“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.” [My emphases]
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was a Turkish soldier and politician. He fought against the Italians in Libya in 1911-12 as well as in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. He is tolerably well-known here in Australia as one of the commanders who resisted the ill-fated Gallipoli Expedition in 1915. After the First World War, he fought against the Greeks who had been encouraged by the victorious Allies to invade Anatolia in an attempt to rebuild the Byzantine Empire. Emerging as the head of the new Turkish Republic after the defeat of the Greeks, Ataturk was President until his death in 1938. A militant secularist, Ataturk abolished the sultanate and caliphate, gave votes to women and attacked the power of the clergy by putting an end to religious courts. He died of cirrhosis of the liver aged just 57, clearly not one to follow the strictures of the religion that dominated his homeland.
I like this quote and have highlighted the words that attracted my attention. “Lazy and good-for-nothing priests” is a description that rings true across cultures throughout human history. The most widespread writings we have on clay tablets from the first literate civilisation – Sumeria (modern Iraq) – are prayers and tax receipts. It was ever thus; despite their claims to be interested in god(s), religious people have an inordinate hunger for power and wealth in this world. Take the ridiculous spectacle of Justin Welby, arch-druid of the absurd Church of England, who presumes to lecture the government about poverty whilst living in a palace. Far, far better in ancient Sumeria to be in a temple ‘communicating’ with the ‘gods’ than engaging in the backbreaking work of Bronze Age agriculture.
As I say, “lazy and good-for-nothing priests” rings true across time and culture. The Roman philosopher Seneca, tutor to the notorious emperor Nero, said that…
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful”
…whilst Napoleon Bonaparte commented that…
“Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.”
The second part of Ataturk’s quote that attracted my attention is the simplest argument against religion in all its forms, “There is no God!” Next time you are told to respect religion or acknowledge its place in the world or if you are (hilariously) accused of racism for opposing some mad religious dogma, reply with Ataturk’s statement of the obvious.
Re-reading the quote for this post, I was struck by Ataturk’s clear anti-Arab feeling. He describes the founder of Islam as “immoral Arab” and sneeringly observes that his “rules and theories…might have suited tribes in the desert” but have no place in a “modern, progressive state.” I have no doubt that had Ataturk uttered these sentiments in 2018 he would have been denounced by the Guardian and the so-called BBC. Interested by what I read, I did some research into racism in Turkey and it seems that the Turks have an impressively comprehensive list of people that they have some antipathy towards. Such discrimination is predominantly towards non-Turkish ethnic minorities such as Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, Kurds, Jews and Zazas as well as hostility towards minority forms of Islam such as Alevis, Sufis and Shi’ites. And there was me thinking that only white Westerners can be guilty of racism!
I wonder what Ataturk would make of Turkey in 2018 as the increasingly dictatorial and megalomaniacal Recep Tayyip Erdogan rapidly re-Islamises the country, destroys its secular traditions and pursues what has been termed a neo-Ottoman foreign policy. He would not be happy, if this quote is anything to go by.
Mike's Place 
3 thoughts on “Quote Of The Day #39”