“In the Steps of St. Paul.”

Kaikoura Star, Volume LVI, Issue 89, 12 November 1936, Page 4

“In the Steps of St. Paul.”

A SERIES OF ARTICLES BY

H. V. MORTON

ARTICLE No. 32

Anyone who -knew Turkey in the old days would be astonished could he sit for an hour at my window in Konya. Women who used to be veiled from head to foot now walk up and down the street in Western clothes, and even stop to talk to their men acquaintances. They read fashion papers and do their best to copy the modes of Paris.

The old-fashioned, monumental woman, stuffed fat on sweets and idleness, is now merely a survival in Turkey. The modern Turk claims to admire slim women, and I notice that his advertisements for cigarettes and other products which give an excuse for the picture of a pretty girl, show a slender figure dressed in the latest fashion, drinking a cocktail. That is modern Miss Turkey. The most significant sight, as I look out of my window, is the large elementary school opposite, the finest new building in the town. About half an hour before the janitor unlocks the gate, a hundred noisy little Turks, boys and girls, gather there with books under their arms, eagerly waiting to be let in. As soon as the gates open, I see children running from every corner, tearing across the play-ground and disappearing into the building. At the

same time, groups of young Turkish girls, aged about eighteen, walk sedately past, carrying portfolios or attache cases. They wear dark blue coats and skirts and rakish peaked caps bound with gold braid. These are pupil teachers on their way to an academy. Before the Republic they would have been closely veiled, and in a harem.

The more I see of Turkey the greater is my admiration for the achievements of Kemal, and his band of stag officers at Angora, who created, and now govern, the Republic. Given ten years of peace, the world will see a new and remarkable Turkey.

These men took over a country that was like an out-of-date factory, financed by absentee owners, riddled with

inefficiency u.nd nepotism, bound by tradition and custom, bankrupt and apparently hopeless. They have modernised it, flung over tradition, turned out the foreigner, and got the wheels to wonk again.

Kemal is not unlike Alfred the Great. He has driven the Danes out of his kingdom and now, his sword cast aside, he is making new laws for his people.

The soul of Kemalist Turkey is a Sinn Fein movement. The Turk has for centuries been submerged by Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and other foreigners, in whose hands the whole commerce of the country was gathered. His language and religion have been invaded by Arabic words and beliefs. What Kemal has done and is doing, is to create a Turkish Tunkey and, in order to do so, he has had to smash a thousand idols. Everything foreign most go.

I am amazed by the apparent placidity with which the nation has seen the throwing-over of tradition, the disappearance of Sultan and Caliph, the change in social custom, the freedom of women, the abolition of national dress, and the virtual abolition of religion. Even those who view with cynical amusement the model he has taken of cocktail-drinking, fox-trotting, bowlerhatted Europe, cannot fail to admire the tremendous drive and courage of the Gazi in his determination to give Turkqy a European status. He is even rewriting the history of the Turk in order to give his people a European, and not an Oriental, outlook. Of all his achievements, perhaps the most interesting is the new system of education. I told Mustafa, who, as I have explained, is an ex-Kemalist officer, that I wanted to see through the big elementary school in Konya. “I think I shall let you g ; o alone,’’ he said, to my surprise. 1 ‘lf I come with you. I may disgrace myself a;nd cry.” I looked at him in amazement! Was this the man who boasted of burning down farms, slaying rebels and charging with drawn sword on Greeks and royalists? “You don’t understand,” he cried, ‘ 1 You come from a country where edu cation is easy, where there is nothing remarkable about a school. But think! When I was a boy, I sat on th c floor in a grimy building outside a mosque while an old man, who did not care whether we listened or not, read the Koran to us. That was Turkey in my youth. But now it is different. .Every young Turk, boy and girl, -cart get knowledge free. Learning is like in your country. It is free. TSvery-

where—free! I tell you, you cannot understand. When I see these children —I, I feel it here. . . .” And Mustafa, the cavalry officer, gave himself a great blow over the heart. ***** However, we went together to the school, a light, airy building on the most modern lines. There was a bust of Ataturk in the entrance hall. The headmaster told me that all classes are mixed. The teachers are men and women. The old Arabic alphabet is taboo. Every word written or spoken in the school is the new Turkish language, written in Latin characters. Religion is not allowed to bo taught. We went into a class-room. The fifty little Turkish boys and girls stood instantly to attention. The class-room might have been that of any London County Council school. Each child had a desk of his own. There was a blackboard on 'which a young woman teacher had been writing.

At the back of the room was a large tray of sand, perhaps six by three feet. The smaller children are taught the

alphabet in a pleasant and original manner. They fill small funnels with sand and, rather as a cook ices a cake, spell letters in sand, controlling the flow by placing a finger across the hole in the funnel. • • • • • When the master asked the class if any boy or girl would like to stand forward and write a sentence on the board, every hand shot out. A small boy with a close-cropped head was chosen. He walked out without the slightest embarrassment and took the chalk. In a sure and efficient way he wrote a sentence on the board, bowed to the headmaster, and went back to his desk. “What has he written?” I asked. “He has written,” said the headmaster, “ ‘When I grow up I will be of service to my country’.” • • • • • I looked round to say something to Mustafa, but was just in time to see him disappearing through the door with his handkerchief to his eyes. I was taken into class-room after class-room. I was impressed by two things: the solemn intelligence of the children and the fact girls and boys worked together in perfect equality. For centuries the Turk has been brought up to regard woman as an inferior being. A son is the god of a house, but the daughter is the servant. You might think that this feeling, existing .century after .century, would have had some effect on the atmosphere of a mixed class of girls and boys. But the atmosphere of the harem and the subjection of woman has had no effect on this generation. Suddenly the playtime bell rang through the school. There was a crash of feet all over the school as children stood to attention. They marched out two by

two, singing a patriotic song. Mustafa wiped his eyes again and coughed, blowing his nose violently. “You see the new Turkey,” he whispered. “Is it not wonderful?” The headmaster stood beaming in the hall as the long, singing files of children marched out into the sunlight. And I was vividly reminded of the sentimental adoration which the Spanish Socialists lavish on children in the Republican schools of Madrid. In their eyes and in their young voices they seem to see the new Spain. And it is the same in Turkey to-day. “These arc the teachers, the doctors, the architects of new Turkey!” cried Mustafa, his voice charged with emotion, and pride. And the little dark-eyed and the little blue-eyed Turks passed, singing under the bust of Ataturk. (Article No. 33 will appear in our next issue).