Modern Turkey
Emulation vs. Imitation
There is rivalry going on between Turkey and Afghanistan as to which among the two countries would succeed earlier in adapting the manners and customs of their people to the new ideal of a freer and richer life. Musthapha Kamal Pasha, the president of the new republic of Turkey and the young Amir of Afghanistan are running a close race in the reordering of their respective countries to suit the new idea. The attempt is so well intentioned that we in India not only wish our neighbours god-speed but regret that we in our own country have not the command of those summary measures of effecting reforms among an illiterate and apathetic people. Both Turkey and Afghanistan have abolished the purdha and emancipated their women. Both are well on the way to a secularization of their national life. Turkey has done away with the Khilafat. The revolt of the “mad mullas” on the Afghan frontier is but the final flaming of the dying embers of religious supremacy in that country.
Such successful emulation of the action of the free people of the world makes us envy the good fortune of the peoples across our borders. But a closer scrutiny of the features of this process of Europeanisation reveals an element of unthinking and servile imitation of the manners and customs of the European people that makes us fairly skeptical of the future of this movement. We had occasion in these columns to refer to the action of the Afghan King in insisting on the wearing of European costume by all people who would appear in the streets of his capital. This is an unnecessary and wholly unwarranted interference against the liberty of the people to dress in the manner best suited to their tastes and their needs. A cable to The Hindu from Constantinople dated the 12th instant, says:-
“The Government has decided that Turks must adopt a family name in addition to the surnames borne by them at present. The absence of family names has often led to a great confusion as surnames are not abundant, never original and are mostly drawn from the Koran and relate to some attribute of the Almighty. Therefore it is usually necessary to distinguish two men of the same name by mentioning the place of origin, trade or characteristic feature. A case occurred recently of one of the Tribunals of Independence in which all were Alis and the Deputies were distinguished by the names of their constituencies.”
The method followed in Turkey regarding the naming of individuals is similar to that in many parts of our country and is identical with that obtaining in South India. The family as such has no distinguishing name. The caste or rather the sub caste has its name: Mudaliar, Pillai, Naidu, Iyer, Iyengar etc. which are tacked on after the name with which the parents baptize a person with. But such surnames have no significance since the same caste has different surnames and the same surname is assumed by members belonging to different castes. Again as a distinguishing mark these caste names are worse than useless because there are hundreds of thousands of adherents to each surname. There is thus a healthy movement growing among the younger generation to drop out these surnames altogether.
We are then face to face with the very real danger that Turkey has to battle with. How many are our Ramas, Krishnas, Gopalas and Govindas! What is the remedy? The way out suggested by the Turkish Government in slavish imitation of Europe is not the best. It burdens a person with two names whereas he had previously only one. Again there is no virtue in calling all the members of one family by a single name. The family name forces a person to wear his father’s name whereas he may like to forget his ancestry and begin his life on a clean slate. The family name forces a woman to adopt the name of her husband’s family which is a perpetuation of the inferiority of woman. The difficulty about duplications must be avoided by inventing new names. After all a name is intended as a distinguishing mark. Its usefulness consists in its certainty and its fixity. If the Registrar of births is given the right to approve of or amend names suggested by parents the difficulty would vanish. He would see to it that there will be no disconcerting frequency of the same name in the same area. This procedure is neither novel nor impractical. We do it now with the post office with reference to telegraphic addresses. The birth register may usefully take a leaf out of the Telegraphic Code and avoid the difficulty which is exercising the mind of the Turkish Government.
Family names are a relic of the barbarous days when Europeans practiced ancestor worship European families believed that they sprang out of animals or material objects: a wolf or hog or a stone. They idolized such ancestors and bore their name. When Europeans became ashamed of their mythical ancestors, they did not give up the habit of naming themselves after ancestors but they changed their spelling of their names. Mr. Wolf spelt his name Wolffe. Mr. Hogg signed himself Hogge. Mr. Green became Greene and so on. It is not necessary for Turkey to revert to this barbarity in an attempt to import the European order of things within her borders. Courageous emulation of the spirit of freedom in the West is one thing and a slavish imitation of the details of European superstition is another and just the opposite. Let us hope that in the new found ardour for progress, Young Turkey will take to the one and avoid the other.
Revolt, 19 December1928
Modern Turkey
The Welfare writes: The ‘Sick Man’ suddenly drops his bundle of vices, prejudices, backwardness etc., straightens his crooked limbs and takes to the high roads, leading to youth,glory,achievement and prosperity at a run. Call it denationalisation, Europeanisation, slavish imitation or what you like, but there is no denying the fact that Turkey has finally shaken off her inertia of centuries and has covered at a bound enough ground to bring it in line with at least the second class powers of Europe in national organization. In moral recovery of discipline, Turkey has left the greatest of Euro-American powers far behind; for the latter are, however much we may deny the fact, in the melting pot of yet newer revolutions, their national minds have been split up into something resembling the chaotically unstable multiple personality found in degenerate individuals. Turkey on the other hand, is self-possessed, has a definite end to achieve, and is moving determinedly – an entire nation thinking, feeling and acting as one man towards her goal of ideal nationhood in the light of modern knowledge.
Looking at Turkey’s transition, one may well call it Europeanisation, if only superficialities are considered. The Turk is discarding his old ways and is taking to European dress, architecture, music, art, social, legal, political and economic institutions and is enthusiastically parading his European get up as a proud school boy in his first pair of long pants.
Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha is the soul and brain of the New Turkey of today. Under his guidance and command Turks are organising their entire scheme of existence anew. The part that even Koran and the Shariat shall play in their life is being settled by the Ghazi and his enthusiastic band of reformers. No more of authority but ethics, no more of gospel but truth, no more of faith but science and technology, shall guide the life of young Turkey. The Ghazi has spoken and all Turks are straining themselves to the limit to realize his ideals. Thus Turkish children are being co-educated and fed on a dietetic basis and being initiated into the cult of the play-ground. Turkey will have to fight Waterloos and it is fast building up its Etons and Harrows.
With so-called religion, Turkey, i.e., Kemal Pasha has little to do. His religion is his nation and his Zihad will be the defence of glory of his nation. Foreign missions and their teaching institutions are in disfavour with Kemal Pasha. They preach false ideals to Turkey’s youth and they can never fall in line with the aspiration of Nationalist Turkey. So they are passing out of Turkish life. The most important feature of the change in Turkey is the emancipation of women. They are today taking an active share of work of nation building, specially in public health work. They are also mixing freely with men in tea parties and dances, but health, hygiene, education and the arts are drawing more of their energy and attention. Then there is the question of dress. In this, of course, the whole of Turkey has gone to Europe
– Revolt, 27 March 1929
Advance Turkey!
Elsewhere in this issue is published an article about mixed marriages which are in vogue in Turkey which once fought for the righting of the Khilafat wrongs has today discarded its religion altogether and is imbibing the spirit of western civilization in its entirety. It has gone so far in its work of Europeanisation, that there is a free intermingling of marriages between Turkey and other European countries. Eminent medical experts have often emphasized upon the fact that free intermixture of blood between different races results in the production of a beautiful and healthy race. That is corroborated by the writer’s remark that ‘Egyptian blood has imparted traits of physique and feature which have made the women of the Turkish upper classes, some of the loveliest women in the world’. When the religion of Islam which is well-known for its puritanic fervour has launched upon the bold policy of inter-marriages, it is a wonder why the so called tolerant religion of Hinduism is lacking behind even in inter-caste marriages. Turkey the proverbial ‘sickman of Europe’ is marching at a rapid space, whereas
India the proverbial ‘country of wealth and prosperity’, is wallowing in the filth of inter-communal quarrels and inter-caste dissensions. Will India learn from her neighbour?
– Revolt, 7 July 1929
Mixed Marriages in Turkey
It is a mistake to suppose that there has always been a prejudice in Turkey against Turks marrying foreigners and even Christians. There is indeed probably no nation which has so continuously nourished itself by the admixture of foreign blood, writes the Constantinople correspondent of the ‘Manchester Guardian’.
For several centuries the civilized nations of the West have brought less and less foreign blood into their stock. But a nation like Turkey, which has remained medieval till today, kept up the much freer racial intermingling which was characteristic of the smaller societies of the Middle Ages everywhere. In the older days, when concubinage was practiced, it was mostly Caucasian women from the Caucasus who became the pasha’s favourites and mixed in the end into the Turkish nation. It is this strain which produces today the most striking types of Turkish feminine beauty. Egyptian blood which has been so generously brought in has imparted traits of physique and feature which have made the woman of the Turkish upper classes some of the loveliest women in the world. During the whole period of this admixture there has been no prejudice whatever against the foreign women whom Turks took as wives and though it was less frequent it was just as allowable for Turkish women to marry foreign men; the only thing that was insisted upon socially was that the foreigners should change their faith. But in general it was through foreign women converted to Islam that the perpetual renovation of the Turkish blood was maintained. The fashion in Russian wives, so to speak, is still as strong as ever, and many of the Russian women refugees who came into Turkey six or seven years ago are now married into prominent Turkish houses. Lately, too many Greek women have become the wives of Turks.
Till now the possible ‘alien’ dangers which are liable to rise from mixed racial marriages have been ignored. The conversion to Islam was accepted as a sufficient patriotic guarantee and was indeed regarded only in this light and not as a real religious change. As modern Turkey, however, has become secularist and leaves religion free this guarantee
no longer exists and another form of control has had to be devised.
Without in any way wishing to put a stop to the custom of foreign marriages among the nation, the Angora authorities have only laid down the rule that no Turkish State functionary marrying a foreign wife can keep his post in the Civil Service. Admixture of blood in modernized Turkey is only to go on outside the State service, and there will be no necessary change of faith.
– Revolt, 7 July 1929
Freedom of Turkish Women
Kemal Pasha is praised by a weekly journal for his efforts at making Turkish woman free. Before his reforms, they were prisoners in the home, never leaving it except under guard and with their faces muffled. They could not attend a concert or dance, nor take healthy exercise. To-day they are encouraged to move about freely without the unwholesome veil. Thy may enter any of he professions, and may work in shops and offices. Instead of being mere playthings for men, they are becoming real companions. It may be added that the subjection of women in Turkey was owing to the influence of religion. Opposition to the reforms has invariably been fomented by the priests and their supporters. Not so many years ago, in Christian England, the subjection of women was pretty thorough. Let it not be forgotten that the men who protested against it and worked to alter it, were, in the main, Freethinkers. The freedom now enjoyed by women was not won for them by Christian churches or priests. On the contrary, these supplied the opposition to the innovations proposed. Only as Christian notions about woman have lost their hold has she been enabled to discard her chains. By the way, we notice that the leaders of the women’s freedom organizations never mention these facts. Are they afraid of offending the parsons? If so, then there is another bit of freedom that Freethinkers will win for them freedom from dominance or priests.
– Revolt, 11 August 1929
