Heads Of Government

"Dictators, perhaps because they know their own lies so well, have usually realized the power of history. Consequently, they have tried to rewrite, deny, or destroy the past. Robespierre in revolutionary France and Pol Pot in 1970s Cambodia each set out to start society from the beginning again. Robespierre’s new calendar and Pol Pot's Year Zero were designed to erase the past and its suggestions that there were alternative ways of organizing society."

"Pol Pot makes a very powerful impression on those who hear him for the first time. After that, they want to come back... those who attend his seminars feel enlightened by his teaching, his explanations and his vision... he's like a father to us."

"He said that he knows that many people in the country hate him so much and think he's responsible for the killings. He said that he knows many people died. When he said this he nearly broke down and cried. He said he must accept responsibility because the line was too far to the left, and because he didn't keep proper track of what was going on. He said he was like the master in a house he didn't know what the kids were up to, and that he trusted people too much."

"In Cambodia, the Cambodian people, communists and patriots, have risen against the barbarous government of Pol Pot, which was nothing but a group of provocateurs in the service of the imperialist bourgeoisie and of the Chinese revisionists, in particular, which had as its aim to discredit the idea of socialism in the international arena... The anti-popular line of that regime is confirmed, also, by the fact that the Albanian embassy in the Cambodian capital, the embassy of a country which has given the people of Cambodia every possible aid, was kept isolated, indeed, encircled with barbed wire, as if it were in a concentration camp. The other embassies, too, were in a similar situation. The Albanian diplomats have seen with their own eyes that the Cambodian people were treated inhumanly by the clique of Pol Pot and Yeng Sari. Pnom Pen was turned into a deserted city, empty of people, where food was difficult to secure even for the diplomats, where no doctors or even aspirins could be found. We think that the people and patriots of Cambodia waited too long before overthrowing this clique which was completely linked with Beijing and in its service."

"There was, to be sure, a great deal to regret about the Cold War: the running of risks with everyone's future; the resources expended for useless armaments; the environmental and health consequences of massive military-industrial complexes; the repression that blighted the lives of entire generations; the loss of life that all too often accompanied it. No tyrant anywhere had ever executed a fifth of his own people, and yet the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot did precisely this in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. The future will surely remember that atrocity when it has forgotten much else about the Cold War, and yet hardly anyone outside of Cambodia noticed at the time. There was no trial for crimes against humanity: Pol Pot died in a simple shack along the Thai border in 1998, and was unceremoniously cremated on a heap of junk and old tires. At least there was no mausoleum."

"Dreams of a Communist utopia inspired Pol Pot to kill more than a million Cambodians. Mao, Stalin, and Hitler had more victims, but Pol Pot, without a war, destroyed a greater proportion of his population than anyone else in history. His three years in power so devastated the country that, nearly 30 years later, it is still recovering. He led such a clandestine existence that few reliable details of history are known and virtually nothing about his private life"

"I was responsible for everything so I accept responsibility and blame but show me, comrade, one document proving that I was personally responsible for the deaths."

"We did not yet have laws or order. We were like children just learning to walk."

"When I die, my only wish is that Cambodia remain Cambodia and belong to the West. It is over for communism, and I want to stress that."

"Whoever wishes to blame or attack me is entitled to do so. I regret I didn't have enough experience to totally control the movement. On the other hand, with our constant struggle, this had to be done together with others in the communist world to stop Kampuchea becoming Vietnamese."

"Tuol Sleng was a Vietnamese exhibition; a journalist wrote that. People talk about Tuol Sleng, Tuol Sleng, Tuol Sleng, but when we look at the pictures, the pictures are the same. When I first heard about Tuol Sleng, it was on VOA [Voice of America]. I listened twice."

"There's what we did wrong and what we did right. The mistake is that we did some things against the people — by us and also by the enemy — but the other side, as I told you, is that without our struggle there would be no Cambodia right now."

"First, I would like to tell you that I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people. Even now, and you can look at me, am I savage person? My conscience is clear."

"We want only peace, to build up our country. World opinion is paying great attention to the threat against Democratic Kampuchea. They are anxious. They fear Kampuchea cannot oppose the Vietnamese. This could hurt the interests of the Southeast Asian countries and all of the world's countries."

"Everything I did, I did for my country."

"The standard of the [[Russian Revolution|[Bolshevik] revolution]] of November 7, 1917, was raised very high, but Khrushchev pulled it down. The standard of Mao's [[Chinese Civil War|[Chinese] revolution]] of 1949 stands high until now, but it has faded and is wavering: it is no longer firm. The standard of the [Cambodian] revolution of April 17, 1975, raised by Comrade Pol Pot, is brilliant red, full of determination, wonderfully firm and wonderfully clear-sighted. The whole world admires us, sings our praises and learns from us."

"Shakespeare wrote, Einstein thought, Atatürk built."

"Now, this morning I had the great privilege of visiting the tomb of your extraordinary founder of your republic. And I was deeply impressed by this beautiful memorial to a man who did so much to shape the course of history. But it is also clear that the greatest monument to Ataturk's life is not something that can be cast in stone and marble. His greatest legacy is Turkey's strong, vibrant, secular democracy, and that is the work that this assembly carries on today."

"The centuries rarely produce a genius. It is our bad luck that the great genius of our era was granted to the Turkish nation. We could not beat Mustafa Kemal."

"...Greece, which has the highest estimation of the renowned leader, heroic soldier, and enlightened creator of Turkey. We will never forget that President Atatürk was the true founder of the Turkish-Greek alliance based on a framework of common ideals and peaceful cooperation. He developed ties of friendship between the two nations which it would be unthinkable to dissolve. Greece will guard its fervent memories of this great man, who determined an unalterable future path for the noble Turkish nation."

"Above all, he was a builder, the greatest nation-builder of modern times."

"... Mustapha Kemal's Army ... celebrated their triumph by the burning of Smyrna to ashes and by a vast massacre of its Christian population..."

"The name of Atatürk brings to mind the historic accomplishments of one of the great men of this century, his inspired leadership of the Turkish people, his perceptive understanding of the modern world and his boldness as a military leader."

"The exploits of your leaders in many a historic field of battle; the progress of your Revolution; the rise and career of the great Atatürk, his revitalization of your nation by his great statesmanship, courage and foresight all these stirring events are well-known to the people of Pakistan."

"The rapidity with which Mustapha Kemal Ataturk rid himself of his parsons makes one of the most remarkable chapters in history. He hanged thirty-nine of them out of hand, the rest he flung out, and St. Sophia in Constantinople is now a museum!"

"Turkey had been our ally in the World War. Its unfortunate result was as heavy a burden for Turkey as it was for us. The great and ingenious reconstructor of the new Turkey gave his Allies, beaten by fate, the first example of resurrection. While Turkey, thanks to the realistic attitude of her State leadership, preserved her independent attitude Yugoslavia fell a victim to British intrigues."

"Atatürk was the first to show that it is possible to mobilize and regenerate the resources that a country has lost. In this respect Atatürk was a teacher; Mussolini was his first and I his second student."

"Most terrible of all the terrible Turks."

"He is a man born out of due season, an anachronism, a throw-back to the Tartars of the Steppes, a fierce elemental force of a man. Had he been born in the centuries when all Central Asia was on the move he would have ridden out with Sulyman Shah under the banner of the Grey Wolf, and with the heart and instincts of a Grey Wolf. With his military genius, and his ruthless determination unweakened by sentiments, loyalties or moralities, he might well have been a Tamerlane or a Jenghis Khan riding at the head of great hordes of wild horsemen, conquering countries, devouring and destroying cities, and filling in the intervals of peace between campaigns with wild and hideous orgies of wine and women."

"For nearly five hundred years, these rules and theories of an Arab Shaikh and the interpretations of generations of lazy and good-for-nothing priests have decided the civil and criminal law of Turkey. They have decided the form of the Constitution, the details of the lives of each Turk, his food, his hours of rising and sleeping the shape of his clothes, the routine of the midwife who produced his children, what he learned in his schools, his customs, his thoughts-even his most intimate habits. Islam – this theology of an immoral Arab – is a dead thing. Possibly it might have suited tribes in the desert. It is no good for modern, progressive state. God’s revelation! There is no God! These are only the chains by which the priests and bad rulers bound the people down. A ruler who needs religion is a weakling. No weaklings should rule."

"I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men."

"Now I have taken Hector's revenge!"

"Why after my years of education, after studying the secular civilization and the socialization process, should I decent to the level of common people, I will make them rise to my level, let me not resemble them, they should resemble me!"

"Armenians have no rights in this prosperous country. Your country is yours, it belongs to the Turks. This country was Turkish in history, therefore it is Turkish and will live as a Turk forever."

"İstikbal göklerdedir."

"I once went through books and wanted to understand what philosophers said about life. Some of them saw everything as dark. "Since we are nothing and we will reach zero, there is no room for joy and happiness during our temporary life on earth," they said. I read other books, written by wiser men. They were saying: "Since the end is zero anyway, let us at least be joyful and cheerful as long as we live." For my own character I like the second view of life, but within these limits: A man who sees the existence of all mankind in his own person is pathetic. Obviously that man will perish as an individual. What is necessary for any man to be satisfied and happy as long as he lives is not to work for himself, but for those who will come after him. Only in this way can a man of understanding act. Complete pleasure and happiness in life can only be found in working for the honor, existence and happiness of future generations."

"To see me does not necessarily mean to see my face. To understand my thoughts, my feelings is to have seen me."

"Victory belongs to those who can say 'Victory is mine'. Success belongs to those who can begin saying 'I will succeed' and say 'I have succeed' in the end."

"The Republic of Turkey cannot be a country of sheikhs, dervishes, and disciples. The truest, most real order is the order of civilisation."

"Science is the most real guide for civilisation, for life, for success in the world. To search for a guide other than science is absurdity, ignorance and heresy."

"Sovereignty and kingship are never decided by academic debate. They are seized by force. The Ottoman dynasty appropriated by force the government of the Turks, and reigned over them for six centuries. Now the Turkish nation has effectively gained possession of its sovereignty… This is an accomplished fact… If those assembled here … see the matter in its natural light, we shall all agree. Otherwise, facts will still prevail, but some heads may roll."

"The torch that the Turkish nation holds in her hand and in her mind, while marching on the road of progress and civilisation, is positive sciences."

"I do not leave any verses, dogmas, nor any moulded standard principles as moral heritage. My moral heritage is science and reason. What I have done and intended to do for the Turkish nation lies in that. Anyone willing to appropriate my ideas for themselves after me will be my moral inheritors provided they would approve the guidance of science and reason on this axis."

"Turkey's true master is the peasant."

"We did not win the war with prayers, but with the blood of our soldiers."

"[Turkish women] had lived free of the veil for 5,000 years, and had been covered only in the last 600 years."

"Humankind is made up of two sexes, women and men. Is it possible for humankind to grow by the improvement of only one part while the other part is ignored? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains that the other half can soar into skies?"

"The nation has placed its faith in the precept that all laws should be inspired by actual needs here on earth as a basic fact of national life."

"İki Mustafa Kemal vardır: Biri ben, et ve kemik, geçici Mustafa Kemal... İkinci Mustafa Kemal, onu "ben" kelimesiyle ifade edemem; o, ben değil, bizdir! O, memleketin her köşesinde yeni fikir, yeni hayat ve büyük ülkü için uğraşan aydın ve savaşçı bir topluluktur. Ben, onların rüyasını temsil ediyorum. Benim teşebbüslerim, onların özlemini çektikleri şeyleri tatmin içindir. O Mustafa Kemal sizsiniz, hepinizsiniz. Geçici olmayan, yaşaması ve başarılı olması gereken Mustafa Kemal odur."

"Mankind is a single body and each nation a part of that body. We must never say "What does it matter to me if some part of the world is ailing?" If there is such an illness, we must concern ourselves with it as though we were having that illness."