Mr. Akyol,

I agree with you. The whole case is absolutely silly and ridiculous. It should not have happened. When I first read it, I could not stop laughing. It is not a matter to be taken lightly though. It is shameful, and should be corrected.

But why are you so surprised with such insanity? I think it is as silly as the cartoon incident in Denmark and Sweden. I have not seen all of the cartoons but there was nothing wrong with the ones I saw. So why can one not criticize Mohammed and Islam for that matter? Was he not a human being? Why were the cartoons such an insult to the Islamic community? If I am not mistaken the answer in your Cartoon post was because of Islam's sacred values and cultural differences. I must admit that was a bad excuse but a necessary one.

The problem in both cases (Ataturk and the cartoons) is that when something is declared "holy" and "sacred" for any reason it becomes immune to reason and logic. Both examples call for mockery as you aptly demonstrated in the Turkish case but only one case proved to be violent and destructive.

I admit it would be unfair to expect from you to apply the same reasoning and logic you applied to the cartoon case because I think there are two forms of reasoning and logic guiding the Islamo-liberal school of thought. One is applied to the teachings of Islam involving creationism, intelligent design and etc. This form does not need to be consistent or coherent because they deal with the sacred. It has a built-in exit strategy, called faith. The other is applied to every other phenomena that is not sacred (natural). These rules are so rigid that one must even be ready to explain where the components of big bang came from. And God forbid if you do not have an answer, you are in trouble. Perhaps other insanity cases should adopt the former logic, and declare everything sacred but they need to multiply in numbers (up to billions) if they want to be taken seriously.

I was aware of the high veneration accorded Atatürk by a percentage of Turks, so I'm not surprised that there are people who might overreact to a portrayal that reveals his more human side.

Can Dündar's "offenses" in his film Mustafa and the legal case brought against him verges on the surreal. It reads rather like a disturbing tale - particularly the discovery of insult in the un-Kemal-like fingers. Presumably Atatürk' devotees are also uncomfortable with the simple use of "Mustapha" for the title.

I have great respect for Turkish culture, but have often been puzzled by the complicated role played by honor and insult. The sensibility at work seems unusually sensitized in some cases. Of course this isn't a psychology blog, but it is a topic that would make for fascinating research (provided it doesn't insult someone).

Despite the very different cultural contexts, the accusations leveled against Mr Dündar remind me in a sense of the works of Franz Kafka. The inner world of Kafka's fiction is intense and actions often led to strange consequences. The protagonist, Josef K, was gradually worn down by anxiety as he tried to work his way through a labyrinthine legal system, in which his guilt seemed to be preordained. Of course in pragmatic terms there is no comparison between Dündar's experiences and those of Josef K, but the undercurrents seem to have at least something in common.

In societies in which cultural archetypes are deeply entrenched, there will inevitably be deep-seated taboos also. So, from an outsider's perspective it seems that cultural change in Turkish society is unlikely to be risk-free. Artists have greater freedom of expression and yet it appears to be a sort of freedom-in-a-mine-field when touching on a revered personage such as Atatürk or other matters that carry heavy symbolic significance in the collective mind.

The pathfinders for greater freedom of expression are those who "test" societal attitudes by risking to dig a little deeper or push the edge of controversy a little further. These are the real heroes in my opinion because how else can society progress... how else can the old give way to the new unless someone has the courage to bring a new perspective that reflects changing realities. Such people should be celebrated - but unfortunately as we know the opposite is too often the case. People by and large fear change.

In the project that had been designed in the 1930s and later in the 40s by the creators of the veritably "religious" cult of Atatürk, the cult was supposed to be shattered by the secularists themselves only once the Turkish society has become thoroughly secular like Western societies and has no more anything to do with the values of Islam thanks to opposition by the rival religion of Atatürk.

Nevertheless, secular-minded, even Atatürk-appreciating but frank people like Dündar do not seem to understand this. They want to be honest secularists. However, an honest sort of secularization will never work in Turkey because when the human sides and only a few of the moral errors of Atatürk are disclosed to the Turkish public opinion, the only real secular rival to Islam in Turkey will have collapsed and Turks will return to Islam! Dündar does not seem to understand the essence of the secularist project. Kemalism is only a step toward becoming a Western-type non-religious society.

That's why even the secularist Kurds of Alevi origin (such as Kemal Alemdaroğlu) whose ancestors were massacred and terribly oppressed by Atatürk vote for Atatürk's party. They pretend to be hardline Kemalists whereas in actual reality everyone has realized that they very well remember the great massacre by Atatürk and his closest generals such as Fevzi Çakmak in Dersim. But unlike the too honest Can Dündar, they understand the essence of the secularist project. Therefore, being secularists who also want to beat down Sunni Islam and want to make Sunni Muslims into secularist non-Muslims, they are cooperating in the project that has been using Atatürk's image only for a greater secularization project. That's why they are pretending to be followers of Kemal Atatürk (Atatürk: "Fatherturk"). That's really all it is about.

P.S: Mr. Akyol and ladies and gentlemen reading Mr. Akyol's blog, I have opened the English-language version of our web site. It's in my signing name below my comment now. Yours faithfully.

Being insulted by intellectuals who had once been “social democrats” without being first of all a democrat, applied to Fulbright Commission scholarships without first reading a single page from John Bright and honored of being “Marxist-Leninist-and-Maoist” without first serving the army of the undeclared war against the middle class is a felicity that most contemporary Turks cannot merit although they say and do almost everything required.