Mustapha Kemal Atatürk

Mustapha Kemal Atatürk was born as Mustapha in Thessaloniki, which was part of the Ottoman Empire, in the year 1881. He got his second name, Kemal, from his mathematics teacher. Kemal means „perfection“ or „maturity“, and was given to him because of his great knowledge. Atatürk, his last name, is an honorary title and means „father of the Turks“. Atatürk's parents were not rich - his father traded with wood and his mother was the daughter of an ordinary farmer, and so Mustapha grew up in a humble neighborhood. His mother sent him to a religious school, which he didn´t attend long. He switched to a Western private school instead.

Mustapha's childhood was full of tragedy and separations. Only one of his brothers and sisters survived childhood and when he was seven his father died. He moved to his aunt in Saloniki while his mother and sister left Thessaloniki for a life in the country. In Saloniki Mustapha didn´t fit in at the new school, and was punched by the teachers. After this he left school and decided to start a military career at a military school. He was only 12 when he was admitted to the military school in Saloniki. He graduated in 1895 as the fourth best in his class. He continued his military career at the cadet school and graduated as an officer at the military academy in Istanbul. There he was known for his rebellious attitude. Because of that and his irresponsible relationship with prostitutes and alcohol, he was in prison several times. However thanks to the director of the military academy, a great supporter of Mustapha, his stays at the prison weren´t long.

In his whole time in the military in the Ottoman Empire he was a secret follower of the rebellious young Turks, and founded his own anti-government group called “Fatherland and Freedom.” It was a very dangerous situation for him because he could have been executed as a deserter. When World War I started Mustapha got his chances to show his impressive military skills. In 1915 Mustapha had to lead the 19th Division through the Gallipoli peninsula. They had to defend Gallipoli against a huge number of Allied troops. Mustapha forced them to fall back. He positioned his troops on the mountains to fight from a high position while the Allies had to fight from a low position, or had to try to reach the height of Mustaphas troops. By doing this, the Ottoman toops had a great advantage and won the battle. This genius victory caused the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to abdicate.

Mustapha Kemal was now a name everybody knew, and so he was promoted to an outstanding front line commander. He was sent to the Caucasus where he defended Ottoman cities against the Russian troops, and was later sent to Palestine to fight against an Arabian revolution and to stop Turkish soldiers from deserting. Although he had great success most of the time, winning World War I was a lost cause.

For Mustapha Kemal it was a clear fact that the Ottomen couldn't win the war anymore. There were a lot of quotes like the following one from a telegram to the Sultan. He sent it after he recognized the disastrous conditions in Palestine. He wrote:

“Now there is nothing left to do but to make peace.”

The war was over and they had lost it. Mustapha returned to the occupied Istanbul, and the Ottoman Empire broke up. Because of the occupation by the Allies, the Turkish national  movement started to grow and tried to acheive independence. Mustapha Kemal was a great supporter of independence thought, and so he established the Great National Assembly when the Ottoman Parliament was dissolved. With the Treaty of Sevres the Ottoman Empire was divided and parts that were originally the Turkish heartland were afterwards parts of Greece. Mustapha insisted on complete independence and started to build up a Turkish Army with the help of the Great National Assembly. They fought against Greece to get back their land and independence, and won. To be internationally acknowledged, the Turkish asked for an independent state at the Conference of Lausanne. They acheived that goal, and the Treaty of Lausanne was signed. Finally, on the 29th of October, the Republic of Turkey was declared. Mustapha Kemal Atatürk was the first president of the new state, and started to modernize it and the society with various reforms. He wanted Turkey to be a secular state and not a fundamental Muslim country. Independence was a big concern for him, especially because of his experiences in the Ottoman Empire. He said:

“...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.”

There were a lot of reforms by Mustapha Kemal Atatürk related to culture, economy and social aspects. He created the three branches - executive, legislative and judiciary - as the base of the new democratic Turkey. He wanted to give everybody the chance to receive a proper education and to have the chance to rise up in society like he did it. Atatürk  established secularization, and it was forbidden to wear Muslim clothes and headscarves, except for priests. Another point in his progressing independence was the emancipation of women. They got the right to divorce and to study in universities and schools side by side with men. Atatürks wife was a free woman, too, who had her own opinions. They did not marry in a church because Atatürk had decreed that every marriage had to be officiated by a man of the state (not the church). Furthermore, women were allowed to vote. Atatürk did not understand the old divide between men and women. Even when he was a soldier he wrote that he couldn´t understand why the Prophet Mohammed promised all men of honour a lot of virgins in paradise, but didn´t care if the virgins wanted to be a subject of love and satisfaction for the men. In addition he replaced the old  laws based on the Koran with the civil rights of Switzerland, and the Muslim Calender with the European Gregorian Calender.

The end of his domestic reforms was the law that every citizen of the Republic of Turkey had to have a first name and a last name. At this point the National Assembly gave him the last name Atatürk, which means father of the Turks.

Under Atatürk's foreign policies Turkey joined the League of Nations and reconciled with Greece. The prime minister of Greece even nominated Atatürk for the Nobel Peace Prize. When the fascist regimes in Italy and Germany gained political power, Atatürk and Turkey abstained from them.

Atatürk died on the 10th of November, 1938 in Istanbul and went down in history, like John F. Kennedy said, as one of the greatest men in the 20th century.

Similarities between Mustapha Mond in Brave New World and Mustapha Kemal Atatürk

The first name of Mustapha Mond and Mustapha Kemal Atatürk is not the only thing that these men have in common. Atatürk was an excellent student, ambitious in learning, eager for knowledge and very clever. Mustapha Mond has the same characteristics. He is an Alpha Double Plus and enjoyed a great education. To become World Controller he had to be one of the best students, just like Atatürk was. Both are also ahead of their time. Atatürk's reforms and laws were incredibly modern, exactly like his thoughts and ideas. Which person in a Muslim society in the beginning of the 20th century would think about a woman's right to vote, or to ban Muslim clothes in public?

The main difference between the men is that Mustapha Mond only had this attitude, or rather the will to establish such ideas, in his youth. In the time in which the book takes place he thinks about the concept of free people, who are free in thinking and acting, but accepts that this is only a wish and is never meant to come true. So the will to accomplish his vision is missing.

They are both great figures, however, and much more clever than the rest of the society. Although Mustapha Mond is a leader of the World State society, he doesn´t really fit in this society and stands outside because of his great amount of knowledge about the old world.

I think the naming of Mustapha Mond after Mustapha Kemal Atatürk has more to do with the youth of this character. The young Mustapha Mond is comparable to Mustapha Kemal Atatürk - a lateral thinker and a genius with great visions of a fair society and freedom for the people.

By Manuel Schmid

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