Atatürk, Kemal, 1881-1938; Turkey -- Description and travel; Turkey -- Politics and government -- 1918-1960
There has been a certain amount of agitation for the abolition of the
veil, but the tradition withstands reform, though it is now no more than
a sort of toque, or turban, such as we also frequently wear. However,
Halidé Hanoum—most advanced of feminists—has never herself abandoned the
veil, probably seeing in it a Nationalist, if not a religious, symbolic
significance.
I wish I could reproduce at least some of the finest passages from some
of her lectures. The noble spirit of her inspiration yet speaks, even to
those unable to follow her words. No one can marvel that she set her
hearers on fire to save “all that remained of the Turkish
Empire—Anatolia.” As she has written, “It is the love of race which
first made the Turks a mighty people. Whatever may come, rest assured
our race cannot die. It hath immortal life. Though we stand alone
against the world, our love of race will give us courage. Till we can
once more stand proudly beside the nations, we will fear no obstacle and
shrink from no self-sacrifice!”
She gave to Mustapha Kemal Pasha, before his full powers were proven to
all, the words found on the stone of an old Turkish Padishah:
“God appointed me ruler, that the name and fame of the Turkish race
might not be extinguished. I was not appointed to rule over a rich, but
over a poor, people, scantily supplied with food and clothing. For the
Turkish race I slept not at night, I rested not by day, I worked for my
people till death.”
Her work in Syria, interrupted, alas! by the war, has established her
remarkable powers of organisation; and though she denies that she was
ever actually in the Cabinet, no one can doubt that she would make a
splendid Minister of Education. The deputies themselves are so eager for
her admission to the Assembly, that we may easily soon hear that the
department has been placed in her able hands.
At Beyrout she converted the big building of the Dames de Nazareth into
a fine school, where, faithful to her Western training, she gave special
prominence to Swedish drill, and where, as in the American colleges,
Moslem and Christian sit side by side. When the English advanced in
Syria she handed over her schools, and her Armenian and Turkish orphans,
to the Americans, with the womanly entreaty that they would “care for
them and, above all, make them good boys and girls.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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