My dream for Turkey, by Boris’s great-grandfather
Norman Stone on the dramatic life and death of Ali Kemal, one-time interior minister of Turkey and our mayoral candidate’s forebear
Curiously enough, Ali Kemal wrote a book, predicting what would happen to his progeny. It is called Fetret, meaning ‘interregnum’, and the word itself has some significance. In 1402, the first Turkish (or, more accurately, Ottoman: ‘Turk’ until the 20th century was a word used by foreigners) state was overthrown by Tamerlane, and for three decades there was in effect a war of succession, between men who identified with the east and men who identified with the west; that war, in various forms, has gone on to this day. You could have used that word to describe the Ottoman empire of the later 19th century and this is reflected in the architecture. The Sultans had given up the old Topkapi Palace, and moved to the Dolmabahce Palace on the Bosphorus, over which the spirit of Queen Victoria hovered. Old Stambul had become a museum piece, and even then a chief building in it — now a school — was the Caisse de la Dette Ottomane, the headquarters of foreign money-men who were collecting the debts from charges on the railways or the customs. The heart of town was the European quarter, Pera, with the Cercle d’Orient where Ali Kemal was finally caught. Now, what was a bright young Turk to make of all this?
In 1840, there had been some hope. At the time of the Crimean war, even Karl Marx applied himself to learning Ottoman Turkish, because he thought that ‘the Asiatic Mode of Production’ would adapt to capitalism in a modernising Turkey (or Egypt). But by 1870, the debts had gone up and up, and by 1890 more or less everyone was writing off the Ottoman empire as yet another derelict non-European concern — what was soon to be called ‘the Third World’. Not just the Greeks but now also the Armenians, who had been called ‘the most loyal’ of the Sultan’s Christian subjects, were falling prey to separatist nationalism. Sultan Abdul Hamit reigned for 30 years and reckoned that modernisation could happen, provided politics did not get in the way. He practised a sort of absolutism, but promoted schools to train his officials, whether civilian or military. These schools in effect produced an opposition to him, of young men who spoke good French and who knew something about Europe. Ali Kemal was one of these, dreaming of a liberal and European Turkey. Most of his peers — they can loosely be called ‘Young Turks’ — were meritocrats, often from the southern Balkans, but Ali Kemal was socially a cut above them, the son of the head of a guild, living in quite grand circumstances in a villa above the castle of Rumeli. As such, he must have had some private money, because he spent much of his time abroad, and married an Anglo–Swiss wife, Winifred Brun, in 1903. She died, leaving two children, in 1910, and, when the radical Young Turks were briefly out of power in 1911–12, he went back to Istanbul, marrying again.
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Charles
April 24th, 2008 8:35amJust a small point, but Ali Kemal was not lynched. He was, reportedly, killed by women armed with knives and stones en route to the lynching (see NYT online archives article dated 13th Nov 1922). His body was then dragged through the streets before being placed on the scaffold for public view. Gruesome, I know, but pretty much what one would expect of Turkey in its genocidal years.
Ed Hummer
April 24th, 2008 2:20pm"And lo and behold". Although modern Turkey may be the land of milk and honey for Stone, I doubt that islamist state garbed in democratic feathers would have been Ali Kemal's dream.
Max
April 26th, 2008 2:23pmCharles, that sounds rather like my idea of lynching. The (London) Times says he was hanged. His son's memoir of him says that he was deliberately put to death. And he was certainly no Islamist.
Charles
April 27th, 2008 11:47amMax, sounds like you are better read on this subject than I am, so I shall defer to your opinion. I had only stumbled across the NYT article (about Ali Kemal Bey's demise) whilst investigating the fate of another Ali Kemal (a regional governor with a very unsavoury reputation).
According to the NYT piece, Boris's great-grandfather was indeed tried before one General Nureddin Pasha, the Military Governor of Smyrna. He pronounced a death sentence but then Ali Kemal was killed by the women on his way to the scaffold.
His crime was to be known as a prominent 'anti-nationalist'. His death, apparently, caused great concern in Constantinople where he was held in high regard.
M Clyde
April 28th, 2008 12:27pmWhat a fascinating story. What a fascinating man. He sounds fundamentally decent; moderate, urbane, and loyal to the traditional rule and to the traditional foreign policy; loyal to both the British and the Sultan. Such men perish in radical times.
Boris has written a Telegraph article (Nov 07) on Turkey's accession to the EU, of which he remains heartily in favour. I respect his reasons, but like his grandfather I think he fails to read the runes. These are radical times. Traditional attitudes are shifting dramatically.
Turkey is headed in an Islamist nationalist direction. Such a Turkey would be a disaster for Europe.
vangos
May 8th, 2008 5:36pm1.the author of the article has curiously omitted to mention that Turkey joined the I world war on the side of Germany.
2.In a distorted reporting he fails to make clear that the Turkish percentage died fighting the British & Greek armies, while the Greek & Armenian losses in Turkey were the result of genocide practised on the latter two populations by the Turks.
Mustafa Kemal
May 25th, 2008 1:53pmHa ha ha ! so you won't put my views regarding this article up on your site, but you'll do it to those who praises this low life taraitor. I guess after all.. you westerners aren't democratic and has no respect for the ohter side's views. Why this does not surprize me? LOL!!!
God damn you people!!!.
Mustafa Kemal
May 26th, 2008 1:22pmWell..let's see if you have enough guts to put my first two comments.
Typical English hypocracy...
Andrew
June 13th, 2008 9:32pmmustafa kemal, newspapers in Turkey do the same, trust me I know. It is not an English characteristic. Be calm.
Muhsin Mustafa
June 17th, 2008 4:05pmWhy is it that all British people are such gentleman and angels and a perfect example of humanity but others are always killing and doing all this horrible things to others. Have you looked at your history to see how many genocides, hanging and torturing is done by so called ' western' people.Not too long ago in British colonies, and in the name of peace in many countries countless atrocities have been done or allowed to be done because it suited your policies.
But you will argue that all your history is full of 'heroes', but the others are ' barbarians'.
It is matter of which side you are looking from.
Just as a final note even in Russian archives it is proved that Armenians practised genocide on Turks and for your information all the Greeks that died in Turkey were themselves invaders of Turkish land presented to them by the British and allied countries. they were killed during the Turkish Indepence war and as they left they burned and looted villages and raped women.
So as human being all through the history we have killed each other, it is we who decide which are genocide and which are for the country.