Despite his great reforms and his secularism, he was still a turkish nationalist first and foremost. That included suppressing the Kurdish language and setting the “purification” of Turkey as his goal. Turkey, in Atatürk’s vision, should become a nation inhabited by turkish-speaking and turkish-feeling people only. From 1931 onwards, speaking Greek, Armenian or Kurdish in public was heavily discouraged, foreign sounding first and last names were changed and so on.
Atatürk himself said:"Within the political and social unity of today’s Turkish nation, there are citizens and co-nationals who have been incited to think of themselves as Kurds, Circassians, Laz or Bosnians. " In his eyes, such identification were delusions. Maybe its a bit crude, but you could say he tried to drive the Kurd out of the Turk. In modern terms, you could see that as cultural genocide.
And, as many many many Turks will hate to hear: he was a strong and proud proponent of a secular state with equal rights for everyone.
This really surprises me the most, he’s revered as a great reformator yet what was one of the core points is thrown away and most pretend it did not exist
As I understand it, there’s a strong divide between secular and non-secular Turks in the political and cultural arenas of the country.
