[btilly]

My view is that Ataturk was trying to declare victory for western ideals while not actually holding them. His policies include fining people who speak languages other than Turkish, forcing people to have Turkish surnames, confiscating property from Armenians and so on. (I don't believe that he was directly responsible for the Armenian genocide, but there is nothing in his policies that would suggest he was opposed to it either.)

I agree that he was an improvement over the state of affairs in most muslim countries in the Middle East, but can't go so far as to say that he had the right idea.

[jacquesm]

He was far from perfect and the Armenian genocide will forever mar his legacy (and to this day can't be talked about in a reasonable way in Turkey, or even with quite a few Turks outside of Turkey).

But he did move Turkey from the state it was in to the next step. Keep in mind that most of the things that you add there were compromises, he was walking a very fine line between unification and all out civil war.

I doubt he could have done much more in one lifetime, I agree he probably could have done a better job but then again I wasn't in his shoes so it is hard to judge.

But putting Turkey ca. 1980 next to the countries surrounding it and you'd have to agree that his legacy had the potential to pay off.

[waps]

Kemal Ataturk is like a lot of other historical figures. What he accomplished is great. If he did 1/100th of that in America today, any state would reintroduce the death penalty just for him. He was a massacring bastard, created institutions that codified racism, attacked and stole from innocent people. He is a monster.

But he ended 1500 years of war between islam and

The wast

Christianity

India

China

Africa

...

But yeah today it seems maybe he didn't so much end it as interrupt it for 100 years.

[jacquesm]

I find the best person to compare him to historically is Tito.