The most fundamental principle of Ataturk, who led the War of Independence and guided Asian and African nations to liberate themselves from colonialism, is undoubtedly full independence, and an interpretation of Kemalism that does not question imperialism is an incomplete interpretation.
Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, who described Atatürk's life in the most beautiful way in his work called "One Man" and wrote his own life story with wonderful fluency and strikingness along with the stories of several eras and several countries, says in his work titled "Revolution and Staff" that the biggest misfortune of the Turkish revolution was that it was not adequately embraced by the Istanbul intellectuals of the period. Therefore, according to Aydemir, unlike the great revolutions in the world, the Turkish Revolution was not sufficiently supported by artists and ideologists. According to Aydemir, if it had not been for the Tenth Year March, the Turkish Revolution would have remained abandoned in the artistic field (Emre Kongar, in his book "Atatürk", emphasizes that the Kadro Magazine published by Aydemir and his friends at that time had a very special place in the world in explaining the world with the contradiction of oppressor-oppressed countries).
I read Aydemir's book when I started university, and the second half of the 90s and the following years, when I was a university student, showed me with many examples that Aydemir was right, and that he even said little.
The most important misfortune faced by the Turkish Revolution was that the limited number of intellectuals were dispersed to very different places since the late 40s. Falih Rıfkı Atay, whose works on Atatürk are accepted as a source work, would say in his article about the visit to Istanbul of the American battleship Missouri in 1946, symbolizing Turkey's entry into the wake of the USA, that "one of the stars on the US flag is the star of fortune of the Turkish nation". Although it is painful to read this for those of us who grew up with Atay's books, we have to see that Americanism in Turkey is not limited to the Bayars and Menderes.
However, Ataturk's most fundamental principle is complete independence. When we read the "Speech", we see that Atatürk does not say "either this principle or death" on any issue, on the contrary, he says "Either independence or death" from the very first pages. Moreover, Atatürk repeatedly emphasizes with many examples in the "Speech" that full independence includes not only political independence but also full independence in economic, financial and commercial areas.
THERE IS HOPE
However, when the number of intellectuals such as Aydemir, Doğan Avcıoğlu, Attilâ İlhan, Erol Manisalı, who thought of Kemalism (or Kemalism) on the basis of complete independence, was limited or when these intellectuals were tried to be neutralized, the situation was left to those who could not say anything other than "My ancestor looks so beautiful." Interestingly, in the 90s, when the wind of Kemalism was blowing, all hell broke loose when someone said, "Ataturk's principles have become obsolete in the age of globalization," but when someone else said, "We will follow globalization on the path shown by Ataturk and enter the EU," they were applauded. It was not seen that these people were doing nothing other than adding Kemalism sauce on top of neoliberalism, and that the path shown by Atatürk would not lead to Brussels.
At this point, one of the duties of Kemalist intellectuals who know the importance of full independence is to interpret Kemalism in the 21st century on the axis of a fully independent Türkiye and to prevent fake Kemalism from gaining ground. If we are alive now, there is hope to change things.
