The unstoppable appointment of a 33-year-old district governor

It was hardly possible to predict that an appointment decision published in the Official Gazette—the appointment of a 33-year-old district governor—would eventually occupy such a significant place on the country's agenda. 

Born and raised in a remote corner of Anatolia and a graduate of the Faculty of Political Sciences, this district governor found himself in a position where appointments followed one another. What followed would attract a great deal of attention. It is a story that stretches from almost nothing to one of the highest points in the country.

If it weren't for Yaşar Kemal, these appointments might not have been known to such a wide audience, would not have sparked the same level of debate, and might not have become a significant element of the increasingly sharp political polarization in the country. 

Mehmet Can was born in the village of Dünek, then part of the Islahiye district of Gaziantep. In a village where it is rumored that the name comes from the local jackdaws and starlings choosing the plane trees there to spend their nights and roost. In a village on the foothills of the Gâvur Mountains, just below the village of Cebbar Oğlu Mehemmed. 

He studied at the Mülkiye, the Ankara University Faculty of Political Sciences. Exactly two months after May 27, at the age of 33, he was appointed as the district governor of Kadirli in Adana. To the fertile lands where every seed that feels the warmth of the sun, if it gets just a little bit of water, turns into a Tuba tree. 

For some reason, a few months later, in the cold of February 1961, he was appointed to one of the high-altitude districts of the country, to Muradiye, where the ice on the waterfalls had not yet thawed. Three months later, he was back in Kadirli.

Turkey learned about what was happening behind these far-from-ordinary appointments from Yaşar Kemal, who had started a series of interviews in the newspaper Cumhuriyet under the headline "Those Who Pave the Way in the Dark." Yaşar Kemal, whose family, by coincidence, had migrated from Muradiye to a village near Kadirli before he was even born, and who had nurtured his literature in this world where he first opened his eyes, in Çukurova.

The subtitle of the first interview in the series showed that these appointments were quite ordinary for the local people, if not for Turkey: "They Had Toppled 37 District Governors in 15 Years, Now It Was the 38th's Turn." It is unknown at which district governor's toppling Yaşar Kemal decided to write his novel *Teneke* (The Tin Drum), published in 1955, but he seemed to have described the fate of this 38th district governor, who was now being targeted for removal, years in advance. 

In *Teneke*, the landlords, wanting to take advantage of the inexperience of the young district governor newly appointed to the district, obtain permission for rice cultivation, disregarding public interest and public health; despite the struggle of the district governor, who later realizes the gravity of the situation, the landlords manage to have the district governor sent away from the district thanks to their influential friends in Ankara. As a mockery, they have tin drums played behind the district governor. To the Kağızman district of Kars. 

Yaşar Kemal said that Mehmet Can had turned the district, whose roads were impassable due to mud just a few years ago, into a paradise. He stated that he tried to meet directly with the public without the mediation of the landlords; he rented out two water canals to generate income for the district. Moreover, he had taken back the state lands that the landlords had seized. The road to Muradiye had appeared after this. 

However, the people of Kadirli, who were satisfied with their district governor, made their voices heard all the way to the National Unity Committee; committee members Sami Küçük and Suphi Gürsoytrak came to the district and, after listening to the public, ensured Can's reappointment to Kadirli. This lasted until the elections were held in the autumn of 1961 and a new government was formed. 

A few weeks after Yaşar Kemal's interview series ended, Can was appointed to Tuzluca, on the Armenian border, a little further than Kağızman, in a manner very similar to the district governor in *Teneke* being appointed to Kars Kağızman. 

While the newspaper *Milliyet* of the period harshly challenged the government, asking, "Are you running the state, or are the rice-growing landlords of Kadirli?", the newspaper *Cumhuriyet* reported that the landlords could not have tin drums played after Can, and that the people had strewn flowers in his path and poured water behind him as he left.

Can was bid farewell to Tuzluca on March 30, 1962, but the situation did not calm down. At that very moment, the film *Yılanların Öcü* (Revenge of the Snakes) was being targeted on the grounds that it was communist propaganda and obscene. The same language was soon directed at Can. The magazine *Millî Yol* claimed that communists and their supporters were defending both the film and Can, employing a tactic of "demanding the impossible to get the possible." Thus, a film adapted from a novel describing the reality of village life and an exiled district governor were attempted to be melted in the same communist pot.

Then the matter was brought to Parliament. Although the Minister of the Interior stated that Can's appointment to Tuzluca was due to mandatory duty, the session turned into a brawl. Some deputies and the press were saying that they were being used as tools for Soviet-backed red publications. For weeks, *Millî Yol* did not drop the question "Is it the Kadirli Incident or a Muscovite Tactic?" from its pages. 

In contrast, a segment of the university youth showed their support for Can in various ways. Once, a group of students from Mülkiye, including Onur Öymen, showed their support by visiting him in Tuzluca. They recounted this visit in a long article in the magazine *Yön*, which featured Can on its cover.

After a while, Can would continue to appear not only as a district governor but also with other identities in Turkey's political and cultural-artistic life. But perhaps what was truly important was that the story of that district governor, behind whom no tin drums could be played, had left a mark on the country.

What did the exiled district governor of *Teneke* say: "The struggle..."