Kemalism: the fascist Turkish state religion modeled after Islam

What the backward Turkish nation considers secularism is not the separation of Church and State of the Western model, rather a Turkish secularist is a type of rabidly fervent fascist that elevates the state and nation to the level of a religion, referenced after Islam. Ziya Gökalp, one of the most prominent Turkish nationalist theorists(who himself was likely a Kurd, but pretended to have pure Turkic origins), outlined the contours of what is now termed Kemalism, the omnipotent Turkish statism, imputed falsely to Ataturk today(as Turks are quite proud of their historic ignorance):

Gokalp gave "the nation" an important mystical component. In his work, "he transferred to the nation the divine qualities he had found in society, replacing the belief in God with the belief in the nation: and so nationalism became a religion."[43] The national is deified, thus expanding Durkheim's idea that "society can do as it pleases." So, if a nation perceives itself in danger, it feels no moral responsibility in its response to that danger. The Unionist "scientific approach" gained a "sacred" character through Gokalp's theories.

Source:

Heyd, Uriel. Foundations of Turkish Nationalism: The Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp. p. 57.

cited in: Akcam, Taner. A shameful act : the Armenian genocide and the question of Turkish responsibility. (Metropolitan Books; 2006) pp. 88-9.

Further the Preamble part of the Turkish Constitution contains this fascist screed:

Affirming the eternal existence of the Turkish Motherland and  Nation  and  the  indivisible  unity  of  the  Sublime  Turkish  State,  this   Constitution,  in  line  with  the  concept  of  nationalism  introduced  by   the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Atatürk, the immortal leader  and the unrivalled hero, and his reforms and principles;

...

That no protection shall be accorded to an activity contrary to Turkish national interests, Turkish existence and the principle of its indivisibility with its State and territory, historical and moral values of Turkishness; the nationalism, principles, reforms and civilizationism of Atatürk and that sacred religious feelings shall absolutely not be involved in state affairs and politics as required by the principle of secularism;

      

Brainwashed Turks kissing the marble at Anıtkabir, the memorial tomb of the immortal dictator of the Turkish nation, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk,:

This more current article demonstrates how powerful in practice the official worship of the state with Ataturk, as it embodied, immortal, ever present Father figure is amongst the fascist Turkish nation:

New York Times: In Complex Times, Turkey Seeks a Reassuring Face

By SABRINA TAVERNISE, January 16, 2008

...

Almost 85 years after Ataturk formed the modern state of Turkey from the remains of the Ottoman Empire, millions of Turks still flock to the mausoleum that contains his grave here in the country’s capital. So many that 2007 was a record year for visitors, according to the Web site of the mausoleum, called Anitkabir.

Last year, a total of 12.7 million people visited the monument, a figure lifted by a large demonstration in the spring, but still a 50 percent rise over the previous year and more than in any other year in the 54-year history of the monument, according to the Anka news agency. 

Why the surge in visits to the grave of a man who died in 1938? For one, Ataturk is no ordinary man. He is referred to as the “immortal leader and unrivaled hero,” in the preamble to the Turkish Constitution. Insulting his memory is a crime in the penal code. The entire nation stops to mourn on the minute, each November, when he died.

... 

Newspaper headlines last week told of a group of high school students who painted a Turkish flag using their own blood and sent it to the commander of the military. Last year, the authorities were forced to discontinue a lottery scratch card because its design was an outline of Turkey, and scratching off the eastern part was seen as an act of sedition. ...

Note: 2007 was the year of the so called "Republic Protests" in Turkey, where millions of the more fascist fake secular Kemalist Turks backed by their politically meddling military protested when they realized the more Islamic oriented Abdullah Gul of the AKP party would likely win the Presidental elections(which he did).

Turkish nationalism/fake secularism: take only material civilization from the West

With the Gezi protests, many Western idiots have taken to believing in the fantasy of democracy in Turkey, because the Kemalist demographic doing most the protesting has decided to present it as a struggle of democracy to gain outside support. However in an Islamic society like the Turkish, democracy is not a goal held by any powerful segment of society. What Turks want is only the material civilization of the West, in the vain hope of gaining in some distant future enough national power to make new sieges against Vienna and Belgrade. They want to keep the spirituality and mentality Islam, no matter how secular they claim they are(by Turkish standards: which are low standards for secularism). Thus all that there can be in Turkish society is the powerful dictating and compelling the vulnerable.

Don't support the fake secular ideology of Turkey known as Kemalism and don't support Kemalists.

The theme that a patriotic Turk should try to achieve a balance between the benefits of the West and the East by opting for adopting the science and technology of the former and the spirituality of the latter is repeated quite often in the schooling system designed by the educational establishment in Turkey. This difficult endeavour is almost like a mission for every patriotic Turk. Hence, it is possible to argue that since the days of the early Westernization efforts. the Turkish psyche has been burdened with the difficult task of achieving a balance between the Western civilization and the Turkish culture. ... Patriotic Turks try to resolve this tension by achieving a balance between the materiality of the West and the spirituality of the East. However, the achievement of such a balance is quite enigmatic since a combination of Western civilization and Eastern culture, when transposed to the realm of nationalism renders itself as an insoluble problem.

...

A preoccupation with this balance between modernity and tradition, Western materialism and Eastern spirituality as well as Civilization -- based on the premises of Enlightenment -- and Culture -- based on the premises of Romanticism -- is a recurring theme accompanying Turkish modernization. The desire to achieve such a balance is nowhere better expressed than in Ziya Gokalp's (1876-1924) works. Ziya Gokalp's ideas were wavering between the three trends of Islamism, Turkism, and Westernism, hence, reflecting the political climate of the context in which he was located. As Niyazi Berkes puts it: `He was fighting within himself the battle that intellectuals and politicians were raging on other levels'.(20)

Ziya Gokalp produced his basic writings between the years 1911 and 1918 when he was associated with the Party of Union and Progress against the emotional background of the period laden with nationalist movements among the non-Muslim and non-Turkish peoples of the decadent Ottoman Empire. While on the one hand, there were those intellectuals and politicians who opted for a social reconstruction by way of reversion to Seriat (Islamic law), there were those who staunchly supported the idea of Westernization, on the other. In addition to these two groups, there were others who longed for the romantic ideal of the pre-Islamic Turkic unity. Ziya Gokalp was influenced by all of these trends. Yet, he envisaged a middle road in the tradition of Namik Kemal: `that only the material civilization of Europe should be taken and not its non-material aspects'.(21) Yet, contrary to Namik Kemal's thought, Ziya Gokalp did not think that the individual and his reason could be a criteria for social reconstruction. Ziya Gokalp rather signified a shift from Tanzimat rationalism inspired by the eighteenth century thinkers of the European Enlightenment to the nineteenth century Romantic thought in the tradition of the German philosophers by accepting the transcendental reality of society identified with the nation instead of individual reason. Berkes sums up Ziya Gokalp's convictions in the following manner: `As the ultimate reality of contemporary society is the nation, and as national ideals are ultimate forces orienting the behavior of the individuals, so the most urgent task for the Turks consisted of awakening as a nation in order to adapt themselves to the conditions of contemporary civilization'.(22)

Source:

Ayse Kadioglu, "The Paradox of Turkish Nationalism and the Construction of Official Identity," Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 32, no. 2 (April 1996)

The only friend of a Turk: other Turkish Mahometans

A famous saying of the chauvinist Turkish nation is: "The only friend of a Turk is another Turk."[1] However since the fake Turkish nationalism/secularism is just a re-adaption and even greater narrowing of Islamic allegiance from a wider Islamic ummah to an even smaller Turkish national ummah, one finds that is just a nationalist re-adaptation of the following Surah:

Chapter 3 Surah 118

PICKTHAL: O ye who believe! Take not for intimates others than your own folk, who would spare no pains to ruin you; they love to hamper you. Hatred is revealed by (the utterance of) their mouths, but that which their breasts hide is greater. We have made plain for you the revelations if ye will understand.[2]

Turkist theorist Ziya Gökalp elevated the elevated the national to a religious level, which explains their ultra-nationalist penchant as a nation:

Gokalp gave "the nation" an important mystical component. In his work, "he transferred to the nation the divine qualities he had found in society, replacing the belief in God with the belief in the nation: and so nationalism became a religion."[43] The national is deified, thus expanding Durkheim's idea that "society can do as it pleases." So, if a nation perceives itself in danger, it feels no moral responsibility in its response to that danger. The Unionist "scientific approach" gained a "sacred" character through Gokalp's theories.[3]

As Ali Osman Egilmez, observed in a previous posting on this blog, the Turks are modernist, seeking a modus-vivendi between Islam and the West, and not modern. Thus the Turkish saying admonishing Turks to take only as friends other Turks, is just a re-adaption and further narrowing of a Surah.

[1.] Wikileaks Cable: 06ANKARA6118, 26 Oct 2006
[2.] The University of Leeds: Qurany Tool: Al-Emran Verse No:118
[3.] Heyd, Uriel. Foundations of Turkish Nationalism: The Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp. p. 57.
cited in: Akcam, Taner. A shameful act : the Armenian genocide and the question of Turkish responsibility. (Metropolitan Books; 2006) pp. 88-9.