"Great Spirit", wrote Indian youth in their condolence letter. When Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the "giant of giants", was sent off to eternity... Mustafa Kemal became the hope of not only the Turks, but also all the oppressed nations who paid tribute to the colonialists with their blood. He showed the whole world what a difference the will and courage combined with the love of the country can make. Everything that made the Turkish revolutions unique was implemented with the will and courage of the "Great Spirit".
What remained after the wars was a nation that was tired, poor and unable to fight its diseases, crushed under the burden of foreign debt inherited from the Ottoman Empire, and a people who could not even read or write their names except for a privileged small percentage.
Atatürk was both the "Great Spirit" and also the "Founding Leader", "Great Leader", "Chief Teacher", "The Only Commander-in-Chief", "Marshal", "Great Sage", "reader", "writer" and many more. He was not one of those who put dozens of adjectives on himself. The Turkish nation and the rest of the world, to whom he devoted his life, deemed him worthy of all the honorable and personal attributes he was given. I briefly summarized the revolutions and the miracle of the only leader who carried his titles with dignity even after his death:
REBIRTH OF A NATION
The Turkish nation, which fought uninterruptedly for 11 years from Tripoli in 1911 to the Battle of the Commander-in-Chief in 1922, martyred a significant part of its population. The few people who had the chance to live either had no limbs or, at best, healthy lungs to breathe... The male population decreased due to wars, and Anatolia became a home for widows and orphans.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk did not only save our country's lands from enemy occupation and exploitation. While the inherited population was around 13 million in 1923, it was close to 17 million when he died. There was great population loss during the wars, and it became state policy to increase the population. It was vital to increase the healthy birth rate in order to reduce the impact of the lost population and eliminate it over time.
Mustafa Kemal revolutionized population policy and carried out radical health reforms in order to reproduce and restore the health of the population devastated by wars and diseases. With the extraordinary achievements of the Hygiene Institute, which was implemented as a major project, it turned a country that could not find vaccines and medicines into exporting vaccines and medicines. Free quinine against malaria was distributed and swamps were dried. Private hospitals were established for hundreds of thousands of people with trachoma.
In 1923, when there was only one doctor for every 12,000 people in the remaining bordered Turkish lands that remained from the vast Ottoman geography, one doctor was caring for an entire district on average. There were only 554 doctors. The number of doctors has increased 2.5 times in 15 years. The number of doctors per capita has doubled...
Most of the medicines were imported. Most of the pharmacies, like electricity, were only in big cities such as Istanbul and Izmir. It was very difficult to find a pharmacy in Anatolia. While the number of pharmacists was almost non-existent, there were twice as many pharmacists in 1938, when the "Great Spirit" said goodbye to visible life.
Similarly; While the names of only 4 nurses were read in the ministry records in 1923 from the Ottoman country, whose history dates back to ancient times and whose borders extend to Europe - that is, there was only one nurse for a population larger than the whole of Istanbul - on the day Mustafa Kemal Atatürk said goodbye, this number had increased exactly 102 times.
There were only 136 midwives on the state staff in the country of 13 million people. This meant one midwife for approximately 100,000 people. Almost all births in the villages were performed by uneducated "village midwives". Puerperal fever and deaths during childbirth were very common. Babies died at birth, and those who were lucky enough to survive died within a few years. Therefore, the lack of midwives was considered very important as a country problem, and by providing the necessary educational environment and precautions, the number of midwives approximately quadrupled by 1938.
LAW
In addition to the religious law system inherited from the Ottoman Empire, the judicial mechanism created by the religion-based "nation system" was quite complex. In the same country, sharia courts, regular courts, community courts, consular courts and judicial privileges arising from capitulations operated together. Who is subject to which law? It varied according to belief, community and nationality. Privilege, not equality, was essential in law. However, while Ataturk closed his eyes, he left everyone in an "equal situation before the same laws".
FROM INVISIBILITY TO THE PURPOSE
In the Ottoman Empire, if a woman was not a courtier, she was not seen as "manly" in society. Because women were "invisible"... Their rights in marriage, divorce and inheritance were not equal to men. The woman had no right to study, work, make decisions about her life, or even laugh in the carriage. However, it was these women who carried bullets to the front during the War of Independence, plowed the fields alone, and carried wounded soldiers on their backs. Mustafa Kemal saw women's rights not as a blessing granted by men, but as the return of a usurped right. "Republic, the one among the orphans", paid off for this effort.
With the Turkish Civil Code, monogamy became essential; Women were considered equal to men in divorce, inheritance and testimony. Then, women's political rights were recognized step by step before the Western developed states that described themselves as contemporary. The woman whose voice was not heard a few years ago was now voting and making laws about the future of the nation.
TIME, SPACE, WEIGHT
Time determination differed for everyone: Rumi in official terms, Hijri calendar in religious life, Gregorian calendar in relations with Westerners... Clocks worked in Turkish style, set in the courtyard according to sunset. Weight was measured in okka and dirham, length in cubit and endaz, but these units also differed from region to region. In such an environment, the same language could not be spoken with the world of commerce, industry and science. The Republic resolved this mess with a few laws.
The "Surname Law" moved citizens to a position where they are identified, registered, traceable, distinguishable before the law, and have no title privilege.
IT IS NOT ENDED BY WRITING, IT IS NOT EXHAUSTED BY TELLING
As he stepped into eternity, "Founding Leader" Atatürk left behind a country that has uncompromisingly adopted the principle of full independence, has established itself in the international arena as a respected state, with a healthy population that multiplies, produces and develops, produces and even exports its own vaccines, builds its own aircraft and even gifts them to other countries. By ensuring the transformation from subject to citizen, from servant to individual…
The Great Spirit, who established factories that can be called "industrial schools", built railways connecting citizens to each other and to all corners of the country, to trade and employment, and always aimed for the future, was able to do all this in just 15 years and in the midst of a world-wide economic crisis.
