ATATURK AND BANGABANDHU

When one visits Turkey one cannot fail to miss the fact that Atatrk is everywhere. You will probably arrive in Atatrk Airport in Istanbul. Your bus or taxi into the town will pass along the Atatrk Avenue. You may attend a performance or a concert at the Atatrk Cultural Centre. Or an international football game at the Atatrk Stadium. In every town in every school, or every establishment of any kind, all offices, many shops, you will see pictures and busts of Atatrk. This is puzzling for many visitors, especially those from western countries. We are often faced with the question: Why Turks admire Ataturk so much? Why still? More than 70 years after his death But Bangladeshi friends would never ask this question, because they know why. The Bengali Nation knows what Atatrk means for us Turks, because of the fact that there is someone that is dear to them for the same reasons that Ataturk is dear to us. This person is the great Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who is the founder of the Bengali nation state and thus the father of the Bengalis. There are some leaders that come exactly at a critical juncture of the history of nations. They lead their nation through trying times into peace and freedom. Those who have provided leadership in the task of the creation of nations or nation-states have fondly been called by their peoples as founding fathers and have been placed on the high on national pride and history. Such is the reason why Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is cherished as the creator of modern Turkey. And that is why that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is the founder of the Bengali nation state: Bangladesh. This fact was once more accentuated during the visit of Turkish President Abdullah Gl visited Bangladesh in February this year. When President Gl met with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina two leaders recalled the contribution of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to achieving independence of

Bangladesh and of Kemal Ataturk to building today's modern Turkey. President Gul said Turkey and Bangladeshi bear mutual bonds of affection for each other which cannot be easily comprehended by other friendly nations. He went on saying that: "Kazi Nazrul Islam, the Bangladesh's prominent poet, and our great leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, can better understand the substance and qualities of Turkish- Bangladeshi friendship which has a long history of centuries." President Gul referred that every Bangladeshi is cognizant of the "Kemal Pasha" saga which was written by Kazi Nazrul Islam at the military barracks in Karachi as early as in 1921 while Turkish National War of Liberation was continuing. He praised the heroic spirits of the Turks for its independence under the leadership of Kemal Ataturk. Poet Nazrul Islam's verse: "Kemal tune Kemal Kiya Bhai-Oh brother Kemal, what a wonder you have achieved" demonstrates the admiration for the Turkish leader. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in return appreciated that Turkey is a development partner of Bangladesh since its independence in 1971 under the leadership of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Indeed, Kemal Ataturk's reforms, which emancipated Turkish women, had a profound influence on the educated Muslim women in Bengal. His policy of separation of religion from state attracted Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib, the founder of Bangladesh.

To this day, Turks admire Mustafa Kemal Atatrk because of his vision, courage and leadership. He eventually saved the country from invasion and demolition as a nation. Atatrk's life long dedication and service for his country have allowed Turkey to develop into the modern nation it is today.

"There are two Mustafa Kemals. One the flesh-and-blood Mustafa Kemal who now stands before you and who will pass away. the other is you, all of you here who will go to the far corners of our land to spread the ideals which must be defended with your lives if necessary. I stand for the nation's dreams, and my life's work is to make them come true."

Atatrk stands as one of the world's few historic figures who dedicated their lives totally to their nations.
The founder of the Turkish Republic and its first President, stands as a towering figure of the 20th Century. Among the great leaders of history, few have achieved so much in so short period, transformed the life of a nation as decisively, and given such profound inspiration to the world at large.

Today Turkish and Bengali Nations have excellent relations. Both countries share a common heritage, traditions, faith and culture. People of both countries have a deep commitment to democracy and other liberal traditions. Both people fought to achieve their independence.

But in more ways than one, Sheikh Mujib has been a more successful founding father than either Ataturk or Gandhi. Turkey existed even during the period of the Ottoman Empire. Once the empire fell, Ataturk took control of Turkey and had it veer away from western exploitation through giving shape to a democratic nation state. In Gandhis case, India and Indians did not lose their national status either before or after him.

Feb 2010 Turkey will provide support for power generation, transport, information and communication technology, road infrastructure and other development sectors of Bangladesh. The assurance came when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called on visiting Turkish President Abdullah Gul at his hotel suite here yesterday. During the meeting, they discussed different bilateral issues, including expansion of trade and business between the two countries and increasing Turkish investment in Bangladesh.

Terming Turkey as a development partner of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina called for Turkish investment, especially in railway and waterway sectors of Bangladesh in a large scale, the Prime Minister's Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad told journalists. who left here for home yesterday evening after a two-day state visit to Bangladesh was conferred Doctor of Laws degree by the Dhaka University.

Both the Turkish president and the Bangladesh premier underscored the need for expediting activities and inter-country relationship in the United Nations, NAM, OIC and other international and regional forums to this end The Turkish President was speaking at a state banquet hosted in his honour by President Zillur Rahman at Bangabhaban in the city on Friday. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also attended the function with her cabinet colleagues and advisers. Turkish "We also know that three months after Ataturk's passing away, a school was given the name Kemal Ataturk and a boulevard in Dhaka and another boulevard in Chittagong were also named after Kemal Ataturk," he said. "Likewise we have a boulevard in our capital city Ankara named after the Great Leader Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who made Bangladesh independent. He wholeheartedly congratulate the people and government of Bangladesh who have been working day and night as a whole nation altogether, including all the sons and daughters of this country and materialized exemplary accomplishments in agriculture and industry. "You have also set targets which are not at all impossible to achieve by 2021, the 50th anniversary of the independence. We will continue to stand by our

Bangladeshi sisters and brothers," he said. The Turkish President said that there is not a single political problem that exists between our two countries. He, however, said the present level of our economic and commercial relations are unfortunately far from reflecting the potentials of our countries and peoples. "We can not approach our desired targets through a trade mechanism based on just a few items," Gul said, mentioning that high level representatives of prominent companies of the Turkish private sector are accompanying him at this visit. "I will start my programme tomorrow morning with a meeting which will bring together Turkish and Bangladeshi businessmen. I will convey our expectations to them and ask them to intensify their contacts and diversify our trade relations," he said. The Turkish President said the first concrete step in this sphere will be the implementation of the decision taken by the Turkish Airlines to start direct flights between Istanbul and Dhaka as of the summer schedule of 2010. Gul thanked Zillur Rahman and the people of Bangladesh for the warm hospitality and kindness extended to him, his wife and delegation. "I wish to propose a toast for ever-lasting robust friendship and brotherhood of our two nations," he added. President Zillur Rahman said Bangladesh and Turkey need to take concerted efforts to enhance cooperation for the mutual benefit of the peoples of both the countries. "We can face the challenges of the millennium forging ahead with close cooperation, sharing and harnessing each other's experiences and expertise," he said while speaking at the state banquet. The President said the people of Turkey may import world-class Bangladesh-made

pharmaceuticals, jute and leather goods, garments at competitive prices. "We welcome Turkey's cooperation and assistance in the areas of river dredging, energy and ICT to help materialize our development programmes," he said. Terming the visit of the Turkish President as an advent of new chapter in the bilateral relations between Bangladesh and Turkey, Zillur Rahman said the visit would add new dimension and take the bilateral relations to a new height. "The momentum being created by your visit today will take the bilateral relations to the pinnacle and surely bring far- reaching benefits for our two peoples in the days ahead," he said. The President said people of Bangladesh cherish the historic and time- tested friendship and brotherhood that exist between the peoples of two brotherly countries. "I feel proud that the people from Bengal supported Turkey in the Turkish War of Independence and our National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam composed many poems being inspired by the Father of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Pasha," he said. Recalling with deep respect Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman for his unique and extraordinary contribution in achieving country's independence, the President said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Bangabandhu, has declared 'Vision 2021' to build a digitized prosperous Bangladesh. "Our Prime Minister has also made utmost efforts to address the global climate change at different international forums and I am confident her endeavours would be materialized for the greater interest of entire humanity," Zillur Rahman said. Referring to his visit to Turkey November last to participate in the COMSEC Summit, the Bangladesh President said "I was greeted with exceptional warmth and hospitality which would be tuned in my memory for ever." Mentioning former Turkish President Suleyman Demiral's visits to Bangladesh in 1997 and 1999 and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tour of Turkey in

1997, the President said said, "It is very significant for the bilateral relations that some high-level visits from both sides have been made over the years.

The ties of the Bangladeshi people to Turkey are deep, and the people of Bangladesh have great respect for the Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk (father of the Turks), the founder of modern Turkey. Bangladesh's national poet late Kazi Nazrul Islam (25 May, 189929 August, 1976) was a Bengali poet, musician, revolutionary, and philosopher who pioneered in the 1920s and 1930s wrote many poems in which he lauded the leadership of Kemal Ataturk.

The visit of the Turkish president has opened up a new horizon of economic and commercial cooperation between the two countries. Turkey is now the 6th largest economy in Europe and 16th in the world and Bangladesh is conveniently located between China and India.

Today, October 29th, the day which commemorates the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the brass bands are practicing for the parades, and bunting and banners , pictures of Atatrk, and the red flag with the white star and crescent are flying from houses, apartments, office building, often covering the whole side of a twenty-storey building, all over Turkey, especially here in Etiler, middle-class Republican district of Istanbul par excellence. There is an exhibition of photos of Atatrk in the nearby Akmerkez Shopping Centre; Atatrk young at cadet school in Salonika with twirling moustaches, Atatrk in uniform, smart in tails, plus-fours, a natty cap; Atatrk with the King of Afghanistan, the Shah of Iran, Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson; Atatrk swimming; Atatrk with his adopted daughters or groups of women, unveiled, of course; Atatrk looking up, Atatrk looking down; a paunchy Atatrk a year or so before his death through liver cirrhosis on Nov 10 1938, aged 58; and, inexplicably, Atatrk leaning out of a train window fingering a set of Islamic prayer beads. Well, maybe he was traveling through a particularly religious area. Many of these are on permanent exhibition on the walls opposite the Dolmabahe Palace. The Atatrk foundation has been active on the streets and in the shopping malls selling magnets, bookmarks, paperweights, mirrors, heart-shaped pill boxes, calendars, cigarette cases, jewellry

boxes. Atatrk has become a symbol, an icon. Liberal Turks I have met, especially women, university teachers, have on their desk or walls small framed pictures of Atatrk. But wait a minute, you tell me, wasnt Atatrk a dictator: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Atatrk? How can this possibly come about? I am told: if it had not been for Atatrk, we would still be in the Dark Ages. We would still be wearing the veil; we might not have the chance to work; Turkey might be like, well, Iran. And because of Atatrk we can work, wear what we like and live much as women do in the West. And they may quote Atatrk: Human kind is made up of two sexes, women and men. Is it possible that a mass is improved by the improvement of only one part and the other part is ignored? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains and the other half can soar into skies? Mustafa Kemal, who took the name of Atatrk, Father of the Turks in 1934, when, through his own decision, all Turks had to take surnames, gained fame as the Ottoman colonel at Gallipoli in 1915 who held back and prevented the British and ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) landing. Then on the Syrian border in 1917 he managed to hold onto as much territory as possible before the inevitable defeat of the flailing Ottoman Empire, allied to Germany, before the Anglo-French forces. The Ottoman Empire had crumbled. With the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 the European powers gave themselves slices of the cake of Turkey. Greece was to administer the west, Italy the south, Britain the south, France the Syrian border, Armenia got the far east, and only a rump Turkey in the north and east of Anatolia was to be maintained. The defeated Sultan Mehmed VI, Vehideddin, sent Kemal as an army inspector to eastern Turkey, to inspect the troops. A piece of luck, as he raised the call to get rid of the foreign invaders. He organized the Erzurum and Sivas congresses of 1919 and called for a Turkish state. He was elected Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The task was arduous. Equipment and supplies were lacking. Brigandage was rife. A Kurdish uprising was put down. Agreements were made with the French and Italians, and eventually the English, but the Greeks wanted to hold on to territory which had been part of the Ancient Greek Empire. Defeats were suffered. But, playing on patriotism, the desire for a Turkish nation, a new sense of patriotism, Kemals own enormous prestige and charisma, the Greeks were eventually defeated and left Syrrna, Izmir, in 1923. Atrocities took place on both sides. The Armenians were forced back, and now the killings of the Armenians by Turks in 1920 has become the greatest problem for Turkey to enter the EU. The Turkish Republic was proclaimed on 29th October 1923. Kemal was elected President. The country was unified at last. Borders were just about fixed, to include an apparently unified Turkish speaking population. Differently to Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini, Kemal did not embark on any attempt to conquer other territories. Despite opposition from those who thought he wanted to become another Sultan, he, with the support of the armed forces, managed to hold onto power through the 1920s and 1930s. An opposition party was attempted in 1924-5, but when it was looking too successful it was withdrawn. Its leaders were linked to an unsuccessful assignation attempt in 1926, and some were hanged.

Kemalism became established with its distinctive traits: republicanism, nationalism, populism, statism, secularism and reformism. And Turkey never became a Stalinist state with the dark menace of the concentration camp (Volkan and Itzkowitz in Atatrk, A.L. Macfie, p.190). Socially, Kemalism brought about great changes. The Caliphate and religious courts were abolished in 1924. Religious symbols were outlawed: the fez was banned in 1925. Men were ordered to wear European headwear: European companies dumped their unsold stock of pink bowler hats in Turkey. The Swiss legal system was adopted in 1926. Atatrk encouraged de-veiling, held mixed dances and dinners, and may even have been the first ever Turk to have danced (the foxtrot) with a woman, at least in public. Polygamy and repudiation of wives became illegal in 1931, though, ironically, this was how Atatrk had divorced his wife, Latife, Hanim, in 1925, after just two years of marriage. Women were given the right to vote and could stand for elections in the same year. Almost overnight, the alphabet was changed. Few, less than 10%, could read the Ottoman script, which mixed Turkish, Persian and Arabic. On 3 November 1928 Turkey began to use the Roman alphabet. Illiteracy improved almost immediately, and, where possible, Turkish words were introduced in place of Arabic and Persian, and future generations would be unable to read anything written before 1928. Indeed, today, very very few can, even at Boazii University. And Turkish gained the status of a national language. The Koran was translated into Turkish in 1931. The Turkish Historical Society emphasized that Turks were citizens linked together by a community of language, culture and ideals; and in 1932 the Turkish Linguistic Society identified Turkish as the sun-language, the original language, from which Semitic and IndoEuropean languages had evolved. In the middle-class suburbs of Istanbul and Ankara the flags are waving, but there will be much less celebration in the working-class Islamic suburbs.
Atatrk was unquestionably one of the greatest political figures of the last century. He brought Turkish society into the modern age, and introduced a Western way of life. He was one of the greatest thinkers, powerful statesmen and political men of the century. Many aspects of the revolution were the introduction of Western legal codes, the abolition of the Arabic alphabet in favour of the Latin, introduction of formal surnames (in 1934 Mustapha Kemal selected "Atatrk" meaning "Father of the Turks", The Parliament passed it as uniquely his own), the creation of a party of new nationalism, the compulsory adoption of Western clothing styles instead of the traditional Turkish dress (doing away with the veil and introducing the European hat in place of the fez), had a massive impact on Turkish life. The declaration of "Kemalism" was also abolishing the Caliphate (so that the religious and government affaires were ruled by the same person), the Shariat (secularising education), adopting the Christian calendar, and granting equality to women. Few leaders have so modernized an ancient society, religion, government, and education. Atatrk also abolished the monarchy.

Atatrk was able to build a new government, and used intelligent diplomacy to divide the Allies, and to reorganize the Army. Under his leadership, the Turkish Army reconquered large parts of occupied eastern and western Turkey, causing vital losses on the uprising Armenians and the better-equipped Greek army. He became the first president of the new republic in 1923. The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 was a personal triumph for Atatrk. (It meant that Turkey was allowed to keep all purely Turkish lands).

Emerging as a military hero at the Dardanelles in 1915, he became the charismatic leader of the Turkish national liberation struggle in 1919. He blazed across the world scene in the early 1920s as a triumphant commander who crushed the invaders of his country. Following a series of impressive victories against all odds, he led his nation to full independence. He put an end to the antiquated Ottoman dynasty whose tale had lasted more than six centuries - and created the Republic of Turkey in 1923, establishing a new government truly representative of the nation's will. As President for 15 years, until his death in 1938, Mustafa Kemal Atatrk introduced a broad range of swift and sweeping reforms - in the political, social, legal, economic, and cultural spheres - virtually unparalleled in any other country. His achievements in Turkey are an enduring monument to Atatrk. Emerging nations admire him as a pioneer of national liberation. The world honors his memory as a foremost peacemaker who upheld the principles of humanism and the vision of a united humanity. Tributes have been offered to him through the decades by such world statesmen as lloyd George, Churchill, Roosevelt, Nehru, de Gaulle, Adenauer, Bourguiba, Nasser, Kennedy, and countless others. A White House statement, issued on the occasion of "The Atatrk Centennial" in 1981, pays homage to him as "a great leader in times of war and peace". It is fitting that there should be high praise for Atatrk, an extraordinary leader of modern times, who said in 1933: "I look to the world with an open heart full of pure feelings and friendship".
Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives. You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side now here in this country of ours.. you, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land. They have become our sons as well. Mustapha Kemal. 1934

By its form of government and lifestyle, Turkey continues to demonstrate that Western and Eastern values are able to co-exist. Our experience shows that democracy, human rights and the rule of law can thrive in a predominantly Muslim country. Turkey is also home to Christian and Jewish minorities who live

side by side with the Muslims, proving that it is possible for people from different faiths to unite around the same ideals and lead peaceful lives together.

It is also worth mentioning that Turkey has the advantage of enjoying a history free from being colonized. This helps the Turkish common conscience, free from the burden of any feeling of resentment against past foreign rulers which is often found deeply engraved in the self-cognition of former colonies, to be able to embrace practically everything. Cleavages Turkeys case provides a strong counter-argument to the doomsday theories concerning the inevitability of a clash of civilizations. We actually managed to reconcile traditional values, including religious ones, with modernity in law, in science, in social and economic liveliness Turkey has this tradition of reconciling differences and enabling different elements to co-exist side by side in harmony.