On understanding Atatürk

Throughout his life, Atatürk always stood behind whatever he said and wrote; therefore, he must be evaluated by his actions. Atatürk was not a leader who, in his proclamations and interviews on the day he landed in Samsun on May 19, expressed that the 'Sacred Office of the Caliphate' would be saved from enemy captivity. He is the leader and pioneer who abolished the caliphate, which served no purpose other than to hold back the Turkish people on the path of civilization.

Atatürk could only share the environment in which he could speak openly about all his thoughts with very few people. He wanted to share these thoughts with the entire country and the whole society. In fact, he did not take what he was yet to do to the grave as a secret. He certainly needed to live longer for the revolutions he made to become institutionalized and find life.

Even in his youth, he discussed with his closest friends what he would do if he ever took or gained control of the administration, and he implemented these thoughts without hesitation when he took power. He always carried the anxiety of the salvation of Turkishness in his mind, and when he came to power and saved the Turkish people of Turkey, he said, 'How happy is the one who says I am a Turk.'

Being a Turk was Atatürk's greatest sense of honor. The phrase 'How happy is the one who says I am a Turk' erupted from the very depths of his heart. Wherever he was and with whomever he was, whether at dinner tables or in a social setting, his only topic of conversation was the homeland and the cause of 'how to save it.' All of Atatürk's meetings, which lasted from evening until dawn, were always about his country, and he spent every breath for his homeland.

One evening, during a discussion held in Thessaloniki, the following topic was raised:

'We all want the tyranny of Sultan Hamid to be destroyed. But none of us are saying what we will do if power remains with us when it is destroyed.'

Everyone expresses their own thoughts in turn. When it is Mustafa Kemal's turn, he says the following words:

'Let us draw a border in Rumelia and Asia Minor that does not include lands that are not ours. Let us look to saving our country and nation within this border,' he says.

When he spoke these words, he faced criticism from his friends at the table. His friends reacted:

"Give up Bosnia-Herzegovina and Crete? Give up Syria, Palestine, and the Hejaz?" they asked in protest.

Yet, according to the Constitutionalists of 1908, they were going to take back Bosnia-Herzegovina from Austria-Hungary and Egypt from England. The Mustafa Kemal of that night was, in fact, the Mustafa Kemal of the National Pact (Misak-ı Milli) ten years later. This is what it means to be Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Atatürk was against shedding Turkish blood for any land that was not Turkish. However, for Turkish land and the homeland, he demanded and implemented a defense to the last drop of Turkish blood for every inch. Atatürk is a reformer and revolutionary of the new age.

For the first time in thousands of years of history, Atatürk made Anatolia the home and hearth of a single national unity. Today, however, political pygmies who can barely reach Atatürk's ankles have put our country and its integrity in danger.

If we want to be saved, we must follow Atatürk in our thoughts, our lives, our behavior, and our struggle, and we must continue his path.