BY ARA PAPIAN
Head of the Modus Vivendi Centre
Turkish commentators cannot understand why a photograph of Ataturk
was included in a drawer filled with incriminating documents. Some
believe that it might have something to do with his involvement in the
genocide of the Armenians and Greeks.
The world has many things to say about Wikileaks nowadays, because
Wikileaks has much to say about the world. Numerous cables
notwithstanding, the following is of note: a picture of Kemal Atatürk
came up in a desktop wallpaper available for download from the website
portraying various scandals.
Some speculated that the photograph indicates that Wikileaks
possesses incriminating evidence on Atatürk, ready to be made public.
Some did not hesitate to proclaim that such material might have
something to do with the involvement of Mustafa Kemal in the massacres
of the Armenians and Greeks. Perhaps. But it has been a long time since
that secret was out; it has simply been forgotten, or rather, it has
been denied due to certain political and economic interests. However,
this was not always the case.
As opposed to the current situation, journalists were much more
independent in the past, and diplomats were much more straightforward.
The press and diplomatic correspondence of the time is replete with
information on the massacres of civilian Armenians by Kemalists in the
territory of the Republic of Armenia (September, 1920 to April, 1921)
and Cilicia (February, 1920), as well as the massacres of Greeks and
Armenians in Smyrna (September, 1922). It is not without reason that in
1921, the body of Kemalist leadership – the Grand National Assembly of
Turkey – granted the title of ghazi, the “Destroyer of Infidels” or the
“Destroyer of Christians” to Mustafa Kemal.
Of course, during that very time, he and his supporters were known in
Europe under different names. The following was written in 1936 about
Mustafa Kemal by the well-known journalist and author of many valuable
books, John Gunther: “Ataturk is the roughneck of dictators.
Beside him, Hitler is a milksop, Mussolini a perfumed dandy”. And the
Deputy Secretary to four cabinets of the British Empire (1916-1930),
“one of the six most important men in Europe”, Thomas Jones, would refer
to the Kemalists as “Angora butchers”\ when left to his conscience
alone. Nevertheless, I do not think that, if Wikileaks were to publish
anything about Ataturk, that it would refer to his policies on
Christians.
The outpouring of information from Wikileaks is neither the first
such instance, nor will it be the last. It’s just that, if such
phenomena occurred through the print media in the past – that is to say,
it was slow to reach to the thousands, perhaps even to the tens of
thousands – then today, through the internet, any information is
instantly accessible by the tens of millions. Once upon a time, when
Turkey did not have the clout to shut people up, and the Europeans were
free to express themselves at home as they saw fit, European diplomats,
to put it in modern terms, would leak information on a regular basis.
This would be manifested by honest articles and books on the countries
in which they were serving, and the leadership of those countries.
Artificial piety had not yet reached the level of state policy at that time.
As for the issue of most interest to us – writings about Kemal
Ataturk – perhaps the most remarkable and most reliable intelligence
comes from one Harold Armstrong. After the First World War, from April,
1919 to June, 1922, Armstrong was Acting Military Attaché to the High
Commissioner of the British Empire in Constantinople, a Special Service
Officer in the War Office, as well as Supervisor of the Turkish
Gendarmerie. As someone who immediately oversaw the network of agents
working within Turkey, he became well aware of the details of the lives
of many political figures.
He possessed the authority and the capacity to fulfill this role,
besides being fluent in Turkish. After more than three years of service
in Turkey, Harold Armstrong wrote two books of great value as primary
sources on Turkey, based on the information he had collected in all that
time – “Turkey in Travail: The Birth of a New Nation” (London, 1925)
and “Gray Wolf, Mustafa Kemal: An Intimate Study of a Dictator” (New
York, 1933). The second book is particularly of exceptional value.
Hundreds of books have been written about Kemal Ataturk up to the
present. However, they are much more reminiscent of the books about
Stalin written in Stalin’s time, rather than serving as serious academic
studies. There are a few reasons for this, one of which being that the
criminal code of the Republic of Turkey (articles 301, 305, 306) allows
for the prosecution of the author of any publication about Ataturk, the
contents of which may be considered insulting by the authorities, even
if, in reality, they are not. As the British diplomat and spy Harold
Armstrong has been dead for a long time, there is no reason to be
concerned about him getting arrested. Let us simply offer some citations
from his book in order to shed light on the lesser known aspects of the
life of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
In all probability, the material which Wikileaks has on Atatürk
pertain to the secret side of his private life. That there is much
documented in this regard is a fact. I have myself read many reports by
diplomats about Atatürk dating from the 1920s and ’30s which would be
worthy of publication in Playboy or Instinct. I must emphasise the fact
that the details of the private lives of public figures are, for that
reason, not private at all in their essence. What is private sensibly
conditions human thought, which, in turn, is the basis for making
decisions, decisions upon which thousands of human lives and historical
eras depend. The factor of the private for politicians is always a
matter of import for societies in general and ends up having
wide-ranging influence.
As a result, a political figure does not and cannot have a private
life. The lifestyle of a politician is a voluntary choice, which each
individual consciously carries out. One’s sexuality is one of the most
important aspects of one’s private life, and so, one’s sexual practices
can reveal a great deal and provide significant information on a
person’s internal state and thinking.
The first bit of information by Armstrong on Mustafa’s initial sexual
life and orientation takes place in his second year, in 1894, at the
Military Cadet School at Salonika (Thessaloniki). It is here that
Mustafa’s mathematics teacher who shared his name, one Captain Mustafa,
took the 13-14 year old adolescent “under his wing”: “In his second year
one of the masters, a Capitan Mustafa, took a fancy to him”. The use of
the phrase “to take a fancy” is an interesting move by Armstrong. That
expression may have a number of meanings – to like, to be taken by, to
be attracted to, to feel attached to, especially in sexual way. Also, it
is this very Captain Mustafa who bestowed the title “Kemal” –
“perfect”, “beautiful” – to the young, blue-eyed Mustafa.
Armstrong elaborates on what he means in the following passage: “The
friendship and protection of Captain Mustafa did him no good. The
friendship was unhealthy. He developed overrapidly. Before he was
fourteen he had passed the boy stage: the gropings after sex: the petty
dirtiness: and he had started an affair with a neighbor’s daughter”.
In order to continue his education, Mustafa Kemal transferred from
Salonika at first to Monastir in 1895, and then to Constantinople in
1899. The young Mustafa Kemal dove headlong into the nightlife of the
big city:
“At once he plunged wildly into the unclean life of the great
metropolis of Constantinople. Night after night he gambled and drank in
the cafes and restaurants. With women he was not fastidious. A figure, a
face in profile, a laugh, could set him on fire and reaching out to get
the woman, whatever she was. Sometimes it would be with the Greek and
Armenian harlots in the bawdy-houses in the garbage-stinking streets by
Galata Bridge, where came the pimps and the homosexuals to cater for all
the vices; then for a week or two a Levantine lady in her house in
Pangaldi; or some Turkish girl who came veiled and by back-ways in fear
of the police to some maison de rendez-vous in Pera or Stambul.
He fell in love with none of them. He was never sentimental or
romantic. Without a pang of conscience he passed rapidly from one to
next. He satisfied his appetite and was gone. He was completely Oriental
in his mentality: women had no place in his life except to satisfy his
sex. He plunged deep down into the lecherous life of the city.”
Armstrong’s next bit of information on the private life of Mustafa
Kemal refers to that time period when he was the military attaché of the
Ottoman Empire in Sofia (27 October, 1913 to 2 February, 1915):
“He learnt ball-room dancing, methodically with a teacher, and then
danced whenever possible, but always as if he was on parade. He
frequented the drawing-rooms and tried to become the society gallant,
making love to the ladies of Sofia, but they found him excessively
gauche.”
Mustafa Kemal fell in love in Sofia with Dimitrina, the daughter of
General Stiliyan Kovachev, the former defence minister of Bulgaria.
However, he was rejected by her, “And Mustafa Kemal, touchy and
sensitive, became more lofty and aloof than ever. He began to hate
society”.
Avoiding high society, Mustafa Kemal was drawn more and more towards other circles.
“With men – and especially men who were deferential – and with the
loose women of the capital, Mustafa Kemal was far more at ease. With
these, in the cafes and the brothels, he drank and reveled night after
night far into the dawn. He gambled and diced for hours against any one
who would sit against him. He heaped up all the indulgences and glutted
himself with them. He tried all the vices. He paid the penalty in sex
disease and damaged health. In the reaction he lost all belief in women
and for the time being became enamored of his own sex.”
The First World War began in 1914. On the 28th of October, 1914,
Turkish battleships perfidiously bombed the Russian ports of the Black
Sea, due to which war was declared on Turkey by Russia on the 3rd of
November, followed by France and Britain on the 5th of November. Turkey
was facing war on two fronts.
Little is known in general about the private life of Mustafa Kemal in
the war years, and Armstrong does not convey much either, for his part.
One thing is evident, that alcohol deteriorated his health to such a
degree that he was forced to leave for Carlsbad (Karlovy Vary, in the
Czech Republic today) for treatment from April to August, 1918, during
the most heated time of the war. As Armstrong relates, he was seen by
the celebrated Austrian physician, Otto Zuckerkandl, who warned him,
that “If he did not stop drinking he would die in a year”. It must be
emphasised that the Austrian doctor was wrong; although Mustafa Kemal
continued to drink no less than what he used to, he lived for twenty
more years nonetheless, until 1938.
After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire and the signing of the Treaty
of Moudros (on the 30th of October, 1918), Mustafa Kemal returned to
Constantinople from the Syrian front. Despite his many efforts, Kemal
did not receive any offices in the new government. What is more, in
staying unemployed, he rented a small house in the ?i?li district of
Constantinople and gave himself to the pleasures of life. His only
friend in that period was one Colonel Arif:
“He had few friends and only one intimate, a Colonel Arif. Arif was a
capable staff officer trained in Germany. He was a younger man than
Mustafa Kemal. They had known each other since the days in Salonika and
Monastir; they had served together in Syria, the Balkans and Gallipoli.
After the Armistice they struck up a close friendship. They had common
tastes; both were absorbed in all military matters; both enjoyed the
same loose talk, the heavy drinking and the wild nights with women.
Mustafa Kemal’s enemies said they were lovers, for Arif was the only
person for whom Mustafa showed open affection, putting his arm round his
shoulders and calling him endearing names.”
Mustafa Kemal kept his daring and indiscriminate sexual life in
future years. Armstrong writes the following on Atatürk’s private life
during the years 1921-1922:
“As long as there was work, it absorbed Mustafa Kemal’s every minute:
nothing could divert him. When work slackened, he grew irritable and
restless and began to interfere with his subordinates. It was then that
with Arif and one or two other men he would disappear on heavy drinking
bouts which, with gambling, would last whole nights; or he went a
whoring with the painted women of the poor brothels of the town.”
Naturally, such a lifestyle had its negative effects on Mustafa
Kemal’s health. A doctor advised him to “work and drink less, and lead a
regular life with someone to look after him”. It was at that time that
Fikriye Hanum came into his life:
“From a break-down he was saved by Fikriye Hanum. She was a distant
relative of his from Stambul who had volunteered as an army nurse and
come to Angora. As soon as he saw her, Mustafa Kemal took her to his
house.”
Armstrong is mistaken here. Fikriye (1887-1924) was not a distant
relative of Mustafa, but his own first cousin (his mother’s brother’s
daughter), in whose house Mustafa lived for two years during his
childhood. Fikriye had been married to a rich Egyptian Arab, but had
long since been separated.
“She watched over all his needs. When he was ill, she nursed him. She
was his mistress and his absolute slave, for she was Turkish and
oriental.(…) For a while Mustafa Kemal was absorbed in her. But very
soon he tired. He went back more and more to his painted women, his
drinking companions and his cards.”
The life of Mustafa Kemal during the period 1922-1924 is reminiscent
of a classic love triangle. In September, 1922, Mustafa Kemal met Latife
U?akl?gil (1898-1975). The meeting changed his life for a while.
Fikriye was suddenly rendered superfluous, a burden. Kemal had her sent
to Munich “for treatment” in 1922. On the 14th of January, 1923, the
only close person to Mustafa Kemal, his mother Zübeyde, died. Barely
fifteen days after her death, Kemal married Latife, with whom he lived
for two and a half years. In 1924, Fikriye returned from Munich, met
with Mustafa Kemal and tried to discuss what was to become of her. The
next day, Fikriye was found dead in a ditch behind Mustafa Kemal’s
house. The theory that she committed suicide is heavily questioned to
this day.
What else? Nothing more. I don’t think there is any reason to laugh or to cry.
(the final lines of the 1924 work “Lenin and Ali”, by the celebrated Armenian poet, Yeghishe Charents)
Let us await the future revelations courtesy Wikileaks. If there is
nothing new, then at least the older leaks would still be dripping.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment