We had another dream Dear Dr.X,
Our dream started in 1923 when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk won his war against imperialism and built a nation from the ashes of one of the biggest empires the world has seen; The Ottoman empire. No need to tell more on this; shelves of books and the internet is full of this unbelievable success from very competent people.
The dream lasted for a short while until the newly found Turkish Repuclic moved from a single political party to multiple parties. The party that governed after Ataturk was CHP (Republican People’s Party) roots of which were seeded at Sivas Congress by Ataturk and was founded on 1923. CHP was the only political party until in 1946 Demokrat Parti (Democratik Party) was founded. In1950 Demokrat Parti won the elections. A few years later the dream started to be a scary movie.
But first let’s go back to CHP period. Ataturk together with his comrade in arms Ismet Inonu, prepared the law stating that the newly founded state’s nature was “republic” and the name would hence be Turkish Republic. Until Ataturk’s death in 1938 a series of laws (namely Ataturk principals) were added to the constitution; among them was the right to vote and to be elected for women in 1934. A few years later, in 1938, Ataturk died; too early, leaving the newly founded nation orphan. He was the father and the mother for the nation. The republic was a baby and babies need mother and father. The Turkish Republic lost both and hasn’t had any either since 1938. Though good decisions were held after Ataturk like not getting involved with the II World war, the country could not protect herself from the economic burden and the reflections of it. Another good attempt was initiating Koy enstituleri (village institutes) to give the opportunity of education to small villages, poor and beyond reach at that time but full of very talented, brilliant people. Then Democratic party was founded in 1946 and the scary movie started soon after. I am not going to go into any details of the period; that is not the scope of this piece of work neither I am the person who can discuss them.
But Mr. X I am the person, just as you were, who has a dream, a beautiful dream full of freedoms, success and a happy nation. But instead Mr. X nowadays I am having a nightmare. Although there are many political parties on the paper, there is only one party ruling for the moment, doing whatever they (indeed he) thinks should be done. I am not even sure if it is judged whether that thing to be done is for the good of the whole, or for the good of the country. Most of the time, it ends up as neither being good for the people, the whole or for the country. Good, extraordinarily good but only for a few. That was what we had during the sultanate, almost a century ago…
The scary movie turned into a nightmare nowadays. In his famous speech to the youth “Genclige Hitabe” Ataturk, probably foreseeing these days, had mentioned, “even if all the castles have been conquered, all the shipyards have been taken and all the military have been dissipated… and even worse than this, the governors may be in obliviousness and portent. And even these governors may be incorporating with invaders… Even in that situation, children of Turkish independence, your first responsibility is to protect Turkish Republic”
This is exactly what is happening now in Turkiye Dr. X. I don’t have your dream, I don’t have even another dream anymore. I only have a nightmare but I have the youth that I can rely on. May be no other nation will be as lucky to have an Ataturk but also no other nation is as lucky to have the children of Ataturk. Today, most of our powerful industrial resources are in the hands of foreigners. Even our famous carpets are now being woven in the companies that are sold to foreigners. One of them when I spoke told me that it is Belgian carpets and I asked how come, since when Belgium is known with the carpets. The answer was, “we have the knowhow, we have the money and now we have the factory”… This is the smallest example. People who have been mediators in the process of selling our industrial investments, will one day pay for it and I pray for this. I pray for them to pay for what they have done to my country, to a nation that has build everything starting from scratch.
My beloved country is in the verge of being divided; some presumptuous beings are mentioning cities of my country as their own and naming the region as Kurdistan.
While not all the Kurdish brothers and sisters are separatists some are seeding hatred among in to nations.
While on the one hand, the separatists are claiming to have Kurdish language to be official language. On the other hand, Turkish language is being murdered by “intellectuals” and by the illiterate. The illiterate who do not even know how to say “good morning” in English, goes to the neighbourhood bazaar and ask for “size small” saying it in English rather than in Turkish. Even the “torba” has changed its identity and became “poset” not that even 10 % of the people in Turkiye speak French… Most of the restaurants and shops have names in English. We used to discuss this as an “issue” with diaspora Turks, asking them to put Turkish names to their workshops; they claimed it was easier to build customers when the name is “not” in Turkish (indeed, amazingly, does not matter so much if it is in Chinese or Hindu as long as it is not in Turkish). I even know people who exchanged their names with American names with the same reason. Those are not the ones Ataturk was relying on for the future of Turkish republic but ameliorating the harm they do is harder than setting the right to start with.
We are also divided by our choice of faith. In Ataturk’s Turkish Republic one of the fundamental constituent is “secularity”. In this nightmare we are also becoming a theocratic state.
This nightmare will end Mr. X, I promise. I promise, I swear, I am going to take the oath
Everyday and I say,
Türküm, doğruyum, çalışkanım,
I am Turk, I am honest, I am hard working
İlkem; küçüklerimi korumak, büyüklerimi saymak, yurdumu, milletimi özümden çok sevmektir.
My principle is to protect the young, to respect the old, to love my country and my people more than I love myself
Ülküm; yükselmek, ileri gitmektir.
My ideal is to (improve), to move forward/to progress
Ey Büyük Atatürk!
Hey Great Atatürk!
Açtığın yolda, gösterdiğin hedefe durmadan yürüyeceğime ant içerim.
I promise solemnly to walk on the road you have opened, to the goal you have showed, without stopping
Varlığım Türk varlığına armağan olsun.
May my existence be a gift to the Turkish existence
Ne mutlu Türküm diyene!”
How happy for the one who says ‘I am a Turk’!
Aslihan Turhan, Ph.D.