If you can walk around circumcised today, you owe that to Atatürk too!

The patience stone has finally cracked. How many times is this now — this disrespect, this allergy to Atatürk?

Even if you throw yourselves to the ground and stamp your feet, even if you remove the phrase "Republic of Türkiye" from signboards…

Even if your stomach turns at every national holiday, even if you shy away from saying "Turk," even if you ban our pledge…

You will never be able to tear Atatürk — or the Turkish consciousness he forged — from the hearts of this nation!

It slipped between the lines yesterday, but the Ministry of National Education has put its name to yet another scandal.

The academic calendar for the 2025–2026 school year has been announced.

And, as fate would have it (!), the first-semester mid-term break begins on November 10.

That is to say, on the anniversary of the death of Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Türkiye.

What does this mean?

Schools will be on holiday on November 10, and commemoration events for Atatürk will not be able to take place.

Holidays such as May 19 and April 23 — gifts from the Great Leader to children and youth — are already not being celebrated.

The Republic's most important national holidays have been dimmed for years.

And now you have set your sights on November 10 as well?

Are you troubled by a nation's longing remembrance of its saviour, by children feeling gratitude toward him?

While you raise no objection to the commemoration of enemies of the state, treacherous clerical circles, and charlatans, can you not tolerate the commemoration of Atatürk?

On the 100th anniversary of the death of Şeyh Said and his companions — who were sentenced to death by the Independence Tribunals for rebelling against the Republic — a commemoration was held in the Republic Square, and not a single voice was raised in protest.

But when the subject is Atatürk, ears are somehow stopped up and mouths are sealed shut.

Do not forget this:

If Atatürk had not existed, the seats you occupy today would long since have become the Greek Parliament.

Your name would not be Ahmet or Mehmet — it would be George.

And moreover, since you would be a minority, you would not even be able to sit in those seats!

O you ingrates who cannot stomach Atatürk…

Even if you can walk around circumcised today, you owe that to Atatürk!

Trying to erase Turkish identity by hiding behind hollow terms like "Türkiyeli" ("person from Türkiye"),

Marketing Bedouin culture as "civilisation,"

Being a pawn of imperialism under the guise of political Islam,

Selling your pen and your soul for the love of a seat in power — all of this may carry you somewhere today…

But tomorrow?

Tomorrow, when your children and grandchildren are crushed beneath global political schemes, neither your seat today nor your wealth will be able to protect them.

Just as the Ottoman palace could not protect its own heirs, no structure outside the national unity that Atatürk built will be able to protect you either.

"Domestic and national" will remain nothing more than a slogan.

Perhaps you cannot read the signs through the intoxication of power, but the political developments unfolding right beside us show that the danger has long since arrived.

The Greater Middle East Project has been advancing step by step for years.

Iraq is gone, Syria has collapsed… Who do you think is next in line?

Even if commemorations are banned, even if memory is sought to be erased under the pretext of a holiday,

We will not give up commemorating Atatürk, remembering him, or walking the path he showed us!

His words are our light:

"O Turkish Youth!

Your first duty is to preserve and defend Turkish independence and the Turkish Republic forever.

This is the sole foundation of your existence and your future.

This foundation is your most precious treasure.

In the future too, there will be domestic and foreign ill-wishers who will seek to deprive you of this treasure.

If one day you are compelled to defend independence and the Republic, you must not consider the circumstances and conditions in which you find yourself before throwing yourself into your duty!

These circumstances and conditions may manifest in a most unfavourable nature.

The enemies who set out to destroy your independence and your Republic may be the representatives of a victory unprecedented in the entire world.

By force and by deceit, all the fortresses of the beloved homeland may have been seized, all its shipyards entered, all its armies dispersed, and every corner of the country actually occupied.

Even more grievous and grave than all these conditions, those who hold power within the country may be in a state of heedlessness, error, and even treachery.

These holders of power may even unite their personal interests with the political ambitions of the invaders.

The nation may have fallen into ruin and exhaustion amid poverty and destitution.

O child of Turkish posterity! Even within these circumstances and conditions, your duty is to save Turkish independence and the Republic!

The strength you need exists in the noble blood flowing through your veins!"

We will not forget.

And we will never allow you to make us forget.