October 29 Republic Day

Lawyer Aydın Davran has written a special article for 12punto.com.tr to mark the 101st anniversary of the Republic.

Key highlights from Aydın Davran's article:

October 29 Republic Day is approaching. October 29, 1923, is the date when our struggle for liberation and the preceding nearly 100-year-long Turkish revolutionary struggle were crowned with the Republic.

On the path to the Republic, a struggle was undertaken under the leadership of Ottoman intellectuals and the military class to establish a system based on a constitution; battles were fought on the front lines to protect the homeland, exiles were endured, and lives were sacrificed. We must respectfully remember Mithat Pasha and Namık Kemal, who fought for the establishment of a constitutional order with the First Constitutional Era, and those who, 32 years later, rebelled at the cost of their lives for the Second Constitutional Era, declaring “Freedom, Justice, Equality, Fraternity” and reopening the parliament by putting the constitution back into effect.

Throughout the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century, great wars, migrations, and revolutions took place. Those who carried out the Turkish War of Independence, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, were raised under the conditions of their time; the concepts formed in their minds and the works they produced naturally bear the traces of the influential intellectual and political movements of that era. It is my view that it would not be unfounded to argue that the Turkish Revolution, while rooted in enlightenment, rationalism, and full independence, also bears strong traces of the French and Russian Revolutions in terms of its implementation principles.

In Republic Day celebrations, speeches, and all kinds of posts (printed or online posters, short films, etc.), almost exclusively Atatürk's images, quotes, or footage are used. “Major” commercial companies participate in Republic Day celebrations by placing full-page advertisements in newspapers and broadcasting short films featuring Atatürk on television channels. Social media posts made by citizens also contain similar content, often consisting of clichés and repetitive imagery (such as sharing the quote “Gentlemen, we will proclaim the Republic tomorrow” on October 28).

I believe that the question of how much commercial companies and their owners—the capitalists—truly embrace and internalize the concepts and values upon which our Republic is built should be discussed. Are political and economic full independence, anti-imperialism, science-based thinking, secularism... and having independent institutions—a requirement of being a Republic—and judicial independence truly desired?

It is my view that celebrating the Republic should be done by internalizing the thoughts and revolutions for which our great Atatürk sacrificed his life for his nation, without exploiting the sincere love and gratitude people feel for him through his quotes, photos, and footage. To understand the Republic, which he called his “greatest work,” is to understand the Nazilli Printing Factory, the Civil Code, secularism, and the Montreux Convention. It is to understand and commemorate Reşit Galip and Mahmut Esat Bozkurt. It is to demand universities that produce science and independent, fair courts. It is to desire the fair and equitable sharing of produced values and to aspire to be a proud citizen who earns a living through their own labor.

I believe that all speeches and celebrations made without understanding and commemorating the era in which Atatürk grew up, the events and intellectual currents that formed the source of his ideas, and the heroes who accompanied him during the period of armed struggle and revolutions are incomplete and represent a great injustice to Atatürk. I cannot accept Atatürk, one of the exceptional figures in human history, being used in a manner similar to Che Guevara photos on t-shirts sold in gift shops in New York.