A phenomenology of Atatürk from theology to anthropology

Compared with past years, each year we witness somewhat stranger commemorations on 10 November and celebrations on 29 October. Given the official ideological dimensions of these commemorations and celebrations, a certain share of exaggeration is always somewhat understandable. As the name says, even if official, it is "ideology," and ideologies by nature rest not on reflecting reality as it is but on sanctifying and making legends of certain chosen persons, periods, events or facts.

IS INSULTING ISLAM NECESSARY IN ORDER TO COMMEMORATE MUSTAFA KEMAL?

What is not understood is the excessive mixing of ideology with reality. What is even less understood, and will never be understood, is that commemorating Mustafa Kemal with goodwill should require a discourse of hatred and hostility toward the values, symbols and beliefs of Islam.

In some schools it was boldly stated that the role attributed to Mustafa Kemal was the war he had waged against the symbols of Islam, which is almost identified with "darkness," "reaction," "bigotry." These ceremonies, carried out through teachers and school principals attached to the Ministry of National Education itself, on the one hand commit the crime of open hostility to Islam, and on the other are not even aware that they are portraying Mustafa Kemal openly as an enemy of Islam.

"If you long for the fez and the veil / If you prefer the dark night to the light / If you still seek help / From the sheikh, the shaykh, the dervish / If you find healing / In amulets and quacks ... / If you say women and men should not be equal / If you say she should go into the black chador / Fearing the wrath of the bigot ... / If you still have not understood the importance / Of being a nation / Be a servant / Remain an ummah / Await the fatwa of the şeyhülislam / Forget all I have said / Tear down the statues I have erected" — a poem was recited at a school like this.

If any of these statements were uttered by others in a European country, they would be directly diagnosed as "Islamophobia" and deserve to be tried as a crime of rancor and hatred. How is it that among us this crime can be committed so easily in the name of commemorating Mustafa Kemal? Do we entrust our children to schools so that their tender minds may be poisoned with such innovations and superstitions?

THE LANGUAGE OF OUR HISTORY IS AS MYTHOLOGICAL AS THE LANGUAGE OF THE CEREMONY

The mythological discourse that dominates commemoration or celebration ceremonies unfortunately dominates historiography as well. Although the history on the subject goes no further than a superstition that could not be deemed fit even for a primary-school-level mind, it has a sacred inviolability that no one dares to question.

In legend there are mythological heroes endowed with superhuman qualities and satanic enemies with extraordinary evils against whom they struggle. Of course neither a history nor a healthy historical consciousness or personality comes out of this ideology. From a history read and memorized with this mythological understanding, it is futile to expect a unifying spirit, a humanist tolerance, a universal message or a literature of social peace.

Especially when, in this history, you try to identify yourself with the mythological hero and to identify the evils he struggled against with your opponents now facing you, what feeling or philosophy can you produce, from the commemoration or the ceremony, toward the people you live together with, other than an incurable rancor and hatred.

Mustafa Kemal's historical role in the founding of the Republic of Turkey cannot be denied. In this process, it is also a separate fact that he had serious disputes at certain stages of the road with almost all of his own comrades-in-arms with whom he had fought the War of Liberation, and that he parted ways with them. The "loneliness of the Father," later dramatized in addition, was in fact the result of these purges, which came about entirely through his own choices. Mustafa Kemal was a statesman who, through each rift he experienced, made different narrations possible for every kind of history to be written afterward. That is why, when one truly enters that history, no criterion can be established to serve as a reference for resolving today's political divisions.

ATATÜRK CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD WITH THIS MINDSET

Much has been written and much has been said on this subject. Our aim is not to reopen these pages; in fact it is evident that doing so at this stage would be of no use. The truth of the matter is that Mustafa Kemal as a historical figure has never been genuinely tried to be understood or discussed. It is nearly impossible to find a path between those who treat him at the level of a mythological figure in order to understand him and those who tear him down. After a point you grasp the profound wisdom of the command of the Holy Qur'an, concerning in particular certain historical figures who are subjects of dispute, "They were a generation that came and passed; what they did is theirs, what you do is yours, and you will not be questioned about what they did."

In fact this is a criterion that should be applied to all historical figures and that will produce very healthy results for today. It is preferable to stay away from debates that will yield no result and in fact will not lead us to understand those figures better. Bringing accounts from history into the present is ontologically impossible, yet it is a path often strayed into. Likewise, to think that one will resolve today's quarrels by recourse to history is both an expression of the living people's not knowing how to live and produce solutions, and nothing comes of such recourse other than mythological stories attributed to history.

The history they think will be a remedy for their troubles does not stand there with open arms; on the contrary, that history is imagined in the mind and the world of feeling in accordance with their own expectations. Who describes better the human being who creates his savior as a super-human projected onto his mind by making up for his own deficiency, Ludwing Feuerbach or Karl Marx?

When we carry that chapter here, the importance of trying to understand the factors that drive people, with each passing day, to seek help with a discourse more exaggerated, more ritual and more mythological than their own mental productions makes itself felt as a separate matter. At precisely this point a phenomenology from theology toward anthropology could be a good beginning for understanding Atatürk.