When Turks Civilized the World
Clive Foss looks at the way in which Kemal Atatürk rewrote history as part of his radical modernization of the Turkish nation.
Mustafa Kemal, or Atatürk as he became known, the undisputed ruler of Turkey from 1923 to 1938, was very fond of young ladies – to such an extent that he adopted four of them. One, named Afet, was an eighteen-year-old history student whose family Kemal had known in his native Salonica. Like the other girls, he encouraged Afet to pursue her studies, so that she eventually got a doctorate and rose high in the Turkish historical establishment. According to her own account, one day in 1929, she came to the Gazi (a favourite title, Victor over Infidels) with a problem. She had read in a French geography book that the Turks were a yellow race, generally considered second-class human beings. This provoked a reaction in Kemal, who had light hair and blue eyes. ‘No, that can’t be’ he said, ‘let’s get busy about it’.
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