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The Star · #1 Thursday, January 22, 2009

(1)

Atatürk had died a comparatively young man. He was
less than thirty-five when the whole world first heard his singular
aehievements,
and he was not yet forty when
he started to play his historie role of emaneipating
the
people he belonged to. Even in this young age, he seemed
eqmipped with the intellectual aeeumulation
that his time
required.
Mustafa Kemal eertainly studied and weighed Turkish
politieal thinking, whieh was arefleetion
of historic events.
it is true that history generally develops as a eonsequenee
of aetions and reaetions of sU:eeessive smges. This prevail-
ing rule should also be applying to Turkey as welL. But
Turkish history of the Nineteenth and the early Twentieth
Centuries
has witnessed a remarkable
rapidity;
events
advaneed by leaps and bounds. Sueeessive efforts to re-
form the politieal system eould be observed in the first
half of the last century. Sultan Mahmud the Reformer
(1808-1839), who sueeeeded Selim the Martyr (1761-1808),
was inclined towards regeneration.
Besides annihila.ting
the irregular troops of the Janissaries, he helped to bring
about the
Hattı Şerif
of Gülhane
(1839), whieh was a
proclamation
of reform. Nevertheless, the latter did not
deal with the root eauses of the increasing politieal and
eeonomie dependenee of the Ottoman Empire on the great
powers. A group of edueated men, influeneed by eontem-
porary ideas, sueeeeded, after overthrowing Sultan Abdul-
aziz, in obtaining a grant of a new Constitution
in 1876.
Sultan .Abdulhamid the Second, who under the presure of
the prevailing eonditions, had granted a new Constitution,
withdrew it, sending Mithat Paşa (1825-1884), one of its
arehiteets, to exile and lowering upon Turkey a dark cloud
of reaetion. He suppressed independent thinking with every
means available, including a system of espionage hitherto
unknown.
Banishments
and secret exeeutions
were the
order of his day. This suppression eould not, however, pre-
vent, in the 1890's, the emergenee in Saloniea, the birth-
plaee of Mustafa Kemal, of the Committee of Union and
Progress. it is well-known that in 1908 an open rebellion
broke against the tyranny of Abdulhamid, who granted the
desired Constitution, only to repeal it less than a year later.
But the Maeedonian troops, with whieh marehed MustafaKema.l, appeared before Istanbul and defeated the Sultan's
garrison.
But the new government's
task was not less
problematica!. During the rule of the Committee of Union
and Progress, which lasted less than a decade, Bosnia and
Herzegovina were annexed by Austria-Hungary,
Bulgarian
independence led to further wars in the Balkans and Italy
embarked on Libyan shores. The Turanian ideal, dreaming
of a union of all Turks of Asia and Pan-Islamism, daiming
the unity of all Mohammedans, were the thoughts of this
period, characterized
by threats from without.
it was again during these years that Mustafa Kemal
was entertaining a new conception - the conception of the
Turkish ideal, which would survive the storm. Mustafa
Kemal was widely read in Ottoman history and the works
of the Turkish intellectuals. No doubt, he analyzed the
writers of the Tanzimat period (1839). Şinasi (1826-1871l
was the first one who touched upon popular sovereignty.
He published in 1859 the first volume of translation s from
various French poets, and more importantly
in the follo-
wing year, the first national non-official journal in Turkey.
In about two years, he was joined by Namık Kemal 0840-
1888), one of the most brilliant writers of attornan Turkey,
who could with grace, force and precision express many
complexities
of modern thought.
Ziya Paşa 0825-1880)
joined forces with Şinasi and Namık Kemal, and in 1867,
his quarrel
with Ali Paşa, the all-powerful
Vezir of
Abdülaziz, led to his flight from his natiye country. Namık
Kemal brought out several papers in İstanbul and London,
as the mouthpiece of the "Young Ottoman Society". His
revolutionary
plays and
poetry revealed a passian
for
liberty and love for his people. Mustafa. Kemal, in later
speeches, qucted Namık Kemal's verse, making optimistic
changes in the couplets. The poet tried to build up the
concept of popular sovereignty on the basis of accumalation
of individual sovereignty over one's own affairs, but he had
difficulty in coping with the Islamic interpretation
that
sovereignty belongs to God. He urged the Caliph, in accor-
dance with Islamic law, to consult with members of his
community, a relationship which mayaıso be defined as a"contract". The need to consult could very well be a justi-
fication for constitutional government.
Namık Kemal was
trying to reconcile republican ideas with Islamic theocracy.
That Islam could not be reformed to embrace contemporary
Republican institutions
was, nevertheless,
the opinion of
several Young Turks. Among them, Abullah Cevdet (1869-
1932) envisaged a "Westernized" future Turkey, but even
he could not suggest the abolition of the Sultanate and the
Caliphate. Ziya Gökalp (1875-1924) was perhaps most inf-
luential on the intellectuals of Republican Turkey. Mustafa
Kemal and Gökalp had met, for the first time, in 1909 in a
congress of the Union and Progress. lt is true that Gökalp's
theories of socialorganization,
based on Emile Durkheim's
concepts of sociology, had a hold up on the train of thought
of the Turkish Revolution. However, Kemal had an impor-
tant disagreement
with Gökalp on the racist concept of
Turanism. Mustafa Kemal was not only the leader, but
alsa the ideologue of the Turkish Revolution.
Mustafa Kemal had also studied all great movements
of history abroad. While a young man in Macedonia, he
was introduced to the French classics, especially the works
of Rousseau, Voltaire and Montesquieu, through his dose
friend Fethi Okyar, whom he later encouraged to form
an opposition party. While a young cadet in the War
Academy, he studied the French Revolution thoroughly.
Later, he made frquent references
to episodes in this
great event of history. According to him, it was the greatest
of all revolutions, but it failed in providing the greatest
happiness
for the French. He studied the movement of
independence and republicanism of the American Colonies
as well as the development of British democraey. He analy-
zed Russian Historyand
the Russian Revolution. He was
interested in both the successes and the failures of Peter
the Great. He said that his principles did not rest on
Bolshevism. On the other hand, in numerous statements,
he based the rights of man on his labour and produce. He
studied, apparently,
all great movements, but chose to
follow a road that he thought emanated from the parti-
cular conditions of his country. Above all, he believed thaTurkey was the first country in the world of colonies and
semi-colonies to bring to a successful end an anti-imperia-
list struggle taking place in the Twentieth Century.