Word: rk
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...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...
...that country's first President, Atatürk steered resolutely westward, implementing radical reforms. He removed all references to Islamic Shari'a law from the statutes, introduced a Swiss-based legal code, abolished religious education in schools, introduced women's rights and changed the alphabet from Arabic to Latin...
...death in 1938 (of liver disease, believed to be caused by heavy drinking), the reform program he had enacted - most important, secularism and the concept of a monoethnic state - became an official ideology called Kemalism. It is enshrined in the constitution as an inviolable founding principle. Atatürk's mausoleum in Ankara has become a hallowed place for his followers. Last year hundreds of thousands of secularists staged an antigovernment rally in front...