I seriously cannot understand your insistence on this "deragotary" depiction. Turks adore the guy and if they wish to portray him as better, more handsome, and all around more positive than he ever way, that is their choice.
Depends on how you define "derogatory". Apparently even translating a book critical of Ataturk must be met with imprisonment. Especially when the book is a best seller and people (turkish people) are reading it.. Kind of sends a "shot across the bow" of the general population. Read, but be advised we (the government) won't tolerate criticism of Ataturk's legacy.. I wonder if that law is due to be changed or eliminated soon?
The problem with relying upon "cults of personality" to invigorate or proliferate an ideology is that they still depend upon a "pseudo-deification" of the originator of that ideology. The ideas and goals of those ideals are not separated from the man who implemented and institutionalized them. It is the love of the originator, and not necessarily his ideals, which motivates people to adher to his vision.
Thus, when criticism of Ataturk inevitably enters into public discussion, this guilded perception of his legacy is tarnished, and by default, so are the ideals he attempted to convey.
That's generally why one seldom sees "cults of personality" in the US (outside of Hollywood.. :0), let alone our political system. The closest thing that I can recall is JFK and "Camelot", or Chicago mayor, William Daley as "Boss"... There is a semblance of COP with the founders of the American republic, but the ideals they implemented generally stand independent of their own individual personalities (and any personal failings)..
It's a VERY dangerous concept to permit a nation's government to continue idealizing a human being as if the ideals sprang from him, rather than his having implemented ideals that ALREADY existed in other western countries.
Destroy the man and you destroy everything he envisioned and stood for. And I dare say that this is possibly what might be happening in Turkey this day as the Islamists find themselves gaining popular appeal once again..
Ataturk is probably rolling over in his grave at the notion of Islamists running the Turkish government.
Hawk |
