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Article: Ataturk's children: repression is the legacy of a regime in Turkey where anything goes - so long as it's not Islamic ...
- Article from:
- New Internationalist
- Article date:
- August 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 New Internationalist Magazine. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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WE trudged around the standard sights of Istanbul: Orthodox monuments and retreats, the Basilica cistern, signposts in Latin and Slavic script to cater for the tourists. Our trip was a snapshot of radical Europhilia and consumerism - and of a country mired in the murder of 10,000 political prisoners in ten years.
We had arrived on the 75th anniversary of the Republic. Its founder, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, took the title Ataturk - Father of the Turks. His image, Nietzsche's last man - amoral, apolitical and above all modern - looked down on his subjects from all the lamp posts.
The end of history would indeed be nigh if the West's perception of Turkey as a ...