Turkey is ever more powerful under AKP govt, regardless of Kemalists like or not, Erdogan's popularity is pouring out of Turkey and into other countries. 288% increase in PCGDP income has been recorded in 8 years. I,m sorry but the Turkey i see in the future is a powerful one.
Borrowers are nearly always ill-spenders, and it is with lent money that all evil is mainly done and all unjust war protracted.
John Ruskin
Turkey's GDP per Capita (USD)
Year | 2002 (start of AKP govern) | 2011 |
$ | 7000 | 14700 |
So the increase is NOT 288% and is
110%. You have to double check your sources.
Let's se what is Turkey's situation with external debts during these years;
Turkey's external debt (billion USD)
Year | 2002 (start of AKP govern) | 2012 |
billion $ | 118.3 | 306.6 |
Also you have to add 35 billion USD state privatization revenues as debts too which will rise 306.6 billion USD to 341.6 billion USD. When we calculate the increase we will see that it is
189% increase .
And what about "current account deficit"(cari acik) and "current account deficit gdp ratio"(cari acigin milli gelire orani)
Conclusion:
With this economic facts Turkey's future will not be powerfull but it will be
bankrupt future thanks to Mr. Erdogan's economical abilities or should I say disabilities.
Kemalism has served its purpose, it was a desperate measure in desperate times, its time to say "Rest in peace" and move on to a better version.
"There are two Mustafa Kemals. One the flesh-and-blood Mustafa Kemal who now stands before you and who will pass away. The other is you, all of you here who will go to the far corners of our land to spread the ideals which must be defended with your lives if necessary. I stand for the nation's dreams, and my life's work is to make them come true." M.K.Ataturk
Main Pillars of Ataturkculuk (Kemalism)
(I prefer to say "Ataturkculuk" in Turkish, which can be transtaled as "Ataturk's ideology" because due to systematic and continuous anti-Kemalist propaganda, widely "Kemalist" notion is considered as militarious and dictatorial ideology by shallow minded masses, which is completely wrong.)
--
Positivism--
Ataturkculuk is a social and cultural change from religious dogmatism to
positivism.
Since Islam dominated all areas of social, political, cultural and economic spheres of the Ottoman Empire,
not only as a religion, but also as a way of living. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his friends attacked
religious dogmatism in order to launch a new socio-cultural reform program.
--
Anti-Imperialism--
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk assumed political power through a War of Liberation against the victorious powers of the First World War. Thus his anti-imperialism was the outcome of his military actions. But to view his stand against imperialism only as military phenomenon would be a great fallacy. As a member of the Ottoman intelligentsia, he believed that the final collapse of the Empire had been due to
economic, political, and military exploitation by the West. Thus, his firm stand for unconditional and total independence was something much more than a military view.As Ataturk once stated.:
Gentlemen, when history applies itself to searching the causes of the grandeur and the decadence of a people, it invokes political, military, and social reasons. It is evident that ultimately all the reasons spring from social conditions but that which is in closest bearing to the existence, the prosperity and the decadence of a people, is its economics. This historical truth is confirmed in our existence and our national history. In fact, if one examines the history of the Turkish people, one will see that her grandeur and her decadence are merely corollaries of her economic life.
When such words are supported by his summation that
"The new Turkish state will not be a military state, but an economic state," the anti-imperialist nature of the Ataturkculuk (Kemalism) can be better understood. both speeches were given prior to the proclamation of the Republic, but after the War of Liberation was completed. Thus, the economic content of "total independence" cannot possibly be overlooked in his actions.
--
National sovereignty an National independence--
Mustafa Kemal Ataturks anti-imperialist views were based on his concept of western civilization. In other words,
he knew that the only way to become a western society was to be free from western economic and political exploitation. I think the difference between his revolutionary movement and the prior attempts to "save the Ottoman Empire" lies at this very point: Mustafa Kemal Ataturk aimed at creating a western society, whereas the westernist movements prior to his time were geared to imitating western societies. Those attempts were marked by the importation of western educational institutions while Mustafa Kemal imported the whole ideology and political structure of the West, including
"national sovereignty an national independence."
If positivism, anti-imperialism, national sovereignty and national independence ideals are not dead then Ataturkculuk (Kemalism) is not dead.