WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.399 Welcome back to The Deep Dive. Today we are tackling 00:00:02.399 --> 00:00:06.519 a subject that is genuinely massive. I mean, 00:00:06.540 --> 00:00:08.279 we are talking about a figure who isn't just 00:00:08.279 --> 00:00:10.960 a part of history. He quite literally defines 00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:14.539 the present for an entire nation. That's absolutely 00:00:14.539 --> 00:00:16.359 right. You really can't walk down a street, open 00:00:16.359 --> 00:00:18.620 a wallet, or walk into a government office in 00:00:18.620 --> 00:00:21.559 Turkey without seeing his face. Not an exaggeration 00:00:21.559 --> 00:00:24.600 in the slightest. We are looking at Mustafa Kemal 00:00:24.600 --> 00:00:27.589 Ataturk. And to say he's the founder of the Republic 00:00:27.589 --> 00:00:30.230 of Turkey is true, but it almost feels like an 00:00:30.230 --> 00:00:32.850 understatement. He's the architect of modern 00:00:32.850 --> 00:00:35.840 Turkey's entire psyche. Exactly. The architect. 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:37.740 I was reading through the source material and 00:00:37.740 --> 00:00:40.579 it just struck me. This guy is on every single 00:00:40.579 --> 00:00:43.140 banknote. His portrait is in every classroom, 00:00:43.280 --> 00:00:45.700 every government office. There are statues of 00:00:45.700 --> 00:00:48.380 him in every town square. It feels less like 00:00:48.380 --> 00:00:51.340 historical reverence and more like a ubiquitous 00:00:51.340 --> 00:00:53.939 living presence. Almost like a form of secular 00:00:53.939 --> 00:00:56.460 sainthood. Yes. That's the perfect phrase for 00:00:56.460 --> 00:00:58.960 it. And that's really what makes this deep dive 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:01.890 so fascinating. Our mission today is to understand 00:01:01.890 --> 00:01:04.950 how one man took a crumbling, centuries -old 00:01:04.950 --> 00:01:08.329 Islamic empire, the Ottoman Empire, and in the 00:01:08.329 --> 00:01:11.329 span of roughly 15 years dragged it, sometimes 00:01:11.329 --> 00:01:14.030 kicking and screaming, into becoming a secular, 00:01:14.069 --> 00:01:17.569 modern nation -state. And it's not just a simple 00:01:17.569 --> 00:01:21.109 hero story, right? the sources we have. I mean, 00:01:21.129 --> 00:01:23.269 they paint a very, very complex picture. Oh, 00:01:23.290 --> 00:01:25.250 incredibly complex. We've got a comprehensive 00:01:25.250 --> 00:01:28.250 biographical and historical overview here covering 00:01:28.250 --> 00:01:31.269 his military career, his reforms, but also the 00:01:31.269 --> 00:01:34.510 the controversies because and this is the tension 00:01:34.510 --> 00:01:37.010 we really need to explore. He championed Western 00:01:37.010 --> 00:01:39.469 democracy. He was always talking about the sovereignty 00:01:39.469 --> 00:01:42.250 of the people. Right. But to get there, he ruled 00:01:42.250 --> 00:01:45.049 as a single party leader who. you know, brutally 00:01:45.049 --> 00:01:47.450 suppressed opposition. Precisely. It's the central 00:01:47.450 --> 00:01:50.090 paradox of authoritarian enlightenment. Can you 00:01:50.090 --> 00:01:52.750 force a country to be free? Can you impose democracy 00:01:52.750 --> 00:01:55.609 from the top down? Ataturk is the ultimate test 00:01:55.609 --> 00:01:57.829 case for those questions. He believed he had 00:01:57.829 --> 00:02:00.469 to temporarily suspend freedom to build the institutions 00:02:00.469 --> 00:02:02.969 for future freedom. It's a huge contradiction. 00:02:03.269 --> 00:02:06.409 A massive one. And his entire legacy is caught 00:02:06.409 --> 00:02:08.930 in the balance of that contradiction. OK, so 00:02:08.930 --> 00:02:10.830 let's unpack this. We have to start at the beginning. 00:02:11.790 --> 00:02:14.289 Origin story time. He wasn't born out of Turk, 00:02:14.370 --> 00:02:16.969 was he? That name came much, much later. Not 00:02:16.969 --> 00:02:22.310 at all. He was born simply Mustafa in 1881. And 00:02:22.310 --> 00:02:24.530 he was born in Salonika. Now, you have to understand 00:02:24.530 --> 00:02:26.189 Salonika was part of the Ottoman Empire back 00:02:26.189 --> 00:02:28.789 then. But today it's Thessaloniki in Greece. 00:02:29.069 --> 00:02:31.689 Right. So that location is important. It's absolutely 00:02:31.689 --> 00:02:34.210 key to understanding him. Salonika wasn't some 00:02:34.210 --> 00:02:37.930 dusty backwater. It was a bustling, cosmopolitan, 00:02:37.990 --> 00:02:40.919 multicultural port city. It was the empire's 00:02:40.919 --> 00:02:43.000 main window to the West. So it was a melting 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:45.520 pot. A total melting pot. You had a huge Jewish 00:02:45.520 --> 00:02:48.060 population, Greeks, Albanians, Slavs, Turks, 00:02:48.180 --> 00:02:50.319 merchants from all over Europe. Revolutionary 00:02:50.319 --> 00:02:51.939 ideas were bubbling up in the coffee houses. 00:02:52.219 --> 00:02:55.219 So young Mustafa grew up seeing the stark contrast. 00:02:55.719 --> 00:02:58.099 between the dynamism of the West and the slow 00:02:58.099 --> 00:03:00.259 creeping decay of the Ottoman state. And I was 00:03:00.259 --> 00:03:01.860 reading that there's even some debate about his 00:03:01.860 --> 00:03:04.240 family background. There is, yeah. It's a topic 00:03:04.240 --> 00:03:06.719 of endless debate. Some theories suggest he had 00:03:06.719 --> 00:03:09.699 Albanian or Slavic roots. The more generally 00:03:09.699 --> 00:03:12.120 accepted view is that his family were Turkish 00:03:12.120 --> 00:03:14.340 -speaking Muslims who had migrated from Anatolia. 00:03:14.860 --> 00:03:18.539 But culturally, he was a product of that cosmopolitan 00:03:18.539 --> 00:03:21.240 Ottoman Balkan environment. He wasn't looking 00:03:21.240 --> 00:03:23.560 toward Mecca. He was looking toward Paris and 00:03:23.560 --> 00:03:26.849 Berlin. And what about the name Kemal? Where 00:03:26.849 --> 00:03:28.789 did that come from? I found this detail kind 00:03:28.789 --> 00:03:30.909 of charming in the source material. He is a nice 00:03:30.909 --> 00:03:33.409 bit of lore, isn't it? He was a gifted student, 00:03:33.629 --> 00:03:36.409 especially in math, and his mathematics teacher 00:03:36.409 --> 00:03:39.229 gave him the second name, Kemal. Which means? 00:03:39.509 --> 00:03:42.949 It means perfection or maturity. The common story 00:03:42.949 --> 00:03:44.870 is that the teacher did it to distinguish him 00:03:44.870 --> 00:03:47.289 from another student who was also named Mustafa. 00:03:47.870 --> 00:03:49.590 But some sources suggest it was just because 00:03:49.590 --> 00:03:52.229 the teacher was so blown away by young Mustafa's 00:03:52.229 --> 00:03:55.050 capability. He was a standout from the very start. 00:03:55.270 --> 00:03:57.509 So we have Mustafa Kemal, the perfect student. 00:03:57.610 --> 00:03:59.990 He decides to go into the military, which I gather 00:03:59.990 --> 00:04:02.289 was the standard path for ambitious young men 00:04:02.289 --> 00:04:04.030 in the empire at that time who didn't come from 00:04:04.030 --> 00:04:06.710 money. It was really the only path for someone 00:04:06.710 --> 00:04:09.389 of his relatively modest background to rise. 00:04:09.770 --> 00:04:11.949 The Ottoman Empire was a lot of things, but the 00:04:11.949 --> 00:04:14.090 military was one of the few places that was a 00:04:14.090 --> 00:04:17.779 genuine meritocracy. And rise he did. was pretty 00:04:17.779 --> 00:04:20.339 active. He was involved in suppressing revolts. 00:04:20.339 --> 00:04:22.800 He was part of the Young Turk movement. But the 00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:26.120 first real gritty combat experience came in Libya, 00:04:26.259 --> 00:04:29.100 right, during the Italy -Turkish War. Yes, in 00:04:29.100 --> 00:04:31.560 1911. And this is where he gets a significant 00:04:31.560 --> 00:04:34.259 injury. He was fighting the Italians near the 00:04:34.259 --> 00:04:37.199 city of Derna. There was an air raid, one of 00:04:37.199 --> 00:04:39.279 the first in history, actually, and a piece of 00:04:39.279 --> 00:04:41.660 limestone rubble from a bombed building struck 00:04:41.660 --> 00:04:44.500 his left eye. Ouch. And the injury was permanent. 00:04:44.889 --> 00:04:46.790 It was. He suffered permanent tissue damage. 00:04:46.930 --> 00:04:48.730 He actually tried to leave the medical facility 00:04:48.730 --> 00:04:51.149 early to get back to the front. It just shows 00:04:51.149 --> 00:04:53.709 you his tenacity, his drive. Even in later photographs, 00:04:53.889 --> 00:04:55.889 if you look very closely, you can see that his 00:04:55.889 --> 00:04:58.470 left eye has a slightly different, more strained 00:04:58.470 --> 00:05:00.949 look. But the real turning point, the moment 00:05:00.949 --> 00:05:03.810 he goes from being just another capable officer 00:05:03.810 --> 00:05:07.750 to a genuine national hero, is World War I. Gallipoli. 00:05:07.949 --> 00:05:10.350 Gallipoli. Gallipoli is the crucible where the 00:05:10.350 --> 00:05:14.519 legend is forged. It's 1915. The Allied powers, 00:05:14.759 --> 00:05:18.480 Britain, France, the Anzazis from Australia and 00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:21.139 New Zealand, they're trying to force their way 00:05:21.139 --> 00:05:23.519 through the Dardanelles Strait to capture the 00:05:23.519 --> 00:05:26.240 capital, Istanbul. And if they succeed, the Ottoman 00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:28.120 Empire is knocked out of the war immediately. 00:05:28.540 --> 00:05:31.500 Instantly. The whole thing's over. Mustafa Kemal 00:05:31.500 --> 00:05:33.439 was a commander there, a lieutenant colonel, 00:05:33.459 --> 00:05:36.480 and he correctly anticipated where the Allies 00:05:36.480 --> 00:05:38.959 were going to land at Suvla Bay. His superiors 00:05:38.959 --> 00:05:41.379 disagreed. But he was right. He saw it coming 00:05:41.379 --> 00:05:43.939 when others didn't. He did. He rushed his division 00:05:43.939 --> 00:05:46.199 to the high ground and held it against overwhelming 00:05:46.199 --> 00:05:49.160 odds. He famously told his men a line that has 00:05:49.160 --> 00:05:51.519 gone down in history. I do not order you to attack. 00:05:51.639 --> 00:05:53.720 I order you to die. That is such a chilling, 00:05:53.879 --> 00:05:57.000 powerful line. It is. But it speaks to the absolute 00:05:57.000 --> 00:05:59.199 desperation of the moment. He knew that if they 00:05:59.199 --> 00:06:01.180 gave an inch, if they retreated, the capital 00:06:01.180 --> 00:06:03.199 will fall and the empire will be finished. And 00:06:03.199 --> 00:06:05.360 they held. They held on. And that victory, it 00:06:05.360 --> 00:06:07.800 basically made him a household name. It made 00:06:07.800 --> 00:06:10.240 him the savior of Istanbul. While the rest of 00:06:10.240 --> 00:06:12.920 the Ottoman war effort was, frankly, a disaster 00:06:12.920 --> 00:06:16.240 on most fronts, Gallipoli was this shining, incredible 00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:18.379 victory against the might of the British Empire. 00:06:18.819 --> 00:06:22.040 It gave him a level of credibility and fame that 00:06:22.040 --> 00:06:24.620 no other general or politician had. Which is 00:06:24.620 --> 00:06:26.959 deeply ironic because the empire collapses anyway, 00:06:27.060 --> 00:06:30.100 doesn't it? It does. Despite his efforts, the 00:06:30.100 --> 00:06:32.079 Ottoman Empire was on the losing side of World 00:06:32.079 --> 00:06:34.920 War I, along with Germany and Austria -Hungary. 00:06:35.199 --> 00:06:38.750 By 1918, it's all over. The empire is defeated 00:06:38.750 --> 00:06:41.810 and the allied powers, Britain, France, Italy, 00:06:41.990 --> 00:06:44.589 Greece, they start carving it up like a Thanksgiving 00:06:44.589 --> 00:06:46.670 turkey. They don't just take the Arab provinces. 00:06:46.790 --> 00:06:49.290 They start carving up Anatolia, the Turkish heartland 00:06:49.290 --> 00:06:52.529 itself. Exactly. They occupy Istanbul, the Greeks 00:06:52.529 --> 00:06:55.089 land in Uzmir, the French move into the south. 00:06:55.250 --> 00:06:57.329 It looks like Turkey is about to be erased from 00:06:57.329 --> 00:06:59.189 the map. And this is what the sources call his 00:06:59.189 --> 00:07:01.709 George Washington moment, because most generals 00:07:01.709 --> 00:07:03.769 would have just accepted the defeat, maybe retired 00:07:03.769 --> 00:07:08.480 quietly. But Mustafa Kemal goes. rogue. He absolutely 00:07:08.480 --> 00:07:11.259 goes rogue. The sultan's government in Istanbul 00:07:11.259 --> 00:07:13.759 is basically a puppet of the British high commissioner 00:07:13.759 --> 00:07:16.300 at this point. They're signing humiliating treaties 00:07:16.300 --> 00:07:19.379 like the Treaty of Sevre, which basically gives 00:07:19.379 --> 00:07:23.139 away huge chunks of Turkish land. So on May 19, 00:07:23.360 --> 00:07:26.540 1919, a date that's now a national holiday in 00:07:26.540 --> 00:07:30.060 Turkey, Mustafa Kemal lands in Samson, a city 00:07:30.060 --> 00:07:31.939 on the Black Sea coast. And his official mission 00:07:31.939 --> 00:07:35.399 is what? Officially, he's sent there by the sultan 00:07:35.399 --> 00:07:38.819 to restore order and, crucially, to disarm the 00:07:38.819 --> 00:07:40.740 local Turkish militias that are resisting the 00:07:40.740 --> 00:07:42.839 Allies. But he has a very different definition 00:07:42.839 --> 00:07:46.139 of restoring order. Completely. He uses his official 00:07:46.139 --> 00:07:48.240 authority as inspector general to do the exact 00:07:48.240 --> 00:07:51.040 opposite. He starts organizing a national resistance 00:07:51.040 --> 00:07:53.519 against the partition. He defies the sultan. 00:07:53.620 --> 00:07:56.019 He defies the British. He starts gathering delegates, 00:07:56.240 --> 00:07:58.500 holding congresses in provincial towns like Erzurum 00:07:58.500 --> 00:08:00.759 and Sivas, basically laying the groundwork for 00:08:00.759 --> 00:08:04.439 a war of independence. Istanbul is not happy 00:08:04.439 --> 00:08:07.899 about this. Not at all. They recall him. He resigns 00:08:07.899 --> 00:08:10.060 from the army. They issue a warrant for his arrest. 00:08:10.600 --> 00:08:13.160 Eventually, when he refuses to back down, the 00:08:13.160 --> 00:08:15.500 sultan's government sentences him to death in 00:08:15.500 --> 00:08:18.399 absentia. Wow. Let's talk about high stakes. 00:08:18.740 --> 00:08:20.860 He's technically a mutineer with a death sentence 00:08:20.860 --> 00:08:23.279 hanging over his head. But he's not just a mutineer 00:08:23.279 --> 00:08:26.639 anymore. He's building a parallel state. In April 00:08:26.639 --> 00:08:29.100 1920, he establishes the Grand National Assembly, 00:08:29.360 --> 00:08:32.419 the GNA, in Ankara. Which is deep in central 00:08:32.419 --> 00:08:34.940 Anatolia, far from the British gunboats in Istanbul. 00:08:35.399 --> 00:08:38.000 As far as you can get. So now you have a diarchy, 00:08:38.120 --> 00:08:40.980 two competing governments. You have the old imperial 00:08:40.980 --> 00:08:43.399 government in occupied Istanbul, which represents 00:08:43.399 --> 00:08:46.220 the theocratic past and capitulation. And you 00:08:46.220 --> 00:08:48.759 have the new nationalist government in Ankara, 00:08:48.840 --> 00:08:51.019 representing resistance and the will of the Turkish 00:08:51.019 --> 00:08:53.100 people. And this inevitably leads us into the 00:08:53.100 --> 00:08:55.740 second section of our deep dive, the War of Independence. 00:08:56.539 --> 00:08:58.299 Because he's not just fighting political battles 00:08:58.299 --> 00:09:00.679 anymore. He's fighting actual armies on multiple 00:09:00.679 --> 00:09:03.120 fronts. It's an incredibly desperate situation. 00:09:03.500 --> 00:09:06.899 He's got limited resources, no real industrial 00:09:06.899 --> 00:09:09.759 base. He has to fight the Armenians in the east 00:09:09.759 --> 00:09:12.720 to secure that border. But the main existential 00:09:12.720 --> 00:09:15.240 threat is in the west, where the Greek army, 00:09:15.440 --> 00:09:18.279 supported and supplied by the Allies, is advancing 00:09:18.279 --> 00:09:21.139 deep into Anatolia, right toward Ankara. They 00:09:21.139 --> 00:09:23.220 get pretty close, don't they? Frighteningly close. 00:09:23.769 --> 00:09:26.710 The climax is the Battle of Saqqara in August 00:09:26.710 --> 00:09:30.309 and September of 1921. It was a brutal three 00:09:30.309 --> 00:09:33.029 -week -long engagement just miles from Ankara. 00:09:34.230 --> 00:09:36.830 You have to imagine the scene. The roar of the 00:09:36.830 --> 00:09:39.009 artillery is literally audible in the parliament 00:09:39.009 --> 00:09:41.490 building while the delegates are debating. And 00:09:41.490 --> 00:09:43.269 this is where he gets the title Ghazi, right? 00:09:43.330 --> 00:09:46.389 Yes. The GNA forces, under Mustafa Kemal's personal 00:09:46.389 --> 00:09:49.090 command, managed to stop the Greek advance in 00:09:49.090 --> 00:09:51.450 its tracks. It was a bloody hard -won victory. 00:09:51.899 --> 00:09:53.820 After that battle, the grateful parliament promoted 00:09:53.820 --> 00:09:56.159 him to the rank of marshal and bestowed upon 00:09:56.159 --> 00:09:59.620 him the title Ghazi. Which means warrior or veteran, 00:09:59.860 --> 00:10:02.279 but it has a religious connotation, doesn't it? 00:10:02.279 --> 00:10:05.419 A holy warrior. It does. Which is interesting 00:10:05.419 --> 00:10:07.340 because here you have this committed secularist, 00:10:07.340 --> 00:10:10.179 but he's also a pragmatist. He needed to unite 00:10:10.179 --> 00:10:12.580 a very pious population of peasant soldiers. 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:16.149 The title Ghazi. carried immense weight with 00:10:16.149 --> 00:10:18.450 him. It framed the war not just as a defense 00:10:18.450 --> 00:10:21.230 of land, but as a defense of the faith against 00:10:21.230 --> 00:10:24.230 foreign Christian invaders. He knew what symbols 00:10:24.230 --> 00:10:27.759 to use. So Sicarius stops the bleeding. And then 00:10:27.759 --> 00:10:30.179 comes the final push. The Great Offensive in 00:10:30.179 --> 00:10:34.179 August 1922. It's a surprise attack that completely 00:10:34.179 --> 00:10:36.879 shatters the Greek lines. The Turkish forces 00:10:36.879 --> 00:10:39.100 drive the Greek army all the way back to the 00:10:39.100 --> 00:10:42.000 agency, retaking the city of Izmir in September. 00:10:42.539 --> 00:10:45.259 That victory effectively ends the war on the 00:10:45.259 --> 00:10:47.779 ground. And the Alars finally realized they can't 00:10:47.779 --> 00:10:49.500 enforce the partition. They have to deal with 00:10:49.500 --> 00:10:51.940 Ankara. They have no choice. The government in 00:10:51.940 --> 00:10:54.639 Ankara is the only real power left. So he wins 00:10:54.639 --> 00:10:57.120 the war. The foreign occupiers are gone. But 00:10:57.120 --> 00:11:00.360 now he turns his sights inward on the very structure 00:11:00.360 --> 00:11:02.940 of the state. And this is where things get really, 00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:05.059 really radical. Radical is the perfect word. 00:11:05.200 --> 00:11:07.159 He doesn't just want to restore the old system. 00:11:07.220 --> 00:11:09.919 He wants to tear it down completely. So in November 00:11:09.919 --> 00:11:13.980 1922, the Grand National Assembly passes a law. 00:11:14.440 --> 00:11:17.559 that abolishes the sultanate. That's huge. That's 00:11:17.559 --> 00:11:20.840 over 600 years of Ottoman rule. The House of 00:11:20.840 --> 00:11:24.179 Osman just ended with the stroke of a pen. Ended. 00:11:24.179 --> 00:11:26.779 The Ottoman Empire is officially dead. The last 00:11:26.779 --> 00:11:30.259 sultan, Mehmed VI, flees into exile on a British 00:11:30.259 --> 00:11:33.600 warship. Then on October 29, 1923, the Republic 00:11:33.600 --> 00:11:36.980 of Turkey is officially proclaimed. Mustafa Kemal 00:11:36.980 --> 00:11:40.259 becomes its first president. A historic moment. 00:11:40.419 --> 00:11:42.909 But is another shoe to drop? And this one in 00:11:42.909 --> 00:11:45.350 some ways seems even riskier, even more audacious 00:11:45.350 --> 00:11:47.649 than ending the sultanate. The caliphate. Yes. 00:11:47.929 --> 00:11:50.490 This is crucial to understand. The Ottoman sultan 00:11:50.490 --> 00:11:53.090 wasn't just a king. He was also the caliph, the 00:11:53.090 --> 00:11:55.370 spiritual leader of the entire Sunni Muslim world. 00:11:55.549 --> 00:11:57.970 So it's like having a pope, basically, for Sunni 00:11:57.970 --> 00:12:00.169 Muslims. In a sense, yes. It was a massive source 00:12:00.169 --> 00:12:02.870 of religious legitimacy and tradition that stretched 00:12:02.870 --> 00:12:05.470 back centuries. And even after the sultanate 00:12:05.470 --> 00:12:07.929 was abolished, the caliphate remained as a separate, 00:12:08.070 --> 00:12:11.090 purely religious office. But not for long. Not 00:12:11.090 --> 00:12:14.269 for long at all. Mustafa Kemal saw it as a relic, 00:12:14.289 --> 00:12:17.110 a political instrument of the past, and a potential 00:12:17.110 --> 00:12:19.049 rallying point for his conservative opposition. 00:12:19.450 --> 00:12:21.990 He famously said that the new republic could 00:12:21.990 --> 00:12:25.129 not be a land of sheiks, dervishes, and disciples. 00:12:26.190 --> 00:12:29.509 So in March 1924, just a few months after the 00:12:29.509 --> 00:12:32.389 republic was founded, he abolishes the caliphate. 00:12:32.429 --> 00:12:34.690 The caliph and his entire family are put on a 00:12:34.690 --> 00:12:37.450 train and expelled from the country. That move 00:12:37.450 --> 00:12:39.590 must have sent shockwaves through the entire 00:12:39.590 --> 00:12:43.289 Muslim world. It was an earthquake. But for Ataturk, 00:12:43.350 --> 00:12:45.850 it was a necessary amputation to save the patient. 00:12:46.110 --> 00:12:48.110 And this really brings us to the Cultural Revolution, 00:12:48.169 --> 00:12:50.590 because once he clears the political deck of 00:12:50.590 --> 00:12:53.090 the Sultan and the Caliph, he starts this top 00:12:53.090 --> 00:12:55.389 -down campaign to change the daily life of the 00:12:55.389 --> 00:12:57.389 Turkish people. And when I say change, I mean 00:12:57.389 --> 00:12:59.629 he wants to pivot the entire civilization from 00:12:59.629 --> 00:13:02.909 east to west. His goal was, in his words, complete 00:13:02.909 --> 00:13:05.590 independence. But for him, that also meant joining 00:13:05.590 --> 00:13:07.629 what he called the Family of Civilized Nations, 00:13:07.929 --> 00:13:11.049 which in his mind was exclusively Western civilization. 00:13:11.720 --> 00:13:13.960 He believed the Ottoman Islamic past was the 00:13:13.960 --> 00:13:16.360 source of all the nation's problems, and it had 00:13:16.360 --> 00:13:18.700 to be severed. He didn't want to modernize Islam. 00:13:18.840 --> 00:13:20.960 He wanted to modernize the state by removing 00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:24.000 Islam from the public sphere. Exactly. And that 00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:27.940 brings us to maybe the most symbolic of all his 00:13:27.940 --> 00:13:32.059 reforms, the Hat Law of 1925. This one always 00:13:32.059 --> 00:13:35.539 fascinates people. Banning a hat. Why was a hat 00:13:35.539 --> 00:13:37.419 so important? Right. It seems almost trivial, 00:13:37.580 --> 00:13:40.159 but it wasn't. It was all about the visuals. 00:13:40.799 --> 00:13:44.320 The fez, that red cylindrical brimless hat with 00:13:44.320 --> 00:13:47.100 the tassel, was seen by Westerners as a symbol 00:13:47.100 --> 00:13:49.559 of the Orient. But within the empire, it was 00:13:49.559 --> 00:13:52.340 a symbol of religious and social order. Because 00:13:52.340 --> 00:13:54.440 it was brimless, a man could press his forehead 00:13:54.440 --> 00:13:56.100 to the ground during prayer without removing 00:13:56.100 --> 00:13:59.860 it. To Ataturk, it represented the old, backward 00:13:59.860 --> 00:14:02.440 religious mindset. It was the hat of a subject, 00:14:02.620 --> 00:14:04.750 not a modern citizen. So he didn't just suggest 00:14:04.750 --> 00:14:06.769 people change hats. He made it illegal to wear 00:14:06.769 --> 00:14:09.409 a fez. He did. He mandated Western -style hats, 00:14:09.629 --> 00:14:12.629 Panama's fedoras, any hat with a brim. And he 00:14:12.629 --> 00:14:14.750 led by example. He went on a tour of the most 00:14:14.750 --> 00:14:17.029 conservative towns in Anatolia, like Kastamonu, 00:14:17.110 --> 00:14:19.190 and deliberately walked through the town square 00:14:19.190 --> 00:14:21.470 wearing a white Panama hat. Just to make a point. 00:14:21.590 --> 00:14:23.309 It was a direct challenge. He was basically saying, 00:14:23.350 --> 00:14:25.529 look at me. This is what a civilized, modern 00:14:25.529 --> 00:14:28.490 Turkish man looks like. Follow me. It was a forced 00:14:28.490 --> 00:14:31.259 psychological shift. Change how people look to 00:14:31.259 --> 00:14:32.879 change how they think. There was resistance, 00:14:32.980 --> 00:14:34.980 wasn't there? Oh, there were riots. Some men 00:14:34.980 --> 00:14:36.740 were even hanged for refusing to give up the 00:14:36.740 --> 00:14:39.779 Fez. It was not a gentle transition. And then 00:14:39.779 --> 00:14:42.220 came an even bigger, more fundamental shift. 00:14:42.480 --> 00:14:45.700 The alphabet revolution in 1928. This is just, 00:14:45.799 --> 00:14:48.500 it's mind -blowing in its ambition. The source 00:14:48.500 --> 00:14:50.539 notes that the literacy rate in the New Republic 00:14:50.539 --> 00:14:53.539 was only about 10%. And a big reason for that 00:14:53.539 --> 00:14:56.210 was the script. Ottoman Turkish was written using 00:14:56.210 --> 00:14:58.730 a modified Arabic script. And that was a problem. 00:14:58.929 --> 00:15:01.590 A huge problem. Turkish is a Turkic language, 00:15:01.789 --> 00:15:04.789 full of vowels. It has eight distinct vowel sounds. 00:15:05.610 --> 00:15:08.149 Arabic is a Semitic language whose script is 00:15:08.149 --> 00:15:10.570 based on consonants and has only three vowel 00:15:10.570 --> 00:15:13.870 markers. The fit was just terrible. It made learning 00:15:13.870 --> 00:15:15.750 to read incredibly difficult. It was an elite 00:15:15.750 --> 00:15:18.429 skill reserved for scholars and bureaucrats. 00:15:18.570 --> 00:15:21.570 So Ataturk's solution was just to scrap it entirely. 00:15:22.159 --> 00:15:25.139 Scrap it. He decided to switch the entire nation 00:15:25.139 --> 00:15:28.559 to a new Latin -based alphabet, like the one 00:15:28.559 --> 00:15:31.379 used in English or French, which was much better 00:15:31.379 --> 00:15:33.779 suited to the sounds of Turkish. And he wanted 00:15:33.779 --> 00:15:35.379 to do it practically overnight. And that's where 00:15:35.379 --> 00:15:37.539 we get that amazing anecdote about the timeline. 00:15:37.879 --> 00:15:39.980 Right. He gathered a commission of linguists 00:15:39.980 --> 00:15:41.980 and experts and asked them how long the transition 00:15:41.980 --> 00:15:44.759 would take. They told him, if we work very hard, 00:15:44.899 --> 00:15:47.340 maybe three to five years to phase it in. And 00:15:47.340 --> 00:15:50.500 Ataturk said, He replied, we shall do it in three 00:15:50.500 --> 00:15:54.919 to five months. And he did. How? How do you even 00:15:54.919 --> 00:15:57.220 do that? He became the headmaster of the nation. 00:15:57.679 --> 00:15:59.440 He traveled the country with a blackboard and 00:15:59.440 --> 00:16:02.100 chalk, literally teaching the new letters himself 00:16:02.100 --> 00:16:04.759 in village squares and schoolyards. It was a 00:16:04.759 --> 00:16:08.039 massive nationwide mobilization. Newspapers, 00:16:08.059 --> 00:16:10.639 books, street signs, everything had to change. 00:16:10.860 --> 00:16:12.899 The results were undeniable, though. Literacy 00:16:12.899 --> 00:16:15.019 rates skyrocketed. They more than doubled between 00:16:15.019 --> 00:16:18.080 1927 and 1940. It was a huge success in that 00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:20.120 regard. But there's a cultural cost to that, 00:16:20.220 --> 00:16:22.980 right? A massive one. What was the cost? By changing 00:16:22.980 --> 00:16:25.539 the alphabet so abruptly, he effectively cut 00:16:25.539 --> 00:16:28.019 the new generation off from the entire Ottoman 00:16:28.019 --> 00:16:31.559 written past. A child born in 1930 could not 00:16:31.559 --> 00:16:34.120 read the tombstone of their grandfather, who 00:16:34.120 --> 00:16:36.840 died in 1920. They couldn't read the old imperial 00:16:36.840 --> 00:16:39.059 archives, the classic poetry, the religious text. 00:16:39.240 --> 00:16:42.200 It was hard reset of the national memory, intentionally 00:16:42.200 --> 00:16:44.879 so. He also tackled the status of women with 00:16:44.879 --> 00:16:48.379 that same aggressive revolutionary speed. This 00:16:48.379 --> 00:16:50.779 is one of the pillars of his legacy. He abolished 00:16:50.779 --> 00:16:53.149 polygamy. He did away with the Islamic courts, 00:16:53.230 --> 00:16:54.970 the Sharia courts, when it came to family law. 00:16:55.370 --> 00:16:58.809 In 1926, Turkey adopted, almost wholesale, the 00:16:58.809 --> 00:17:01.190 Swiss Civil Code. Which meant what for women? 00:17:01.690 --> 00:17:04.009 It meant that suddenly women had equal rights 00:17:04.009 --> 00:17:06.569 in divorce, in inheritance, and in child custody. 00:17:06.950 --> 00:17:09.329 This was a complete revolution from the patriarchal 00:17:09.329 --> 00:17:11.430 Ottoman system. And he gave them political rights, 00:17:11.529 --> 00:17:14.150 too. Yes. Women gained the right to vote and 00:17:14.150 --> 00:17:16.329 to run for office in local elections in 1930 00:17:16.329 --> 00:17:20.190 and in national elections in 1934. And the source 00:17:20.190 --> 00:17:21.910 makes a point of this. This was before France 00:17:21.910 --> 00:17:24.430 and before Switzerland. That is just wild to 00:17:24.430 --> 00:17:27.009 think about. Turkish women were voting in national 00:17:27.009 --> 00:17:29.769 elections before French women were. And he used 00:17:29.769 --> 00:17:32.049 his own family as a model for this blue Turkish 00:17:32.049 --> 00:17:35.089 woman, didn't he? He absolutely did. He had several 00:17:35.089 --> 00:17:38.049 adopted daughters. One of them, Sabiha Goksin, 00:17:38.190 --> 00:17:40.869 famously became the world's first female fighter 00:17:40.869 --> 00:17:44.130 pilot. Think about the symbolism of that. In 00:17:44.130 --> 00:17:47.630 a country that... Just a decade prior was a traditional 00:17:47.630 --> 00:17:50.730 Islamic empire where women's public roles were 00:17:50.730 --> 00:17:53.130 heavily restricted. Now the president's daughter 00:17:53.130 --> 00:17:56.130 is flying a combat airplane. It was an incredibly 00:17:56.130 --> 00:17:58.470 powerful message. The new Turkish woman can do 00:17:58.470 --> 00:18:00.609 anything. But this all falls under the umbrella 00:18:00.609 --> 00:18:03.890 of secularism laicite, as the French call it. 00:18:03.970 --> 00:18:06.089 It wasn't just about empowering women or changing 00:18:06.089 --> 00:18:08.349 alphabets. It was about removing religion from 00:18:08.349 --> 00:18:10.430 the public sphere entirely. The separation of 00:18:10.430 --> 00:18:13.210 religion and state was absolute and non -negotiable 00:18:13.210 --> 00:18:15.190 for him. He closed the religious orders, the 00:18:15.190 --> 00:18:18.430 mystical Sufi lodges, the dervish convents. He 00:18:18.430 --> 00:18:20.690 called them places of primitivity and superstition. 00:18:20.769 --> 00:18:23.849 He even had the cult prayer? And the Quran translated 00:18:23.849 --> 00:18:26.430 from Arabic into Turkish. Which was incredibly 00:18:26.430 --> 00:18:29.009 controversial. Why so much? Because for Orthodox 00:18:29.009 --> 00:18:31.769 Muslims, Arabic is the sacred language of Islam. 00:18:32.029 --> 00:18:34.109 It is the literal language of God's revelation. 00:18:35.250 --> 00:18:38.009 Translating the call to prayer, the Izan, into 00:18:38.009 --> 00:18:41.069 Turkish was seen by many as a deep sacrilege, 00:18:41.109 --> 00:18:44.170 an attack on the faith itself. But Ataturk's 00:18:44.170 --> 00:18:47.069 argument was a rationalist one. He said people 00:18:47.069 --> 00:18:48.910 should understand what they are chanting and 00:18:48.910 --> 00:18:52.039 praying. He wanted a rational religion stripped 00:18:52.039 --> 00:18:54.539 of what he saw as superstition and, frankly, 00:18:54.680 --> 00:18:57.380 Arab cultural dominance. OK, so we've painted 00:18:57.380 --> 00:19:00.200 this picture of incredible, rapid and often brutal 00:19:00.200 --> 00:19:02.839 modernization. But we need to look at the other 00:19:02.839 --> 00:19:05.039 side of the coin. This brings us to section four, 00:19:05.180 --> 00:19:08.299 the shadow side. Because you don't overturn a 00:19:08.299 --> 00:19:10.279 society this fast without cracking some heads. 00:19:10.559 --> 00:19:12.980 No, you absolutely don't. And this is where the 00:19:12.980 --> 00:19:14.859 dictator question comes in. The source material 00:19:14.859 --> 00:19:17.140 is very clear on this. While he championed the 00:19:17.140 --> 00:19:19.519 ideal of democracy in his speeches, he ruled 00:19:19.519 --> 00:19:22.079 through a strict one party system. The Republican 00:19:22.079 --> 00:19:24.720 People's Party, the CHP, which he founded, was 00:19:24.720 --> 00:19:27.259 the only game in town for most of his rule. There 00:19:27.259 --> 00:19:28.920 were some experiments with opposition parties, 00:19:29.019 --> 00:19:30.960 weren't there? They didn't last long. They didn't. 00:19:31.160 --> 00:19:34.039 He allowed them or even encouraged them on a 00:19:34.039 --> 00:19:36.359 couple of occasions. There was the Progressive 00:19:36.359 --> 00:19:39.380 Republican Party in 1924 and the Liberal Republican 00:19:39.380 --> 00:19:43.119 Party in 1930. But every time an opposition party 00:19:43.119 --> 00:19:45.700 started up, it immediately became a rallying 00:19:45.700 --> 00:19:48.700 point for everyone who opposed the reforms. The 00:19:48.700 --> 00:19:51.359 religious conservatives, the monarchists, the 00:19:51.359 --> 00:19:53.799 Kurdish separatists, people who missed the fez 00:19:53.799 --> 00:19:56.079 and the caliph. And when that happened? When 00:19:56.079 --> 00:19:58.599 that happened, Ataturk decided the country wasn't 00:19:58.599 --> 00:20:01.460 ready. for multi -party democracy, and he shut 00:20:01.460 --> 00:20:03.559 them down. He saw them as threats to the revolution 00:20:03.559 --> 00:20:05.779 itself. And it wasn't just about shutting down 00:20:05.779 --> 00:20:08.500 parties. Things got much darker. There was the 00:20:08.500 --> 00:20:11.960 1926 assassination plot. Yes. An assassination 00:20:11.960 --> 00:20:14.559 attempt against him was uncovered in the city 00:20:14.559 --> 00:20:17.319 of Izmir. This became the pretext for a massive 00:20:17.319 --> 00:20:19.619 purge of all his remaining political rivals. 00:20:19.880 --> 00:20:22.359 He set up these independence tribunals, which 00:20:22.359 --> 00:20:24.420 were basically kangaroo courts, and they tried 00:20:24.420 --> 00:20:26.920 and hanged dozens of opponents, including some 00:20:26.920 --> 00:20:29.059 of the former war heroes who had fought alongside 00:20:29.059 --> 00:20:31.119 him in the War of Independence, but who later 00:20:31.119 --> 00:20:33.039 disagreed with the speed and severity of his 00:20:33.039 --> 00:20:35.599 reforms. So it consolidated his power completely. 00:20:35.940 --> 00:20:38.279 It did. It sent a chilling message to everyone. 00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:41.559 There is no going back. Do not stand in my way. 00:20:41.900 --> 00:20:44.079 We also have to talk about the treatment of minorities 00:20:44.079 --> 00:20:47.440 and this concept of Turkification, because the 00:20:47.440 --> 00:20:50.619 new republic was built on the idea of a homogenous 00:20:50.619 --> 00:20:53.460 nation state. It was. The slogan was Turkey for 00:20:53.460 --> 00:20:56.319 the Turks. And this had very serious consequences 00:20:56.319 --> 00:20:58.839 for the non -Turkish, non -Muslim populations. 00:20:59.339 --> 00:21:01.940 The source mentions the Armenian Genocide. Now, 00:21:01.940 --> 00:21:04.200 to be clear, Ataturk was not the architect of 00:21:04.200 --> 00:21:06.680 the 1915 genocide. He was at Gallipoli when it 00:21:06.680 --> 00:21:08.940 was happening. But what was the new republic's 00:21:08.940 --> 00:21:11.539 stance on it? The source notes that his government 00:21:11.539 --> 00:21:13.779 essentially granted immunity to the perpetrators. 00:21:14.019 --> 00:21:16.920 The new state didn't look back or offer any kind 00:21:16.920 --> 00:21:19.500 of restitution or apology. The republic was, 00:21:19.680 --> 00:21:21.799 in many ways, built on the demographic engineering 00:21:21.799 --> 00:21:23.940 that had already removed the vast majority of 00:21:23.940 --> 00:21:26.660 Armenians and Greeks from Anatolia. It wanted 00:21:26.660 --> 00:21:29.099 a clean slate, and it wasn't interested in digging 00:21:29.099 --> 00:21:31.539 up the crimes of the past regime. And then there's 00:21:31.539 --> 00:21:33.859 the Kurds. They were the largest remaining minority. 00:21:34.180 --> 00:21:37.619 And the Kurds faced significant repression under 00:21:37.619 --> 00:21:40.549 the new centralized Turkish state. There were 00:21:40.549 --> 00:21:42.630 a number of major Kurdish rebellions, like the 00:21:42.630 --> 00:21:45.269 Sheikh Said Rebellion in 1925, which were framed 00:21:45.269 --> 00:21:47.970 as religious and reactionary uprisings and were 00:21:47.970 --> 00:21:50.450 crushed with overwhelming military force. And 00:21:50.450 --> 00:21:52.390 there was a push for cultural assimilation, too. 00:21:52.509 --> 00:21:55.049 A huge push. The government launched campaigns 00:21:55.049 --> 00:21:58.369 with slogans like Citizens Speak Turkish, putting 00:21:58.369 --> 00:22:00.990 immense pressure on people to abandon non -Turkish 00:22:00.990 --> 00:22:03.559 languages in public. They even undertook a massive 00:22:03.559 --> 00:22:06.799 project of renaming geographical locations, changing 00:22:06.799 --> 00:22:09.640 thousands of Kurdish or Armenian village names 00:22:09.640 --> 00:22:12.500 to new Turkish ones. The source specifically 00:22:12.500 --> 00:22:16.119 points to the Dursim Massacre in 1937 and 38 00:22:16.119 --> 00:22:19.440 as a particularly brutal example. Yes. This is 00:22:19.440 --> 00:22:21.660 a military operation against a rebellion by Alevi 00:22:21.660 --> 00:22:24.099 Kurds in the Dursim region. The source notes 00:22:24.099 --> 00:22:26.420 that Ataturk was aware of the planning and personally 00:22:26.420 --> 00:22:29.059 gave operational orders. Thousands were killed, 00:22:29.160 --> 00:22:31.460 and much of the population was forcibly resettled 00:22:31.460 --> 00:22:33.440 to other parts of Turkey to dilute their demographic 00:22:33.440 --> 00:22:36.099 concentration. It was a brutal application of 00:22:36.099 --> 00:22:38.839 state power to enforce centralized control and 00:22:38.839 --> 00:22:41.660 a singular Turkish identity. And even surnames 00:22:41.660 --> 00:22:43.519 became part of this project, didn't they? The 00:22:43.519 --> 00:22:47.180 Surname Law of 1934? Yes. It's another one of 00:22:47.180 --> 00:22:49.099 those reforms that seems modern on the surface 00:22:49.099 --> 00:22:52.140 but had a darker assimilationist side. Every 00:22:52.140 --> 00:22:54.640 citizen had to take a fixed hereditary surname, 00:22:54.859 --> 00:22:57.440 like in the West. Before that, people mostly 00:22:57.440 --> 00:22:59.920 used patronymics, you know, Ali, son of Ali. 00:23:00.680 --> 00:23:03.059 Mustafa Kemal himself was given the unique name 00:23:03.059 --> 00:23:06.170 Ataturk, father of the Turks. by the parliament. 00:23:06.390 --> 00:23:08.630 But for minorities? For minorities, they were 00:23:08.630 --> 00:23:11.549 often pressured or forced to take names that 00:23:11.549 --> 00:23:14.109 sounded Turkish. You were discouraged from having 00:23:14.109 --> 00:23:16.869 Armenian endings like Jan or Greek endings like 00:23:16.869 --> 00:23:19.630 Poulos. It was another tool for erasing difference 00:23:19.630 --> 00:23:22.470 and forging a single uniform identity. It's just 00:23:22.470 --> 00:23:24.529 such a stark contrast. On one hand, you have 00:23:24.529 --> 00:23:26.569 this progressive beacon of women's rights and 00:23:26.569 --> 00:23:29.069 mass literacy. On the other hand, you have forced 00:23:29.069 --> 00:23:31.170 assimilation and violent military suppression 00:23:31.170 --> 00:23:33.970 of dissent. That is the fundamental complexity 00:23:33.970 --> 00:23:36.880 of Kemalism. It was a project of modernization, 00:23:37.039 --> 00:23:39.640 but it was absolutely not a project of liberalism 00:23:39.640 --> 00:23:42.299 or pluralism. It was about creating a unified, 00:23:42.339 --> 00:23:45.559 singular identity. He believed that for the Turkish 00:23:45.559 --> 00:23:48.920 state to survive in a hostile world, it had to 00:23:48.920 --> 00:23:51.740 be monolithic. Let's shift gears a little bit 00:23:51.740 --> 00:23:54.720 to Section 5, foreign policy and his later years. 00:23:54.880 --> 00:23:57.220 Because for a guy who spent the first half of 00:23:57.220 --> 00:23:59.380 his life as a soldier fighting constant wars, 00:23:59.640 --> 00:24:02.140 his foreign policy slogan was surprisingly peaceful. 00:24:02.299 --> 00:24:05.339 Peace at home, peace in the world. And he really, 00:24:05.400 --> 00:24:07.940 really stuck to it. This is what separates him 00:24:07.940 --> 00:24:10.380 from so many other dictators or strongmen of 00:24:10.380 --> 00:24:12.720 the 1930s. You think of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin. 00:24:13.359 --> 00:24:15.559 Ataturk did not try to expand Turkey's territory 00:24:15.559 --> 00:24:17.799 once the borders of the republic were set. He 00:24:17.799 --> 00:24:19.880 wasn't an irredentist. He had no interest in 00:24:19.880 --> 00:24:21.900 trying to reconquer the old Ottoman lands in 00:24:21.900 --> 00:24:23.759 the Balkans or the Middle East. He even made 00:24:23.759 --> 00:24:25.940 friends with former enemies. He did, which was 00:24:25.940 --> 00:24:28.119 remarkable. He signed a treaty of friendship 00:24:28.119 --> 00:24:31.569 with Greece in 1930. Can you imagine? Just eight 00:24:31.569 --> 00:24:33.950 years after his armies had driven the Greek army 00:24:33.950 --> 00:24:36.549 into the sea, he's hosting the Greek prime minister 00:24:36.549 --> 00:24:39.490 in Ankara. He established the Balkan pact with 00:24:39.490 --> 00:24:42.710 Greece, Yugoslavia, and Romania. He understood 00:24:42.710 --> 00:24:44.849 that Turkey desperately needed a period of stability 00:24:44.849 --> 00:24:48.009 to focus on internal modernization. And he pulled 00:24:48.009 --> 00:24:50.569 off a major diplomatic victory with the Turkish 00:24:50.569 --> 00:24:54.890 Straits. The Montreux Convention in 1936. This 00:24:54.890 --> 00:24:58.009 is a masterstroke of diplomacy. Under the post 00:24:58.009 --> 00:25:01.500 -WWI treaty, The Straits, the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, 00:25:01.680 --> 00:25:04.279 had been demilitarized and internationalized. 00:25:04.440 --> 00:25:06.779 Ada Turk correctly sensed that another major 00:25:06.779 --> 00:25:08.980 war was coming in Europe, and he skillfully used 00:25:08.980 --> 00:25:11.079 that fear to negotiate a new treaty that gave 00:25:11.079 --> 00:25:14.220 Turkey full military control over them. He regained 00:25:14.220 --> 00:25:15.960 full sovereignty over one of the most strategic 00:25:15.960 --> 00:25:18.440 waterways in the world without firing a single 00:25:18.440 --> 00:25:20.859 shot. Now, what about the man himself during 00:25:20.859 --> 00:25:23.359 these later years, his personal life? The source 00:25:23.359 --> 00:25:25.400 material paints a picture of someone who lived, 00:25:25.480 --> 00:25:29.059 well, intensely. He lived incredibly hard. He 00:25:29.059 --> 00:25:31.579 was known for being a very heavy drinker, particularly 00:25:31.579 --> 00:25:33.819 of Rocky, which is the Turkish Annie's flavored 00:25:33.819 --> 00:25:37.440 national spirit. He smoked constantly. He worked 00:25:37.440 --> 00:25:40.359 late into the night, often until dawn. He was 00:25:40.359 --> 00:25:42.859 an intellectual insomniac, always reading history, 00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:45.460 language, philosophy, always debating with his 00:25:45.460 --> 00:25:47.960 inner circle. And he had a very brief marriage, 00:25:48.059 --> 00:25:50.720 correct? Yes, to a woman named Latif Ushakligil. 00:25:50.839 --> 00:25:53.480 She was a well -educated, modern, westernized 00:25:53.480 --> 00:25:56.000 woman. In many ways, the very model of the new 00:25:56.000 --> 00:25:58.950 Turkish woman he was promoting. But the marriage 00:25:58.950 --> 00:26:01.430 was reportedly stormy and unhappy, and it lasted 00:26:01.430 --> 00:26:04.410 only two years. It seems he was far more married 00:26:04.410 --> 00:26:06.150 to his project, to the nation, than he could 00:26:06.150 --> 00:26:08.190 be to any individual. He was a very solitary 00:26:08.190 --> 00:26:10.269 figure at the top. And there's that odd little 00:26:10.269 --> 00:26:13.029 detail about his name changing again. In 1935, 00:26:13.230 --> 00:26:16.269 he briefly changed it. Briefly. This is a great 00:26:16.269 --> 00:26:18.710 deep cut for the history nerds. During the height 00:26:18.710 --> 00:26:21.369 of his sun language theory reforms, where he 00:26:21.369 --> 00:26:22.990 was trying to prove that all languages derived 00:26:22.990 --> 00:26:25.789 from Turkish, he changed his name from Kemal 00:26:26.269 --> 00:26:28.609 To Kamal, spelled with a circumflex over the 00:26:28.609 --> 00:26:31.569 A. He claimed it was an ancient, pure Turkic 00:26:31.569 --> 00:26:34.450 word for fortress. But it didn't really catch 00:26:34.450 --> 00:26:37.109 on, and he quietly went back to Kamal after about 00:26:37.109 --> 00:26:39.829 a year. Just shows you how deeply obsessed he 00:26:39.829 --> 00:26:41.809 was with the language project. He was willing 00:26:41.809 --> 00:26:44.579 to rewrite his own name to fit the theory. Sadly, 00:26:44.619 --> 00:26:47.299 that intense, hard -living lifestyle caught up 00:26:47.299 --> 00:26:50.019 with him. It did. He was diagnosed with advanced 00:26:50.019 --> 00:26:52.660 cirrhosis of the liver. He spent his final months 00:26:52.660 --> 00:26:55.660 in the Dolmabas Palace in Istanbul, the opulent 00:26:55.660 --> 00:26:57.740 former palace of the sultans he had overthrown. 00:26:57.839 --> 00:27:01.119 He died on November 10, 1938. He was only 57 00:27:01.119 --> 00:27:03.480 years old. And that brings us to his legacy, 00:27:03.700 --> 00:27:07.299 Section 6, because he dies in 1938, but in a 00:27:07.299 --> 00:27:10.299 very real way, he never really left Turkey. He 00:27:10.299 --> 00:27:13.019 left behind a country that was utterly unrecognizable 00:27:13.019 --> 00:27:15.880 from the one he was born into. In just 15 years 00:27:15.880 --> 00:27:19.119 as president, he transformed a medieval agrarian 00:27:19.119 --> 00:27:22.400 theocracy into a budding modern industrial state. 00:27:22.839 --> 00:27:25.720 The source notes the GDP per capita rose significantly. 00:27:26.019 --> 00:27:28.640 He initiated state -led industrialization, building 00:27:28.640 --> 00:27:31.359 factories for sugar, for cotton, even for aircraft. 00:27:31.779 --> 00:27:34.799 He laid the industrial foundation of modern Turkey. 00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:36.619 But the cult of Ataturk that we talked about 00:27:36.619 --> 00:27:38.480 in the intro, it's interesting that it actually 00:27:38.480 --> 00:27:41.000 got stronger, more institutionalized after he 00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:43.400 died. It did. It became fossilized into state 00:27:43.400 --> 00:27:46.630 ideology. In 1951, the Turkish government passed 00:27:46.630 --> 00:27:50.470 a law, law 5816, on crimes committed against 00:27:50.470 --> 00:27:52.970 Ataturk. It is literally a criminal offense in 00:27:52.970 --> 00:27:55.670 Turkey to this day to publicly insult his memory 00:27:55.670 --> 00:27:57.809 or to damage his statues or portraits. So his 00:27:57.809 --> 00:27:59.990 image is protected by law. You don't see that 00:27:59.990 --> 00:28:02.230 in many democracies. Almost none. And then there's 00:28:02.230 --> 00:28:04.410 that ritual on November 10th. I find this absolutely 00:28:04.410 --> 00:28:06.769 fascinating. It is one of the most surreal and 00:28:06.769 --> 00:28:09.829 powerful things you can witness. Every year, 00:28:09.849 --> 00:28:12.170 on the anniversary of his death, at exactly 9 00:28:12.170 --> 00:28:16.109 .05 a .m., the minute he died, air raid sirens 00:28:16.109 --> 00:28:18.809 wail across the entire country. And everything 00:28:18.809 --> 00:28:21.289 stops. Traffic stops on the Bosphorus Bridge 00:28:21.289 --> 00:28:23.509 in Istanbul. People get out of their cars and 00:28:23.509 --> 00:28:25.730 stand at attention. Ferries blow their horns. 00:28:25.849 --> 00:28:28.670 The whole country, 85 million people, pauses 00:28:28.670 --> 00:28:30.990 for a minute of silent tribute. That is incredible. 00:28:31.089 --> 00:28:33.549 It shows a level of national devotion that is 00:28:33.549 --> 00:28:36.670 very hard for outsiders to comprehend. It connects 00:28:36.670 --> 00:28:39.529 back to that name, Ataturk, father of the Turks. 00:28:39.910 --> 00:28:42.750 In Turkish culture, the father figure is paramount. 00:28:43.150 --> 00:28:44.950 And he is the ultimate father of the nation. 00:28:45.130 --> 00:28:47.430 And his global perception is just as complex. 00:28:47.690 --> 00:28:50.309 Leaders of the decolonizing third world, people 00:28:50.309 --> 00:28:53.130 like Gandhi in India, Bourguiba in Tunisia, they 00:28:53.130 --> 00:28:55.950 absolutely adored him. They saw him as the pioneer, 00:28:56.230 --> 00:28:58.589 the first leader from the East to stand up to 00:28:58.589 --> 00:29:01.049 the Western imperial powers and win. Exactly. 00:29:01.109 --> 00:29:03.309 He proved that the West wasn't invincible. He 00:29:03.309 --> 00:29:05.210 provided a blueprint for creating a modern nation 00:29:05.210 --> 00:29:08.230 state out of the ashes of empire. But he also 00:29:08.230 --> 00:29:10.769 had admirers in very, very different corners 00:29:10.769 --> 00:29:13.069 of the world. The source mentions Hitler. Yes, 00:29:13.109 --> 00:29:15.369 and this is the chilling part of the legacy. 00:29:15.930 --> 00:29:19.390 Hitler openly admired him. He called Ataturk 00:29:19.390 --> 00:29:22.309 a star in the darkness. What Hitler saw was a 00:29:22.309 --> 00:29:24.430 fellow nationalist who had taken a defeated empire, 00:29:24.809 --> 00:29:27.250 purged it of what he saw as foreign elements, 00:29:27.470 --> 00:29:30.170 rejected an internationalist treaty, and built 00:29:30.170 --> 00:29:33.470 a strong, centralized, militarized state. The 00:29:33.470 --> 00:29:35.289 methods appealed to him. That's a very uncomfortable 00:29:35.289 --> 00:29:38.269 endorsement. It is. But we have to be very careful 00:29:38.269 --> 00:29:40.640 here. Ataturk was not a fascist. He rejected 00:29:40.640 --> 00:29:43.019 the expansionist racial purity ideologies of 00:29:43.019 --> 00:29:45.740 the Nazis and, in fact, kept Turkey neutral during 00:29:45.740 --> 00:29:48.359 most of World War II, preventing fascism from 00:29:48.359 --> 00:29:50.940 taking root there. But his methods of top -down 00:29:50.940 --> 00:29:53.440 authoritarian state building certainly appealed 00:29:53.440 --> 00:29:55.779 to authoritarians everywhere. John F. Kennedy 00:29:55.779 --> 00:29:57.880 respected him. Winston Churchill respected him. 00:29:57.980 --> 00:30:00.200 And yes, the dictators respected him, too. So 00:30:00.200 --> 00:30:01.980 when we zoom all the way out, what's the final 00:30:01.980 --> 00:30:04.380 takeaway here? I think the takeaway is the sheer 00:30:04.380 --> 00:30:07.299 magnitude of his impact. We're talking about 00:30:07.299 --> 00:30:10.440 a man who forced an entire nation to jump centuries 00:30:10.440 --> 00:30:13.740 forward in a single generation. He changed the 00:30:13.740 --> 00:30:15.839 clothes they wore, the letters they wrote, the 00:30:15.839 --> 00:30:18.279 laws they lived by, and the very way they related 00:30:18.279 --> 00:30:21.980 to God. No other 20th century leader, with the 00:30:21.980 --> 00:30:24.579 possible exception of Mao, changed the daily 00:30:24.579 --> 00:30:26.960 life of his people so completely and so rapidly. 00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:30.059 But the central question remains, and the source 00:30:30.059 --> 00:30:33.259 alludes to this very strongly. He built the structures 00:30:33.259 --> 00:30:36.240 of a modern democracy, but he ruled as an autocrat 00:30:36.240 --> 00:30:38.460 to protect them. And that is the final provocative 00:30:38.460 --> 00:30:41.099 thought here. Ataturk believed he had to be a 00:30:41.099 --> 00:30:43.119 dictator so that one day Turkey wouldn't need 00:30:43.119 --> 00:30:45.319 one. He believed that people weren't ready for 00:30:45.319 --> 00:30:47.660 the responsibilities of democracy, so he had 00:30:47.660 --> 00:30:50.180 to act as their tutor to force them to guide 00:30:50.180 --> 00:30:52.880 them into modernity. He called it a period of 00:30:52.880 --> 00:30:55.940 tutelage. So the question for you listening is 00:30:55.940 --> 00:31:00.009 this. Can a true sustainable democracy ever really 00:31:00.009 --> 00:31:02.430 be established from the top down by a single 00:31:02.430 --> 00:31:06.410 powerful authoritarian figure? Or does that benevolent 00:31:06.410 --> 00:31:09.369 dictator model inevitably leave deep fractures, 00:31:09.450 --> 00:31:12.269 like the intense polarization between secularists 00:31:12.269 --> 00:31:14.049 and religious conservatives we see in Turkey 00:31:14.049 --> 00:31:16.509 today that last for generations? It's the difference 00:31:16.509 --> 00:31:17.990 between building a house and growing a tree, 00:31:18.049 --> 00:31:20.650 isn't it? He built the house very quickly, very 00:31:20.650 --> 00:31:23.500 strongly, with a clear blueprint. But did the 00:31:23.500 --> 00:31:25.480 democratic roots have enough time to take hold 00:31:25.480 --> 00:31:27.859 naturally in the soil? That is the question Turkey 00:31:27.859 --> 00:31:29.940 is still answering almost a century later. A 00:31:29.940 --> 00:31:32.779 fascinating and very heavy question to end on. 00:31:32.839 --> 00:31:34.440 Thanks for taking the deep dive with us. Thank 00:31:34.440 --> 00:31:34.599 you.