Ata
Istanbul is haunted by the ghost of Atatürk. He keeps close watch on contemporary Istanbulis (and all Turks, for that matter) to make sure they continue to be Modern. From his high perch in every office, classroom, yoga studio, or nursery school hung with the mandatory (for modernites) poster-sized portraits, to the giant bronze statues found in university parks and ferry stations, not to mention his likeness on all currency…his stern fatherly gaze intends to remind everyone of what it means to be Modern Turkish in this nation he founded almost a century ago. In the half-a-dozen visits I have made to this former imperial city to visit with my fellow Chi(cago)langa (from Mexico City via Chitown) sister and her new Turkish family, I have attempted to observe, feel, witness, and also question this notion of modern Turkishness, as part of my on-going exploration of how we live our present-day modernities in various places around the world. Often, I’ve met with silence or reluctance to talk about such things from many Turks. It seems the cult of Ata wasn’t so prevalent before the military coup of 1980, which intentionally revitalized his nationalizing presence along with related punitive measures, such as penal code article 301 which punishes intellectuals for any anti-Turkish thought. What exactly constitutes an assault on “Turkishness” remains vague, but Ataturk’s symbolism remains hotly defended by many Turks who themselves happily don Ataturk’s image on everything from key chains to cellphones. In Turkey today you can be assured that wherever you go, Atatürk is nearby, as he most surely was when my sister went for her citizenship exam, which consisted mainly of reciting (not singing) the opening lines of the national anthem. She passed the testing for Turkishness; I wonder if we’d pass similar tests for our Mexicanness, whatever that is.
