The first half of September was marked in Turkey by a resurgence of an old discussion from a completely new angle. The discussion about the status of Mustafa Kemal, often referred to as Atatürk, the «Father of the Turks». This discussion itself is old, as mentioned above. What is new, however, is who initiated it this time.
Usually, the calls to reconsider Kemal’s status as a kind of civic idol and his title as the «Father of the Turks» came from religious Islamic circles close to the current ruling party and received a sharp, consolidated response from Kemalist ideologists, especially from the Republican People’s Party (CHP) they founded.
This time, however, it was almost the opposite. Chenan Kaftandjioglu, none other than one of the leaders of the Istanbul branch of the CHP, spoke out. Kaftandjioglu, who was speaking at one of the events commemorating the 97th anniversary of the Turkish victory in the National Liberation War of 1919-1923, mentioned Mustafa Kemal’s name but repeatedly used the epithet «Gazi» (warrior) instead of «Atatürk». When the scholar and journalist Uluch Gurkan, an ardent Kemalist, noticed this, he asked her directly if she was doing this on purpose.
Kaftandjioglu replied that she felt closer to this definition of his personality because it was the expression to which she «felt she belonged». Further developing her thought, she stated that she is against the use of the expression «soldiers of Atatürk» in relation to CHP members because it is a «military term» that «underestimates us as individuals».
Kaftandjioglu’s statements sounded like thunder from a clear sky precisely because they were made by not just an ordinary but a high-ranking representative of the party that has positioned itself for decades as the defender of everything related to Kemal — both his ideas and his personality. Therefore, it is not surprising that she faced a wave of criticism from party members, even to the point of calling for her to leave the party if she denied its «pillar of faith».
However, it is worth noting that no decision has yet been made to expel her, nor has any decision been made to demand an apology or anything similar. Both the fact that such calls will be heard within the main Kemalist party and that there will be no party punishment is difficult to imagine for a while. And now it is a reality.
It is also interesting that prominent representatives of the opposing camp have started to defend the status of Mustafa Kemal and condemn the attacks against him. For example, Ibrahim Karagul, the editor-in-chief of the pro-Erdogan publication «Yeni Safak,» which we have often mentioned, openly speaks from neo-Ottoman and pan-Islamic positions.
In general, while the core of the camps of Atatürk’s supporters and opponents remains, the attitude towards this figure undergoes an astonishing metamorphosis when the former call for the renunciation of his glorification and the latter try to condemn them for it.