observer keen said:
mustafa ataturk was the modernizer of turkey, the one who put an end to the arch-conservative caliphate in istanbul. you need to check your history before asserting yourself as an expert. he is the father of turkish secularism, not a repressor of secularism. the genocide you are referring to is about armenians not italians; and it had allegedly occurred under the ottoman empire, not under the reign of ataturk.
do not get overractive, it was a question. questions have no truth-value of their own for they are not declarative,thereby cannot be considered diffamatory or praising.
i have never said that you believe in such an amendment, but rather asked whether you would support such a measure to disenfranchise the illiterate.
just a question, nothing more nothing less!
observer keen, here is your quote:
"it seems that you would not mind the following constitutional amendment: voting right predicated on level of education."
That doesn't appear to be a question in my book, but an accusation and statement of what I was supposed to have said and/or implied. I do resent mis-quotes and inferrences of that type.
I rest my case on that point.
As to my remark about Kemal's "anti secularism", I stand corrected! The opposit is true!
He did, in fact drive the Greek and Italian forces into the sea at Izmir at the end of his campaign to free those segments of Turkey from Foreign Rule and the faltering Ottaman Empire, essentially ending the foreigners occupation of those segments of Turkey. During my service in Turkey, in the time-frame 1960-63, I heard that "story" numerous times, both from knowledgeble individuals and in public oratories, so I tend to believe it. As to the exampling of "those who wore the FEZ", I also heard this from numerous Turkish nationals in and around Izmir and in Ankara and other cities visited. Kemal was accused, by these people, of edicting against the wearing of the FEZ in order to establish the "Rule of Man's Law" in the minds of devout Muslims. He, according to the people I talked with, had those who refused to relinquish the wearing of the FEZ hung in the public squares of the various cities and villages. Word was that it took only a month for the FEZes to dissappear from the scene.
That's the source of my remark. Take it as you wish, but I tend to believe the people who lived through those times.
As to Kemal Mustafa himself, he is revered to this day as the "George Washington" of modern day Turkey. I will make absolutely no attempt to denegrate that image as it is held by the entire nation. I will l\only ad that even George, himself, wasn't the Saint we would have him to be in our history books.
Texas Bill