Word: atat
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...fast-changing Turkey, Atatürk's personality cult is slowly cracking, and the ructions are reverberating through the nation's political life. A new film about the legendary officer, who fought off occupying European powers to create modern Turkey from the remnants of a moribund Ottoman Empire, has stirred controversy by depicting Mustafa Kemal the man, not the icon. He is shown as a lonely figure, a heavy drinker and a failed husband, racked by doubts at the end of his life. The documentary uses original footage as well as re-enactments and is tellingly called Mustafa instead...
...Recognition that Atatürk was all too human is hardly taboo-breaking, but the film has the secularist establishment, which sees itself as the guardian of Atatürk's legacy, up in arms. Critics have accused director Can Dundar, a popular and well-respected journalist, of lying, insulting Turkishness and even being part of an Islamist plot to weaken the staunchly secularist military...
...film is part of an operation to de-Atatürkize the Turks," the Association for Atatürk's Ideas said in a statement...
...controversy is yet another reflection of the epic struggle under way regarding Turkey's future. Secularists fear that Atatürk's legacy is threatened by the Islamic-rooted ruling party, and they look to the military for protection. The government denies it has any secret Islamicizing ambitions. Meanwhile, European Union-inspired reforms are transforming society, allowing previously taboo issues, such as rights for the Kurdish minority or the overbearing role of the military in politics and society, to be aired...
...Ahmet Altan, editor of Taraf, a liberal daily newspaper, argues that the crusaders against the film are motivated by a desire to curtail any such debate." Atatürk is being used as a shield to fend off questions about many things that are misshapen or rotten in this country," he wrote...