CHAPTER 4 – HALIDE EDIP AND YAKUP KADRI
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‘Is that a threat, Pasham? I asked quietly but firmly.
But the veil which had parted to reveal his innermost mind closed again.
He was eagerly apologetic.
‘I am sorry,” he said; ‘I would not threaten you.’
I knew that he would threaten any one and every one, including the most
powerless; but I also knew that at that moment he did not mean to
threaten me. For he was saying just what he felt regardless of those who
were present: it was as though he were thinking aloud-my presence there
was irrelevant.
This was the only incident in my intercourse with Mustafa Kemal Pasha
which at all approached a scene. For, although I know that he did not
make any exception of me when I was absent, and criticised and abused
me as he did everybody else, when in my presence his attitude to me was
that of a perfect gentleman. And this was no exception to his usual
attitude to women. He was modern in one respect-that he did not have
different standards for men and women. And those women whom he
thought to be of the respectable sort he treated as he would have treated
men-though this trait must not be viewed apart from the rest of his
mental make-up. He always considered every Turkish subject to have
been brought into the world especially to serve his purpose: each was a
member of the collective mass of Turkish humanity which he meant to
possess and command. And should a woman among them oppose him she
would be given no chivalrous consideration, but would be ruthlessly
dealt with by whatever horrid means he could devise.
That night I did a lot of thinking. Hating sham at all times, and being
tired of the intrigues and subterfuges of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, I admired
him for having told me his intentions in one single sentence. But I could
not reconcile myself to the other Mustafa Kemal Pasha - the one who
refused to take any responsibility in the struggle of the Turks for their
very existence. The phrases ‘All power belongs to the people’ and
‘Power is indivisible’ were in his mouth mere catchwords intended to
transfer the responsibility to lesser people in case he should fail. Others
had to suffer and die to achieve deliverance. Should they fail, they would
have to pay the penalty. Should they succeed, Mustafa Kemal Pasha
would step forward and say:
‘You are only the herd! You were in chains and threatened with
extermination, and lo! I have delivered you! Bow down and worship me
to the exclusion of your God, your Past, your Personality, and of every
other right!’
Although I hated this picture of him, I was practical enough to see that
he was the most important of our leading men of the time: his
extraordinary vitality and his unlimited ambition obviously predestined
him to some great future. … I knew very well that he would never forget
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