Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is a leader that was aware of a fact; Ignorance is the worst enemy of civilization. He knew that he should fight against ignorance. That’s why he became a teacher after the independence war. He always stated that being a teacher is more important that being a soldier. For the benefits of the public, he was the pioneer in every revolution. Especially for the Latin alphabet, he was the master teacher of modern Turkish Republic. Ignorance is sort of an enemy that can destroy nice and true sides of the life, it can create violence and inequality in the public.
Another bad effect of the ignorance is that it can be used as a weapon to control the public. Especially using it with the religions, ignorance becomes very dangerous. He witnessed this scenario on Anatolian territory. The Muslim public of Balkans was developed and multi-cultured thanks to the effect of modern Europe. But in opposite of this view, Anatolian Turkish public was ignorant and they were farmers (and also troops of Ottoman Empire for centuries).
In the Medieval age, European nations were so ignorant that only Christianity and the church were the authorities. Thanks to this situation, they were exploited by the church and many disasters caused to collapse the whole continent. After the Crusaders and the Renaissance movement, the European nations developed and they had geographical discoveries. As a result of this movement, they got richer and more cultural. Ignorance got weaker and church lost the authority.
Eastern and Islam world couldn’t realize it for centuries. They didn’t accept their ignorance, and they insisted on acting as they were. When they got the fact, Western world had already dominated on Eastern world. They became slaves and commonwealths for Western world, so Imperialism was born.
He focused on education in order to develop a nation. He aimed at developing education for the civilization. The measurement of the salaries of the parliament members was the salary of the teachers.
Always Atatürk..