 It's a pleasure to be here for the second time and I'm very thankful to Hans and Gutin for taking me all the way to Bodrum once again and it's a pleasure to join the symposium. Today I will speak I'm from Turkey my name is Mustafa Akil I'm a writer I write opinion columns for two different Turkish newspapers and in my columns I make often political commentaries and once in a while I criticize what we call Kemalism in Turkey which is the constitutionally established official ideology like I mean we just heard that all states are like mafia and all criminals but you know I think some states are still slightly better some still slays are slightly worse and I think it's a bigger problem when you have an official ideology in the country because when it's established in the Constitution as the official ideology that all citizens should subscribe to then the people who don't subscribe to the ideology can feel suppressed as I think we often see in the case with Turkey so that's why I will just give you a little brief of Kemalism to explain the dichotomy between Kemalism and freedom freedom of the citizens and the French the title was suggested by Hans the French connection it makes and made a lot of sense to me because yes there is a lot of interesting connection between Kemalism and its roots in Europe and especially the French Jacobin Revolutionary tradition and when we see this in the very life of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk the founder of Turkey and founder of Kemalism well some people say it was interpreted after him which is somewhat true but the core figure of Kemalism is definitely Mustafa Kemal himself and at the time the late Ottoman times when he was an Ottoman general when the Empire fell in 1918 in World War One he rose as the war hero and then he reestablished Turkey as a modern Republic in 1923 probably all known at history what that history also is very much you emphasize in Turkish textbooks but what is not often said is that at the end of the Ottoman Empire there were different schools of thought among a lot of intellectuals there was a liberal tradition for sure especially spearheaded by Prince Sabahattin he was called the prince because he was a nephew of Sultan Abdulhamid and he emphasized two concepts decentralization and individual entrepreneurship so he was basically believing in a limited state and the state should just open the way for entrepreneurship and the management of the country should be decentralized that was his idea but that was not a very popular idea for other people and there was another group of people and especially among the authors they said the state should guide the society the states should understand what is truth and teach the society educate the society transform the society according to an ideal and they especially guided ideal mainly from the French Revolution and the French Enlightenment which so just want to give you a start with one quote from a historian Dr. Trukoyatou who is himself a Kemalist and in his article on the principles of Kemalism he says while a young man in Macedonia Mustafa Kemal was introduced to the French classics especially the words of Rousseau Voltaire and Montesquieu through his close friend Fethi Okyar while a young cadet in the war Academy he studied the French Revolution thoroughly later he made frequent references to episodes in this great event of history according to him it was the greatest of all revolutions the idea of living Mustafa Kemal like in the French Revolution was this idea that there should be a cadre which gets the enlightenment and understands the problem with obscurantism and religious traditions and especially carries this war against the clerics religious establishment and then imposes this truth on society no wonder he he and his people in the 19 late 1920s and 30s the Kemalists use a very interesting like a motto in the United States I'm sure you're all familiar with the motto a government for the people by the government of the people for the people by the people the Turkish Republic the Kamalist Republic was defined as a government for the people in spite of the people and and this was also expressed through art and I will show you like a interesting painting from 1933 this is a painting about the Turkish Revolution by Zikrified Izak who was like a state-sponsored artist and it could have your needs on the path to revolution and as you can see this is like other Turk in the middle and pointing his finger to the you know to the wisdom ahead that the nation go and the people who are in front of the revolution and who are obviously killed here are and is an almond Pasha was on the floor and two men with ears and turban they're the clerics and so they are just cracked down and there's a beat of my revolution and the nation is marching on of course this is this gets an inspiration from a more famous painting but will crop the French Revolution well you just cannot see the side of the picture because of the slide no problem well this baby is a little more modest in terms of her dress clothes but still the idea is the same and the expression is the same basically so this this was just you know the what they believed in but despite this French influence the idea of revolution and Jacobinism and it's in it also interesting thing that I should say that today the term Jacobinism is a household in term in Turkey we often refer to the commons as the Jacobins sometimes it is not legally good to say them call them commons and criticize them because there's a law protecting other church and if you say some you know critical things about the Kemalist era you might you know get sued for it and even end up in jail so Jacobinism is sometimes a euphemism for Turkey for Kemalism but we often only call it Jacobinism because the basic idea that you should create a republic despite some of the sections of society and then you know march through this goal that you have in mind as it's basically the same idea so this idea this ideology was formulated in the 1930s in the late 1930s by Alta-Turkha and his followers and as you can see here the other two speaking in the Turkish parliament in the late 30s and there are six arrows behind them these six arrows are the six arrows of the Kemalist ideology and they have we can list them here one is nationalism which is a big issue because the Ottoman Empire is also beautiful explain it to us I think in a much better way was a multi-ethnic multicultural culture in return here multi-ethnic multi-villages empire there was not one identity was not a Turkish Empire Turks were definitely dominant but the Kurds Arabs there are millions Jews Greeks all were children of the empire with that republic nationalism and Turkish nationalism became the core belief and non-Turks had to be converted into Turkishness or time and especially Kurds were introduced into Turkishness which they didn't like that much so that's why Turkey still has a problem with its Kurdish citizens was nationalism was one idea the secularism idea was the second one second arrow this was actually very important from French leicite it became like and it is very much like the secularism of the Third Republic in French in France which which was very hostile to traditional re-establishment very anticlerical so that basically same idea is there and unlike the you know idea of separation of church and state in the US which is both protecting religion which is about protecting state from religion but also protecting religion from the state in Turkey it's not about there's nothing about protecting religion from the state it's just about states just being totally devoid of this influence and states secularizing the society that's a core idea in Turkish secularism the Turkish constitutional court for example defines secularism and it says you know it means that the state should not be based on religion and it says the state should protect the society from beliefs and judgments that are not based on science and reason so stable look stable say this idea is not based on science and reasons I'm protecting the society from this idea which explains you why you know civil religion religion is independent of the state as always cracked be cracked down by the communists establishing Turkey and the limitations of this practice goes on things like that's part then on the square there's another idea called statism this basically meant that state should run the economy and communists especially implemented this by getting some inspiration from corporatism of Mussolini in the 1930s and the corporatist model is explained by scholar Taha Karla was extensively implemented in the Turkish scene there are three other principles peopleism revolutionism republicanism these are just actually I think just to add more arrows they don't mean too much the first three ones are really the important ones so national and secularism and statism and today the conflicts in Turkish society often come to one of these arrows because of the statism arrow for example the Turkish Constitutional Courts several times and not the privatization decisions of the government's elected governments because they said at the Turk open this factory as a state factory it's based on statism principle and you cannot privatize it so the Constitutional Courts basically prevents governments from overriding these principles and when there was recently a big fight in Turkey or like a big you know struggle in Turkey about secularism again the Constitutional Courts took an interesting decision and let me tell you a brief history about that as you know in France to headscarf has been in some places in high schools and people look at that and people say well Turkey is getting the French idea but in Turkey it's much more severe the headscarf is banned in not just public but also private schools and not just in public but also private universities as well so literally in universities there's a police waiting there and if someone comes with a headscarf police says stop take it off then you can't get it some girls wear vicks on the headscarf to get in some take it off but this is like a constant you know clash between the society and by saying this let me notice I mean in some countries some Muslim women are forced to wear the headscarf and that's I think a fundamental violation of liberty but in Turkey it's the opposite I mean they're forced to take it off so that's another violation of liberty recently the Turkish Parliament and by the leading Justice and Development Party took a decision to set the headscarf free in universities just in universities and they this leading party Justice and Development Party and two other parties in the Parliament voted for constitutional amendments which put up put a little clause in the Constitution which basically says everybody is entitled to higher education regardless of their dress code so that little clause in the Constitution would allow a girl to wear a scarf and get into campus and 411 of 550 seats in the parliament members in the parliament voted yes for us so it was like a great majority of the Parliament passed this Constitution and accepted it then Turkey's Constitutional Court look at this and they said this is against Securism you can do this and they said and in the first three articles of the Constitution Turkish Constitution is interesting there are first three articles which says Turkey is this Turkey is that it mentions Ataturk nationalism as core foundations of the Turkish Republic then in the fourth article it says these three articles cannot be changed either they're changing cannot be proposed it's totally this undiscussed with these first three articles and the Constitution Court said since Securism is in the first three articles and you are adding somewhere in the Constitution which to our perspective confronts secularism we are not allowing this you know constitutional amendment so the Constitutional Court blocked the amendment but that was not the only thing what happened then the Council of State the top prosecutor of the Council of State opened a closure case against the ruling party saying that this party is anti-secular and it should be closed down and the Prime Minister and 70 members of the Parliament should be banned from politics the case went on for six months and finally the Constitution Court decided that the party is guilty but they said they will not close it down they will give them a big you know financial you know like a fee so they have been deprived from budget assistance which everybody gets in Turkey so that was kind of decision and the Constitution Court basically said that I mean if you ever touch anything about you know the Securism principle you know I think your party will end of course I mean it's a tradition in Turkey to close down political parties up to now almost 25 political parties have been closed down by the Constitution Court because these parties violate the law about political parties what does the law say law says well law says all political parties must be based on other Turks principles so I mean that's in the law so if you found a political party and if you say and you don't have to say I'm disagreeing with secularism I mean they give he doesn't say they disagree with the secret they just say we believe in a different interpretation of secularism they say in our understanding of secularism there is no harm in a college student where he has fun taking classes in sociology or whatever and I think that's a you know very reasonable point of view but according to constitutional court there are two principles in the Constitution and in the political parties law they interpret what it means and then that you know brings this and anybody who goes against it can be closed down by the Constitution Court the parties who have been closed down by the Constitution Court are either generally parties who challenge the official definition of secularism or the parties who challenge the official definition of the first era nationalism and nationalism is also interesting there is an interesting article in the Constitution again it says very short article it says anybody who is a citizen of Turkey is a Turk now that doesn't sound too bad in the beginning but then you say well not everybody in this country defining themselves as Turks in their they're Kurdish and they say well we are Kurds well they're proud they can be proud of being the citizens of the Turkish Republic but this isn't in their Turks because Turkishness is also an ethnic identity well the state will tell you Turkishness is not an ethnic identity it means just a citizen of Turkey but then when you go into the education system what is thought is the history of the ethnic Turks from Central Asia to today then there are Turks in Cyprus we call them in the Turks or I mean they're not our citizens definitely what we call them Cypriot Turks we call the Bulgarian Turks so definitely Turkishness is something which is which can be separate from the being being a citizen of Turkey but apparently everybody who's a citizen of Turkey has to accept themselves as Kurds so several Kurdish parties have said well we don't want this definition we want a different you know we want our Kurdishness you know to be expressed the thing is Turkey has become much more liberal now 20 years ago to saying I am a Kurd would be a crime and in 1982 a politician during the military coup because the military coups are the times when these six principles are really pressed hard that's the that's like the Stalin era then you have like a Khrushchev era and you have like soft reversions but during a politician's show in 1982 it's going to jail for simply saying I'm a Kurd and there are Kurds in Turkey we are now in a much more better situation now there's a Kurdish channel TV channel hopefully by the state Kurdish education is being discussed broadcast is free but that has been thanks to battle with this you know basically state ideology and the and the supporters of the state ideology more often you know put obstacles to these reforms the reforms are now being supported like sponsored by the EU and again there's a contradiction between the state ideology and the reforms towards society as you can even maybe know one of the you know important figures in Turkey in the liberal moment or libertarian I would say moment at the day I love professor said it was here last year he was like a sentence for three years in prison for insulting at a joke in a speech and he simply said other troops period was a period of not progress but regression in terms of civil liberties and he said why do we have the statues of this man everywhere simply because he said this man instead of you know our supreme leader and that he said it was a time of regression may put him into jail so I'm not saying those things he said that the thing is all these come from this radical enlightenment idea that you know you should create a modern nation by fighting the internal enemies and it's all known and I think French revolution is one example but in Turkey there are other elements which is gone beyond French Revolution and I think it represents it sometimes resembles Maoism to be honest because of the cultural revolution aspect and also because of the cultural personality the French Revolution was like a cadre of Robespierre downtown several people were out there and although they created a goddess of reason none of the leaders of the revolution became a god in himself but in Turkey that's exactly what you have Mustafa Kemal Tudor himself has been turned into a demigod and you can see this if you go around Turkey you can see his statues everywhere his quotes are on every wall and every official wall is like with his picture and the thing is it is interesting like in the 1930s there were crimes and you know like there were points who were poems like there's one just interesting line he one poet said let the Kaaba you know the Arabic Islamic holy site be for the Arabs what we have is Changkaya now and Changkaya was at the Turks residents so it was there are even in literature there were like things defining him as his new god shining on Turkey and I'll just want to share that you know cultural personality along with you look at some pictures and photographs okay here's a here's a these are kind of images you always see in Turkish textbooks and on the internet I got these from the internet but they are all over like in all the official deal days and publications here's the face of authentic not a very handsome one unfortunately was the one in the middle and that's the map of Turkey and it says Turkish the Turkish Republic will live forever his word there and like his face is leaving over Turkey I mean this is a very common you know depiction of Turkey attitude is like too equal like the he means the country the whole country is like he's depicted here like in the skies you know like shine looking over his nation and the sea is with the Turkish flag and he's about the sun and looking over his nation because here is him shining like a star again on Turkey so one or more thing again here this is every year there are several national like festivals in Turkey five national festivals and one is the day of the trip gave to the children the other one is the day of the trip gave to the youth the other day is when I thought you had a victory over the Greeks the other day is when he announced Republic and the fifth important day is the day when he died at that time like 905 sirens go out and every citizen stands like this and remembers the death of the leader and in this picture like this he's always like this is from one of the national festivals of the day for the remembrance of the trip like this is special special in a festival for numerous the postures like this are everywhere in all these posters the other ones like here he's always looking to some distant future and some vision and all the people are running in you know cheering under his like here are it's like some man and some soldiers and there are other like like Turkish people happy under his like guidance and that's the common image you know use in Turkish popular here is like a you know his statues are in every school and in every school Turkish students are supposed to take an oath of allegiance to the person of Ataturk every week I did that like every Turkish student and the oath of allegiance has interesting lines it says in one place oh the Ataturk who has given us this day we will relentlessly walk on your path and you know we will never fall to it we will always follow our guidance and at the end you you're supposed to say my let my existence be a gift to the Turkish existence it's like kind of you're sacrificing yourself for the nation and for Ataturk whose vision is you know unquestionable and definitely all knowing and alive so here is like a children are brought to Ataturk's tomb every like every like in all of these occasions national feasts and they're you know they have their pictures on his chest and you know they are like a posters and they walk around them and march him and sing for his glory here's another picture very funny students like have masks of Ataturk so they're all little replicas of the eternal either this is like one of the celebrations in the children's day now one final interesting thing is I thought you're he's never very and you know there are actually little poems that children say like he's seeing us everywhere like he's all around the wall he's looking at us I mean that idea is out there but he even has some natural miracles I mean miracles in nature and that just came up a few years ago and I think this is I think one of the things oh sorry this is before that I'll go to Miracle in a minute this is before this is Nemututukum DNA in Turkish which means how happy is the one who says I am a Turk that is Ataturk's most famous model and you know you'll learn this you memorize everywhere it is written on mountains and especially it is written on mountains in the southeast where the Kurds live because Kurds are not Turkish and but they're supposed to be happy by saying how happy I am at Turk I went to the Arbaker once several times one one of them I saw this interesting scene the Arbaker is the biggest city in Turkey but a predominantly Kurdish population and in the middle of the city there's a military garrison and this model is again written on the wall of the garrison how happy is the one who says I'm a Turk but the wall is protected by meters of barbed wire from the Kurds who are not happy to say that they are Turkish and you know that's where it goes on there okay and the final miracle this is very interesting you know mountains has his you know signs and his faces that's all done by the state we know that but what if there is a miracle and if a natural sign of what the truth comes up this came up a few years ago in this mountain this is a vision called Damal in Eastern Turkey and the shade of the mountain is interestingly like a touch of silhouettes you know there's nose here his nose and his chin and his hair out there so when somebody noticed that it became a big news and it became the miracle and everybody you know published about this and present going there and the Turkish military started to organize tours there and celebrations there to remember at the truth on the people go there they take photos and picture themselves behind at the truth like again news there's this generals here and go there and they just salute at the truth on the mountain feel happy for the miracle even little kids go there and they are like saluting each other in the like on the faith behind the silhouette of the supreme leader so the thing is what this shows is this let me say one thing other people is definitely a great personality and he brought many good things like female rights and I think he is a great place in Turkish history but he was like one of the you know important figures in Turkey there are important people and the thing is he had some great mistakes and you know he did very important mistakes he backed off from some of them some of them just kept on and the thing is some of the things he did for for his time was maybe justified according to those norms but we are living in a different age right now the problem is by destroying all the traditional values by just creating a zero for a society ground zero and just creating a whole new mythology just come on is and created a cult and this cult creates what they hate most and the Kamalists hate the term dogma for them dogma means religion and they say we are going to create a dogma free society well they have created a dogma dominated society by things like that it the ideology itself became a dogma and in Turkey today you cannot do and justify anything without saying oh if Ataturk was here today he would think like me but the other people say no no if I thought it was here today he would vote for other parties so he became this superhuman you know framework reference which is blocking like liberalism in Turkey democratization in Turkey which is which is justifying military coup which is justifying all sorts of state suppression on the citizens so I think the lesson from that should be that all humans are human and no leader should be defied and people should be seen in their historical context as we was a man who was inspired by French revolution German but we'll get materialism that's another source he was he believed in scientism the idea that science would replace religion and would show us all the truth but you know it doesn't work right now today but unfortunately many Turks don't know because they still believe that the Supreme Leader as he's official called Turkey told us all the truth we need and we don't need more thank you