Atatürk's Dreams in Thessaloniki

Bulgarian Turkologist Ivan Manolof had listened to Mustafa Kemal's thoughts on the Turkish revolution in Thessaloniki a year or two before the Constitutional Monarchy. He said to Mustafa Kemal Manolof, who was excited about tomorrow's Turkey:

-“One day will come, I will achieve all these revolutions that you thought were dreams. The people I belong to will believe in me. My thoughts are not the product of any demagogy. When these people see the truth, they walk behind it without hesitation. He knows how to die for the cause. The reign must be destroyed. The state structure should be based on an appropriate element. Religion and state should be separated from each other, we should be transferred to western civilization by stripping ourselves of eastern civilization. We must establish a new social order by erasing the differences between men and women. We should choose an alphabet from the Latin root by discarding the writing that prevents us from entering Western civilization, and we should follow the westerners in everything, from our costumes. Rest assured, all of this will happen one day.”

(August 18, 1948 Cumhuriyet, Arif Necip Solid.) ¹

¹ Hilmi Yücebaş, Atatürk’ten Nükteler, Fıkralar ve Hatıralar, 2. Baskı, Kültür Kitabevi, İstanbul 1973. s. 62

Source: Atatürk ve Unutulmaz Anıları, Ahmet Gürel, Bülent Türker, Nisan 2009