My desk calendar in the office is an unusual one this year, a product of a
project called 365 Days Atatürk which aims to offer sketches from Atatürk's
political and personal life, his reforms, speeches etc. for those who want to
know him better. The web site addressed http://www.365gunataturk.com offers
e-version of the calendar, and apps for itune and android are also available.
The topic chosen for October 28 was a letter from an American who was
a boy in 1923. On the previous day of the announcement of the foundation of
Republic of Turkey, a letter addressed to Mustafa Kemal arrived from the US. It
was written by Asa Curtis LaFrance who was 10 years old then. His letter read:
" ... I am very much interested in Turkey and the Turkish government. I
read an interview with you and Mrs Kemal recently. I have a notebook on Turkey
and already collected many articles and photographs of you and Mrs. Kemal.
Please send a signed photograph of you to this American boy. I hope to visit
Turkey someday." Atatürk's response of November 27 was as follows: "
... Thank you for your interest and thoughts on Turkey. As requested, I am
enclosing a photograph of myself. My only recommendation to the hard working
and intelligent youth of America is not to believe everything said about Turks
as truth and to base their studies on scientific research...."[2]
Atatürk's recommendation to American youth "not to believe everything
said about Turks as truth" reminded me of Faik Ali Bey who was Governor of
Kütahya in 1915. He saved lives of 1000 Armenian families, settling them in his
town, persuading Talat Pasha, taking the responsibility. In response to their
expression of gratitude he had said:
... It is a conscientious
responsibility for you to announce to the whole world and to the humanity, as
loud as possible, that all those events were murders of some villainous
traitors and Turkish citizens turned away from them. Yes, do announce
together with us that Armenians are victims and excusable as much as Turks, and
Turks are victims and excusable as much as Armenians. Attributing the sin
of this war and atrocities to the history of all humankind by removing them
from the registry of deeds of those who actually caused them will not only be
violating the spirit of truth and integrity, and if millions of innocent
individuals of a society are to be held responsible and reproached for the
Armenian case which is a part of the calamity of war and was perpetrated by a
few or maybe several hundred people, this will be overwhelmingly offensive to
divine retribution and sense of justice, which we all seek in great destitute
and await forlornly.
If you, too, joining us,
make a case for the importance of this fact and announce it, you will
demonstrate that it is not that you are in need of justice only for yourselves
and you demand it but that you are advocates of it absolutely and that you
cherish the ideal of justice, thereby showing that you deserve it twice as much
and prove that you are worthy of it [3].
I am sure the day will come reparation and land
demanding Armenians will be ashamed to carry on with their
demands and this issue will be over.
In 1926 a false statement was attributed to Atatürk concerning Armenians and Professor Türkkaya Ataöv wrote a booklet titled A 'statement' wrongly attributed to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, revealing the fabrication and displaying Atatürk's approach to the issue. A comprehensive part of the booklet is available at Aran Erdebilli's blog together with a good collection of video links. At this point it is worth
remembering how Mustafa Kemal Atatürk described what happened in 1915 to Clarence
K. Streit, American columnist, on February 24, 1921 as it was published in Philadelphia, in the
Public Ledger's March 27, 1921 issue [4]:
“After making allowance for the enormous exaggerations always made by those who accuse their enemies, the transfer of Armenians reduces itself to this – The Armenian Dashnak Committee, then in the service of the Tsar, had caused the Armenian population behind our troops to revolt when the Russian Army began its great 1915 offensive against us.
“Obliged to retreat before the superior numbers and material of the enemy, we found ourselves constantly between two fires. Our convoys of supplies and wounded were pitilessly massacred, roads and bridges destroyed behind us and terror reigned the Turkish country-side. The bands, which committed these crimes and which included in their ranks Armenians able to bear arms, were supplied with arms, munitions and provisions in Armenian villages where, thanks to the immunities accorded in the capitulation’s, certain foreign powers had succeeded during peacetime in establishing enormous stocks for this purpose. The world, which regards with indifference the fashion in which England, in peacetime and far from the battle field, treats the Irish nation, can not in all justice complain of the resolution we were obliged to take relative to the transfer of Armenian population…. The massacres and devastation’s caused by Armenian bands while the Russians were evacuating our eastern provinces are sufficiently known. The American General Harbord, with whom I talked at Sivas and who after having visited these regions and having made edifying observations on the conduct of the Armenian bands, wrote to tell me that all I had related to him was true, is a witness from whom American opinion can usefully inform itself. The Dashnaks, moreover, continued their crimes in the zone of Kars and Oltu until the conclusion of the Alexandropol Treaty…”
Sources
1. 365 Gün Atatürk. Accessed on 30.10.2014 at
http://www.365gunataturk.com/ekim.html#/ekim/28
2. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881 – 1938). Light Millennium. Accessed on 02.11.2014 at
http://www.lightmillennium.org/2011_25th/yoktay_ataturk_130.html
3. Aslan, S. (Oct. 1, 2013). Remembering Governor Faik Ali Bey and his open letter to Armenians of Kütahya. Armenian Holocaust : My Story. Accessed on 0211..2014 at http://armenianholocaustmystory.blogspot.com.tr/2013/10/remembering-governor-faik-ali-bey-and.html
4. Ataöv, Türkkaya. [n.d.] A “Statement” Wrongly Attributed to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Accessed on 08.11.2014 at http://aranerdebilli.wordpress.com/video-az-turkce/
NB: The young Mr. LaFrance’s
correspondence sparked wide coverage in LIFE Magazine at the time because
Ataturk’s response was the first letter written by him to any Western country.
In 1998, Mr. LaFrance was able to give this letter to the National Ataturk
Museum in Ankara when he traveled there with
his daughter.
(from http://www.memorialfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Acurtis-Lafrance/#!/Obituary)
No comments:
Post a Comment