'Mustafa' criticised for smoking message

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

The chain-smoking of Atatürk shown in the recent film sets a bad example for Turkish youth and is a violation of the law, argued the campaigners. A documentary by journalist Can Dündar on Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk has led to a lot of controversy over the Turkish founder’s hard-drinking and three-packs-a-day smoking habit.

"Mustafa," a documentary that chronicles Atatürk's life from childhood to his death Nov. 10, 1938, presenting an intimate portrayal of a sometimes flawed Atatürk rarely before seen, angering hard-line secularists who have called for a boycott and say the film is an plot to humiliate "Turkishness." Insulting Turkishness is a criminal offence according to Article 301 of the penal code, one many respected journalists and authors have fallen victim to. While there have been several efforts by secularist groups to ban the movie for portraying Atatürk in a less than expected reverential light, Prof. Ahmet Ercan and Prof. Orhan Kutal, both of whom head anti-smoking groups, have filed a complaint for a different reason, arguing that the chain-smoking and heavy drinking Atatürk portrayed in the movie is the best advertisement cigarette companies could hope for.

Reading the complaint in front of the Şişli court, Kutal said Atatürk was a symbol for the Turkish youth, adding, "This is the biggest cigarette advertisement in Turkish history. It is also a violation of the law that bans the use of cigarettes in television shows, movies, music videos and film clips."

"Mustafa" has spawned extensive commentary since it opened two weeks ago. According to statistics, in the first 12 days, 772,694 people watched the movie.