In the front of every classroom, a framed photo of Atatürk hangs on the wall. A picture of him and a quote graces the front of every school textbook. In the courtyard of every school, there is a statue of him next to the flag. About half the Turkish flags I see hanging on buildings around town have his face on them as well (and some of them are just his face). His signature, in bumper sticker form, is on the vast majority of cars I see driving around and a disturbing number of Turkish youth have it tattooed somewhere on their body. People are horrified when I tell them that we don't learn about Atatürk in our history classes in the US and that I had never heard of him before I started researching Turkey.
Since I'm guessing most of you have no idea who Atatürk is, I will tell you what I know. Atatürk is considered by the Turks to be the founder of modern Turkey (Atatürk literally translates to father of the Turks). He was an officer in the Turkish army during World War I and the Turkish Independence wars and was instrumental in the Turks gaining their independence. After establishing their independence, Atatürk began to make reforms to the country in an effort to make it into a modern country. He switched the alphabet from Arabic script to the Latin alphabet, declared Turkey a secular country, and changed the system of government. His belief was that in order for Turkey to become a modern country, they needed to become more Western, both politically and culturally. Atatürk was the first president and prime minister of Turkey and eventually passed away on November 10, 1938.
This past Monday was November 10, so I figured there would be some mention of his death but I was not expecting what actually went on. Starting Sunday night, there were commercials of his picture and dates of his life with various quotes and sad music. On Monday, I arrived at school at the same time as one of the school buses and I couldn't figure out why everyone getting off the bus was carrying flowers. I wondered what memo I had missed this time but quickly figured out when everyone put the flowers on his statue/shrine in the courtyard at school. Then, after our first class, we all went back to the courtyard and got to stand in lines for over an hour while a ceremony commemorating his death ensued. For the American who doesn't understand Turkish, this was a little bit boring because most of it was speeches about everything he did and his life. The few things I was able to pick out made me want to laugh (like one kids impassioned "Ben Mustafa Kemal Atatürk" meaning "I am Mustafa Kemal Atatürk) but that would have gotten me a lot of dirty looks. There was also the singing of many songs about Atatürk and a very strange experience when everyone started simultaneously yelling things about Atatürk after the national anthem and I was left awkwardly standing there very confused. It was a very interesting experience to see just how much these people love Atatürk and my classmates were happy because they had their history exam that day and were saying how listening to the speeches was just like studying.
Even though it has been more than 75 years since he died, I still hear his name nearly every day (granted my history class is just the history of Atatürk, but still). People here love him for all the things he did for their country and I don't think that they will ever stop loving him the way they do now.
A terrible photo, but this is what all the flags with Atatürk's face on them look like. You can see these all over the place.
The shrine thing in my school courtyard decorated with all the flowers people brought.
The flags hanging on my school for November 10.
I hope this gave you a little insight into the intense love of Atatürk in Turkey, whether or not you wanted it. As always thanks for reading! I hope you have a good week wherever you are! Hoşçakal!
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