Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey is Cooked

Now that the Islamization of Turkey is rapidly advancing under the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, there’s much grief, pain and suffering in store for that country. That’s what Islam does.

One man had tried to steer Turkey away from that fate: and had indeed succeeded to some extent. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881 – 1938), a Turkish army officer and revolutionist statesman who was the founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey. He wanted Turkey to be a secular state, and naturally so since he was irreligious. But now Turkey is regressing into an Islamic state and will probably become a failed state in the decades ahead. That’s a real pity.

Here are a couple of quotes attributed to Kemal Ataturk. Source: Wikiquotes.

• I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men.

• It is claimed that religious unity is also a factor in the formation of nations. Whereas, we see the contrary in the Turkish nation. Turks were a great nation even before they adopted Islam. This religion did not help the Arabs, Iranians, Egyptians and others to unite with Turks to form a nation. Conversely, it weakened the Turks’ national relations; it numbed Turkish national feelings and enthusiasm. This was natural, because Mohammedanism was based on Arab nationalism above all nationalities.

{Emphasis added.}

It is interesting that once Islam takes hold in a population, it is hard for it to shake it off. People try but the collective invariably regresses to the characteristic barbarism of Islam. Ataturk must be spinning in his grave.

India presents an interesting case history of the pernicious effects of Islam. After the British division of Indian into India and the two parts of Pakistan, you had a kind of a natural experiment. India, the non-Islamic bit is far ahead of the two Islamic bits. India is advancing while the two Islamic bits are regressing. Within India itself, those states that have larger Islamic influence, are fast falling behind. Check out UP and Bengal. Bengal is just a decade or so behind becoming the Islamic Republic of Bangladesh version 2.

Someone should poke Turkey with a fork. I think it is done. (It’s what we say around here on Thanksgiving — “Someone please check if the turkey is done.”)

Author: Atanu Dey

Economist. View all posts by Atanu Dey