Fathers, sons, and Yazids

“Bow before the Truth, bow before oppression!

Even crowns in this world belong to the heads that bow...”

This is Faruk Nazif Çamlıbel’s profound anxiety regarding his son, who had not yet been born—or, as he puts it in the poem, “will never be born.” The thought that a child whose existence would not be a burden on his own shoulders, and who would not expect anything from either God or man, could only be possible by never being born at all...

Çamlıbel published this poem in 1926. He was 28 years old. It was shortly after his poem “Han Duvarları” (Inn Walls), which is considered the beginning of Republican-era Turkish poetry. This was after he had worked as a teacher at Kayseri High School, where he taught Behçet Kemal Çağlar, and before he and Çağlar wrote the lyrics to the Tenth Year March.

Çağlar’s father had named his son Kemal, inspired by the man he admired, Namık Kemal. And the son, Kemal, achieved fame as a poet in a magazine that championed Namık Kemal on the grounds that he had been subjected to criticism by Nazım Hikmet. This was in 1930, in the magazine Hep Gençlik (All Youth), led by Samet Ağaoğlu.

Çağlar never married. He never had a child to name after someone he admired. If he had a son, it would not have surprised anyone if he had given him the name of Atatürk, whom he exalted in his poems. Just as Samet Ağaoğlu did.

Samet Ağaoğlu was the son of the famous Turkist and liberal Ahmet Ağaoğlu. He was his father’s son. His father passed away in 1939, a few months after Mustafa Kemal. In the new editions of his widely read book Babamın Arkadaşları (My Father’s Friends), he expanded the text as his father’s friends passed away one by one: from Ömer Naci to Fuat Köprülü, from Dr. Nazım to Halide Edip Adıvar... He became convinced that his father was dead only when no one was left behind.

When we talk about fathers and sons, the first thing that comes to mind is probably Turgenev’s novel. “Fathers and Children” is said to be the more accurate translation of the novel’s title. Yet, until modern times in Turkish, the word for son (oğul) also meant a person’s child, regardless of gender.

A four-year-old son, a daughter, came from Istanbul to Ankara with their parents to witness that magnificent celebration when the March for which Çamlıbel and Çağlar wrote the lyrics was played for the masses for the first time: “We emerged from every war in ten years with our heads held high; In ten years, we created fifteen million youth of every age...”

Seventeen years later, the same parents voted for the Democrat Party and hung flags, believing democracy had come to the country. Gün, who was now a young man—Gün Benderli—joined the Communist Party that same year. Afterward, under the guidance of Nazım Hikmet, he joined the Turkish service of Radio Budapest.

On May 14, 1950, Çamlıbel had been in Parliament for four years. Samet Ağaoğlu was a newcomer. Both were in the Democrat Party, and both would remain in Parliament for another ten years. Ağaoğlu even held ministerial and deputy prime ministerial seats.

Çağlar, however, had fallen out with his teacher and his comrade-in-arms. Later, he left the Republican People’s Party. In 1949, when Şemsettin Günaltay became prime minister, he bid farewell to his party and his parliamentary seat, feeling that the party was turning its back on the revolutions.

When the Democrat Party was overthrown on May 27, 1960, both Çamlıbel and Samet Ağaoğlu were taken to their cells on Yassıada. Çağlar, meanwhile, was invited to the Constituent Assembly that would draft the 1961 Constitution. But he refused the senatorship, citing his “disgust” for daily politics.

Çamlıbel entered the 1960s feeling sorrowful, and Samet Ağaoğlu feeling angry. The poet of “Han Duvarları” shared his feelings in his 1967 poetry book Zindan Duvarları (Prison Walls): “I am in the meaningful observation of the sorrowful prison wall.” Samet Ağaoğlu could not stop himself from writing books about the Democrat Party era. Both were in a time when it was no longer they, but their children, who were trying to make their mark on history. After all, when Samet Ağaoğlu’s first son, Tektaş, opened his eyes to the world in 1934, his son was born despite all his anxieties and contrary claims in his poetry, and Çamlıbel had also held İsmet Okyay in his arms.

Whether İsmet Okyay, who began his career in the state bureaucracy and built a life in America through this path, bowed before oppression or expected anything from man is harder to answer than it is to ask.

Tektaş studied law like his father. He returned from England, from Oxford, and published stories in Varlık magazine, just like his father. He worked in publishing. But he took his place on the opposing side, the socialist side, where his father had fought his battles of the pen.

Tektaş did not turn his back on his family just because they were not on the same side. When his grandfather was criticized in an article in the socialist journal Yön in 1965, he sent a letter to the magazine saying, “Ahmet Ağaoğlu did not serve a Tsar or a servant. His services are only to Turkishness, to Turks, and to the people of Turkey.” He did not ignore the words directed at his father either. “I cannot make sense,” he said, “of attacking a person who has accounted for his life with all his mistakes and merits to this day in this society where sin runs rampant.”

When Süleyman Ege, who was tried for publishing the Communist Manifesto in 1970, was acquitted, another publishing house hastily released a different translation of the Manifesto. When people rebelled, calling it opportunism, the translator Tektaş Ağaoğlu sent another letter, stating that he had not given permission and that they had cast a shadow on the honor of publishing the Manifesto.

**

“Swimming in the endless seas of poverty

You sharpen your teeth openly at every continent you see.”

While Çamlıbel and Samet Ağaoğlu spent the Democrat Party era in the ranks of the government in Parliament, the communist Enver Gökçe was either in prison or in exile. Look at the irony of fate! When Çamlıbel and Samet Ağaoğlu entered their cells, Gökçe finally attained his freedom.

The poverty Çamlıbel spoke of never left Gökçe’s side. The son who would never be born was his, as were the sons who did not live long enough to sail into the blue. He wrapped Turan Emeksiz, whom his mother called Yılmaz and who had not consumed forbidden milk, into his poetry in Beyazıt Square.

When Emeksiz’s blood was spilled while protesting the Democrat Party on April 28, 1960, Beyazıt Square became Freedom Square for a time. But it did not even last a lifetime. Before Gökçe closed his eyes to this life in 1981, the square had returned to its old name after the September 12 Coup.

**

Beyazıt Square is a large area over 500 years old. It took its name from Bayezid II, during whose time it was built. Bayezid II, in turn, was named after his great-grandfather, Yıldırım Bayezid.

Fatih Sultan Mehmet felt a great affinity for his great-grandfather, even though he had never seen him. He wanted to keep his name alive in his son. His son, however, was lost in worldly pleasures with his friends while he was a sanjak bey in Amasya. Hearing this, Fatih wrote a letter to Bayezid’s tutor. Hold them accountable, he said, for those who led “my honorable son” astray. Bayezid repented, and after some lives were burned and the seriousness of the situation was realized, he changed. The attribute of sainthood came to the future sultan in the period after this repentance.

The source of the name Bayezid in these lands is mostly the first great Sufi, Bayezid-i Bistami (Bayezid of Bistam). Bayezid, who was immersed in the realm of divine love, appears to have lived in Iran, in Khorasan, between the last quarter of the 8th century and the first half of the 9th century.

Interestingly, the name Bayezid also has a connection to the word for son. The full name of Bayezid-i Bistami is actually Abu Yazid Tayfur bin Isa bin Surushan. That is, Tayfur, the son of Isa, the grandson of Surushan, and the father of Yazid. When the name began with the name of the son, and the word “ebu” (father of), which means son, turned into “ba”, Tayfur became known simply as Bayezid in this world.

There are also those we know directly as Yazid. And the most famous of them is not well-liked in these lands. His father, Muawiya, had appointed Yazid as the heir to the sacred caliphate on the pretext of preventing chaos among Muslims. To ensure there was not much reaction to this practice, which turned the caliphate into a sultanate, he had tried to make him visible among the people first. Still, he could not convince everyone with his gifts and favors. He did not bow his head in the only place he should have—before the Truth. He became oppression itself. The account for the crown he wore could only be settled in hearts for centuries.