Prisoners of Geography 5 - Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was the founder of the Republic of Turkey and the first president of Turkey from 1923 until his death in 1938. The Atatürk ushered in many progressive and innovative reforms, transforming Turkey into a secular, modernized, and industrial nation.
Mustafa Kemal was born in the early months of 1881. Kemal’s father, Ali Riza Efendi, was a military officer while his mother, Zübeyde Hanim, was a deeply pious Muslim. During his early years in the Ottoman military, Kemal gained experience and improved his leadership skills, paving the way to the success of the Turkish War of Independence from 1919 to 1923 and his eventual “election” as the first president of Turkey.
After he won the Turkish War of Independence and the presidency, Kemal began to make a series of modernization reforms in Turkey. Kemal made primary education free, opening many new schools. Women in Turkey got the right to vote in local elections during Kemal’s presidency, and his government tried hard to maintain a homogeneous and unified nation. Additionally, Kemal created many new economic policies that helped encourage small and big businesses.
However, although he did many commendable things during his lifetime, Kemal was not a perfect man. According to many individuals in Turkey, Kemal was opposed to Islam, and he did many things to suppress that religion, such as forcing religious men to wear hats after the “Hat Revolution”.
Undoubtedly, Kemal’s firm leadership has affected the geopolitics of the eastern world. Within Turkey, the great Atatürk led a revolution that eventually made Turkey a stronger and more well-rounded country politically, economically, and culturally. Politically, Kemal made Turkey a fairer and more equalized place by making the government secular and partially solving gender inequality by giving women the right to many things. Economically, Turkey began to rise in the eastern world as more business and trade were carried out and the government partially took control of the economy to try to stabilize it. Culturally, Kemal westernized Turkey by creating a clothing revolution, enacting the “Surname Law” which required every Turk to possess a last name, and introducing the western Latin alphabet. Kemal set many lofty and ambitious visions that Turkey should follow, and the visions still influenced the decisions of Turkey today, such as reestablishing the greatness of the old Ottoman Empire.
Overall, Kemal was an unparalleled man in history who made tremendous contributions to the world in his time and today.
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