Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, hero of the First World War, founder of the Republic of Turkiye, and by some accounts, a bisexual man, 1930s
Despite his great reforms and his secularism, he was still a turkish nationalist first and foremost. That included suppressing the Kurdish language and setting the "purification" of Turkey as his goal. Turkey, in Atatürk's vision, should become a nation inhabited by turkish-speaking and turkish-feeling people only. From 1931 onwards, speaking Greek, Armenian or Kurdish in public was heavily discouraged, foreign sounding first and last names were changed and so on.
Atatürk himself said:"Within the political and social unity of today's Turkish nation, there are citizens and co-nationals who have been incited to think of themselves as Kurds, Circassians, Laz or Bosnians. " In his eyes, such identification were delusions. Maybe its a bit crude, but you could say he tried to drive the Kurd out of the Turk. In modern terms, you could see that as cultural genocide.
Certainly a valid point. I think the only thing I would say would be that such forced-assimilationist thinking was common amongst post-WW1 nation-states.
Thats fair
Who says he is bisexsual? His only love letters are for woman?
The souls of 1.000.000 murdered Armenians entered the chat ...
At the time of the Armenian genocide, he was still a Lieutenant Colonel serving in Gallipoli (ie nowhere near Armenia), and furthermore condemned the genocide, including to the Turkish parliament later in life. The genocide itself was ordered by the Young Turks whom Ataturk had a cold, at best, relationship with after their seizure of power in 1908 did not lead to serious democratic reforms.
BTW it’s Constantinople, not Istanbul.
BTW it's Byzantium, not Constantinople
And, as many many many Turks will hate to hear: he was a strong and proud proponent of a secular state with equal rights for everyone.
This really surprises me the most, he's revered as a great reformator yet what was one of the core points is thrown away and most pretend it did not exist
As I understand it, there's a strong divide between secular and non-secular Turks in the political and cultural arenas of the country.