The Two Faces of Kemal Ataturk Konstantinos Paschalidis* The National Herald May 13-14, 2000 Mustafa Kemal is a name not very known in the Western Hemisphere. Yet, in Turkey, he is given the title of Ataturk, which means the Father of the Turks, and he is considered the symbol of modern Turkey. Kemal is best known for the reforms he made in Turkey in the early 20th century. In Turkish textbooks he is described as a saint and a role model for all to follow. Kemals sweeping reforms of the language and womens rights earned him a place in Turkish history. He was born in 1881 in Thessaloniki, Greece, which at the time was Ottoman territory. His father, Ali Riza was a lumber merchant who died when Kemal was still a boy. His mothers name was Zubeyde. Kemal attended military school in 1893 and graduated from the academy in 1905 with the rank of Staff Captain. He plotted against and helped topple the Sultan during his service in Damascus. In 1915 Kemal was promoted to a General after helping win important battles in the Dardanelles. On May 19, 1919 he defied the Sultans followers and fought for independence from the allies. And on April 23, 1920, Turkey was to inaugurate a man who would begin an ethnic cleansing run through Turkey and remove all traces of Greece and Christianity in a land that had been Greek for over 3000 years. Kemal tried to Westernize Turkey. He wore western suits as opposed to traditional dress and converted the Arabic-style alphabet into Latin. He helped make monogamy illegal and gave women more rights than they previously had. He made more reforms in schools and education and saved the economy from ruin. But, its what we know little about that has brought me to expose this hero and look deeper into his radical changes. One of Kemals reforms included the purification of Turkey from its Christians, who had been living there two thousand years before him. The Christians that lived in Turkey were primarily Armenians, who lived in the northeastern part of the country, and Pontians, who lived in northwestern Turkey. In 1924, 3,000,000 Christian-Turks went MIA. Those who survived left and can be found throughout the world. Those who stayed are probably buried deep in the earth as a symbol of Kemals success in ethnic cleansing. The plan was to execute every last Christian and starve those who tried to flee. It was set up and executed by Kemal and his second in command Enver Pasha. The Turkish people were behind him all the way. They didnt need to be persuaded to kill the Pontians and Armenians because they felt superior and despised them. The holocaust that followed was horrible. The late Maria Symeonidou, a Pontian survivor, gave her account of the events to an Australian newspaper three years ago. A warning came from a Turk that the next day Topal Osman would be coming....those who left survived, but those who didnt were killed...Osman had caught 350 men from neighboring villages and had them bound, murdered and thrown in the river...I remember the echo of the shots. They were hauling bodies by oxcart for nine days to bury them. Most bodies were unrecognizable because their heads had been cut off. Around Easter 1920 the Turkish Army told us to take everything we could and leave. On the deportation march the Turkish guards would rape women, one of whom fell pregnant. The pregnant girl gave birth to twins and the Turks cut the newborns in half and threw them into the river. In the Teloukta area, half the group was lost from a snowstorm while others died in Sous-Yiazousou from thirst, she said. Another holocaust story passed down to me was that of my great-grandfathers Isaac Paschalidis. A Turk whom he knew very well told him that the Turks were coming to his village the next day and were going to wipe out the villagers. My great-grandfather informed his friends and left alone, heading north towards Russia. The 19 year old had traveled on foot from Turkey to Russia and successfully escaped the Turks. After the Holocaust he moved to Greece and settled there never to return to his homeland again, and knowing that most of his close friends were massacred. Out of the 700,000 Pontians, 400,000 were killed and the rest fled to all parts of the world, mainly Russia, Greece, the US, South Africa and Australia. Kemal designed and executed the first holocaust of the 20th century. Its reasoning was similar to Hitlers in World War II -- religious and racial purification. But, unfortunately for its victims, this holocaust never officially occurred. The Turkish government denies having killed a single Christian, and instead has claimed merely to have relocated them. And so a man who has killed millions is considered a hero in the same world where a man who has killed one is considered a criminal. The Armenians and The Pontians see Kemal as the first Fuhrer of the century. Innocent people were persecuted because of their beliefs, and the world stood silent. What makes this experience even worse is that we dont learn about it. And if its not taught then it will be forgotten. Kemal may have saved Turkey from ruin, but he is also guilty of the worst crimes against humanity while in the eyes of Turks he is the most humane of all. Turkey maintains to this day an official policy of denial, where they claim national security measures. They claim that the holocaust was a relocation of people from war zones, and a consequence of the war with Czarist Russia. And all this despite the volumes of German, English, and american documents testifying to the pre-planned nature of the holocaust by Ottoman and Kemalist Turks. Germany has confronted its genocidal past and apologized to its victims of World War II. Turkey continues to refuse and continues to praise the architect of this holocaust, Mustafa Kemal. It is a tragedy for all those who suffered not to get compensated, and its most likely that the very few holocaust survivors are still living amongst us. Hopefully one day the world will open its eyes, the Turkish government will admit to being responsible for the millions dead and the victims can rest in peace. And perhaps the people who have praised Mustafa Kemal will finally realize what he has done and maybe apologize to the victims and denounce him. Those who lived in the terror knew the real Mustafa Kemal, and would not believe that he is considered a hero to anyone in todays world. *The writer, a Greek American of Pontian descent, is a student at the Bronx High School of Science in New York.
Posted on: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 12:19:52 +0000
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