Cem I've been reading about Mustafa Kemal and have some questions:
1. How does joining the EU fit with this vision as the founding father of your country? You will be handing 80%+ of your law making over to Brussels.
Mustafa Kemal's basic tenet was the complete independence of the country. He clarified his position:
“...by complete independence, we mean of course complete economic, financial, juridical, military, cultural independence and freedom in all matters. Being deprived of independence in any of these is equivalent to the nation and country being deprived of all its independence.”
2. How does the current Government's pressure for women to wear headscarves fit with Mustafa Kemal's vision on the role of women in Turkish society? Is this one of the major reasons for the unrest?
The social change can come by (1) educating capable mothers who are knowledgeable about life; (2) giving freedom to women; (3) a man can change his morals, thoughts, and feelings by leading a common life with a woman; as there is an inborn tendency towards the attraction of mutual affection.”
Mustafa Kemal needed a new civil code to establish his second major step of giving freedom to women. The first part was the education of girls and was established with the unification of education. On 4 October 1926, the new Turkish civil code passed. It was modelled after the Swiss Civil Code. Under the new code, women gained equality with men in such matters as inheritance and divorce. Mustafa Kemal did not consider gender a factor in social organization. According to his view, society marched towards its goal with men and women united. He believed that it was scientifically impossible for him to achieve progress and to become civilized if the gender separation continued as in Ottoman times. During a meeting he declaimed:
“To the women: Win for us the battle of education and you will do yet more for your country than we have been able to do. It is to you that I appeal.
To the men: If henceforward the women do not share in the social life of the nation, we shall never attain to our full development. We shall remain irremediably backward, incapable of treating on equal terms with the civilizations of the West."
On 5 December 1934, Turkey moved to grant full political rights to women, before several other European nations. The equal rights of women in marriage had already been established in the earlier Turkish civil code. Women's place in Mustafa Kemal's cultural reforms was best expressed in the civic book prepared under his supervision. Mustafa Kemal said that
“There is no logical explanation for the political disenfranchisement of women. Any hesitation and negative mentality on this subject is nothing more than a fading social phenomenon of the past. ...Women must have the right to vote and to be elected; because democracy dictates that, because there are interests that women must defend, and because there are social duties that women must perform".
Mustafa Kemal looks like he was a remarkable leader whose vision created a modern enlightened Turkey, the opposite of a country like today's Iran.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Atat%C3%BCrk
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Topic: democracy.... (Read 15747 times)