this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
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[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Explanation: After WW1, the Ottoman Empire was a defeated nation, and the Entente imposed an immensely damaging treaty on the Ottomans. The Ottomans, being battered and not in great fighting shape even to begin with, acquiesced, which resulted in the Ottoman Empire's foreign territories being released, and Turkiye itself being carved up into occupation zones.

One war hero of the Ottoman Empire, a liberal nationalist by the name of Mustafa Kemal, who fought at Gallipoli and was consistently at the head of the few victories the Ottomans did manage to eke out, did not regard this as acceptable, and rallied the defeated nation to save itself from total dissolution. While the French and British were calculating just how much blood and treasure they were willing to spend on subjugating Turkiye, the Greeks eagerly tossed themselves into the cause of forcing the upstart Mustafa Kemal to submit to the will of the Ottoman Sultan who signed the treaty (as the treaty imposed on the Ottoman Empire was very favorable to the Greeks, and the Greeks and Turks have a... long history of enmity).

Mustafa Kemal instead threw the Greeks out of Turkiye, deposed the Sultan, and founded the Republic of Turkiye, which has lasted (if intermittently tormented by instability) to this day. The Brits and French decided, at that point, renegotiating the treaty was an acceptable alternative to fighting a man who could rally a defeated and disarmed nation to eject its occupiers.

Mustafa Kemal would later be granted the name Ataturk by the Turkish legislature, the name by which he is generally known in histories now.

[–] Samskara@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

It was a mistake the Armenians and Kurds paid dearly for.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

That would seem a strange assertion considering that the Armenian genocide happened during WW1, rather than under Ataturk or the Turkish Republic. Equally strange is the notion that the Turkish Republic, specifically, was a loss for the Kurds compared to the alternatives - the pre-Republic Ottomans were happy to genocide them, and so were the Brits and French who carved up Ottoman land in the 1920s and 30s.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Hey now, the disgraced downfall of the ottomans is responsable for many more things than that! The situation in Palestine, the Saudi Kingdom (and thus, 9/11) , the yugoslav wars, etc etc.

[–] cjoll4@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Atatürk, "Father of Turks."

He led his people to so many great achievements - national independence, secularization, democratic elections, promotion of science and education, women's suffrage, and the preservation/de-Arabacization of Turkish language and traditions.

He also denied the existence of, and actively benefited from, the genocides perpetrated against Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, and other ethnic minorities under the Ottoman empire. His forces perpetrated bloody massacres against tens of thousands of Greek civilians during the war (though there was far too much of that happening on both sides). His government forcibly assimilated those who remained, requiring minorities to adopt Turkish surnames and banning their languages from being spoken.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

He actually did not deny the existence of the Armenian genocide - he explicitly condemned it multiple times. To blame him for 'benefitting' from the genocide when the man was anything but in a position to stop it seems strange. I'm not aware of him condemning the massacres against the Assyrians, but I'm also not aware of him being in any sort of serious position to stop them, again. The Greeks is a fair criticism, since during the Turkish War of Independence he displayed a blase attitude towards restraining his troops from expelling Greek populations.

While the Turkish government did eventually take a much harsher and even genocidal stance against ethnic minorities, and while Ataturk was certainly a Turkish nationalist, many of the actions which the Turkish government is associated with are later innovations in this area, and do not date to Ataturk's reign. The ban on the Kurdish language, in particular, was a product of the 1980s, by which time Ataturk had been dead for some 45 years. Mustafa Kemal, in fact, acknowledged the Turkish Republic as a land for both Turks and Kurds multiple times throughout his life. I have a book I can quote once I can find it.

I would like to admit, on the other hand, that Ataturk certainly did not find the defense of minority rights a high priority, with the surname law requiring all Turkish citizens to adopt a surname also forbidding ethnic name endings, and that the suppression of the Kurds during the Dersim Rebellion and subsequent genocide had begun in the last year of Ataturk's life, though with significant evidence that the army and local functionaries were committing a massive degree of falsification and whitewashing in their reports to the central government.

[–] cjoll4@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Clearly I have more reading to do, thank you for calling my knowledge and assumptions into question. If he was as outspoken against the Armenian genocide as you say then that already does a great deal to shift my perspective.

By benefiting from the genocide, I meant that his government benefited from the availability of valuable land that had been depopulated, and that it was easier to enforce cultural erasure and ethnic assimilation after the dirty work of mass slaughter had already been done. The "Citizen, speak Turkish" campaign in the 30's certainly had the effect of strongly discouraging (and in some places punishing) ethnic minorities from speaking their native languages in public.

You also raise a good point that we shouldn't conflate every act of the government with the views and policies of one man. Just like the President of the United States isn't my entire government. I ought to examine this period of history much more critically.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

By benefiting from the genocide, I meant that his government benefited from the availability of valuable land that had been depopulated, and that it was easier to enforce cultural erasure and ethnic assimilation after the dirty work of mass slaughter had already been done.

Oh, yes, certainly. If memory serves, Ataturk refused certain minorities expelled during the Ottoman Empire the right to return in some regions, on the account that, while what happened to them was horrible, it would be 'dangerous' for them to return amongst simple country folk who still bore those gruesome prejudices. Which is, of course, also horribly convenient for establishing those areas as Turkish-dominated going forward.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's ok, they got to enact the totally awesome and not powder keg setting up Sykes-Picot agreement, which was totally accepted by everyone.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Oh good, it would've been terrible if all that talk about national self-determination was just stalling to set up post-independence neocolonial concessions that would end up destabilizing the region!