Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-05-26
Continued From First Page0

ing territories formerly belonging to the
dead Ottoman Empire. Present Tur-
key has no covetousness tor lands out
side her new frontiers.
A case almost unique in history
Turkey has gladly and voluntarily giver
up all traditions and pretentions that
might have been invoked to give her the
moral and spiritual leadership Of GER
tain fellow nations. Turkey, as every
body knows, was once the leading Mos
lem power, and much of her strength
lay in the support she had among the
Moslem peoples. who considered the
Sultan of Constantinople as their Spir-
itual head, the Caliph. A Caliph's
emissary was revered from Chinese Tur-
kestan to Egypt, from India to Syria.
The new Turks, in abandoning all
this spiritual patrimony. have shown
that they did not care for or believe in
the solidarity of the Moslem nations.
They have driven away from CONSTANT
nople the last Sultan-Caliph. they have
secularized their own theology and their
ritual they have dismissed all the old
traditions of customs and family life,
from turban and feZ-wearing to Wom-
ems veil and-what is more important
women's political and social inequality.
When Mustapha Renal sanctioned
the execution of a dozen old Turks for
refusing to change their beloved feZ and
turbans for western hats some months
ago, the thing seemed. rightly enough,
not only cruel, but-what is worse
childish.
It is impossible however, to deny
that war on Islamic tradition and its
established forms recently has taken
such serious and important form that
IN it may be found the new, real revolu-
T a ~ which quietly
discarded Arabic writing
There we have, in symbol and in en-
blem. the epitome of all the Turkish
movement which-in the proportion ex-
isting between Turkey and Northern
Europe-rnay be considered as analog-
Gus to the reformer's onslaught on the
Papist images"
Moslem women are leading anti
Islamc movements Was it not at the
Institute of Politics in Williamstown.
Mass. last Summer that I met one of
the freest of their representatives. the
Portia like Aide Hanun. who was lee
curing there on things Turkish9 Not
only have the farem and the veil gone
quite out of use: not only is n1onogamv
becoming normal: but--a fact which is
even more important, If not so pictur-
esque-many more Turks at present are
going to Paris, Rome and Vienna than
10 MECCA, Gue Olu scat VI IIle loIS pi-
Rrimage.
All of that constitutes the birth pangs
Of a real Islamic revolution. 1t may
be expected. indeed that the example
set by the Turks probably will be fol-
lowed, partially at least, by neighboring
Moslem peoples. Are we going to wit
ness the spectacle of one of the great
religions of the world, with more than
200 100000 believers" beginning 70
lose the allegiance of the faithful?
While witnessing now the suicide of
Turkey as an 1slamic and, even more,
as a pan-Islamic power, I cannot help
remembering how in the supreme coun-
ellis which followed the war, I con-
stantly disagreed with Lloyd George and
Lord Curzon. Fear of the caliphate
question and of its repercussions in In
dia and Egypt was at the root of all
the diplomatic errors the British states
men committed in their Oriental policy.
In vain did I tell them that Turkey
was not to be so seriously feared, and
that we were adopting the wrong course
In throwing the Greeks against the
Turks.
And now young Turkey comes along
and herself destroys all the bogeys
which for years have frightened official
England: The caliphate, the monas-
teries, the theory of the jihad (holy
war)-in a word, all that constituted
the weapons for Turkish leadership
in the Moslem world.
Old Forms Condemned.
The last blow came at the end of
1928-tf1e official anathema against the
old forms of the Turkish language
They constituted the last visible link
with the Arab and Moslem ascendancy
and now they have been condemned
to disappearance.
The transformation seems unbeliev-
able to those Who-like myself, young
diplomat in Constantinople at the be-
ginning of the new Turkish regime
remember how the founders of the
party now in power imprisoned AL
banians who dared to write and print
their own language in Latin characters.
This simple fact was considered proof
Of italian intrigues' in Albania. It
seemed not only blaspheny, but trea-
son.
And now we hear that in the famous
palace of Dolma Baghtche on the Bos-
phorus no less a head-maSter than
Mustapha Renal himself gave the first
solemn lesson in the new Latin alpha
bet he had ordered to a crowd of
Turkish members of Parliament, gen.
erals. officials and professors.
phorus, Mustapha Renal went to all
the main cities of Turkey and unre-
lentingly repeated his demonstrations,
his lessons. His progress through Ana
tolia was marked less by bunting than
by blackboards. And on those black
boards the Turkish President demon
strated to the populace the advantages
of the Roman alphabet over the old
Arabic characters.
What is much more important than
Kemal's propaganda is that the reform
seems generally liked and that there
has been no. such resistance as was
manifested on the abolition of the fez
and turban With the exception of
the schoolmasters, many of whom are
too old to make the change from an
Arabic to a Latin script, the masses
of the population seem to take gladly
TO the new way.
Not only the official government but