Turkish President says Turkey has always tolerated people of different religions (except all those non-Muslims, of course)

LOL.....I think you are going to wait for that e-mail for a while.

Sezer said Turkey has a special position in this respect, stressing that territories of Anatolia, throughout the history, embraced people having different cultural and religious beliefs.

Poor fellow, sometimes they forget that when they make these statements, other people who have books and can read will see them for what they are, pathetic attempts at trying to convince people that Islam is "tolerant".

Turkey is the islamic nation where the noose is at it's most loose.
Because of this Turkey have obviously benefitted greatly (much to the horror of the rest of the islamic world)and proven it's "democraticness" to the world.Hopefully the Turkish government,and people fully realize the key to their success is because of their moderation to islam.

The question remains though, if Turkey were to get into the EU, would their main aim be to Islamify europe, or would they become sworn allies of their fellow europeans???

Never Trust a Muslim!!!

No, the only "Right Of Return" in the world that is in the spotlight is that of Arabs to "return" to Israel, most of whom never lived to begin with, and the few that did only did so after the "Zionists" moved there and started building factories and digging canals.

There is no national movement to restore the property rights or seek compensation for millions and millions of people dipslaced by Islamofascism and/or WW Two. I'm talking about millions of Hindus from Pakistan and Bangladesh (including 1.5 mill from Kashmir); 800,000 Jews from their Muslim "protectors" from Morroco to Afghanistan; the Greeks of Turkey and now Turkish-Occupied Cyprus, etc. etc.

Likewise, the terms "genocide" "massacre" "oppression" "apartheid" and even "wall" are being directed at Israel and Israel pretty-much-alone despite the great injustices heaped upon dhimmis and women of Islam all over the world.

And while not a week goes by without some damn apologist reminding "us" that we all "worship the same god" (I.e. Jews, Christians, and Muslims are "people of the book".) They hardly ever mention that the Koran doesn't even ask that the polytheist be allowed to live... these are the Hindus, Buddhists, and (formerly) Zoroastrians of Asia. So exactly what, besides the convenience of having a labor pool and a steady supply of sultry young beautiful wives, kept these people alive under the heavy hand of Islam?

And if you get your letter from Koffi, tell him I'm waiting on my land in North Ireland.

[That reminds me.... some apologists (like John Sugg of the "Creative Loafing"/"Weekly Planet" alternative press) think that we are supposed to believe that the IRA and the PLO are alike. First of all, England invaded Ireland, won the war, and never left. Compare this to the Ottaman Empire invading Europe, losing the war, and signing the Treaty Of Versailles. This gave "palestinian mandate" to England. So England took Ireland after winning an offensive war, and was given "palestine" by the Ottoman Turks after winning a defensive war.

Second of all, the children of Ireland and their descendants all over the world condemned the IRA every step of the way when they targetted civilians with bombs (which they have stopped doing, thank you Bill Clinton) while Arabs, Muslims, and their puppets on the right and left go out of their way to apologize for Hamas, Hezbollah, the PLO, etc.]

The Ottomans were beat into "tolerance" by the leaders of the non-Muslim minority communities outside of the Ottoman domain. The Ottomans needed the non-Muslims to keep its economy and especially its army (devshirme) intact. These minorities were organized into semi-autonomous communities called millets.

Another mechanism for this "tolerance" was a long series of "Capitulation" treaties in which the Ottomans granted autonomy to "foreign" (i.e., non-Muslim) communities like the Catholics (16th c. on) who refused to be part of any millet. Under the Capitulations, a practice that dates back to the Ayyubids, European nationals were not obligated to obey Ottoman laws or pay local taxes.

So the Turks can be tolerant, but only as long as the non-Muslim world keeps its hands on the Turkish throat.

"Sezer said Turkey has a special position in this respect, stressing that territories of Anatolia, throughout the history, embraced people having different cultural and religious beliefs."

I think he speaks the truth, if, when he says "embraced" he means, "bear hug that crushed the very life out of them."

Turkey's confusion about where it really belongs - in western civilization or in jehadi arms - shall resolve itself pretty soon as soon as the decision by the EU is made on its inclusion. Whatever the decision is, Turkey will shed this veneer of civility once it knows where it stands w.r.t. the EU.

For years the American government needed, or thought it needed, Turkish goodwill. For bases. For Turkish contributions to the Korean campaign. For support of that useless organization, CENTO (other members: Iraq, Pakistan). Perhaps it did. But Russia is now a potential ally, not an enemy, and the real enemy are those who take seriously the canonical texts of Qur'an and hadith, and therefore wish to see the spread of Islam until it covers the globe, and all non-Muslims are reduced, at best, to the "protected status" of dhimmis.

The statement by Sezer is, of course, crazy. The Muslim Turks and Muslim Kurds who, in 1894-95, and again from 1915 on, engaged in wholesale massacres of Christian Armenians, shrieking about the "giavour" throughout, were engaged in Jihad. This was well understood, incidentally, by American and European eyewitnesses; their accounts of both the 1894-95 and the later, much more extensive campaign of extermination, make clear that this was based on religious hatred -- hatred of the Infidel, not an ethnic conflict.

How does Sezer think that Byzantium, populated entirely by Christians (and some Jews) became, under the Seljukid and Ottoman Turks, so full of Muslims? Does he think it is because of the sheer wonderfulness of Islam, that caused everyone to convert ("revert") over time? Or does he know anything about how, under Islam, including that Ottoman Empire that gets such a pass from Western Ottomanits, engaged in their nunc pro tunc backdating of Kemalism (and many of them have personal and professional ties in Turkey, and feel so comfortable, even lionized there, that their duty to history and the truth is, shall we say, sometimes overlooked -- who wants to offend such nice people as can be found in lovely, bustling, fascinating Istanbul?)

If Turkey is such a tolerant place, why has the Hagia Sophia not been turned back into a church, as no doubt so many Christians devoutly desire? Why, when one suggests that even to the most advanced and secular Turks, do they regard one in amazement, and immediately answer that "if we did that, we would have a revolution on our hands?" Isn't it clear that Turkey, in comparison with the fanatical Arab version of Islam, is splendid -- but in comparison with what the Western world means by real tolerance, it is far from being the place that Sezer wishes us to believe it is.

Why cannot the most educated, secular, mild-mannered Muslims begin to look en masse at their own treatment of non-Muslims with even a hint of something like recognition of what dhimmitude was all about? Why are taqiyya/kitman, and apologetics, the only modes they know? An occasional lonely voice speaks, and then is silenced. But there should be millions of people willing to look at the truth about Islam -- and if they want, to suggest that the canonical texts must begin to be treated metaphorically, rather than literally -- for otherwise there is no way out. No way out, not from a "war of civilisations," but from a war of self-defense, by ALL non-Muslims, against ALL Muslims. For it is those who call themselves Muslims, prompted by the teachings of Islam that are grounded in the texts, who attack Buddhists in southern Thailand, Hindus in Bangladesh, Christians in Pakistan, Sudan, Nigeria, Philippines, Egypt, Algeria, and elsewhere, and Jews everywhere they can get away with attacking them (today France, tomorrow ?).

If even Sezer cannot bring himself to hint at the truth, if he expects this rosy version of events to be swallowed, or if he thinks, just possibly, that the only way to reform Islam is to create a false tolerant past for it, so that today's Muslims may come to believe that they have "always" been tolerant and it is just a few hotheads who fail to understand -- well, that strategy just won't work. Only the truth will make you free, as someone once said.

See Vahakh Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide. Or, for an article on-line, see Andrew Bostom, "A Modern Jihad Genocide."

Hugh, how can you praise Kemalism like you often do(in other articles) and then cite Dadrian's "The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus", which contradicts your praise of Kemalism?

We are all tolerant of those that do as we say. Thus, Muslims tolerate us as long as we agree to be good dhimmis....

It is easy for turks to be tolerant when all the non-muslims have been exterminated. Gee that 1 percent non-mulsim population in Turkey must be a real multi-cultural challenge for them .What with all those 90 year old orthodox priests locked up in remote mountain monasteries offending all the turks and causing all that ethnic crime. Gee what a tolerant multicultural paradise.

I never praised Kemal Ataturk for his behavior toward non-Muslims in Turkey. But I do think that he was the only Turkish leader ever to admit that something terrible had been done to the Armenians.

See for example, the interview he gave to a Swiss journalist, Emile Hilderbrand, in which he blamed the Young Turks for the massacre of “millions of our Christian subjects" because he does admit to the Armenian Genocide:

"These leftovers from the former Young Turk Party, who should have been made to account for the lives of millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse, from their homes and massacred, have been restive under the republican rule. They have hitherto lived on plunder, robbery and bribery and become inimical to any idea, or suggestion to enlist in useful labor and earn their living by the honest sweat of their brow.
The second element, I am now about to deal with ruthlessly, is the group of men who in the pre-republic days were known in the world as the Committee of the Union of the Young Turks. The ranks of this element were recruited from a questionable assortment of political adventurers, half-educated progressives and men of dissolute habits. In the days when we were battling against foes from within and without, this element joined us and fought in our ranks. Yet from the early days I had misgivings as to their motives. But I wished, hoped and then prayed that once our country was redeemed from the foreign yoke, this element would mend its methods and become infused with the seal of patriotism. I soon began to realize that my hopes were doomed to be disillusioned and my prayers were [not] to be answered. I patiently waited, keeping a sharp eye on their movements.

Seditious Movements Cloaked

They formed themselves into a political opposition. I do not pretend to be a dictator, bent to suppress sincere and honest political opposition, because a republic is a misnomer when it ceases to brook criticism. But when a group of dissolute, corrupt and unscrupulous political adventurers begin to organize seditious movements under the cloak of political opposition, it becomes the sacred duty of those who are in charge of the machinery of the government to suppress it and suppress it with an exemplary ruthlessness that will prevent the eventual shedding of rivers of blood.
I am about to show these plotters that the Republic of Turkey cannot be overthrown by murderers or through their murderous designs... These left-overs from the former Young Turk Party, who should have been made to account for the lives of millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse, from their homes and massacred, have been restive under the republican rule. They have hitherto lived on plunder, robbery and bribery and become inimical to any idea, or suggestion to enlist in useful labor and earn their living by the honest sweat of their brow."

Or, in Dadrian's book, at pp. 318-319:

"...the surreptitious flight in November, 1918 of the principal architects of the Armenian genocide created a furor among many sectors of the Turkish public still suffering the hardships of war and defeat. The anti-Ittihadist factions that had been persecuted and opporessed before and during the war demanded speedy trials. Others, including many foreign journliasts, simply lamented the atrocities perpetrated against the Armenians.For example, the journal Minber, published jointly by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) and by F. Okyar, Interior Minister in the first postwar Cabinent and subsequently Prime MInstier of the Turkish Republic from 1924-25, denounced 'the attempt to exsterminate the Armenians [which] was fraught with grave consequences (Ermeni milletini....kirmak sevdasi...imha etmek...renki vehamet.). Thus, the domestic trials aginast the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide were not without political, public, and media support within Turkey."

Whenever I invoke Kemalism, it is to repeatedly make a point. All those who now talk airily about "reforming" Islam, whether Muslim or non-Muslim – are missing the real nature of Islam, its basis in specific texts that cannot be changed. The latest variant of this is something that Gilles Kepel and even the usually sensible Bassam Tibi seem to think can come from some fusion of "Eurabia" and "Islam" -- a kind of "Euro-Islam" that will somehow be a softened, and modified, form of Islam; the implication is -- not to worry. But that is dangerous nonsense. There may be, as there was in the first few centuries of Muslim rule over still numerous, still active, still not yet completely asphyxiated non-Muslim elements, some moderation of Islam, but only so long as Muslims do not form a sufficient number to push their will (there are always more primitive people, more True Believers, than there are of the other kind – so the problem is to make sure that what people Truly Believe in is not, of itself, too harmful) and impose the Sharia completely. Everywhere we see Muslims come to dominate – in the Sudan, in northern Nigeria, when the older (colonial) order has passed away – it is always toward greater rigor in the application of Islam, never the other way. If you lived in Europe, would you bet your grandchildren’s future on the coming into existence, as Kepel breezily predicts, some new “Euro-Islam”? He never tells us, of course, just what that Euro-Islam would look like, what texts it would rely on, how it would be different from the Islam now practiced in the Middle East?

Kemalism -- that series of measures undertaken to constrain Islam, to weaken political weaken, to make it more difficult, essentially, to be a highly religious Muslim and make it easier to be a secular Turk. One could list them: the Hat Act, giving women the right to vote, ending the use of Arabic script and adopting Latin script in its stead, limiting the wearing of the hijab, preventing those who had studied in madrasas from entering the army or government universities, monitoring the mosques and punishing (how many mosques did Ataturk destroy? How many mullahs who opposed his measures did he arrest, imprison, or otherwise render impotent?).

My praise of Kemalism is this: Ataturk did what, within reason, he could do to limit Islam. Dadrian sometimes seems to suggest that it was Turkish nationalists who massacred the Armenians and the Greeks. I think the eyewitness acounts, which show the involvement of non-Turkish Muslims (the Kurds were enthusiastic participants), and also show how often the murderers would invoke Islam, denouncing the "giavours," show that this was not merely Turkish nationalism, but the hatred for non-Muslims. Why did not the Jews as well suffer? Because they were simply too small a group, too obviously impotent, and furthermore, were located mostly in Istanbul (unless one wishes to count the special group of Jews in Izmir), where even some Armenians were left unscathed.

I am not offering, or at least never meant to be taken as offering, an endorsement of Kemal Ataturk tout court. Not at all.

But Bostom's account -- of a "Jihad genocide" against the Armenians -- is one that is convincing. Unconvincing in his treatment of the dhimmis is Bernard Lewis. Even now, when in his latest pronouncements -- see The Weekly Standard article by Christopher Caldwell, which quotes from Lewis' Die Welt interview about a future "Islamic Europe" -- he still talks about how the Muslims are, like the Europeans, full of "envy" for the Americans. Oh, is that it? Envy? What, then, explains the attacks on poor Hindus in Bangladesh? Buddhists in Thailand? Christians in Indonesia, Pakistan, etc.? Lewis will not, cannot, just won't allow himself, to see that it is Islam itself, not "envy," that makes Muslims hate America -- and to equate this Muslim "envy" with what he sees as European "envy" (which is also false, but for a different reason -- there is, after all, plenty for Europeans not to admire in the United States, is there not, and "envy" hardly begins to explain the complicated, essentially nasty ungrateful, and above all ignorant views of the United States).

Lewis has never permitted himself to study dhimmitude, nor has he given himself the freedom to study, without any preconceptions, Bat Ye'or, instead dismissing her work (at least in the past) as "polemical." He has greatly underestimated the significance both of her work, and of the this subject: how is it that non-Muslims fared, under Muslim rule, everywhere that Islam conquered? It is surely one of the most important subjects in the history of mankind, isn't it? Hasn't it had fantastic consequences? How did Christian Byzantium become transformed into Muslim Turkey? What were the mechanisms that led people, over time, to "revert" to Islam -- other than massacres, expulsions (the "Surgun" system of the Turks), and so on? Shouldn't what happened to the Hindus be compared to what happened to the Zoroastrians, which should be compared to what happened to the Christians and the Jews? Isn't this a very large and important subject? But just look at the occasional sentence that Lewis blandly offers on the matter.

His recent life, all those appearances on Charlie Rose, the Sage or Delphic Oracle, has had a disturbing effect. He recounts bons mots that, upon inspection, are not what he seems to think they are. Take, for example, the Wall Street Journal story about Lewis and his influence on policymakers, in which he complacently recounted the tale of sitting around in Amman, with Arab admirers, and when they mentioned how they, the Arabs, "had gotten rid of the Turks," he, Lewis, replied: "Nonsense. The British got rid of the Turks. And the Jews got rid of the British." And then he explains that he had made his point. But what was his point? Because the next obvious sentence was: "And the Arabs will get rid of the Jews" but he seems not to have comprehended that. So intent was he on retailing an example of his wit, that he missed his own point -- or rather, he misunderstood that the point he was attempting to make, was not made, and quite another one -- unstated but recognized by his amiable Arab interlocutors -- was what was understood.

Now he predicts an Islamic future for Europe. Now he begins, just barely, to understand what for nearly 15 years Bat Ye'or has been, in churchillian fashion, been warning about at the top of her scholarly lungs. See the interview she gave, back in 1979 I think, to Paul Giniewski. It says everything that needed to be said, or needs to be said now.

Why is Lewis given attention? Why not Bat Ye'or, who is far more percipient, and has made a far more important original contribution to the scholarship of Islam? Why?

Well, I digress. But the object of my praise has always been not Mustafa Kemal and all his works, but the reforms of Kemalism.

Had Ataturk not died in 1938, might he who had earlier transformed the Hagia Sophia into a museum from the mosque it had been for centuries (with all the crosses broken off, and the frescoes vandalized by Muslims) not have turned the Hagia Sophia, eventually, into a church? I suspect he would, unlike Inonu and his other successors, have dared to do so—and made it stick. In the same way, had he lived just a year longer, the Struma, that rickety ship with the 900 hapless Jewish refugees on board, would not have been towed out to the middle of the Black Sea, where it was allowed by Turkish authorities to sink, with all those refugees.

Something worried me about what I wrote above; I double-checked -- and I was right to do so. The Struma sank in 1942, four years -- not one year -- after Ataturk died. And there were 770 Jewish refugees aboard, not 900, as I wrote above.

I stand self-corrected, and slightly abashed.

Hugh, it is clear you are trying to make out Kemalism to be something it is not. I am left to speculate one of three things: either you read Dadrian's work and forgot most of it, never read it at all, or your soft spot for Kemalism and Ataturk prevents you from accepting some of the views contained in that work.

I have read that newspaper interview you cited with Ataturk you cited online a while ago. It can be found at the Zoryan Institute site. Exact quotation: ... [Kemal:]"These left_overs from the former Young Turk Party, who should have been made to account for the lives of millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse, from their homes and massacred, have been restive under the republican rule." ...

That quote is the most important. According to Dadrian's work it was the Kemalist movement that abrogated attempts at punishment for the Armenian genocide, the Kemalists never recognized the Ottoman military tribunals but the Sultan's government did, along with the Allied priority concern with competing with each other over the spoils of Ottoman Empire and a lack of compassion for the Armenians. I do not know why you are bringing up Ataturk's hypocritical and dishonest regret for the fate of Armenians, since his actions were consistently the opposite of his proclamations to this journalist. The only Itthadists he punished were the ones that opposed him, he had no trouble absorbing Itthadists into the Kemalist movement so long as they did not oppose him. Even in this journalist interview you cite, the comment about Itthadists and their opposition to him supercedes his non-existant care for Christians.

As for your comment on the Armenians being unscathed, even in small groups you are wrong. The Armenians of Izmir were slaughtered wholesale and not by the Itthadists. The Kemalists never recognized the Greek mandate of Smyrna, when the Kemalist army entered Smyrna, Mustafa Kemal sent out a personal note assuring the non-muslims no harm would come to them, he personally ordered his soldiers not to harm them, this was just Taqiyya to give his soldiers opportunity for looting and slaughtering as is the customary reward during moslem wars of jihad. If you read Dadrian's work and remembered it or did not have a soft spot for Ataturk, you would know the Itthadists could not carry out the Armenian genocide to Smyrna and Constantinople because German officials were in charge there, but the arrival of the Kemalist army in Smyrna changed this and the Greek population was massacred pell-mell, the Armenian population was genocided as efficiently as possible and every quarter of the city was burnt to the ground and destroyed except for the muslim quarter. For more info check out "The Smyrna affair Marjorie Housepian" by Marjorie Housepian Dobkin, one of the few work on this subject in English. So if Kemal really had compassion for Armenians he would have protected the Armenian population of Smyrna, instead of lie to some Christian journalist about how Itthadists only were responsible for the fate of Armenians, and I wonder why you bring this dishonest interview up besides to blur the historical record and paint a false tolerant picture of Kemal and Kemalism. The Kemalist's systematic slaughter of the Armenians of Smyrna was a phase of the Armenian genocide.

Ataturk was called lovingly the Gazi by Turks, so there was no mistake among muslims of the time of what he did, despite your confusion. The Kemalists were from a faction of Ottoman society, the military, and contrary to the Ottoman Islamic norms of Islam and the Sultan's court being the huge political force, the Kemalists transformed the military into the politicial force par excellence of Turkey. This is where the Kemalist interest in Islam lies, restraining political Islam to the extent of allowing themselves the Kemalists to be political actors of enormous powers, but using Islam to help liquidate non-muslim communities who dominate commerce and using the loot obtained to establish a Turkish muslim bourgeois class. In Dadrian's work "The History of the Armenian Genocide..." there is a whole chapter titled along the lines of "The Kemalist Thrust against Russian Armenia."(Again this whole chapter contradicts the article you bring up and the very selective quoting of Dadrian's work concerning Kemal.) In this chapter I remember Mustafa Kemal rejecting Kazim Karabekir's, a Kemalist General, first proposal to invade Russian Armenia when the Bolshevik revolution precipitated the collapse of the Russian army in Caucasia. Why did Kemal at first oppose invading Russian Armenian and later change his mind? The only reason I ask, is I want to see if you can be honest about Kemalism. Please, no rheteoric and wild offtopic comments about Bernard Lewis and speculation about the Struma and how Ataturk would not have allowed that to happen. If you reply at all to my post, I would like to see if you know why Ataturk momentarily oppossed invading Russian Armenia to assess your views of Kemal, since you are being extremely dishonest even when confronted how Dadrian's work which you cite contradicts your views of Kemal and Kemalism.

I just noticed the query above, and must respond.

First, I am asked to pass a test, because, according to the poster, I am being "extremely dishonest" about Dadrian's views on Kemalism. It is passing strange, is it not, for me to go out of my way on every conceivable occasion to mention Dadrian, his work, his book, with admiration, and then having urged people to read his book, in full view of them to deliberately misstate what he says? Would that not be beyond stupid, but perverse? But the whole fury of Nikephoros Phokas is based on his use of the word "Kemalism" and on the very different meaning that I endow that word in every case when I have used it in postings at Jihadwatch, and there must be several dozen.

But first, that little test. General KLarabekir wished to invade Soviet Armenia in 1920. Three times he asked permission to do so. Three times Mustafa Kemal rejected the idea. His given reason, according to Dadrian's text, was that an attack might mean "a new Armenian massacre" (yeniden bir Ermeni kitali demek olan bu hareket)" and, adds Dadrian in English, "the entire Christian world and especially America will turn against us." The obvious point, the point that Nikephoros Phokos wishes me to acknowledge, is that the ONLY reason Mustafa Kemal opposed the attack, was because a massacre would make Turkey look bad. And then, of course, he did give permission.

But a moment's thought would suggest what any defender of Ataturk might say. He might say: Ataturk did not really want to approve of the mission, but Karabekir was insistent. He asked not once, not twice, not thrice, but a fourth time. And Ataturk may have been the boss, but his power had not solidified. He was not, in 1920, the Ataturk of 1930, or even 1926, or even 1923. And in rejecting initially Karabekir's request, how might he have put it? Knowing Karabekir, is it inconceivable that he would not try to appeal to any sense, on Karabekir's part, that Turkish troops might not be subject to discipline, and that they might be joined by Muslim irregulars and civilians, Turkish, Kurdish, and Azeri, who might join in massacres of the "giavours." In other words, there is another interpretation that could be given to
Ataturk's words to Kaberbekir. (I actually think that Dadrian has it right --but unless I had read far more, including the accounts of those who defend Ataturk, I remain in no position to judge).

As to my quoting from Dadrian's book, and from an Armenian website, two examples of Ataturk being, as I put, the only Turkish leader who even discussed the horrific massacres of "Christian subjects," this seems to upset the poster. Why? Does he think this information is illegitimate? That nothing whatsoever can be said about Ataturk that is favorable? When he argues that Ataturk gave the interview which is quoted only to curry Western favor, how does he know that? And what then does he make of the second example, one taken from Dadrian's text, in which the same admission occurs in a Turkish-language publication which was for domestic consumption only (Menbir)? How is that to be explained away?

Note, please, that I am not defending Ataturk for being a participant in one of the key themes of Dadrian's book -- that the failure of the Allies, and of the new Turkish government, to proceed with the punishment, through military tribunals, of those responsible for the massacres was terrible in itself, and set a terrible precedent. Does the poster think that I think, for one minute, that that was defensible? If he thinks that, on what basis, pray tell? I do not.

But let me get to the most important point. He thinks that I betray Dadrian by praising "Kemalism." But surely he knows that Dadrian's book is all about the period 1915 to 1922. It is not about Ataturk when he came to power, and solidified his position. When Dadrian uses, as a historian he can and should, the word "Kemalism," he means that program set out by the Kemalists-- which by the way he does not spell out himself but simply alludes to in a single footnote 37 (p. 315). And ordinarily, when Dadrian uses the term, as in a phrase such as the "Kemalist general" or the "Kemalist this or that" he means, of course, those who were on the side, in support of, Mustafa Kemal, as opposed to the Ittihadists, or the Sultan and the old regime.

But a moment's thought, and a moment's inspection, of the several dozen posts where I mention the word "Kemalism" shows that I am using that word in the colloquial sense used in the United States, by non-specialists, to refer not to those who in that period chose the side of Mustafa Kemal, but rather to allude to a very specific set of laws, regulations, even attitudes, that had to do with Islam, and that were only instituted once Ataturk came to power. Ask someone to define Kemalism in this country, and what they mean -- and certainly what I mean when I use the word at Jihadwatch -- is this: the Hat Act, the vote given to women, the ending of the Caliphate, the limits put on mullahs and mosques, the discrimination in government and army employment against those who were "too Islamic" or "too religious," and so on and so forth -- in other words, I mean one thing and one thing only -- the measures Ataturk undertook to constrain Islam.

And why do I mention and praise those measures? I do so only to contrast that sensible and realistic program, with the naivete of those who talk airily about, but never quite tell us in what it would consist, the "reformation" of Islam. Whether it is Irshad Manji brightly insisting that she is going to pry open the gates of ijtihad, or someone else assigning to his students at Yale Law School the "project" of reforming Islam, or people as various as Abou El Fadl or Prince Hassan alluding to a reformation of Islam -- well, what in god's name are they talking about? Which texts of the Qur'an will they jettison? Will they throw out the doctrine of abrogation (naskh)? Will they red-pencil out several hundred hate-filled hadith? Will they change the story of the massacre of the Bani Qurayza, and a hundred other episodes in the life of Muhammad?

My praise of Ataturk has never been offered to anything other than that kind of "Kemalism." If the poster above thinks I am misusing the word, and I ought to have specifically defined what I meant, fine. But it should be obvious, from every single time I have mentioned Ataturk's method of "constraining" Islam as the only method that might work, what I had in mind.

History shows us that the "Kemalist" attempt to constrain Islam is constantly under assault. Perhaps Ataturk did not do nearly enough.
And any society that is predominately Muslim will -- as water seeks its own level -- revert to Islam unless there is constant vigilance, and a strong insistence by powerful forces (such as the army) to keep it in place. Erdogan, and all the rest of it, show that Kemalism in the sense in which I employ that word is not stable, not permanent, and can never be taken for granted.

And that is why, whenever I read the most trustworthy testimonies on Islam -- those by ex-Muslims at www.secularislam.org and www.faithfreedom.org -- I become more convinced that there simply is no solution, and it is the duty of Infidels to suppress, as best they can, the influence and power of Islam in their own societies, becasue it represents a belief-system inimical to, dangerous to, all other belief-systems, religions, ways of thought.

Hugh, you are being extremely dishonested even when confronted and resorting to highly offtopic rhetoric, trying to get people to judge Kemal by his words in a journal, to a journalist and not his actions. Are you giving a speech to me, because I do not want nor need one.

So Ataturk in a small journal(must have searched hard in the book to find this) and to a journalist in Switzerland expressed hypocriticial concern for Christian Armenians. More telling are his actions, infact this is what Turks who worship Ataturk do, have us focus on his words. Even you conceeded when confronted about the failure of the military tribunals due in a large part to the refusal of the Kemalists(and most of the muslim population no doubt) to accept punitive punishment. Present things as black as white as you want but the more Islamic Sultan's government at least showed more signs of punishing the perpetrators(due to fear of greater Allied retribution if they did not carry out this punishment themselves) of the Armenian genocide then the less Islamic Kemal's Turkey. This is why I say Mustafa Kemal is being dishonest to this journalist: ... "These left_overs from the former Young Turk Party, who should have been made to account for the lives of millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse, from their homes and massacred, have been restive under the republican rule." ... Because his actions were the opposite of his pledge to punish Itthadists for killing Christian subjects, he continued this killing in an abortive invasion of Russian Armenia, in Smyrna and in Pontus. As Spencer said he is waiting to resettle his ancestral home if troops can be sent to prove Kemalists will not make a encore. If Ataturk was so concerned he would have punished Itthadists for reasons besides trying to kill or oppose him, if he was so concerned he would have highlighted Kemalist abuses as well instead of used an opportunity to mislead Western European opinion that it was only Itthadists killing Christians. Dadrian's book was not about the period 1915-1922, or any specific time period, it was not even about the actual Armenian genocide except for a few chapters, it was about putting the Armenian genocide in its historical context, going as far back as the bank Ottoman raids, the Abdul Hamit massacres, Western diplomacy, the Balkan wars, the matrix of Islamic law, the rise of extreme nationalism in a society with an Islamic base, etc. You completely missed and mislead about the historical place of Kemal and the Kemalist movement in this context. I asked you about his reason for refusing Karabekir for good reason. What Kemal said to Karabekir as a reason for opposing initially the invasion of Russian Armenia was a better indicator of his views toward Christian suffering than his words to a journalist which he used as a opportunity to scapegoat and blame solely the Itthadists. What he said to the journalist he knew would be on the historical recrord in the Christian world, what he said to Karabekir he could not know would be put in memoirs not written yet. The reason why Kemal removed his opposition to an invasion, as I remember is because of the conduct of the French in Cilicia who never disarmed the Ottoman army, letting these soldiers join the Kemalist movement, only lightly garrisioning Cilicia because the French thought it was lemon and sought rather Ottoman spoils in oil rich Arab populated land, etc. The Allies showed no concern for their Christian brothers in the Levant, this is why Kemal removed his opposition.

Kemalism is not something to praise especially on a jihad and dhimmi site. Kemalism is everything wrong with Islam today. Kemalism is a historical mistake and disgrace the Western world allowed to happen in their greed for spoils, lack of morals and compassion. What should have happened is the Allies should have disarmed all Ottoman troops; not allowing the Ottoman III army and its commander Karabekir to have weapons and to continue campaigns nearly reaching the point where Armenia would not exist except as a word in a historical book, except due to the arrival of Bolshevik troops to Bolshevize the remants of Armenia. What should have happened is Allied leaders should have honored verbal pledges to Venizelos instead of arming the Kemalists behind his back, the Kemalist troops who not only not accepting the borders of Armenia and the infant Armenian republic created with the temporary collapse of the Russian Empire in Caucasia did not accept the Greek mandate given by the Allied Powers over Smyrna a Levantine city of large non-muslim stock, a slice of Europe in the Middle East. The apex of what was wrong with Kemalism is best described in Housepian Dobkin's work on the destruction of Smynra, when the Allied warships watched native Christians(mostly Greeks with smaller numbers of Armenians) crowd the quay to escape the entrance of Mustafa Kemal and his troops, their extreme looting and massacre, given orders for their ships not to accept these refugees due to the offence it would cause to the Kemalists, but some ship captains and sailors disobeyed, showing a slice of humanity. Earlier in the war these same Allies confiscated Greek warships and merchant ships. Meet with Greek requests to send liners to whisk away scores of these refugees, the Allies who earlier seized forcibly Greek ships for their war efforts only grudgingly accepted. Kemalism and the rise of Mustafa Kemal is a highlighted lesson in what is wrong with Islam. The Western world in its foreign policy shows no concern for conquered dhimmis and takes the side consistently of muslims against non-muslim, for their petty gain.

Do you expect me to praise Kemal for reforms? For what, needing a law to force muslim Turks to adopt a surname. The Armenian genocide which Kemal participated in its latter phases, its iniation comprised the rounding up and liquadaton of Armenian intellectuals with names such as Daniel Varoozhan, Grikor Zohrab, Nazaret Taghavarian, etc. Mustafa Kemal, was not his real name anyway, it was just Mustafa and in Selanik there were probably scores of Mustafa's. Kemal was a nickname meaning perfect, a derivative of the Arabic Kamal. Should I praise him for hats? Let us see what the historian-sociologist Neoklis Sarris, an ex-dhimmi from Istanbul has to say of this one:

... "After the success of the Greek revolution the Sultan thought to himself that the reason the Greeks succeeded was because they gave the impression that they were Europeans. Thus, the Turks ought to give the impression to be European as well. What is the best way to do that, he wondered. He creates a law which abolishes the wearing of the traditional Turkish robe and the hat, and forces the men to wear suit and tie. He abolishes the turban and replaces it with the Fez, which he imported from the city with the same name.

When Enver Pasha wanted to make the Turkish society appear a little bit more European he abolishes the Fez and enforces something between a Fez and a hat. And what did Kemal do? He abolished this mixture between Fez and hat. Note that the head inside the various covers always remains the same.

Listen to how the Pontians fit into this now, I heard this on Turkish TV two years ago. A very old Turkish man said that when Kemal announced this new law that all Turks are obliged to wear a hat within 24 hours, he was on vacation in Kastamoni, in Pontos. As he was putting on a hat he said:

"Look at this. This is called a hat and starting tomorrow all of you have to wear a hat." So, the old man said that he had asked Kemal where to find hats. The Giaourides who were the Pontians in Kastamoni had left hats in the basements of their stores as they were fleeing the city and so did the Pontians in Trapezounta and in other cities throughout the region. So, even the hats the Turks put on their heads are stolen. They are looted from the Christian population. This is the nature of Turkey's modernization. Let's go on…" ...

Or if that is not enough here are some photos:
Greek soldiers on the Fourth War of Liberation(Smyrna and East Thrace) Campaign playing with Ottoman Turks

Greeks and turbaned Ottomans watching theatre

You can find lots of photos that illustrate this point at the Memories from Smyrna Page. Is the the trash to praise? To praise the Turks who adopted the Latin alphabet instead of the Arabic, only after driving out the Armenian alphabet and Greek alphabet, who adopt the hat reform after exterminating people who do need laws to wear hats. I told you the Kemalists oppossed certain aspects of political Islam, obviously not jihad, and it is obvious this is because they are from the barracks of Ottoman society not from the mosques and they intended to become political powers instead of the Imams. The Caliph did not need to be abolished. When in WWI the Caliph and Ottoman Empire declared jihad, the muslim faithful thought it as hypocritical to declare a jihad with Germany, an infidel power, being the main ally. When the Sultan's more Islamic government accepted the military tribunals and the less traditionally Islamic Kemalists did not accept the military tribunals, the muslim faithful thought it hypocritical no doubt to accept punishment for killing giaors. If the Caliph was not abolished it would have became a vehicle not of Islam but of Turkish nationalism and foreign policy and the muslim faithful again would have no doubt thought it hypocritical for a muslim institution to behave that way. The abolishment of the Caliph is not an issue, if they kept it alive it would have become an employee of the barracks like Turkish imams.