A two fisted drinker in times of peace. He actually put the lion's milk down (clear mind needed first and foremost) when deep thought was needed (battle plans, writing speeches to the Grand National Assembly, etc.).
In a book by Psychiatrist Arnold Ludwig, King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership,'ol Father Turk received the highest score on the political greatness scale. The research compared 1,941 leaders of the 20th century.
The scores are based on male dominance factors. The Alpha males were then classified into 6 catagories such as democratic, visionarie, and authoritarian, among others. 7 clusters of traits seperated the rulers.
1) desire for social dominance and leadership, 2) contrariness (rebellion against authority), 3) charisma, 4) initiation of large scale change, 5) self-confidence, 6) courage and risktaking, and 7) a psychological unease, wary, energetic.
Interview excerpt:
LAMB: But for 18 years, you read 1,200 -- during that time, 1,200 biographies.
LUDWIG: Yes.
LAMB: And you came up with the "Political Greatness Scale."
LUDWIG: Yes.
LAMB: Which is in the book. And I may be wrong about this, but I found, in looking through it, that the number one -- looking at all the numbers, the number one leader you found in the 20th century, from your political greatness scale, was Ataturk.
LUDWIG: Yes.
LAMB: Am I right about that?
LUDWIG: Yes.
LAMB: And after him, Mao. Right after him, FDR. They're very close.
LUDWIG: Yes.
LAMB: I mean, on your point scale, Ataturk had 31, Mao 30, FDR 30, Stalin 29, Lenin 28, Ho Chi Minh 27, De Gaulle 27, Deng -- Deng Xioping 27, Tito 25, Suharto 25. I can go on.
LUDWIG: Yes.
LAMB: But why Ataturk?
LUDWIG: Well, let -- first let me put those numbers in context. Those numbers are not engraved in stone. I would say that probably -- that if you wanted to group people, you'd take maybe a 5 to 7-point swing and include them kind of all together. It just so happened that Ataturk did come out first. Why Ataturk? The political greatness scale -- I guess I need to say word about that, if I may, first.
LAMB: Your invention.
LUDWIG: Yes. Yes. I didn't want to invent it. When I first started the study, I was looking for some type of measure to evaluate political greatness. As I mentioned before, I was puzzled about this phenomenon, and I looked to others. I looked to political scientists. I looked -- searched the literature. I could not find any actual scale that measured political greatness cross-culturally. Of course, people rated the American presidents, this kind of thing, but nothing cross-cultural.
So then the question came to me, how do you go about evaluating political -- what is political greatness? And then I had a kind of "Eureka" experience. Well, why not look at those people who are acknowledged by almost everyone as being great political leaders? Who are the famous names in history over time that come to mind when somebody says "Mention a great political leader"? People who come to mind are people like Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Alexander the Great, Bismarck...
LAMB: These are -- the immortals.
LUDWIG: The immortals, the political immortals. Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, people along those lines. And I came up with 26 of those people. OK, these -- I think almost everybody would say these are the political immortals. And then I asked the question, "What do these immortals have in common?" Are there any common denominators? And lo and behold, I found a number of common denominators. Almost every single one of them had these characteristics.
And I then used these characteristics, 11 of them, in developing the political greatness scale and tested the scale in terms of its reliability, in terms of its validity. It was interesting that the scale correlated extremely highly -- extremely highly -- with the amount of words allotted to these individuals in the Encyclopedia Britannica or the Encyclopedia Americana. So it had a validity to it.
So this is the political greatness scale, 11 items on it.
LAMB: What are some of the items?
LUDWIG: One item -- unfortunately, several of them have to do with conquests, unfortunately. But this is how people evaluate political greatness. Military victories, more territory, social engineering, changing the very nature of the society, economic prosperity, moral -- being a moral exemplar, in a way -- people like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, for example.
LAMB: So it doesn't have anything to do with whether you feel warm and fuzzy about somebody.
LUDWIG: No. It has to do with accomplishments, political achievement.
LAMB: Is there any comparison with what you've done with political greatness scale to the "Time" magazine "Person of the Year," where people get outraged when they see Hitler on the -- on the cover, and they think that they're naming him a great person?
LUDWIG: Yes. I think that's an excellent kind of comparison. By "greatness" I mean nothing about how you feel toward the -- you know, do you admire this person? I mean, some of these people are despicable. They're horrible people. However, their achievements, political achievements, are monumental.
LAMB: Let me just show -- we'll put this on the screen, and I'll read down the American presidents, so people can see how you fit on the scale. If 31 was the top at Ataturk, and FDR was the top of all American presidents. You then have Truman at 23 points, Theodore Roosevelt 23, Ronald Reagan 22, William McKinley 20, Dwight Eisenhower 18, LBJ 18, George Bush the first 15, John F. Kennedy 15, Bill Clinton 15, Jimmy Carter 14, Calvin Coolidge 14, William Howard Taft 12, Gerald Ford 11, Herbert Hoover 10 and Warren Harding 9. Those are presidents in the 20th century...
...LAMB: Go back to why Ataturk on top of all these people.
LUDWIG: OK. Let's look at what Ataturk did. And again, mind you, take this in the context of some of the other great leaders that -- some of the immortals I've mentioned. Ataturk created -- started Turkey. He dismantled the Ottoman empire, which was in existence at the time. He not only was the founder of the country, creating a country, but he caused a profound social change in Turkey. He introduced democracy into Turkey, somewhat a militant type of democracy, but a democracy nonetheless. He separated -- he was one of the -- first time in history to kind of separate church and state. In fact, even though it is predominantly a Muslim country, it's one of the few ones where certain types of freedoms are permitted. And in fact, the military is obliged to intervene if there's any threat to the democracy in any way.
So at every single level, Ataturk had an incredible effect, and his achievements were remarkable.
The top five are:
A Ranking Of World Leaders According to Political Greatness Scores
Rank Leader PG Score
1 Ataturk - 31
2 Mao Zedong 30
3 F.D. Roosevelt 30
4 Joseph Stalin 29
5 Vladimir Lenin 28
Interesting others:
41 Nelson Mandela 20
21 Winston Churchill 21
10 Adolph Hitler 25
20 Harry Truman 23
Of the 1941 leaders only 12% of an indepth review of 377, received a score of 20 or higher.
I also heard that he had some Pomak relatives. His mother or father was from a village in Albania inhabited with Muslim Bulgarians. I might be wrong though and this is just a typical claim happened in Balkans about every great person.
Ataturk is yellow haired and coloured eyed,may be Kipchak Turk huh?Turks are not a one geography race like chinese.
Or maybe European blood, rather than Central Asian? .
Probably yes.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
-The Father of the Modern Turkish Nation-
TIME Magazine, October 12, 1953, p. 67:
Turkey
...By conventional standards, Kemal Ataturk was hardly an admirable character. He was a bitter, sullen and ruthless man, a two-fisted drinker and a rake given to shameless debauch. Politically, though he proclaimed a Bill of Rights, he flouted it constantly; though he talked of loyalty, he hanged his closest friends. He was devoid of sentiment and incapable of love, unfaithful to everyone and every cause he adopted save one-- Turkey. But before he died, his driven, grateful people thrust on him the last and greatest of his five names: Ataturk, Father of All the Turks. The Father of All the Turks (who left no legitimate heirs) was born in 1881 in Salonika, then part of the Ottoman Empire, of a mild Albanian father(Ali Riza) and a forceful Macedonian mother. Mustafa was a rebel from the start. His pious Mohammedan mother urged him to become a holy man, but he became a soldier; at 22, a captain, he rebelled against the Sultan and was nearly executed; at 27, he joined the Young Turks rebellion, then rebelled against the Young Turks. The army, fearful of him, shunted him from post to post, but could neither shake him nor subdue him. At Gallipoli, in 1915, he defeated the British; in the Caucasus, he checked the Russians; in Berlin, 1918, he drunkenly needled the high panjandrum of his allies, Field Marshal von Hindedburg; in Arabia, 1918, he held off T. E. Lawrence's Bedouin hordes. At 38, he came out of the crash of the Ottoman Empire the only Turkish commander untouched by defeat.
What does it matter if the child was Armenian, or any other nationality or ethnicity for that matter, he was concerned enough with upbringing children, rather than focusing which nationality or ethnic background to choose from. Saying that it is an insult to national intergity, or any other form is ludicrous, considering that there are a multitude of various ethnic backgrounds that composed modern Turkey, and Ottoman Anatolia for that matter as well. It is important to note moreso that he was concerned about the national well being, and adopting children, and being atimate about equality in upbringing is a strong statement, and in many ways a hoped for blue print for other citizens to improve national prosperity.
During his stay as military atache in Bulgaria 1913 he fell in love with Dimitrina Kovacheva.As long as i know they didn't have any children but i may be mistaking
Communism is the biggest enemy of the Turkish world , it should be crushed whereever it 's seen .
That is his words .
He was not an Anti-Communist , but HE WAS NOT A COMMUNIST too ; accept that the spiritual structure of Marxism and materialism conflicted with Turkish moral duties
If Electricity Comes from Electrons ; does Morality come from Morons :|
And state intervention to the economy doesn't contradict with capitalism.
(Actually it is vital according to the theory of modern liberalism.)
The system where state isn't present is anarchy...But in capitalism applied today in the free market arch-capitalist "heaven"s, state intervention is taken to the minimum,state only has the duty of supervision, nor the state owns any companies...It is all privatized...
So, in this manner, Atatrk defended the midpoint between centralist state and free market.
We gave up your happiness
Your hope would be enough;
we couldn't find neither;
we made up sorrows for ourselves;
we couldn't be consoled;
Not exactly capitalistic...He stressed that there shall be private entreprenurship and always supported the development of private sector, while holding a belief in a certain level of state presence.
The state is always present in capitalism.
And state intervention to the economy doesn't contradict with capitalism.
(Actually it is vital according to the theory of modern liberalism.)
When soviets understanded Ataturk isn't a communist,stooped helping us in our fight,they supported Enver against Ataturk
Actually you know it wrongly...They knew Ataturk wasn't a communist, but mastermind of Ataturk helped Turkey to get the aid from the Soviets...I strongly suggest reading Can Dundar's "Golgedekiler" for more details.
It is true that they used Enver as a tool for a while, but although being reluctant in some periods, they gave critical aid to Turkey
Originally posted by Feanor
He made it clear that the new Turkish republic would follow the capitalistic way in Izmir Economy Congress.
Not exactly capitalistic...He stressed that there shall be private entreprenurship and always supported the development of private sector, while holding a belief in a certain level of state presence.
We gave up your happiness
Your hope would be enough;
we couldn't find neither;
we made up sorrows for ourselves;
we couldn't be consoled;
We must stop talking about his ideals and return to his children
But we have already established that not all Turks and Kurds in Turkey like Mustafa Kemal, so how an earth do you expect the wider Turkish community to embrace him as "Father of the Turks"
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