National Sovereignty or Sovereignty of the Complex?

The Anatolian Miracle, which took place in the 11 months and 4 days between the first step on May 19, 1919, and the opening of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) on April 23, 1920, which formed the civil, political, and legal basis of the National Struggle, is astonishing and awe-inspiring. Despite all the obstruction efforts of the occupiers and Damat Ferit, and the treacherous rebellions that turned Anatolia into a place of fire, the Amasya Circular / call (June 21, 1919) found its response in the military and civil bureaucracy, regional resistance organizations, and the public.

Following the Erzurum Congress (July 23-August 7, 1919), which had regional characteristics, the regional resistance organizations were centralized as the Society for the Defense of Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia with the Sivas Congress held on September 4-11, 1919. At the Sivas Congress, an executive body named the Representative Committee (Heyeti Temsiliye), of which Mustafa Kemal was elected chairman, was formed. Until April 23, 1920, the Representative Committee would act as the representative of the Turkish Nation and the highest body of the National Struggle against Istanbul and foreigners.

The Representative Committee, the Societies for the Defense of Rights, in short, Anatolia, was conducting an intense campaign for the opening of the Chamber of Deputies (Ottoman Parliament), which Vahdettin had closed on December 21, 1918. We are talking about the years 1919-1920, when one short-lived Armistice Government after another came and went in occupied Istanbul. The pressure for the opening of the Chamber of Deputies would yield results, and the Ali Rıza Pasha government, established after Damat Ferit, would take the decision to hold elections on October 7, 1919.

The elections, which the collaborationist Freedom and Accord Party boycotted, would result in a decisive victory for the supporters of the Defense of Rights. The Chairman of the Representative Committee, Mustafa Kemal, would also be elected as a deputy for Erzurum. Although Mustafa Kemal insisted that the Chamber of Deputies should convene in Anatolia, pointing out that it could not work freely in occupied Istanbul and that deputies might be arrested, he could not find enough support. This time, he asked his friends who would go to Istanbul to form a Defense of Rights Group, to take decisions in line with the Erzurum-Sivas congresses, and to elect him as the Speaker of the Assembly.

Mustafa Kemal Pasha's foresight would come true; the Chamber of Deputies, which opened on January 12, 1920, would be raided by the British on March 16, 1920, and some deputies would be arrested and taken to Malta. In response, the Chamber of Deputies would decide to suspend its activities on March 18. The most important and historical decision taken by the last Assembly before it was raided would be the National Pact (Misak-ı Milli).

In a meeting he held with Corps Commanders over the telegraph on March 17, Mustafa Kemal would propose the convening of a Constituent Assembly (Meclis-i Müessisan) in Ankara. When the proposal was not accepted, it was decided to convene an assembly with extraordinary powers (salahiyet-i fevkaladeye haiz). Mustafa Kemal, in his capacity as Chairman of the Representative Committee, announced with a circular (election manifesto) he issued on March 19 that 5 deputies would be elected from each district through the voting of secondary voters, Provincial Administrative Councils, municipal council members, and Defense of Rights centers, who had the authority to vote according to the Ottoman election law. The assembly, consisting of deputies elected in line with this directive and members of the last Ottoman Chamber of Deputies that had been dispersed, would convene in Ankara, the center of the National Struggle.

With the opening of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on April 23, 1920, a new era would begin in which the stones of legitimacy for the path to liberation would be laid, and nothing would ever be the same again. According to Prof. İhsan Güneş, the TBMM, the source of legitimacy for liberation and foundation, is; “An assembly of uprising, an assembly of revolution, a constituent assembly that makes a Constitution, a populist assembly, a supervisory assembly, a local and national assembly. This assembly is the first assembly in our history where only Turks and Muslims were elected.”

The prestige of the TBMM comes from it being the Veteran Assembly of liberation and foundation. The prestige of the TBMM stems from it being the representative body of the national will, not the dynastic sultanate or the will of the sultan. Today's TBMM faces two choices. To be the representative body of the national will like the Veteran Assembly of liberation and foundation, or to be the passive approver of the will of the complex (külliye)? In other words; National Will or the Will of the Complex?

That is the whole issue!