An opinion column is just another opinion. History would disagree.

Ataturk was a socialist and a brutal dictator. While he made Turkey more western he did it at a price. http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist-262560-was-ataturk-a-dictator-ask-him.html

Dictators don’t create democracies and term limits, voluntarily abiding by them. Dictators don’t give women (and subsequently 100%) of their adult population the right to vote. Dictators don’t sign peace treaties with all of their neighboring countries nor change the alphabet to match a language’s phonetics – increasing the literacy rate over 80% within 15 years. He never commissioned any of his statues, that was done by the people because they understood what he did for Turkey and what he represents.

Dictators do none of those things and in the history of humanity, few leaders – elected or not – could accomplish what Ataturk did.

He learned from the other dictatorships like the Soviet Union. Put your face everywhere. make yourself larger than life.

That’s a shame because he was one of history’s greatest reformers among so many other things.