Not enough, but yes: We were almost there

For 250 years, Turks have been trying to integrate into the Civilized World. 

They have done and are doing everything in their power. 

There is no compromise they have not made along this path. 

And it is not as if they haven't made significant progress.

They equipped Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi with extraordinary powers and sent him to France.

Although Çelebi, who could not quite keep up with dinners involving alcohol and nights of waltzing, returned early, the impressions he gained and the notes he sent were seen as a beacon of civilization.

Francophile demands were immediately put into practice.

Those who asked questions, those who wanted to engage in even the smallest exchange of ideas, were declared heretics and immediately thrown out of the palace gates.

The door was locked so tightly behind them that it was impossible to open.

And the key was shoved into the backside of the palace maid.

Oh, my prince.

You have been in the palace for so many years.

There is no madrasa or enderun left.

Did they only teach you how to kiss fresh concubines under the plane tree facing the Bosphorus and how to poke at milky Slavic girls in the cold of the bathhouse?

If you still haven't figured out the system, that is your fault, brother prince.

You are not going to learn palace tricks from me; watch the TV series.

We are writing about more serious things here, my friend.

Anyway, special people like princes are not going to be set straight by someone like me, a member of the rabble who only made something of himself through the opportunities provided by the republic.

Following Çelebi's impressions, the dam of that day was built in the Belgrade Forest and water lines were constructed. Istanbul University and Istanbul Technical University were founded based on Çelebi's notes.

Afterward, irrigation canals for the Konya Plain, idadis (regional high schools), telegraph lines, power plants, and steam trains were built.

The postal service was established.

Swamps were drained and opened for agriculture.

The high bureaucracy and the military learned foreign languages.

From the videos of Atatürk that have emerged recently, we understand that Ottoman Pashas spoke French like their mother tongue.

In defiance of the current head imam who doesn't even know Arabic.

When it comes to universities, although they have many problems, let us note this.

There are currently nearly three hundred thousand foreign students in our universities.

Their diplomas are valid worldwide.

They will receive engineering and medical training, develop their countries, and treat their citizens.

Let us return to our topic.

We have been trying to recover since the defeat at Vienna.

We had last retreated to the east of the Sakarya, and Atatürk gave hope to İnönü, whom he saw as sad and hopeless, by saying, "Don't worry İsmet, Topal Osman and his men will arrive by morning."

The rest is history.

And that last place of retreat known by the great opposition leader Kılıç Aga was not the city of Sakarya, but the Sakarya River near Eskişehir.

Let us say, "May God forgive his sins and treat him with His intercession," so that perhaps the path to heaven may open for Kılıç Aga. 

Is he a pleasant Kılıç Aga?

Of course not.

Most of the noble Turkish nation knows the city of Sakarya as the final point of resistance, not the Sakarya River.

Unfortunately.

But these have no direct relevance to our topic.

They have an indirect relevance.

They are relevant as the harms of ignorance.

In the last 250 years, we have improved our civilized relations and our clothing, and we have moved from the monophonic zurna and cura to polyphonic orchestras.

We have built roads, dams, factories, and airports.

Even in our poverty, we developed vaccines and sent aid to other poor countries.

We did all these developments with our own local and national doctors, engineers, and social and technical scientists.

For some reason, despite training enough technical personnel, we hit a wall when it came to intellectuals with strong pens.

Clerical schools took our brightest children into their campuses as boarders.

They converted them.

They did not choose the path of "renting" or "buying."

Converting them seemed more profitable and effective.

Even if they were semi-literate, the third generation raised by the republic achieved significant success in following newspapers and magazines.

Those converted from clerical schools were directed to follow them.

The intellectuals raised by the republic were prevented from being visible in any way.

Especially journals like the Radikal newspaper contributed significantly to the coloring of people's emotional worlds, the development of their political climate, and the opening of their civilized consciousness.

Very good pens became visible and accessible.

They were read, and as they were read, their fame grew and they became role models.

Even though some of them later confessed their sins by saying, "We acted like donkeys," and some applied to British immigrant funds.

Yet, those who followed such newspapers believed in their writers very much.

They applauded when they signed the 300 intellectuals' petition, even if they were confused.

They were suspicious, but they couldn't bring themselves to believe it.

After all, these intellectuals were like them.

They were taking the West as an example.

Their clothes, what they ate, what they drank, what they watched, and what they read were similar.

The interesting part is that some of these 300 intellectuals are not ashamed at all and are still selling advice.

I saw an advertisement yesterday; the CHP-run Tepebaşı municipality has made one of those 300 intellectuals a salaried literary conversationalist and is transferring resources to them.

If that man had his way, there would be no such thing as the CHP left.

It would have become the Pennsylvania municipality.

Well, after having people in the top management of the CHP who were columnists cursing Atatürk in Taraf, the most successful and effective operational newspaper of the last century that tried to drive the final nail into the coffin of Modern Turkey, and those who signed the petition, one shouldn't be too surprised. We believed that the intellectuals we read and followed would take us to Europe and the Civilized World.

We tolerated their participation in the Abant meetings, calling it tactics, and dismissed it as taqiyya.

We ignored the small bribes they received in envelopes, saying, "What can they do, they have to eat and drink too."

We attributed the praise they heaped on the mentally ill pervert across the ocean to the warmth of the bribe.

We could not understand that there was a sincere cooperation to destroy Modern Turkey.

We did not think that they would flee to the West and push us into a Taliban hell, although I have no doubt that the minds of this structure, which I know very well, are not much different from the Taliban, and are even more backward.

There is a "fear of the devil" in them that is greater than that of the Taliban, which acts as a brake on all their actions.

Their heads are constantly bowed; they have made it their principle to live by protecting themselves from the devil.

In short, Modern Turkey has remained arid in raising intellectuals who are sincerely and devotedly attached to its revolutions and principles.

This drought has cast the third generation of the republic, who are semi-ignorant or think they are smart, onto wrong paths, caused them to lose their front, and made them carry ammunition to the enemy's trenches.

This monophonic zurna-playing generation, which believes that a Modern and Strong Turkey will be built with Western funds, has unfortunately failed to grasp the non-linear intellectual world of Europe.

Yet, it has only been a hundred years since the Great Atatürk said, "There is no nation that rises with the help of foreigners."

While I was constructing and writing these, I remembered the trick Şener Şen played on the poor people who had no field of vision under the canvas of a truck bed by imitating the German Police Hans.

You know, the Anatolian people who were abandoned on the plains of Silivri with the love of shiny Marks and blonde Helga, heading to Munich.

It is a good thing that these second-republicans and their cronies had a field of vision and that they studied in the best schools of the republic.

Otherwise, God help us, what would have become of us.