataturk, and for telling a public forum that the EU, which Turkey wants to join, would be wondering why there were “pictures of this man” in every Turkish office.

The law was passed by Turkey’s parliament on July 25, 1951, and came into effect six days later. A former general of the Ottoman army who is credited with erecting Turkey’s republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1920s, Ataturk is a national hero for most Turks. His portrait hangs in every school and public office and is routinely shown during public functions. Sometimes referred to as the “great leader” in official speeches, Ataturk’s image adorns coins and lira bills.

But while Turks in general revere Ataturk, who died in 1938, some wonder whether the time has come to abolish or amend regulations like Law No 5816 because they limit free expression and are unsuitable for a modern democracy.

“It is not a modern law,” Halil Dogan, the president of the Democratic Lawyers Association, a group of lawyers campaigning for democratic reform, said in a telephone interview this week. “Of course everybody should be protected against denigration, but Turkey’s current laws are sufficient for that.”

Mr Dogan stressed that, as with every law, the interpretation and implementation of Law No 5816 was the key. Several high-profile investigations and decisions by prosecutors and courts, based on suspected defamations of Ataturk’s legacy, have been denounced as attempts to stifle critics.

One of the most controversial cases was a verdict blocking nationwide access to YouTube on the grounds that it included a video denigrating Ataturk. The ban was lifted in October last year, two-and-a-half years after it came into effect, because the video clip was erased. “The YouTube interpretation [of the law] was definitely a step against the freedom of speech,” Mr Dogan said.

In another example that made headlines, Ipek Calislar, a writer, was tried in Istanbul for writing in a book that Ataturk disguised himself as a woman once to escape a planned attempt on his life. Ms Calislar was acquitted in 2006.

Three years later, Can Dundar, a journalist and filmmaker, was questioned by prosecutors after complaints against Mustafa, a documentary about Ataturk’s life that depicted him as a sometimes lonely man who drank alcohol. A comic book titled Genc Mustafa, or Young Mustafa, which included a scene in which Ataturk was beaten as a young man, triggered a trial against the publishers earlier this year. The case is ongoing.

But Mr Dogan said he was confident that the law may be changed because Turkey, which has brought in several reforms for its EU bid, was strengthening the rights of its citizens. “I think that freedom of speech will be widened, I see a chance to change the law,” he said.

The issue of Ataturk’s legacy is expected to come up during talks about a new constitution for Turkey, due to begin after parliament returns from its recess on October 1. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as well as the two biggest opposition parties have formed committees to prepare for the talks, the daily Vatan reported this week.

Turkey’s constitution was drawn up under military rule in 1982 and is widely considered outdated and anti-democratic. One of the problems facing lawmakers, academics and non-governmental groups discussing the new constitution is the question of whether the reference to “Ataturk nationalism” as the state ideology should be included in the new text.

Some legal experts of the AKP have suggested that the new constitution should be free of references to “Ataturk nationalism”, Kemalism or other ideologies. But the secularist Republican People’s Party, the main opposition party, has said it wants to keep the first three paragraphs, which describe Turkey as a republic committed, among other things, to “Ataturk nationalism”.

tseibert@thenational.ae

via Some Turks ready to abolish law that protects memory of Ataturk – The National.

August 19, 2011

As the grandson of Russell Boardman, I enjoyed reading Ms. Roscoe’s review of the premiere showing of Cape Cod over Istanbul [Aug. 5, 2011: “When Cape Cod Flew to Istanbul”]. Overall, I found the article to be informative and well-written, but I must take exception to the rather careless and erroneous parenthetical remark regarding Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s role in what happened in Armenia in 1915 (and not in 1918 as stated in the article) and the implication that Boardman and Polando were probably aware of Ataturk’s alleged role in this unfortunate episode of modern Turkish-Armenian history.

I highly recommend reading Andrew Mango’s magnificent biography of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Ataturk was intensely engaged during 1915 as the commander of the Anafartalar Group in the gruesome defense of the Gallipoli peninsula (on the other size of Asia Minor from Armenia) while the decision to deport the Armenians from eastern Anatolia was taken by the CUP leadership in Istanbul in April 1915. If blame is to be assigned to the Turkish leadership of the day for the consequences of this decision, then the CUP leadership, in particular, Talat Pasha and Enver Pasha, bear far more responsibility for what happened than Ataturk.

It is unfortunate that too many Americans today are unfamiliar with the character and accomplishments of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. No man did more for the right of women to participate as equals in a modern secular republic in whose creation, out of the ashes of a despotic and crumbling Ottoman empire, he played an enormous role. Nor did anyone embrace with more passion and conviction such western notions as the separation of religion and state, the rule of law, and the reliance upon modern science rather than myth and superstition in making decisions regarding the public good.

Why would a bitter rival from Greece during the 1921-1923 Turkish war of independence (Eleftherios Venizelos) later, as Prime Minister of Greece, nominate Ataturk for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1934? Why would Boardman and Polando choose to fly to Istanbul and be received by Ataturk if they thought that he might have been responsible for what happened in Armenia in 1915? I would be interested to hear Ms. Roscoe’s answers to these questions and her thoughts on these matters.

Russell Teglas

Arlington

via The Barnstable Patriot – LETTERS: Setting the record straight.

Even for a television talk show, it was an extraordinary claim.

During his January 1, 2000, end-of-the-millennium broadcast, “McLaughlin Group” host John McLaughlin declared that his award for “the Person of the Full Millennium” went to the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a “Muslim visionary who … abolished the Ottoman sultanate … emancipated women … the only leader in history to successfully turn a Muslim nation into a Western parliamentary democracy and secular state.

Quite a claim, but fact supports it. Ataturk’s pragmatic approach to modernizing a nation devastated by World War I and subsequent regional violence has real resonance for Arab Spring 2011′s continuing drama. Ataturk left Turkey with a democratic political structure, and Turkey’s democracy is his still evolving legacy. This “Turkish Model” influences contemporary Arab modernizers.

However, last month’s resignation of Turkey’s most senior military officers is indicative of Turkey’s domestic political struggles, as well as its internal battles over what Ataturk’s vision means in the 21st century. From the staunch Turkish secularist point of view, the resignations marked the bitter end of Ataturk’s separation of mosque and state and the stealthy return of Islamist tyranny.

Ataturk used the Turkish military as an instrument for modernizing the nation; the Turkish military committed itself to protecting republican Turkey’s secular political system. The leaders of the Justice and Development Party (AKP, Turkey’s governing moderate Islamist political organization) claim the resignations demonstrate that they are solidifying civilian control over the military — that’s how democracies do it — and therefore forwarding Ataturk’s visionary goals.

Princeton foreign affairs professor Sukru Hanioglu’s new book, “Ataturk: An Intellectual Biography” (Princeton University Press, 2011), provides clarifying insight in this unsettled moment.

Hanioglu explores the ideas that stimulated Ataturk’s mind and political imagination and influenced the modernization program he pursued in Turkey after 1923.

Hanioglu’s Ataturk is not a “sagelike dispenser of wisdom” (the Ataturk cult-of-personality narrative) but a very “down-to-earth leader who strove to realize a vision not depending on any one ideology but by utilizing a range of sources.”

Ataturk’s hometown, Salonika (Greek Thessalonica), was a cultural amalgam — a seaport with Greek, Slavic, Turkish and Jewish communities mixing and clashing. The city was as eclectic as Ataturk’s intellectual influences, which included H.G. Wells, Thomas Henry Huzley and Gustave Le Bon. Ataturk blended diverse and often contradictory influences; Hanioglu notes that Ataturk was influenced by both authoritarian doctrines and Enlightenment liberalism. The political expression of this eclecticism — at times utilitarian, at times expedient — was a “nationalism sanctified by science.”

Ataturk built on the work of 19th-century Ottoman Empire modernizers who “embraced a modernity within the parameters of an international civilization.” Hanioglu argues that Ataturk’s philosophical eclecticism and his pursuit of goals advocated by previous Turkish modernizers in no way diminishes Ataturk’s political achievement. Ataturk’s creative genius was creative, transformative leadership.

Yet, even Ataturk never fully bridged the “tension between the traditional and the modern” that was evident in the late 19th century Ottoman Empire. The AKP’s scrap with the Turkish military reflects this tension. (At one point, Hanioglu notes that Ataturk believed “the crude intervention of the military in politics” would ultimately harm the military as an institution.)

Arguably, the AKP itself — if we can take their leaders at their word — is an attempt to further the process of harmonizing Turkish Muslim social values and secular electoral politics. Mob confrontations between liberalizers and Muslim Brotherhood extremists in Cairo’s Tahrir Square are an anarchic expression of this tension in the Arab Muslim context. Libya’s chaotic civil war takes the tension further into the abyss of violence and uncertainty.

These current conflicts attest to the continuing value of Ataturk’s Turkish achievement.

Austin Bay is a syndicated columnist.

via Ataturk’s vision for Turkey slowly diminishing | Sun Journal.

It has been a fashion in Turkish media in recent years to question and attack the ideology and accomplishments of Kemal Atatürk – a hero figure for the vast majority of Turks. Columnist Mustafa Akyol, who writes in Turkish Daily News, and who for years has been trying to discredit Atatürk, is one such media personalty.

This disturbing trend gained acceptance in certain journalistic circles within the past decade, in particular after the AK Party’s second electoral victoy in 2007. The growing influence of the Gülen Movement has given impetus to the Atatürk-bashing trend.

The attack comes mostly from radical conservatives and idealogs – some outright religious bigots -that cannot make peace with Atatürk’s legacy. These critics typically yearn for a “Second Turkish Republic” that have the markings of a bygone Ottoman era. In a conference held 3 months ago at the Kadir Has University in Istanbul, for example, Mr. Akyol reportedly expressed preference for the “democracy” of the Ottoman era!

The putative reason for Atatürk’s failing, according to these circles, is that Atatürk was anti-Islam, depriving Turks of the freedom to practice their faith. There are even some critics who castigate Atatürk for abolishing Caliphate.

It would be unrealistic to expect these critics, being imbued by religious prejudice, to appreciate what Atatürk has accomplished. Many of these critics like Mr. Akyol are apologists if not the products of the Gülen Movement, and they advocate an Islamist Turkey instead of a secular one. Most of them have joined hands with quack Creationists that assault Darwin’s Evolution Theory. All because it doesn’t fit with their religious dogma.

To realize the hollowness of their arguments, and why Atatürk was not anti-Islam, these opponents should read the works of such researchers as Sinan Meydan (e.g., “Cumhuriyet Tarihi Yalanları”) and Professor Ethem Ruhi Fiğlalı (e.g., “Atatürk And The Religion of Islam”). They will learn, for example, that Atatürk tried to free Islam from the shackles of dogma and advanced the notion that religion is a matter between an individual and God. This is also what Islam teaches. Atatürk eschewed “false prophets” that stood between man and God. He held that Islam should be in conformity with reason and logic. He sponsored the construction of mosques in Tokyo and Paris.

These are not the hallmarks of a leader who was anti-religion or anti-Islam.

But Atatürk’s accomplishments go far beyond religion: He freed the Turkish nation from the shackles of imperialism and introduced reforms toward a civil society, science and modernity – from alphabet to secularism to women’s rights. Thanks to his reforms, the decadence and backwardness of the waning years of the Ottoman Empire was left behind.

It was a call for the Turkish nation to catch up with the West in science and modernity. Turks could still practice their religion, but the State did not adopt or sponsor a particular religion.

If the opponents of Atatürk like Mr. Akyol are breathing freedom in Turkey today, they owe it to the leadership of Atatürk.

If Turkey has any realistic hopes to join the EU, it is because a measure of westernization that Atatürk’s reforms have ushered in. (Reversals in recent years notwithstanding ).

The secular establishment Atatürk founded – through the Republic – was requisite for democratization in Turkey.

It was for good reason that Professor Arnold M. Ludwig of Kentucky University, after 18 years of study of the world leaders of the 20^th century (“King of the Mountain”), picked Atatürk as the top winner among the contestants. That makes Atatürk a towering figure in world history. Opponents of Atatürk would do well to read that seminal book.

And it is also remarkable that the Greek Premier Eleftherios Venizelos, a former enemy of Turkey, nominated Atatürk for the 1934 Nobel Peace Prize.

The bigotry and ignorance of these opponents – pathetic as they are in their efforts – could be ignored if it were not for the fact that they regularly pontificate in printed and visual media. It is lamentable that these opponents do not show greater respect for the legacy of a visionary figure beloved by the vast majority of Turkish people. In no major newspaper in the U.S., for example, would one find derogatory remarks about George Washington.

Notwithstanding, there is little doubt that Atatürk will remain a towering historical figure among Turks. Reactionary forces that resist change and want to hold on to the past will not hold the Turkish nation hostage to their hatred and bigotry.

The West fought a hard and grueling battle for Enlightenment, and it eventually won. Turkey eventually will also win; for it must. This is what progress is about.

ATATURK SOCIETIES OF USA AND THE UNITED KINGDOM STRONGLY OPPOSE

THE TURKISH RULING PARTY’S DECLARED INTENTION
TO CHANGE “TURKEY’S FOUNDING PRINCIPLES” PROTECTED BY THE CURRENT CONSTITUTION

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, PUBLICLY STATED its intention to change the Turkish Constitution right after the General Elections, scheduled for June 12, 2011.  Erdogan is asking  voters to enable him to come back to the Turkish Parliament with at least 367 deputies so that he can CHANGE THE TURKISH CONSTITUTION UNILATERALLY.

Erdogan is basing his arguments for a “new constitution” on his party’s desire to have a “more democratic and civil” constitution.  This is a disguise of his real intention to change “THE FOUNDING PRINCIPLES OF TURKEY”, explained in the PREAMBLE and enshrined in the FIRST FOUR articles of the CURRENT CONSTITUTION.

The letter and the spirit of the “preamble” and the “irrevocable first four articles” of the current Constitution reflect Ataturk’s philosophy and vision of a “PRO-WESTERN, MODERN, SECULAR, and DEMOCRATIC TURKEY, governed by the RULE OF LAW, EQUALITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE, its NATIONAL UNITY AND INTERESTS DEFENDED.  These founding principles have been protected throughout several amendments of the Constitution since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923.

The AKP wants to Change Ataturk’s Philosophy and Vision

Since coming to power in 2002, the “Islamist AKP” has gradually but increasingly moved away from the Republic’s founding principles and national identity.  Numerous foreign observers as well as many Turks are convinced that the AKP is trying to transform Turkey into an Iranian-style Islamic state.  Despite its occasional official denials, the AKP’s actions and media statements demonstrate its clear intentions. Most recently, on May 10, 2011, a prominent AKP leader and a State Minister told the Turkish Press openly that “the only irrevocable article in the Turkish Constitution was Article 1, that Turkey was a ‘Republic’. All other articles, he said, could be (and will be !”) changed” once AKP has enough number of deputies in the Parliament. Today, even with less than 367 deputies, the AKP firmly controls the country’s  legislative and executive branches and already took control of the judiciary by appointing AKP-sympathetic prosecutors and judges.  Security forces are transformed into an oppression machine against opponents and protesters.  Academia is silenced by replacing university presidents.

TURKEY’S PRO-WESTERN identity and image have already been tarnished. Initially, the AKP renounced its Islamic heritage and began working to secure European Union(EU)-membership, and turn Turkey into an even more liberal and pro-Western state.  However, more than eight years later, the AKP seems anything but pro-Western, liberal and democratic !  It has returned firmly to its Islamist roots.  Erdogan has openly played the “Islamist card” in order to boost himself and his political party, and establish greater dominance in the “Islamic world”.  Under the AKP rule, liberal political trends have quickly disappeared and EU accession talks have stalled. In foreign policy, relations with the West and Israel have deteriorated.  President Gul and Erdogan spent more time visiting Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Syria and Egypt, and hosted a series of anti-Western leaders  including Sudan’s president Al-Bashir when the Hague International tribunal was accusing Al-Bashir committing atrocities in Darfur.  Al-Bashir, who received a warm welcome from Erdogan, was defending the implementation of Sheria Law in resolving the Darfur conflict.  Turkey’s foreign policy has shifted decidedly towards the East and promoted solidarity with Islamist, anti-Western regimes.

SECULARISM has been denied and ignored…  Erdogan’s famous quote “one can not be a Moslem and secular at the same time” best explains his political philosophy and intentions…Under the AKP rule, religiosity in Turkey has increased markedly. The government began to hire top bureaucrats from an exclusive pool of religious candidates and the percentage of women in executive positions in government, dropped sharply. Religious observance has become a necessity for those seeking government appointments or lucrative state contracts.  Bureaucrats in Ankara now feel compelled to attend Friday prayers lest they be by passed for promotions.  Turkey today has over 85,000 active mosques, one for every 350 citizens, the highest per capita in the world, compared to one hospital for every 60,000 citizens, with 90,000 imams, more imams than doctors or teachers.  It has opened up thousands of madrasa-like Imam-Hatip schools and about four thousand more official, state-run Qur’an courses.  Spending by the government’s Directorate of Religious Affairs has grown five fold from 553 trillion Turkish liras in 2002 to 2.7 quadrillion Turkish liras (about US$325 million), during the first four years of the AKP government. The Directorate has a larger budget than 8 other ministries combined. The objective is to train people for every position in the public service in the country.  The AKP has also fought very hard, though unsuccessfully, to lift the ban on “head scarves” in schools and government offices.
Erdogan’s desire to change the Constitution unilaterally and his disrespect for secularism may lead to a turnaround in Turkey’s founding principles, and put the country under governance by Islamic Sheria Law.

DEMOCRACY and FREEDOMS have been severely restricted.  The mysterious Ergenekon case has become the largest and most controversial judicial investigation in recent Turkish history.  Hundreds of people, mostly opponents of AKP and Erdogan,  including the high-ranking Army officers, famous journalists, writers, artists, university professors, and heads of modern, secular civil societies have been detained, mostly in multiple simultaneous dawn raids by members of the Counterterrorism Department of the Turkish National Police (TNP).  They are tried under detention that has been going on for  more than three years without any sign of conclusion.  None of the detainees has been  convicted, yet.

At the same time, severe restrictions have been put on “freedom of speech” and “freedom of press”. On April 2010, Turkey’s Justice Minister said that police intelligence listens to the private conversations of 70,000 people; almost one in every 1,000 Turks live in police scrutiny today.  Turkey also ranks at the bottom of the list in Western Europe with regard to the “freedom of press”.  The President of Turkish Journalists Union (TGS) complained that there are thousands of cases filed against journalists, more than hundred filed by Erdogan alone.  Currently about 100 Turkish journalists are in jail.  One of them was arrested even before the book was published, for authoring a book that investigates the grip on Turkish politics of a religious group.  The police seized and burned the unpublished book, while imposing a ban on its internet accessibility. Working closely with the PM’s office, the Turkish Telecom and Communication Ministry (TIB) put thousands of wire tabs on political rivals and  introduced censorship on “Google” and  “YouTube” many times.  TIB recently announced its intention to impose, more restrictions on internet.  The great majority of the independent media, critical of the government, were forced through unclear legal reasons to sell their businesses, daily newspapers and TV stations to AKP supporters.  As a result, the share of Turkish media held by religious, pro-AKP groups rose from about 20 to over 65 percent, at present. In these sale transactions, large credits were granted to AKP supporters from state-owned banks. Furthermore, the Public Procurement Law was amended several times and thresholds for tenders reduced steadily to avoid competitive bidding and allow sales to AKP supporters.

We oppose to any change in Turkey’s “Founding Principles and Vision”

We, the members of the Ataturk Societies of USA and the United Kingdom, STRONGLY OPPOSE  AKP’s plan to change the constitution and remove the “founding principles of Turkey” from its text.  Even with these principles in place in current Constitution, the AKP has moved ahead with its Islamist agenda and already tarnished Turkey’s pro-Western, modern, secular and democratic identity and image.  With the removal of Ataturk’s philosophy and vision from the Constitution, it would be harder, if not impossible,  to prevent Turkey’s slide into an  anti-Western, anti-Democratic, and anti-Secular Islamist  state.*

References:
1.  Turkish Constitutional Court Documents. (Ankara ) May 27, 2011;
2.  “Degismez Maddeler Degisebilir !” Bulent Arinc, Radikal (Istanbul) May 10, 2011
3.  “The Islamists Show Their Hand” and “Abandoning Ataturk”, Soner Cagaptay,
Newsweek, Feb.14, 2009 and Newsweek, Sept. 19, 2009
4.  “Sayilarla Kendine Gelmek…” Can Dundar, Milliyet (Istanbul), June 22, 2007
5.  “Turkey’s Turning Point”, Michael Rubin, Apr. 14, 2008
6.  “Ergenekon – Between Fact or Fantasy”, Gareth H. Jenkins, Silk Road Papers, Aug.2009
7.  “Corruption in Public Procurement – Turkey “Global Integrity Report, 2008

“One language, one flag, one motherland,” reads a choreographed formation of Kuleli military cadets who performed for May 19 Youth and Sports Day ceremonies.

Thursday was May 19, the anniversary of the beginning of the War of Independence, marked as the day Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk landed in Samsun in 1919, and militarism was at the forefront once again on this day, celebrated in Turkey as Atatürk Commemoration and Youth and Sports Day.

High school students, who had been practicing for days, paraded in perfect order in military formations in stadiums across Turkey and performed athletic routines. Troops also paraded, with generals attending the ceremonies in big cities alongside of politicians. Many writers believe that the images are unworthy of a democratic nation, noting that national days are celebrated in this fashion only in currently or previously communist countries that have not fully democratized such as China, Cuba or Russia. “Why are we still holding fascist-looking ceremonies on May 19?” asked Mümtaz’er Türköne, a columnist for the Zaman daily, in his column on Thursday.

“This must be the definition of dogmatism. Repeating the same thing every year without ever questioning it, without ever reflecting on its real meaning, doing the same thing every year religiously as a pair of oxen plowing the field would. Our May 19 celebrations were taken from the fascist Italy of 1932. Why aren’t we even thinking of changing how we do this?”

He says young people putting on uncomplicated gymnastics performances on fields in stadiums was introduced in 1932, when a delegation led by Prime Minister İsmet İnönü visited Moscow and Rome, where they were impressed by the ways in which Mussolini’s Italy and Stalin’s Russia raised their youth.

Journalist Mehmet Altan says that the military parades on national days are usually associated with dictatorial regimes. Since the regime of Turkey was set up by the military, which sees itself as the protector and custodian of the regime, “There is a constant glorification of the military.” He points to phrases in Turkish, such as “Every Turk is born a soldier,” that to

He also noted that the ways national days have been celebrated haven’t changed, not in the slightest, from the ways they were celebrated in the first decade of the republic. For this to change, Altan said, political parties should make an effort to change the mentality. “The regime is not democratic, but there are no efforts to transform it into a democracy because the military-politics relationship has turned into a field for profit. The General Staff cannot be brought under the supervision of the National Defense Ministry. Those who actually propose this are only doing so in return for political gains.”

Tansel Parlak, from the Young Civilians, a civil society group that promotes de-militarization of politics, said Turkey should start celebrating May 19 in a more civilian manner.

“For this mentality to change, civil society organizations and political parties should speak up. Firstly, people who are delivering speeches in May 19 ceremonies should think of this themselves. Most probably, they attended those ceremonies as young people. Did they ever listen to politicians when they were stuffed into stadiums? Somebody should bravely make this point, although he might become the target of unjust criticism, such as accusations of not wanting to celebrate May 19 or commemorate Atatürk at all. Turkey is one of the world’s biggest economies — it is negotiating for EU membership. Celebrations done like ours can be seen in North Korea and China. Turkey should make up its mind — is it going to go on with this mentality, or will it choose to be more democratic?”

On May 19, 1919, Atatürk, who would become modern Turkey’s first president, landed on the main peninsula of Turkey lead the liberation effort. In early 1920, Atatürk convened the first Turkish Grand National Assembly (Parliament) in Ankara and by 1922 all of Anatolia was freed from foreign rule. The independent Republic of Turkey was declared a year later. During the course of his term as president, Atatürk himself proclaimed May 19 “Youth and Sports Day.” In the aftermath of Atatürk’s monumental legacy, the day serves to honor the country’s founder as well.

via Zaman