Zitate von Kemal Atatürk

„Meiner Meinung nach wird ein Volk, das würdig, ehrenhaft, anständig und menschlich ist, immer die Chance zur Unabhängigkeit haben.“

Mausoleum Atatürks (Anıtkabir)

„Sollte ich eines Tages großen Einfluß oder Macht besitzen, halte ich es für das Beste, unsere Gesellschaft schlagartig – sofort und in kürzester Zeit – zu verändern. Denn im Gegensatz zu anderen glaube ich nicht, daß sich diese Veränderung erreichen läßt, indem die Ungebildeten nur schrittweise auf ein höheres Niveau geführt werden. Mein Innerstes sträubt sich gegen eine solche Auffassung. Aus welchem Grund sollte ich mich auf den niedrigeren Stand der allgemeinen Bevölkerung zurückbegeben, nachdem ich viele Jahre lang ausgebildet worden bin, Zivilisations- und Sozialgeschichte studiert und in allen Phasen meines Lebens Befriedigung durch Freiheit erfahren habe? Ich werde dafür sorgen, daß sie auch dahin kommen. Nicht ich darf mich ihnen, sondern sie müssen sich mir annähern.“

Mausoleum Atatürks (Anıtkabir)

„Sie wundern sich, dass die Moscheen sich so schnell leeren, obwohl sie niemand schließt? Der Türke war von Hause aus kein Muslim, die Hirten kennen nur die Sonne, Wolken und Sterne; das verstehen die Bauern auf der ganzen Erde gleich, denn die Ernte hängt vom Wetter ab. Der Türke verehrt nichts als die Natur. […] Ich lasse jetzt auch den Koran zum ersten Mal auf Türkisch erscheinen, ferner ein Leben Muhammads übersetzen. Das Volk soll wissen, dass überall ziemlich das Gleiche steht und dass es den Pfaffen nur darauf ankommt zu essen.“

Tagebuchaufzeichnung vom 6. Juni 1918, zitiert in Dietrich Gronau: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk oder die Geburt der Republik. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1994, S. 125 f.

„Heute sind alle Nationen der Erde fast Verwandte geworden oder bemühen sich, es noch zu werden. Infolgedessen muss der Mensch nicht nur an die Existenz und das Glück derjenigen Nation denken, der er angehört, sondern auch an das Vorhandensein und Wohlbefinden aller Nationen der Welt … Wir wissen nicht, ob uns nicht ein Ereignis, das wir weit entfernt glauben, eines Tages erreicht. Aus diesem Grund muss man die gesamte Menschheit als einen Körper und eine Nation als sein Glied betrachten.“

Im Herbst 1929 äußerte sich Atatürk im Interview mit Emil Ludwig, zitiert in Klaus Kreiser: Atatürk. Eine Biographie. München 2008, S. 235 f.

„Es gibt verschiedene Kulturen, aber nur eine Zivilisation, die europäische.“

zitiert in Bernd Rill: Kemal Atatürk. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1985, S. 118.

„Freiheit, Gleichheit und Gerechtigkeit gibt es nur in Verbindung mit der Herrschaft eines Volkes.“

zitiert in Bernd Rill: Kemal Atatürk, rowohlt Verlag 1985, S. 80

„Unser Volk war seit seiner Geschichte immer ein Beispiel für Freiheit und Unabhängigkeit.“

Mausoleum Atatürks (Anıtkabir)

„Peace at, Peace in the World.“

Mausoleum Atatürks (Anıtkabir)

„Humankind is made up of two sexes, women and men. Is it possible for humankind to grow by the improvement of only one part while the other part is ignored?“

Maxim which became the motto of the Republic of Turkey; quoted in many sources including, Atatürk (1963) by Uluğ İğdemir, p. 200; and Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus (2000) by Svante E. Cornell, p. 287
Original: (tr) Yurtta Sulh, Cihanda Sulh.

„There is no defense line, but defense territory. This territory is the whole of the motherland!“

As quoted in "Atatürk" in Images of a Divided World (29 October 2006) http://jmilton6000.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/ataturk/
Variant translation: Humankind consists of two sexes, woman and man. Is it possible that a mass is improved by the improvement of only one part and the other ignored? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains and the other half can soar into skies?
Kontext: Humankind is made up of two sexes, women and men. Is it possible for humankind to grow by the improvement of only one part while the other part is ignored? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains that the other half can soar into skies?

„Those who use religion for their own benefit are detestable.“

His order to the Turkish army at the Battle of Sakarya (26 August 1921); Turkish, as quoted in Bugünkü Türkiye (1937), by Stephan Ronart, p. 127
Variant translation: There is no defense line, but a defense territory, and that territory is the whole of the motherland. Not even an inch of the motherland may be abandoned without being soaked in the blood of her citizens...
English translation, as quoted in History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (1976) by Stanford Jay Shaw
Original: (tr) Hattı müdafaa yoktur, sathı müdafaa vardır. O satıh bütün vatandır.

„Know that whatever conforms to reason, logic, and the advantages and needs of our people conforms equally to Islam.“

As quoted in Kemalizm, Laiklik ve Demokrasi [Kemalism, Laicism and Democracy] (1994) by Ahmet Taner Kışlalı
Kontext: Religion is an important institution. A nation without religion cannot survive. Yet it is also very important to note that religion is a link between Allah and the individual believer. The brokerage of the pious cannot be permitted. Those who use religion for their own benefit are detestable. We are against such a situation and will not allow it. Those who use religion in such a manner have fooled our people; it is against just such people that we have fought and will continue to fight. Know that whatever conforms to reason, logic, and the advantages and needs of our people conforms equally to Islam. If our religion did not conform to reason and logic, it would not be the perfect religion, the final religion.

„To write history is as important as to make history. If the writer does not remain true to the maker, then the unchanging truth takes on a quality that will confuse the humanity.“

„Religion is an important institution. A nation without religion cannot survive. Yet it is also very important to note that religion is a link between Allah and the individual believer.“

Original: Tarih yazmak, tarih yapmak kadar mühimdir. Yazan yapana sadık kalmazsa değişmeyen hakikat, insanlığı şaşırtacak bir mahiyet alır.
Quelle: As quoted by Hasan Cemil Çambel in T.T.K. Belleten (1939), Vol: 3, no: 10, p. 272, Turkish Republic Ministry of Culture http://www.kultur.gov.tr/TR,25417/tarih.html

„Our life here is truly hellish. Fortunately, my soldiers are very brave and tougher than the enemy.“

„I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea.“

Letter to Corinne Lütfü, from the Gallipoli peninsula (20 July 1915) as translated in Atatürk: The Biography of the founder of Modern Turkey (2002) by Andrew Mango.

„For nearly five hundred years, these rules and theories of an Arab Shaikh and the interpretations of generations of lazy and good-for-nothing priests have decided the civil and criminal law of Turkey. They have decided the form of the Constitution, the details of the lives of each Turk, his food, his hours of rising and sleeping the shape of his clothes, the routine of the midwife who produced his children, what he learned in his schools, his customs, his thoughts-even his most intimate habits. Islam – this theology of an immoral Arab – is a dead thing. Possibly it might have suited tribes in the desert. It is no good for modern, progressive state. God’s revelation! There is no God! These are only the chains by which the priests and bad rulers bound the people down. A ruler who needs religion is a weakling. No weaklings should rule.“

He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men.
Quoted in Atatürk: The Biography of the founder of Modern Turkey, by Andrew Mango; "In a book published in 1928, Grace Ellison quotes [Atatürk], presumably in 1926-27", Grace Ellison Turkey Today (London: Hutchinson, 1928)

„Mankind is a single body and each nation a part of that body.“

As quoted in Grey Wolf: Mustafa Kemal – An intimate study of a dictator (1932) by Harold Courtenay Armstrong, pp. 199-200
Disputed

„The heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives on this country's soil! You are in the soil of a friendly country now. Therefore rest in peace.“

As quoted by Paul Wolfowitz in an address to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington, D.C. (13 March 2002) http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=198
Kontext: Mankind is a single body and each nation a part of that body. We must never say "What does it matter to me if some part of the world is ailing?" If there is such an illness, we must concern ourselves with it as though we were having that illness.