Consolaçam 14

Chapter Two.

In 1908, with the success of our revolution, our first goal, the replacement of absolutism with a constitutional monarchy, had been accomplished. Early in the following year, 1909, having overthrown Sultan Abdulhamid II when he attempted to instigate a counter-revolution, we replaced his autocratic regime with a multi-party democracy, the first in our nation’s long history.

As you may imagine, the changeover of governments kept me very busy—at least as busy as I had been during the tumultuous lead-up to 1908. Not only were there what seemed like a million internal memos to be written, as my master and his colleagues wrangled over the newly won spoils of power. It also fell to me to draft several of the complex laws incident to the transfer of power.

And as if all that were not enough, I was tasked with writing numerous letters, to inform foreign governments and other European institutions of Turkey’s political transformation. Like the new statutes and intra-party communications, these letters had to be very, very carefully crafted. Their intended tone was a balance between assertiveness and reassurance, the purpose being to let everyone know that the new Turkey remained a formidable power, not to be trifled with, but that the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), and its political affiliates, had no intention of upsetting the delicate international apple cart.

Here is the template I used for the opening paragraphs of those of the letters that were addressed to foreign governments:

Dear (Title),

I am writing on behalf of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), and the other members to Turkey’s new governing coalition, to assure you that recent political changes in Turkey will not mean any changes in Turkey’s hitherto amicable relations with (name of country).

To spell this out, all treaties, including economic and mutual defense agreements, that were made by the Ottoman government will continue to be honored by the CUP and its affiliates. Any amendments to these treaties will be subject to re-negotiation between authorized representative of (name of country) and the Turkish state…

Of course, for subsequent paragraphs, there could be no template, since these would, perforce, be tailored to the particular circumstances of the addressee and its present relations with Turkey. Also of course, for letters addressed to institutions other than governments, I used a different template —or several, really, since I could hardly write the same letter to, say, the Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Serbian Narodna Odbrana [or Народна одбрана, "The People's Defense,” or "National Defense”]. As if writing all these letters were not sufficiently laborious, I also had to translate every one of them (sometimes with the assistance of a colleague) into the language of the intended recipient.

At least, in occupying my laborious position, I have not had to “invent the wheel,” so to speak. Since most Ottoman Sultans, as far back as Bayezid II, at the end of the 15th century, employed scribes to propagandize on behalf of their regimes, and since the ranks of these scribes have always included Jews, Greeks, and others, I am able to regard my efforts as part of a long tradition of writers for Turkey who were not really Turks. To mention, in passing, only one such precedent, Ibrahim Pecevi (1572-1650), the eminent compiler of the chronicles of the reign of Mehmed II, began life as a Bosnian subject of Mehmed’s empire.

All of that makes it sound as if, once the Y.T.’s had gained power, we should have remained single-minded in its exercise. But, as anyone who knows anything about political history could tell you, this was far from the case. Within one or two years of our taking over the country, internal disputes erupted, and our party began to take on many of the ugly features of the autocracy we had displaced. These disputes have occupied all too much of my time and attention since 1908!

Looking back through history, wild swings between, or combinations of, progressivism and reaction seem to have marked much of the Ottoman Empire’s 500-year history. To give but a single, recent example, the Sultan we overthrew, Abdulhamid II, who reigned from 1876 to 1909, was both a liberal reformer and a bloodthirsty tyrant. He both modernized and murdered, in his attempt to revitalize the Empire under the banner of Islam. In the name of shared religion, for instance, Abdulhamid sponsored Kurdish usurpation of Armenian lands, and Kurdish violence against the Armenians. Given that this was the man whom we, the YT, overthrew, and that political exigencies do not change overnight, should Defne and I have been surprised by the C.U.P.’s own volte-face [U-turn] away from internationalism?

For, in 1911, at the Party Congress in Selanik, the CUP banned all other political organizations, and announced a series of draconian anti-Christian laws. Since some of us remained staunch anti-nationalists, the party began to splinter. Perhaps even worse, within two more years, by 1913, the CUP had embarked on the large-scale promotion of an Islamic state in Turkey by means of violent social engineering.

Of course, while this splintering of our government was taking place, the major European powers were quick to smell blood in the water. (So much for all my letters!) When, in 1914, the Great War broke out, we found ourselves on the side of the Central Powers. This “choice,”like so many others, was really just a Hobson’s Choice! How could we have gone in with the Triple Entente when they had sponsored the nationalist movements in southeastern Europe (Russia) and the Middle East (France and England) that hastened the dissolution of Ottoman hegemony? By contrast, the Germans were more than willing to play a prominent role in the military modernization of their would-be Turkish clients, in order, as they said, to enable us to avenge our losses in the Balkans.

Consider this patriotic poem, from the play, Vatan yahut Silistre [Fatherland…], about our battle against the Russians on the Bulgarian-Romanian frontier. The play was written by Namik Kemal, a writer for our predecessors, the Young Ottomans, and a man who was among my early models. Kemal’s characters sing:

Wounds are medals on the brave’s body.
Martyrdom is the soldier’s highest rank.
The earth is the same, above and underneath.
March, you brave ones, to defend the fatherland.

Although I came to abhor the bellicose, nationalistic sentiments of this song, it certainly explains why our government did not join the Russian side in 1914!

Later that same year, following the lead of my master, I dropped out of the failed democratic revolution. By then, there were already rumors that, if Turkey turned out to have chosen the losing side in the Great War, Armenian Turks might be labeled (with some justice) as a Fifth Column, and massacred. I did not wait around to bear witness to this anticipated atrocity.

Instead, in early 1915, Defne and I (still a couple) decamped to Palestine, where we both ended up as apolitical farmers on the world's first kibbutz [collective farm], Deganya Aleph, which had been founded only five years earlier. Far from the political conflicts of our homeland, we found it easy to uphold our idealistic socialist principles (although the arduous farm work was anything but easy for us, at least until we became acclimated).

Of course, these first years in Palestine were not without problems for us. As recent refugees from Turkey, we were constantly being pumped for information. Early on, Defne and I were asked for “the latest” by reporters from the small weekly newspaper —newsletter, really— published by our kibbutz.

Shortly after our arrival, when the anticipated Armenian massacre was already taking place, word soon reached Deganya Aleph. The local paper, which was called, simply, תְרוּעָה [The Clarion], sent two reporters to interview us. At this point, our family comprised just Defne and myself, although she was four or five months pregnant with our first girl.

Early one evening, the pair of reporters turned up at the door of our cottage, unannounced, a fat one and a thin, both clean-shaven, and both wearing the official “uniform” of Deganya Aleph: a short-sleeved cotton knit shirt, lightweight denim pants, and leather sandals. Accepting our invitation to join us on on the porch, before we could so much as offer them something to drink, they plopped into two of our rattan armchairs and, without preamble, launched into the interview.

“Tell us why this atrocity has happened!” demanded the thin one, in a loud, reedy voice.

“If you happen to have an idea,” added the fat one unctuously.

Defne immediately took umbrage. “What makes you think we are experts?” she said.

The thin one had a ready answer. “If not you, who, then? Weren’t you in Turkey just a few months ago, working for the CUP?”

The fat one tried to rein in his partner. “Really, Avi,” he said, “you should slow down. Ask one question at a time, and give Adon and Adoni [Mr. and Mrs.] Abulafia a chance to reply.”

Which I promptly did, saying angrily, “You are laboring under a misconception. Because I worked as a scribe for the CUP, and Dephne, in the Treasury Department, you must not confuse us with the mouthpieces of government, such as those employed by Bayazed II or other Ottoman Sultans.”

Defne chimed in, waxing pedantic. “In fact, even those scribes were employed only because the Sultans wished to counter the claims to the Ottoman throne of rival dynasties, such as the Mamluk and Safavid, and other claimants, such as the breakaway Sufi sects. My husband and I left Turkey because we opposed the CUP’s similar claims to hegemony, with their attendant narrow nationalism. We left before the Young Turks could kill off all their Christian adherents, and decide to turn on us, the Jews.”

If she had stopped there, the interview might have continued, albeit contentiously. But once my Defne had gathered a head of steam, there was no stopping her. Red-faced with indignation, she concluded her diatribe —and the meeting— by shouting, “Who says we have to answer to ignorant fools like you? We came to Palestine to escape from nationalism, which is currently destroying half the world, not to exchange Turkish nationalism for Jewish!”

With these insults, the interviewers scrambled to their feet and, without another word, hurried from the porch. That was the last we heard from the תְרוּעָה! Word of the aborted press conference must have gotten out, however, because we were soon contacted by a man named Elmalih, the editor of Ha-Herut [The Freedom Newspaper], who politely asked us if we might be willing to write an article about recent developments in Turkey.

Defne wanted to refuse. “Isn’t Ha-Herut the mouthpiece of that Sephardim and Oriental Communities party, who are such militant nationalists?”

I silenced her by replying, “So what are we supposed to do, my flower? [“Defne” means “laurel.”] Stay quiet, and hope no one will notice the pair of turtles in their midst?” (Of course, for Jews, “turtle” is also a term of endearment, as in “turtle dove.”) And thus, having prevailed in the argument, I wrote the requested article — with Defne's help, of course.

It was actually more of a long narrative than an article. It began with our parents’ departure to Palestine, in 1903, and ended when we followed them, twelve years later. Of course, I also editorialized, along the way. To give a sense of this article, here are a few short excerpts:

…We worked for the Young Turks from 1898 to 1915, almost two decades. When we first joined the Movement, we were both young students, committed to the idealistic goals of international Socialism.

…When the Movement seized power, in 1908, we joined its political arm, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), where we both played significant roles in the transition to multi-party democracy.

…But as Lord Acton famously said, “Power corrupts.” At the 1911 CUP conference in Salonica, all other political parties were banned, and draconian anti-Christian edicts, pronounced.

…With the outbreak of war between the rival European alliances, our country found itself on the side of the Central Powers, the principle reason being that our progressivism had been most clearly opposed by England, France and Russia, the members of the opposing coalition, the Triple Entente. You might say that Turkey was forced to name its own poison.

…Since the CUP had already banned all other parties, and had passed the anti-Christian laws, we were afraid that, after the War, the CUP might adopt a policy of Turkification, which would find its ultimate expression in ethnic expulsions and massacres of Greeks and Armenians. This dire prophecy has now come to pass.

…Why did we choose to come to Palestine? Because we feared that anti-Semitism loomed on the Turkish horizon. We have come here in hopes of finding safe haven, just as we originally came, in 1492, to Ottoman Turkey.

…Our dearest hope now is that, once the Jews take charge of this country, when Palestine really becomes eretz yisroel, the citizens and their leaders will remain true to the principles of democracy, to internationalism, and to Socialism. We hope that the fissures between Jew and Arab, and even between Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, and Sephardim, will not destroy our new nation, as similar fissures destroyed our old one.

…A final note of caution: Zionists should not forget that, in the 1890’s, their founder, Theodor Herzl, became a mouthpiece for Abdulhamid II’s bloody depredations against the Armenians. Herzl's own political nationalism prompted him to support the Islamic modernizer’s last-ditch attempt to save the Ottoman Empire by suppression of Armenian nationalism.

Selah, inshallah! That was what Defne and I wrote, and what, with few emendations, was published, with both of us listed as authors, in Ha-Herut. I suppose that, in 1915, there were still people working for that newspaper who remained resistant to the pull of Zionist sectarianism. At any rate, they ran our article.

Although my partner and I remain unmarried (from principle, still), we soon started a family, and the rapid production of three children, two girls and a boy, has made our reunions with both of our families, who live, respectively, in Jerusalem (the Abulafia) and nearby Ramallah (the Yilmaz), joyous occasions.

March, 1917. We have just been invited to the seder for the first night of Pesach [Passover], on Friday night, April 6th. Actually, we have received two invitations, one from each of our families. Defne and I will have to choose between the Yilmaz and the Abulafia. Assuming that we can be impartial in making this choice, I think it will depend upon which family is less likely to discuss politics, in the course of the evening. We are well aware that, since Pesach commemorates an important event in the history of historical liberation, it provides rich fodder for political argument.