A film showing the private man behind the public image of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk has not found universal favour, writes Nicholas Birchin Istanbul
TURKS VENERATE Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic and architect of arguably the most successful social modernisation programme of the 20th century.
How much they want to know him is questionable, however, judging from the furore that has erupted since a new documentary on his life came out in cinemas here on October 29th.
Directed by Can Dundar, a leading documentary-maker with an until-now spotless secularist record, Mustafa is the first Turkish film to emphasise the private side of the man whose stern features preside over public buildings across the country.
While it breaks no taboos, it presents Ataturk as a hard-living, hard-drinking and ultimately rather melancholy man who felt increasingly detached from the country he created. "Remember me," he scribbles forlornly in the margins of one of the last speeches he made.
"All those statues, busts and flags have created a chief devoid of human qualities," Dundar says. "I wanted to present Mustafa Kemal in a more intimate, affectionate light."
Watched by 150,000 people in its first day in cinemas, the film has been widely praised. But it has also attracted furious criticism.
"The film is wrong to imply that the Republic devoured its leaders, betrayed them," the staunchly secularist chief opposition leader Deniz Baykal told reporters after the film's gala presentation.
Some radical secularists go further, seeing the film as part of a western-backed plot to weaken Turkey's Kemalist army - the chief obstacle to alleged plans to dump secularism in favour of "enlightened Islam".
The US "treated our soldiers like common criminals in Iraq", said Yigit Bulut, a popular columnist in the secularist daily Vatan, referring to the 2003 arrest of Turkish soldiers that came close to dynamiting American-Turkish relations. "This film about their commander-in-chief is part of the same strategy."
Bulut concluded his October 31st column by begging readers: "Do not watch this documentary, dissuade others from watching it, but above all do not allow it to plant seeds belittling Ataturk in your children's minds."
The attacks seem to be having their effect. Dundar's last Ataturk film has been watched by countless primary school classes since it came out in 1993. But schools seem more wary of taking their charges to watch Mustafa. Such reactions are not surprising. Kemalism is Turkey's official ideology, protected under the constitution. Three generations of coup leaders have cited it to justify their interventions. Insulting Ataturk is a criminal offence.
Dundar thinks critics are missing the point. "My son is now reciting the same poems about Ataturk that I and my father recited when we were at school," he says. "The younger generation has reached saturation point. For young people, Ataturk has become an object of derision."
Historian Ayhan Aktar says: "The aim of the 1980 coup was to use Ataturk as a club to beat Turks with. Dundar's documentary has given Kemalism the kiss of life."
Opinion is divided as to how the Mustafa effect will pan out. Some think Dundar's prestige among secularist Turks might have imbued his personal vision of Ataturk with the force to begin a proper debate. Like Dundar, they think the time has come to publish the diaries and letters kept out of public view in military and civilian archives since Ataturk's death.
"It is a crime not to let people know how Mustafa Kemal explained himself," says Ipek Calislar, who was acquitted in 2006 of insulting Ataturk in the biography she wrote about his wife. "Loving people when you have no means of understanding them is very stupid."
But she expresses deep concern at the way debates are developing over the documentary. "People are so angry, it's frightening," she says. "This is not an atmosphere conducive to reasoned debate."